Heaven in My Arms

by Colleen French

  But the moment Julia darted down the winding, stone steps, Lizzy bolted after her.

  "Mother says the coach is ready," Lizzy called. "Race you to London."

  Running her hand along the cold stone wall, Julia descended the steps as fast as she could, her heart pounding. It was time to say goodbye to the disintegrating walls of the home of her childhood, the home of her father's childhood, and of his father before him. She was bound for London and a new life, bound for Bassett Hall and her new husband.

  Julia's grandfather, now dead and buried in the churchyard, had always said that in life, each time a door closed, another opened. She prayed feverishly that he was right.

  Chapter One

  Bassett Hall

  London, England

  The Earl of St. Martin stood at the window of his new gallery overlooking his gardens. He watched intently as two young women followed a stone path toward a fountain. Both wore heavy cloaks to ward off the October chill, but strands of hair escaped their wool hoods and silk bonnets and fluttered in the wind.

  Annoyed by the vexatious sounds of chewing saws and banging hammers, Simeon glared at the carpenters. He clamped his jaw tight and ground his teeth. Didn't these maggot brains realize they were disturbing his concentration?

  He considered ordering a halt to the construction, just so that he might better enjoy his picturesque winter garden, but instead, he chose to take a deep breath. Inhaling the chilly air, he slowly exhaled warm breath, forcing himself to be calm. With this great control, he was able to block out the noise so that he might better enjoy the vision of the sisters.

  His eyelids fluttered at the sight below. He crossed his arms over his chest and brushed his lips with his perfumed fingers.

  One woman was quite an ordinary blonde, but the other, Julia, his betrothed, was simply exquisite. In all his worldly travels, Simeon had never seen hair the color of his beloved's. It was like spun fire, as golden and red as the setting of a Caribbean sun, a sparkling jewel in the midst of the dead winter garden. Now, that fiery hair was his. Those sparkling blue eyes were his. Julia, heart, mind, soul, and body were his. All his.

  He let out a small sigh of satisfaction and felt his hot breath on his fingertips. He was glad he had agreed to honor the betrothal agreement signed many years ago with the wench's father. Though she was now poor, this connection with her family name would be advantageous. Her father had fought for Charles I and lost most of his lands and possessions to Cromwell. In Charles II's court, her father was a hero. A woman of Julia's distinction could only add to his own importance.

  Simeon slid one foot forward to take a closer look, mesmerized by the way the wind ruffled strands of his Julia's hair. His hand ached to tuck the locks into her hood. He liked nothing out of order, not even his betrothed's hair.

  A coarse figure moved between him and the window, blocking out the sunlight and his vision of beatitude, and Simeon shouted in rage.

  A yellow-haired, filthy-faced mason yelped in surprise and attempted to scurry by, a small pallet of bricks propped on one shoulder.

  Simeon cuffed him hard against the back of his greasy head as he slipped past. "Haven't I told you not to step so near me?" he exploded. "Haven't I?" He struck him a second time.

  Knocked off balance, the workman fell headlong to the floor, his stack of bricks scattering as he went down.

  "Get away from me, you filthy turd!"

  The mason scrambled to his feet and darted off, leaving the broken brown bricks in a crumble of dust where they lay.

  Simeon inhaled again, breathing in calm, exhaling anger, as he returned his attention to the window. He removed a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his hand where it had touched the mason's dirty hair. Now he would have to return to his bedchamber and wash with strong lye soap.

  Simeon folded the handkerchief carefully so that the soiled part was inside and returned it to his sleeve. With his clean hand, he smoothed his gray wool coat with the black velvet garniture as his gaze fell upon his betrothed once more.

  Julia and her sister sat on a stone bench facing him. As the women arranged their cloaks around their knees, he took a step closer to the windows that ran the length of the gallery under construction. Julie was laughing now, as was her dim-witted sister. He wondered what had amused her so. He wondered what he himself could say that would be clever enough to make her laugh with him and purse her rosy lips in such a provocative manner.

  The clacking of heeled shoes on the Italian marble floor caught Simeon's attention. Who dared interrupt him now?

  It was his cousin Griffin; no one else would be so bold. He was dressed in his usual abominable fashion, this morning in lime green and yellow striped breeches with a matching lime green great coat with yellow looped ribbons hanging from his shoulder. The heels of his shoes were lemon yellow, as was the hat perched on his black Stuart's wig.

  Behind him trotted a Moor close in age to his master, his skin as dark as ebony against his white turban and flowing robes. Griffin had never voiced his relationship to the man, but Simeon guessed that like many of the fops of Charles's decadent Court, Griffin retained him as a sexual plaything as well as a personal servant. The thought disgusted Simeon, but he liked Griffin, so he tried not to think about it.

  "Good morning, Cousin," Simeon offered.

  "Good morning, my villain with a smiling cheek." Griffin removed his befeathered hat and bowed deeply, striking a pretty leg.

  Simeon drew back his lips in a near smile. His cousin was impertinent, but at least he knew his place. He liked a man who knew his place, especially when it was below him. "And where are you bound this morning? I hadn't thought you drew your shades before noon."

  Griffin chuckled as he replaced his ridiculous hat and took his silver-tipped cane from the Moor. "I've a call to make at Whitehall in high chambers. Care to join me?" He buffed his polished fingernails on the sleeve of his coat.

  "No, thank you. I've better matters to attend to than our King's tattletales." Simeon nodded to the window. "Have you seen her?"

  Griffin lifted a plucked eyebrow. "Her, my lord?"

  "My latest acquisition. My betrothed, of course. She's in the garden. Come see." He waved his cousin toward the window.

  "Ah, the blessed Virgin Mary, of course." Griffin drew to the window, his Moor a step behind.

  The men leaned on the unfinished sill and gazed down. At the same moment, Julia looked up toward the gallery. For an instant her face was without emotion, as it had been for the three days since her arrival from Dover, but then, to Simeon's delight, it lit up with the most angelic smile.

  Simeon felt his heart flutter. The smile was for him. So perhaps she didn't dislike him after all, but was simply playing coy, as women sometimes did.

  Simeon turned his head to speak to Griffin, and his smile turned to a frown. His cousin was staring intently at his betrothed, too intently, a strange light in his blue eyes. Simeon looked back down into the garden and came to the unpleasant realization that Julia's smile was not for him, but for his foppish cousin.

  A quick anger bubbled up inside Simeon. Witless female, he thought. Fickle. And worse . . . untidy.

  "And yet I love refinement, and beauty and light are for me the same as desire for the sun," Griffin whispered.

  For an instant, his cousin's comely face appeared different to Simeon; the light in his eyes reflected a depth in the man he was certain didn't exist.

  Simeon scowled. His cousin was always babbling something from obscure literature. "God's teeth, I don't know what you 're staring at. Everyone knows you prefer the rod!"

  Griffin blinked and the strange light in his eyes disappeared so quickly that Simeon wondered if he had imagined it.

  "A might dimber wench," Griffin commented lightly. "But by the stars, that hair. Looks like she just tumbled from your sheets, my lord. Do let Monsieur De'nu see what he can do with her coiffure." Once again he was his silly self.

  Simeon took Griffin's comment as a compliment to h
is manhood and smiled again. "Pleasant tart, isn't she? Nice, firm teats, but then you wouldn't really appreciate that, would you?" He eyed the Moor.

  Griffin fluttered a perfumed handkerchief he pulled from his coat sleeve like a magician. The man couldn't be insulted.

  "God rot my bowels, you're lewdly bent." Griffin laughed, and Simeon laughed with him.

  Simeon liked Griffin for his wit. That was why he tolerated his vices and was willing to keep him in cloth and coin. Simeon liked to keep such men under his thumb. They added to his own notability.

  "Well, I should be on my way. I ordered your coach and four. You don't mind do you, Cousin?"

  "Take it." Simeon gave a flip of his hand, feeling generous. "Keep it all night."

  "Very good, my lord."

  Griffin bowed as deeply as a man bowed to the king. The impudent monkey behind him stood stock-still, staring as if he were blind. Because he was in good humor, Simeon chose to ignore the slight.

  "Good day." Simeon nodded his head.

  "Good day." Griffin backed away, then turned, and made his exit from the gallery.

  Julia stared at the man in the window. His hat was so preposterous that she wanted to laugh, and yet there was something about the face beneath the feathers that enticed her. His gaze met hers and she felt light-headed, the way she did when a coach went over a bump and remained airborne for a moment. It was the strangest feeling, not bad, just different.

  Lizzy glanced up and giggled. "See the man in the funny hat?" She covered her mouth with mitted hands and laughed behind them. "They wear silly clothes in London, don't you think, Sister? I see men in face paint and women hanging their bosoms out of their gowns until you can see their nippies."

  Julia didn't answer. She couldn't tear her gaze from the stranger's. She knew St. Martin watched as well. She knew he would think her stare inappropriate, and yet she couldn't help herself.

  It was the stranger who glanced away first.

  Julia lowered her gaze to her lap. Her stomach fluttered. Who was that man? Surely not a servant in such flothery? A friend? Another distant relative? There were so many members of her betrothed's household that she still had not met them all.

  "Sister, I said I'm cold." Lizzy spoke in a tone that implied she'd been forced to repeat herself.

  Julia blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry, Lizzy. Let's go inside then and warm ourselves with a cup of ehocolate." She rose from the bench and took her sister's hand. She didn't know what on earth possessed her to stare at the stranger like that. Perhaps Lizzy was right, perhaps it was just his preposterous hat.

  Julia led Lizzy back up the garden path, beneath a bare arched arbor, and through double doors into the rear of the great, sprawling London house. As they entered the dim hallway, a man approached. To her dismay, Julia realized it was the stranger in the hat.

  "Morning, ladies," he called gaily.

  Lizzy giggled. "The feathers of his hat are yellow as a daffodil," she whispered.

  "Shhht!" Julia reprimanded softly. Once again, she couldn't take her gaze off him.

  Like many other men of the king's court she had met here in Bassett Hall, his lips were rouged, his high, handsome cheek-bones dusted with rice powder, and his chin was decorated with a half-moon-shaped face patch. His head was covered in a monstrous wig, the same coal black hue that the King's hair was said to be. He looked the part of every dandy she'd met in the last three days, but there was something different about this man . . . something different about his eyes. They were not vacant like the other fops, but filled with a glistening light . . . a secret.

  "Out early this morning are we?" he asked. His outrageously high-heeled shoes clacked on the flagstone floor. "Is it chilly? Shall I need my muff?" He swaggered oddly as he walked on tiptoes, his arms slightly extended.

  Never in her life had Julia seen such a theatrical man. She found her voice. "Not . . . not too cold, but windy."

  He touched his manicured hand to his breast, still approaching. His well-cut doublet was a most hideous lemon yellow and lime green. "That time of year thou mayst in me behold when yellow leaves, or none or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold."

  She turned as he passed her. "Shakespeare, a sonnet, I think." She smiled to herself, pleased she could recall.

  He met her gaze, a flicker of surprise on his face. "A woman who reads? Gads." He struck his chest again. "Another wonder of the modern world?"

  Julia lifted one eyebrow and lowered her hand to her hip. "I beg your pardon, sir, but of course I can read."

  He raised his palm to her. "No offense meant . . ."

  "Julia," she offered, too intrigued to be insulted. "Lady Julia Thomas."

  He struck a leg and bowed, sweeping his hat off his bewigged head. "My profuse apologies, Lady Julia. You are, of course, his lordship's intended."

  She dipped a curtsy. Lizzy just stood behind her and stared.

  "Baron Archer, cousin to the Earl of St. Martin, at your service. Griffin, I am called to friend and foe." He straightened and replaced his hat.

  "Oh, and this is my sister, Lizzy." Julia sidestepped to present her.

  He bowed again. "Lady Lizzy."

  Lizzy giggled and curtsied. "My, sir, that is an ugly hat you wear. I hope you did not pay a great deal for it."

  Julia sucked in her breath, shocked that her sister would dare say such a thing. "Lizzy!"

  But instead of being offended, the baron threw back his head and laughed. He whipped off his hat and stared at it. "God rot my bowels, 'tis ugly, isn't it?"

  Lizzy nodded, wide-eyed and frank. "Ugly, indeed. The ugliest I believe I've ever seen."

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway and Julia saw a dark-skinned man approach. She had only seen a blackamoor once before, and had to force herself not to stare.

  "Jabar! Where did I get this atrocious hat?" the baron called.

  "Paris, my master." The exotic man with chocolate brown skin spoke in a liquid-soft voice that was mesmerizing.

  "And why did I buy such an unsightly beast?"

  "Because you liked it, my lord." Jabar's English was impeccable.

  "Well, Lady Lizzy doesn't like it, nor do I." With that, Griffin sailed the hat into the air, over Julia and Lizzy's heads.

  Lizzy burst into another fit of giggles.

  "Good morn to you, ladies." The cousin to St. Martin bowed again and, before Julia could think of anything reasonable to say, he and his blackamoor were out the door.

  "Funny man." Lizzy picked up the discarded hat and placed it on her head. She blew at the feathers that dangled over her face and watched them flutter with amusement. "Do you think he lives here with the dark man?"

  Julia stared at the empty doorway, utterly perplexed by the exchange that had just taken place. Lizzy was right, the man was funny, and utterly ridiculous, and yet there was something about him . . . something . . .

  Julia wrapped one arm around her sister's waist and led her down the hall. "I don't know if he lives here, but it wouldn't surprise me." She glanced over her shoulder. "Nothing would surprise me at this moment."

  That evening Julia dressed carefully in one of the gowns her betrothed had presented to her upon her arrival. She tried not to feel hurt that his lordship did not find her own country gowns appropriate for her to wear while she served as his hostess. Instead, she wrestled down her pride and donned the gown he requested she wear. She would have preferred the green velvet, but he had been specific in the note he sent by way of his secretary.

  The dress was a magnificent piece of work, far finer than anything her mother had been able to provide for her. The underskirts were a heavy azure brocade trimmed in fur, the bodice and overskirt sewn of the same azure in silk. The neckline of the bodice was fur-trimmed and scooped low over Julia's well-rounded breasts. Her hair was dressed from the center, parting into wide side ringlets and a single shoulder ringlet which Drusilla—with the aid of her trusty iron-curling rod—had worked long and hard.

  Julia stared
at herself in an oval free-standing mirror framed in gold gilt. Her grandmother's pearl earrings swung in her ears. She smoothed the bodice of the gown, feeling a little uncomfortable with the way it revealed her breasts. "I suppose I'm ready."

  "'Bout time," Drusilla, the woman who had been her nurse since birth, complained. After all these years Julia had grown used to Drusilla's grumpiness. In fact, here at Bassett Hall, it was a comfortable reminder of home.

  Before pushing out the door of the apartment, Drusilla rubbed rouge on Julia's lips and pinched her cheeks hard.

  "Ouch!"

  "Try not to look like you're bound for yer hangin', eh?" Drusilla warned.

  In the doorway, Julia glanced over Drusilla's hunched shoulder to wave goodbye to Lizzy. Although Julia's mother Susanne had been invited to sup with the earl's guests, Lizzy had not.

  Lizzy grinned and waved, not understanding that she was being snubbed by her new male guardian.

  Julia gathered her courage and took the hallway toward the grand staircase and her awaiting betrothed.

  Halfway down stairs that were wide enough to ride a coach and four, Julia heard footsteps behind her. "Lady Julia . . . " someone called, then softer, "Lady Julia."

  The voice was familiar.

  She halted and turned, her crackling skirts bunched in her fists. It was Baron Archer . . . Griffin. He was dressed in another ludicrous outfit, this one of pastel blue and pink silk.

  "Lady Julia." He fluttered a long pink handkerchief. "Do allow me to escort you below."

  Julia watched with fascination as the man tottered down the staircase in his heeled shoes. The height of the platforms added to his own tall stature, making him a rather imposing figure.

  She smiled and curtsied as best she could on the stair tread. "Good even', my lord."

  "S'death, please, call me Griffin." He took her hand.

  "Then call me Julia."

  He nodded, his gaze meeting hers. "Julia," he said softly in a voice that didn't quite seem his own.

  They paused for the briefest moment, then broke the mutual gaze and started down the steps again.

  "I wanted to apologize for my comment in the entry this morning. Anyone will tell you my mouth runs day and night, but I mean nothing by it." It was Griffin's slightly effeminate voice, and yet it wasn't. "I never meant to infer you lacked intelligence."