DeButy & the Beast (10 page)

"Theater?"

"The play will be acted out by performers. Have you ever been to a performance?"

She shook her head.

"Would you like to go?"

"Yes."

"Then we will go."

Something terrible had happened to her, and this horrific thing had happened so gradually she had not known it was coming until it was too late. She had always found Julian attractive, and taking him to her bed in order to achieve her goals had seemed like a fine idea. But lately she felt... different. She wanted him. She did not crave just any man, and she did not want Julian in order to control him. She simply wanted him. Sometimes she actually ached for him.

She had never ached for anyone or anything. Before being given to King Sebastian, she had been trained as a lover. All the older women of the village had shared their knowledge with her. They had instructed her. How to move, how to seduce. How to touch, where to touch. From the age of fifteen, when she had been chosen, no man had been allowed to speak to her. She had been protected, guarded and cared for. When the old king stepped down from the throne and put his only son in his place, she was Sebastian's gift from his father. A virgin who knew how to please a man. What more could a man want?

Sebastian already had a concubine, but as he and Emelda had been together for three years and produced no heir, the new king could not refuse his father's gift. And so he came to her. As king, he was entitled to as many concubines as he desired. Even if he took a wife, he would be allowed his pleasures.

Sex was a task. A not altogether unpleasant one, but a task all the same. It had never been, not even in the later days when Sebastian so rarely came to her, an ache. Or a joy. She had never dreamed of a man taking her. Touching her. Filling her. Until now.

Julian was unlike any man she had ever known. No other man would have soothed her during the storm, no other man would have held her without expecting something more in way of thanks. She fingered the gold rose that lay against her chest. A man who did not care for her at all would not give her something so precious. His ideas about marriage were maddening, his lessons on decorum and propriety were often annoying, and still she felt something new and different growing inside her. She had been taught all aspects of physical love, but no one had ever spoken to her of the heart. She had seen this kind of love, though, in a few couples on Puerta Sirena who at times seemed to need nothing and no one else but one another. Some nights she was teased with a fleeting memory of love she could not quite grasp.

She feared she was falling in love with her husband, and that was a terrible thing. When his task here was done and he left, he would break her heart.

A man like Julian DeButy would never love the Beast of Rose Hill. No matter how much she tried, how hard she wanted to be the kind of woman he could love, she knew she wasted her time. She had read his ridiculous books and pamphlets, she knew what his notion of the ideal woman was.

According to the pamphlets Julian read, the ideal woman should be meek, pious, and not too smart. She should be content to immerse herself in domestic duties, and she should have no personal desires—sexual or otherwise. If she did allow her husband to touch her, it should be grudgingly, and only for the objective of making a child. One pamphlet had even suggested that the dutiful wife should lie in her bed and think of something more pleasant than what her foul husband was doing to her. He, of course, was being unmercifully driven by that monster lust that a man could not control but a woman must. What hogwash.

Anya was not that woman and never would be. She had said it herself, on one of their first days as man and wife: He might transform her on the outside, but inside... inside she would not change. Julian knew that better than anyone.

* * *

Julian insisted that she not again disturb him while he was bathing. Her more perverse nature might have compelled her to disobey, but he had blushed so prettily as he had sent her packing that she had decided to obey. For now.

An overly warm day had sent him to the bath earlier than usual. They had spent much of the afternoon in the garden, talking about the books they were reading while Julian tried his best to reform her way of walking. He had worked up quite a sweat, and said he needed a nice, cold bath.

Anya, who always knew what she wanted and how to get it, was torn. She wanted her husband in her bed, but she did not want to drag him there. She wanted him to come to her of his own volition—not because she enticed him, not because she appealed only to what his damned pamphlets referred to as his baser instincts.

She wanted him to love her, but of course that was impossible. But surely he could want her enough to make their remaining days and nights together memorable.

Anya walked into the south parlor, where Valerie sat diligently poking her needle into an uncooperative piece of linen. Grandmother had tried to interest Anya in embroidery, but after attempting the chore for a grand total of five minutes, Anya had thrown the tangled results at Peter, very nearly stabbing the man in the eye with the needle.

Valerie lifted her head and sighed. "Oh," she said softly, "it's you."

In the past weeks, Anya had been remembering more and more about the first years of her life in this house. Flashes of memory she told no one about. One fact came through loud and clear: Valerie, whose father had been Anya's father's brother and whose mother had died when she was a baby, had been her friend. Not quite two years older than Anya, Valerie had been the leader. The two girls, and a slightly older and more annoying Seymour, had practically grown up together while their fathers had been at war, and then when the family had begun to rebuild itself.

So why did Valerie hate her so now? And she did hate. The emotion was unmistakable in her pale blue eyes.

Anya took a deep breath. "May I sit with you for a while? Julian is taking a bath."

Valerie narrowed her pale blue eyes suspiciously. "I suppose." She returned to her embroidery. Valerie was no more talented at the craft than Anya had been, and yet she continued to try.

Valerie was the perfect granddaughter. She was the kind of woman Grandmother wanted Anya to be. Demure, sweet, and usually silent.

"Why do you hate me?"

Valerie lifted her head and put her embroidery aside. "I do not hate you, Anya...."

"You do." Anya cocked her head and studied her cousin carefully. Yes, Valerie was a little fat, but she was also pretty, blessed with fair hair, creamy skin without a single freckle, and very nice blue eyes. "Why?"

"I do not
hate
you," Valerie repeated. "But..."

"But what?" Anya prompted.

"You've turned this household upside down," the young woman said crisply, her spine straight and her nose just slightly in the air.

"I apologize. That was never my intention."

Valerie blushed bright pink. "And your behavior has been shocking."

"I am who I am. I cannot change who I have become to please anyone."

Valerie sniffled a little, as if she were suddenly on the verge of tears. "And you're not the same. I grieved for you, and then I find out you're alive after all these years... and you're not the girl I remember."

"Do you remember me?"

Valerie laid her eyes squarely on Anya. Yes, there were tears sparkling there. "Of course I remember you. You were like a sister to me. I loved you."

"You loved me?"

Valerie looked taken aback. "Of course I did." A long moment of awkward silence filled the air before Valerie continued, in an attempt to explain her confession. "We were children, of course. Not the same people we are today."

Anya studied her cousin, a woman who had been cold and distant since her return. Of course, upon that return, Anya herself had been less than hospitable. By the time she arrived she was already missing Puerta Sirena, and it had not taken her long to realize that she did not belong. But here and now she tried to piece together the memories that had been coming to her, lately. Like jagged pieces of one of Grandmother's puzzles, they were beginning to take shape. To fit together. To make sense.

"I do not remember much," Anya admitted. "But Valerie, I think I loved you, too."

Chapter 6

"Why do you have no patients?" Anya rocked once in her chair. She had placed it by the window, in the sun, and the afternoon rays warmed her bare shoulders.

Julian lifted his head from the book he was reading and raised his eyebrows as he settled his gaze on her. "I believe I have proven that I have infinite patience."

Anya grinned. "No, silly.
Patients
. Sick people. You are a doctor, why do you not treat sick people?"

This was her favorite time of the day. The morning was filled with breakfast with the family followed by lessons. How to talk, how to dress, how to walk. What to say, what not to say. Julian was most especially concerned with what not to say. But after lunch, another meal taken with the family, she and Julian retired to this room, where she traded her restrictive clothing for a couple of scarves and Julian slipped off his jacket. They read. Sometimes they talked about what they read.

Julian took a moment to consider her question. "I'm more interested in research," he said. "My grandfather was an anthropologist, and that's where my primary interests lie. While I did go to medical school and serve an internship, I have never attempted to set up a practice of my own."

"Why not?"

The question seemed to vex him, and he did not quickly come up with an answer.

"I know," she said softly.

"Oh, you do." Julian set his book aside and gave her
that look
. The one he gave her when she refused to do as he asked. The one he gave her when she lifted a vase and thought about throwing it at him. She had not thrown anything in weeks!

"You do not like sick people because they are imperfect. Like me."

"Anya, you are not imperfect."

She grinned. "I am perfect to you?"

"No. No one is perfect..."

"But you said..."

He lifted a hand to silence her. "It's ridiculous to suggest that the reason I don't see patients is because I do not like sick people."

"There is no reason to feel badly. I do not like sick people, either." She wrinkled her nose. "They are annoying, always coughing and asking for water and moaning and—"

"Anya!"

"Well, why do you not like them?"

His look faded, and she saw the man she had come to love. The real Julian. He tried to be stern, sometimes, but he was also kind. He never made her feel stupid, and he never lost his temper with her—unlike those horrible tutors who had come before him.

"They make me feel helpless," he admitted.

"But you are a doctor."

"And in my training I learned just enough to realize that I don't know nearly enough. God, that sounds awful. It makes no sense at all."

"It does make sense," she assured him.

"Research I can control," he added calmly. "No one's life is on the line. No one... depends on me to save them."

"Research is safer."

"I suppose."

"You would rather study the way other people live than to live yourself."

"I wouldn't go that far," he protested, but not very vehemently.

"I think you would make a very good doctor."

He laid his eyes on her, and her heart skipped a beat. "Thank you, but I don't agree."

"You would make a good doctor because you have a good heart and a warm soul."

He picked up his book and turned his eyes down to the pages, but she could tell he was not reading. Her observation had disturbed him.

"
Romeo and Juliet
tonight," she said with a grin. "I am going to wear one of the new gowns Grandmother bought me, but I refuse to wear that bloody corset."

"Don't curse, Anya," Julian said without lifting his eyes from the page.

"Corset is a very bad word. I apologize."

He smiled, but tried to hide it.

"You will wear one of your new suits?"

"I suppose."

Grandmother had bought them both many new clothes. More than they needed, but Grandmother said they must both dress well. After all, they were Sedleys. Anya had tried to tell her grandmother that they were not Sedleys, they were DeButys, but it had made no difference. She and Julian had been measured, pinned, poked, and prodded for days, and within a week the clothes had begun to arrive. They were still coming. Every couple of days new clothing was delivered. She much preferred the scarves.

"I like the gray suit," she said.

"I like the blue gown."

"Then I will wear it." She picked up her own book and opened to the page she had saved. It was a small book, written by a surgeon, about the treatment of bullet wounds during the War Between the States. "But I will not wear the corset."

* * *

Julian could fight wanting Anya, and he did. He fought every day. He was having a much harder time fighting the growing friendship between them. He liked her. She was honest and funny and intelligent, attributes any man might admire in a woman.