That Summer: A Novel (32 page)

All the same, Julia couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. That sort of crush could be so painful. And who hadn’t resorted to a few foolish stratagems in the pursuit of love—or something like it.

Although, as Nick had intimated last night, Julia wondered if this was less love and more a desperate attempt to feed Cousin Caroline’s social delusions. If anything, that made her feel even worse for Natalie. Julia knew what it was to be the speed bump in the path of a parent’s ambitions.

“Look,” said Julia, extending the metaphorical olive branch, “why don’t you come back to the kitchen. We can have a cup of coffee and sort this out.”

“No. Thank you,” said Natalie in a brittle voice. “I don’t need you to rub my face in it. First you take the house, and now you take Nicholas.”

“I believe he prefers to be called Nick,” said Julia inconsequentially. Was that what this was really about? The house? “As for the house…”

“It’s not fair,” said Natalie tightly. Her fingers plucked at the brass ornaments on her bag. “You weren’t the one who had to come visit ghastly Aunt Regina once a week. You didn’t have to sit here and listen to her absurd opinions and pretend to find her horrid stories amusing.”

“No,” said Julia slowly, “I didn’t.” Quietly, she added, “I would have liked to have had the opportunity.”

She was beginning to think that she had missed out on a great deal by not knowing Aunt Regina.

“It’s just like Aunt Regina.” Natalie was too lost in her own grievances to pay any attention to Julia. “All those hints about the family treasure—keeping us coming back week after week—when all that time she intended to leave it all to you!”

Julia opened her mouth to say she’d never wanted it when the real meaning of her cousin’s words belatedly struck her. “Treasure? You think there’s some sort of treasure?”

Natalie, already in the house when she got here; Natalie, so eager to help; Natalie, rattling the wonky latch on the kitchen door.

Julia looked at Natalie with the dawning of understanding. “You didn’t come here to see me this morning, did you? You were hoping I wouldn’t be home.”

Natalie’s mouth closed like a steel trap.

It didn’t matter; Julia had her answer. Disgust churned through her. She felt as though she had just stepped in something slimy and unpleasant. All of those overtures of friendship, all of that
I just wanted to see how you were getting on,
all of the tender solicitude for the long-lost cousin, all in the pursuit of some hypothetical treasure.

Julia wrapped her arms tightly across her chest. “Just what is it you think you’re going to find?”

Natalie looked mutinous. “I don’t know,” she said finally. Her fashion model face was sulky. “It was just like Aunt Regina. She never said anything definite, just dropped hints about there being more to the family than we knew and treasures beyond imagining.”

“That’s crazy,” said Julia flatly.

Natalie flared to life. “It’s not crazy. There was real money in the family once, you know. There might be gold, jewels—” She broke off abruptly, her lips clamping shut.

So that was what it was. Julia didn’t know whether to laugh or swear. “And you were just planning to walk off with it, whatever it was?” she said. “There’s a word for that. It’s called stealing.”

“It’s not stealing when it ought to have been mine in the first place,” Natalie burst out. “Mummy says—”

“Mummy had better find herself a good lawyer, if that’s her attitude,” said Julia sharply.

For a moment, they remained locked in silent combat, staring each other down. Julia’s hands were in fists at her waist, Natalie’s knotted in a death grip on the strap of her bag. So Natalie thought she could just barge in and rob her American cousin blind? She’d been in finance for nine years now; she was hardly such a pushover as that. If Natalie and Caroline wanted a fight, they’d have a fight on their hands.

So much for Cousin Caroline’s tender reminiscences of Julia’s mother and Natalie’s airy chatter about family loyalties. Julia felt a taste like acid at the back of her throat. It wasn’t as though she were under any illusions about tender family sentiments; they’d all gone a quarter century without so much as a Christmas card.

At least, that was what she had told herself. But, on some level, she had thought—she had hoped …

“Two things,” said Julia. Her voice sounded rusty and too loud in the strained silence of the hall. Julia cleared her throat. “One, I’m pretty sure there isn’t any treasure. Not the kind you’re thinking about. Did it ever occur to you that Aunt Regina might have been speaking metaphorically?”

One of Natalie’s shoulders twitched slightly. Okay, clearly that theory was a no-go.

Julia went on. “Two. If you’d come to me like a human being—” Her voice cracked, embarrassing her. She didn’t want to show any weakness, not now, not in front of Natalie. Julia took a deep breath. “If you’d come to me and just
told
me about all this, don’t you think I would have shared?”

The thought had obviously never occurred to Natalie. It might almost have been worth it to see the emotions play out across her face, surprise, confusion, and then, belatedly, panicked comprehension. Her mouth opened, then closed again; panic was replaced by speculation. Julia could see her weighing her options, preparing her pitch.

Whatever it was, Julia didn’t want to hear it.

“Of course,” said Julia, “it’s probably better this way, isn’t it? At least, now I know what I’m dealing with.” Deliberately, cruelly, she added, “I’ll let you know if I find any diamond tiaras. I’m sure Nick will be more than happy to help me appraise them.”

That was too much for Natalie. “Why do you think Nicholas has been so keen?” she asked shrilly. “Did you think it was out of the kindness of his heart?” She gave a nasty, brittle little laugh. “You can’t have thought it was anything to do with you.”

Her contemptuous gaze took in Julia’s faded flip-flops, her unwashed hair. Natalie had to be at least six inches taller; the way she was looking at Julia, it felt more like a foot.

Julia tucked her hands underneath her elbows, trying not to feel small and plain. Hadn’t she faced down Masters of the Universe twice her size? But that had been different. That hadn’t been personal.

“I think it’s time for you to go now,” Julia said coolly. “Don’t you?”

“Ask Nicholas,” said Natalie. There were bright spots of color on her cheeks, showing unevenly beneath the expertly applied layers of foundation. “Ask Nicholas why he’s been so keen to help. Don’t you think he knows about the treasure, too? He’s just found a better way of getting at it.”

Her words made Julia feel dirty. Dirty, and more than a little bit uneasy.

It made her feel disgustingly naïve that she’d been so taken in, that she’d believed Natalie’s overtures of friendship, that she’d felt guilty about not liking her, guilty because she was family and somehow that meant Julia was supposed to like her. So much for that.

“As you’ve noted before, this is my house. And this is the door.” Julia’s hand slipped slightly on the knob, but she managed to get it open with a minimum of fuss. She felt cold straight through, the space beneath her arms clammy with sweat. “If I see you here again without an invitation, I’ll call the police on you.”

Shoving her bag up under her arm, Natalie stalked through the door. “Mummy always said your side of the family was vulgar and crass.”

Julia was left speechless by her gall. Natalie was the one contemplating a bit of light larceny, but
her
side was vulgar and crass?

“I’m sure when you burgle, you only do it genteelly,” Julia said politely.

She started to close the door, but Natalie paused on the top step, her voice like cut glass. Her shadow cast a dark pall over the sunny walk. “Enjoy your time with Nicholas—and don’t come crying to me when you find out the truth about him.”

“I wouldn’t judge everyone by your own standards,” Julia said grimly.

Swiping her long hair out of the way, Natalie smiled at her over her shoulder, a three-cornered cat’s smile. “If you think you know him so well, ask him why he had to leave the City. Go on. Do.”

Julia resisted the urge to slam the door behind her. But only just.

She hated the idea of lending credence to anything Natalie said. The woman was the lowest of the low, a self-confessed would-be thief, entirely selfish and self-serving. But, despite herself, she found herself wending her way back to the kitchen and her laptop. The pot of coffee was, to her surprise, still warm. Had it only been a few minutes? It felt like far longer.

Sitting herself down at the kitchen table, she flipped open her laptop and pulled up Google.

In the search bar, she typed: “Nicholas Dorrington.”

London, 1849

“It couldn’t possibly be he,” said Gavin, but Imogen could feel his arm tighten around her waist all the same. “Not here.”

“It was Arthur,” Imogen repeated.

He wasn’t there now, but he had been; she was sure of it. She slipped out of Gavin’s grasp. For all she knew, Arthur might be behind one of those heavily draped windows even now. Watching them.

“But— What would he be doing in a place such as this?” Gavin’s expression was a study in skepticism. He looked across the street, at the closed door, at the place where Arthur had stood, and shook his head. “It was just a man, in a muffler, that was all. It might have been any man of a similar size.”

Not any man. A wave of vertigo seized Imogen, as though she were standing on the very verge of a precipice, staring down into the abyss, at the waves and the rocks below. That had been Arthur’s coat, his hat, his muffler. Akin to a thousand others, it was true, but not the way he moved, the way he walked, the way he turned his head. After a decade of marriage, she didn’t need to see his face or hear his voice to identify his tread.

“He must have followed us here,” she said, wrapping her hands together, trying not to let Gavin see how they were shaking. She felt shaky, so very shaky, and ill. “He must have found us and followed.”

“Nonsense,” said Gavin briskly. “There’s no reason to suppose— Imogen?”

His words receded. She could barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. Her head swam and her vision blurred. She doubled over, just in time to spew the contents of her stomach into the gutter. She was only vaguely aware of Gavin holding her by the shoulders, keeping her steady. Her stomach heaved and heaved again. All she could think of was the revolution in her body, every sense subsumed in the desperate struggle to rid her stomach of everything inside it.

She subsided, trembling, her abdomen aching, the taste of sick in her mouth and the smell of it in her nostrils.

“Here.” Gavin fished her own scented handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to her.

Imogen pressed it gratefully to her nostrils, concentrating on breathing in and out. Blindly, she stumbled along as Gavin put an arm around her shoulders, moving her away from the puddle of sick, into the relative shelter of an alleyway.

The alleyway was narrow and dark and fetid, but the rays of the sun didn’t penetrate there, and for that Imogen was grateful. She rested her aching head briefly against Gavin’s shoulder. Her stomach appeared to have subsided, for the moment, but she felt dizzy and weak. And scared, with a fear to which she couldn’t quite put a name.

Couldn’t, or didn’t want to.

“I need to go home,” she said hoarsely.

“I’ll take you,” Gavin said immediately.

“No.” Imogen looked up at him in sudden panic. “The less we’re seen together, the better it will be.”

She didn’t care for her own sake—what could Arthur do to her? Ignore her? Set her aside? He wouldn’t, not if there would be a scandal. It didn’t matter for her, but it mattered terribly for Gavin. Arthur had friends at the Royal Academy and among the world of collectors.

Her fingers clutched at Gavin’s sleeve. “I will not see you ruined.”

“And I won’t see you go off on your own like this.” Gavin’s accent was thicker when he was being stubborn. The burr went straight to Imogen’s heart. “Not when you’re ill.”

“Please.” Imogen drew on her dwindling reserves of strength. “If you put me into a hack, I’ll be all right. It’s not so very far to Herne Hill.”

The idea of going back to that cold and unfriendly house, to Evie’s hurt and Jane’s scorn and Arthur’s indifference, made Imogen want to curl into a little ball. She wanted to curl up in Gavin’s arms and burrow in against his chest and stay there, forever. She wanted, with every fiber of her being, to stay with him, even here, in this noxious alleyway. In a cottage, in a hovel. Anywhere.

But she couldn’t.

She felt as though she were on the wrong side of the gates of paradise, looking in to what she couldn’t have. There was a bittersweet knowledge to the fact that Gavin had been right, all those months ago, when he had tried to leave and she had made him stay. It hurt so much more now, knowing what they were, what they could be.

Gavin grasped her hands. “Are you sure you want to go back there by yourself?” he said, his eyes intent on hers, and Imogen knew what it was that he was really asking. “Not that I believe it was your—that it was Mr. Grantham across the street. But if it was—”

“If I have to, I’ll tell Arthur I was with someone else.” Imogen mustered a shaky smile. “I’ll tell him it was Fotheringay-Vaughn. That will serve the man right.” Fighting tears, she said tremulously, “You’ve too many beautiful paintings in you for my folly to be your undoing.”

“Not yours,” Gavin said seriously. “Ours. And it isn’t folly.”

The tenderness in his voice cut her to the bone.

“Under the circumstances,” said Imogen shakily, “what else can it be?”

Gavin lifted her gloved hand to his lips, uncaring of stains or smells, and pressed a kiss to the palm. Imogen felt the warmth of his lips straight through the fine leather. He looked up at her, his expression intent. “You know what I think it is.”

The word hovered unspoken between them.

Imogen lowered her head, avoiding his eyes. “I—should go home.” As if Herne Hill had ever been home. “Please.”

Before she weakened and confessed her feelings. And what were they to do then? Especially when—Imogen shied away from the thought.