Juliana (41 page)

The little girl looked up from the cast-iron stove in the Chase family’s basement kitchen. “You
look
sad.” Stirring with one hand, she stroked the snake draped over her shoulders with the other. “Herman, don’t you think Lady Juliana looks sad?”

Juliana broke a brick of chocolate with unnecessary force, thinking Herman might as well go ahead and answer. A talking reptile wouldn’t be half as astonishing as Lord Wolverston’s revelation last night.

And James’s reaction to it.

He’d left. He’d held her for a moment, but then he’d left. He’d apparently come to the conclusion that he had to marry Amanda, and accepted it, and just…left.

By all appearances, he had no interest in discussing the situation. He’d said he’d be back on Saturday. He’d made up his mind, and she probably wouldn’t even see him again until he was married.

If then.

She sighed and began grating chocolate into the triple batch of cream and sugar that Emily was stirring in the pot. “I haven’t seen you in quite a few days, Emily.”

“A new family moved in across the square. Lord and Lady Lambourne. And they have three children. Three
girl
children.”

Another surprise. Juliana usually knew everything that went on in Mayfair. Evidently she’d been slightly preoccupied of late. “What are the girls’ names, then?”

“Jane, Susan, and Kate. Susan is just my age.”

“That must be lovely for you.” She kept grating. “And what do the Lambourne girls think of Herman?”

“Oh, they find him bang up to the mark,” Emily said enthusiastically.

The Lambourne girls must have taught her some new slang. Usually Juliana would have smiled at hearing it. But she was too dejected.

And too irked with their new neighbors’ acceptance of Herman. It threatened Juliana’s efforts to civilize Emily.

The child stirred faster. “You’re putting an awful lot of chocolate in, aren’t you?”

“One can never have too much chocolate,” Juliana said.

So what if she’d added twice as much as the recipe called for? She
needed
chocolate. Her mother had always said it was supposed to cure melancholy, and she’d never been more melancholy in her life.

But in this case she feared it wouldn’t be enough. Especially since the chocolate reminded her of James and his beautiful, chocolatey eyes…

Oh, hang it. How was she supposed to feel better when the love of her life was marrying another girl? When four people’s happiness had been ruined? When it was
all her fault
?

Emily had stopped stirring. “You’re crying,” she said. “You
are
sad.”

“I guess I am.” Setting down the chocolate and the grater, she forced a smile. “I think we’re finished here.”

“What’s wrong, Lady Juliana?”

What
wasn’t
wrong? She couldn’t marry James. She’d doomed him to a dreadful future with a wife he’d never love, a future full of chess and antiquities and very little else. She was exhausted and overwhelmed—she hadn’t slept last night at all—and somehow, some way—God only knew how, and apparently He wasn’t telling—she had to produce sixty-two items of baby clothes in the next four days.

“What’s wrong?” She could barely push the words through her tight throat. “Everything, it seems.”

“Is it about Lord Stafford?”

She blinked. “What makes you think that?”

The little girl rolled her big gray eyes. “It’s obvious you like him. I’ve known that for ages. And he likes you.”

Apparently the truth had been obvious to an eight-year-old but not to herself. At least she was a precocious eight-year-old. “Well, he doesn’t seem to want to see me right now.”

“Then you must go see him. You have to talk to him. You cannot just stand around and mope. You have to
do
something, Lady Juliana.”

Faith, Emily was right. Juliana had never before just stood by and let things happen, and she couldn’t imagine what had made her start now. Melancholy, she supposed. But she couldn’t allow melancholy to rule her.

Thank goodness she was making chocolate cream.

“Oh, you dear, dear child.” She dashed the tears off her cheeks and wrapped Emily in a hug. “I’m supposed to be helping you, but you’re helping me instead.”

“Are you going to go see Lord Stafford now?”

“Not right now. I sent notes asking all the ladies to come sew today even though I’ve never held any parties on a Tuesday before. They’ll be here in less than an hour, and I cannot get to the Institute and back in that short time.” Drat, James would be at Parliament by the time her sewing session was finished. “I shall have to go see him tomorrow. You’ll stay for the sewing party, won’t you?”

“Is there any more cutting to be done?”

“No. The cutting is all finished.”

“Then I’m going to play with Jane, Susan, and Kate.” When Juliana opened her mouth to protest, Emily held up one of her small hands—the one that wasn’t stroking her snake. “You don’t really want me to sew, do you? I’m sure to end up bleeding.”

No, Juliana didn’t want Emily to bleed. The mere thought made her feel sick. And the last thing she needed now was to spew a stomachful of chocolate over a stack of her hard-won baby clothes.

“Go ahead and play with the Lambourne girls. You have my blessing.”

“Can I eat some chocolate cream before I leave?”

“I need to put it on ice first to make it cold. I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”

Emily helped her transfer the sweet pudding into three dozen cups before she left to visit her friends across the square. After that, Juliana had just enough time to steal upstairs to her bedroom and wash her blotchy face before her guests arrived. She brushed on a little powder and went down to seat herself in the drawing room. As she picked up her sewing and Corinna kept painting without comment, she congratulated herself on how calm and composed she must seem.

Rachael was still ill, and now Claire and Elizabeth were, too. As were Lady Stafford and Lady Balmforth. Lady Avonleigh was feeling better, though, and she arrived first.

“Oh, my dear,” she cried, “I’m
so
sorry.” And she rushed across the room to enfold Juliana in her arms.

Juliana rose from the sofa and let herself be comforted by James’s aunt. Except the embrace wasn’t comforting. The harder Lady A hugged her, the harder she had to fight to keep the tears from falling again.

“I wanted you to marry my nephew,” Lady A murmured, tears in her voice, too. “I wanted you to be my niece.”

“I wanted you to be my aunt. I wanted Lady Stafford to be my mother.” It seemed forever since she’d had a mother, and Juliana knew no one more motherly than Lady Stafford. She shuddered in Lady A’s arms, inhaling camphor and gardenias. “There has to be
something
we can do.”

“Our James doesn’t believe there’s anything to be done. But if anyone can think of something, it’s you, my dear.” Lady Avonleigh pulled back and wiped the moisture from Juliana’s cheeks with gentle fingers. “You keep thinking, and I will, too.”

“Thank you,” Juliana said wanly.

She was about to say something more, but then Aunt Frances came downstairs, and Alexandra arrived, and Corinna reluctantly abandoned her painting and came over to join them all and sew. And the talk turned to Aunt Frances’s pending marriage and Alexandra’s burgeoning belly. Not that Alexandra’s belly was actually protruding yet, but she kept rubbing the thing as though she could feel the baby inside, which made Juliana insanely jealous.

Yes, jealous. She could admit it. Not that she wanted a baby this instant, but the way things were going it seemed like she might
never
have one of her own! And she
so
adored babies—not only were they darling, but they needed help with everything, which suited Juliana just perfectly.

And now
Aunt Frances
was talking about having a baby. In her forties! It made Juliana wonder if she’d have to wait till her forties to have a baby. But all the talk around her was happy talk, so she forced another smile and kept sewing, because they all had been kind enough to help her make baby clothes, and there was nothing more she wanted than for everyone to be happy.

She rang for chocolate cream, but eating it didn’t seem to help. The conversation flowed around her. Lady A got up and wandered over to Corinna’s easel, admiring her latest painting. “Very impressive, my dear.”

“Thank you,” Corinna said.

Alexandra smiled as she plied her needle. “Did you know Corinna is going to submit a painting to the Royal Academy next year?”

“Several,” Corinna corrected. “I’m hoping one will be accepted for the Summer Exhibition.”

“Really?” Lady A mused. “I did tell you my younger daughter was artistic, yes? Though it seemed unlikely, she always hoped to see one of her paintings in the Summer Exhibition, too. But her real dream was to be elected to the Royal Academy.”

“That’s my dream as well,” Corinna said. “I know it won’t be a simple matter, but I’m planning to work hard for the honor.”

The older woman measured her for a moment, then returned to sit beside her. “I want to help you,” she announced. “My daughter never attained her dream—I’d like to see you attain yours.”

Aunt Frances knotted and snipped off a thread. “How can you help her?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll do whatever I can.” Lady A picked up the little cap she was making and smiled at Juliana. “You’re good at coming up with ideas. If you wouldn’t mind helping, maybe together we can see that your sister becomes the next female member of the Academy.”

That would be wonderful for Corinna. And of course Juliana wouldn’t mind helping. She needed another project. It would be a lengthy project—it would take many years—but keeping busy would make it easier to bear her and James’s despair.

Well, not really. But she’d find a solution for their despair soon. She would talk to James tomorrow.

Oh, drat—she was
not
going to cry.

THERE WERE
different ways of dealing with the blows life randomly chucked at people. James’s method—perfected during the years he mourned his brother, father, wife, and newborn child—was to bury himself in work.

Since Sunday he’d been living in a blur—a dark, painful, all too familiar haze. The haze had lifted briefly on Monday, when it had seemed Juliana’s plan might succeed. But since learning the truth about Castleton’s birth, the darkness had closed in again.

James couldn’t say that what he faced now was worse than coping with death. Of course it wasn’t worse. But it didn’t seem better, either. It was different.

Death was final. One mourned, one grieved, one eventually moved on. But what he faced now…it wasn’t final—it was
forever
. It was a life sentence. It seemed so arbitrary, so accidental, so unfair.

And so wretchedly inescapable.

And so he worked. Because it seemed there was nothing else he could do.

He knew what he couldn’t do. He couldn’t leave an innocent young woman to suffer a lifetime of disgrace. He couldn’t condemn himself to a future devoid of all honor. He couldn’t abandon his principles and run off to be with Juliana.

No matter how tempting that sounded.

Which was:
very
tempting.

But he could work. He couldn’t help himself, and he couldn’t help Juliana. But there were other people he could help. Right now, that was the only thing that seemed to make sense.

One thing James knew—probably the thing he knew best—was how to bury himself in his work to the exclusion of everything else. To the exclusion of everything painful. And so on Tuesday he’d risen at dawn and spent the entire day at the Institute. And the entire evening in Parliament. And then he’d gone back to the Institute and stayed there until the wee hours, finding things to do, until he could go home and fall into bed and get up and start all over again.

Today he’d risen at dawn and returned to the Institute, even though he had two physicians scheduled and wasn’t really needed. There was no Parliament tonight, so he’d stay here until the wee hours, finding things to do, until he could go home and fall into bed and get up and start all over again.

He’d do the same tomorrow and Friday. Saturday would be a little different—there would be an interlude in the middle for his wedding. But then he’d come back here to the Institute and repeat the pattern again.

It wasn’t a totally unbearable life. At least he had a purpose. And he was keeping himself so busy he didn’t have time to think. Thinking threatened his mental health, and the busyness was a sort of medicine—a medicinal ointment he could smear all over everything to subdue his emotional ailments.

The medicine, sadly, was an imperfect cure. As the Bible said—Ecclesiastes, if he remembered right—“Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor.” Despite countless Sundays in church, he’d never quite understood what “stinking savor” was supposed to mean. But to put it another way, in simpler words, there was a fly in the ointment.

And the fly was a girl.

Girls always—always, always—wanted to talk. Not the superficial talk of gentlemen—talk of news and the weather and horses—which didn’t make one think. Gentlemen’s talk could substitute for busyness. But ladies’ talk was different. Because ladies didn’t just talk.