Joan Wolf (10 page)

Mr. Murray was very kind, very interested. She did not know that it was her fashionable clothing and her irreproachably respectable maid which had got her in to see him. Young ladies who were clearly members of the quality did not often call at his office. Then, when he realized what he had got—the niece of the Duke of Crewe with a manuscript of her travels in Africa—his manner became even more approachable. He would be very pleased to look at her book. Would she call back in three days’ time and he would tell her what he thought of it?

As soon as she left the office she had misgivings. Why had she allowed John to extract that promise from her? She was a fool to think she was a writer. Oh, they might very well publish her journal. It was a record of an interesting part of the globe. But she would expose herself in all her foolishness to the whole world. What would her grandmother say? What would Lord Minton think? She should not have done it.

The three days seemed interminable. She felt she would rather they turn it down than publish it just because of her name, of her father’s name. She presented herself promptly on the morning of the third day and sat in front of Mr. Murray, her heart hammering in her chest.

The publisher looked soberly at the slender fair-haired young girl in front of him. “My dear Miss Wells,” he said, “this is one of the most remarkable accounts I have ever read. I couldn’t put it down. It’s perfectly splendid.” The young face opposite him began to glow. “I’ll be honest and say I took it to read because of who you are. I never expected to find anything like this. You are both a naturalist and a writer, my dear.”

She went home, fiercely happy. She had
done it.
She was a writer. She felt joyful and powerful and triumphant. She had not felt that way upon her engagement. She felt like shouting her news to the world.

It was when she reached home that some of her joy dimmed. Who was she to tell? Who could she share this triumph with? She knew enough about her grandmother to understand that she would not be pleased to see her granddaughter an authoress. She could tell William, of course. But he knew nothing of her life in Africa. He was rather a conventional young man; probably he would be a little bewildered by her desire to see herself in print. She wanted someone to exult with. And there was no one.

Her pleasure was dimmed by her silence. They were to attend a ball at Lady Heathford’s that evening and she dressed for it automatically. Another ball. More of the same dull people saying the same dull things. She had to bury her excitement deep inside herself, to try to think of things that didn’t really matter at all.

Lord Rutherford was waiting for her downstairs; he was to escort Julianne and her grandmother to the ball. He smiled when he saw her, looking pure and regal in a new creamy satin gown. He bent to kiss her mouth and got instead a cool smooth cheek. He looked a little hurt. “Julianne,” he said, then checked himself as the dowager duchess came into the room.

“Ah good, Rutherford, you’re here. It’s time we started.” As they went out to the carriage the young man put a proprietary hand on Julianne’s arm.

They were late arriving at the ball. They were always late for social functions; the dowager duchess liked to avoid crowds at the door and on the stairs. The large ballroom was filled as they entered. Lord Rutherford bent to say something to Julianne and she smiled and replied automatically. In the corner of the room, beyond his shoulder, she caught sight of a familiar figure, and she froze.

He was taller than anyone else; his head towered over the men who surrounded him. In that room of elegantly polished people he was instantly recognizable—clearer, brighter, lit with a more intense fire. For a minute Julianne forgot to breathe and then his own gaze swung around and found her.

Lord Rutherford looked in surprise at the tall, dark man who was approaching his party with such a purposeful air. He strode across the ballroom as if he owned it, unconscious of the watching eyes of the ton. He was the sort of man whom other people would always watch.

It was the dowager duchess who greeted him. “Good evening, Lord Denham. I am glad to see you have come home.”

Julianne’s eyes widened. “Lord Denham?” she asked in a startled voice.

“My cousin most inconsiderately died of pneumonia and I inherited the title,” the black-haired man said to her.

She chuckled with genuine amusement. “Are you really an earl?”

Lord Rutherford was rather shocked at this sign of levity in his betrothed, but Denham only grinned. “I am.”

“You deserve it,” she said and at that the man laughed.

“Lord Denham, you must allow me to introduce my granddaughter’s fiancé, Lord Rutherford.”

Those remarkable blue-green eyes were turned on the young man. “How do you do, my lord,” he said a little stiffly. Lord Rutherford looked up to meet that brilliant gaze and caught an expression that startled him. It was gone in an instant and Lord Denham was shaking hands, but Lord Rutherford was a little unnerved by the very unpleasant expression he had seen briefly in the other man’s eyes. Then Lord Denham was asking Julianne to dance and they went out together to the ballroom floor.

“So that is the new Earl of Denham,” Lord Rutherford said to the dowager duchess. “How does he know Julianne?”

“They met while she was in Africa,” replied the old woman. “Lord Denham knew my son.”

“I see,” said Lord Rutherford tensely. He knew that John Champernoun had been out in Egypt. Lansdowne was not far from Minton and his family had naturally been interested in what was going to happen to the Denham family fortunes.

The dowager duchess looked at the young man’s face and felt profound annoyance with the new Earl of Denham. Confound it all, she thought to herself, with healthy eighteenth-century vulgarity, why hadn’t the man stayed in Egypt?

“Your fiancé,” John was saying to Julianne as they slowly circled the room. “You didn’t waste any time, did you?”

His tone of voice was distinctly sarcastic, but Julianne did not respond. She was too happy to see him. “Never mind Rutherford,” she said impatiently. “John, you’ll never believe what’s happened. A publisher has taken my journal!”

His eyes blazed into the blueness she remembered so well. “I knew it!” he said. “Didn’t I tell you? What did he say?”

“Mr. Murray said”—her voice bubbled with suppressed emotion—”that he couldn’t put it down. He said parts of it were like poetry.”

They were waltzing and now he pulled her closer to him and spun around in a breathless, twirling circle. Julianne was laughing, her face raised to his. Her crown of golden hair came just to his mouth. “Everyone is looking at us!” she protested.

“Let them.” But he slowed his steps. “I’m delighted. You have the eye of a born naturalist. And, as Mr. Murray said, you can write.”

“I was so
glad
to see you tonight,” she confessed. “I only found out this afternoon and I was
bursting
to tell someone. When I saw you standing there it seemed too good to be true.”

“Ah,” he said. “You haven’t told Lord Rutherford?”

“No.” For the first time since they had met she looked a little wary. “I’m not quite sure if he’ll be pleased. They have such a feeling here about making oneself conspicuous. About
women
making themselves conspicuous, that is.”

“Yes, well most women do not write like you do. Most women haven’t had the opportunities to see the things that you have seen.”

“Most women didn’t have the father I had.”

“True. You were very fortunate.” There was no satire in his voice and she stared up at him, trying to see if he was serious. He was. “Do you think you would be a writer on the verge of having a book published if you had had a conventional upbringing?” he asked. “I decided long ago that my relations had done me a favor by driving me away. I’ve had a damn good time with my life as a result.”

The music stopped, the dance was over, yet he made no attempt to return her to her fiancé. She scanned his face with searching gray eyes. He looked back at her, a curious lift to his straight black brows. She could not read what was in his eyes.

“Are you going to stay in England now that you’ve inherited?” she asked. “Or will you be going back to Egypt?”

“I don’t know. I doubt if I could tolerate England on a permanent basis.” He looked away from her face and across the floor. “Here comes your fiancé,” he said blandly. “When is the date of your nuptials?”

“November.”

“Ah, November.” A faint smile curved his mouth as he watched Lord Rutherford come up to claim Julianne. He was clearly a little ruffled by her behavior and John watched sardonically as she expertly set out to pacify him. The young man was obviously clay in her hands. After a minute she took him off to dance, leaving John on the edge of the crowd, his eyes following her proud golden head and slim white shoulders. Then Lord Castlereagh came up beside him and asked him a question. In a few minutes the two men retired to a private room and weren’t seen for over an hour.

In the meantime Julianne was having a perfectly wretched time. She danced with a great number of men, all of whom were extremely pleasant, and all of whom she found it difficult to talk to. After having had a
real
exchange with someone, it was hard to go back to mouthing polite, meaningless platitudes.

When John came back into the ballroom, the whole room came alive again. She watched as he talked with first one person and then another; watched how everyone watched him; watched as he danced with one or two women and watched their obvious attraction to him. He had tremendous power over people, she thought. Her father had had that quality as well. It did not stem from their remarkable good looks but from the strength of their personalities. They were both overwhelming and extremely forceful men—men whose mere presence made an impact on even the most grudging observer.

He was a dangerous man, John Champernoun. Dangerous to her. The surface veil of convention had been ripped away between them; they had shared too much with each other. She had told him things she would never tell anyone else. She had not seen him for eight months, yet she had felt more instantly at home with him than she felt with people who were far more intimately connected to her. They knew each other too well.

That was why he was dangerous. She had chosen her life and she was happy in that choice. She must not allow this intensely forceful man to come into that life and smash it. It was not as if she really
liked
him, she told herself. She could never like a man who was so like her father.

Chapter Thirteen

But all things are composed here

Like Nature, orderly and near....

—Andrew Marvell

The final month of the season came to a close at last and the ton prepared to desert London for the pleasures of the country. Julianne and the dowager duchess were to spend the month of August at Minton. The earl and countess had assembled a house party of friends and relatives who were anxious to meet the future Lady Rutherford—indeed, the future Lady Minton. In September the dowager duchess and her granddaughter would return home and in October there would be a house party at Crewe, hosted by the duke and duchess in honor of Lord Rutherford and his parents. In November the young people would finally be allowed to get married.

Julianne was very glad to return to Minton. The tranquillity of the house would soothe away her restlessness. She was pleased also to see Lord Minton again. He was everything she admired in a man: so good-humored, so intelligent, so utterly pleasant.

The Mintons had gathered a house party of some twenty people to meet Julianne and the dowager duchess. There were two of William’s aunts with their husbands, three of his uncles with their wives and six cousins. The others were close friends of the family—Mr. and Mrs. Lewis and Lord and Lady Boldock. At first Julianne had been disconcerted by the number of people; she had counted on Minton for tranquility. But the house party was very easygoing and all the people so comfortable with each other that she was soon reassured. The atmosphere was as pleasant and serene as she remembered.

In the mornings the guests pretty much did as they pleased. Breakfast was set out in the breakfast room to be partaken of whenever one should happen to arise. Or one could breakfast in bed if one chose. The gentlemen usually spent the morning reading in the library or riding out on one of the earl’s well-conditioned horses. The ladies drew or played a favorite instrument. The afternoons were devoted to lawn sports or the countess might organize a picnic or a visit to a local landmark. Dinner was served at seven o’clock, after which there was usually music and cards.

So passed the first week of August. Julianne was making a conscious effort to devote herself to Lord Rutherford. He was so kind, so steady, so
civilized.
She told herself a hundred times that she was lucky to have him. She would sit with him and ride with him and listen to his hunting stories for as long as he chose to tell them. She was so sweet about this that everyone watching the young couple together was charmed by their obvious compatibility. It seemed to be a marriage made in heaven.

The second week of August began with a flutter of activity. Lady Minton announced that she planned to hold a ball in honor of the newly engaged couple. “I would like some of our neighbors to meet dear Julianne,” she said, smiling graciously at her prospective daughter-in-law. There would also be a separate party for the tenants, the servants, the local townspeople, and the yeomanry. Julianne was a little startled by the magnitude of the celebration being organized.

“My mother and father have always held entertainments for the lower orders,” Lord Rutherford proudly explained to Julianne. “At my coming-of-age the festivities went on for three days.”

“Heavens,” said Julianne faintly.

“My parents are always anxious to improve the relations between the classes. The Mintons have been Whigs for generations.” There was the suspicion of a ring in his voice and Julianne had to compress her lips a little to keep from smiling. The Mintons gave a party and thought themselves very liberal. She, however, was the daughter of a man who had done a great deal more for the “lower classes” than throwing an occasional entertainment. She had a large score chalked up against her father, but she had never questioned his sincerity. In the light of Lord Richard’s commitment, the Mintons looked suddenly rather small.