LOUISE ALLEN has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember. She finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past — Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Louise lives on the North Norfolk coast, where she shares the cottage they have renovated with her husband. She spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in the UK and abroad in search of inspiration. Please visit Louise’s website: www.louiseallenregency.co.uk for the latest news, or find her on Twitter @LouiseRegency and on Facebook.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

From Ruin to Riches

Back Cover Text

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Scandal’s Virgin

Back Cover Text

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Copyright

From Ruin to Riches

Louise Allen

A lord in want of a wife

Ruined and on the run, Julia Prior is in desperate straits when she meets a gentleman with a shocking proposal. Certain he is close to death, William Hadfield, Lord Dereham, sees Julia as the perfect woman to care for his beloved estate when he is gone—if she will first become his wife.…

Marriage is Julia’s salvation—as Lady Hadfield, she can finally escape her sins. Until three years later, when the husband she believes to be dead returns, as handsome and strong as ever and intent on claiming the wedding night they never had!

“Allen reaches into readers’ hearts.”

—RT Book Reviews on Married to a Stranger

To Dr Joanna Cannon for her invaluable advice and insights into Will’s illness.

Chapter One

16th June, 1814—Queen’s Head Inn, Oxfordshire

He was all power and masculine arrogance with the candlelight dancing on those long, naked limbs as he stood and poured ruby-red wine into the glass and tossed it back in one long swallow.

To be in his arms, in this unfamiliar bed, had not been what she had imagined it would be. Less tender than she had hoped, more painful than she had expected. But then, she had been very ignorant and she would be more realistic next time. Julia snuggled back into the warm hollow his body had made.

‘Jonathan?’ He would come back now, hold her in his arms, kiss her, talk more of their plans and all the uncertainties would vanish. On that headlong drive from Wiltshire he had ridden beside the chaise almost all the way and dinner in the public room below had not been the place to discuss their new life together.

‘Julia?’ He sounded abstracted. ‘You can wash there.’ He jerked his head towards the screen in the corner and poured himself another glass, his back still to her.

Unease trickled through the warmth. Was Jonathan disappointed in her? Perhaps he was simply tired, she certainly was. Julia slid from the tangled sheets, pulled one of them around her and padded over to the screen that concealed the washstand.

Making love was an embarrassingly sticky process, another small shock in an evening of revelations. That would teach her to think like a lovesick girl. It was about time she went back to being an adult woman making a rational decision to take control of her own life, she thought with a wry smile for her own romantic daydreams. This was real life and she was with the man she loved, the man who loved her enough to brave scandal and snatch her away from her relatives.

The screen overlapped one edge of the window and she reached to twitch the curtain completely over the panes of exposed glass before she dropped the sheet.

‘London Flier!’ There was the blare of a horn below, too dramatic to ignore. Julia looked through the gap as, wheels rumbling, the stagecoach pulled out of the arch from the stable yard and turned right. In a second it was gone. Strange. Now why do I think that strange?

She was too tired to puzzle over odd fancies. Julia washed, draped the sheet more becomingly and came out from behind the screen, unexpected butterflies dancing in her stomach. Jonathan was half-dressed now, seated staring into the empty grate, the stem of his wine glass twisting between his fingers. His shirt lay open, revealing the muscular flat planes of his chest, the dark arrow of hair that disappeared into his breeches... Her eyes followed it and she felt herself blush.

How cold it was away from the heat of his body. Julia poured wine and curled into the battered old armchair opposite his. Jonathan must be thinking of the next morning, of the long road north to the Scottish border and their marriage. Perhaps he feared pursuit, but she doubted Cousin Arthur would trouble himself with her whereabouts. Cousin Jane would screech and flap about and moan about the scandal, but she would be more concerned about the loss of her drudge than anything else.

The wine was poor stuff, tart and thin, but it helped bring things into focus of a kind. It was as though her brain had taken a holiday these past days and she had become nothing but an air-headed girl in love instead of the practical woman she really was.

You are in love. And you’ve thrown your cap over the windmill with a vengeance, the inner voice that was presumably her conscience informed her. Yes, but that does not mean I have to be a useless ninny, she argued back. I must think how to be of help.

The jolting, high-speed ride across country had been straightforward enough once Jonathan had explained why they were not going directly north to Gloucester and the road to the Border. Cutting north-east to Oxford and then going north would confuse pursuit and the road, once they got there, was better. They had turned on to the Maidenhead-Oxford turnpike about ten miles back, but apparently Oxford inns were wildly expensive, so this one, out of town, was the prudent option for their first night.

She would look after the money now, budget carefully, save Jonathan the worry of sorting out the bills, at least. North to the border. To Gretna. How romantic.

The north. That was what was wrong. The wine slopped from her glass staining the sheet like blood. The stage was going to London and it had turned right, the direction they had been heading when they arrived here.

‘Jonathan.’

‘Yes?’ He looked up. Those long-lashed blue eyes that always made her heart flutter were as unreadable as ever.

‘Why were we driving south for ten miles before we got here?’

His expression hardened. ‘Because that’s the way to London.’ He put down the glass and stood up. ‘Come back to bed.’

‘But we are not going to London. We are going to Gretna, to be married.’ She drew two painful breaths as he did not reply and the truth dawned. ‘We were never going to Scotland, were we?’

Jonathan shrugged, but did not trouble himself with denials. ‘You wouldn’t have come if you’d known otherwise, would you?’

How could the world change in one beat of the heart? She thought she had been chilled before, but it was nothing to this. It was impossible to misunderstand him. ‘You do not love me and you do not intend to marry me.’ There was nothing wrong with her thought processes now.

‘Correct.’ He smiled, his lovely slow, sleepy smile. ‘You were such a nuisance to your relatives, clinging on, insisting on staying.’

‘But the Grange is my home!’

‘Was your home,’ he corrected. ‘Since your father died it belongs to your cousin. You’re an expense and no one’s fool enough to marry a managing, gawky, blue-stocking female like you with no dowry. So...’

‘So Arthur thought a scandalous elopement with Jane’s black sheep of a third cousin would take me off his hands for good.’ Yes, it was very clear now. And I have slept with you.

‘Exactly. I always thought you intelligent, Julia. You were just a trifle slow on the uptake this time.’

How could he look the same, sound the same, and yet be so utterly different from the man she had thought she loved? ‘And they made you seem a misunderstood outcast so that I felt nothing but sympathy for you.’ The scheme was as plain as if it was plotted out on paper in front of her. ‘I would never have credited Arthur with so much cunning.’ The chill congealed into ice, deep in her stomach. ‘And just what do you intend to do now?’

‘With you, my love?’ Yes, there it was, now she knew to look for it: just a glimpse of the wolf looking out from those blue eyes. Cruel, amused. ‘You can come with me, I’ve no objection. You’re not much good in bed, but I suppose I could teach you some tricks.’

‘Become your mistress?’ Over my dead body.

‘For a month or two if you’re good. We’re going to London—you’ll soon find something, or someone, there. Now come back to bed and show me you’re worth keeping.’ Jonathan stood up, reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet.

‘No!’ Julia dragged back. His fingers cut into her wrist, she could feel the thin bones bending.

‘You’re a slut now,’ he said, ‘so stop protesting. Come and make the best of it. You never know, you might learn to enjoy it.’

‘I said no.’ He was a liar, a deceiver, but surely he would not be violent?

It seemed she was wrong about that, too. ‘You do what I say.’ The pain in her wrist was sickening as she resisted.

Her feet skidded on the old polished boards, the hearth rug rucked up and she stumbled, off balance. There was an agonising jolt in her arm as she fell, then Jonathan’s grip opened and she was free. Sobbing with pain and fear and anger Julia landed with a crash in the grate. The fire irons clattered around her, striking elbow and hand in a landslide of hard little blows.

‘Get up, you clumsy bitch.’ Jonathan reached out to seize her, caught her hair, twisted and pulled. It was impossible to roll away. Julia hit out wildly to slap at him and connected with a blow that jarred her arm back. With a gasp Jonathan released her. Get up, run... She rolled free, hit the foot of the bed, dragged herself up on to shaking legs.

Silence. Jonathan sprawled across the hearth, his head in a crimson pool. Her hand was wet. Julia looked down at her fingers, rigid around the poker. Blood stained her hand, dripped from the iron.

Blood. So much blood. She dropped the poker and it rolled to come to rest against his bare foot. Not my dead body—his. Oh, God, what have I done?

Chapter Two

Midsummer’s Eve, 1814— King’s Acre Estate, Oxfordshire

The nightingale stopped her. How long had she been running? Four days...five? She had lost count... Her feet took her up the curve of the ornamental bridge, beyond pain now, the blisters just part of the general misery, and, as she reached the top the liquid beauty poured itself into the moonlight.

Peace. No people, no noise, no fear of pursuit. Simply the moon on the still water of the lake, the dark masses of woodland, the little brown bird creating magic on the warm night air.

Julia pulled off her bonnet and turned slowly around. Where was she now? How far had she come? Too late now to regret not staying to face the music, to try to explain that it had been an accident, self-defence.

How had she escaped? She still wasn’t sure. She remembered screaming, screaming as she backed away from the horror at her feet. When people burst into the room she’d retreated behind the screen to hide her near-nudity, hide from the blood. They didn’t seem to notice her as they gathered round the body.

And there behind the screen were her clothes and water. She had washed her hands and dressed so that when she stepped out to face them she would be decent. Somehow, that had seemed important. She’d had no idea of trying to run away from what she had done so unwittingly.

Jonathan’s pocketbook lay on top of his coat. It must have been blind instinct that made her stuff it into her reticule. Then, when she had made herself come out and face the inevitable, the room was packed and people were jostling in the doorway trying to see inside.

No one paid any regard to the young woman in the plain grey cloak and straw bonnet. Had anyone even glimpsed her when they burst in? Perhaps she had reached the screen before the door opened. Now she must have appeared to be just another onlooker, a guest attracted by the noise, white-faced and trembling because of what she had seen.

The instinct to flee, the cunning of the hunted animal, sent her down the back stairs, into the yard to hide amidst the sacks loaded on a farm cart. As dawn broke she had slipped unseen from the back of it into the midst of utterly unfamiliar countryside. And it felt as though she had been walking and hiding and stealing rides ever since.

If she could just sit for a while and absorb this peace, this blissful lack of people to lie to, to hide from. If she could just forget the fear for a few moments until she found a little strength to carry on.

* * *

The tall column of grey shimmered, moon-lit, in the centre of the narrow stone bridge. Long dark hair lifted and stirred in the night breeze: a woman. Impossible. Now he was seeing things.

Will strained every sense. Silence. And then the night was pierced again by the three long-held notes that signalled the start of the nightingale’s torrent of languid music, so beautiful, so painful, that he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again he expected to find himself alone. But the figure was still there. A very persistent hallucination then. As he watched, it turned, its face a pale oval. A ghost? Ridiculous to feel that superstitious shudder when he was edging so close to the spirit world himself. I do not believe in ghosts. I refuse to. Things were bad enough without fearing that he would come back to haunt this place himself, forced to watch its disintegration in Henry’s careless, spendthrift hands.

No, it was a real woman of course, a flesh-and-blood woman, the paleness of her face thrown into strong relief by the dark hair that crowned her uncovered head. Will moved into the deeper shadows that bordered the Lake Walk and eased closer. What was she doing, this trespasser far into the parkland that surrounded King’s Acre? She must be almost a mile from the back road that led to the turnpike between Thame and Aylesbury.

Her long grey cloak swung back from her shoulders and he saw that she was tall. She leaned over the parapet of the bridge, staring down as though the dark waters beneath held some secret. Everything in the way she moved spoke of weariness, he thought, then stiffened as she shifted to hitch one hip on to the edge of the stonework.

‘No!’ Cursing his uncooperative, traitorous body, Will forced his legs to move, stumbled to the foot of the bridge and clutched the finial at the end of the balustrade. ‘No...don’t jump! Don’t give up...whatever it is...’ His legs gave way and he fell to his knees, coughing.

For a moment he thought he had so startled her that she would jump, then the ghost-woman slid down from the parapet and ran to kneel at his side.

‘Sir, you are hurt!’

Her arm went around his shoulders and she caught him against herself in a firm embrace. Will closed his eyes for a moment. The temptation to surrender to the simple comfort of a human touch was almost too much.

‘Not hurt. Sick. Not contagious,’ he added as she gave a little gasp. ‘Don’t...worry.’

‘I am not worried for myself,’ she said with a briskness that bordered on impatience. She shifted her position so he fell back on her shoulder and then laid a cool palm on his forehead. Will bit back a sigh of pure pleasure. ‘You have a fever.’

‘Always do, this time of night.’ He fought to control his breathing. ‘I feared you were about to jump.’

‘Oh, no.’ He felt the vehement shake of her head. ‘I cannot imagine ever being desperate enough to do that. Drowning must be such a terror. Besides, there is always some hope. Always.’ Her voice was low and slightly husky, as if she had perhaps been weeping recently, but he sensed that it would always be mellow, despite its certainty. ‘I was resting, looking at the moonlight on the water. It is beautiful and calm and the nightingale was singing so exquisitely. I felt some need for calm and beauty,’ she added, with a brave attempt at a rueful laugh that cracked badly.

Something was wrong. He could feel the tension and the exhaustion coming off her in waves. If he was not careful, she would bolt. Or perhaps not, she seemed determined to look after him. As if he was dealing with a wounded animal he made himself relax and follow her lead. ‘That is why I come down here when the moon is full,’ he confessed. ‘And Midsummer’s Eve adds a certain enchantment. You could believe almost anything in the moonlight.’ Believe that I am whole again... ‘I thought you a ghost at first sight.’

‘Oh, no,’ she repeated, this time with a faint edge of genuine amusement that appeared to surprise her. ‘I am far too solid for a ghost.’

Every fibre in his body, a body that he believed had given up its interest in the opposite sex long months ago, stirred in protest. She felt wonderful: soft and curved and yet firm where she still held him cradled against her shoulder. He managed not to grumble in protest as she released him and got to her feet.

‘What am I thinking about, lingering here talking of ghosts and nightingales? I must get help for you. Which direction would be quickest?’

‘No need. House is just—’ His breath gave out and Will waved a hand in the general direction. ‘If you can help me up.’ It was humiliating to have to ask, but he had learned to hide the damage to his pride after long months discovering the hard way that fighting got him nowhere. She needed help, but he couldn’t give it to her sprawled here.

‘Stay there, then. I will go and get help.’

‘No.’ He could still command when he had to: she turned back to him with obvious reluctance, but she turned. Will held up his right hand. ‘If you will just steady me.’

She wanted to argue, he could sense it, but she closed her lips tight—he fantasised that they were lush, framing a wide, generous mouth, although he could not be certain in that light—and took his hand in a capable grip.

‘I suppose,’ she said, as he got to his feet, ‘that you would say you are old enough to know what is good for you, but I have to tell you plainly, sir, that wandering about in the moonlight when you have a fever is the height of foolishness. You will catch your death.’

‘Do not concern yourself.’ Will got a grip on the stone ledge and made himself stand steady and straight. She was tall, his ghost-lady, she only had to tilt her head back a little to look him in the face. Now he could see the frown on a countenance that the moonlight had bleached into ivory and shadow. He could not judge her age or see detail but, yes, her mouth was generous and curved, although just now it was pursed with disapproval. It seemed she liked being argued with as little as he did. ‘I have caught my death already.’

He saw her take his meaning immediately and waited for the protests and the embarrassment that people invariably displayed when he told them the truth. But she simply said, ‘I am so very sorry.’ Of course, she would be able to see in the moonlight just what a wreck he was, so perhaps it was no surprise to her. It was a miracle that the appearance of a walking skeleton had not frightened her into the lake. ‘I am trespassing on your land, I assume. I am sorry for that also.’

‘You are welcome. Welcome to King’s Acre. Will you accompany me back to the house and take some refreshment? Then I will have my coachman drive you onwards to wherever you are staying.’ She bit her lip and her gaze slid away from his. It seemed he was not as harmless in her eyes as he felt. ‘There will be whatever chaperonage you might require, I assure you. I have a most respectable housekeeper.’

His reassurances provoked a smile, as well they might, he supposed. He was deluding himself if he thought she had taken him for his regiment’s most dangerous ladies’ man, as his reputation had once been. Even the most nervous damsel would need only one glance to realise that the possibility of him ravishing them was slight.

‘Sir, the question of chaperonage is the least of my concerns at the moment.’ There was a bitter undertone to her voice that made no sense. ‘But I cannot trouble you and your household at this time of night.’

His breathing had steadied and with it, Will realised, his wits. Respectable young ladies—and his companion was certainly a lady, if not a very young one—did not materialise in the moonlight sans baggage or escort without good reason.

‘The hour is of no consequence—my staff are used to my penchant for late nights. But your luggage, ma’am? And your maid? I shall have someone fetch them to you.’

‘I have neither, sir.’ She turned her head away and the effort to steady her voice was palpable. ‘I am...somewhat adrift.’

* * *

She could not tell him the truth, Julia knew that, although the temptation to simply burst into tears, throw herself into the arms of this elderly man and pour out her story was shockingly strong. He was probably a magistrate and, even if he was not, he would be duty-bound to hand her over to the law. But she had been tramping across country, hiding in barns, spending a few coppers here and there on bread and cheese and thin ale, and she was exhausted, lost and desperate. Something of the truth would have to suffice and she must take the risk that she would prove to be a good liar.

‘I will be frank with you, sir,’ Julia said, grateful for the protection of the shadows. She wished she could see his eyes. ‘I ran away from home. Several days ago.’

‘May I ask why?’ His voice, strangely young for one advanced in years, was as studiously non-judgemental as his haggard face.

‘My cousin, on whom I am totally dependent, schemed to give me to a man who wanted only my...undoing. Running seemed the only way out, although I am just as effectively ruined as a result, I realise that now. I am sure you would not wish to entertain me under the circumstances. Your wife—’

‘I do not have one,’ he said, his voice cool. ‘And I have no objection, only a regret on your behalf, ma’am, that you find yourself in such a predicament.’

He should not be talking. Julia had no doubt that he meant exactly what he said about his health: the man was desperately ill. His body when she had supported it had felt like bones and sinew contained in skin and expensive superfine. He was tall, over six foot, and in his youth must have been well muscled and powerful. Now his breathing was ragged and his forehead under her palm had been damp with fever.

He had come to her aid when he thought she was going to cast herself into the lake and he had not insulted her when she told him a little of her disastrous misjudgement. Now the very least she could do was to assist him home and risk the slight chance that the description of a wanted murderess had reached them here. Surely she was safe for a night? The authorities could not know her name and Jonathan’s card case was with his pocketbook in her reticule—the local constable would have a nameless body to deal with, as well as a nameless fugitive.

This was no time to be scrupulous about accepting help. ‘Come, sir. If you will not allow me to go for assistance, at least take my arm. I am certain you should not be out here tiring yourself.’

‘You sound remarkably like Jervis, my valet,’ the man said with an edge of asperity. For a moment she thought stubborn pride would win out over common sense, but then he let her put her forearm under his and take a little of his weight.

‘This way, I think you said, sir?’ She made her sore feet move, trying not to limp in case he noticed and refused her help.

‘My name is William Hadfield,’ he said after a few steps. ‘Just so you know whom you are rescuing. Baron Dereham.’

She did not know the name, but then she was adrift more than a hundred miles from home and her family, although gentry, did not mix with titled society. ‘My name is—’

‘There is no need to tell me.’ He was breathing hard. Julia slowed her pace a little, glad of the excuse to do so. She was tired and sore and almost more exhausted by fear than from physical exertion.

‘It is no matter, my lord. I am Julia Prior. Miss,’ she added bleakly. Live or die, she was never going to be anything else now. And then she realised that she had given her real name. Foolish, she chided herself. But it was too late now and it was common enough.

‘Left here, Miss Prior.’ Obedient, she took the path he indicated. To her consternation the ground began to slope upwards. How was Lord Dereham going to manage this with only her feeble help? As if he read her mind he said, ‘Here is the cavalry, you need not carry me any further.’

Julia opened her mouth to protest that she was merely steadying him, then shut it again. There was enough edge in his voice for her to know the baron was not resigned to his condition and would bitterly resent any attempt to jolly him along. He must have been arrogant and self-assured in his prime, she concluded, to resent his decline so fiercely now.

‘My lord!’ Two men hurried down the slope from where a gig stood waiting. One, when he got closer, could have been identified as a valet at a glance: neat, dapper and immaculate, he was making clucking sounds under his breath. The other, in boots and frieze coat, was just as obviously a groom.

‘Jervis, help this lady into the gig.’ Her arm was released and Julia found herself being ushered into the humble vehicle as if she was a duchess and it a state coach. Behind, she could hear a low-voiced exchange that ended abruptly with a snapped command from the baron as he took the seat opposite her.

The groom went to the horse’s head and led it on, the valet followed on foot. After a few minutes passed in silence they emerged on to a great sweep of lawn and then crunched across a gravelled drive.

‘But it is a castle!’ Startled out of her circling thoughts, Julia blinked up at crenellations, a turret, arrow slits, all preposterously Gothic and romantic in the silvery light.

‘A very small one, I assure you. And disappointingly modern inside to anyone of a romantic nature. The moat is dry, the cellars full of wine bottles. The portcullis has long since rusted through and we rarely pour boiling oil on to anyone these days.’ He sounded as though he regretted that.

‘Fetch Mrs Morley to Miss Prior,’ Lord Dereham ordered as the groom helped her to descend. Her legs, she discovered as she stumbled, were almost too tired to support her. ‘Tell her to place the Chinese bedchamber at Miss Prior’s disposal and then have Cook send up a hot supper to the library.’

‘But, my lord, it must be midnight at least—’ He should not be worrying about feeding her at this hour, let alone housing her.

‘I will not have you wandering about the countryside or going to bed hungry, Miss Prior,’ he said as he climbed down, leaning on the groom in his turn. Here under the bulk of the building it was almost dark and she could not see his face at all, only judge his mood by the autocratic orders. ‘You will oblige me by spending the night and tomorrow we can see what may be done.’

He will not have it, indeed! A forceful old gentleman, the baron, whatever his health, Julia decided. But it is rather beyond his powers to find a solution to this problem. A new dawn will not make matters any better.

‘Thank you, my lord. I should not trouble you, I know, but I will not deny that your offer is most welcome.’ She had thought she could never trust another man, not after Jonathan. But the baron was advanced in years and could be no threat to her. Or her to him, provided he had no idea who he was sheltering.

‘I will see you in the library then, Miss Prior, when you are ready,’ he said behind her as she followed the valet into the hall.

* * *

‘Just down the main stairs and the door to the left, Miss Prior.’ The housekeeper stood aside as Julia murmured a word of thanks and left the warmth and comfort of the bedchamber for the shadowy panelled corridor.

The woman had shown no surprise at the state of her travel-worn clothes, although she had tutted in sympathy over the state of Julia’s feet and had produced copious hot water, linen for dressings and salves. Now, clad in some borrowed undergarments beneath her brushed and sponged walking dress, Julia felt a new surge of courage. She had heard that prisoners were more easily broken if they were kept dirty and unkempt and now she could well believe it. She had felt her strength and will ebb along with her self-respect.

The house had been decorated a few years ago, she judged as she negotiated the broad sweep of an old oak staircase. All was in good repair with an intriguing glimpse of ancient baronial castle here and there beneath the modern comfort. Yet there was an impersonal air about it as though efficient staff kept it running, but the driving force behind it, the spirit that made it a home, had vanished.

It had happened at the Grange after her father had died and she had not had the strength to simply carry on as before. It had only lasted a few weeks, then she had made herself take up the reins again. Pride, and the refusal to let her cousin and his wife find the slightest thing to criticise when they came to claim their inheritance, had dried her tears and stiffened her will. Here, with the master dying, the staff were obviously doing the best they could, which argued loyalty and efficiency.

The heavy panelled door swung open on to a room that was all warmth: a fire in the grate despite the season, crimson damask curtains at the windows, the soft glow of old waxed bookshelves. The man in the chair beside the hearth began to get to his feet as she came in and the hound at his feet sprang up, her teeth bared as she ranged herself in front of her master.

‘Down, Bess! Friend.’

‘My lord, please—there is no need to stand.’ Julia took three hasty steps across the carpet, dodged around the dog and caught the baron’s arm to press him back into the seat. She found herself breast to breast with him, the light from the fire and the candelabra on the side table full on his face.

This was the man from the lakeside? The man she had held in her arms, the one she thought elderly and harmless? ‘Oh!’ She found herself transfixed by amber eyes, the eyes of a predator, and blurted out the first thing that came into her head. ‘How old are you?’

Chapter Three

Lord Dereham sat down as she released his arm. His breathless laugh was wicked. ‘I am twenty-seven, Miss Prior.’

‘I cannot apologise enough.’ Cheeks burning with mortification, Julia took a hasty step backwards, tripped over the dog and found herself sprawling into the chair opposite his. ‘I am so sorry, I have no idea why I should blurt out such a impertinent question, only—’

‘Only you thought I was an old man?’ Lord Dereham did not appear offended. Perhaps in his currently restricted life the sight of a lady—female, she reminded herself—behaving with such appalling gaucheness and lack of elegance was entertainment enough to distract him from her outrageous lack of manners.

‘Yes,’ she confessed and found she could not look him in the face. Those eyes. And he might be thin and ill, but he was unmistakably, disturbingly, male for all that. She bent to offer an apologetic caress to the elderly hound who was sitting virtually on her feet, staring at her with a reproachful brown gaze.

‘Miss Prior.’ She made herself lift her eyes. ‘You are quite safe with me, you know.’

Her head agreed with him. Every feminine instinct she possessed, did not. ‘Of course, I realise that. Absolutely,’ Julia said, in haste to reassure herself. Her voice trailed away as she heard her own tactless words and saw his face tighten.

He had been a handsome man once. He was striking still, but now the skin was stretched over bones that were the only strong thing left to him, except his will-power. And that, she sensed, was prodigious. His hair was dark, dulled with ill health, but not yet touched with grey. He had high cheekbones, a strong jaw, broad forehead. But his eyes were what held her, full of life and passionate, furious anger at the fate that had reduced him to this. Were they brandy-coloured or was it dark amber?

Julia could feel she was blushing as they narrowed, focused on her face. ‘I mean, I know I am safe because you are a gentleman.’ Safe from another assault, not safe from the long arm of the law. Not safe from the gallows.

She sat up straight, took a steadying breath and looked fixedly at his left ear. Such a nice, safe part of the male anatomy. ‘You are being remarkably patient with me, my lord. I am not usually so...inept.’

‘I imagine you are not usually exhausted, distressed and fearful, nor suffering the emotional effects of betrayal by those who should have protected you, Miss Prior. I hope you will feel a little better when you have had something to eat.’ He reached out a thin white hand and tugged the bell pull. The door opened almost immediately to admit a pair of footmen. Small tables were placed in front of them, laden trays set down, wine was poured, napkins shaken out and draped and then, as rapidly as they had entered, the men left.

‘You have a very efficient staff, my lord.’ The aroma of chicken broth curled up to caress her nostrils. Ambrosia. Julia picked up her spoon and made herself sip delicately at it instead of lifting the bowl and draining it as her empty stomach demanded.

‘Indeed.’ He had not touched the cutlery in front of him.

She finished the soup along with the warm buttered roll and the delicate slices of chicken that had been poached in the broth. When she looked at Lord Dereham he had broken his roll and was eating, perhaps a quarter of it, before he pushed the plate away.

‘And a very good cook.’

He answered her concern, not her words. ‘I have no appetite.’

‘How long?’ she ventured. ‘How long have you been sick like this?’

‘Seven—no, it is eight months now,’ he answered her quite readily, those remarkable amber eyes turned to watch the leaping flames. Perhaps it was a relief to talk to someone who spoke frankly and did not hedge about pretending there was nothing wrong with him. ‘There was a blizzard at night and Bess here was lost in it. One of the young underkeepers thought it was his fault and went out to look for her. By the time we realised he was missing and I found them both we were all three in a pretty poor state.’

He grimaced, dismissing what she guessed must have been an appalling search. And he had gone out himself, she noted, not left it to his keepers and grooms to risk themselves for a youth and a dog. ‘After four years in the army I thought I was immune to cold and wet, but I came down with what seemed simply pneumonia. I started to cough blood. Then, although the infection seemed to go, I was still exhausted. It became worse. Now I can’t sleep, my strength is failing. I have no appetite, and there are night-fevers. The doctors say it is phthisis and that there is no cure.’

‘That is consumption, is it not?’ As he had said, a death sentence. ‘I expect the doctors think saying it in Greek makes them seem more knowledgeable. Or perhaps it justifies a higher bill.’

‘You have no great love of the medical profession?’

How elegant his hands were with the long bones and tendons. The heavy signet on his left ring finger was so loose that the seal had slipped round. ‘No,’ Julia admitted. ‘I have not. No great faith, would perhaps be truer.’ The doctors had done little enough for Papa, for all their certainties.

‘You seem to understand that speaking about problems is a relief after everyone pretending there is nothing wrong.’ He looked away from the fire and into her eyes and for a moment she thought the flames still danced in that intent gaze.

Jonathan’s beautiful blue gaze was always impenetrable, as though it was stained glass she was looking at. This man’s eyes were windows into his soul and a very unpleasant place it seemed to be, she thought with a shiver at her Gothic imaginings.

‘Would it help to confide your story in a total stranger? One who will take it to—’ He broke off. ‘One who will respect your confidence.’

Take it to the grave. He was no priest bound to silence, she could hardly confess to her actions and expect him to keep the secret, but perhaps talking would help her find some solution to the problem of what she could possibly do now.

‘My father was a gentleman farmer,’ Julia began. She sat back in the chair and found she could at least begin as though she was telling a story from a book. The hound circled on the hearth rug, sighed and lay down with her head on her master’s foot as if she, too, was settling to listen to the tale. ‘My mother died when I was fifteen and I have no brothers or sisters, so I became my father’s companion: I think he forgot most of the time that I was a girl. I learned everything he could teach me about the estate, the farm, even purchasing stock and selling produce.

‘Then, four years ago, he suffered a stroke. At first there was talk of employing a steward, but Papa realised that I could do the job just as well—and that I loved the place in a way that an employee never would. So I took over. I thought there was no reason why we could not go on like that for years, but last spring he died, quite suddenly in his sleep, and my Cousin Arthur inherited.’

She would not cry, she had got past that. Just as long as the baron did not try to sympathise: she could not cope with sympathy. Instead he said, ‘And there was no young man to carry you off?’

‘I had been too busy being a farmer to flirt with young men.’ He had seen, and heard, enough of her now to understand the other reasons no-one had come courting. She was hardly a beauty. She was too tall. And too assertive, too outspoken. Unladylike hoyden, Cousin Jane called her. A managing, gawky blue-stocking female with no dowry, that was what Jonathan had flung at her. He was obviously correct about her lack of attraction—it was quite clear in retrospect that she had been a complete failure in his bed.

‘My cousins allowed me to stay because I had nowhere else to go, but it was unsuitable for me to take any interest in the estate, they said, and besides, they made it very clear that it was no longer any of my business. Cousin Jane found me useful as a companion,’ she added, hearing the flatness in her own voice. A drudge, a dogsbody, the poor relation kept under their roof to make them appear charitable.

‘But then it changed?’

‘They must have grown tired of supporting me, I suppose. Of the cost, however modest, and tired too of my interference in estate matters. There was a man—I think they intended to make it worth his while to take me off their hands. He did not offer marriage.’

* * *

A squalid story, Will thought as Miss Prior ran out of words. Those lips, made for smiles, were tight, and she had coloured painfully. It was unwise of her to flee her home, but the alternative seemed appalling and few unprotected young women would have had the resolution to act as she had done. ‘You ran away, eventually found yourself in my parkland and the rest we know,’ he finished for her.

‘Yes.’ She sat up straight in the chair as if perfect deportment could somehow restore her to respectability.

‘What is their name? Someone needs to deal with your cousin. Even if he had not been in a position of trust, his behaviour was outrageous.’

‘No! Not violence...’ He saw her bite her lip at the muttered curse that escaped him. She had gone quite pale.

‘No, of course not. You need have no fear that I might call him out. I forget sometimes that my fighting days are over.’ Damn. And he hadn’t meant to say that, either. Self-pity was the devil. ‘I am not without influence. It would be my pleasure to make his life hell in other ways than by threatening him at swordpoint. Is his name Prior? Where is your home?’

She shook her head in silent refusal to confide. Will studied the composed, withdrawn, face in the firelight. He had never met a woman like her. Even in this state she seemed to have the self-possession of someone older, an established matron, not a girl of perhaps twenty-two or three.

In the candlelight her skin was not fashionably pale, but lightly coloured by the sun. Her hands, clasped loosely in her lap, were like her whole body—strong and graceful with the physical confidence that came from fitness and exercise. She moved, her cuff pulled back and he saw bruises on her wrist, black and purple and ugly. That a woman should be under his protection and yet he could not avenge such treatment was shameful. No, she must not go back to that, he could do that for her at least.

‘I hope your father did not know that his heir would wilfully ignore the expertise you could have shared with him,’ he said at last when a log broke in the grate, sending up a shower of sparks and jerking him back from his bitter reverie. ‘I know all too well the character of my own heir, my cousin Henry. He’ll squander away the lifeblood of the estate within a year or two—that’s all it took him to lose what was not tied down of his own inheritance.’

‘You are estranged from him?’ Miss Prior’s face was expressive when she allowed it to be. Now the little frown between the strongly marked dark brows showed concern. She was too tall, no beauty. One would almost say she was plain, except for the regularity of her features and the clarity of her gaze. And the generous curve of lips that hinted at a sensuality she was probably unaware of.

Will felt a frisson of awareness run through him, just as he had when she had held him in her arms on the bridge, and cursed mentally. He did not need something else to torture him and certainly not for his body to decide it was interested in women again. If he could not make love with the stamina and finesse that had caused his name to be whispered admiringly amongst certain ladies, then he was not going to settle for second best.

A wife, he had realised, was out of the question. He had known he must release Caroline from their betrothal, but it had shocked him, a little, how eagerly she had snatched at the offer amidst tearful protestations that she was not strong enough to witness his suffering. She was a mass of sensibility and high-strung nerves and he had found her delicate beauty, her total reliance on his masculine strength, charming enough to have talked himself half into love with her. To have expected strength of will, and the courage to face a husband’s lingering death, was to have expected too much.

Miss Prior was waiting patiently for him to answer her question, he realised. Will jerked his wandering thoughts back. ‘Estranged? No, Henry’s all right deep down. He’s not vicious, just very immature and spoilt rotten by his mama. If he wasn’t about to inherit this estate I’d watch his antics with interested amusement. As it is, I’d do just about anything to stop him getting his hands on it for a few years until he grows up and learns to take some responsibility.’

‘But you cannot afford to do that, of course.’ Miss Prior had relaxed back into the deep wing chair. Another five minutes and she would be yawning. He was selfish to keep her here talking when she should be asleep, but the comfort of company and the release of talking to this total stranger was too much to resist.

‘No. I cannot.’ I cannot save the only thing left to me that I can love, the only thing that needs me. My entire world. There must be a way. In the army before he had inherited, and in the time he had been master of King’s Acre, he had relied both on physical prowess and his intellect to deal with problems. Now he had only his brain. Will tugged the bell pull. ‘Go to bed, Miss Prior. Things will look better in the morning.’

‘Will they?’ She got to her feet as the footman came in.

‘Sometimes they do.’ It was important to believe that. Important to believe that he would think of something to get King’s Acre out of this coil, important to hope that the doctors were wrong and that he had more time. If he could only make time, stretch it...

‘Goodnight, my lord.’ She did not respond to his assertion and he rather thought there was pity in those grey eyes as she smiled and followed James out of the room.

The ghost of an idea stirred as he watched the straight back, heard the pleasant, assured manner with which she spoke to the footman before the door closed. A competent, intelligent, brave lady. Will let his head fall back, closed his eyes and followed the vague thought. Stretch time? Perhaps there was a way after all. Unless he was simply giving himself false hope.

* * *

Do things look better in the morning light? Julia sat up in the big bed, curled her arms around her raised knees and watched the sunlight on the tree tops through the bay window that dominated the bedchamber.

Perhaps she should count her blessings. One: I am warm, dry and comfortable in a safe place and not waking up in another disreputable inn or under a hedge. Two: I am not in a prison cell awaiting my trial for murdering a man. Because Jonathan was dead, he had to be. There was so much blood. So much... And when people had come, pouring into the room as her screams had faded into sobs, that was what they were all shouting. Murder!

And now she was a fugitive, her guilt surely confirmed by her flight. Julia scrubbed her hands over her face as if that would rub out the memories Be positive. If you give up, you are lost... Was there anything else to be thankful for?

Try as she might, there were no other blessings she could come up with. It was dangerous to try to think more than a few days into the future because that was when the panic started again. She had spent an entire morning huddled in a barn because the fear had been so strong that she could not think.

One step at a time. She must leave here, so that was the next thing to deal with. Perhaps Lord Dereham’s housekeeper could recommend a nearby house where she might seek work. She could sew and clean, manage a stillroom and a dairy—perhaps things were not so very bad after all, if she could find respectable employment and hide in plain sight. No one noticed servants.

* * *

The baron came into the breakfast room as she was addressing a plate laden with fragrant bacon and the freshest of eggs. Her appetite had not suffered, another blessing perhaps, for she would need strength of body as well as of mind. A mercy that I possess both.

‘My lord, good morning.’ Lord Dereham looked thin and pale in the bright daylight and yet there was something different from last night. The frustration in the shadowed amber eyes was gone, replaced with something very like excitement. Now she could imagine him as he had been, a ruthless physical force to be reckoned with. A man and not an invalid.

‘Miss Prior.’ He sat and the footman placed a plate in front of him and poured coffee. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Very well, thank you, my lord.’ Julia buttered her toast and watched him from under her lashes. He was actually eating some of the scrambled eggs set before him, although with the air of a man forced to swallow unpleasant medicine for his own good.

‘Excellent. I will be driving around the estate this morning. You would care to accompany me, I believe.’

It sounded remarkably like a very polite order. He was, in a quiet way, an extremely forceful man. Julia decided she was in no position to take exception to that, not when she needed his help, but she could not spare the time for a tour. ‘Thank you, I am sure that would be most interesting, but I cannot presume further on your hospitality. I was wondering if your housekeeper could suggest any household or inn where I might find employment.’

‘I am certain we can find you eligible employment, Miss Prior. We will discuss it when we get back.’

‘I am most grateful, of course, my lord, but—’

‘Is your Home Farm largely arable?’ he asked as if she had not spoken. ‘Or do you keep livestock?’

What? But years of training in polite conversation made her answer. ‘Both, although cattle were a particular interest of my father. We have a good longhorn herd, but when he died we had just bought a shorthorn bull from the Comet line, which cost us dear. He has been worth it, or, at least he would be if my cousin only chose the best lines to breed to him.’ Why on earth did Lord Dereham want to discuss animal husbandry over the coffee pots? ‘May I pass you the toast?’

‘Thank you, no. I am thinking of planting elms on my field boundaries. Do you have a view on that, Miss Prior?’

Miss Prior certainly had a view on the subject and had left a promising nursery of elm saplings behind her, but she was beginning to wonder if the absence of a Lady Dereham was due to his lordship’s obsession with agriculture and an inability to converse on any other topic. ‘I believe them to be very suitable for that purpose. Marmalade and a scone, my lord?’

He shook his head as he tossed his napkin on to the table and gestured to the footman to pull back his chair. ‘If you have finished your breakfast we can begin.’

Can we indeed! Was the man unhinged in some way? Had his illness produced an agricultural mania? And yet he had shown no sign of it last night. As she emerged into the hall she saw the maid who had helped her dress that morning was at the foot of the stairs, holding her cloak, and a phaeton waited at the front steps with a pair of matched bays in the shafts. Her consent had been taken for granted, it seemed.

Julia closed her lips tight on a protest. Without Lord Dereham’s help she was back where she had been the night before. With it, she had some hope of safety and of earning her living respectably. It seemed she had no choice but to humour him and to ignore the small voice in her head that was telling her she was losing control and walking into something she did not understand.

‘I am at your disposal, my lord,’ she said politely as she tied her bonnet ribbons.

‘I do hope so, Miss Prior,’ Lord Dereham said with a smile that was so charming that for a moment she did not notice just how strange his choice of words was.

Chapter Four

Were his words strange, or sinister? Or quite harmless and she was simply losing her nerve and her sense of proportion? Lord Dereham handed her up to her seat in the phaeton and then walked round and took the reins. The groom stepped back and the baron turned the pair down the long drive. They looked both high-bred and fresh. A more immediate worry overtook her concerns about his motives. Could he control them?

After a few minutes of tense observation it appeared that skill was what mattered. As Julia watched the thin hands, light and confident on the reins, she released her surreptitious grip on the side of the seat and managed not to exhale too loudly.

‘The day I cannot manage to drive a phaeton and pair I shall take to my bed and not bother to rise again, Miss Prior,’ he remarked, his voice dry.

How embarrassing, he must have sensed her tension and probably showing a lack of confidence in a man’s ability to drive was almost as bad as casting aspersions on his virility. And, safe as he was in his weakened condition, she had a strong suspicion that Lord Dereham’s prowess in the bedroom had probably been at least equal to his ability as a whip. The thought sent a little arrow of awareness through her, a warning that Lord Dereham was still a charismatic man and she was in danger of becoming too reliant on his help.

She repressed a shudder at the direction of her thoughts: she was never going to have to endure a man’s attentions in bed again. Another blessing.

‘Cleveland bays?’ she asked. Best not to apologise. Or to speculate on the man beside her as anything but a gentleman offering her aid. Or think about that inn bedroom, not if she wanted to stay calm and in control.

‘Yes, they are. They were bred here. Now, Miss Prior, what do you think I should do about this row of tenants’ cottages?’ He reined in just before they reached a range of shabby thatched cottages. ‘Repair them or rebuild over there where the ground is more level, but there is less room for their gardens?’

‘Why not ask the tenants?’ Julia enquired tartly, her temper fraying along with the dream-like quality their conversation was beginning to assume. ‘They have to live in them.’ Really, she was extremely grateful to Lord Dereham for rescuing her, but anyone would think she was being interviewed for the post of estate manager!

He gave a grunt of agreement that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. Julia bristled as he drove past the cottages with a wave of the whip to the women hanging out sheets and feeding chickens. Was he making fun of her because she claimed to have run her family estate? He had been polite enough about it last night, but most men would find her interest in the subject laughable, if not downright unfeminine.

‘I also have views on poultry, the management of dairies, sawmills and crop rotation,’ she said with false sweetness. ‘I know a little about sheep, but more about pigeons, pigs and the modern design of farm buildings, if those are of any interest to you, my lord.’

Again that scarcely repressed chuckle. ‘They are, but I think I had better explain myself before you lose all patience with me, Miss Prior. Would you care to look at the view from the temple over there?’

They had been climbing a low hill and the temple was revealed as a small folly in the classical style overlooking the lake. Julia closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. If she was not so tense and, under the surface, so scared, she would be able to cope with this perfectly adequately. Perhaps he was simply gauche and had no idea how to make conversation, although there had been no sign of that last night.

She mentally smoothed her ruffled feathers and replied with dinner-party graciousness, ‘I am sure it will be a delightful prospect, my lord. And you have no need to explain yourself to me. I must apologise if my nerves are a little...’

‘Frayed?’ he enquired as he brought the pair to a standstill and climbed down. Julia sat tactfully still while he tied the reins to a post and came round to hand her from her seat. ‘Well, I hope I may ravel them up again, a little. I have a proposition for you, Miss Prior.’

Proposition. That was a word with connotations and not all of them good. She closed her teeth on her lower lip to control the questions that wanted to tumble out, took his arm and allowed herself to be guided towards the curved marble seat at the front of the folly. She could at least behave like a lady for today—this was surely the last time a gentleman would offer her his arm. And if he proved not to be a gentleman?

When they were seated side by side Lord Dereham crossed one leg over the other, leaned back and contemplated the view with maddening calm.

Julia attempted ladylike repose at his side, but all that relaxation did was to allow the waking nightmares back into her head. ‘My lord? You said you had a proposition? You have thought of some post I might apply for, perhaps?’

‘Oh no, not...exactly. You, I believe, are in need of some time to recover from your precipitate flight, to rest physically and to collect yourself mentally.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, wary. ‘That would be an agreeable luxury, I must admit.’

‘And I would appreciate the company of someone who is knowledgeable about estate management. I have ideas I would like to talk through. If you would accept my hospitality for, let us say, a week, it would give you breathing space and allow me to think of some respectable employment I might suggest.’

The baron did not look at her as he spoke and she studied his profile as she considered, trying to imagine him with the weight back that he had lost, with colour in that lean, hard face and a gloss on that thick hair. He had been a very attractive man and his character still was. He might have autocratic tendencies, but he seemed understanding, intelligent and his actions, right from the start, had been gentlemanly and protective.

She would be in no danger from this man, she knew. But was it safe to stay, even for a few days? Safer than wandering around with no plan and no money, Julia told herself. ‘Thank you, my lord. I would appreciate that and I will do my utmost to assist you.’

‘Excellent. Shall we begin by being on rather less formal terms? My name is Will, I would like you to use it. May I call you Julia?’

In for a penny, in for a pound... ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I would like that. Can you not discuss your thoughts with your...I mean, the man who will...’ Goodness, it was hard to think of a tactful way of saying, The man who will take over when you die.

‘My heir, you mean?’ His lips curled into a sardonic smile. ‘Cousin Henry Hadfield. He has no interest in the land. He wasted his inheritance from his father on enjoying himself in town until his mother finally reined him in. Not a bad youth at heart—but if I were to talk to him about elm tress and field boundaries he would think me all about in the head.’

‘Most people would, frankly, if they aren’t practical landowners.’ Julia got up and strolled a little way so she could look down on the lake lying below to her right and the edge of the park with the plough-lands beyond to the left. ‘You have some long boundaries there. From all I have read elm grows fast and the roots go straight down and do not steal goodness from the crops or interfere with the plough. You raise a timber crop and waste no land. I have...I had started a nursery of cuttings from a neighbour’s trees.’

‘There’s some land that might do for that,’ Will said. ‘Shall we drive on and have a look?’

* * *

They spent all morning driving around the estate and Julia gradually relaxed in Will’s company. They did not agree about everything, but that, she supposed, was only to be expected and the mood was amiable as they finally returned to the house.

‘I will take luncheon in my chamber, if you will excuse me. Then I have paperwork to see to in the library.’ Will surrendered his coat and hat to the butler. ‘Please feel free to explore the house as you wish. Or the pleasure grounds.’

* * *

It was a little like a fairy tale, Julia decided as she strolled through a rose garden. She had fled from evil and found herself in some enchanted place where the outside world did not intrude and everything conspired to make her comfortable and safe.

A gardener materialised at her side with knife and basket and asked which blooms she would like cutting for her chamber.

‘Oh, I had better not,’ she demurred.

‘Lord Dereham sent me.’ The man glanced towards the house and Julia saw the silhouette of a man watching her from one of the long windows. The baron in his study, she assumed.

‘Then thank you,’ she said and buried her face in the trusses of soft fragrance.

* * *

At dinner she mentioned the roses, but Will waved away her thanks with a gesture of his long fingers. ‘They are there to be enjoyed. What do you think of the gardens?’

‘They are lovely. And the vegetable gardens are quite the most wonderful I have ever seen. You even have a pinery—I confess to quite indecent envy!’

The mobile mouth twitched a little at that, but Will only said, ‘I haven’t succeeded in getting a single edible pineapple out of it yet.’

‘More muck,’ Julia said. ‘I was reading all about it and you need a huge, steaming pile of manure, far more than you would think.’ She caught the eye of the footman who was bringing in the roast and he looked so scandalised for a second that she stopped with a gasp. ‘I am so sorry, of all the things to be discussing at the dinner table!’

But Will was laughing. It was the first time she had heard more than a chuckle from him—an infectious, deep, wholehearted laugh—and she found herself laughing, too, until he began to cough and had to sip water until he recovered.

* * *

The next day was overcast with a cool wind so they had gone to the stables in the morning and walked slowly from box to box, admiring the mares and then smiling over the yearlings and the foals in the paddocks. Will had let her take his arm as though he felt at ease enough not to hide the fact that anything more than a stroll was tiring.

Julia explored the house in the afternoon. She found an upstairs sitting room with bookshelves and a deep window seat and curled up with a pile of journals and some novels, but after a while she realised that she was simply staring out of the window.

This place was still a fairy tale, a sanctuary from the dark that she had left behind, a place out of time with its prince, struck down by a wicked enchanter, but still strong enough to defend its walls and keep her safe.

The whimsy made her smile until the chill of reality ran down her spine. It could not last and she should not delude herself. Soon she would have to leave here and find employment and never, ever, be herself again. She had a week, and two days of that were gone already.

* * *

At dinner Will was quiet, almost brooding. Tired, perhaps, she thought and did not attempt to make conversation. When the footman cleared the plates and set the decanter at his elbow she rose, but he gestured her back to her seat.

‘Will you keep me company a little longer, Miss Prior?’ Before the servants he was always meticulous in observing the proprieties, she noticed. ‘Thank you.’ He nodded to the footman. ‘I will ring if we need anything further.’

When they were alone Will said, without preamble, ‘I have a proposal, Julia.’

‘Another one?’ Her heart sank for all her light words. He had changed his mind about the week’s respite, found her some position as a housemaid...

‘That was a proposition. This is literally a proposal.’ He poured two glasses of port and pushed one across the table to her.

Bemused, she ignored the wine and studied his face instead. From the intensity in his expression she realised his calm was not quite as complete as she had thought. His voice, however, was quite steady as he said, ‘Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

Julia found she was on her feet, although she could not remember getting up. ‘Your wife? Lord Dereham, I can only assume you are mocking me, or that your fever has become much worse.’

She walked away from the table on legs that shook and struggled for composure. It was safer for her self-control not to be looking at him. One could not be rude to an invalid as sick as he was, but how could he not realise how hurtful his teasing was?

‘Miss Prior, I cannot talk to you if you stalk around the room,’ Will drawled. The weak desire to cry turned into an itch in her palm and a disgraceful urge to slap his face. ‘Please will you come back here so I can explain? I am not delirious and I have no intention of offering you insult.’

‘Very well.’ It was ungracious and she could not bring herself to return to the table, but she turned and looked at him, swallowing hurt pride along with the unshed tears. ‘Please explain, if you can. I find my sense of humour has suffered somewhat recently.’

But he was not smiling. The haggard face was as serious as if he truly was making a proposal of marriage, but his words were strangely far from the point. ‘You know what I have told you about Henry. For the good of this estate and its people I need to prevent my cousin from inheriting until he is older, has matured and learned to control his spendthrift ways.’

‘You believe he can?’ Julia asked, diverted by scepticism for a moment.

‘I think so. Henry is neither wicked nor weak, simply spoiled and indulged. Even if he does not improve, the longer I can keep him from inheriting, the better. I need time, Julia.’

‘And you do not have that.’ Intrigued, despite herself, she sat again.

‘Do you know the law about inheritance when someone disappears?’ She shook her head. ‘If the missing person does not reappear within seven years of their disappearance, the heir may apply to the courts for them to be presumed dead and for the inheritance to proceed.’

She began to understand. ‘And you intend to disappear?’

‘I intend to travel. I have always wanted to go to North Africa, Egypt, the Middle East. I hope I can make it that far, because once there, away from British authorities, I can vanish without trace when...when the time comes.’

Julia doubted he would make it across the Channel, never mind southern Europe, but if this daydream was keeping him going, who was she to disillusion him? She understood the power of dreams, the need for them. ‘But what has that got to do with me?’

‘I must leave King’s Acre in good hands. I could employ an estate manager, but they would not have the commitment, the involvement, that a wife would have. I could not guarantee continuity and, if they left, who would appoint their replacement? And by marrying before I go I would remove the suspicion that my disappearance is a stratagem.’

Julia stared at the thin, intelligent face. His eyes burned with intensity, not with fever or madness. For a moment she thought she saw what Will Hadfield had looked like before this cruel illness had taken him in its claws and something inside her stirred in response. ‘It matters this much to you?’

‘It is all I have. Our family has held this land since the fourteenth century when it was given to Sir Ralph Hadfield as a reward for services to the crown—hence the name. I am not going to be the one who lets King’s Acre fall apart.’

‘And there is no woman you want to marry?’

The baron closed his eyes, not to shut out the world, but to hide his feelings, she was certain. ‘I was betrothed. I released her, of course, and she was relieved, I think, to be freed from the burden of being tied to a dying man.’

Will opened his eyes and there was no emotion to be seen on his face. Then he smiled, an ironic twist of the lips. ‘Besides, she has no views on elm trees or cattle breeding.’

‘So you only thought up this insane scheme when I stumbled into your life?’ It might be insane, but, Heaven help her, she was beginning to contemplate it, look for the problems and the advantages. Stop it! Julia told herself. It is an outrageous idea. I would be heaping deception upon deception.

‘That first night, after you had retired, I sat thinking that I needed a way to stretch time. Then I realised I might have had the answer sitting in front of me at my own fireside.’

The past days had been a test to see if she really knew as much as she said, to see if she had an attraction to this place. And I have. Then common sense surfaced. Fate would not rescue her so simply from the consequences of her own folly. ‘Your relatives will never accept it.’

Besides, with the wedding her name would be known to all and sundry... But Prior is quite common and Julia is not my first name. Lord Dereham seems to live fairly retired, this would not be a major society wedding to be mentioned in the newssheets. If I can ask him not to place an announcement, there is no reason to think it would ever be noticed in Wiltshire.

‘My relatives will have no choice but to accept it. I am of age, no one can suggest I am not in my right mind. They will be present at the wedding—along with my man of law and any number of respectable witnesses. You will not be dependent upon them in any way. Only the land is entailed, so the income will be yours to spend as you wish until my death is finally pronounced. Then you will have the use of the Dower House for life and a very generous annuity in my will.’

‘You would give me all this? I am ruined, an outcast from the only relatives I have. I have no material resources to bring to the marriage—not a penny in dowry.’

Arthur and Jane will not seek for me, they will simply be glad I am gone, she told herself. Would they even hear of Jonathan’s death? He was a distant relative, she had left no identification in the inn. Perhaps they would think he had simply disappeared along with the money they had no doubt paid him to remove her.

‘I am not giving you anything.’ The amber eyes were predatory as they narrowed on her face. He knew she was weakening as a hunter knew when the prey began to falter. Again the sense of his power swept over her, the feeling that she could not resist him. ‘I am purchasing your expertise and your silence.’

‘People will talk, wonder where on earth I have come from. What will we tell them?’

‘Nothing.’ He had heard the capitulation in her voice, she realised, and he was right: she would do this if she could, snatch at this miracle. All that remained were the practicalities. Julia took an unthinking gulp of wine. ‘Think of some story—or let them speculate to their hearts’ content on where we met.

‘There is little time to waste. I had asked you to stay a week, but I have seen enough, I know you will be perfect for this. Fortunately the Archbishop of Canterbury is in the vicinity—he is staying with his godson, the Marquess of Tranton. I can obtain a special licence with no trouble and we will be married the day after tomorrow.’ He stood up. ‘Say yes and I will drive over tomorrow and see the vicar on the way back.’

Say yes, say yes and accept this miracle. What should she do?

Chapter Five

‘Will!’ Julia came round the table and caught at his sleeve. ‘It is impossible, I cannot marry you at such short notice.’

‘Why ever not?’ He put his hand over hers and she looked up into his eyes. There was only that mesmerising amber gaze full of passion and intensity, only the warmth of his hand, those long fingers closing over hers. Julia felt hot and cold and as disconcerted as the first time Jonathan had kissed her. This was a man, a young man, a man of passion, and something deep inside her responded to him.

She felt her lips part, her heartbeat stutter, then the grip of his fingers lifted and the illusion of intimacy fled.

‘Had you some other plans for the day after tomorrow?’ Will persisted.

Safe, protective irritation took the place of whatever insane emotions she had just been experiencing. The man is completely focused on what he wants without a thought for me. It is a very good thing he is going away, Julia thought, otherwise we would be falling out for certain.

‘I haven’t said yes yet,’ she protested. He just looked at her. ‘Oh, very well! Yes! But I do not have a thing to wear.’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘Except this.’ She swept a hand down to encompass her skirts. ‘I can hardly marry a baron in a creased, stained walking dress and old cloak.’

‘Then go shopping tomorrow. I will give you money. There are no shops of very great fashion in Aylesbury, not even for ready to wear, but you will find something adequate and you can always go up to London shortly. Just hire a town house, if you wish, Julia.’

She had a sudden, welcome, thought. ‘Everyone calls me Julia, but for the licence you must have my first name. Augusta.’ She saw his face and almost laughed. ‘I know. It was the name of my mother’s godmother and they were in hopes of some generous present from her. No one ever uses it—in fact, I doubt anyone recalls it now.’ Even if they saw any mention of the marriage in some newssheet, no one would think that Augusta Prior, making an excellent match to a baron in Buckinghamshire, might be Julia Prior of Wiltshire, fugitive.

‘But what of your cousin?’ she worried. ‘I cannot help but feel we are cheating him.’

‘If I had married as planned, I could have an heir due shortly and Henry’s nose would be permanently out of joint. Or if I had not been caught in that blizzard I might be in excellent health now. What we are doing is ensuring that when he does inherit he will have an estate in fine heart and, I trust, the maturity to appreciate it.’

Julia prodded herself with the thing that was troubling her conscience, deep down below the worry and the fear. ‘And I am being rewarded for sin,’ she muttered as she sat down again. She had eloped with a man, slept with him out of wedlock and then, however unintentionally, killed him. She could not absolve herself from blame—if she had not done that first shocking thing, then Jonathan would still be alive.

‘Sin?’ Will Hadfield must have ears like a bat. ‘Running away to save your virtue? And fleeing from physical abuse—I saw your wrist.’

Her fingers closed protectively around the yellowing bruises. Eyes like a hawk as well. ‘It was poor judgement,’ she argued. ‘I had no plan other than escape. Goodness knows how I would have found a respectable way of supporting myself.’ She had to remember the story she had told him, act in character. ‘I should have thought of something else, something less shocking.’

After a moment she added, ‘All you know of me is what I told you. I wonder that you trust me with this scheme of yours.’

‘But my judgement, my dear Miss Prior, is excellent. I have watched you and listened to you. I have seen how you look at the land, how you talk to the people. I have heard how you think things through and deal with problems. I have every confidence in you—after all, once you are safely married to me, you will not be a target for predatory young men.’

He blithely ignored her sharp intake of breath and continued before she could reply. ‘Will you go shopping tomorrow? I will send a maid with you and a footman for your parcels, and Thomas the coachman will deliver you to the Rose and Crown where you will find a private parlour and reasonable refreshments.’

‘Thank you, I shall do as you advise. It seems you have thought of everything,’ she added, managing with an effort not to allow her ungrateful resentment at his masterful organisation to show in her voice. It would serve him right if the archbishop refused to give him a licence and he found himself saddled with a fallen woman with a price on her head and a very large pile of bills.

And then her conscience pricked her. Will Hadfield was doing this because he was driven to it, he had been kind to her and now he was helping her out of danger in a way that was little short of a miracle. She wished she had known him before he had become ill, wished she could know him better now.

Or perhaps not. Even ill he was dangerously attractive. She did not want to grow to like him, to be hurt when he left, to agonise more than she would over the fate of any chance-met stranger.

* * *

‘You have known my nephew for how long, exactly? I do not think I quite caught what dear William said.’ Mrs Delia Hadfield had doubtless heard perfectly well everything that had been said to her and her façade of vague sweetness did not deceive Julia for a moment. The widow, she was certain, was aghast that her husband’s nephew had married and was consumed with a desire to discover everything she could about the circumstances.

Julia saw that Will was seated on the far side of the room, deep in conversation with the vicar. She could hardly expect him to rush to her side to rescue her. ‘It seems only days,’ Julia parried with an equally sweet smile and sipped her champagne. ‘But it was something we simply felt compelled to do.’

‘And we had thought him so happy in his engagement to Caroline Fletcher. Of course that could never be once he was so ill, but I had no idea dear William would prove so fickle. Such a suitable girl. So beautiful.’ The widow’s smile hardened and her eyes narrowed. She thinks she is sliding her rapier under my guard.

People were watching them, Julia could feel their curious stares like a touch. The salon was a long room, but even with the windows open wide on to the terrace overlooking the dry moat it was crowded with the wedding guests that Will had managed to assemble at such very short notice. She dared not let any of her true feelings show, but the recollection of the last time she had been in a press of people was making her heart beat faster and her skin feel clammy.

She made herself breathe slowly and shallowly. These people laughing and talking were nothing like that avid crowd and no one looking at her would guess that the new Lady Dereham in her pretty gown and elegantly coiffed hair was a fugitive with a deadly secret.

‘I thought I loved another, you see...’ Julia let her voice trail off artistically. ‘And then...’ Really, where did I get this ability to play-act! I have been reading too many novels. Desperation, I suppose. ‘Then we found each other again, when Will’s betrothal had been ended and I had realised that there was no one else for me but him,’ she finished. ‘So romantic, is it not?’

‘So William knew you some time ago?’ Mrs Hadfield was intent on pursuing this mystery.

‘I would rather not talk about the past,’ Julia murmured, improvising frantically. Will had assured her no one would ask awkward questions. He might have been correct so far as he was concerned, for she was sure he could depress vulgar curiosity with one look, but she had been an idiot to take his word for it and not prepare a careful story.

‘I was sadly disillusioned in the man I thought I loved and that made me see Lord Dereham’s qualities in a different light.’ Set against a scheming, mercenary rake who tried to force her, she was certain even Will’s undoubted faults would be preferable.

‘Lady Dereham—or may I call you Cousin Augusta?’ With an inward sigh of relief she turned to Henry Hadfield, Will’s cousin and heir. She could see the relationship in the height and the straight, dark brows and something about the way his mouth curved when he smiled, but there was no strength of character in the handsome, immature, face. She tried to imagine those features superimposed on Will’s strong bones and experienced a slight shock of...what? Attraction? Not desire, surely, not after what she had experienced.

The momentary feeling passed and she was able to concentrate again. It would not do to let her guard down with either of the Hadfields. Henry had not quite worked out what a threat to him she represented, but his mama would soon enlighten him.

‘Why, Cousin, certainly. But Julia, please. I never use my first name.’ She smiled. He was young and it was up to her to get to know Henry and to influence him if she could, instil in him a love for an estate she did not know and remain on good terms through seven long years of uncertainty.

The setting sun slanted in through the long windows, setting the silverware gleaming and painting a pink glow over the faces of the guests. Not that they needed much colouring, Julia thought. Will had not spared the champagne and cheeks were flushed and conversation still lively, although it was almost half past seven and the party had gathered to eat after the church service at noon.

‘Friends.’ Everyone turned. Will was standing in front of the cold hearth, a glass in his hand. Did everyone see how his knuckles whitened where his left hand gripped the mantelshelf, or was it only she who realised how tightly he was controlling himself?

The image of the statue of the dying Gaul that she had seen once as an engraving caught at her imagination. Will was still on his feet but only because of that same indomitable refusal to give up and die. What was it? she wondered. Pride? Anger partly, she was certain. Courage. He was fighting Death as though it was a person who had attacked his honour.

Her eyes blurred and she swallowed hard. If she had met him before he became sick... He would have been betrothed to Caroline Fletcher, she told herself with a sharp return to reality. And he would probably have been as dictatorial and single-minded as he was now.

‘Firstly my wife and I must thank you for your support today at such short notice. Secondly, I must ask you for further support for Lady Dereham as I will be travelling abroad for some months and must leave immediately on the morrow.’

A babble of questions broke out and then the tall man who had come down from London to stand as groomsman, the friend from Will’s army days, Major Frazer, said, ‘Abroad?’

‘I intend to develop the stud here and I wish to purchase Andalusians from Spain and Arabians from North Africa.’ The major said something in an undertone, but Will answered him in the same clear voice. ‘My health? I am feeling much stronger. It is best that I go now while the weather holds. And finally, my friends, I must ask your indulgence if we retire so I can rest before the start of my journey.’ He raised his glass, ‘To my wife, Julia.’

‘To Lady Dereham!’

Blushing, Julia made her way through the scarcely repressed whispers and speculation to Will’s side. ‘That has put the cat amongst the pigeons with a vengeance, my lord,’ she murmured. ‘I had no idea you intended to leave so abruptly.’

She saw with a pang of anxiety that the lines of strain around his eyes and mouth were even more pronounced than before. ‘There is not a great deal of time to waste, is there?’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Come, let us go up.’

He was so determined. She felt sick at the thought of what he was going through, but there was nothing she could do to help him except what, for such selfish reasons, she was doing now.

People were considerate and did not detain them with more than a few words of good wishes. Julia made her way into the deserted hallway before she slid her hand from resting on Will’s arm to a steadying pressure under his elbow. ‘I will ring for your valet,’ she said when they paused at the second turn.

‘Jervis will be already waiting with your maid in our bedchamber.’

‘Our chamber?’

‘Certainly.’ Julia looked up sharply and thought she caught just the faintest hint of a smile. ‘In my state of health you surely do not expect me to be negotiating draughty corridors in the middle of the night in order to visit you?’

‘Are you saying that you expect me to share your bed tonight?’ It had never occurred to her for a moment that this marriage would be anything but one in name only. Surely a man in his state of health could not...could he? She stumbled on the next step with images, sensations, shuddering through her memory.

‘Shh,’ Will murmured as a door below opened and the noise of the dispersing guests filled the space. ‘This is not the place to be discussing such matters.’

Julia swallowed, nodded and somehow managed the rest of the stairs without blurting out the protests that were on the tip of her tongue. When Will opened the door to the master bedchamber Nancy, the chambermaid, was waiting there, chatting to Jervis, filmy white garments draped over her arm and a wide smile on her lips. This was no place for that discussion, either. The servants had to believe this marriage was real as much as anyone.

‘There you are, my lady! I’ve had hot water brought up to the dressing room for your bath and Mr Jervis will see to his lordship in here.’ She swept Julia in front of her through another door into a small panelled room with a steaming tub standing ready.

‘I’ve sprinkled that lovely nightgown with rosewater,’ she went on chattily as Julia stood like a block to be undressed. She had indulged herself with a pretty summer nightgown and robe when she had shopped for her wedding clothes and the other wardrobe essentials in Aylesbury. What she had not expected was that anyone but herself and her maid would ever see them.

‘Excellent,’ she managed as she climbed into the bath and began to soap herself. From the other room came the sounds of conversation, the bang of a cupboard door closing, the rattle of curtain rings. Next door was a man, a virtual stranger, getting ready to go to bed and expecting her to join him. The last man with those expectations had played on every one of her love-filled fantasies, taken her virtue and then betrayed her.

This one, she reflected as she climbed out of the bath and was swathed in towels, had at least married her. But could a man in Will’s state of health consummate a marriage? She had no idea how the mechanics of male desire actually worked, but the performance was certainly physically demanding. What if Will expected her to do something...? With Jonathan she had simply lain there, held him and tried to do what he wanted of her. It seemed from his words that she had not been very good at it. Julia pressed her hand to her midriff as if that would calm the rising panic.

* * *

Jervis bowed himself out. A moment later Nancy bustled from the dressing room with her arms full of towels, bobbed a curtsy in the direction of the bed and hurried after the valet. The outer door closed with a heavy thud, the inner one stood open on to an apparently empty room.

Will lay back against the heaped pillows and got his breathing under some sort of control. He was bone-weary, aching and the night fever was beginning to sweep through him, but he had to stay in sufficient control to cope with Julia who, it seemed, had not thought beyond the marriage ceremony. She is a virgin, he reminded himself.

‘Are you still in there?’ he enquired. ‘Or have you climbed down the ivy to escape me?’ There was a pause, then she appeared in the doorway in a gown of floating white lawn, her hair loose on her shoulders, her hands knotted before her. His breathing hitched. ‘You are a white ghost tonight, not a grey one.’ She was certainly pale enough to be a spirit.

Julia took one step into the chamber. Her feet were bare. For some reason that was both touching and disturbing. ‘I had not realised that you would expect me to share your bed,’ she said. Her chin was up.

‘I am sharing my title, my home and my fortune with you,’ Will pointed out, goaded by her obvious reluctance into tormenting her a little.

She went, if anything, paler. ‘Of course. I have no wish to be difficult. It is simply that we had not discussed it.’

‘True. I have to confess that I have no experience of virgins.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ Julia said, with so much feeling that Will blinked. ‘I mean, one would hope that a gentleman does not go around seducing virgins.’ She bit her lip, then put back her shoulders, tossed her robe on to a chair and walked over to the bedside.

Will was powerfully reminded of pictures of Christian martyrs bravely facing the lions and felt a pang of conscience. For all her maturity and poise and her scandalous circumstances, Julia was an innocent and his own frustrations at his weakness were no reason to scare the poor girl. ‘Perhaps I should make it clear that I do not expect you to do anything but sleep in this bed.’

‘Oh.’ Julia froze, one hand lifting the covers to turn them back. The colour seemed to ebb and flow under her skin and he wondered if she was about to faint. ‘Truly?’

Her relief was palpable. Will told himself that he was a coxcomb to expect anything else: she scarcely knew him, he looked like a skeleton, he could hardly stand up half the time—why on earth would the poor woman want to make love with him? The very fact that she feared he might attempt it showed how innocent she was.

‘Get into bed, I promise you are quite safe.’

Julia pushed back the covers, climbed in and sat upright against the pillows. A good eight inches of space and the thickness of his nightshirt and her gown separated their shoulders: it must be imagination that he could feel the heat of her skin against his. She smelled of roses and Castile soap and warm woman and her tension vibrated between them like a plucked harp string.

‘It is important that no one can challenge this marriage,’ he explained, more to keep talking until she relaxed than anything else. ‘We have a licence from the Archbishop, we were married by the local vicar in the face of the largest congregation I could bring together and now both our houseguests and our servants will vouch for the fact that we spent the night in this room. If and when my aunt decides she is going to challenge your control of the estate, she will not be able to shake the legitimacy of this marriage or contest your position as my wife.’

‘I see. Yes, I understand why it is necessary.’

It sounded as though Julia was having difficulty controlling her breathing. She was not the only one, Will thought with an inward grimace. The spirit was very willing indeed as far as he was concerned—but the flesh was certainly too weak to do anything to upset the composure of the warm, fragrant, softly rounded and very desirable female so close to him. She was not a beauty, but she was, he was uncomfortably aware, an attractive, vibrant woman.

‘Go to sleep,’ he suggested and reached out to snuff the candles.

‘Goodnight,’ she murmured and burrowed down under the covers.

Will willed himself to stillness as gradually her breathing slowed and he waited for sleep to take her. Then a small hand crept into his. He froze. After a moment Julia shifted, murmured something and, before he could react, she snuggled right up to his side, her cheek on the thin cotton of his nightshirt over his heart.

‘Julia?’ His heart pounded in his chest until he felt dizzy. Or perhaps it was simply the scent and the feel of her. Somehow Will managed not to put his arms around her and drag her tight against him

‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I should have known I would be quite safe with you, that you are a gentleman. I do not want you to think I was unwilling because you are ill.’ She wriggled and came up on her elbow. Before he realised what she was doing she bent her head. The kiss would have landed on his cheek—instead, as he turned his head, their lips met.

Soft warmth, the yielding curve of that lovely mouth he had been trying to ignore for days. The whisper of her breath between slightly parted lips, the hint of the taste of her—champagne, strawberries, woman.

Hell. The torture of this was going to kill him. He couldn’t breathe, his heart would surely give out. He wanted to touch her, caress her, because he was suddenly acutely aware that this trusting sensuality could overcome his body’s weakness.

But he had just given her his word. He pressed his lips lightly to hers and then murmured, ‘Goodnight, Julia. Better that you sleep on your side of the bed or you will find me a very hot companion with this fever.’

‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ she asked. He could almost feel her blushes as she lay down a safe distance from him.

Yes, kiss me, touch me, let me make love to you. ‘No, thank you.’ Will closed his eyes and made himself lie still. It would be a long night.

* * *

Julia woke in the dawn light. Exhausted by fears and emotion and the strain of the wedding, she had slept as though drugged and Will had let her. ‘Will?’ Silence. As she turned something crackled on the empty bed beside her. The note when she unfolded it said simply,

Goodbye. I will write when I can. All the information and addresses you need are in my desk in the study. I have taken Bess with me. Good luck. Will.

A key slid out of the folds and fell into the creased hollow where he had lain beside her all night. She was alone. A widow in all but name.

Her fingers closed around the key as they had around his hand last night. Will Hadfield had given her her life back, as his was ending. He had not realised what a gift he was making her, what he had saved her from, but he had shown trust and confidence in her and that was balm to her bruised soul. She had tried, in sheer self-preservation, to feel nothing for him but a polite, remote concern, but she was aware that somehow the essence of the man had touched her heart.

‘Oh, Will.’ Julia curled up on his side of the bed and buried her face in his pillow. Was it imagination, or did it still hold a faint warmth, a trace of the scent of his skin?

Chapter Six

Three years later, 21st June, 1817— Assembly Rooms, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

‘Do try and look as if you are enjoying yourself, Julia!’ Mrs Hadfield scolded in a whisper. ‘Do you have a headache?’

‘A little. I really do not think I should have agreed to come to this dance, Aunt Delia.’ Julia eyed the noisy throng around them with misgiving as they made their way into the market town’s Assembly Rooms. She tried to avoid any kind of large public gathering where she did not know everyone present. Even after three years she had nightmares of someone pointing an accusing finger at her, shouting Murderess! Arrest her! She made herself breathe slowly, shallowly, and focused on negotiating the steps up to the front doors. Usually the panic could be kept under control by such tactics.

It was a long time since she had attended a dance of any kind, let alone a public assembly, and she should have known she would regret not standing up to Aunt Delia’s bossiness. She cast around for an explanation for her subdued spirits. ‘Under the circumstances—’

The older woman bridled. ‘The circumstances are that my nephew took off in a most ill-considered manner three years ago. The fact that you have not heard anything from him for almost eighteen months does not mean you should be behaving like a widow.’ The words not yet hung unspoken between them

On the surface Mrs Hadfield had mellowed since her first resentment over Will’s marriage, disappearance and the events that followed. After nine months, when she finally appeared to accept that Henry’s position was unassailable and that Julia was not doing anything to damage his inheritance, she unbent towards the younger woman, although her tendency to patronise and to attempt to organise her niece by marriage grated on Julia’s nerves.

But she suppressed her own forceful nature and worked hard to foster good relations between the households. She suspected that the other woman, foolish though she was in the way she indulged her son, was both a realist and also potentially a danger.

Julia knew that Delia had demanded that the vicar show her the licence and Nancy had confided indignantly that Mrs Hadfield had questioned her about where her mistress had slept on her wedding night.

‘And did you tell her?’ Julia asked.

‘I did that! She asked me about the sheets, would you believe? I put her straight, interfering old besom,’ the maid said darkly.

So, Julia reflected, the pain of jabbing a large sewing needle into her thumb and sacrificing a few drops of blood had been worthwhile.

Mrs Hadfield might have accepted the marriage, but she had a clear eye on the calendar, and had no doubt consulted her lawyer over the necessary action to take in 1821 in the absence of proof of Will’s fate. She was intelligent enough to know that they must wait, even if she was probably crossing off the days in her almanac, and the fact that Julia made a point of consulting Henry upon every decision relating to the estate at least appeared to mollify her.

‘I do not behave like a widow,’ Julia protested now as they inched their way to the foot of the stairs, Henry protectively at their backs. ‘I do not wear mourning.’ She glanced down with some complacency at the skirt of her highly fashionable shell-pink evening gown with its daring glimpse of ankle and then the months when she had worn black, when her heart had seemed frozen with grief, came back to reproach her for her mild vanity.

She pushed away the memory of those months, of the child she had lost, and made herself focus on the present. ‘I will not give up on Will until I absolutely have to.’ And somehow that was true. A whimsical part of her mind had a fantasy of Will well and happy and living an exotic life as an eastern pasha although the letters, the straightforward letters sent via his lawyer saying where he was, had long since ceased. She had never written back for he made it quite plain he was constantly on the move and had nowhere to send the letters.

The fantasy Will was strong and handsome and responsible for some rather disturbing dreams about things that, in the cold light of day, she preferred not to contemplate.

‘I go to dinner parties and hold them,’ she went on, calmer now they were climbing the stairs and she had something to concentrate on. ‘I attend picnics and soirées and musical evenings. It is just that this seems rather...boisterous.’

And exposed. And full of people she did not know, people from outside the small, safe circle of friends and acquaintances around King’s Acre. Improbable though it was after three years that anyone would recognise a half-naked, distraught murderess in the fashionably gowned, utterly respectable, Lady Dereham.

‘Boisterous? The young people may romp. I shall not regard it,’ Mrs Hadfield observed. ‘For myself I am just thankful to be out of the house now that wretched summer cold has left me. I confess I am starved of gossip and fashions, even provincial ones.’

A faint headache, irrational fears and a growing, inexplicable, sense of foreboding were no excuse to be churlish, Julia told herself. And the Assembly Room, when they finally managed to enter it, was certainly a fine sight with the chandeliers blazing and the ladies’ gowns and jewels like a field of flowers in sunlight. She relaxed a trifle as Henry, on his best behaviour, found seats for the ladies and melted away into the crowd to find them lemonade.

‘He wants me to agree to him going off to the Wilshires’ house party next week,’ his doting mama said. ‘Which probably means there is a young lady he has his eye upon amongst the other guests.’

More likely some congenial company his own age and a tempting array of sporting pursuits, Julia thought cynically as one of Mrs Hadfield’s bosom friends greeted her with delighted cries and bore down upon their alcove. Henry was maturing, but he was still not much in the petticoat line and far more likely to flee than flirt if confronted by a pretty girl.

‘I will take a turn around the room, if you will excuse me, Aunt.’ Mrs Hadfield, already embarked upon some prime character assassination, merely nodded.

Everyone was having a very good time. So why could she not simply settle down and enjoy watching? Or even dance, if anyone asked her? The familiar crowd-induced panic was gone, but there was still this odd feeling of apprehension, of tension. Perhaps she was coming down with something. Not Aunt Delia’s cold, she sincerely hoped.

Julia stopped by a pillar halfway down the room and fanned herself, amused by the chatter of a group of very young ladies who could only just have come out that Season.

‘I do not know who he is, I have never seen him before,’ one said as she peeped through the fronds of a palm. ‘But have you ever seen such wonderful shoulders?’

‘So manly,’ another agreed with a sigh. ‘And his hair—so romantic!’

Julia looked to see the paragon who had attracted their wide-eyed admiration. Goodness. There was no mistaking which man it was as he stood surveying the room with his back to them. Silly chits they might be, but they could recognise a fine figure of a man when they saw one. That certainly is a magnificent pair of shoulders. And his glossy brown hair was indeed romantically long.

The young ladies were far too bashful and shy to do more than giggle and swoon at a distance. Julia told herself that she was a matron and therefore perfectly at liberty to wander closer to inspect this threat to female susceptibilities.

She was not given to admiring gentlemen. She was a respectable lady with a reputation to maintain and the loss of her virginity had taught her that yearning after a handsome face was one thing—the reality of amorous men, quite another. Her body might disagree sometimes, her dreams conjure up fantasies, but, waking, she knew better. A solitary bed at night was a positive benefit of life as a grass widow, as she frequently reminded herself.

Even so, this man intrigued her for no reason she could put a finger on. She paused a few feet away from him, swept her fan languidly to and fro and studied him from the corner of her eye. This was easier when the heroine of a romantic tale did it, she realised, eyes watering. What she could tell, without blatantly staring, was that his valet and tailor had between them contrived to send him forth outfitted to constitute a menace to any woman who set eyes upon him.

He was clad in a close-fitting swallowtail coat and skin-tight silk evening breeches that between them left very little of the gentleman’s well-muscled form to the imagination. Julia glanced casually around the room and managed to register, in profile, tanned skin, an arrogant nose, a very decided chin and long dark lashes which were presently lowered in either deep thought or terminal boredom.

The knot of apprehension that had been lodged uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach all evening tightened. I know you. Which was impossible: she could not have forgotten this man. I know you from my dreams. He shifted, restless, as though he felt her scrutiny and then, before she had the chance to move away, he turned his head and stared right into her face. And he was not bored or thoughtful now for he was studying her with eyes that were the amber of a hunting cat’s, the deep peaty gold at the bottom of a brandy glass.

They were the eyes she had last seen burning with scarce-suppressed frustration in the face of a dying man. The eyes of her husband.

Julia had always imagined that fainting was a sudden and complete loss of consciousness: blackness falling like a curtain. But now the margins of her sight began to narrow down until all she could see was the face of the tanned man, those extraordinary eyes locked with hers. Will. Then the only noise was the buzzing in her head and the blackness came and on a sigh she escaped into it without a struggle.

* * *

He could hold one tall, curvaceous woman without trouble. Will registered the fact with the faint surprise that still struck him when his body obeyed without faltering, when his sinews and muscles flexed and responded with their old confidence and power.

‘The lady has fainted. There is nothing to be concerned about.’ The cluster of helpful matrons surrounding him were still thrusting smelling bottles forwards, waving fans, calling for sal volatile. ‘If someone could please direct me to a quiet retiring room with a couch?’

Several led the way, bustling around and offering advice until he secured peace by the simple expedient of shouldering the door shut behind him and leaving them on the other side. Julia slid limply from his arms on to the rather battered leather chaise and he shot the bolt to give them privacy.

They appeared to be in a storeroom, now doing service as a makeshift retiring room with a cheval glass propped against the wall, a few chairs and a screen. Not the place he would have chosen to be reunited with his wife, but it had the virtue of privacy at least.

It was not the time of his choosing either, which should be a lesson to him not to yield to sudden impulses. He should have stayed in his bedchamber and ignored the lights and music from the Assembly Rooms opposite and then, as he had planned, arrived at King’s Acre in the morning. So close now to his dream, so close to coming home.

He had been thinking of the morrow when something had made him look up, glance to the side. He had recognised her at once, although this was no longer the anxious, tired woman he had married, but a poised and elegant young matron. Her eyelids flickered as he watched her now.

‘Will?’ The whisper from the chaise was incredulous. He spun a chair round and sat beside her. No time for dreaming yet. This was not going to be easy for he had no idea of what his own feelings were, let alone hers. Julia lay still, her face white, but she was thinking, calculating, he could tell. She might have fainted, but she was not in a daze any longer. ‘I thought you were a ghost,’ she murmured.

‘That was my line when we first met, if I recall. I am perfectly real, Julia.’ He remembered the courage and the pallor and the height. He recalled his body’s surprising arousal and, looking at her now, he was no longer so amazed that Julia had sent tremors of desire through a dying man.

‘I am very glad. And you are perfectly well by the look of you, which is wonderful,’ she said slowly, as though she could still not believe in him. ‘But, Will, what happened? You were so ill, and there has been no letter from you for eighteen months at least. I am delighted to see you again, of course, but it is such a shock!’

The colour was beginning to come back to her cheeks. Three years had indeed wrought changes in her. The clinging silks of her evening gown revealed lush curves, smooth skin. Her hair was fashionably dressed, glossy with health. Julia was not a fashionable beauty, but she was undeniably attractive. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, drawing his eyes to the fullness and sending a bolt of desire through him. This was his wife. The emotions that produced were confusing and not all welcome, not yet. She was real now and he was going to have to deal with that reality.

‘Yes, I am completely well.’ He might as well explain now and get it over with. ‘I was very ill in Seville and the doctor that Jervis found, quite by accident, was one who practised Jewish and Moorish medicine. He gave me some drugs, but mainly he made me rest, out in the sunshine. He took over my diet and gradually the coughing stopped and the night sweats got less frequent. I began to sleep and gain strength.

‘Then he sent me south to the coast and from there over to North Africa to a doctor he knew.’ Will shrugged. ‘There is more to it than that, of course. Exercise, massage, swimming to build up my muscles again, days when I feared I would never get back to how I was before.

‘But the miracle happened, although for months I could not believe I was really cured. Every time I picked up the pen to write I did not know what to say. If I said I was getting better and it was just a false hope... I have been fully well for over six months but it is hard to believe it sometimes.’

It was no easier speaking of it than it had been to try to write. Eventually he would learn to accept that he was going to have a future. A life. ‘I thought it would be better simply to come home.’

Julia sat up and swung her feet on to the ground. Pink satin slippers and a provocative amount of ankle showed beneath her hem. His wife had obviously decided it was far too early to go into mourning for him, or perhaps she had simply found it easier to forget him.

She is still damnably self-possessed, he added mentally as she studied him, her face almost expressionless. And yet, there was something beneath that cool scrutiny. What is she thinking? He did not like secrets. Probably she was still recovering from the shock of seeing him and that was all it was.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked. ‘At this dance, I mean.’

‘I intended to come to King’s Acre in the morning rather than turn up on the doorstep when you were about to sit down to dinner. And then I saw the lights and heard the music and decided to dip my toe into English life once more. It never occurred to me that you might be here.’

‘Aunt Delia persuaded me to come. I am not much given to large public assemblies.’ Julia studied him. ‘And you have had no news of home, of course.’

Something was wrong, he could sense it. ‘I have had no news at all. I collect that you and Aunt Delia are on good terms?’

‘We have learned to rub along together,’ she said drily. ‘And I have learned to bite my tongue even if she still sees no need to hold hers. But I should not be disrespectful, I have found her kind on many occasions. This is going to be a considerable shock to her; she has quite decided that you...that Henry is definitely going to inherit.’

‘Did you travel with her this evening?’ Time enough tomorrow to face Delia and Henry and shatter their hopes.

‘No. I used my own carriage. It is out of their way to collect me and I prefer to be independent.’

‘Then we will go back together, you and I.’ Now this meeting had happened there was no going back, no retreat into the neutral ground of a solitary inn bedchamber for the night. ‘If Delia has not seen me there is no need to tell her I have returned, not until tomorrow. Are you well enough to find her and let her know you are returning home?’ Julia nodded. ‘Then I will go and settle my account, pay off the postilions and collect my baggage. Jervis and I will meet you in the yard of the Stag’s Head opposite.’

Something flared in her eyes, but it was gone before he could analyse it. Julia pressed her lips together as if on a retort and nodded again. This was not the place to talk. Will got to his feet and let himself out, wary now that Delia or Henry might see him. A confrontation in a crowded ballroom would set the district on its ears for weeks. That was the only reason for the knot in his gut, surely? He would be home within the hour. His life could begin again—on his terms now.

* * *

Julia stared blankly at the battered door panels as the catch clicked shut. She was not a widow. She was not even the pretend-wife of a man who had vanished as though he had been a dream. Her husband was alive and fit and, as far as she could tell, in the very best of health. Which meant he would find out exactly what had happened at King’s Acre in his absence.

She had no idea what Will imagined he was coming home to, but she rather suspected that he had not thought through the implications of surviving his hasty marriage. Finally she would find out exactly what manner of man she was tied to, for this was all going to shake him off balance enough to reveal his true character. The baby. Her mind shied away from how she was going to break that to him.

Think of something else. My goodness, but he is attractive. Julia jabbed loose hairpins in securely and told herself that physical attractiveness was no guide to inner character. And if Will Hadfield thought he was coming home to her bed tonight he must think again. There was far too much to be said, to work out, before things became that intimate. She swallowed. If they ever did. She was not at all certain what she wanted, although that was probably academic. Her desires were not going to affect Will’s reactions. For all she knew he might try to repudiate her now he no longer needed her. He certainly might when he learned what had happened in his absence.

But that was something to worry about when she was alone. Now she must leave without arousing Delia’s suspicions. Julia opened the door and almost bumped into Henry. She slid her arm into his and produced a faint smile. ‘Cousin Henry! Just the person I need. I have such a headache—would you be a dear and let your mama know I am returning home now?’

‘Of course. Shall I go and call your carriage?’

He was a nice young man, Julia thought, watching him weave through the crowd to the front door. Still self-centred and inclined to believe that things would fall into his lap by right, but he would learn. Yet however little he wished his cousin ill, the discovery that he was not going to inherit King’s Acre in a few years would be a blow that would set his world on its ear.

When her carriage pulled into the inn yard the footman jumped down from the box to open the door and let the steps down and almost fell over his feet when he saw the two men waiting. ‘Mr Jervis! And—oh, my Heavens, it’s his lordship! Thomas, look, it’s his lordship just like he used to be!’

‘Praise be!’ Thomas the coachman must have jabbed the horses’ mouths in his excitement. The carriage rocked back and forth and she saw Will grin in the lamplight. It was the first time she had ever seen him smile like that. How had she ever thought him old, even when he had been so sick? This was a man in his prime.

‘Praise be, indeed, Thomas. Good to see you again, Charles. Now, load up the bags and let us be going. We can’t keep her ladyship sitting around like this.’ He climbed in, the valet on his heels.

‘Good evening, your ladyship.’ The valet sat down with his back to the horses, his hat held precisely on his knees.

‘Good evening, Jervis. Welcome home. I am delighted to see you after all this time.’ And thankful that his presence in the carriage would bar any but the most commonplace conversation. Shock was beginning to give way to apprehension. It was no more than that, she assured herself. There was nothing really to actually be afraid of. Was there? Only some very unpleasant revelations to deal with.

‘You have bought a new team,’ Will observed. Perhaps he too was glad of their involuntary chaperon. ‘There will be more horses arriving in a few weeks. I bought an Andalusian stallion and two mares and a dozen Arabians.’

‘Fifteen horses?’ Julia felt a surge of excitement sweep back the fears into their usual dark corner. ‘We will need new stabling. And to extend the paddocks,’ she added. ‘Thank goodness the feed stocks are so good and the hay crop should be excellent if the weather holds. We may need to hire new grooms.’ Mind racing, she started to make lists in her head. ‘I will get Harris the builder up tomorrow to discuss plans. Jobbins will have ideas about any likely local lads to hire, of course, but we will need someone used to stud work—’

‘I have it all in hand,’ Will said. ‘You have no need to trouble yourself with such things now that I am home.’

‘It will be no trouble,’ Julia retorted. She knew exactly what state the grass was in, how much new fencing was needed, where an extended stable block would go and the strengths and weaknesses of the current stable staff. There was going to be a territorial battle, she could tell, because she was not prepared to let three years of hard work go and retire to her sitting room and her embroidery. But that was something else that could wait until the morning.

‘We can have supper while they make up the bed in the master suite,’ she said into the silence that had fallen. ‘And make sure your room is aired, of course, Jervis.’ In the gloom of the carriage she could sense the sudden sharpening of Will’s attention. He was hardly going to discuss their sleeping arrangements now. When the time came to go upstairs she would just have to be very clear that she wished to be alone.

No doubt that would be another subject on which Lord Dereham had very firm opinions. And then there was the secret tragedy that, somehow, she was going to find a way to confess before anyone told him of it.

Chapter Seven

Will rolled over on to his back and opened his eyes. Above him, lit by the early morning light, was the familiar dark blue of the bed canopy. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and focused on the stars embroidered in silver thread by some long-ago ancestress. Home. He really was home.

Without turning his head he stretched out a hand as he had every morning since he had finally accepted that he was not about to die. Beside him the bed was empty, the covers flat, the pillow smooth and cool. No one was there, of course.

Julia had not been very communicative last night, not after the brief verbal tussle over where he was sleeping. Which she had won, he reflected. For one night, at any rate. He was hard, aroused, but then he was every morning since he had recovered.

Will threw back the covers with an impatient hand and let the cool air of dawn flow over his naked, heated body. He had made his bed and now, he supposed, he must lie on it. Not that it would be such a hardship to lie with Julia. His mouth curved at the memory of her in that pink silk last night. He had thought about her these past years, but the memories had been of her spirit and her intelligence, not of her looks.

But marrying Julia had been a brilliant piece of improvisation by a dying man. A marriage of convenience that he had expected to last mere months. For a man with the prospect of a long life ahead of him it was a sentence to a loveless but solid and respectable future.

Or, given the hideous example of his own parents’ convenient marriage, loveless and cold, although, if he had anything to do with it, not spectacularly scandalous. He winced at the remembrance of the raised voices, the banging doors, the sniggers at school and the oh-so-careful reports in the scandal sheets—It is said that a certain Lady D—... It is the talk of the town that Lord D—’s latest companion...

All those lies, all the pretence. His father pretending he was not unfaithful, his mother pretending her heart was not broken, both of them lying to him, fobbing him off, whenever he asked if anything was wrong, when Papa would be home, why Mama was weeping again. It had felt as though they simply did not care enough about him to talk to him, to explain, to comfort the confused small boy. Looking back, he saw no reason to modify that explanation.

Thousands married without love and managed to live perfectly affectionate, civilised, faithful lives, he knew that. But, for a man who had once dreamed of something more for himself, it was a damnably unpleasant place to be. He had lived with a vision of bringing love back to Knight’s Acre and he had to accept that now he never would. He could sense that Julia would find it difficult to have him home and he could understand her feelings.

The night before he had told Jervis to leave the curtain drawn back. Now the sun flooded in through the window and he gazed down the long avenue of oaks towards the glimmer of the lake in the distance while he found his equilibrium again. He had managed to survive a death sentence, the loss of his betrothed and exile from the place he loved with a bone-deep passion. He had taken a gamble to save King’s Acre and if he had not, and had stayed, he would be dead by now and Henry in his place.

You’re an ungrateful devil, he told himself. He was alive, well and had an intelligent, attractive wife. King’s Acre had been in good hands, he felt confident of that. Of course Julia had been cool and had wanted to sleep alone last night. After all, she was a virgin and was probably shaken to the core to have her virtually unknown husband turn up without notice. That would change and he would be careful with her. And she would realise this morning that the master of the house had returned and she could place all the business affairs in his hands and, no doubt, be glad to shed the responsibility.

But for now the house was quiet in the dawn light. Down in the kitchens a yawning scullery maid would be riddling the grate and making up the range to heat water for the other servants. Up here all would be undisturbed for at least an hour.

King’s Acre lay open and waiting for him, like a mistress awaiting her lover’s return, and he would savour it, rediscover it and his hoarded, happy memories. Will pulled on a brocade robe and, without bothering to find his slippers, opened the door on to his dressing room.

He wandered from room to room, looked out of windows, touched furniture, picked up trinkets. Under his fingers the house came to life again in a myriad of textures: polished wood and rough tapestry; smooth porcelain, cold metal; cut glass and ornate ormolu. His eyes lingered on favourite paintings, achingly remembered views, familiar spaces. In his nostrils was the smell of lavender and beeswax, wood smoke and, unsettlingly unfamiliar, a hint of the perfume he remembered from Julia’s skin as he had carried her into the retiring room the evening before.

On this upper floor every door opened to him. At the other end of the main passageway lay the oak panels leading to the bedchamber Julia was using and he passed that by. Today she would move her things into the suite next to his and that would put an end to this nonsense of sleeping apart.

The final door, the one beyond her dressing room, did not open. Will twisted the handle, pushed, expecting it to have stuck. But it stayed firm. Beyond, he recalled, was a small room with a pretty curve to the wall where it fitted into one of the old turrets. There was no reason for it to be locked. Thwarted, he frowned. It could wait, of course. He would get the key... But the rest of the rooms had opened to him as if welcoming him back, giving themselves up again to their master. It jarred that this one remained blankly inaccessible.

Frustrated, Will hit the panels with his clenched fist. The sound echoed down the quiet corridor like a hammer blow.

A sharp intake of breath was all the warning he got that he was not alone. When he turned Julia was standing in the doorway of her room, her eyes wide, one hand clenched in the ruffles of her robe.

* * *

Will should not look so much bigger in a robe with bare feet and yet he seemed to fill the space. His eyes ran over her as she stood there in the flimsy summer robe until she felt naked and exposed.

‘I am sorry, I did not mean to wake you. I was surprised to find the door locked.’

‘There are just some things stored in there,’ she said vaguely. ‘Did you need the room? I will have it cleared.’ Oh, I am such a fool! Why didn’t I do it before? I don’t need an empty nursery to remind me of the child I lost. Can I tell him now? No. All night she had tossed and turned, trying to think how she would break the news of what she had discovered after he had left.

‘No, I don’t care about the room,’ Will said. ‘But may I come into yours?’

‘My bedchamber? But, why?’

‘Why?’ One dark brow rose and his smile became sensual. That look had been in Jonathan’s eyes that night in the inn. Her pulse spiked. ‘I am your husband,’ Will pointed out.

‘But our marriage was only a sham, a device. You cannot expect to...to come to my bed just like that, without any discussion, without giving me any time—I hardly know you!’

‘Then I suggest we make up for lost time.’ His expression softened. ‘I find you very attractive, Julia. Do I...frighten you? Is that it?’

He was so close she could see the individual stubble of his night-beard, see the crisp curl of hair in the vee of his robe. He is naked under it, just as I am beneath mine. He was a virile, attractive man. Head and heart and body seemed to be at war in her. Her feminine reactions to him were primal, she could not help them, she knew that. Even before, when he had been so ill, she had felt that flicker of heat, that attraction. And it was her duty to lie with him, she had taken everything he offered her and been grateful for it.

‘No,’ she admitted and saw the tension leave him.

But... She swallowed as he came closer still. She only had to close her eyes and she thought of Jonathan, his hands impatient, the painful thrusting into her body, his sneers, the betrayal. And he had left her with child.

Will reached out and pulled her against him and then there was nothing but those amber eyes holding hers as he lowered his head and kissed her. One hand slid up to hold her head and his fingers sifted into the mass of hair, loosened from its night-time plait. With the other arm he encircled her shoulders. She felt herself become stiff, unyielding, as reactions and instincts warred within her.

Will was overwhelming. Overwhelmingly big, overwhelmingly male. His mouth, as it crushed down on hers, was unlike anything she had experienced or imagined.

His tongue slid along the tight seam of her lips, seeking entrance, and she tasted him, felt his heat. This is not Jonathan. Suddenly her body was fluid, curving against his, only thin muslin and thick silk separating their bare flesh.

Jonathan had not seemed to want to kiss her much. There had been romantic, respectful kisses when he was courting her. Fleeting caresses that she now knew to be hypocritical ploys. When he had taken her to his bed she had ached for kisses, had wanted their reassurance, but he had been urgent, focused on sheathing himself in her body and, she realised now, reaching his own satisfaction.

She tensed at the memory, transferring those feelings to Will, wanting to reject him, but her body was sending her clamouring messages of need, of surrender. Of desire. He felt so strong against her. The thrust of his erection pressed against her belly. His skin smelt of musk and, faintly, of last evening’s shaving soap. His morning beard was rough against her cheeks.

Her body wanted to be seduced. Her common sense, squeaking faintly to be heard against the clamour of emotion, told her that he was her husband, that she should simply allow herself to be swept off to his bed.

No. Will’s tongue probed along her lips, seeking entrance. Some instinct that she did not dare to quite trust murmured that he would not force her. But he will make my body force me, she argued back. He thinks he holds every card, the arrogant devil.

Then take control, don’t let him dominate you so. As she thought it she felt her body melting, answering him, demanding with as much urgency as his was. He used his strength and she could not match it, but she could use it against him as a wrestler uses his opponent’s weight to overbalance him.

Damn you, Will Hadfield, Julia thought as she opened her lips, felt the triumphant surge of his tongue. You will be my husband, not my master. Rather than yield she would give as good as she got. Her own tongue met his, boldly, and then she lost track of time, of coherent thought and, certainly, of speech.

Will kissed as though this meeting of mouths was the sex act in itself: hot, demanding, intimate. She had no idea what she was doing as her tongue tangled and duelled with his, as the taste of him filled her and her ears were deafened by the sound of his breathing and her thundering heart.

His robe was too thick. Touch him. Julia pushed it back and found naked skin, hot and smooth over shifting, hard muscle. She wanted to bite, to kiss...

His hands came down, over her back, down to her waist and he pulled her against him and she felt the hard ridge of arousal pressed against her stomach and the memory of the pain came back, sweeping away the passion in a cold flood.

Will released her, stepped back his expression rueful. ‘I have frightened you. For a moment I forgot you were a virgin, Julia. It will be all right, I promise you.’

‘Yes, of course.’ From somewhere she found a smile.

‘Those few days we were together before we married—we are still those people. I have not changed so very much and I doubt you have either. We trusted each other. There was liking, I think. We can build on that. And attraction as we have just proved.’

Attraction, yes. She nodded, it was impossible to pretend otherwise. Trust. But I lied to you. You married a woman who killed a man. I was a fugitive. And now I have to tell you I bore, and lost, that man’s child and I have to beg you to acknowledge it as yours. If I let you lie with me then the marriage is consummated and I will have trapped you.

‘I’ll let you get dressed,’ Will said. ‘We’ll meet at breakfast and talk afterwards. You can move into the chamber next to mine and this will all be all right, you’ll see, Julia.’

‘Thank you.’ Her smile was slipping, but it was only a few steps to her chamber. Julia closed the door behind her with care. She was shaking, but she made herself walk to the armchair at the window, not collapse on the bed. She would be in control, she would not panic.

Before she slept with him she had to tell him the truth. Not all of it, not that she was responsible for Jonathan’s death, but about the elopement and about the baby. She owed it to him to be honest about that before he made love to her.

He would be angry, and shaken, but she had to hope he would understand and forgive her the deception because there was only so much weight her conscience could bear.

Once she had thought that the guilt and fear over Jonathan’s death would lessen, that she could forget. But it did not go away. It was always there and so was the pain and loss of her child, the two things twisting and tangling into a mesh of emotions that were always there waiting to trip her, snare her, when she was least expecting it. And now Will was home there was the added guilt of keeping her crime from him. But it was not a personal shame like her elopement or the pregnancy. This was a matter of law and she could not ask him to conceal what she had done.

The sensitive skin of her upper arms where Will had held her still prickled with the awareness of his touch. Her mouth was swollen and sensitive and the ache between her thighs was humiliatingly insistent.

He was her husband. She owed him as much truth as she could give him and, unfair though it might be, she wanted something in return. I want a real marriage.

Papa had taught her to negotiate. Know what your basic demands are, the point you will not shift beyond, he had told her. Know what you can afford to yield, what you can give to get what you want. He had been talking about buying land and selling wheat, but the principles were surely the same.

Julia lay back in the chair, closed her eyes against the view of the garden coming to life in the strengthening sunlight, and tried to think without emotion. She could not risk the marriage: that was her sticking point. She wanted her husband’s respect, and equality in making decisions about their lives and that included the estate and the farm. She wanted him to desire her for herself, not just as a passive body in his bed to breed his sons. Sons. The emotion broke through the calculation. Could she bear that pain again? Could she carry another child, knowing what it would be like to lose it before it had even drawn a breath?

Yes. Because if I am not willing to do that, then the marriage cannot stand. I made a bargain and I cannot break it. She felt one tear running down her cheek, but she did not lift her hand to wipe it away.

Chapter Eight

At length Nancy, her maid, arrived. Julia bathed, dressed and, still deep in thought, walked to the head of the stairs to be greeted by loud wailing rising from the breakfast room. When she ran down and along the passageway she was confronted by a view of the door jammed with all three of their strapping footmen, craning to see what was going on inside. Julia tapped the nearest liveried shoulder and they jumped apart, mumbling shamefaced apologies.

The wailing female was revealed as Cook, her apron to her face, sobbing with joy on Will’s shoulder. ‘I never thought to see the day... Oh, look at ’im... Oh, my lord...just like when he was a young man!’

Will had the usual expression of a man confronted by a weeping female, one of helpless alarm, as he stood patting Cook ineffectually on the back.

‘Mrs Pocock, do calm down!’ The relief of having some ordinary crisis to take control of almost made Julia laugh out loud. ‘Gatcombe, will you please find someone to take Cook downstairs and make her a nice cup of tea and the rest of you, get on and fetch his lordship’s breakfast. He will think he has come home to a madhouse.’

‘My lady, I must apologise.’ The butler glared at the footmen until one of them helped Mrs Pocock from the room, then waved the others in with the chafing-dishes. ‘Cook had retired to her room when you returned last night and the kitchen maids did not inform her until this morning of his lordship’s presence and his good health.’

‘Of course.’ Julia took her place at the foot of the small oval table as Will straightened his rumpled neckcloth and collapsed into his chair. ‘I had forgotten that Cook has known Lord Dereham for many years.’ Gatcombe went out, closing the door on the sounds from the corridor and leaving them alone.

‘Coffee, my lord?’ Will looked decidedly off balance. Whatever he had been doing for the past three years, he had certainly not been gaining experience in dealing with difficult females. But then, since he had recovered his health, they had probably been all willing complaisance. Julia tried hard not to imagine just how her husband would have celebrated his returning health and vigour.

‘Thank you.’ The heavy-lidded look had shivers travelling up and down her spine, but all Will said was, ‘You appear to have rather more control over the domestic staff than I have, my lady. Mrs Pocock would not stop wailing.’

‘It is only to be expected,’ Julia said as she racked her brains to recall whether her husband took cream and sugar with his coffee. He could say if it was wrong, she decided with a mental shrug and simply passed the cup. ‘They are all delighted at your recovery and as for control, I have been dealing with them daily for three years, after all.’

‘I trust there will be no more weeping females today.’ Will sipped his coffee without a grimace, so she had that right at least. None of the servants knew the true story behind this marriage, or even where they had first met—the more familiar she seemed with Will’s habits, the better it would be.

‘I doubt any more of the female staff will shed tears at the sight of you.’ Julia studied him over the rim of her chocolate cup as Charles came in and began to serve Will breakfast.

As was her habit, Julia started her day with only chocolate, bread and butter and preserves, but it seemed someone had warned the kitchen and Cook had managed to at least put a decent breakfast for a hungry man in train before her emotions overcame her.

Bacon, eggs, a slice of sirloin, mushrooms. Will nodded thanks to Charles when his breakfast plate was finally filled to his satisfaction. The contrast with the emaciated invalid picking at a spoonful of scrambled egg during their first breakfast together could not have been greater.

‘What are you thinking?’ Will asked as he reached for the toast.

‘Thank you, Charles, that will be all.’ Julia waited until he footman had closed the door behind her. ‘I was reflecting that I would not have recognised the man I married if it were not for your eyes.’

‘And that recognition was enough to make you faint?’

‘You must know perfectly well how distinctive a feature your eyes are. I had thought you must be dead, although I never once admitted it to anyone else. To tell the truth, I was surprised to receive the letters for as long as you sent them. When you left I had not expected you would make it across the Channel. So the shock of seeing you again with no warning was...intense.’

Will pushed the empty plate away with sudden impatience. ‘I will not beat about the bush. What is the matter, Julia? You know I am the same man you married, but you have changed. You are wary now and it is not simply the shock of seeing me. What else are you hiding from me?’

Hiding? For a moment Julia froze. Had Will the powers to read her mind? Of course I am wary! A ghost appears, kisses me until I am dizzy with desire...and whatever happens I must reveal one secret that may break our marriage into pieces and hide another for my very life.

Julia spread honey on a roll to give herself time to collect her thoughts, then answered as though the situation was as uncomplicated as everyone else believed it to be. ‘Of course I have changed. I have been alone for three years and I have just had a severe, but very welcome, shock.’ That was not entirely a lie. ‘You try hiding so much as an extravagant piece of shopping with Aunt Delia’s beady eye on you.’ Will gave a snort of laughter and she added, ‘Any woman would be wary if her lord and master had been away for so long and then returned unexpectedly.’

He paused, one hand outstretched to the fruit bowl. ‘Is that how you see me now you have had time to think it over? Your lord and master?’

‘Certainly not,’ she answered with as much composure as she could summon and was pleased to see the amusement vanish from his face. ‘It is how society views you. I regard you as an unknown and very uncertain factor in my life.’

He was peeling an apple, his eyes clashing with hers as the peel ran slowly over his fingers. The chocolate threatened to slop over the cup. Julia put it down carefully before he noticed the effect he had on her. ‘I have no idea if I will be happy married to you. Or you to me. But I will do my level best.’ She braced herself for an explosion of wrath.

‘Happiness? You aim high. I was hoping for mere contentment as a starting point. An absence of scandal would be desirable.’ There was an edge to that, she noticed, puzzled. He could have no idea what she was hiding, so why the reference to scandal? ‘Well, we will see. My experience of marriage is as brief as yours, but I have no doubt you will point out to me where I am going wrong.’

All very calm and polite, Julia thought, but under the civilised words was more emotion that he was keeping hidden from her. Which was fair enough, she supposed. She had no intention of making her own emotions any more transparent than most of them undoubtedly were just now, not yet.

‘Your own childhood memories will guide you, I imagine,’ she replied with equal calmness.

‘Do you? If you mean I should seek for a model of the ideal husband in my own parent I am afraid you would not be very happy with the result. He gave me these eyes and he left me the only thing I love: King’s Acre. I suspect you would want something more from me in the way of conjugal virtues.’ He drained the coffee and tossed his napkin onto the table. ‘Have you finished, Julia?

‘Certainly.’ In the face of that matter-of-fact bitterness there were no words of comfort to offer to a virtual stranger. She waited as he came round to pull her chair back. ‘What do you wish to do first?’

‘Any number of things, but please do not let me interfere with your morning. I will go and speak to my steward.’

‘Mr Wilkins will wait on us at eleven o’clock. Mr Howard from the Home Farm will be here after luncheon. I have sent for Mr Burrows, the solicitor, but I would not expect him until tomorrow.’

‘You have been very busy, my dear.’ The blandly amiable expression had ebbed from Will’s face. Those strong bones she had been so aware of when he was ill were apparent still, the stubborn line of his jaw most of all.

‘I habitually rise early,’ Julia said. ‘And not just because unexpected noises outside my room waken me.’ Although not, normally, as early as she had got up that morning to pen letters to all the men of business who must wait on the returning baron. She had just sealed the last letter when the sound of his fist on the nursery door had brought her into the corridor. ‘But before you do anything else we must call on the Hadfields.’

‘Must we, indeed?’ There was more than a hint of gritted teeth about his polite response.

Julia swept out of the breakfast room, along the corridor and into the library. ‘If you are going to shout, please do it in here and not in front of the servants,’ she said over her shoulder.

‘Was I shouting?’ Will closed the door behind him and leaned back on the panels. ‘I do not think I raised my voice.’

‘You were about to. We need to call because it will appear very strange if we do not, and as soon as possible.’

‘You will find, Julia, that I very rarely shout except in emergencies. I do not have to.’ He crossed his arms and studied her as she moved restlessly about the room. ‘You are very busy organising me. I am neither an invalid nor Cousin Henry.’

‘You have been away for three years.’ She made herself stand still and appear calm. ‘I am in a position to bring you up to date with everything. I am only trying to—’

‘Organise me. I do not require it, Julia. I am perfectly fit and able. You have done very well, but I am back now.’

‘Indeed you are, you patronising man!’ The words escaped her before she could bite them back. ‘I apologise, I should not have said that, but—’

At his back the door opened an inch and slammed back as it met resistance. Will turned and pulled it wide. ‘Gatcombe?’

‘I beg your pardon, my lord. Mrs Hadfield and Mr Henry have arrived and are asking to speak to you, my lady. I was not certain whether, under the circumstances, you are At Home.’

‘Yes, we are receiving, Gatcombe.’ Her stomach contracted with nerves. This encounter was not going to be pleasant, especially if Will continued in this mood. And if she could not keep Delia from blurting out something about the baby it might well be disastrous.

The butler lowered his voice. ‘Mrs Hadfield is complaining about a stupid hoax and rumours running around the neighbourhood. I did not know quite how to answer her, my lady. I did not feel it my place to apprise her of his lordship’s happy return.’

‘I quite understand. You did quite right, Gatcombe. Where have you put them?’

‘In the Green Salon, my lady. Refreshments are being sent up.’

‘Thank you, Gatcombe. Please tell Mrs Hadfield we will be with her directly.’

‘Will we?’ Will enquired as the butler retreated. ‘This is an uncivilised hour to be calling.’

‘She is not going to believe it until she sees you with her own eyes,’ Julia said with a firmness she was far from feeling.

‘And she is not going to want to believe it, even then.’ Will opened the door for her. He sounded merely sardonically amused, but she wondered what his feelings might be behind the façade he was maintaining. Her husband had come back from the dead and it must seem to him that the only people who were unreservedly pleased to see him were the servants.

She listened to his firm tread behind her and told herself that soon enough he would make contact with his friends and acquaintances and resume his old life. But he had come home to a sorry excuse for a family: an aunt and cousin who would be happier if he were dead and a wife who had fainted at the sight of him and who was very shortly about to release a bombshell.

‘Good morning, Aunt Delia, Cousin Henry.’ She tried to sound as happy as a wife with a returned husband should be.

‘Have you heard this ridiculous rumour?’ Mrs Hadfield demanded before Julia could get into the room. She was pacing, the ribbons of her bonnet flapping. ‘It is all over the village! I had Mrs Armstrong on my doorstep before breakfast demanding to know if it true, of all the impertinence!’

‘And what rumour is that?’ Will enquired from the shadows behind Julia.

‘Why, that my nephew Dereham is alive and well and here—’ She broke off with a gasp as Will stepped into the room. ‘What is this? Who are you, sir?’

‘Oh, come, Aunt.’ Will strolled past Julia and stopped in front of Mrs Hadfield. Her jaw dropped unflatteringly as her face turned from pale to red in moments as she stared up at him. ‘Do you not recognise your own nephew? Is this going to be like those sensation novels where the lost heir returns only to be spurned by the family? Well, if you require physical proof, Mama always said you dandled me on your knee when I was an infant. I still have that birthmark shaped like a star.’

He put one hand in the small of his back, where only Julia could see, and tapped his left buttock with his index finger. Mrs Hadfield was beginning to bluster and from behind his mother Henry was trying to say something and failing to get a word in edgeways. Julia decided it was time to support her husband.

‘You mean the birthmark on your, er, left posterior, my lord?’ she enquired. ‘This is hardly the conversation for a lady’s drawing room, but I can assure you, Aunt Delia, the birthmark is most assuredly where you will remember it.’

‘Mama,’ Henry managed finally. ‘Of course it is Will—look at his eyes!’

‘Oooh!’ With a wail Mrs Hadfield collapsed onto the sofa and buried her face in her handkerchief.

‘Aunt Delia, please do not weep, I realise what a shock it must be—we were going to send a note and then come and call on you later today.’ Julia sat down and put her arms around the older woman. The main thing, she thought rather desperately, was to stop Delia saying something that must cause an irrevocable rift and to prevent her leaving and creating a stir in the neighbourhood before she had time to consider the situation rationally.

The men, as she might have expected, were absolutely no help whatsoever. They stood side by side, Henry looking hideously embarrassed, her husband, wooden. ‘Will.’ He looked at her, his dark brows raised. ‘You remember I was telling you how kind Aunt Delia has been to me and how helpful Cousin Henry has been with the estate.’

Henry, who, to do him justice, was no hypocrite, blushed at the generous praise. ‘Dash it all, I only did what I could. You helped me far more with my lands than I could ever repay here, Cousin Julia.’

‘You were very supportive to me. But indeed, Will, Cousin Henry has been making improvements on his own estate. Why do you not both go to the study and talk about it—and have a glass of brandy or something?’

Will looked from her to the clock, his brows rising still further. Admittedly half past nine in the morning did seem a little early for spirits, but she needed to be alone with Delia. Giving up on subtlety, Julia jerked her head towards the door and, to her relief, Will took his cousin by the arm and guided him out.

‘Now then, Aunt Delia, you must stop this or you will make yourself ill. Yes, I know it is a shock and you could quite reasonably have believed that Henry would inherit the title and King’s Acre. But Will is home, hale and hearty and quite cured by a very clever doctor in Spain, so you must accept it, for otherwise you will attract the most unwelcome and impertinent comments from the vulgarly curious. And you do not want our friends and neighbours to pity you, do you?’

Will’s aunt emerged from her handkerchief, blotched and red eyed. ‘But Henry—’

‘Henry is a perfectly intelligent, personable young man who has started to retrieve the mistakes he made with his own inheritance, if you will forgive me for plain speaking,’ she added hastily as Delia bristled. ‘If he finds a sensible, well-dowered young lady to marry in a year or two all will be well.’

‘But the title,’ Delia muttered and then bit her lip.

‘If Will had married before he fell ill then he would probably have his own son by now and you and Henry would never have had your hopes raised,’ Julia said. There was no point beating about the bush. But Delia had been kind to her when she was pregnant, she reminded herself. She owed it to the older woman to help her through this and not condemn her for her ambitions for her son. ‘You do not truly wish Will dead, do you?’ she asked.

‘No.’ It was almost convincing. ‘Of course not.’ That was better. ‘It was just the unexpectedness of it.’

‘I know. I fainted dead away when I saw him. It is such a comfort to me to have a female friend at a time like this,’ Julia said, crossing her fingers in her skirts. ‘And, please, can I ask you and Henry to say nothing about the baby? I have got to break the news to Will and it will be a shock.’

The other woman nodded. ‘Of course, you can rely on me.’

Thank Heavens! If she could only do this right, then Delia would leave the house convinced she had supported Julia in her shock, had greeted Will with open-hearted warmth and was a paragon of selflessness. It might help quell the rumour-mongers.

* * *

An hour later the Hadfields left and Julia followed Will back to the study. There were, indeed, glasses and a decanter standing on the desk and she felt like pouring herself a stiff drink, despite the hour and her dislike of spirits.

‘He has improved,’ Will remarked. He stood beside the big chair, the one she always used, courteously waiting for her to sit. Julia took the chair opposite—she was going to have to find herself a desk, they could hardly share this one. ‘How much of that is due to your influence?’

Julia found herself studying the long, elegant figure, thinking how right he looked in the ornate chair. He sat with his fingers curling instinctively around the great carved lion heads at the ends of the chair arms. Her own hands were too small to do that.

‘To me? The improvements in his character I can claim no credit for. I believe he is maturing as you had guessed he would once he began to escape from his mother’s apron strings. He does not enjoy being made to think hard, or to face unwelcome truths, but he is learning.’ She felt her mouth curving into a smile at the memory of some of their tussles. ‘I do believe I would make a good governess after the way I have had to cajole, lecture and bully poor Henry.’

Will did not speak. A ploy to make her gabble on, no doubt. It was, unfortunately, working. The relief of having the dreaded encounter with Delia over with was having its effect. ‘If he can just find a nice girl to marry, I think it will be the making of him, although he is still very shy of girls.’

‘You think you can recommend marriage from your own experience, do you?’ Julia glanced up sharply to find Will doodling patterns up the margins of the sheet on which she had been calculating wheat yields.

She would not let him fluster her. ‘Hardly,’ she said with a smile, making a joke of it. If he wanted plain speaking, he would get it. ‘A husband who vanishes less than twenty-four hours after the ceremony and returns three years later with no warning is hardly a model of ideal matrimony.’

Will raised a quizzical eyebrow, prepared, it seemed to be amused. He steepled his fingers and regarded her over the top of them. ‘You dealt with Delia very effectively. I must thank you for your support. The tone in which you said left posterior was exactly right, although it was a miracle I kept my countenance.’

‘It was fortunate that it was you who raised the subject of birthmarks—if Mrs Hadfield had asked I would not have had the slightest idea what to say.’

The left side of Will’s mouth quirked into a half-smile that produced, improbably in that strong face, a dimple. Julia stared at it, distracted by how it lightened his whole expression. ‘I wouldn’t worry about that kind of slip,’ he said. ‘She is perfectly well aware that for a couple married three years we have had only two nights when it was theoretically possible to see each other’s...shall we say, distinguishing marks.’ The smile slipped easily from amused to wicked. ‘So far. And, for all my aunt knows, we might be a most prudish couple who retire to bed in our nightgowns and blow out all the candles.’

Julia’s mood moved just as easily as that smile, from almost relaxed to exceedingly flustered. If Will was not regarding her so watchfully from those heavy-lidded predator’s eyes she would think him flirting. Perhaps he was, or perhaps he was trying to unsettle her—and succeeding very effectively, she had to admit. The thought of being naked with him, in a well-lit room, brought back all the memories of losing her virginity and added an all-too-tangible layer of apprehension and embarrassment to the mix of emotions that were unsettling her breakfast.

‘I will show you the books now to save time when Mr Wilkins arrives.’ Accounts, rents and the problems of the unsatisfactory tenant of Lower Acre Farm should divert her thoughts from the bedroom most effectively. The clock struck the half-hour, reminding her that distractions only served to bring bedtime closer and she still had no idea how she was going to react when Will came to her chamber door. Or how she was going to tell him what she must.

‘That can wait.’ He stood up, long and lean and as disturbing as a panther in the civilised room. Julia sat quite still in her chair as he walked past her. If he was going out, it would give her a soothing half-hour with the books...

‘You were very kind to Aunt Delia, although she cannot have been easy to get on with, these past three years,’ he said. Right behind her.

‘We have learned to rub along. Your return was a shock and I feel sorry for her—she knows Henry is slipping out of her control and she has invested all her energies in him. It can only get worse when he begins to take an interest in courting. She will be a lonely woman soon.’

‘And you were not only supportive to my aunt.’ Will must be standing immediately behind her. Julia imagined she could feel the heat of his body. The upholstered chair back moved slightly and she realised he had closed his hand over it, just beside her shoulder. ‘You have been loyal to me. Wifely.’ He seemed to find the word amusing: she could hear the smile in his voice.

‘Naturally. I am your wife, after all. It is important to keep up appearances.’ She was not smiling. In fact, even to herself, she sounded miserably priggish.

‘You are anxious to make this marriage work, then?’ A featherlight touch on her shoulder, barely discernible through the light muslin scarf that filled the neckline of her morning gown. Imagination. No, real. Now the finger was stroking across the muslin, touching the bare skin of her neck, lingering to explore the sensitive skin just behind her right ear.

When she swallowed he must have felt it. She hated to betray her agitation, even by a little involuntary movement. ‘Of course I am.’

‘What is this?’ Will’s breath stirred the fine wisps along her hairline. He must have bent close. If she turned, they would be face to face, their lips might meet...

Chapter Nine

She felt as though she was made of tinder and Will was holding a flame so close, so very close. Julia kept still with an effort and said lightly, ‘The scar? I was chased by a bull and had to throw myself into a hedge. I emerged rather the worse for wear.’ It was only a little scar, just a quarter of an inch long. She could feel it under her fingers when she washed or dabbed scent behind her ear. ‘I had not thought it showed. Is it very red?’

‘Not at all. I only noticed it because I was looking very closely.’ The warm breath moved, trailed its caress right round to the other side of her neck. Julia rolled her eyes uncomfortably to the left, rigid with the effort not to shiver. Will loomed beside her.

After a moment, to her intense relief, he straightened up and strolled back to hitch one hip on the edge of the desk. ‘Farming appears to be a dangerous operation when you undertake it. I never found it necessary to traipse around fields looking at bulls, let alone provoke them into chasing me.’

‘Which explains why the one you had was an inferior specimen with an unreliable temper. Unlike my...our current bull.’ From the way he narrowed his eyes at her Julia could only assume that criticising a man’s bull was like criticising his own virility.

‘It will not be necessary for you to get your hands dirty, or your shoes muddy, or to endanger yourself in any way connected with the estate from now on. Let alone indulge in such occupations as judging stud animals. Hardly a ladylike thing to be doing in any case.’

That was the attitude she had feared he would adopt. ‘But I am good at it. And I enjoy it. All of it. It is, after all, why you married me.’ She kept her tone free from any hint of pleading, or of aggression.

‘But the situation has changed. And there are many things in life that we enjoy that it is not acceptable that we indulge ourselves in.’

Julia swallowed the very rude retort that sprang to her lips, although the impulse to demonstrate just how unacceptable her behaviour could be by going upstairs, changing into her divided skirt and boots and riding astride round the estate was almost overwhelming. She folded her hands neatly in her lap and remarked, ‘That is the sort of remark that gentlemen make when they intend it to apply to wives and daughters, never to themselves.’

‘Are you suggesting that I behave in a manner not befitting a gentleman?’ The lazy amusement had quite vanished although Will still lounged there, apparently at ease.

Julia shrugged. ‘Gentlemanly behaviour appears to encompass gaming, whoring and drinking. All wives can do about it, so I understand, is to hope that the mistresses are not too expensive, that the gaming is for low stakes and that the drinking does not lead to imprudent expenditure on the other two entertainments.’

‘I see.’ Will got off the desk and went back to his chair. All inclination to flirt, or tease her by caressing her neck, had obviously vanished. ‘It is a little late to be enquiring about my character, don’t you think?’

‘If it was vicious, or your activities scandalous, I would doubtless have heard about it by now.’ Julia got up and went to the pile of ledgers stacked on a side table. She knew where she was with those. They did not answer back, play with words or look at her with eyes that tried to strip her to the soul. She wanted to tell him that of course she knew his character was good, but she could not find the words.

‘You may rest assured, my dear, that I dislike over-indulgence in drink, I gamble well within my means and I am not in the habit of whoring.’ When she did not reply Will added, ‘I assume you also wish to know whether I have a mistress in keeping, but do not like to ask directly?’

She had not meant this to go so far, or even to mention the subject. Her back to him, Julia shrugged, pretending an indifference she found she certainly did not feel. What she felt was a surge of uncivilised jealousy at the very thought. ‘I presume that you have.’

‘No.’

The heavy cover of the ledger for the Home Farm slipped from her fingers and banged shut as she turned. ‘But you have been gone three years.’

‘Until I began to get better again I had neither the inclination nor the strength for...dalliance.’ Will was doodling again so she could not see his face, but his voice was stiff. ‘Since I regained both I have reminded myself that I am a married man who made certain vows.’

Oh. She believed him. It was not easy for a man to admit that his virility had suffered in any way, she suspected. But that meant her husband was not simply feeling normally amorous. He had been celibate for months, so the restraint he had shown with her so far was nothing short of amazing.

Will had made vows and so had she. She had no intention of keeping him from her bed, however frightened that made her. But she was damned if she was going to allow him to seduce her into being simply a meek little wife—in bed or out of it.

‘Then I imagine I should be looking forward to tonight?’ she asked. It came out sounding more flippant, or perhaps provocative, than she intended and she saw from the flare of heat in his eyes that she had both aroused and shocked Will.

‘Julia,’ he said, his voice husky, getting to his feet, ‘you may be certain of a most appreciative reception.’

‘Mr Wilkins, my la...my lord, I should say.’ Gatcombe sounded unusually flustered. Julia could only hope it was as a result of getting in a tangle over who he should be addressing and not because he had heard anything of their conversation when he opened the door.

The steward was a wiry Midlander with a cautious attitude and a depth of knowledge that Julia admired. It had taken her several weeks to break down his reserve when he discovered he was expected to take orders from a woman, but the realisation that she knew what she was talking about, and was quite tough enough to hold her own in an argument, soon swayed him.

Now, she could tell, Wilkins was uneasy because he was uncertain who was in control. ‘I’m right glad to see you back with us, my lord,’ he said, when greetings had been exchanged. ‘I’ve no doubt her ladyship’s been telling you all we’ve been about while you’ve been away.’

‘Nothing, beyond the fact that you have been most effective, Wilkins.’ Will gestured to a chair. ‘Come and brief me.’ He stood up and smiled at Julia. ‘Thank you, my dear.’

It was a polite dismissal she had no intention of accepting. Julia smiled sweetly back and feigned not to understand him. ‘It was my pleasure,’ she said, settling back into her own chair. ‘Mr Wilkins, perhaps you could bring those ledgers over.’

For a long moment it seemed likely that Will was going to order her from the room, witness or no witness, then he smiled wryly and sat down again. ‘Let us begin with the livestock, Wilkins. I understand we have a new bull.’

* * *

Julia had done a good job, Will had to acknowledge—it far exceeded his hopes when he had thought up this scheme in the first place. She had gone beyond offering Wilkins informed support, she had taken the lead and steered the rather cautious steward into projects and changes he would never have dreamt of on his own initiative.

But now she was not going to hand back control without a fight. Will let them both talk, interjected a question now and again and realised it was going to take a while to break Wilkins of the habit of looking to his wife for approval with every comment. He did not want to be unkind to her, or unappreciative, but damn it all, he was master here and he was going to make that clear. In the estate, on the farm, in the bedchamber.

‘I have horses arriving in a few weeks,’ Will said when they had talked themselves to a standstill.

‘Fifteen, Wilkins,’ Julia said. ‘We are going to need new paddocks, stabling. More staff...’

‘I have men coming with them,’ Will overrode her smoothly. ‘And plans for the stables. Where would you suggest for the paddocks, Wilkins?’

‘To the west of the existing ones,’ Julia answered before the steward could. ‘I have been considering it. We can move the beef cattle down to Mayday Field and Croft Acre and—’

‘We do not have fields with those names.’

‘We do now. I bought Hodgson’s farm when old Jem Hodgson died last year,’ Julia said, as if purchasing a large farm was as simple a matter as buying a new bonnet. ‘His son has gone into the building business and needed the capital urgently so we settled on a keen price. I had the house done up and I lease it and ten acres to make a small park to a cit called Maurice Loveday. It brings a good income and we’ve gained another mile of water meadows into the bargain.’

He had had his eye on that farm for years and old Hodgson had refused to sell. Now his wife had calmly snapped it up, at a bargain price, and secured the income from the house—which had never occurred to him as an asset—while she was at it.

Will trod firmly on what felt uncomfortably like jealousy and smiled at Julia. ‘You must have had hardly a moment to yourself, taking so much responsibility. Now I am back you can relax and get back to all your normal pursuits.’

‘Oh, but these are my normal pursuits,’ she responded with an equally false smile. ‘This is what I enjoy doing.’ And try to take it away from me if you can, those grey eyes said, meeting his with flint-hard resolve.

One thing had kept him going in those years of exile. His love for King’s Acre was real and solid and his control of it was not negotiable.

What his wife needed was something else to keep her occupied. Womanly things. A man in her bed, babies in the nursery. Both of those, he realised with some surprise, would be an absolute pleasure to provide.

* * *

Will had not been pleased with her contribution to the meeting with the steward. Nor with the free expression of her thoughts when Mr Howard from Home Farm arrived after luncheon. It was obvious that the deference those gentlemen showed to her opinions was also an irritation. There was no need for her to attend when he met tomorrow with Mr Burrows the solicitor, Will had informed Julia with a smile that had not reached his eyes.

The words did not pass his lips, but it was plain to her that he considered her continuing interest meddling and interfering. Her proper place, in his opinion, was in the bedchamber and the drawing room and the only servants she should need to concern herself with were the domestic staff.

I have been the regent while the king was in exile, she thought with a grim attempt at humour that evening. The state has been well governed but now the queen must go back to woman’s work and leave the serious business to the men.

But kingdoms required heirs—that was what husbands wanted, whether they were King of England or Joe Bloggs at the village forge. She stared blankly into the mirror on her dressing table until her maid put down the evening gown she had been shaking out and said, ‘Excuse me, my lady, but are you all right?’

‘What? Oh, yes, perfectly, thank you, Nancy.’ Julia went back to dabbing Warren’s Milk of Roses on to her face. She was persevering with this infallible remedy for freckles and the effects of the sun on the complexion more in the hope than the expectation of a fashionably pale skin. The true remedy, of course, was to wear a broad-brimmed hat at all times, or, better still, as Aunt Delia so often told her with a sigh, to stay inside as a lady should.

If Will had his way, she would be as pale as a lily in no time. And drooping like one too, from sheer boredom. Her mind was still skittering away from contemplating the prospect of becoming pregnant again. It seemed very likely to happen quickly once her husband came to her bed: after all, she had lain just the once with Jonathan.

Her fingers fumbled as she tried to replace the top of the bottle and Nancy fell to her knees and started to search under the skirts of the dressing table for the dropped stopper. Julia had dammed it up so long—the shock when she had realised that the changes in her body were not the result of terror and distress, then the joy at the realisation that she was carrying a child and the appalled comprehension of what she must do if it proved to be a boy.

But, even with that hanging over her, the overwhelming emotion had been delight and love. If the child was a daughter, then she would not have to tell anyone, for a girl would be no threat to Henry’s rights. And even if it was a boy, she would work something out to give him a future and happiness.

It never occurred to her, with all her worries and plans, that she might lose the baby. Now she wondered about future pregnancies. What if there was something wrong with her? What if she was not capable of safely birthing a child? She had not even considered it before, because she had expected to stay a widow for the rest of her days, contentedly farming King’s Acre and then, when Henry inherited, buying her own land. But now she was no longer a widow.

‘That lotion is working a treat, my lady.’ Nancy sat back on her heels with the stopper in her hand and regarded Julia with satisfaction. ‘I swear you’re a shade paler for using it.’

‘I fear it is simply that I have a slight headache, Nancy.’ Julia attempted a smile. ‘I will be better for a glass of wine and my dinner, I am sure.’

* * *

By the time her stays had been tightened and the gown was on and her hair dressed there was some colour back in her cheeks and at least the freckles were not standing out like dots on white paper.

It was a warm evening, almost sultry. Julia draped her lightest shawl over her elbows, chose a large fan and went down to the drawing room. Her first proper evening as a married lady, she realised as the butler opened the door for her and she saw Will standing by the long window that was open to the ground to let in the evening air.

He was dressed with as much careful formality as she. Julia admired the effect of silk evening breeches, striped stockings, a swallowtail coat that must have been bought in London on his way home and a waistcoat of amber silk that brought out the colour of his eyes and matched the stone in the stickpin in his neckcloth. Regarded dispassionately, she thought, her husband was a fine figure of a man. Discovering how to be dispassionate about him was going to be the problem. A lost cause, in fact, she told herself.

‘Good evening, Lady Dereham.’ He gestured towards the decanters set out on a tray. ‘A glass of sherry wine?’

‘Good evening, my lord.’ She sat precisely in the centre of the sofa and spread her almond-green skirts on either side as though concerned about wrinkles. They covered virtually all the available seat and left no room for anyone to sit beside her. She did not think she could cope with any sly caresses just now. ‘Thank you. A glass of sherry would be delightful.’

Will poured a glass for both of them, placed hers on the table beside her and went back to the window and his contemplation of the view, which allowed her the perfect opportunity to admire his profile. Dispassionately, of course.

‘Did your meeting with Mr Burrows go well?’ Julia asked after a few minutes’ silence. She took a sip of her wine while her husband pondered his reply.

‘It was most satisfactory, thank you,’ he said politely and tasted his own drink.

If this continues, I may well scream, simply for the diversion of seeing the footmen all rush in, Julia decided. ‘I have always found him extremely helpful.’

‘He tells me you have not asked for any of the jewellery from his strong room.’

‘I did not consider it mine to wear.’ For some reason decking herself out in the family jewels had seemed mercenary in a way that taking all the other benefits of their arrangement did not. Jewellery was so personal. ‘Besides,’ she added in an effort to lighten the cool formality, ‘think what a wrench to have to hand it all over after seven years when Henry inherited.’

‘There was no need for such scruples. But you will wear it from now on, I hope.’ She suspected that was an order. ‘Burrows brought it with him.’ Will gestured towards a side table and she noticed the stack of leather boxes on it for the first time. ‘There is a safe in your dressing room. If there are any pieces you dislike they can be reset, or go back to the vault.’

There seemed a lot of boxes. Small ring boxes, flat cases with curving edges that must contain necklaces, complicated shapes that presumably enclosed complete parures including tiaras. Did Will expect her to pounce on them with cries of delight?

He thought she had only married him for purely mercenary reasons and to protect her good name, of course, so he must find her lack of interest in this treasure trove puzzling. She could hardly tell him that she did not want his money or his gems, only sanctuary from the law.

‘Thank you. But I have not found a safe. Is it behind some concealed panel?’

‘Behind a panel, yes, but in the baroness’s dressing room. Nancy is moving your things there now.’

Somehow Julia kept her lips closed on the instinctive protest. Will was high-handed, insensitive, but, of course, he was in the right and she had agreed he would come to her bed.

He might not want her, of course, when she told him about Jonathan and about the child.

She pushed that thought and its implications deep into her mind. There were practical reasons also. Her place should be in the suite that was the mirror image of his: anything else would cause gossip and wild speculation amongst the servants. She knew, however loyal they were, gossip always leaked out to the staff in surrounding houses, then to the tradesmen and in no time at all the entire neighbourhood would know.

‘Thank you,’ she said with a genuine smile and was rewarded by the faint surprise on Will’s face. He had expected a fight, but she was going to keep her opposition for the issues that were important to her. Jewels did not matter one way or the other, except that now she must make the effort to care for them and to select suitable ones for each occasion.

* * *

Julia exerted herself over dinner to make conversation and bring Will up to date with the local news. He would be riding round to visit their neighbours over the next few days, so she must set the scene for him. It also meant she could steer well clear of any personal matters. There was plenty to tell him about with a new curate, several marriages, some deaths, the strange case of sheep-stealing last year, Sir William Curruther’s new wife’s frightful taste in interior decoration and, of course, numerous births to the gentry community. She hurried over those and started enumerating the changes to their own staff while he had been away.

‘Thank you,’ he said drily when she reached the new scullery maid and the gardener’s boy as the dessert plates were cleared. ‘I will endeavour to recall all that tomorrow.’

Julia bit her lip—he made it sound as though she had been prattling on and not allowing him to get a word in edgeways. She had kept pausing, hoping Will would pick up his side of the conversation and tell her about his three years away. But he showed no sign of wanting to confide in her. ‘I have got all the news I was saving for you off my chest,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow you can tell me yours.’

‘I have told you most of what there is to know.’ His long lashes hid his eyes as he looked down, apparently interested in the piece of walnut shell that lay beside his plate. ‘I have no wish to revisit the past.’

‘But your travels must be fascinating. I would so like to hear about them.’ A neutral subject of conversation on an engrossing subject seemed like a godsend.

‘I lost almost four years of my life to that illness,’ Will said and looked up to catch her staring at him. ‘I just want to forget about it and get on with living.’

She could hear the anger and the loss under the flat tone, see the heat in his eyes.

‘Very well.’ She had no wish to invite any further snubs. ‘I will leave you to your port.’ One of the footmen came to pull back her chair, another to open the door for her. Like all the staff, they were normally efficient and attentive, but somehow she sensed they were making a special effort to look after her at the moment, just as they had when she lost the baby. She could only hope that Will did not notice and feel they were being disloyal to him.

If she could just focus her mind on those sort of worries and not what was going to happen when the bedchamber door closed behind them, then she could, perhaps, remain her normal practical self. As she walked across the hall to the salon she could feel the brooding presence in the room behind her like heat from a fire. Common sense seemed as much use as a fireguard made of straw.

Chapter Ten

Will did not leave her alone in the salon for long. Julia had hardly picked up her embroidery, sorted her wools and begun on one of the roses that formed a garland on the chair seat she was working when he walked in, still carrying his wine glass, Charles on his heels with the decanter.

‘What are you making?’ He sank into the wing chair opposite her, stretched out long legs and sipped his port. Charles put the decanter down and took himself off. They were alone at last, with no servants present to keep the conversation on neutral lines.

‘A new set of seat covers for the breakfast room.’ She tilted the frame to show him. ‘The existing ones are sadly worn and the moth has got into them.’

‘My paternal grandmother made those.’

‘I was not going to throw them away,’ Julia hastened to reassure him. ‘I will try to save as much of her embroidery as I can and perhaps incorporate it into window seat covers or something of the sort.’

‘It is a lot of work for you.’ Will was twisting the stem of the glass between his fingers, watching the red wine swirl in the glass.

‘I do not mind. I dislike being idle.’

‘Hmm.’ It seemed her husband did not wish to make conversation. Perhaps he wanted her to retire. Well, my lord, I have no intention of going to bed at half past nine so you can exercise your conjugal rights! Nor was she looking forward to the conversation that she knew she must have with him first. She could not talk about it down here and risk being interrupted.

Julia executed a complex area of shading and worked on in silence attempting, with what success she had no idea, to exude an air of placid domesticity. At nine forty-five she rang for tea and contemplated her husband over the rim of her cup.

If she did not know better she would think him not nervous, exactly, but certainly edgy. Which was nonsensical—women were the ones supposed to be anxious about this sort of situation, not adult males with, she had no doubt, years of sexual experience behind them.

Now she had made herself nervous. Julia set down her cup with a rattle. ‘I shall retire, if you will excuse me.’

Will stood up with punctilious courtesy and went to open the door for her. She had thought that she had got used to his presence, but the sense that he was too big and too male swept over her again and it was an effort not to scuttle into the hall like a nervous mouse. Calm, seductive, she reminded herself. Make him want you, not just any wife. But perhaps, when she had told him as much as she dare about Jonathan, he would not want her at all.

* * *

Nancy was waiting to help her undress when she made her way to her new suite. ‘I’ve moved all your things, my lady. Such a nice spacious dressing room: there’s plenty of room for your new gowns. And Mr Gatcombe brought all the jewellery boxes up and has put them in the safe. Shall we check the inventory tomorrow, my lady? I don’t like to be responsible when we haven’t got a list of what’s there.’

‘Yes,’ Julia agreed, studying the room as if she had not seen it before. It was large with a deep Venetian window, a marble fireplace and a handsome bed in the classical style with pale-green curtains. The pictures were dull, she thought, attempting to divert her thoughts from the bed. There were others in the house that would look better here—that was something to do tomorrow. And there was the jewellery to look at. And she must think about new gowns for the entertaining Will was sure to want to do.

If she was not careful her day would become filled with all the trivial domestic duties her husband thought she should be engaging in.

‘Such a pity we didn’t know his lordship was coming home,’ Nancy said as she picked up the hairbrush and began to take down Julia’s hair. ‘You could have bought some pretty new nightgowns, my lady.’

Now the butterflies really were churning in her stomach. She was about to sleep with a man for only the second time in her life. No, third, she supposed, although sharing a bed with Will on their wedding night had been sleeping only in the literal sense.

She was not in love with him and he was certainly not in love with her. She did not have a pretty new nightgown, and, rather more importantly to her confidence, she had carried a child to term, which doubtless would make her body less desirable to him.

When he learned that she was not a virgin perhaps he would expect considerably more sensual expertise than she could possibly muster. She was not at all sure what sexual expertise consisted of for a woman. Her resolve to make him desire her just as much as she desired him was beginning to look much like wishful thinking.

But sitting up in bed ten minutes later she did feel rather more seductive. If, that is, one could feel seductive and terrified simultaneously. Her nightgown might not be new, but the lace trim was pretty, her hair was brushed out smoothly about her shoulders and she could smell the scent of rosewater rising from a number of places that Nancy assured her were strategic pulse points.

All she needed now, Julia thought as Nancy left the room with a cheerful, ‘Goodnight, my lady’, was a gentleman to seduce. She kept her eyes on the door panels and tried to conjure up the image of Will to practise on. Smiling was too obvious. She tried to achieve a sultry smoulder. The nightgown was too prim. She unlaced the ribbon at the neck and pushed it down over her shoulders a little. Even without the help of stays her bosom, she decided, was acceptably firm and high. Men liked bosoms, she knew that much.

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