A Dangerous Temptation

by L. R. Olson

  “Oh, Julianna, there you are!” Mrs. Willow called out. “My dear, the constable had to leave, but Mr. Corbin will keep you company.”

  I took in a deep breath, preparing myself. Even now as I stood in her parlor it seemed a dream. I could hardly believe I’d finally found her. Slowly, I lifted my gaze and our eyes met. It felt as if someone had punched me in the chest. As if the air was sucked from the room.

  Jules stood in the hall, her face flushed with irritation. She wore a plain white gown with tiny blue flowers. She kept her hair simple, braided down her back, but she’d never looked lovelier. I could stand there drinking her in all day and it still wouldn’t be enough.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting. Merely visiting.”

  Her gaze dropped to the baby in my arms. Her anger turned to panic, a flash of worry that crossed her blue eyes. She feared I’d take the babe from her. I could have. Legally I could have taken Millie, forced Jules to return to the estate and no one would have thought the worst of me. But I couldn’t do that to her. Never.

  I crossed the room slowly, pausing only when I reached my wife. I stared at her pale, anxious face. Her delicate hands fisted as she attempted to remain calm. How badly she wanted to snatch Millie from my hands. “She seems rather taken with me.”

  “She’s a baby, she’d be taken with a monkey if it held her correctly.” She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Millie. I stood still as she took the babe. The look of anxiety upon her face changed to one of relief. “Why are you here, James?”

  I didn’t miss the way Mrs. Willow stared with wide eyes, as if watching a play on Drury Lane. She wondered why Jules sounded so harsh, if perhaps I wasn’t welcome. Wondered if she’d taken the wrong side in my battle with the constable. I forced myself to smile, pretended as if everything was well. I’d pretended so often in my life, it was rather easy. I’d pretended not to care about Julianna for months, when I cared so very much.

  “Julianna, would you care to go on a walk with me.”

  She narrowed her eyes into a glare. “It’s snowing.”

  “Barely.”

  She took a step back, putting distance between us. “I can’t leave the baby.”

  I didn’t mention how odd her devotion to her mystery maid’s baby appeared. I would not taunt a bear when her cub was involved.

  “Of course you can, me dear,” Mrs. Willow said. “I’ll stay here with Millie.”

  Millie cooed, squirming in her blanket cocoon as if in response. My heart softened every time I looked at the child. At the same time, I was at a complete loss as to what to do with her. She was at least a month, if not older, and I didn’t know her. Were her limbs long? Did she have any birthmarks? Did she sleep well at night? It seemed the sort of thing a father should know. Damn it all, she was mine to protect. To care for. But I hadn’t been there, and I wasn’t sure if I should have been angrier with Jules or myself.

  “Give me the darling child.” Mrs. Willow snatched Millie from Julianna’s hands. “It’s settled, you might as well get your cloak.”

  Jules hesitated, sent me another glare, then turned and left. She knew she could avoid me no longer. We had to talk, and face the reality of what had happened, even if neither of us wanted to.

  Mrs. Willow gave me a conspiratorial grin. “You’re taken with our Millie here.”

  Not just Millie. She knew I was attracted to Julianna, and she was doing all she could to help me along. If I had been Catholic, I’d would have been nominating the woman for sainthood. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Everyone takes to her.” She cuddled the child close to her bosom. “Don’t they, my sweet?”

  I frowned. I didn’t like the idea of anyone taking with either my daughter, or my wife. Damn it all, they were mine. I’d wasted enough time. Now that I was here, I was finding the idea of sharing rather annoying.

  Jules stepped in the doorway, a gray woolen cloak around her shoulders, her face tight with unease. She didn’t want to walk with me, but she knew it was time to accept the inevitable. She’d been caught. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  While she pulled on red mittens, I brushed passed her and headed toward the front door, eager to get this first discussion over with. “Shall we?”

  “Of course,” she muttered.

  “Do take your time!” Mrs. Willow called out cheerfully.

  I grinned at her in return. Jules slid me another glare. It felt rather good having someone on my side. Together, we stepped into the twilight. I closed the door, following her down the stoop. Flurries swirled around us, the evening quiet, calm. We could have been the only two people in the world, it felt so still.

  “This way,” I said.

  I offered her my arm. She ignored it. Instead, she started up the trail on her own. She never needed me for anything. “How dare you bully your way into my home.”

  Her home? By marriage, it was mine. But I didn’t think she’d appreciate that input. I sighed. Obviously this wasn’t going to be easy. “You know we must speak, Jules.”

  We followed the trail toward an outcropping of trees and shelter, a tense silence between us. The only sound was the crunch of our boots over a thin layer of icy snow and the roar of waves in the distance. My hands curled as I resisted the urge to shake some sense into her pretty head. She was being a bloody stubborn wench.

  “Why?” I asked, my voice coming out hoarse. I hadn’t meant to ask so soon, but found the word slipping over my lips.

  “How did you find me?” she asked, ignoring my question.

  Had she been punishing me? Had she truly not trusted me? Why had she left without a word? “I saw your painting.”

  I didn’t tell her about Cecilia. She didn’t need to know. Cecilia had done me an enormous favor and I would forever be in her debt. Besides, it might ruin their friendship, and I wouldn’t do that to either of them.

  “I see. I suppose you demanded it be returned?”

  I hesitated. She knew me well. It had been my first instinct. “No. You said you wanted it hanging in the home of some lofty lord.”

  She slid me a glance. “You remembered.”

  I clasped my fingers behind my back to keep from touching her. From taking her hand in mine. From tucking that loose curl behind her ear. From drawing my fingers down the gentle slope of her jaw. “I remember everything you’ve said.”

  It was a bold and telling statement but she responded with little reaction. We lapsed into silence once more. A hare darted through the snow, startled from the underbrush by our approach. I’d never been so unsure in my entire life. I worried the slightest misstep, a wrong word, and I would destroy any chance we might have.

  “You’ve supported yourself quite well.”

  I didn’t miss the stubborn tilt of her chin. “I have.”

  I turned my head away to hide my smile, even as I wanted to throttle her. This was my wife, my stubborn, lovely wife who needed no one. She would get on quite nicely without me. I, on the other hand, had practically fallen apart without her. “It’s been a long, long time, Jules.”

  She didn’t respond. Was that a blush of shame upon her cheeks? We continued through the snow. I’d meant to take things slowly, yet found I didn’t want to hold back. It had been so long since I’d spoken my true feelings I wasn’t sure I knew how. I remembered as a young, young lad speaking my mind. If my brothers had upset me, I told them. If they hurt me, I’d cried. And then my father had caught me at five years of age, tears rolling down my face. I hadn’t cried since.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  Yes, a definite blush this time. “I would have thought you’d had your other wife to keep you company.”

  I bit back my annoyance. “I assume you’ve kept in contact with your parents.”

  She didn’t respond, for if she did it would be admitting that her parents had known where she was all along. As if I wasn’t already aware of their guilt. Hell, I couldn’t even blame them. They thought they were protecting their da
ughter. I’d do the same for Millie, I knew that now.

  “If you have been in contact with your parents, then you know that I am not married to anyone but you.”

  She took her lower lip between her teeth, looking lost and confused. Looking like that innocent Julianna I’d known a year ago. I almost felt sorry for her. She didn’t trust me, didn’t believe me. I didn’t blame her.

  We continued toward the patch of trees. Frustrated, I wasn’t sure what to say in order to get her to understand. I could only hope what I had planned would be enough to at least catch her interest.

  We stepped through the woods and into a clearing. Julianna’s gasp of surprise broke the silence. A bonfire burned brightly in the middle of the area, while lanterns were aglow around the small clearing. Surely this was romantic enough for her. Surely this showed her that I cared.

  But as she turned toward me, her face was anything but grateful. “James, what are you doing?”

  “I’m winning you back, Jules. I’m courting you properly.”

  She frowned. “And you think a pretty setting will do that?”

  My confusion turned to frustration. What the bloody hell did she want from me? “Would you prefer flowers? Jewelry?”

  “I don’t need to be courted, James.” With a sigh, she turned to leave. “You don’t understand. Perhaps you never will.”

  ****

  Julianna

  “Understand what? I’m trying here, Jules.”

  I paused, my back to him, caught by the pleading quality of his voice. James had never pleaded with anyone for anything. I wanted to turn. To rush into his arms and forgive him. Blast it, I’d wanted to the moment I’d seen him in my parlor. It was as if no time at all had passed.

  But he didn’t understand what I needed. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if he could give me what I desired. I wanted him. But I wanted all of him. I didn’t want flowers, I didn’t want candlelight. I wanted his trust.

  I shook my head, feeling miserable, despondent. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Is the constable courting you?” he demanded.

  He thought my disinterest was because of the constable? It would have been my right to say yes, to make him jealous. But I was tired of the games. “Of course not. I’m married. At least I think.”

  “I told you…our marriage is legitimate,” I could hear the annoyance in his voice. “Recognized by God, by England, by the world. What more do you want?”

  His heart. I wanted his heart.

  “Damnation, Jules.” I could hear him pace across the clearing like a caged lion, desperate to break free. “I don’t want that man in our house.”

  My hands fisted as I spun around to face him in all of my anger. “It is not your house! It’s mine! How dare you demand anything.”

  His intense concentration burned through me. “How dare I want my wife to be loyal?”

  My face flushed as if I was guilty. It was hard to hold his gaze. A part of me was terrified by the strength, the power, the determination that burned brightly in his eyes. Perhaps I’d always been a little afraid of my husband and the emotions he stirred within. “Because you have been loyal?”

  “I have,” he snapped, thumping his chest for emphasis. “Since I met you at that damn creek I’ve not had another. Not even kissed another woman.” He started toward me and I had to resist the urge to step back. Always a man in control, I’d never seen him so upset. “What more do you want?”

  “I want you to open up to me completely,” I cried out. “I want your trust!”

  My demand echoed through the trees, getting lost out at sea. The sun had almost set and the world had grown gray. Quiet. Still. As if the universe, too, was waiting for his response. I could practically see his mind spinning; his training to be that stoic, unemotional earl fighting with his need to open up to me. He remained silent. The earl had won.

  With a frustrated growl, I spun around and started toward the trail. James would never be the man I needed. The man I deserved.

  “I was drunk, Jules,” he said. “My stepmother introduced us, knowing that Claudine was…is…mad.”

  My curiosity got the better of me and I paused, glancing over my shoulder. “She’s insane?”

  He stood there looking completely serious as the snowflakes fell down around him. “Completely. And I don’t mean it to be cruel, but the woman is mad. Her brother paid my stepmother to introduce us. He thought…”

  He sighed, seeming as weary as me, and for a moment I wished we could both just forgive and forget what had happened. But I knew deep down we couldn’t move on until he understood my wants, my needs.

  “Hell, I don’t know what he thought,” he snapped. “He believed if she married a man of my pure breeding, our children might be normal. That it would end the insanity that had passed down from their mother, to Claudine.”

  “And you fell in love with her.”

  He released a harsh laugh. “In love? No. But she’s…”

  “Beautiful.”

  “Yes. Especially in the eyes of a young man twenty years of age who’d spent his life in the doldrums protecting his family, learning to run an estate. When I went to the continent, I felt free for the first time in my life. I wanted to do everything, experience everything. Live.”

  “And so her brother pushed you together, and you fell for her.”

  For the first time since I’d known him, James actually blushed. “Yes, as asinine as it makes me seem…yes.”

  I was grateful for the truth, but hated knowing he had wanted another woman so badly that he’d almost destroyed his life. I’d thought to make him jealous with the constable, yet I was the only one annoyed. “And you married her.”

  “No. I woke up one morn with the woman in my bed. She said we’d married, but I didn’t remember a bloody thing.”

  He might not have married her, but he’d bedded her. Nausea burned slowly through my gut. I knew he had a past, but the thought of him touching anyone else made me ill. Would I forever be haunted by the image of them together? “She lied?”

  “Sadly, she honestly thought we’d been married.” He settled on a fallen log near the fire and stared into the flames. I had a feeling he was avoiding my gaze. “Her brother, Jean, laced my drink with opium the night before. The nearby priest would not marry us as he knew Claudine was insane. So her brother hired a man to pretend to be a man of the cloth. I was so drunk I didn’t realize what had happened. And Claudine was too mad to realize the priest was a fraud.”

  He raked his hands through his hair, leaving it endearingly mussed.

  “So she honestly believed, and still thinks, you are married?” I suddenly understood why James was unable to trust. Why he didn’t dare open his heart. I actually felt sorry for the both of them. Sorry for James who had been duped at such a young age. Sorry for Claudine, for her insanity, after all, wasn’t her fault. If anyone was to blame it would be his stepmother, or Claudine’s brother, Jean.

  “The marriage in France might not have been legitimate, but my stepmother thought to have a ceremony here, in England, once I returned with Claudine. A ceremony for friends and family who had missed the original, she had said. But in reality it would have legitimized the wedding. I would have been trapped then…till death do we part.”

  His stepmother had thought to ruin him, to destroy the family name. And if James hadn’t thought something suspicious, she would have. The woman was a monster. A demon. “How did you uncover the truth?”

  “Despite being duped, I’m not a complete idiot.” He stood. “I knew almost immediately something was wrong. Her brother admitted it wasn’t legitimate, even if my stepmother to this day has not.”

  And so the marriage had been a fraud. I could not deny the relief that flooded my body, making my knees weak. But it did not make up for the fact that he’d kept the entire relationship from me. An incredibly important part of his life that he’d hidden away.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  He studied me wa
rily. “It was in the past. I didn’t think it important.”

  Of course it was important. He hadn’t told me because he hadn’t trusted me enough to be vulnerable, to open up about his past. Would he ever be able to give me his heart…his all?

  I closed my eyes, attempting to remain in control. The truth was I missed him. He wasn’t just my husband, but in that month before I’d left, he’d become my friend. Unfortunately, there remained a wall between us.

  I swallowed hard, shoving my crumbling emotions into the deep recesses of my heart. If I wavered now, I had a feeling I would never get what I wanted, what I needed. “And now they are in London, spreading lies about me, about you, about us.”

  “I don’t care, Jules. I don’t care anymore about my blasted reputation. About the damn gossip.”

  “And you didn’t care enough to tell me the truth. To trust me.”

  “I didn’t know you!”

  I could see the frustration in his gaze. He was trying. But I needed more. How could I make him understand?

  “You had no issues forcing me into marriage, yet you couldn’t tell me the truth about your past so that I might be prepared? How is it any different from what Claudine’s brother did to you?” He flinched. I shook my head, feeling the sting of tears and cursing myself for it. “You could have told me about her, so then maybe I wouldn’t have been so humiliated when your stepmother and Claudine appeared.”

  “Is this about your pride?” he dared to ask.

  “You don’t understand.” Before I said something we’d both regret, I turned and started toward the field. “I fear you never will.”

  “Damnation, Jules.” Firm fingers gripped my arm and jerked me to a stop. I wondered when the real James would appear: the demanding, forceful man I’d known most of our short relationship. “Let me explain. I know I don’t deserve it, but let me…please.”

  He’d said enough. I shook my head, a tear sliding down my cheek. “I don’t know if I can do this again.”