The River of No Return (25 page)

She closed her eyelids. His soft mouth pressed gently against one and then the other. He was teasing her away from passion, and she could feel it ebb, just like the rain, which was falling more patchily now.

“There,” he said, tracing her mouth with one finger.

She opened her eyes. He was entirely rumpled and handsomer for it. They had kissed again, again in the rain. Again he was pulling away. But now she knew more about him. She reached out a finger and traced the scar that crossed his eyebrow. Then she leaned forward and placed her own kiss on his mouth. “I admire your scar,” she said.

“It is not a happy memory,” he said. “The getting of it.”

“How did you come by it?”

“At Badajoz.” His voice was flat.

“I haven’t heard much about Badajoz,” she said carefully. “It was a siege?”

“I am glad you don’t know. I wish no one knew.”

“Tell me?”

“The man who fought beside me when finally we stormed the city, who climbed with me, up . . .” He stopped and searched her face. What did he see there? Whatever it was, he chose to continue. “We climbed into Badajoz on a ladder of our own dead, Julia. A man ahead would fall, shot by the French who were picking us off from above. That man would become the next rung. Do you understand?”

She put her hand on his. “Yes.”

His eyes deepened. “But of course you know. You were there.”

“What do you mean?”

He stroked her hair back from her brow and let his eyes wander from her eyes, down her face and body, and back up. “Julia. That day. So long ago. When you saw me and Boatswain. I was weeping.”

“For your father’s death.”

“I wish I could say it was for his death. I was weeping for myself. I did not want to be Blackdown. But I already was Blackdown. Then there you were. Do you know . . .” He drew his hand down her face, causing her to close her eyes. She opened them again when his hand withdrew. “Yes,” he said. “That look.” He touched her lips with his finger. “I am afraid I have used you for years. Carried you into battle with me. Used you to fight back the memories. You, stepping out of the woods at my darkest hour. Smiling at me.”

“That was your darkest hour? The day your father died?”

“When I was that young, yes, that was my darkest hour. I have had darker since.”

Julia touched the scar again. “You got this scar climbing into the city?”

“No.” His eyes went blank. “It was later. Once we took Badajoz. In the aftermath.” He reached up and grasped her exploring fingers, bringing them down to his mouth.

“You don’t want to tell me,” she said. “Did you do something terrible?”

“Yes,” he said. “It was terrible. But it was the only thing I could do. It was right.”

His face was still strange to her. Rough, broken even, with that scar. But she was coming to understand it. “I don’t care what you did then,” she said. “I like your scar now.”

He grinned, the light returning to his eyes. “Other women have liked it, too.”

“Don’t tell me that!”

He laughed lightly, and she turned her face away. How could he change so quickly?

“Oh, come.” The laugh was still in his voice. He reached for her, but she held back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re such an innocent. I was teasing you. I take it back.”

She turned her face to him again. “I cannot help that I am innocent.”

“I like it.”

She put her chin up. “Other men have liked it, too!”

His eyes flashed dark, and with a quick jerk he pulled her against him and kissed her. She kissed him back fiercely, but he pulled away. “You wicked girl,” he said. Yet he was smiling as he said it, a real smile instead of that wretched knowing one. “You make it hard to stop kissing you.”

“I don’t want you to stop.” She put her hand on his thigh. “I am not that sweet girl you thought about all those years. I’m glad she could help you. But she isn’t me. You made her up out of the shadows and light of that afternoon.”

“I know it,” he said.

“I want you to keep kissing me, Nicholas. Why won’t you?”

“Last time I kissed you, you didn’t want to hear about my reasons for stopping.”

She looked at her hand on his leg. “I know your reasons.” She pushed her hand up his thigh, feeling the way the lean muscles swelled.

He put his hand over hers to stay it. “Stop that,” he said. “My reasons are very simple today. We have to call a halt now or we won’t be able to.” He bent to the white book on the floor, and the acorn still perched on top of it. “The acorn is mine,” he said, palming it. “But read these.” He handed her the book. “Ignore the one called ‘Julia’! Donne didn’t like his Julia, whereas I like mine, very much. But I think you will find the last poem informative.” He stood up. “I’ll go downstairs now. You stay here for a while, then come down when you are sure I’ve had time to be elsewhere. And, Julia?”

She looked up at him.

He tossed the acorn into the air and caught it. “I said I would kiss you again, and I did.”

“Oh!” She made as if to throw his little book at him, and he ducked, laughing, and ran lightly down the stairs.

J
ulia frowned at her reflection in the mirror. For an hour or more she had stared at the ceiling, then at her reflection, then out of the window, then at her reflection again. Eyes, nose, mouth. Neck, arms, breasts. Hands. Belly, sex, thighs. Knees, feet, toes.

Trouble.

But now the clock and her troublesome body were both telling her it was almost time to go down to dinner. Her dress was laid out upon the bed; her combs and ribbons were on the dresser. Everything was in waiting. Julia rang for the maid.

When she was dressed and the maid dismissed, Julia pinched some color into her cheeks. The clock ticked loudly but slowly. If she went down now she would be a mite early. If she was early, she would have to watch his face as he entered. If late, she would have to watch his face as she entered. These seemed like completely different possibilities, and yet no matter which she chose, she would still have to see Blackdown over dinner, she would have to talk to him, she would have to look at him and pretend that nothing had ever happened. That had been easier before, when they had only kissed once, under a tree in the rain. She had struggled with her desire after that, but ultimately she had managed to pack it away. Or so she’d thought. Give her Blackdown alone in a pretty little glass room high up over the square, and it turned out that her neatly folded desire was a jack-in-the-box, ready to spring up.

In the end, it happened that Julia and Blackdown met at the top of the stairs. He smiled when he saw her, and his expression was neither knowing nor distant, but simply his own. She relaxed and fell into step beside him.

“Have you read the poem?”

“Not yet.”

“Enough excitement for one afternoon?”

“Quite!” She swept past him, enjoying the sound of his laughter tumbling down the stairs after her.

The dowager marchioness and Bella were dining in Greenwich tonight, and staying the night as the guests of Lord and Lady Latch, which meant that the table was set for only four. When Nick and Julia entered, Clare and the Russian were already seated and chatting away in that light manner they had. Julia could not understand how Clare could bear the count, but she seemed actually to like him. The Russian got to his feet and bowed when Julia entered, and Clare explained that he had been telling her about how best to escape wolves in Russia. “It is all nonsense, of course,” she said. “But he claims that they cannot bear the sound of French. All you must do is speak French to a wolf, and he will run away.”

“It is true, I swear it,” the count said, pulling out Julia’s chair but never turning his attention from Clare. “Do you speak French?”

“A few words.”

“A few words, they are enough for a wolf. Here, we try.” He leaned across the table toward Clare and growled.

“
Bonjour,
Monsieur Wolf,” Clare said. “
Comment ça va?
”

The Russian whined and yipped like a puppy in pain. “There, you see?” He grinned at Clare, and Julia thought his big teeth were rather lupine. “Very simple.”

Julia looked at Nick to see what he thought of this display. His face was a careful blank. She looked back to her empty plate and prepared herself for an uncomfortable evening.

Once they were served, Nick turned the conversation to the Corn Bill and engaged Clare in a heated conversation about its merits and failings. The Russian was so clearly repelled by political talk that Julia wondered if Nick had chosen that topic on purpose, to keep his friend from conversing with his sister. Indeed, the count tried several times to intervene.

“The Corn Bill! Bah!”

He was ignored.

“The Corn Bill, it is as good as passed. Why do you care, Blackdown? You have more important things to think of.”

Nick turned his shoulder and continued talking to his sister.

“It is rude to make ladies talk about politics!”

Clare stopped what she was saying midsentence. “
Mal chien!
” She pointed at the Russian. “
Mal!
”

The set-down had the unfortunate effect of forcing the count to talk to Julia. He turned with a barely repressed sigh and asked her how her day had been. She said that she’d had a lovely time reading. Had he had a restful day?

“The English rain. So unpleasant. I slept. But tell me . . .” His voice dwindled away. “Such dark eyes you have.”

“My grandfather had dark eyes.”

He gazed for a moment more into her eyes. “Poor girl. And now you are an Ofan.”

She started involuntarily. How did he know? She had done nothing whatsoever in his presence to indicate that she could manipulate time, too. But still somehow he knew!

But his blue eyes were limpid, and his smile was benign.

An
orphan
.

He had called her an orphan.

She cursed herself for the fluttering fear which might so easily have exposed her secret. “I am grateful for your sympathy,” she said, her voice coming out high, like a child’s. But let him think her foolish. It was better than the alternative. She cleared her throat discreetly. “And thank you for the part you played in freeing me from my cousin.”

“It was the pleasure.” His perfunctory nod was meant to make it obvious that he had found saving her a chore. But Julia knew otherwise. The Russian was fascinated by Eamon; he thought Eamon was Ofan. And he pursued that secret interest now, to Julia’s intense discomfort. “This cousin you have. This new earl who replaces your grandfather. How well do you know him?”

“Hardly at all.”

“Since your grandfather’s death? You have not come to know him any better?”

“He is not an outgoing man.”

“Perhaps you notice strange things about this cousin?” He spoke as he might to a child, asking simple questions in a friendly tone. “Perhaps he has mysterious instruments in his study? Perhaps he speaks and does acts oddly? Is there anything, any unusual object, that particularly he treasured?”

Julia bit her lip. So the Russian was looking for a talisman too. Grandfather had said that there might be others, besides Eamon, who would come and ask questions of her. Pretend, he had said. Never tell. Pretend. It was Count Lebedev Grandfather had been warning her about. Count Lebedev and . . .

And perhaps Blackdown.

The count leaned toward her. “Well? Was there anything, anything at all?”

“No,” Julia said, willing him to feel that she was telling the truth, pushing with all her might against his suspicion. “Nothing like that.”

Somewhat to her surprise, he relented. “No, of course there wasn’t.” He let his disappointed gaze rest on her for just a moment more before he turned his shoulder and dug into his dinner, eating quickly and paying her not one more moment’s notice.

Julia forced herself to pick up her knife and fork and eat, forced herself to think of anything at all other than Ofans, and time, and the blasted Talisman—which was herself!

Nick. His voice. He was still speaking to Clare.

He might be searching for Ofans, too, and he might be just as dangerous as his Russian friend. But he had said she was his Julia, up in the cupola. Surely that meant he cared for her. She clung to the sound of his voice and the words he was speaking as if they were flotsam and jetsam in a shipwreck.

“Let us say for the sake of the argument that these Corn Laws hung in the balance, and you could choose which way the vote would go, but at a price. Would you be willing to sacrifice your good name for your convictions?”

“Do you mean to ask if I would actually . . . ?”

“No.” Blackdown spread his hands in a gesture of denial. “Of course not, Clare. I’m talking about whether or not you would be willing to be . . .” He paused. “To be shunned. If you could have the vote go the way you wanted, but you knew it would make people talk about you, revile you . . .”

“Some people always say bad things anyway,” Clare said. “And there is always another club. Vote for the Corn Bill, you make one set of friends. Vote against, you make another. If White’s expels you, what do you do? You go to Brooks’s.” She smiled. “Perhaps you will go to Brooks’s of your own accord one day.”

“Yes, that is true enough for me. But you are a woman.”

“What iota of difference does that make?”

“I believe that for women, there is only one respectable club.”

“Ah.” Clare reached up and adjusted her cap. “That is tediously true. How unkind of you to remind me.”

“I didn’t mean—”

Clare reached out and patted her brother’s arm. “For goodness’ sake, Nickin. I am teasing you. You have asked me a hypothetical question. Don’t let it tie you in knots.” She turned to Julia. “What do you think?”

Both siblings were looking at her now, awaiting an answer. Even the Russian glanced up from his food.

“Would I sacrifice my good name for my convictions?” Julia considered, remembering the feeling of hollow desolation that had come over her in Stoke Canon when she realized that the town had turned against her. How precarious her hold on life had felt, as if she were teetering on the edge of a cliff. “I don’t think I have a reputation to trade anymore. At this point my good name depends on yours, Clare. I discovered last week that my neighbors have been waiting all my life for me to prove that I am . . .” She blinked, remembering with searing clarity exactly how it had felt when she had pressed her naked breast to Blackdown’s mouth.

She folded her lips together tightly and fought against her desire to look at him.

“It is ridiculous,” Clare said, taking over. “Women are all chained together by this thing called reputation. If I sacrifice mine, I destroy Julia’s.”

Blackdown banged his hand on the table, and the noise made Julia jump. “It is ridiculous, yes!” His voice was loud and angry. “In time the dark ages will be understood to include our own!”

Clare and Julia both laughed, and Clare got up and kissed him. “Oh, Nickin, I do think you should join Brooks’s sooner rather than later. Or start your own club. And let me join it.”

He glowered and stuffed a bite of fish into his mouth, but Clare stood with her hand on his shoulder and smiled at Julia. “My brother has returned from Spain a changed man. He believes that women should control their own destinies. Such a rare beast. Do you think we should put him on exhibit at the Tower of London, alongside the lions and tigers?”

“Please, ladies, do take control of your blasted destinies and save me a headache,” Blackdown said, wiping his mouth with his napkin and looking decidedly frazzled. “I have been back in England for a few short weeks, and all I seem to do is worry about women and their godforsaken reputations. Rise up and claim your rights and leave me in peace!”

The Russian interrupted their laughter, and what he said was so absurd and so kind that it took Julia a long moment to remember that he was her enemy. “Anyone who would doubt Julia Percy’s good name? That man is a fool.” His voice was harsh. “Just look into her eyes.” He pushed his chair back from the table and stalked from the room.