The Abandoned Bride (23 page)

Julia often told herself that night life was not her style, and that it was just as well that a
governess
-companion could not experience firsthand those pleasures she had often heard her employers and their friends speaking of, such as dances and routs and supper parties and balls. She had gone to a waltz party as well as several evening soirees with the Honorable
Miss Carstairs when she had been that young female’s companion. It was true that she had always sat
,
as was correct, on the sidelines with others of her order, behind the dowagers and the infirm. But she had been able to see a great deal of what was going on over their heads and through the spaces between their seated forms, and she hadn’t been much impressed nor very regretful of her lot in life, save for some few moments when the music at the waltz party had threatened to lift her from her seat and ca
rr
y her to her feet. But the one thing she had always secretly coveted was the ability to attend the Opera or the theater. And so from the moment she entered the Opera, until the moment she found herself seated in a box high in its rafters, she believed that she felt dizzy because she did not draw or expel one breath the whole while from the sheer weight of her awe.

The theater itself was gorgeous. She had never understood the true impact of the word until she had seen the gold and gilt and rococco carvings and plush of the interior of the building, and now she found that even that word did not do justice to the sight. Once within, there was such a gabble of voices as to make the Bible stories she had read of the tower of Babel seem insignificant. Not only was everyone talking at full volume, but as there were gentlemen and officers present from every victorious army, there was every language and accent imaginable competing loudly for attention.

The gentlemen outnumbered the ladies, but those females present were attired in no less magnificent fashion than the theater they ornamented. They might be in France, but here there were no sabots, nor any high white bonnets on fresh-faced females as there had been in Calais. No, here there was gold cloth and scarlet silk and silver gauze, and all seemingly in too short a supply to adequately cover the ladies that had chosen them as dress materials. Despite Celeste’s and Lady Preston’s assurances, Julia had felt that her own gown showed perhaps a jot too much white skin above the swell of her breasts, but now it seemed that she was wrapped to her ears in comparison to the others of her gender.

The atmosphere was warm and airless, a hundred perfumes hung in the still atmosphere even as a thousand less palatable odors did. The bright flare of the footlights and the glitter from the patrons themselves assaulted the eye even as the din confused the ears, but Julia was enthralled. She gaped at the theater, she shamelessly stared below her at the coxcombs and the dandies and soldiers and then she looked up in wonder at the statesmen, heroes, and generals in adjoining boxes. Then she could marvel no more at them, for the lights dimmed, the noise abated, and the music struck up.

I
t was as she thrilled to the expertise of the dancers and their stirring ballet representing the allied victory at Waterloo, that she became aware of the others in the box with her again. She felt a firm but gentle touch upon her arm and heard the baron say, quite close to her ear,
“
I’m sorry, my dear, but she is quite right. We must go. And now, at once.”

Julia was far too grown-up and self-contained to sulk or pout, but as the coach bore them back to the hotel she devoutly wished that she were Toby’s age once more so that she could just fling herself down upon the cushions and have a good howling cry. They had left the theater quietly and furtively while the music had continued playing. Julia had looked at the stage to the last, until she risked tripping in the dark, so she could have just one last glimpse of the ballet as it went on. Then it had been easy enough to commandeer a carriage from the line outside the Opera, since none of the drivers expected such early departures. It seemed to Julia that she had been allowed just a glimpse of something exciting and enthralling beyond imagination and then had been unceremoniously snatched away from it, like a child who had been discovering hiding upon the stairs observing a brilliant grown-up party past her bedtime.

She said not a word of this, but her face must have spoken her thoughts eloquently, for when they were snugly ensconced in the hotel’s small salon sipping at their coffee in their comfortable armchairs, like proper old pensioneers, she thought glumly, the baron spoke. Lady Preston was seated at a distance from them, perusing a magazine, so he need not have lowered his voice to such an intimate register, but he did, nonetheless, to ensure their privacy.

“She was right, Julia. It’s unfortunate, but true, and I’m a fool for not having thought it. But you wanted propriety, my sweet, so you mustn’t complain when it puts a crimp in your style. You were far too busy ogling the soldiers to notice, but she turned ashen and I thought she was going to pitch over headfirst into the pit.
‘My lord,’ she cried, and I don’t know if
she meant me or someone rather higher, ‘we are the only respectable females in this entire company!’ ” The baron smiled as he mimicked the lady in a passable horrified falsetto.

But then he went on reflectively, “It’s true, you know. All the genteel ladies were at home lamenting either the loss of their empire or their emperor, I imagine. That lot we saw were the sort that can be counted on to cavort with the victors in any land, in any century. Still, there are some highborn ladies who might have sat it out when they realized their error and written it off as a lark. But ‘a proper chaperone,’ you said, and ‘a proper chaperone’ you received. Want to change your mind, Julia?” he asked suddenly, dropping his voice lower, to a husky timbre that sent as many shivers up her spine as his words did.

“We could then go to all the theaters, and all the balls, and all the places I haven’t dared to ask you to accompany me to, and oh, what fun you should have, Julia, what joy we should both have. We wouldn
’t
have to go home for ages, and when we did, ah Julia, there would be no end of delights ahead of us.”

He was looking at her with such earnest entreaty that Lady Preston, glancing over toward them, permitted herself a small smile at how animated the pair’s discussion had grown. There was something entirely ludicrous, Julia had time to think as she looked to see her chaperone’s reaction to the words she could not have heard, in receiving an invitation to a life of mortal sin while one’s very dignified chaperone sat and dumbly nodded her blissful approval to it. Thus, she wore a faint and foolish smile herself in reaction to his words, rather than the horrified scowl she ought to have treated him to. But all she said was,
“And Robin?”

It was brief, but her reply was as effective as a spirited speech might have been, for he fell silent for a moment. She felt a peculiar pang as she saw how his long lashes closed to lie outlined like dusky fringes upon his high cheekbones. His face appeared strangely gentle when the quick comprehension in his eyes was thus shuttered and shaded. She was still staring bemused at his newly vulnerable aspect, when his eyes snapped open and she found herself caught and looking deep into his aware, alert regard.

“Julia,” he said immediately, “you know I never intended you for him. From the first, I believed it to be a mistake. Although I may have altered my opinion about a great many other things, in that, at least, I have not changed my mind. Come Julia, Lady Preston is a charming companion, but this respectability is a cumbersome thing, is it not? Give over, love, do,” he said, a smile quirking the
corner
of his lips. “Stay with me. I’ll accept that you have principles, but ‘love the sinner if not the sin,’ ” He laughed low in his throat as he added, “Yes, I’ll quote scripture for my own purposes, just as the good book says, as well as for yours. For it’s what you want, you know. It’s right for you, you know.”

“I cannot,” she said, as though the words were wrenched from her, “I could not.” A
n
d then with a smile that attempted to match his own, though she could not see if he smiled back now, as her gaze was fixed upon her own lap, she said gently, so as not to give offense, “And it’s no loss, you know. For I could not, even if I could.”

Her reply was a puzzle, so he had to take as answer that which he had not heard. She had not said “I will not,” or “I should not,” or even “How could you?
”
Instead of becoming irate, or insulted, or aghast, as she previously had done, she seemed genuinely sorry for what she, not he, had said. So Nicholas took her by the hand and urged her to stand with him and then he walked her to Lady Preston.

“My dear lady,” Nicholas said sweetly, “it’s grown extremely warm in here, and Julia and I should like to stroll in the cool of the evening before retiring.”

“Ah. Of course. And so it is. I will just take my shawl against the threat of sudden breezes, which are not all the thing for the constitution,” Lady Preston said as she gathered up her reticule and shawl, “and I shall have a seat outside as well. What a good idea.”

How odd, Julia thought as the three of
the
m stepped out of the salon and then down the hall to the back door that led to a cobblestone-paved courtyard garden area. How strange, she thought as Lady Preston nodded with
satisfaction and took a seat on a bench beneath a sheltering tree. For Lady Preston merely said, as
she seated herself in the dark as comfortably as if she were in a drawing room, “I should suggest you avoid notice, but at least I shall be here should you need me.”

Julia’s feeling of wrongness, the sense of something sadly askew, increased as she paced quietly by Nicholas’s side and he led her deeper into the darkened garden. But then she thought, Of course! It is he who pays her wages, and I, after all, really have no champion at all. It came to Julia all at once, like some blinding revelation, so complete and unexpected that she paused in her tracks. She is a lady, of that there is no question. Yet she never was here to ensure my reputation, but only to swear to it.

Nicholas spoke quietly and Julia started. Was he inside her head again, she wondered, could he see through her eyes as well as into them? For he said as though he had been privy to her innermost thoughts, “It’s not only you, Julia, nor is it only your chaperone and her circumstances. Society knows that a female may be ringed around with armed guardians and yet be unchaste. We’ve grown past the days of bolting up our women as we did our castle doors. A chaperone is employed to lend respectability, but everyone knows that respect
a
b
i
lity can’t be lent, it must be kept. Now,” he said in warm and friendly accents as they stood quietly in the shadows, “allow me to illustrate the point.”

Without any fuss, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he gathered her up in his arms and bent his head and kissed her. At first she only offered no resistance. And then, to her shock and his delight, she followed his lead and offered a great deal more to him than lack of objections. After long and languorous moments, he raised his head again and she lay stunned against his chest.

Then he murmured, with traces of suppressed, luxurious triumph in his voice, “Now, what is this of ‘cannot’ or ‘could not’ when I speak of love, when I speak of a future for you and me?”

With effort, Julia straightened herself and drew apart from him. She sought to find her normal voice and composure and only when sure that she could speak coherently, she replied, “ ‘Cannot,’ ‘will not,’ you refine too much upon my every word,” she said with a shaky laugh. “So I’ll try to say it plainly and be done. I won’t be your mistress, Nicholas, because I am Julia Hastings, and she is not the sort of girl to become anyone’s mistress, even though she is the abandoned sort of female who will tell you straightaway that if she could be anyone’s, she would be yours. But wait,
”
she said, knowing he
was about to speak and wanting to get it all out in a rush for fear that her lower lip, which had begun to quiver, would impede what she had to say, what she knew she ought to say, “there’s more.”

She drew in a deep breath and then said, closing her eyes so that she
could see the shape of her thoughts and not his face, “I will not because of things that you would consider foolish, like conscience and morality. But if it makes you feel any better, I cannot as well. You see, I couldn’t even if I were the graceless wanton you think I am. I just wouldn’t be satisfactory. You can ask Robin,” she said at last, unable to say another thing as her voice broke on the “Robin” at the end.

She fought to get her countenance under control, and had almost successfully commanded her chin to cease trembling and her lip to steady itself, when he undid her. He didn’t say a word, but only took her in his arms again and held her ve
r
y close. Only that. Then, of course, she had no choice at all left. She wept.

W
hen she had steadied herself at last, or at least become still enough to begin to feel ashamed of her outburst, and aware of his arms about her, he spoke.

“Julia,” he whispered into her ear in the quiet of the night, “you must tell me. It cannot be that shameful a thing. It can never be that ugly or that hideous to me if it concerns you. What happened that night, what occurred between you and Robin? I cannot know you, indeed you forbid my knowing you by continually evading the truth of it. Is it fair to condemn me for hurting or misjudging you when you keep this important a thing to yourself? You arrange it so that I am fated to lose whatever I do. It simply is not fair to me. Tell me, Julia. Here and now. Please, Julia.”