Amanda McCabe (11 page)

Oh, if only he had! “Please, think no more about it. I forgive you, if you like, but there is nothing to apologize for, really.”

“Julia, I want to say . . .”

They came to a merciful halt before the front steps. As soon as Ned appeared to open the carriage door, Julia leaped out and ran through the house, stumbling in her heeled slippers. She did not stop until she was safely in her own room, and then she threw herself onto her bed and wept.

Chapter Thirteen

I love to cope him in these sullen fits,

For then he is full of matter.

—
As You Like It

It was very late indeed. Even the stars, earlier so bright in the night sky, had begun to fade. But Marcus knew that if he retired to his bed he would not sleep. So he stayed in the garden, sitting on a marble bench, smoking one of the thin, dark cigars he’d brought home from Egypt.

Staring up at the light in Julia’s window.

Apparently, she could not sleep, either. Her bedroom light had been burning for hours.

Marcus started several times to get up and throw some pebbles at her window, just as he had on the night of the full moon. He wanted her to come to the garden, to sit beside him and talk with him. He wanted to hold her in his arms, to bury his face in her soft hair, to pour out to her all his regrets of that evening.

For he had so many regrets—a hundred at least. He regretted his ridiculous jealousy of Mr. Elliott; he regretted the childish temper he’d displayed because of that jealousy. Above all, he regretted kissing her.

Not that it had been unpleasant—far from it. It had been the sweetest, richest kiss he had ever tasted. Julia fit in his arms, against his body, as if she had been designed to be there. At the merest touch of their lips, passion welled up between them like an irresistible, irrefutable force. One that had taken all his might to resist.

Marcus muttered a soft curse and took a long, steadying pull on his cigar.

He was trying very hard to be honorable. He had played the prodigal son for too long; now he wanted to do what his family had always expected of him. To bring honor to the Hadley name once more.

A woman like Lady Angela Fleming was just what the
ton
would expect for a Countess of Ellston. He
should
marry her, no matter how sweet Julia Barclay’s kiss was.

He had condemned his father for loving an actress; how could he, Marcus, be such a hypocrite as to do the same with that actress’s daughter?

Marcus pressed his hand to his aching head, more confused than he had ever been before in his life. He wanted to do the right thing. But how could he know what that right thing was?

Then Julia appeared at her window. She stood there for one moment, looking like a true angel in her white nightdress, lit by the glow of candlelight. She looked out at the garden as she twisted her hair into one long plait, and Marcus saw all his own confusion and pain reflected on her face.

Then she closed the curtains and was gone to him. He was left alone in the darkness.

***

The next few days passed quietly and uneventfully. Julia found that she and Marcus could be polite, even cordial, when they met at breakfast or supper. But their earlier easy conversation was gone. Marcus seldom smiled, and he never joked. There were no more quiet after-supper talks in the library, no walks in the garden.

Even the actors were rather subdued, going about their servants’ “duties” silently and then slipping off to the dower house to rehearse. Julia became very aware that all too soon they would be gone, and she would have to decide about her own future. Already Rosemount seemed less the sunny haven of laughter it had been in the last few days, and more the echoing sepulchre it had been after Anna and Gerald died.

At night, Julia would lie awake in her bed, clutching her turquoise scarab in her hand. If she could just find a way for her and Marcus to talk about the dark cloud that sat between them, that kiss. Perhaps if they could talk about it, it would cease to seem so momentous, so all-changing. Or at least she could quit brooding about it.

But she was not brave enough to mention it. She doubted she could even say the word “kiss” in front of him.

So it went on, the silence, growing heavier between them.

During the day, however, she had little time to brood. She was far too busy planning the Harvest Fete.

Every afternoon she went to Edgemere Park or Lady Edgemere came to Rosemount. Julia and Lady Edgemere made visits to all the tenants’ cottages and farmers’ manors to invite them to the Fete and ask them to bring food or handiwork to sell. They carefully made guest lists for the ball, penned the invitations, and planned the decorations and the refreshments.

More often than not, Mr. Elliott would be there, as well. He accompanied them on their calls and made suggestions about the music for the ball. He was very attentive and unfailingly cheerful.

Unlike
some
men, such as Marcus Hadley for instance. He could certainly use a modicum of Mr. Elliott’s easy charm these days.

***

“Was that Mr. Elliott
again
?” Marcus came into the drawing room, still dressed in his riding buckskins, and flopped down into a satin chair. He propped his booted feet on the low table, next to some of Julia’s lists for the Fete.

Julia glanced up from the list she was perusing. “Yes, it was. He and Lady Edgemere and I were drawing up the final plans for the placement of the food booths. The workmen are coming to set them up tomorrow afternoon. If that is quite all right?” She reached out and nudged his foot with her pencil. “And you are getting dirt on my papers, Marcus.”

Marcus removed his feet from the table and placed them solidly on the carpet. “I would wager that
Mr. Elliott
is far too much the perfect gentleman to ever track dirt into the house.”

“Indeed he is. Most fastidious.” Julia blushed a bit when she recalled what the perfect gentleman had told her, quickly, quietly, before he left that day. “I have something I would like to discuss with you soon, Miss Barclay. Something of great importance to both our futures.”

Perhaps he would soon ask her to marry him. He had certainly been quite attentive these past few days.

But Julia could not say that to Marcus. Somehow, the mention of Mr. Elliott’s name always caused Marcus to scowl.

So instead she said, “And where were you off to today? The attorney’s offices in Little Dipping?”

“No, I paid a call at Belvoir Abbey,” he said carelessly, flicking at a bit of dust on his gray tweed jacket.

Julia felt a stab of quick pain in the region of her heart. She lowered her eyes back to her list. “I trust all was quite well there.”

“Quite. Lord Belvoir and Lady Angela send you their regards.”

“I am sure they do.” Julia quickly gathered up her papers, busily straightening them into a neat pile. The drawing room suddenly felt airless; she longed for escape. “Well, if there is nothing else you wanted to discuss, I must go change my dress. We are dining at the vicarage tonight, remember? Lady Edgemere and Mr. Elliott will be there, and they wanted particularly to see you.”

“Julia, wait.” Marcus laid his hand briefly on her wrist, stilling her quick movements. “There
is
something I would like to speak with you about. I have been a coward not to mention it before, but now I see that I must.”

When he removed his hand, Julia stared down at her wrist, certain he must have left a warm mark there. “Yes, Marcus? What is it?” she said. But she feared she already knew.

“Our kiss in the carriage,” he answered swiftly, as if in a hurry to push the words out before he lost his courage. “I fear that you may have misunderstood when I said that it was a mistake. That you may have thought I meant it was a mistake because you are . . . less than a lady.”

His words were rather garbled, but Julia understood them perfectly. “Is that not true?”

“No! Never. Julia, you are the finest, the kindest, lady I have ever known.
That
is why it was a mistake.”

Julia was thoroughly confused. She had feared, in her late-night worries, that perhaps he had been shocked by her eager response to his kiss. That he had thought her a wanton. But he was saying she was too much a lady.

Her head spun.

“I fear I do not rightly understand you,” she said slowly.

“I was a cad to take advantage as I did,” he answered. “Obviously, I have caused you pain by it. Things have not been the same between us these last few days.”

“No. They have not.”

“Well, I want to assure you that I will not lose control in that manner anymore. I want us to be friends again, Julia. I
need
us to be friends. Can we be?”

She slowly raised her eyes to search his face. He looked so stricken, like a little boy who had been caught in some mischief and was deeply remorseful.

She wanted to throw her arms around him, to kiss his brow, to reassure him. And then, heaven help her, she wanted those kisses to turn heated, like the one in the carriage; she wanted to tumble with him to the carpet, to feel once again that intoxicating warmth in her veins.

But, being the perfect lady he thought her, she did not.

“Of course we are friends, Marcus,” she said. “Always.”

He smiled in relief. “Good. Then will you walk with me in the garden for a while?”

Julia glanced at the clock on the mantel. “The supper at the vicarage . . .”

“Only for a brief while. Surely your curate cannot be that impatient!”

“Very well. Only for a while.”

***

Marcus was utterly fascinated by the myriad colors the sunlight picked out in Julia’s hair. She had left her bonnet behind, and he could see the glow of chestnuts and reds and buttery yellows, all the autumn colors, as she walked beside him. The fringes of her Indian shawl brushed against his hand, releasing her lavender scent from its cashmere folds.

He had almost forgotten his careful new plan, concocted during his ride home from Belvoir Abbey, to treat Julia as a friend only. To be respectful of her. Every time he saw her he wanted so much to kiss her.

They could not go on living under the same roof for much longer or he
would
forget his plans, his resolutions. He had to persuade her to go to his cousin in London, or his aunt in Bath. Or he would go insane with trying to be a gentleman.

But maybe she was making plans of her own. Plans that involved the handsome curate, who always seemed to be at Rosemount these days.

“Mr. Elliott has become quite a regular visitor,” he said carefully.

“Yes,” Julia answered. “He has been so helpful to Lady Edgemere and myself concerning the Fete.”

Marcus shook his head. “What I meant was, he seems very attentive to
you
. Personally.”

Julia stopped walking and looked up at him. He could read nothing in her cool, bland hazel gaze.

“Mr. Elliott and I have a great deal in common,” she said. “We both enjoy music and books. He has a great knowledge of Shakespeare.”

Whereas he, Marcus, knew only “To be or not to be,” which his boyhood tutor had forced him to learn. “Has Mr. Elliott been in the neighborhood very long?”

“Not very. Only about four months. But I have enjoyed every encounter I have had with him.”

Every
encounter? “So you like him? You share a friendship with him?”

“Yes,” she said with a small, incomprehensible laugh. “Just as you enjoy a friendship with Lady Angela Fleming, Marcus.”

“I did not mean that . . .” he began, but she had hurried ahead of him on the path, turning a corner and forcing him to pick up his pace to keep up.

He almost ran into her as he swung around the corner; she stood statue-still in the middle of the path, looking at a strange sight.

Marcus himself could not help but gape.

A gardener worked in one of the flower beds, yet he was the strangest gardener Marcus had ever encountered. The man wore a huge straw hat that was pointed like some Oriental pagoda, and a flowing, Renaissance-style robe. He was singing some rather bawdy tune as he worked.

And he was busily digging up bulbs and placing them in a neat pile at the edge of the bed. Bulbs that had been imported from Holland at great expense, as Marcus knew from the bill he had looked at not two days before.

“Who is that man?” he asked Julia in a low, outraged voice. “And why is he digging up bulbs that were just planted?”

“He is . . . one of the under gardeners,” Julia answered, so quietly that Marcus had to bend close to hear her.

“Well, I am going to speak to him about it right now! Those bulbs are very expensive.”

“No, Marcus, please!” Julia laid her hand on his arm, stopping him in his tracks. “I will speak to him. You wait here.”

“Julia, it should not fall on you to take the servants to task.”

She gave him a little smile. “I have been doing that since my mother died. Just leave everything to me.”

Julia marched up to Charlie Englehardt, her fists planted on her hips. “Charlie, whatever do you think you are doing?” she said sternly.

Charlie looked up at her, all wide-eyed innocence. “Why, I am gardening, Julia. Just as you asked me to.”

“I never asked you to dig up those new tulip bulbs from Holland! Those have just been planted.”

“Is that what these little things are?” Charlie held up one of the white bulbs and gazed at it in wonder. “I thought they were vegetables. I was going to take a basket of them in to the cook, as an apology.”

“I hardly think Lord Ellston would appreciate being served a tulip pie.” She looked back at Marcus, who was watching them with a suspicious frown on his face. She gave him a little wave. “He already suspects something is odd about the staff. Do you want to ruin everything, when we have come so far?”

“No, Julia! And I don’t want to go back to the stables, either.”

“Then replace the bulbs, please, just as you found them. And look sharp about it.”

She gave one more stern nod, then went back to where Marcus waited. “Everything is fine now,” she said, taking his arm and steering him back to the main pathway. “It was all just a misunderstanding.”