Joan Wolf (18 page)

“Why don’t you take them?” asked Lord Rutherford with a noticeable lack of his usual courtesy.

John removed his handkerchief. “My lip is still bleeding,” he said regretfully. With tight mouth and angry eyes. Lord Rutherford herded his tenants out of the Minton morning parlor and toward the side door they had come in a short time before.

There was silence in the morning parlor after they left. Then Julianne looked at John. “You enjoyed that!” she said accusingly.

He patted his lip with the handkerchief one last time. “I like a good, dirty fight.” He grinned a little crookedly, favoring his cut lip. “Alone at last,” he said.

“I shouldn’t count on that,” she replied after a minute, striving to keep her voice normal.

“True.” He looked at her and there was no trace of amusement at all in his face. “You are driving me insane, do you know that?”

“I haven’t meant to,” she replied honestly.

“I know you haven’t.” His voice sounded bitter. He stood up and came over to tower in front of her. What he would have done next she never knew for at that moment there was the sound of her grandmother’s voice in the doorway.

“Julianne! Whatever has happened? Rutherford told me you were in need of my assistance.” John had only time to mutter, “Meet me after supper by the boathouse,” before the dowager duchess was upon them.

Chapter Twenty-three

Remembrance so followeth me of that face

So that with teary eyen swollen and unstable

My destiny to behold her doth me lead;

Yet do I know I run into the glede.

—Sir Thomas Wyatt

The dowager duchess dismissed John and took Julianne upstairs to have her dress attended to. Then it was time to repair to the dining room for supper, and Julianne sat next to Lord Minton and felt horribly guilty under the warm approval of his smiling gaze. She tried to make up to him for her treacherousness by being as admiring and responsive as she possibly could. She did not notice the very bleak look that crept into a pair of watching blue-green eyes.

It bothered John to watch Julianne with Lord Minton more than it did to watch her with her fiancé. He had a pretty accurate estimate of what her feelings were for Rutherford, and he did not doubt that when the pinch came he could discount the boy as unimportant. Lord Minton was different. There could be no clear-cut rivalry between him and Lord Minton. In the earl Julianne saw the father she had always longed for. John did not make the mistake of thinking her feelings were more complicated than they were. Nor did he do Lord Minton the injustice of thinking his affection for Julianne was anything other than paternal. But that was precisely why he was so dangerous to John. He could fight and conquer a romantic attachment; it was this other love that he feared would bring about his defeat. He was beginning to think that drastic measures were called for in order to put an end to Julianne’s engagement.

He was out of temper when he met her down by the boathouse at eight o’clock. The dusk was creeping in and the boats out on the lake had lanterns hanging on their sides, reflecting their glow in the sheen of the water. John assisted Julianne into a boat, lit their own lantern, and pushed off strongly with the wooden oars. He rowed for a few minutes in silence and then said savagely, “This bloody society. We have to sneak around like a pair of criminals in order to find fifteen minutes to talk to each other!”

“I am a lot freer here in England than I would be if I were living in Egypt, or any Arab country for that matter,” Julianne pointed out sensibly.

John swore in Arabic.

“I know the language,” she said gently.

They were in the middle of the lake by now. All around them lanterns floated on the darkness of the water; the boats themselves were almost indistinguishable.
He rested his hands on the oars, let the boat drift, and looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She could just see him in the light of the lantern. His hair had fallen across his forehead almost to the straight black line of his brows. His lip was just slightly swollen. She wanted very much to reach out and touch him. “I love you,” she said instead.

His head jerked up. “What did you say?”

“I said I love you,” she repeated.

“Julianne ...” He leaned forward and took her hand in his. The lamplight fell on his hair; it was so black that there was no trace of brown in it at all. At that moment the entire lake exploded with light. The fireworks had begun.

Julianne laughed a little tremulously. “There’s a conspiracy,” she said shakily.

“Yes.” He had begun to row back toward the boathouse. She could see the muscles working in his arms and shoulders as the fireworks continued to illuminate the night. The boat moved swiftly and smoothly through the water. He was very strong.

Lord Rutherford was waiting for them at the boathouse with Anne Foster. “Goodness, Lord Denham, but you row well,” said Anne while William cast a sharp eye on his fiancée’s composed face.

John smiled absently and staggered a little as he got out of the boat. “I believe I must have gotten hit in the head in that little—encounter— this afternoon, Rutherford,” he said. “I felt unaccountably dizzy out there on the water.”

Lord Rutherford, who was quite genuinely kind, put an arm under John’s. “Let me walk with you up to the house, Denham. Perhaps you should lie down for a bit.”

John leaned on him. “Perhaps I should,” he muttered and allowed Lord Rutherford to lead him off. Anne followed, begging to be allowed to help, and Julianne stayed on the landing looking after them with narrowed, speculative eyes. She didn’t believe for a minute that John had been dizzy.

Lord and Lady Minton believed him, however, and he was urged not to ride back to Lansdowne but to spend the night at Minton. He demurred at first but soon allowed himself to be persuaded. He went up to bed at ten o’clock. The rest of the house party retired at midnight and by one o’clock the house was silent. It was two o’clock, and Julianne was still lying sleepless in bed when her door opened silently and John came into the room. She was not surprised to see him. She had known all along that he had had some ulterior motive for wishing to spend the night at Minton.

He closed the door behind him and came over to stand beside the bed. She was lying back on her pillows, her hair tied loosely at the nape of her neck with a blue ribbon. The moonlight streamed in the window Julianne always insisted be left open to the sky. She didn’t move but looked up at him steadily out of dark eyes. “How is your head?” she asked composedly.

His mouth quirked a little in reply. “Better.” He sat down on the side of the bed and his shoulders blocked the moonlight. She didn’t move, didn’t say anything. “You have haunted me,” he said softly to her quiet, watching face. “For almost a year now I have not been able to get you out of my mind. I thought when I left you here and went back to Egypt that I would be rid of you. But I wasn’t.” He reached out and gently pulled the ribbon that was tying her hair. He held it up, looking at its soft blueness in the moonlight.

“Why did you come here?” she whispered.

His shoulders, clad only in a soft white shirt, looked enormous as he bent toward her. “To make love to you,” he said. “Do you want me to go away?”

Her eyes were wide and grave and dark with acceptance. “No,” she said, and with that one single word burnt all her bridges.

She melted as soon as he touched her. Her arms went up around his neck and when his hand slipped under her nightdress to caress her bare skin she trembled and shut her eyes but she did not object.

John felt that tremor and tried desperately to put some brakes on his own passion. He did not want to frighten her, he did not want to hurt her. But at last he had her where he had wanted her for months and when she arched up against him, kissing him with innocent yet passionate abandon, his control broke.

Afterwards they lay in each other’s arms, at peace. He reached out and smoothed a long strand of hair back from her cheek, then kissed her softly. “Did I hurt you?” he murmured.

He had, but it didn’t matter. “No,” said Julianne. “You didn’t hurt me.” She closed her eyes and put her cheek against his shoulder and listened to the strong, steady beat of his heart.

“You won’t marry Rutherford.”

“No.” Her voice was steady but it sounded strained.

He frowned a little. “You wouldn’t be happy with him. You must know that now.”

“Yes.” Her face remained hidden against his chest.

“You said you loved
me.”

She raised her head. “Surely you aren’t doubting that now?”

She was supporting herself on one elbow and looking down into his face. The guarded, wary look she saw in his eyes surprised her, but then they narrowed a little and quite another expression crept in. “Kiss me,” he murmured. Slowly she lowered her head until her lips met his. His mouth was gentle and she felt herself relaxing. He put his arms around her and kissed her eyes, her nose. “God, but I love you,” he muttered and then his mouth once again found hers. White fire flickered deep inside her as the soft sleepy mood of contentment receded to be replaced by the flaming rush of passion. The world receded as well and nothing was left but the delirious melting pleasure of John’s touch, of his mouth. Blindly, eagerly, passionately, she followed where he led. Afterwards she went to sleep in his arms.

Chapter Twenty-four

Such art to greve, and after to make gladd,

Such fear in love, such love in majestye.

—Sir Walter Ralegh

Julianne slept deeply and dreamlessly, making up at last for all the restless nights she had spent of late. When she awoke her room was flooded with sunlight and John was gone. She felt utterly desolate without him. Slowly she got out of bed. She was about to ring for her maid when she saw an envelope propped up on her dressing table. It said merely “Julianne.” With a curious reluctance she picked it up, hesitated, and then opened it. His strong, masculine handwriting leaped up at her.

I am going to London for a short time. That ought to give you a chance to break your engagement to Rutherford. I’ll come to see you at your grandmother’s.

Be patient, sweetheart. I am trying to work things out for us.

John

Julianne read the letter through three times and then she tore it up into little pieces and threw it away. There was a curious, almost blind look in her eyes that her maid assumed was residual sleepiness. “I’ve brought you a nice cup of chocolate, Miss Wells,” she said encouragingly. “You had a good, long sleep. It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“Is it?” said Julianne, absently accepting the cup. Obediently she drank it and allowed Nancy to dress her in a morning frock of soft blue muslin. She went down the stairs rather like a sleepwalker, avoided the breakfast room, and went out into the garden. Her fiancé found her there fifteen minutes later.

“Would you like to go for a drive with me, Julianne?” he asked her.

She hesitated, then replied firmly, “Yes, William. I would. I want to talk to you.”

They didn’t say anything else until they were in his phaeton. Then he said briefly, “Let’s go to the folly. We can be private there.”

She nodded gratefully, leaned back, and tried not to think as the carriage was drawn briskly along the beautiful avenue of Minton. After a while William turned off to a side path that led them eventually to the small, almost comically Gothic structure that had been put up by Lord Rutherford’s grandfather. He helped Julianne out of the phaeton and they walked together toward the sixty-year-old medieval ruin. They stopped under the shade of a huge beech tree and Julianne said simply, “William, I cannot marry you.”

There was a white line around his mouth. “I had an idea that you were going to say that. It’s Denham, isn’t it?”

Julianne hesitated, looked at him, and said, “Yes.”

He took her shoulders in his hands and stared down into her lovely troubled face. “I love you, Julianne.” His voice sounded harsh.

She smiled a little. “No, William. You don’t love me. You love the person you thought I was.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She reached up and very tenderly touched his cheek. “Yes, you do. You love the Julianne who held your tackle while you fished, who listened to your hunting stories, who let you show her how to drive and how to play cards. You don’t love the Julianne who has to get away by herself sometimes because she is dying of suffocation from too many people. You don’t love the independent, self-sufficient Julianne who took care of herself and her father for five years in Africa. You don’t love the Julianne whose journal is going to be published by Mr. Murray.”

“I don’t mind your being independent,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, William.” She watched him steadily, her eyes narrowed with pity. “You would hate being married to a woman who is a better shot than you are.”

“You are not a better shot!” he said quickly. Her only reply was the rueful smile that crept into her eyes. He exhaled an angry breath. “Are you a better shot than Denham?”

“I don’t know. But, you see, if I were he wouldn’t be at all upset. He’d be proud of me.”

“And I suppose he’s proud of your book, too.”

“Yes,” she said very gently. “He is.”

He had been holding her shoulders all through this conversation, but now he dropped his hands and began to pace around. “If you loved him why did you say you would marry me?” he asked accusingly, coming to a halt some four feet away from her.

“I mistook my own feelings,” she replied quietly. “The blame is all mine. I thought I wanted the kind of life your mother and father have. And, then, William, I liked you so much. I still do like you enormously. But I cannot marry you. It would not be fair for me to do that. You don’t want a wife who loves another man.”

“You’re right,” he said tensely. “I don’t.”

She made a small, apologetic gesture. “I am so sorry. I ought never to have allowed your parents to go through with that lovely celebration. But I did not realize myself how I felt until just two days ago. At the ball, in fact. Now I will embarrass them, and you, and I have put them to such terrible expense.”