Julia London 4 Book Bundle (82 page)

The tactic worked. He and Louis were quite oblivious to the ladies, hardly noticing when Claudia rose from her chair and went to the sideboard. But Julian
did
notice the frantic whispers with the footman and then the appearance of a silver tray on which sat four small wineglasses and a bottle of wine. Not just any wine, mind you—
imported Madeira wine, sent for and received all the way from Portugal.

He would have thought nothing of it under normal circumstances. He certainly was not the only peer to have a special liking for the wine, and he certainly wasn’t the only one to have ordered it specially from Portugal on occasion. What was unusual was that he had depleted his stock, and had remarked one night—long before Sophie had run away—that he had been remiss in ordering the wine, and therefore, would be forced to wait months for it. He had not as yet put in his order.

When the footman served the wine, Claudia beamed at him as if she had just snared the fattest fish in the river. Julian looked at her with all due suspicion, but she very happily turned her attention to Eugenie. It was obvious the Demon’s Spawn had recalled his remark from weeks ago and had found the blasted wine somewhere.
For him
. She had actually
thought
of him, before Sophie had even gone, and nothing could convince him otherwise.

And
if that
wasn’t enough to convince him, the incident of the silk neckcloths certainly did. Tinley, damn him, had somehow managed to ruin a handful of fine silk neckcloths Julian had had tailored in Paris. They were scorched, as if someone had attempted to iron them. Bartholomew wailed his innocence. Not Tinley—he stated he was quite clearly at fault, but for the life of him, could not remember what he had thought to do with the neckcloths. Nor had he been particularly contrite about it. After some railing on Julian’s part, the expensive neckcloths had been discarded.

Yet one by one, reasonable copies of them began to appear in his wardrobe. One day there were two of them; a fine silver silk, another gold and black pattern. The next day, the burgundy, followed by the forest green the next. Bartholomew was as perplexed as Julian was. When Tinley was questioned, the old man readily assured his lord that he had lost most of his mind, but not
that much
of it.

It was her. Claudia was the only other person who
could possibly know which ones had been lost, and as the daughter of a fastidious earl—one far too concerned with his appearance in Julian’s humble estimation—she knew very well where and how to replace them. He did not ask her, but every time he wore one of the resurrected neckcloths, he watched her closely, looking for any sign that she had done it. The little devil pretended to never notice.

There was more. Her teas had suddenly stopped, as had the bizarre events for ladies she had often staged. There was no explanation for it, but it seemed to Julian that instead of her teas, she was waiting for
him
every evening. She seemed always nearby, engaged in some quiet activity. Just
being
. And he noticed that when Claudia was just being, his snifter was filled with fine brandy, his cheroots were neatly trimmed and handy, the newspaper folded to the financial pages as he liked it.

She was driving him mad, all right, because he was actually beginning to look forward to her presence, to feel a curious sense of peace when she was near. No one needed to tell him how preposterous that was. Everyone knew that Claudia Whitney was a woman who laughed at men and filled her days as she pleased. She was the sort of woman for whom a man would do just about anything—God save all of the poor bastards—but she was not the sort of woman who would actually dote on a man. Yet she
was
doting on him! The question was, why?

It honestly frightened him on a level he could not quite comprehend. If everything had been normal, he might have become completely besotted with her … if he wasn’t already. But Julian was not going to allow that to happen. He was not going to fall any more in love with her than he already had the misfortune to have done. He was not going to believe her utterance of love that night in the library. He was not going to let the woman touch him in any way, because the
next
time she turned away from him, he was quite certain it would kill him.

Julian was up earlier and earlier each morning, his sleep growing more fitful. On one particular morning, he allowed Tinley to serve him a steaming plate of eggs and tomatoes—then proceeded to do a full inspection, as there was no telling what Tinley might think were eggs these days. Satisfied everything was in order, he dined at leisure, perusing yesterday’s newspaper, until Claudia startled him by breezing into the breakfast room at an ungodly early hour, a gorgeous smile on her face.

He extended a curt nod before jerking the paper up so that he could not see her. He could hear her, however, and heard her rummaging around the room before seating herself at the table. He waited, expecting some sort of cheerful quip to start his dismal day … but he heard nothing even as benign as a small sip of tea. Against his better judgment, he lowered his paper.

Seated directly across from him, Claudia flashed a brilliant smile that dimpled her cheeks. He lowered the paper farther, frowning mightily at her, because the Demon’s Spawn looked as if she had just swallowed one very fat canary. “Well? What are you about?” he gruffly demanded.

Still beaming, she nodded to the table between them. Julian looked down; there between them was a small pot of violets, its purple flowers a showy contrast to the dark mahogany wood. A pot like a dozen or more now scattered about the house. He stared at the little pot, and kept staring as Tinley wandered to the sideboard and helped himself to tea. “I don’t understand,” he said at last. “What is the significance?”

Claudia’s grin widened impossibly, and Julian was quite certain he did not want to know the significance. “Don’t you remember?” she asked gaily. “You had them on your table every morning at Kettering Hall—you said you liked to look at your favorite color because it helped you eat Mrs. Darnhill’s dreadful porridge.”

The Demon’s Spawn had lost her mind. “I never said any such thing,” he protested.

“Naturally you did,” Tinley interjected, and sipped casually from his teacup.

Julian cast an impatient glance at him. “Shouldn’t you be polishing something somewhere?”

“It’s
Wednesday
, my lord.”

That signified only in Tinley’s decrepit mind, and Julian was about to tell him so when Claudia insisted, “You did, Julian. The violets grew almost wild around Kettering, and there were fresh cuttings of them every morning. Jeannine and Dierdre and I have been potting them for weeks now. They’ve decided violet is their favorite color, too.”

Merriment danced in Claudia’s eyes; he felt a hard pull in his chest.
Marvelous. Fall victim to her charms again if you think your fool heart can take it
. “I did not ask for violets, Claudia. The stuff grew like weeds and the gardeners had to do
something
with it so we would not be overtaken. The servants put the violets on the morning table, not I. I merely said what came to mind to persuade four young girls to eat their porridge instead of the ghastly tarts Cook made for them.”

Her smile faded completely, and Julian had the curious sensation that a light had gone out in the room. “Oh,” she said quietly. “I thought you would be pleased.”

Yes, undoubtedly she had hoped he would be so pleased that he would return to his old habit of chasing after her like a puppy. He resented the hell out of it, particularly because he was so dangerously close to doing just that. He folded his paper and stood. “I am not particularly pleased. I have no great love of violets,” he said, and shoving his hands in his pockets, walked out of the dining room, leaving his breakfast unfinished.

And leaving Claudia absolutely fuming.

What in God’s name was the
matter
with him? Had every shred of human decency taken leave of him? She looked at Tinley; the old man shrugged, sipped his tea, then put the cup down. “His lordship is a bit testy this morning, it would seem,” he remarked.

“And
rude
,” she added irritably. She looked at the
little pot of violets, frowning. “I was so certain he
liked
violets!”

Tinley eased himself into a chair at the table. “There hardly seems much his lordship cares for of late. I find him rather dreary all in all.”

Yes. Impossibly so. Claudia stood and picked up the violets. “We
will
change that, Tinley.” Shoving the little pot in the crook of her arm, she smiled at the old butler. “Or die trying,” she chirped, and marched out of the breakfast room.

After much internal debate, she decided against putting the pot with all the others, as this one had been especially decorated for Julian. The girls had spent what seemed hours laboring over the pot for their uncle, so Claudia at last entered his dark study to put the forlorn little plant in a prominent position on his desk. He could not possibly miss it—she just hoped he didn’t toss it aside as he had every other gesture she had made to reach out to him. Particularly since violets were so bloody difficult to come by this time of year.

She folded her arms across her middle as she considered her placement of the little pot, trying very hard not to give in to the despair that had plagued her these last weeks. Yesterday, Doreen had cautioned her to be patient, reminding her that what she had done was not easy to forgive. Rocking in that chair of hers, she calmly informed Claudia that it might take months, if not years, for Julian to forgive her, then had tactfully pointed out that he might
never
forgive her.

What if he never forgave her? Claudia shifted her gaze to the drawn curtains, great swaths of heavy velvet that shut the world out from this room, just as Julian had shut the world out of his heart. How would she possibly exist in darkness like this? How would she survive the sunrise every morning, the sunset every evening, and all the lonely hours in between? God, how would
Julian
survive? He was despairing, drowning in it. It was painfully obvious—he wasn’t sleeping, hardly eating, and the dark shadow of worry grew deeper under his eyes each day.

She had helped to do it to him, she knew, but she could change it only if he would let her. Yet he stubbornly shut her out as he did the rest of the world, refusing to let her in. And that was killing them both.

With a firm shake of her head, Claudia pivoted on her heel and marched out of the study. One thing was certain—she would never survive if she dwelled on it every waking hour. Her best course was the same that had always sustained her—to stay frightfully busy. All those years waiting for her father to notice her, she had stayed busy. Waiting for Phillip to call, she had stayed busy. And when she had been forced into this marriage, she had done the same, not letting a single moment of unplanned space exist, not one bit of time in which she might think or feel or hope.

It was not easy—the guilt and loneliness she felt in this house was only made worse by the scandal Sophie’s elopement had visited upon this family. Lord Dillbey had delighted in it, using it as a platform to warn everyone at supper parties across all of Mayfair that Claudia Dane’s ideas would lead to ruination for women everywhere. There was no doubt that the entire Kettering family was suffering from their scandals, and as for her, no one would come to a tea now if her life depended on it.

So she spent her time with Jeannine and Dierdre, Ann and Eugenie, Doreen, and her weekly call to Sophie.

When she arrived at the Stanwood home later that afternoon, another new and harried footman greeted her—servants never seemed to last more than a day in this house. Apparently, the poor man had not received the proper instruction in being a footman as of yet, because he left her in the vestibule while he went off to find Sophie. That was why Claudia had the misfortune to encounter Stanwood. He strode into the vestibule as if he was the king himself, another footman on his heels.

A lecherous grin spread his lips the moment he saw her. “My, my, look who has come to call, Grimes. Lady Kettering.” He extended his hand, palm up. Reluctantly, Claudia put her hand in it, repulsed when his lips moved
over her gloved knuckles. He took his time in releasing her hand, his grin widening.

She resisted the urge to wipe her hand on her cloak.

“My wife did not mention she was expecting you. I wonder why not? Perhaps she is sensitive to your unfortunate reputation? Hmmm? Do you suppose?” he asked as he casually fit a leather glove onto his hand.

The man was an ass. Conscious of the footman, Claudia merely smiled. “I can’t imagine why she didn’t mention it. I call every Wednesday afternoon.”

“I usually don’t allow Sophie to have callers unless I am present,” he continued, meticulously fitting the second glove. “But I rather suppose I might make an exception in your case. I am certain that your visit will be quite circumspect, given your own dilemma.”

All right, she had gone past being sickened to being quite infuriated. “I beg your pardon, sir, but what
dilemma
would that be?”

With a dark chuckle, Stanwood had the audacity to chuck her under the chin as if she were a child. “My hat, Grimes,” he said to the footman, then smiled again at Claudia. “Forgive me for attempting to be gentle. I was referring, Lady Kettering, to your ruination. They say he had you on a table—is that true?”

Lord above, what she wouldn’t give to strangle the breath from his throat! “Actually, it was a workbench,” she politely corrected him, acutely aware of the dark color flooding the poor footman’s face.

Stanwood laughed roundly and moved toward her until he was standing very near, towering over her, his eyes stone cold. Claudia’s stomach did a nauseating little flip; a kernel of fear rooted in her and began to grow rapidly. Miraculously, she held her ground, meeting his gaze head on. “I assume that you work hard to repair your tattered reputation, madam. And I further assume that in doing so, you would not wish to embroil yourself in more scandal, and therefore, would not advise Sophie to any foolishness. I will allow you to call.” His gaze fell to her mouth; his tongue flicked slowly across his bottom lip.