Loving Julia (44 page)

The consensus was that actual attendance at the wedding might prove too much for Chloe. Julia had not even discussed the matter with Sebastian, but she had talked to Miss Belkerson and Mrs. Johnson. They all agreed that unless they wanted to risk subjecting Sebastian to a nasty scene, it would be wiser to keep the child away.

Julia did mean to include her in as much of the celebration as was possible under the circumstances. She had already told Chloe, with the help of her doll, that she would be staying at White Friars with her and her papa forever. She had also explained that after the very special ceremony that would take place on this day, she hoped that Chloe would come to like her as much as she, Julia, had come to like Chloe.

Chloe had said nothing, but Julia had thought that she understood. Now she meant to go to the nursery to show the little girl her beautiful dress; she had already learned that the child loved clothes, and indeed any pretty thing. She had a gift for Chloe, too: a small replica of her wedding bouquet of creamy white roses and baby’s breath. Chloe would like that, Julia thought as Emily carefully threw the lace veil over her hair and anchored it with the circlet of creamy roses that matched the ones in her bouquet.

“Oh, Miss Julia, you do look a picture.” Emily sighed as she stood back to survey her handiwork.

Julia, looking at herself in the cheval glass, had to agree. Her wedding dress was of white lace over satin, with the satin underdress cut away in a modest scoop above her breasts so that only the filmy lace covered her neck and arms. Seed pearls painstakingly sewn by Miss Soames to accentuate the delicate pattern of the lace swirled over the slim bodice and the full, graceful lines of the skirt. With the demi-train in the back and the floor length lace veil, her bridal outfit was a dream come true. Indeed, in those long ago days she had never even dared to dream of such a dress; or imagined that one so exquisite could exist. But now she was the very embodiment of a bride, a vision in white. Even her skin was velvety pale. The only touches of color about her were the ebony of her upswept hair and winged eyebrows, the gleaming gold of her eyes, and the soft rose of her

mouth. Julia imagined Sebastian’s reaction as he watched her come down the stairs to him. The blue of his eyes would deepen, and he would smile….

A knock sounded on the door, effectively banishing her daydreams. It would not be him, she knew. Everyone from Mrs. Johnson to Johnson to Leister to Emily to the footmen and parlor maids had insisted that it was bad luck for a groom to see his bride on their wedding day before the actual ceremony. He had laughingly agreed to stay out of her way. He was probably in his rooms now, Julia thought, picturing him donning the morning clothes that he had decided were most suitable for the solemnity of the occasion.

“You’re looking very beautiful, Julia. Sebastian will be pleased.”

The cool, quiet voice was Caroline’s. Julia, lost in her imaginings, had not even realized that Emily had admitted her soon to be sister-in-law. She smiled affectionately at the other woman, who was looking very lovely herself in a powder blue silk dress. Caroline had insisted on coming down for the ceremony, to provide family support, she said, and would be standing with them. Julia deeply appreciated Caroline’s show of loyalty after the scandal they had brought down on her head. Julia would have welcomed her without reservation if she had not brought the dowager countess with her. But Sebastian’s mother had come as well, and would be present, she said, at the ceremony. Julia was inclined to view this seeming olive branch with grave suspicion, but it seemed to please Sebastian, so she said nothing of her numerous reservations. If it made Sebastian happy to have his mother with them on their wedding day, then she would bear the woman with good grace. Unless she said something typically nasty about Sebastian, or Chloe.

“And dreamy,” Caroline added with a hint of humor as Julia was slow to respond to her remark. Julia’s smile widened as she acknowledged the truth of that—she could not seem to keep her mind on anything today—and returned Caroline’s compliment with utmost sincerity.

“Thank you. Well, we are quite the mutual admiration society, but that is not why I have come to you at this moment. I ran into Miss Belkerson in the hall, and she tells me that she has not seen Chloe all morning. She bade me ask you if the child was with you, but,” Caroline finished, her eyes sweeping the chamber, “obviously she is not.”

“No, I haven’t seen her,” Julia said, frowning. “Has Miss Belkerson been looking for her long?”

“For about three-quarters of an hour, I gather. Perhaps the best thing to do, as the child is not with you, would be to have some of the menservants look around the grounds. Ordinarily I would not worry, but …”

“But?”

Caroline looked oddly hesitant for a moment. Then with a quick shake of her head, she said, “She may be upset about the wedding. It’s hard to tell, of course, with her. But last night when I visited her I thought she seemed a little more … brittle, I suppose, than usual.”

“Yes.” Julia frowned abstractedly. Chloe had not, to her knowledge, disappeared since her own return to White Friars. From what Miss Belkerson had said, it was something she only did when she was upset. Had she understood more about the wedding than Julia had realized, and had the knowledge upset her? Julia had carefully avoided telling her that she would be her new mother, but perhaps she had overheard some of the servants gossiping. Instinctively Julia knew that Chloe would find the idea of a new mother wildly upsetting.

“I believe I know where she may have gone,” Julia said slowly. “There is a place she sometimes goes when she is upset. Emily, unfasten this dress, if you please. I am going for a quick walk, I believe.”

“Julia! You can’t go anywhere! You’re marrying Sebastian in two hours!” Caroline sounded aghast.

“I should be back in half that with Chloe, if I’m right. Come, Emily, do as I say.”

“Yes, Miss Julia.” Emily sounded extremely disapproving as she did as she was bid. The veil and dress were reverently laid aside, and Julia, at her direction, was buttoned into a daydress of white sprigged, pale yellow muslin. Her satin slippers were replaced with sturdy walking shoes, and she was ready.

“At least tell me where you’re going, so that I may tell Sebastian if you should happen to leave him standing there at the altar with no bride in sight.” Caroline’s normally placid voice was faintly tart.

Julia smiled. “I would never in my life leave Sebastian standing at the altar! He wouldn’t like that one bit. And if you must know, I am going to the old monastery where I discovered Chloe one day when she ran away from her governess before.”

“The old monastery,” Caroline said slowly, her eyes clouding. “Chloe goes there? Do you think you should go there alone, Julia?”

“Because of what happened to Elizabeth, do you mean? I don’t believe in ghosts, Caroline—and I think that is where Chloe will be.”

“Would you like me to come with you?”

Julia smiled at her affectionately. She could sense Caroline’s distaste for the place where her cousin had died, and yet she was enough of a friend to offer to accompany Julia there.

“Thank you, but no. I think this is something that Chloe and I can best work out alone.”

“As you wish,” Caroline said quietly, her eloquent shrug telling Julia that her friend thought her crazy, even if she wouldn’t argue with her anymore.

“I’ll be back as soon as I possibly can. Which will be in plenty of time, I promise, so don’t look so disapproving, the pair of you!” With this half-laughing, half-exasperated remark, Julia left the room.

Caroline looked after her with clouded eyes, while Emily, who was lovingly smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from the bridal dress, signified her opinion of such carryings-on on one’s wedding day with a loud sniff.

The walk over the heath would have been very pleasant at any other time. The sky was a gorgeous bright blue that reminded her irresistibly of the color of Sebastian’s eyes, and the tiny leaves of the sturdy green shrubs were a vibrant green. Birds and small animals fluttered and scurried about their business, while the heady scent of the heath itself rose to curl about Julia’s nostrils. But she barely noticed the spicy scent; her thoughts were all centered on the small girl who was in all likelihood crying her eyes out in the bell tower of the ruined monastery that was even now visible to her as she topped the small rise.

She stood for a moment, shading her eyes as she looked at the magnificent ruin silhouetted against the halcyon sky. But Chloe was nowhere in sight. Julia sighed. She estimated that she had been gone for nearly twenty minutes already, which didn’t leave much time to extract Chloe from the tower, return with her to White Friars, and then get into her bridal regalia again. But the passage of time was not the only reason for her rising uneasiness, she realized; she was conscious suddenly of a strange reluctance to approach the place where Elizabeth had met her death. Only the thought of Chloe’s small figure as she had seen her before, huddled and crying heartbrokenly in the place where her mother had spent her last minutes on earth, kept her from turning back.

It was all imagination, of course, but as Julia approached the monastery she felt she was not alone. It was the same feeling that had plagued her during her walks about the heath the previous summer. Now, as then, she could see no one else around. If it was a human being who was responsible for the eerie feeling…. She was being ridiculous, Julia told herself firmly as she clambered over the fallen rocks that blocked the monastery’s entrance. Of course Elizabeth’s ghost was not following her about. How absurd could one get?

Still, when she stood inside the little chapel, and felt the sudden chill caused by coming inside the ancient stone walls after just having been in the warm summer sun, Julia could not repress a shiver—and it was not from the chill. The sun was shining through the broken window just as it had been the one previous time she had been here, only this time the red glow beamed down on the arched entryway to the tower. Julia walked slowly toward it. Her reluctance was growing ever stronger. Again she had to fight the urge to turn tail and run.

She compromised, standing at the foot of the stairs and calling out.

“Chloe! Chloe, dear, come down, please! It’s Julia!”

But of course Chloe did not appear on the stairs, as Julia had known she would not. The child would probably not answer a summons like that at the best of times. And today, as upset as she must be, she would likely not even hear it.

The feeling that all was not right grew stronger, but Julia told herself firmly that she was simply allowing her imagination to run away with her. Of course she had nothing to fear merely by being in this place. Even if Elizabeth did haunt the place, she would have no reason to harm her unless of course she was jealous that Sebastian meant to replace her and … But she was being ridiculous, she told herself firmly as she picked up her skirts in both hands and began a careful ascent of the slippery stone stairs. There were no such things as ghosts.

It seemed to take forever to reach the top of the stairs. Julia felt as if she were climbing through air that grew ever thicker, intentionally impeding her progress. But of course that was just her imagination, too, and her imagination that caused her heart to pound when she saw a golden glow suffuse the open trap door that led into the aperture where the bell had once been.

Taking her common sense firmly in hand, Julia climbed the

two steps remaining and pulled herself up into the small room. She saw at once that it was empty, and that the golden glow was caused by the bright summer sunlight streaming in through the open archway. No ghost at all, of course.

But also no Chloe. Her walk and her worry had been in vain. But where could the child have gotten to? Struck by a dreadful thought, Julia crossed to the knee-high stone wall across the open archway through which the bell had swung. Placing her hand carefully on the wall beside her for support, Julia peered down.

Two hundred feet below, past the blackened walls of the monastery and the craggy stone cliffs with their outcroppings of heath, lay the Wash. Spray darkened rocks stood stolidly while creaming waves washed over them, retreated, and washed over them again. The salty smell of the sea was faint so high above it, as was the muted roar of the breakers. Far louder were the cries of the seagulls and terns as they circled and wheeled not far from where Julia stood.

Of course there was no small figure smashed on the rocks below, and Julia shook her head at her own fancies. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Then she saw it. In the tiny graveyard. The white cowled figure with the face of death, looking up toward where she stood.

Julia wheeled away from the arched opening through which Elizabeth had fallen to her death, her hands pressed to her heart which was pounding wildly in her chest. Her eyes were huge with horror. This was the vision she had seen in her dream; this was what the villagers saw when one of the Peyton family was facing death. Good God, had it been the last sight Elizabeth had seen on earth? Was it the last sight
she
would ever see?

She had to get out of the tower—now. Just as instinctively as a rabbit knows to run from a fox, Julia knew that her life depended on getting out of that bell tower as quickly as possible. But her limbs, nearly frozen with terror, seemed strangely reluctant to move.

She was stumbling toward the trap door when a head emerged through it. Her heart stopped, then started again as the sunlight glinted off gleaming fair hair.

Sebastian? No. Even with the golden sunlight half-blinding her and terror at what she had just seen befuddling her senses, she knew this was not Sebastian. She backed away from the figure even as it pulled itself through the trap door. As it came to its feet the long white robes in which it was enveloped opened to reveal the glittering sharp blade of a butcher knife. Her eyes fastened on that knife for a long, horror-struck moment, then lifted to the face of the figure beneath the cowl.