“Good God,” he replied, a startled look on his face. “Is it as bad as that?”
“Oh, worse than you can imagine.
She has to repeat every last detail.” Julia gave an exaggerated sigh. “I’d like to hurry her up a bit and get to the good parts, but I’m afraid she’d forget where she was and start over at the beginning.”
He chuckled and her lips quivered in return. She was relieved they seemed able to put the tensions of this afternoon behind them. “I didn’t mean to offer you a setdown. I just wondered why you are so set against your cousin when he seems determined to garner your favor.”
Alec’s brow creased. “He wants something.” After a long moment, he murmured, “It seems like a hundred years ago, but at one time I thought of him as a brother.”
Julia looked from one to the other. Where Nick
gleamed
the gold of a newly minted coin, Alec’s dark looks fascinated and tempted. Yet they both had the same chiseled handsomeness, as if a master sculptor had crafted them from marble. “Except for your coloring, you look remarkably similar.”
“Most people think us opposites.”
Despite his casual tone, she detected an underlying bitterness. “What happened to cause such a rift between the two of you?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
Julia lifted her brows at his clipped tone. “You might as well tell me now. Mrs. Winston will get to it sooner or later and heaven knows how she might exaggerate it. I’d hate to have to quiz you for the real story.”
His mouth curved in a heart-stopping grin.
“Wretch!
It is a wonder someone hasn’t strangled you before now.” His amusement faded and he regarded her somberly. “Why do you wish to know about Nick?”
“Because you keep warning me away from him.
It would help if I knew why.”
‘There is no other reason
?“
“What other reason could there be?” she asked, surprised.
“None, I suppose. And you are right. Mrs. Winston will eventually get to Nick and she does not know the whole of it.” He led Julia away from a large matron who seemed determined to intercept them. “When I was ten, my cousin came to live at Bridgeton House. Grandfather had discovered that his mother had left him behind with near strangers while she traveled to Europe with her lover.”
“What a horrid woman!”
“That’s not quite what my grandfather called her, but you are close. Nick had just turned thirteen and was furious at being brought to rot in the country.” He glanced at her. “Those were his words, not mine.”
“He was angry at being left behind; a very normal reaction.”
“Perhaps.
I was just glad to have a companion, even a surly one. I followed him around like a pup. He’d done so much, traveled to so many places, while I had never been further than London.”
“I felt the same about Therese when I first met her. It didn’t take me long to realize I was wrong.”
“You, love, had the benefit of age and experience. I was a child and believed my dashing cousin infallible.” He paused. “For several months, it appeared all would be well. I think he even came to enjoy it there; Bridgeton House has its own charm. But then, a considerable amount of money disappeared from Grandfather’s study.”
“Was it lost?”
“Stolen.
Apparently, I had erred in my estimation of my cousin. Nick was all too human.”
“How do you know?”
“Grandfather taxed him with the evidence. Nick didn’t even attempt to deny it.” Alec stopped by a table and poured some lemonade into a crystal cup. “Of course, there wasn’t much he could say. He was guilty and we all knew it.”
Julia absently accepted the cup.
“Hmm.”
Alec quirked a brow.
“What do you mean, ‘hmm’?”
“Just that it seems very unlike your cousin to admit to such a thing. He is far too clever.”
Alec’s face darkened. “You seem to know Nick very well.”
“I’ve seen him any number of times these past four years, though we’ve rarely had the opportunity to talk.” She glanced back at Muck and saw his eyes fixed in wonder at the huge chandelier that hung from the ceiling. She smiled and turned back to Alec. “What happened after your cousin admitted to stealing the money?”
“Grandfather was devastated. Having opened his house to Nick and given him the benefit of his protection, he felt he’d been cruelly betrayed. Fortunately Nick’s mother had just returned from Europe. Grandfather ordered her to come and fetch him. They had a great row, for she didn’t wish to be burdened with him, either. But Grandfather was adamant and she took Nick to France with her the very next day.”
Julia decided she needed to hurry Mrs. Winston along—she was missing all the important details. “The first time I met Nick, he had just returned from the Continent.”
“We are blessed with his presence because his mother’s family was forced to flee from Napoleon’s troops.”
Julia sipped her lemonade, grimacing at the sour taste. “Part of the French aristocracy, were they?”
“Yes.” Alec took the cup from her hand and set it on the table. “Perhaps ratafia would be more to your taste.”
Though Julia longed to pursue the topic, she could see Alec’s confidences were at an end. “No, thank you. How did your meeting with the executors go?”
“They were surprisingly well reconciled to the fact that I married you and not Therese.”
“I feared they might argue that point.”
Alec had feared the same thing, and had gone to the meeting prepared to defend the circumstances of his marriage. Yet the executors had done no more than glance through the documents proving Julia’s claim before subjecting him to a humiliating examination designed to highlight his every fault.
One of the executors, a pompous ass who’d provoked him at every turn, had even gone so far to suggest that if Julia were to become “in the family way,” the issue of the inheritance could be settled immediately. Alec had felt as if someone had slipped a noose around his neck and slowly tightened it, inch by bloody inch.
As the executors had taken great delight in pointing out, Julia was in his care. Anything that befell his wife rested directly on his shoulders. He thought of their encounter in the foyer this morning and winced. Before he could protect Julia from Nick, he’d have to find a way to protect her from himself and his own damnable desires. Yet just a hint of her distinctive lemon and cinnamon scent caused his manhood to lift and swell.
He glanced down at his wife and the pressure around his throat increased. Though she would never possess Therese’s outstanding beauty, Julia was an undeniably attractive woman. The additional presence of a sensual elegance and a sharp wit that could startle a reluctant laugh from him under the worst of circumstances allowed her to easily outshine her less fascinating cousin.
Julia caught his gaze, a faint blush touching her cheeks. Dressed in a simple creation of white gauze over a mint green slip, her hair piled on her head in a series of tumbled ringlets, a pretty fan hanging from her wrist, Julia appeared as innocent as springtime—and just as luscious. No, she didn’t
appear
innocent. She was innocent.
Her delicate brows pulled low. “Perhaps I should meet the executors. Maybe if I—”
“No,” he interrupted, shuddering at what those staid and repressed gentlemen would make of Julia’s forthright manner. “There is no need.”
“Well,” she said in a doubtful voice, “if you don’t think it’s necessary. I just hate for you to face them alone.”
Try as he might, Alec could picture no other female of his acquaintance offering to accompany him into such a den of lions. “Julia, you are—”
“Hunterston!”
Lady Birlington’s strident voice reached them. “Come over here. I wish to see your wife.” Outlandishly attired in a bilious green silk gown and a bright yellow shawl, she beckoned imperiously.
Fighting a sigh, Alec guided Julia to where Maddie sat. A long-suffering Edmund stood behind her chair and cast yearning glances in the direction of the game room.
Maddie pointed her cane at Muck. “So this is the boy from the library, eh?”
“Tare and hounds, Aunt Maddie,” exclaimed Edmund. “Who else could it be?
Can’t have two urchins with the same face.
Least, not ‘less they were twins, and even then I’d lay you a monkey they wouldn’t look exactly alike. Though I did see a set of twins at a fair once who—”
“Demme, Edmund! Cease your prattling.” Maddie placed her hands on her cane and leaned forward until her nose was even with Muck’s. The urchin jutted his chin and scowled. Apparently satisfied, Maddie drew back and nodded. “Good thing he doesn’t have dark hair, Hunterston. Wouldn’t want anyone to think he was one of your by-blows.”
“Aunt Maddie!” Edmund’s anguished gaze fell on Julia. “Sorry. She
don’t
always think about what she’s saying.”
Julia examined first Muck, then Alec. “I can’t imagine anyone thinking such a thing. There’s almost no resemblance.”
Alec looked at the homely child. Muck obligingly stared back. “What do you mean, ‘almost’?”
Julia tilted her head to one side.
“Same nose.”
Had he not seen her mouth quiver with suppressed laughter, he might have been taken in. “If that child’s nose looks like mine, then he has your hair.” He chuckled and reached out to tug on one of her locks, the back of his hand resting against her cheek. A sharp prickle of awareness ran the length of his arm.
Julia stepped away from him so swiftly she bumped into a chair, her color fluctuating alarmingly. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
Alec’s hand dropped back to his side, irritation curling his hands into fists. Did she truly hold him in such aversion? Were her kisses the result of uncontrollable passion and nothing else?
He looked at his wife’s profile, noting the delicate sweep of her brow, the long splay of her lashes, the gentle slope of her mouth. She deserved a courtly suitor, one who wrote poetry to her beauty, appreciated her spirit, and dedicated
himself
to her charity efforts.
Not a man who was so selfish he couldn’t even stand beside her without wondering how the smooth, perfumed skin of her thighs would feel against his mouth.
Disgusted at his lascivious thoughts, he turned away. “You look lovely this evening, Lady Birlington.”
Maddie patted her red hair, set with a haphazard arrangement of sapphire and emerald pins. “Thank you, Hunterston. Good of you to notice.” She turned to Edmund. “Don’t you have something to ask Julia?”
“What? Oh, yes. Care to dance, Lady H.?
Been anxiously awaiting the opportunity.”
Julia sighed regretfully. “I’d rather not. Two left feet, you know.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Birlington said testily. “You’ve seen that French dance master no less than four times this past week alone.
Should be able to dance like Princess Charlotte by now.”
“It didn’t help. Monsieur Armonde said I was as graceful as a cow in slippers.”
“No!” Maddie declared. “What a rude thing to say!”
“Perhaps Monsieur Armonde did not realize Julia speaks excellent French,” said Alec shortly. He missed his chef’s way with crepes.
Julia’s brow knit.
“Very useful thing to know, French.
One can learn all manner of things.”
A plump blonde went dancing by, wiggling her fingers over her partner’s shoulder at Edmund.
Edmund grasped Julia’s hand and said urgently, “The quadrille.
My favorite dance.
Come, Julia.”
She grimaced.
“Oh, very well.
I suppose it would look odd if I didn’t dance at least once.”
Alec noticed she didn’t even look toward him. The omission bothered him more than he cared to admit.
Julia laid her reticule on a chair then bent to look Muck right in the eye. “Will you guard this for me?”
His face puckered.
She patted his hand. “I’ll only be gone a moment. Master Alec will be here, if you need anything.”
The boy cast a suspicious glance at Alec before establishing himself by the chair, rigidly at attention. “I’ll keep me blinkers peeled fer ye, missus, in case there be any knobby ones about.”
Alec tried to suppress his irritation as his wife blithely left with Edmund. After a few false starts, the pair made their way through the quadrille with more enthusiasm than grace.
Leaning against a pillar, Alec watched Julia. Who would have ever imagined such a gamine creature existed beneath the dull exterior of the Frant Dragon? He tried to remember what she’d looked like before her amazing transformation, but couldn’t. She was simply Julia—elegant, attractive, and irritating, all in the same breath.
It was comical to watch Edmund as he attempted to place himself by the plump Lady Chowerton. He eventually succeeded, making obvious gestures to her over Julia’s shoulder. Julia glanced behind her and frowned.
After a few passes through the dance, her frown changed to a scowl. By the time the music came to a close, Edmund and Julia appeared to be involved in a lively argument.
As they neared.
Alec heard Julia say in her distinctive accent, “Bonehead.”
Edmund, coldly furious, favored her with a stiff bow, “I won’t deign to reply to that.” He then proceeded to ruin the effect with a decided pout.
“Who is a bonehead?” asked Maddie, her blue eyes bright with interest.
“No one.”
Edmund glared at Julia as if daring her to defy him.
Her chin firmed. “
Edmund
is a bonehead.”
“La, child,” Maddie said, disappointed. “Everyone knows that.”
Julia turned to Alec. “Edmund has been flirting in the most outrageous manner with a married woman.”
Maddie tsked. “Serve you right if Lord Chowerton called you out, Edmund. If I were a man, I wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet right through your heart.”
Edmund’s face reddened. “Surely you wouldn’t.”
“Would, too.
That or spatter your brains ‘gainst a wall,” Maddie said thoughtfully. “Depends on how angry you made me.”
He sputtered, but before he could say a word, Julia poked him in the chest with her fan. “You should find some nice unattached girl. There are so many of them— and without dance partners, too.” She looked about the room as if she expected to pluck some unfortunate girl from her chair and place her in Edmund’s waiting arms.