Amanda McCabe (14 page)

She fell back a step.

“You will not be smiling for long,
Miss Barclay
,” he hissed. “Your game is up.”

Julia tilted up her chin and said coolly, “I have no idea what you are talking about, Thompson. Or indeed why you are here. Did you not resign your position?”

“I worked here for your mother, that
actress
, for four years because my wife enjoyed the niceties of living at Rosemount. If it weren’t for your
friends
we would still be here.”

“You chose to leave.”

Thompson shook his head violently, the book trembling in his hands. “You’ll be sorry now. His lordship knows what you’ve been up to.”

A cold knot of ice grew in Julia’s belly. “What do you mean?”

“I told him who all your so-called servants really are. That they are your theatrical friends, no better than gypsies, and that he has been duped into paying for their upkeep.” Thompson gave a bark of humorless laughter and departed, leaving an echoing silence behind him.

Julia barely had time to process this revelation when Marcus emerged from the library. He looked up and saw her standing there on the stairs.

For one instant, Julia felt she was fifteen again, huddled on the staircase, listening to the quarrel in the library. She took one look at the dark expression on Marcus’s face and turned around and ran.

She raced down the corridor into her own room. Before she could shut the door, he was there behind her. Filling the doorway, filling the whole room, with his thunderous presence.

Julia had never seen him scowl like that before, and she did not like it one bit. She tried to cross her arms, to face him with bravado, but her legs felt so weak she had to lean against the bedpost instead.

“You . . . you should not be in my bedroom,” she managed to say, inanely. “It is not at all proper.”

“Julia,” he said, his voice very quiet. “We are so thoroughly compromised that I hardly think my being in your bedroom is going to make a whit of difference. I want you to tell me about the servants.”

“The servants?”

“I want the truth. You told me that the butler was an out-of-work actor with stage fright. That is not so, is it?”

Julia knew when she was defeated. She sat down on the end of the bed and said, “No. Abelard is not out of work. He and his troupe are about to embark on a tour, where they are to perform a program of Shakespeare’s comedies.”

“And the other servants are members of that troupe?”

“Not all of them.”

“Which ones?”

“I don’t see how that . . .”

“Which ones! Tell me, Julia. Is the cook an actress?” He didn’t raise his voice, but his quiet tones rang with authority.

“No, not the cook. Mary and Daphne, the housemaids. And Ned and John, the footmen who wear Renaissance garb. Agnes, whom you have not met. I told you she was my cousin, who is staying here because she is ill. But she is not. That is, she
is
ill, but she is not my cousin. Only my friend.” Julia knew she was rambling, but she couldn’t seem to stop. If only he would stop looking at her!

“Is that all?”

“There is Charlie. He was digging up the bulbs in the garden. And a young apprentice, who is the bootblack boy. That is all, I promise! All the other servants are genuine.”

Marcus sat down slowly on her dressing table bench, his great height dwarfing the satin cushion. The thunder on his face had faded, but now he looked disappointed and sad.

That was infinitely worse than anger.

“You lied to me, Julia,” he said softly.

Julia twisted her hands together in consternation. “I know, and I am truly sorry for it, Marcus. I hated it, but I had to protect my friends. They have no money until they are paid for their first engagement, and no place to stay. I couldn’t let them be thrown out. This was the only plan I could come up with on such short notice.”

“I would not have thrown out any friend of yours. You could have come to me, told me the truth.”

“I know that now.” After their tipsy confidences in the cellar, she knew it very well. “I know
you
now. But at the time, I was frightened.”

“Frightened of me? For heaven’s sake, why?”

“You do not know this, but on the day you left Rosemount four years ago, I heard your quarrel with Gerald.”

He looked up at her with haunted eyes. “You heard that?”

“I was sitting on the stairs, and you had not closed the library door all the way. You were so angry, so contemptuous of my mother, the
actress
. That was my only memory of you when you returned; how could I trust you?”

Marcus shook his head sadly. “I have bitterly regretted that scene for all these years; I will regret it for the rest of my life.” He came to her and laid his palm quietly against her cheek. “Please, Julia. Don’t let me regret you as well. Let me do the right thing and marry you.”

Julia leaned against his hand for just an instant. “I will never let you regret me, Marcus.”

He nodded, then turned around and left. The door clicked ever so softly behind him.

Julia sat there alone for a very long time, crying silently into her hands. Love and remorse and regret sat bitterly on her heart, and she wept for all her foolish dreams.

Then she dried her eyes. “I will
not
let you regret me, my love,” she repeated in a fierce whisper. “I will not be the ruination of your life.”

There was only one thing she could do.

She went to her wardrobe, pulled out her battered old trunk, a veteran of all the tours she had been on with her mother, and began to pack.

***

“Where is Miss Barclay?” Marcus asked the unfamiliar footman. The actors were, not surprisingly, not in evidence in the dining room that evening. “Does she not know that supper was meant to begin fifteen minutes ago?”

He looked down the table at Julia’s empty chair. He had hoped that once they sat down to supper, once things were in their familiar pattern again, they could begin to talk. He could reassure her, convince her of the wisdom, the necessity, of their marriage. He could make her smile again.

But he could do none of those things if she wasn’t there!

“Well?” he asked the footman.

The young man shifted nervously on his feet, his shoulders twitching in his plain black livery.

Marcus rather missed the colorful doublets of Ned and John.

“Did you not know, my lord?” the footman eventually said.

“Know what?”

“Miss Barclay is gone, my lord. She left above three hours ago, with all her actor friends. She told the cook she was going on tour with them.”

“What!”
Marcus leaped up from his chair, sending the fragile wood clattering to the floor. “Why was I not told this?”

“We thought you knew, my lord. They packed up and left in ever such a hurry.”

Marcus ran out of the dining room and up the stairs to Julia’s chamber. Surely the footman was mistaken. Surely Julia was just in her room, reading her damnable Shakespeare.

But he found just what he had feared to find in her room. Nothing.

The silver-backed brushes and enameled scent bottles were gone from the dressing table. The doors to the wardrobe hung open, revealing the empty space inside. Even the little French gilt card table that had sat beside the window had been taken.

He moved slowly into the quiet, still room, his steps shuffling like those of a very old man. His shoe caught on an object on the floor, the turquoise-colored silk shawl she had worn to the ball. It had obviously been lost in her hurry to pack and be gone.

Marcus picked it up and buried his nose in the soft cloth.

It smelled like lavender, vaguely like the wine that had been their downfall, and like the elusive sunshine scent that was Julia’s alone.

For the first time in many years, since the night he had quarreled with his father and left Rosemount, Marcus cried.

“Julia,” he sobbed. “Julia, come back to me. I need you so very much.”

But there was no one there to hear him.

***

“I must say that, even though I am eager to work again, I am very sorry to leave Rosemount.” Mary sighed, leaning back against the worn leather cushions of Abelard’s lumbering old coach. “It was great fun to be a housemaid for a while.”

“
I
am not sorry to leave dusting behind,” Daphne answered.

“I only hope we’ll be able to find lodgings once we reach Brighton,” said Agnes. Her foot was propped between two cushions on Daphne’s lap, and she looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Julia tore her gaze away from the window, where she had been watching the passing countryside in silence ever since they left Rosemount in such a hurry. “Let me pour you some brandy, Agnes,” she said, hunting about for the hamper Mrs. Gilbert had packed for them. “You look so pale.”

“Thank you, Jule,” said Agnes with a small smile. “Brandy would be very nice.”

Julia found the silver flask and small cups tucked among the sandwiches and biscuits. She poured out a measure of the amber liquid and passed it across to Agnes. “I am so sorry to be dragging you off across the countryside, Agnes! You should not be traveling.”

Agnes shrugged and took a sip of the brandy. “My dear Jule, you must not think of it! You did so much to help us, more than was really humanly, possible. We got to stay at Rosemount for much longer than was expected.”

“You are a true friend, Julia,” said Daphne.

“If only we could have helped you in return!” cried Mary. “We
wanted
to help you, but we only made things worse.”

Julia blinked away the sudden prickling of tears. She had been trying so hard to stay calm, to not break down into hysterics at leaving Marcus and Rosemount. Now it all threatened to burst free in the face of her friends’ concern.

“You are all the very best friends anyone could ever hope for!” she said hoarsely. “You
do
help me, just by being here.” She swept her gloved fingers across her cheeks to wipe away the tears. “I think we should all have some of that brandy.”

“What a good idea,” said Mary, dashing away tears of her own. She poured out cups for herself, Daphne, and Julia, and passed them about.

“What shall we drink to?” asked Agnes.

“To the future, of course,” Julia answered. “And to friendship.”

Chapter Seventeen

Play out the play.

—
Henry IV, Part One

“It’s going quite well, isn’t it?” Mary leaned over to look in the dressing room mirror, adjusting the frilly fichu over her shoulders. “A full house on opening night is always a good sign.”

“And how smoothly the play is proceeding!” said Daphne, twirling her shepherdess’s crook. “No one has fluffed their lines at all. Not even John.”

Julia listened to their chatter from behind the japanned screen, where she was changing Rosalind’s brocade Elizabethan court gown for her Ganymede disguise of doublet and hose. “We have only just finished the first act. We have the rest of the play to go. All of the most difficult scenes are coming up.”

“Perhaps,” said Mary, touching up her lip rouge. “Still, the applause was quite enthusiastic. And even if the second act is more difficult, it is ever so much more exciting than the first! Just wait until the audience sees Julia in her trousers.”

“That
is what they have all come to see!” Daphne crowed good-naturedly. “Anna Barclay’s daughter in trousers. Speaking of which, come out and show us your costume, Julia.”

Julia tugged the velvet doublet down a bit further, hoping it covered her backside in the tight hose. How could she ever hope to remember her lines if she was worried about her nether regions showing?

She took one last look in the full-length mirror, straightened her cap on her upswept hair, and stepped out from behind the screen.

“Oh!” cried Daphne. “You look adorable.”

“I do not
feel
adorable,” Julia growled. “I feel naked.”

“Nonsense,” said Mary. “You are going to be the toast of Brighton. You’ll have your choice of roles!”

“I am only doing this until Agnes is up and about again,” Julia reminded them. “Then I am going to buy my cottage, and Anna Barclay’s daughter will fade into obscurity once more.”

“Well, before you fade away entirely, put on some lip color,” said Mary, holding out the pot of rouge.

There was a knock at the door then, and Abelard called, “Are you all dressed?”

“Yes, Abby, come in,” answered Mary.

Abelard staggered into the dressing room, his arms filled with a long wooden box. “This just arrived for Julia.”

“Oooh, it’s probably more flowers!” Mary said. “You are going to need your own hothouse, Julia.”

“Maybe it’s jewels,” suggested Daphne. “Sent by a lovesick admirer.”

“It would have to be a case of jewels, in a box that size,” said Mary. “Aren’t you going to open it, Julia, or are you just going to stare at it? We are perishing with anticipation!”

Julia smiled at her and went to lift the lid off the box. “Never let it be said I allowed my friends to perish from anything. But I don’t want jewels, and I don’t need any more flowers . . .” Her voice trailed away as she looked into the box.

“What is it?” Daphne asked. Then she, Mary, and Abelard came to peer over Julia’s shoulder.

“A lot of stones?” Abelard said, puzzled.

“Who on earth would send stones?” Mary cried. “Is it some sort of joke? Where are the jewels, the roses!”

Julia blinked away a sudden rush of tears.

She reached in and carefully lifted out the object. It was indeed a lot of stones, but they were not just any old stones. They were laid carefully on a painted base, a miniature model of her standing circle.

The circle where she and Marcus had once gone on a magical, full-moon night.

She touched the reproduction of the stone where they had sat together carefully with her fingertip. Her tears were falling in earnest now, splashing off of her doublet sleeve and onto the stones.

How hard she had tried to forget Marcus! She had busied herself with preparing for the play, had worked herself into exhaustion so that maybe, just maybe, she would not dream of him anymore at night. It had almost worked; she had been so tired that all she could think about was putting one foot in front of the other sometimes. She had reassured herself that she had done the right thing by leaving; now Marcus was free to live the life he truly wanted.

Now, looking at the stones, a great wave of homesickness and longing washed over her.

“Don’t cry, Julia!” Mary said in dismay. She took out a handkerchief and began blotting at Julia’s tears. “You’ll muss your makeup.”

“Who gave you this, Abby?” Julia cried, swinging around to look at Abelard. “Who sent it?”

Abelard shrugged, bewildered. “I don’t know, lass. The stage manager gave it to me and said it was meant for you.”

Julia longed to grab the front of his satin doublet and shake him until his teeth rattled. But she would have had to put the model down to do it. “There must have been a card!
Who sent it?
”

“I sent it,” a quiet voice said from the doorway.

Four pairs of eyes turned toward the door, and Julia gasped. Marcus stood there, more handsome even than her memories in his black-and-white evening clothes. Tucked in his cravat was a slightly crooked emerald-headed pin.

“I sent it,” he repeated. “But I fear I neglected to put a card with it.”

Mary, Daphne, and Abelard glanced at one another and rushed for the door, leaving Julia and Marcus alone in the suddenly silent dressing room.

Marcus laid his cloak and walking stick carefully across an empty chair. “I am sorry for startling you,” he said. “But you left without saying good-bye, and I had to come and remedy that.”

Julia wiped at her eyes with Mary’s handkerchief, wishing she had heeded her words about makeup. Surely it was smeared all over her cheeks by now. “What are you doing here? How did you know where to find me?”

“It was not difficult. Apparently, Mr. Douglas wrote to Lady Edgemere of their tour, telling her the dates and places. She came to me and told me I was a bloody fool if I did not come after you.”

Julia choked. “She said
that
?”

“Those were her exact words. Lady Edgemere, as you know, has always had the tendency to tell the absolute truth, even if it involves cursing like a sailor. And in this case she was quite correct. I know she misses you.” He gestured toward the model Julia had placed carefully back on the table. “The stones miss you; no one else has the eyes of the wee ones. And I miss you. Very much.”

It was all too splendid to be real. It must be another dream. Julia shook her head. “You feel guilty for compromising me. That is all.”

“No! It is not all.” Marcus came to her and grasped her arms in a gentle caress. “I love you, Julia.”

She gaped up at him, certain she was not hearing right. “You . . . love me?”

“God help me, but I do. Rosemount is much too silent and lonely without you. There was no one to slide down the banisters or go walking in the gardens on a full moon night with.”

“Marcus . . .”

“No, Julia, please let me finish. I have been storing up these words for weeks, ever since you left. I
have
been a bloody fool, just as Lady Edgemere said. I’ve let the expectations of others, of people who don’t matter at all, stand in the way of what is truly important. And that is my love for you, and the life we could have together. I know that Rosemount is not nearly as exciting as the theater, but I can take you to other places, too. Italy, Egypt . . .”

“Oh, do shut up, darling!” Julia sobbed happily, throwing her arms about his neck. “I love you, too. You and Rosemount are all I will ever need.”

Marcus held her close to him, very tightly, as if she could fly away and be lost to him again. “So you will marry me?”

“You do not only want to marry me because you compromised me?”

“Of course not. Did I not just tell you so? I want to marry you because you, Julia Barclay, are my only love.”

“Then yes, I will marry you. Yes, yes, yes!”

“At last!” Marcus kissed her soundly and twirled her off her feet in a big circle. “At last.”

But their blissful reunion was soon interrupted. The door banged open and Abelard flew back into the room, his costume crown tilted wildly on his head. “Julia, we have an emergency! You have to . . .” He stopped short when he saw their embrace. “Oh. Please finish what you were doing.”

“We
are
finished, Abby.” Julia made Marcus put her back on her feet, and she stepped away from him unsteadily. But she kept one hand on his arm, to be absolutely certain he would not suddenly disappear from her. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“That young apprentice has fallen off a piece of scenery, which I
told
him not to climb on, and sprained his ankle! First Agnes, and now this. He is supposed to be in the very next scene.”

“Is there no one to replace him?” Julia said, struggling to come down from her joyful cloud and deal with the here and now.

“No one! Unless . . .” Abelard ran a speculative eye over Marcus. “Have you ever thought of giving the theater a try, Lord Ellston?”

Marcus’s eyes widened in shock. “No, I . . .”

“What a grand idea!” Julia cried. “We could be on the stage together, dearest.”

“I cannot learn lines so quickly,” Marcus protested, still stunned at the thought. He, a proper earl, on the stage?

“Oh, you wouldn’t have to learn so many lines,” Abelard said airily. “You’re only going to be playing Corin. A very small part. Ned will help you.”

“Please, Marcus.” Julia tugged at his arm and looked up at him with beseeching eyes. “It will be such fun. Just this once.”

Marcus melted, and the tiny, disapproving voice in the back of his mind faded entirely. “Very well. Just this once. On one condition.”

“What is that?”

He leaned closer to her and whispered, “That you wear that costume on our wedding night.”

Julia blushed and whispered back, “I have a sword, too. Shall I bring that, as well?”

***

When Marcus was shoved onto the stage in front of hundreds of staring people, and the stage lamps blinded him, he began to think this was not such a grand idea after all.

It did not help at all that his hose and doublet felt far too small.

Charlie Englehardt, the man Marcus could only think of as the strange gardener, followed him onstage and struck an expectant pose. He raised a shaggy brow at Marcus.

Marcus knew he was meant to say something, but he could not for the life of him remember what it was. He wasn’t sure he could even recall what his own name was.

Then he glanced back over his shoulder to where Julia waited in the wings. She smiled and nodded, her hazel eyes bright with joyful tears.

Suddenly, all was clear, not only the lines he was meant to speak, but everything else as well. All his life, he had been searching for something, something that eluded him. He had looked for it all over the world, and in Society’s and his family’s approval.

Now he had found it, in his very own home, with his fairy princess. With her by his side, he knew he needed nothing else.

He turned back to face the audience and said, “‘And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?’”