Tarleton's Wife (39 page)

Nicholas bent to whisper in her ear. “I suppose you’re too tired…”

Julia blushed, even as her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a giggle. The major and Mrs. Tarleton repeated their congratulations to the proud parents and made a hasty exit.

Babies were not the only impossibility. By the time they reached Julia’s bedchamber, she had not only swallowed her pride but digested the last bitter morsel. Lust, if not love, triumphed. The day, which had started so badly, ended remarkably well.

* * * * *

November 2, 1810, was a day of somnolence at The Willows. Meg Runyon rested from her labor with her husband hovering nearby, while the maids vied to fetch and carry and catch a glimpse of newest addition to the household. Sophy Upton admitted her years, not leaving her bed until late morning. Nor were the master and mistress of The Willows seen until well past noon. A stirring of relief blew through the household. It might be that all would be well.

But frightening tales of violence in Nottingham soon tempered the staff’s pleasure in the reconciliation of their master and his missus. Looms had been smashed in the night, drays loaded with stockings and unmentionables overturned, some said burned. Heads broken in a street riot outside two mills, one of them owned by the major. Too like the Frenchies, it was. Heads rolling on Grantley green was what it could come to. Cottagers’ heads, more like. ’Twas enough to scare a body witless.

Peters, his nerves on edge from the myriad tensions around them, so far forgot himself as to usher a visitor into the breakfast room almost as soon as Nicholas and Julia sat down to eat. “Begging your pardon, Major,” the elderly butler said, “but this young man has been waiting some time and he says his business is urgent.”

Julia listened with growing horror as the messenger confirmed what the household servants had already heard. An entire wing of the finest looms had been destroyed, reduced to pungent smoking rubble inside the red brick oven of the mill’s walls and shattered windows. A large shipment of knit goods on its way to London had been totally destroyed. Two men were dead, many injured in rioting in the street. The militia was being called out.

“Damn them!” Nicholas exploded. “Why couldn’t they have talked to me? I was willing to listen.”

“I thought they would,” Julia murmured. “I thought they could see we were trying. If they’d just given us a bit more time…” It was
her
fault. She should have known. Smug with satisfaction in her own good works, she had failed to see what was happening at the mills. Failed to curb Jack’s rabble-rousing.

As if she could.

Julia’s head sunk into her hands.

Abruptly, Nicholas dismissed the messenger, bidding him wait outside. “Is this Jack’s work?” he demanded. “Well…is it?”

“No!” Julia snapped defensively, her head coming up to glare at her husband. “At least I don’t think so,” she amended. “I know it looks bad, Nicholas. He
has
been stirring up the mill workers but I truly don’t believe he had a hand in this. He knows you well. I’m certain he understands you were going to rectify the problems at the mills. I can’t believe Jack would have anything to do with this level of violence.”

“We’ve not been too friendly these past few days,” Nicholas pointed out with a certain dry reasonableness.

“He wouldn’t!” Julia retorted, eyes huge with dread. “He would not do this. But,” once again she hung her head, “it’s quite possible his past words and actions, might have stirred up those who did.”

Nicholas pushed back his chair, pausing long enough to tilt up his wife’s face and place a light kiss on her lips. “I’m sorry, my dear. This is not how I planned to spend the day.” A wicked un-major-like grin momentarily lit his stern features. “I was, in fact, thinking of spending the afternoon in bed.”

In answer to this blatant attempt to lighten the situation, his wife rewarded him with a tremulous smile. “I assure you I’ll be here,” she promised softly. “And, Nicholas…take care.”

For a moment their eyes locked, exchanging vows that their personal truce would last. The major turned on his heel and left to join the messenger on the ride back to Nottingham.

Chapter Nineteen

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Peters said to the mistress of the house, who was fully engaged in a one-sided conversation with the tiny bundle in her arms. “You’ve a visitor, Mrs. Tarleton. Come alone on horseback, she has, without so much as a groom to bear her company. I attempted to tell the young lady you were not receiving callers, ma’am but she insisted, saying the matter was of some urgency.” The butler hesitated, clearing his throat. “’Tis the young Spanish lady, missus, though I fear I cannot repeat her name if my life should depend on it.”

“Doña Violante is
here
?” Julia gasped. The baby, sensing her disquiet, began to howl.

“In the drawing room, ma’am,” Peters intoned, his face elongated to its most lugubrious expression.

Automatically, Julia cooed at the baby, hushing him gently before returning him to his mother. “Hell and the devil!” Julia muttered under her breath. “Do I look all right, Meg? No, don’t tell me. I look haggish, I know I do. And twice the chit’s age, to boot, for all there’s less than four years between us.”

“You’ll be fine,” Meg assured her. “It’s her who needs the comfortin’, I’m thinking. Go and be kind to the girl. She’ll be needing it.”

“She’s right, Meg is,” said Daniel. “’Tis yourself has won the game and now’s time to be gracious about it.”

“You’d best see what she wants,” Meg urged. “It may not be what you think at all. With all the queer happenings these days, there’s little would surprise me. Go now, missus and come back to tell us all about it.”

Violante Modestia Vila Santiago was small, exquisitely beautiful and possessed of a figure few seventeen-year-olds could boast. Her creamy cheeks were ornamented with a blush of dusky rose. Her unadorned lips would have been the envy of every woman, painted or unpainted, in London society. Long black lashes framed her liquid chocolate eyes. Though confined in a severe chignon, her hair shone with the luster of a black pearl.

When this flawless creature rose to her feet, her wide eyes fixed on her hostess with considerable apprehension, Julia was assailed by a wave of utter depression. She was an elephant. An ancient crone. A gauche pretender to the fringe of society. Before her was dainty beauty, elegance and a family tree stretching back beyond the crusades. There was no way, no possible way, she could compete with this exquisite child.

Nicholas, what game are you playing? How could you allow me to hope?

The flawless child sank into an equally flawless curtsey, swiftly expressing her profound appreciation to Señora Tarleton for agreeing to see her. When both women were seated, they studied each other in candid silence. Julia could only confirm what her first glance had shown. Doña Violante was a gem among women. When the girl gave a small quick nod as if something about her hostess met with her approval, Julia could only suppose the younger woman was pleased by her own superiority over her rival. That the Spanish girl might find consolation in being bested by a worthy opponent never occurred to her.

“I have practiced the words I wish to say to you, Mrs. Tarleton,” Violante began in her soft charmingly accented English. “Your language is not easy for me. I beg you will allow me to say all I have prepared before you speak, or I fear I will forget what I must tell you.”

Julia could not help but be touched by the girl’s earnestness. “I speak passable Spanish, Doña Violante. It is not necessary for you to speak English.”

“Oh but I must!” the girl cried, lapsing into Spanish. “Your soldiers have died for my country. Your country has given me a home. It is important that I speak English. Ah, bah! And so soon I forget. I am an idiot!”

As was her habit in times of stress, Julia clasped her hands together so tightly the knuckles turned white. The worst of it was, she was in danger of liking this devastatingly dangerous rival. She swallowed convulsively, found her voice and politely encouraged Violante to say what she wished to say.

For a moment the younger girl shut her eyes, willing the awkward English words to mind. Her lashes seemed to reach halfway down her cheeks. Julia ground her teeth, her charity short-lived.

“I wish to say this, señora,” Violante announced in slow, careful English. “In my country seventeen years is past the age when a girl should be married. I was betrothed almost at birth to a young man of good family but he went to Madrid when the monster Bonaparte turned on us and made his brother king. Ricardo died there in the early days of the riots. I was only fifteen and did not know him well—we had met only a few times—but I was very sad for him. And Carlos—my brother Carlos—was also greatly affected by what was happening in our country.” Violante paused, her dark eyes fixed on the past. “Only a few weeks after Ricardo’s death, Carlos left home to join the
guerrillero
bands which were forming in the mountains.”

Violante seemed to find her gloved hands of great interest, studying them minutely before lifting her eyes to Julia. “Those were very bad times,
señora
. My foolish country had thought the little Corsican a friend and now his soldiers marched over our land taking anything, everything, they wanted. When Nicholas was ill and Carlos brought him to us, it was impossible for me not to love him. The friend of my beloved brother, a handsome major who nearly gave his life for my country. And for him, for Nicholas—you
must
understand,
señora
—for him it was also very easy to love where he found comfort and peace after so much war.”

And such great beauty and charm, Julia conceded, her heart aching. She opened her mouth to speak but Violante forestalled her with a wave of her white-gloved hand. “No, allow me to finish, please,
señora
.

“When Carlos died, there was no time to think. We left our home and country and will be eternally grateful to Nicholas for saving us and bringing us here. But the truth of the matter, when there was time to reflect, was that a marriage with the major was no longer a good match for me. Oh, I was infinitely jealous of you,
señora
. I was so angry you would not believe! And hurt. But those were the reactions of a child and I can no longer afford to be a child.”

Julia, astonished as she was, began to catch a glimmer of what Violante was trying to say. With great forbearance she bit her tongue and kept silent.

“You see,” said Violante with increasing confidence and determination, “I am the only heir now. An
hidalga
of very ancient family and I must marry a man of my own country, someone who will live on our land and guard the honor of Santiago de Compostela and the people who depend on us for their lives. I am not unhappy about this obligation. I consider it a great privilege and am pleased I have finally grown up enough to understand that my heart must lie with the land of my ancestors. You can understand this, I think,
señora
.”

In her overwhelming relief Julia was almost unable to speak at all. “Yes,” she breathed. “And I-I am so very grateful you have told me this.”

“
Bueno
,” Violante approved. “I am glad I came, although Papa will be furious.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. From woman of the world she had suddenly returned to being the seventeen-year-old she actually was.

Julia decided that Violante’s candor was deserving of equal honesty in return. “I was exceedingly jealous of you too,” she admitted. Sparkling blue eyes met liquid brown and matching smiles dawned in mutual empathy.

The two young women settled down to tea and an additional half-hour’s conversation—in Spanish—while a surprising number of servants found excuses to hover anxiously outside. Meg Runyon dispatched Daniel to find out what was going on. Even Sophy Upton and Pamela Tarleton were not above several casual passages through the hallway to discover if any news was forthcoming. The obvious cordiality between the two young women as Doña Violante took her leave was enough to put the entire household in a twitter.

When the door closed behind the intrepid young visitor, Julia gave a few words of smiling reassurance to her mother-in-law, then swept Sophy off to Meg’s room where the three old friends indulged in a few moments of unadulterated triumph. For the first time since those terrible days in Spain it appeared that true happiness might be returning to their lives.

Later, Julia would think of burning rose petals and wonder if a hint of Hallowe’en magic accounted for the triumph in love while leaving the rest of their problems unresolved.

Growing worse, in fact.

* * * * *

Long after dark, when Nicholas returned from Nottingham, he brought Jack and Terence O’Rourke with him, slipping into the secret room through the ivy covered outside door. All three were grateful for a warm fire, hot punch and generous leftovers Julia provided from The Willow’s well-stocked larder. When their appetites were assuaged, talk turned to the problems at hand.

“I hear there are an astonishing number of poisonous beasties in the Antipodes,” Jack announced glumly. Once again, he was seated backward on the ladder-back chair which had miraculously survived his fight with Nicholas.

“And you deserve to meet them all, you damn fool idiot,” Nicholas retorted. “What the hell did you expect? Preach anarchy and that’s what you’ll get!”