Born of Persuasion (35 page)

WHEN I AWOKE, weak daylight seeped through my bedchamber as memory of Edward’s arrival crashed upon me. Uttering an oath, frustrated that Nancy hadn’t awoken me, I consulted the mantel clock. Its hands marked an hour far past lunch, nearer to tea.

The previous night, my emotions had been a wild tangle, but now, like a deft seamstress sorting through her mending basket, slumber had restored my sensibilities. She’d darned the fears, hemmed up confusion, and ironed out my faculties. Without anxiety ruling me, I was in a better position to handle my quandary.

Two men had good reason to consider themselves engaged to me.

One of them, and I knew which one, needed to be disappointed.

Desirous of fresh air, I faltered to my feet and cracked open the window casement and leaned out. At some point, the constant drizzle had ceased, leaving the air sodden. Lichen, made
more visible by the damp bark, clung to trees the patina of aged copper. Above, dun-colored clouds layered the skies, promising rain despite the current respite. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair and then turned.

My chambers, at least, offered a cheerier outlook. Fresh roses, arranged amidst sprigs of holly and boxwood, nodded in the cool breeze. I touched their velvety petals, amazed Reynolds had still bothered after what he’d witnessed last night. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the report he’d make to Mr. Macy as to what had transpired during his absence. And by now, I reasoned looking at the clock, Henry had likewise given Edward an earful. Best to go face him, I decided, and have it over with now.

Not wishing to hear Nancy’s opinion on top of everything else, I pulled and shook out the first dress I found. Thankfully Mama and I had lived without a lady’s maid, so I was accustomed to donning my own attire. Afterwards, I brushed and arranged my hair. Satisfied with my simple toilette, I hastened from my bedchamber.

In the main entrance hall, maids and menservants measured oil for sconces and replaced spent candles. My presence brought panic, for they scurried the moment my shoe clacked against the marble floor. Inside the dining room, the maids unfurling table linens nudged each other to look at me as I passed.

Mrs. Windham’s loud voice echoed from the conservatory, indicating where to find those of my own station. Drawing a fortifying breath, I braced myself to see Edward and entered.

Mrs. Windham looked up from her knitting. It looked as though she’d been babbling to Henry and Elizabeth, who seemed to be concentrating on a game of chess. From the back of the room, Lady Foxmore held Reynolds captive as she instructed him in low tones. Edward sat in a high-back chair. The moment I met his gaze, he rose, tucking a book beneath his arm.

It hurt to meet his eyes, so I dropped my gaze.

“Ah, here she finally is.” Mrs. Windham set her knitting in
her lap. “How can you say she is ill, Edward? All that ado and Julia looks perfectly healthy to me.”

With eyebrow arched, Lady Foxmore turned. Merriment abounded in her expression, calling to mind the scandalous stories involving her. My current situation was the exact sort of amusement she was rumored to feast upon.

Edward sidestepped a chair, approaching me. He broke into a smile. “Yes, you do appear much better, for which I’m thankful.” Reaching my side, he kissed my cheek.

His mouth thinning, Reynolds tugged at his collar, and Henry exchanged a sly glance with Elizabeth as he moved his queen.

I froze, mentally trying to adjust my opinion as to what Edward had—and had not—been told. Apparently not much.

Only later did I learn of Henry’s reunion with Edward—how Henry had whooped and nearly dove over the table when he found Edward sitting wan, crouched over a breakfast plate, his lips pressed tight.

I did not see Edward shove off Henry’s salutations, nor witness Edward dragging him into the hall to admonish him over his utter lack of care for me. Those events were only added to my repertoire of knowledge years later—years too late to matter.

All I had at that moment was a cold, needling sensation that for reasons of his own Henry had decided against telling Edward about Mr. Macy, just as he and Elizabeth had conspired to keep knowledge of Edward’s ordination from me. Judging from Lady Foxmore’s mirth, she’d gone right along with them.

“Yes, yes, we’ve all been aflutter with disagreements over whether you’ve been eating.” Mrs. Windham’s voice pulled my horrified gaze from her ladyship back to her. She beckoned me to come assist her so she could wind her yarn about my hands. “No one could remember, which annoyed Edward to no end.”

Her edict gave me the excuse I needed to escape. Twisting my left ring finger with my right hand, I dropped into the chair she’d indicated.

Mrs. Windham gestured for me to spread my hands apart, then started winding mohair yarn about them. “Edward claims you’ve lost weight. Such nonsense! As if you didn’t arrive on my doorstep looking more starved and beaten than a drunkard’s wife. I’ll thank you, missy, not to go wandering about Eastbourne in the dead of night, too. Indeed, you should have heard the lecture I endured for allowing your chambers to be so distant from mine.” She puckered at Edward.

“What’s this?” Lady Foxmore’s cane tapped the floor. “I had not heard of this.”

“Had you breakfasted with us,” Mrs. Windham continued, “you would have witnessed your vicar lecturing me most dreadfully. My poor heart has not yet recovered. It appears last night Edward found Julia wandering about the estate in the dark.”

Lady Foxmore chortled. “And here we assumed you safely abed, child. Tell me, has this happened before?”

My chest constricted as I met her eye. I felt the spasm of muscles twitching in my cheek. Lady Foxmore shook her head, shaking with silent laughter.

“Leave Julia in peace.” Edward appeared with tea and a filigree plate containing delicate finger sandwiches. He still recalled my favorite foods.

I paused, stunned at the depth of feeling awakening in me. I’d been so angry with him after discovering he’d become a vicar that I hadn’t properly grieved him. Thus emotions I thought dead flickered to life.

I gritted my teeth, determined not to feel anything.

Kneeling at my side, Edward slid his hands into the skein of yarn to take over for me. When our hands grazed, his hazel eyes met mine. With our own silent language, he communicated for me to remain silent in present company.

Head bent, I ate a few bites of the refreshments. Between Henry, Elizabeth, Lady Foxmore, and Reynolds, I was an actress on stage with critics waiting to peck apart the performance.

“You missed a note from Chance while you slept,” Lady Foxmore said after I’d forced down a few bites. “Only I can’t seem to recall it now.” She snapped her fingers at Reynolds.

He stepped forward. “Yes, Mr. Macy sent a note stating he hopes his guests remain comfortable and anticipates resuming his visit. To memory, he cannot recount ever having spent such pleasant nights.”

Nothing except the perfect lilt, the complete boredom in which Reynolds said it could have saved me. As it was, only Henry and Elizabeth’s accusatory eyes lifted from their ivory-and-ebony chessboard toward me. The lemon bread turned to sand in my mouth, but I could not afford to choke.

Mrs. Windham cast on with a snort. “Well, someone ought to inform him Julia is not enjoying pleasant evenings, wandering about Eastbourne when the rest of us think she’s abed. The very idea.”

Lady Foxmore smirked. “Yes, I daresay Chance would be rather punctured to discover she is not enjoying her evenings as much as he is.”

“Well, he has no one to blame but himself,” Mrs. Windham said, bringing a full blush to my cheeks. “I tried to tell him to situate her near me.”

“There we disagree, Edith—” Lady Foxmore’s merry gaze did not shift from me—“for I have it on the best authority she’s been extended the very best the man has to offer.”

“Untrue.” Edward’s voice was dark. “I was at her bedchamber last night and found that section of the house most unsatisfactory.”

“Her bedchamber?” Lady Foxmore slowly turned her head, giving Edward a smug smile. “How positively indecent.”

I coughed, then gagged on the pastry.

Teeth clenched, Edward sloughed the yarn from his hands and stood. I covered my mouth with my napkin. My eyes were wet as I sputtered into the cloth.

“Here.” Edward took my plate and set it aside, then seized Mrs. Windham’s shawl, which had been piled near her feet, to drape over my shoulders. To Mrs. Windham he asked, “Have you any objection if I take Julia for a walk?”

“By no means. Take her,” Mrs. Windham said. “I insist upon it. She looks very ill indeed. Fresh air is the very cure.”

“Henry.” Fist clenched, Edward ordered his brother, “Chaperone us.”

“As if Julia’s reputation could be tarnished in your hands!” Mrs. Windham waved him away. “Leave Henry and Elizabeth by the fire. There promises to be a chill in the air tonight. I’ll not have Elizabeth breathing in the vile stuff.”

Edward’s knuckles turned white. “Henry. Now.”

“Coming, coming.” Henry moved his king, then stood.

Elizabeth cast him a look, which seemed to ask whether he still thought their plan a good idea.

Mrs. Windham’s mouth twisted as Henry chucked Elizabeth’s chin, then in a tart voice she said, “Elizabeth, of all the laziness to just sit there. Join Master Henry on his walk, for heaven’s sake.”

Elizabeth jumped to her feet and raced from the room, managing to make it to the hall before the pendulum of her mother’s opinion swayed yet again.

I felt under surveillance as Edward and I waded through the ankle-deep leaves strewn over the grounds. Though Reynolds remained silent as Edward ushered me outdoors, the way he slipped into the hall behind us and the manner in which the blues of his eyes followed us effectively communicated he planned to keep me under watch.

“Give me a minute, Juls.” Edward clutched my hand in a tight clasp. With alacrity he plowed through the damp, thick carpet of leaves. “That someone should affront your character like that, that it should be a lady,
my patron
, of all things!”

I eyed the roiling clouds above. Any minute they would burst. I prayed fervently that they wouldn’t, not yet. Ahead of us, Elizabeth screamed with laughter as Henry urged her to run through a pile of leaves.

Not everyone will understand why on that first walk I did not put Edward on his guard. It wasn’t that I didn’t consider it. The thought weighed heavily upon me with each step we took.

Mama’s death had taught me too well how rarely we are given back those jewel-toned moments we most wish to live again. For three years I had lived for this very culmination—the hour I was reunited with Edward.

Those who have undergone the death of a loved one know how we wish for another day, hour, even just one last look from our departed. To me, the day I learned Edward had become a vicar was the day he’d died. My wishes were no different in the wake of that loss.

It was a miracle of miracles that my Edward was there. I didn’t care what had happened beforehand, nor what I knew was forthcoming. I wanted this hour, this day, and I dared not break the spell.

And perhaps, if I’m honest, I still hoped against hope that things might work out as I’d planned after all.

We turned a corner to the sight of Henry, on the ground, shovelling great piles of leaves on top of Elizabeth as she tried to claw her way free, laughing too hard to make much progress.

Edward frowned, but as he watched, his temper was doused, for laughter sprung just beneath the surface of his eyes. After a few more silent seconds of watching their behavior, he chuckled. “Do you recall the time Elizabeth was caught after we stoned Farmer Ruben’s bee colony? How the good man locked her in his pantry while he fetched Mrs. Windham? I honestly think Henry would have smashed the windows had we not stopped him.”

I nudged my toe into a pile of the brackish leaves. “I recall
you whispering that Henry was a fool to stand by. That had it been me, nothing would have stopped you.”

Edward tipped his head back and laughed. With its sound, a thousand memories of summer nights rushed back. “I’d forgotten I’d said that.”

Elizabeth found her feet, and after shaking the debris from her hair and dress, raced after Henry, who’d managed to steal her glove, which he dangled just beyond her grasp.

Though I knew the longer I remained silent, the deeper my betrayal of Edward became, I valued the precious, dying hours more than transparency; besides, I hadn’t yet worked out how to say it. My face must have betrayed my thoughts, for Edward studied me a moment, then looked at the labyrinth where tall hedgerows cast long shadows over the turf.

“You know—” he tucked my arm beneath his, drawing me to his side as he slowed us to an amble—“I’m fairly certain we’re still not forgiven for the stings Ruben received that day. You should see the evil eye he gives me as I preach.”

I forced a smile.

Edward sensed that it wasn’t honest and went straight to the heart of the matter. “I wrote that letter in the heat of my emotions. Forgive me it. Shortly after I handed it to Caleb, her ladyship summoned me and sent me to another parish to assist them. I had a lot of time to think during my absence and deeply regretted sending that.”