Loving Julia (43 page)

“Mick,” she whispered, remembering. Her eyelids drooped as her body instinctively tried to block out the remembered horror with darkness.

“Don’t you dare leave me again! Julia, do you hear me?”

The fear in Sebastian’s voice brought her eyelids fluttering open. His face was so dear to her, she thought as her eyes focused lovingly on him. Even unshaven and dirty and tear stained, he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen. And he was hers—or he had been.

“Are you still angry with me, Sebastian?” The sad little whisper made him flinch. He blinked once, twice, as though to hold back the tears that made his eyes glitter like diamonds in the flickering light. His hand tightened around her fingers and he brought them to his lips again.

“That you could ask me that …” His voice broke, and for a moment he couldn’t continue. Then he seemed to get a grip on his emotions, for he went on in a low, husky rush. “No, Julia, I’m not angry with you. I never should have been angry with you. When my mother told me you had sneaked off into my study to be alone with Carlyle and I found you there kissing him, letting him touch you, I went a little crazy. I didn’t stop to think that the Julia I loved was incapable of the kind of convoluted deceit I’d spent most of my life watching. I was so jealous I didn’t stop to think anything at all. I just wanted to kill Carlyle—and hurt you as much as I was hurting. And I did. I did hurt you. I hurt you mentally, and I hurt you physically. But if it’s any consolation to you, you hurt me as much. Every time I close my eyes I can see your white face as you stared down the vultures of society that I had turned loose on you. You were every inch a lady, my own. I was never so proud of you as when I saw you walking toward that crowd with your head high and your back straight. And I can see you too, lying on that cellar floor, hurt and crying because I had made you run from me…. Christ, Julia, I’m sorry. If I could redo it I would—but I can’t. I can only ask you to forgive me. Please.”

He whispered the last word, and his eyes clung to hers, pleading with her. She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes tender as they touched on every plane and angle of that beautiful face. Then the hand he was holding turned in his, and her fingers wrapped his warmly.

“I love you, Sebastian. There’s nothing to forgive.”

He closed his eyes briefly, and a single tear trickled down the lean hard cheek. Julia felt her heart ache as she looked at him. He was so beautiful—like one of the Lord’s archangels, she had thought when she had first set eyes on him. Now she knew that if he was an angel at all, it was a very tattered and shabby one, halo severely dented by numerous falls from grace. But his flaws were part of the man and she loved him. More than anything in her life, more than her life itself. It seemed like she always had, and she knew that she always would. Despite anything and everything.

“I’ll make it up to you, my own, I swear it.” His eyes had the fierce zeal of the confessional as they bore into hers. “I’ll be so good to you. You’ll have everything you ever wanted. Clothes, carriages, servants, anything.”

The only affection he had had in the past had been the kind he had had to buy, she remembered. To him material things were the currency of love. But she would teach him better, if it took her the rest of her life. And his.

“I only want you, Sebastian. Nothing else. I love you.” She said the words patiently, as if she knew she would be repeating them many, many times over the years. Then she blinked as his face seemed to recede and then draw closer again. The buzzing was suddenly back in her ears.

“Sebastian,” she said faintly, clutching his hand. She was afraid to give in to the darkness again, afraid of what might await her in it. But even his warm grip could not keep her from the swirling void that opened up to claim her.

“Julia!” She heard him calling her with fear in his voice, missed the warmth of his hand as it abruptly disengaged from hers, heard the bang of her door crashing on its hinges and Sebastian’s voice bellowing. “Wake that damned sawbones and get him in here!”

And then the darkness caught her again and she heard nothing more.

XXXVI

“How are you feeling this morning, my love?”

It was nearly three weeks later. Julia, clad in a demure blue sprigged white nightgown with a little frill of lace around the neck, was propped up in the four poster bed in her room at White Friars. Despite Sebastian’s fears she had made a fairly rapid recovery since her first brief return to consciousness. The next day she had woken to sip a little broth, and when she had closed her eyes again it had been to sleep. Since then she had been growing stronger each day.

As soon as she had been fit to travel, Sebastian had brought her into the country to recuperate. She would do better in the fresh air of Norfolk, he told her, and she agreed. London was a bad memory to put behind her; White Friars beckoned like home.

Sebastian accompanied her, riding in the closed carriage with her throughout the two-day trip when she knew he would have preferred by far to drive himself or ride astride. She was blissfully happy despite the injuries that made her wince at every jolt. He loved her, and he showed it with every look and gesture, and that was all that mattered to her.

Since arriving at White Friars, he had pampered and cosseted her, insisting that she remain in bed. She did so to please him, even though she was feeling much better every day. She smiled to herself as she watched him through the day—dismissing Emily in the mornings to bring her chocolate and rolls himself, spending the afternoons reading newspapers aloud to her when she knew that he must be going crazy from so much inactivity. At White Friars he was accustomed to spending much of the time out-of-doors, and the early June weather was glorious. Julia found this evidence of his devotion both touching and secretly amusing. Knowing Sebastian, she was sure that such solicitude could not last too much longer.

“I’m fine, Sebastian. Really.” She smiled at him as he carefully deposited the breakfast tray across her knees. He bent to drop a gentle kiss on the side of her mouth, then straightened to look down at her critically.

“You look a little better,” he admitted. “At least you don’t still have huge purple and black rings around both eyes. They’ve faded to kind of a yellowish gray. Very becoming.”

“Thank you, kind sir.” Though her voice was wry, she dimpled at him, trying not to wince as the smile made her bruised cheeks ache. Every evidence of her pain hurt him more than it did herself, she knew. She patted the bed beside her, and he sat down where she indicated, accepting a roll she proffered. She watched him fondly as he munched, marveling as she always did at his good looks. Today, dressed in baggy tweed coat and suede pantaloons that on any other man would have merely looked comfortably sloppy, he was the very picture of the elegant aristocrat in the country. It would be interesting to see over the course of the next thirty or so years if there were any circumstances under which he could look less than handsome.

She was inclined to doubt that there were.

“What are you thinking about, my own?” He downed the last of the roll as he spoke, and helped himself to a sip of her chocolate.

“How handsome you are,” she said, smiling at him. He looked startled, then grinned back at her as he replaced the cup.

“You’re wasting your time,” he advised her. “Flattery will not lure me into your bed. Nothing will, until you’ve fully recovered.”

“I wasn’t trying—” Julia began indignantly, glowering at him, only to laugh as she realized that he was teasing her. “Conceited beast!” she chastized him without heat, watching him with open pleasure as he came to his feet beside the bed, and stretched with lazy grace.

“I have a present for you,” he said. When she looked at him inquiringly he reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small box. Julia’s eyes widened at the sight of it. Even without opening it, she knew it must contain a ring.

And what a ring it was! Its huge central diamond was surrounded by marquise topazes set in yellow gold. Julia stared at it speechlessly, then looked up at him. He was frowning down at her, his lean body slightly tense. Her long silence had apparently made him uneasy.

“I had it sent down from London. If you don’t like it, we can get something else.” His diffident tone was so unlike him that Julia smiled.

“I love it.” Her soft assurance must have been utterly convincing because he dropped down to sit on the bed beside her again, taking the box from her. She watched the long fingered hands as he removed the ring from its box, then caught her left hand and slid the ring onto her third finger. He pressed a kiss to the knuckle just above the ring before releasing it.

“How do you feel about short engagements?” he asked, watching her as she turned her hand this way and that, admiring the stones as they sparkled in the light streaming in through the long windows.

“How short?”

“Say, a month from today?”

That caught her attention. She looked at him, her eyes the exact color of the stones in the ring.

“Oh yes, Sebastian,” she breathed, and for once unaware of her injuries she threw herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his willing mouth. He kissed her thoroughly before he freed her, and she enjoyed the experience so much that she didn’t even mind the twinges that prickled over her cheeks from her bruised mouth, or the aching of her still sore body where it pressed close to him.

“I hurt you,” he said, concerned. He caught her upper arms in a firm yet gentle grip and held her away from him while looking down into her face.

“No, you didn’t,” she insisted, but he knew better. He put an admonishing finger over the lips he had just kissed, and frowned severely at her.

“No more of that, now. The doctor said you needed the most tender care for the next few weeks, and I mean to see that you get it. So quit tempting me, you baggage. I mean to save myself for our wedding night.”

She smiled at him, a slow sleepy smile that made tiny flickers of fire leap to life in the backs of those blue eyes.

“Am I tempting you, Sebastian?” The question was a husky, provocative murmur. He stared hard at her for a long moment, then released her arms and stood up.

“You know you are.”

“Good. Because you’re tempting me, too.”

With that, flickers in the backs of his eyes flamed to vivid life and for a moment she thought he was going to come back down on the bed beside her. But his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and he almost glared at her.

“I find that I need some exercise. If you don’t object, I think I’ll go riding. I’ll be back before luncheon, of course.”

Julia smiled at him and sank back upon her mound of pillows. It was pleasant to think that he wanted her so much that he had to leave the house to control his impulses—and equally pleasant to imagine him getting back into his normal routine. Their relationship would come to grief if he continued to treat her like a hothouse flower forever.

“I don’t object at all. Just don’t break your neck. Or anything else,” she added with a naughty smile and a downward flick of her eyes. This surprised an unwilling smile from him, and he bent down to drop another quick kiss on her mouth, straightening before she could catch and hold him.

“Just wait until after the wedding,” he threatened in a growling undertone.

“If I have to,” she pouted, peeping up at him from beneath sooty lashes. He grinned, told her that she did indeed have to wait, flicked her nose with a finger, and exited. Julia sank deeper into her pillows as she listened to the sound of his boots retreating down the hallway, feeling very content.

XXXVII

The twentieth day of July in the year of our lord eighteen hundred and forty-two was Julia’s wedding day. The ceremony was to take place at two in the afternoon in the great hall at White Friars. By noon she was completely dressed except for her veil. She wanted to have time to stop by the nursery and show Chloe her wedding finery—the little girl would love to see it, she knew.

Julia smiled as she thought of Chloe. Miss Belkerson had first brought Chloe to visit her while she was still confined to bed, and something about seeing her so battered must have touched the little girl’s heart. Twice more before Julia was allowed to get up, Chloe had come on her own to visit, peeping shyly around the doorway until Julia saw her and bade her come in.

Chloe never did—she always ran at that point—but Julia could not help but feel that the little girl considered her a friend. Perhaps the child had missed her in the months she had been absent from White Friars, she thought. Certainly Chloe remembered who she was, and seemed pleased to see her again.

Once Sebastian allowed her to get out of bed, she made a practice of visiting the little girl in her rooms every day. Sometimes she would sit and talk to Chloe through her doll. While the child never responded, she did seem to listen intently to Julia’s nonsense. At other times she would accompany Chloe and Miss Belkerson outdoors for their afternoon walk. Chloe was always quiet and well behaved on these occasions, but once in a while, as a bushy tailed squirrel scurried across their path, for instance, the little girl would stiffen and point, displaying a silent excitement and interest that gave Julia hope that she might one day be a normal child again.

As the days passed, Julia felt a flowering of affection along with a keen sense of responsibility for the child. Almost as much as she wanted to marry Sebastian, she wanted to bring Chloe into the magic circle of their love. Love was what the child needed, Julia thought, although she fought so hard against accepting it. It hurt to think of the little girl leading such a separate, unnatural life when she and Sebastian were so happy. But even if Chloe could eventually be coaxed out of her shell, it was something that could not be rushed. It would have to be done one small step at a time.

Mindful of the fiasco that had resulted the last time she had interfered, Julia had not suggested that Sebastian again attempt to befriend his daughter. And he had not tried it on his own. But she kept him informed, in the most casual way she could contrive, of her own progress with the child. She was hopeful that as time passed and Chloe grew to accept her more and more, she might eventually be able to persuade her to accept Sebastian, too. But even if that never happened, she herself intended to treat Chloe as her child. She would love the little girl, and they would see what love could do.