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‘That was a proposition. This is literally a proposal.’ He poured two glasses of port and pushed one across the table to her.
Bemused, she ignored the wine and studied his face instead. From the intensity in his expression she realised his calm was not quite as complete as she had thought. His voice, however, was quite steady as he said, ‘Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
Julia found she was on her feet, although she could not remember getting up. ‘Your wife? Lord Dereham, I can only assume you are mocking me, or that your fever has become much worse.’
She walked away from the table on legs that shook and struggled for composure. It was safer for her self-control not to be looking at him. One could not be rude to an invalid as sick as he was, but how could he not realise how hurtful his teasing was?
‘Miss Prior, I cannot talk to you if you stalk around the room,’ Will drawled. The weak desire to cry turned into an itch in her palm and a disgraceful urge to slap his face. ‘Please will you come back here so I can explain? I am not delirious and I have no intention of offering you insult.’
‘Very well.’ It was ungracious and she could not bring herself to return to the table, but she turned and looked at him, swallowing hurt pride along with the unshed tears. ‘Please explain, if you can. I find my sense of humour has suffered somewhat recently.’
But he was not smiling. The haggard face was as serious as if he truly was making a proposal of marriage, but his words were strangely far from the point. ‘You know what I have told you about Henry. For the good of this estate and its people I need to prevent my cousin from inheriting until he is older, has matured and learned to control his spendthrift ways.’
‘You believe he can?’ Julia asked, diverted by scepticism for a moment.
‘I think so. Henry is neither wicked nor weak, simply spoiled and indulged. Even if he does not improve, the longer I can keep him from inheriting, the better. I need time, Julia.’
‘And you do not have that.’ Intrigued, despite herself, she sat again.
‘Do you know the law about inheritance when someone disappears?’ She shook her head. ‘If the missing person does not reappear within seven years of their disappearance, the heir may apply to the courts for them to be presumed dead and for the inheritance to proceed.’
She began to understand. ‘And you intend to disappear?’
‘I intend to travel. I have always wanted to go to North Africa, Egypt, the Middle East. I hope I can make it that far, because once there, away from British authorities, I can vanish without trace when...when the time comes.’
Julia doubted he would make it across the Channel, never mind southern Europe, but if this daydream was keeping him going, who was she to disillusion him? She understood the power of dreams, the need for them. ‘But what has that got to do with me?’
‘I must leave King’s Acre in good hands. I could employ an estate manager, but they would not have the commitment, the involvement, that a wife would have. I could not guarantee continuity and, if they left, who would appoint their replacement? And by marrying before I go I would remove the suspicion that my disappearance is a stratagem.’
Julia stared at the thin, intelligent face. His eyes burned with intensity, not with fever or madness. For a moment she thought she saw what Will Hadfield had looked like before this cruel illness had taken him in its claws and something inside her stirred in response. ‘It matters this much to you?’
‘It is all I have. Our family has held this land since the fourteenth century when it was given to Sir Ralph Hadfield as a reward for services to the crown—hence the name. I am not going to be the one who lets King’s Acre fall apart.’
‘And there is no woman you want to marry?’
The baron closed his eyes, not to shut out the world, but to hide his feelings, she was certain. ‘I was betrothed. I released her, of course, and she was relieved, I think, to be freed from the burden of being tied to a dying man.’
Will opened his eyes and there was no emotion to be seen on his face. Then he smiled, an ironic twist of the lips. ‘Besides, she has no views on elm trees or cattle breeding.’
‘So you only thought up this insane scheme when I stumbled into your life?’ It might be insane, but, Heaven help her, she was beginning to contemplate it, look for the problems and the advantages. Stop it! Julia told herself. It is an outrageous idea. I would be heaping deception upon deception.
‘That first night, after you had retired, I sat thinking that I needed a way to stretch time. Then I realised I might have had the answer sitting in front of me at my own fireside.’
The past days had been a test to see if she really knew as much as she said, to see if she had an attraction to this place. And I have. Then common sense surfaced. Fate would not rescue her so simply from the consequences of her own folly. ‘Your relatives will never accept it.’
Besides, with the wedding her name would be known to all and sundry... But Prior is quite common and Julia is not my first name. Lord Dereham seems to live fairly retired, this would not be a major society wedding to be mentioned in the newssheets. If I can ask him not to place an announcement, there is no reason to think it would ever be noticed in Wiltshire.
‘My relatives will have no choice but to accept it. I am of age, no one can suggest I am not in my right mind. They will be present at the wedding—along with my man of law and any number of respectable witnesses. You will not be dependent upon them in any way. Only the land is entailed, so the income will be yours to spend as you wish until my death is finally pronounced. Then you will have the use of the Dower House for life and a very generous annuity in my will.’
‘You would give me all this? I am ruined, an outcast from the only relatives I have. I have no material resources to bring to the marriage—not a penny in dowry.’
Arthur and Jane will not seek for me, they will simply be glad I am gone, she told herself. Would they even hear of Jonathan’s death? He was a distant relative, she had left no identification in the inn. Perhaps they would think he had simply disappeared along with the money they had no doubt paid him to remove her.
‘I am not giving you anything.’ The amber eyes were predatory as they narrowed on her face. He knew she was weakening as a hunter knew when the prey began to falter. Again the sense of his power swept over her, the feeling that she could not resist him. ‘I am purchasing your expertise and your silence.’
‘People will talk, wonder where on earth I have come from. What will we tell them?’
‘Nothing.’ He had heard the capitulation in her voice, she realised, and he was right: she would do this if she could, snatch at this miracle. All that remained were the practicalities. Julia took an unthinking gulp of wine. ‘Think of some story—or let them speculate to their hearts’ content on where we met.
‘There is little time to waste. I had asked you to stay a week, but I have seen enough, I know you will be perfect for this. Fortunately the Archbishop of Canterbury is in the vicinity—he is staying with his godson, the Marquess of Tranton. I can obtain a special licence with no trouble and we will be married the day after tomorrow.’ He stood up. ‘Say yes and I will drive over tomorrow and see the vicar on the way back.’
Say yes, say yes and accept this miracle. What should she do?
Chapter Five
‘Will!’ Julia came round the table and caught at his sleeve. ‘It is impossible, I cannot marry you at such short notice.’
‘Why ever not?’ He put his hand over hers and she looked up into his eyes. There was only that mesmerising amber gaze full of passion and intensity, only the warmth of his hand, those long fingers closing over hers. Julia felt hot and cold and as disconcerted as the first time Jonathan had kissed her. This was a man, a young man, a man of passion, and something deep inside her responded to him.
She felt her lips part, her heartbeat stutter, then the grip of his fingers lifted and the illusion of intimacy fled.
‘Had you some other plans for the day after tomorrow?’ Will persisted.
Safe, protective irritation took the place of whatever insane emotions she had just been experiencing. The man is completely focused on what he wants without a thought for me. It is a very good thing he is going away, Julia thought, otherwise we would be falling out for certain.
‘I haven’t said yes yet,’ she protested. He just looked at her. ‘Oh, very well! Yes! But I do not have a thing to wear.’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘Except this.’ She swept a hand down to encompass her skirts. ‘I can hardly marry a baron in a creased, stained walking dress and old cloak.’
‘Then go shopping tomorrow. I will give you money. There are no shops of very great fashion in Aylesbury, not even for ready to wear, but you will find something adequate and you can always go up to London shortly. Just hire a town house, if you wish, Julia.’
She had a sudden, welcome, thought. ‘Everyone calls me Julia, but for the licence you must have my first name. Augusta.’ She saw his face and almost laughed. ‘I know. It was the name of my mother’s godmother and they were in hopes of some generous present from her. No one ever uses it—in fact, I doubt anyone recalls it now.’ Even if they saw any mention of the marriage in some newssheet, no one would think that Augusta Prior, making an excellent match to a baron in Buckinghamshire, might be Julia Prior of Wiltshire, fugitive.
‘But what of your cousin?’ she worried. ‘I cannot help but feel we are cheating him.’
‘If I had married as planned, I could have an heir due shortly and Henry’s nose would be permanently out of joint. Or if I had not been caught in that blizzard I might be in excellent health now. What we are doing is ensuring that when he does inherit he will have an estate in fine heart and, I trust, the maturity to appreciate it.’
Julia prodded herself with the thing that was troubling her conscience, deep down below the worry and the fear. ‘And I am being rewarded for sin,’ she muttered as she sat down again. She had eloped with a man, slept with him out of wedlock and then, however unintentionally, killed him. She could not absolve herself from blame—if she had not done that first shocking thing, then Jonathan would still be alive.
‘Sin?’ Will Hadfield must have ears like a bat. ‘Running away to save your virtue? And fleeing from physical abuse—I saw your wrist.’
Her fingers closed protectively around the yellowing bruises. Eyes like a hawk as well. ‘It was poor judgement,’ she argued. ‘I had no plan other than escape. Goodness knows how I would have found a respectable way of supporting myself.’ She had to remember the story she had told him, act in character. ‘I should have thought of something else, something less shocking.’
After a moment she added, ‘All you know of me is what I told you. I wonder that you trust me with this scheme of yours.’
‘But my judgement, my dear Miss Prior, is excellent. I have watched you and listened to you. I have seen how you look at the land, how you talk to the people. I have heard how you think things through and deal with problems. I have every confidence in you—after all, once you are safely married to me, you will not be a target for predatory young men.’
He blithely ignored her sharp intake of breath and continued before she could reply. ‘Will you go shopping tomorrow? I will send a maid with you and a footman for your parcels, and Thomas the coachman will deliver you to the Rose and Crown where you will find a private parlour and reasonable refreshments.’
‘Thank you, I shall do as you advise. It seems you have thought of everything,’ she added, managing with an effort not to allow her ungrateful resentment at his masterful organisation to show in her voice. It would serve him right if the archbishop refused to give him a licence and he found himself saddled with a fallen woman with a price on her head and a very large pile of bills.
And then her conscience pricked her. Will Hadfield was doing this because he was driven to it, he had been kind to her and now he was helping her out of danger in a way that was little short of a miracle. She wished she had known him before he had become ill, wished she could know him better now.
Or perhaps not. Even ill he was dangerously attractive. She did not want to grow to like him, to be hurt when he left, to agonise more than she would over the fate of any chance-met stranger.
* * *
‘You have known my nephew for how long, exactly? I do not think I quite caught what dear William said.’ Mrs Delia Hadfield had doubtless heard perfectly well everything that had been said to her and her façade of vague sweetness did not deceive Julia for a moment. The widow, she was certain, was aghast that her husband’s nephew had married and was consumed with a desire to discover everything she could about the circumstances.
Julia saw that Will was seated on the far side of the room, deep in conversation with the vicar. She could hardly expect him to rush to her side to rescue her. ‘It seems only days,’ Julia parried with an equally sweet smile and sipped her champagne. ‘But it was something we simply felt compelled to do.’
‘And we had thought him so happy in his engagement to Caroline Fletcher. Of course that could never be once he was so ill, but I had no idea dear William would prove so fickle. Such a suitable girl. So beautiful.’ The widow’s smile hardened and her eyes narrowed. She thinks she is sliding her rapier under my guard.
People were watching them, Julia could feel their curious stares like a touch. The salon was a long room, but even with the windows open wide on to the terrace overlooking the dry moat it was crowded with the wedding guests that Will had managed to assemble at such very short notice. She dared not let any of her true feelings show, but the recollection of the last time she had been in a press of people was making her heart beat faster and her skin feel clammy.
She made herself breathe slowly and shallowly. These people laughing and talking were nothing like that avid crowd and no one looking at her would guess that the new Lady Dereham in her pretty gown and elegantly coiffed hair was a fugitive with a deadly secret.
‘I thought I loved another, you see...’ Julia let her voice trail off artistically. ‘And then...’ Really, where did I get this ability to play-act! I have been reading too many novels. Desperation, I suppose. ‘Then we found each other again, when Will’s betrothal had been ended and I had realised that there was no one else for me but him,’ she finished. ‘So romantic, is it not?’
‘So William knew you some time ago?’ Mrs Hadfield was intent on pursuing this mystery.
‘I would rather not talk about the past,’ Julia murmured, improvising frantically. Will had assured her no one would ask awkward questions. He might have been correct so far as he was concerned, for she was sure he could depress vulgar curiosity with one look, but she had been an idiot to take his word for it and not prepare a careful story.
‘I was sadly disillusioned in the man I thought I loved and that made me see Lord Dereham’s qualities in a different light.’ Set against a scheming, mercenary rake who tried to force her, she was certain even Will’s undoubted faults would be preferable.
‘Lady Dereham—or may I call you Cousin Augusta?’ With an inward sigh of relief she turned to Henry Hadfield, Will’s cousin and heir. She could see the relationship in the height and the straight, dark brows and something about the way his mouth curved when he smiled, but there was no strength of character in the handsome, immature, face. She tried to imagine those features superimposed on Will’s strong bones and experienced a slight shock of...what? Attraction? Not desire, surely, not after what she had experienced.
The momentary feeling passed and she was able to concentrate again. It would not do to let her guard down with either of the Hadfields. Henry had not quite worked out what a threat to him she represented, but his mama would soon enlighten him.
‘Why, Cousin, certainly. But Julia, please. I never use my first name.’ She smiled. He was young and it was up to her to get to know Henry and to influence him if she could, instil in him a love for an estate she did not know and remain on good terms through seven long years of uncertainty.
The setting sun slanted in through the long windows, setting the silverware gleaming and painting a pink glow over the faces of the guests. Not that they needed much colouring, Julia thought. Will had not spared the champagne and cheeks were flushed and conversation still lively, although it was almost half past seven and the party had gathered to eat after the church service at noon.
‘Friends.’ Everyone turned. Will was standing in front of the cold hearth, a glass in his hand. Did everyone see how his knuckles whitened where his left hand gripped the mantelshelf, or was it only she who realised how tightly he was controlling himself?
The image of the statue of the dying Gaul that she had seen once as an engraving caught at her imagination. Will was still on his feet but only because of that same indomitable refusal to give up and die. What was it? she wondered. Pride? Anger partly, she was certain. Courage. He was fighting Death as though it was a person who had attacked his honour.
Her eyes blurred and she swallowed hard. If she had met him before he became sick... He would have been betrothed to Caroline Fletcher, she told herself with a sharp return to reality. And he would probably have been as dictatorial and single-minded as he was now.
‘Firstly my wife and I must thank you for your support today at such short notice. Secondly, I must ask you for further support for Lady Dereham as I will be travelling abroad for some months and must leave immediately on the morrow.’
A babble of questions broke out and then the tall man who had come down from London to stand as groomsman, the friend from Will’s army days, Major Frazer, said, ‘Abroad?’
‘I intend to develop the stud here and I wish to purchase Andalusians from Spain and Arabians from North Africa.’ The major said something in an undertone, but Will answered him in the same clear voice. ‘My health? I am feeling much stronger. It is best that I go now while the weather holds. And finally, my friends, I must ask your indulgence if we retire so I can rest before the start of my journey.’ He raised his glass, ‘To my wife, Julia.’
‘To Lady Dereham!’
Blushing, Julia made her way through the scarcely repressed whispers and speculation to Will’s side. ‘That has put the cat amongst the pigeons with a vengeance, my lord,’ she murmured. ‘I had no idea you intended to leave so abruptly.’
She saw with a pang of anxiety that the lines of strain around his eyes and mouth were even more pronounced than before. ‘There is not a great deal of time to waste, is there?’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Come, let us go up.’
He was so determined. She felt sick at the thought of what he was going through, but there was nothing she could do to help him except what, for such selfish reasons, she was doing now.
People were considerate and did not detain them with more than a few words of good wishes. Julia made her way into the deserted hallway before she slid her hand from resting on Will’s arm to a steadying pressure under his elbow. ‘I will ring for your valet,’ she said when they paused at the second turn.
‘Jervis will be already waiting with your maid in our bedchamber.’
‘Our chamber?’
‘Certainly.’ Julia looked up sharply and thought she caught just the faintest hint of a smile. ‘In my state of health you surely do not expect me to be negotiating draughty corridors in the middle of the night in order to visit you?’
‘Are you saying that you expect me to share your bed tonight?’ It had never occurred to her for a moment that this marriage would be anything but one in name only. Surely a man in his state of health could not...could he? She stumbled on the next step with images, sensations, shuddering through her memory.
‘Shh,’ Will murmured as a door below opened and the noise of the dispersing guests filled the space. ‘This is not the place to be discussing such matters.’
Julia swallowed, nodded and somehow managed the rest of the stairs without blurting out the protests that were on the tip of her tongue. When Will opened the door to the master bedchamber Nancy, the chambermaid, was waiting there, chatting to Jervis, filmy white garments draped over her arm and a wide smile on her lips. This was no place for that discussion, either. The servants had to believe this marriage was real as much as anyone.
‘There you are, my lady! I’ve had hot water brought up to the dressing room for your bath and Mr Jervis will see to his lordship in here.’ She swept Julia in front of her through another door into a small panelled room with a steaming tub standing ready.
‘I’ve sprinkled that lovely nightgown with rosewater,’ she went on chattily as Julia stood like a block to be undressed. She had indulged herself with a pretty summer nightgown and robe when she had shopped for her wedding clothes and the other wardrobe essentials in Aylesbury. What she had not expected was that anyone but herself and her maid would ever see them.
‘Excellent,’ she managed as she climbed into the bath and began to soap herself. From the other room came the sounds of conversation, the bang of a cupboard door closing, the rattle of curtain rings. Next door was a man, a virtual stranger, getting ready to go to bed and expecting her to join him. The last man with those expectations had played on every one of her love-filled fantasies, taken her virtue and then betrayed her.
This one, she reflected as she climbed out of the bath and was swathed in towels, had at least married her. But could a man in Will’s state of health consummate a marriage? She had no idea how the mechanics of male desire actually worked, but the performance was certainly physically demanding. What if Will expected her to do something...? With Jonathan she had simply lain there, held him and tried to do what he wanted of her. It seemed from his words that she had not been very good at it. Julia pressed her hand to her midriff as if that would calm the rising panic.
* * *
Jervis bowed himself out. A moment later Nancy bustled from the dressing room with her arms full of towels, bobbed a curtsy in the direction of the bed and hurried after the valet. The outer door closed with a heavy thud, the inner one stood open on to an apparently empty room.
Will lay back against the heaped pillows and got his breathing under some sort of control. He was bone-weary, aching and the night fever was beginning to sweep through him, but he had to stay in sufficient control to cope with Julia who, it seemed, had not thought beyond the marriage ceremony. She is a virgin, he reminded himself.
‘Are you still in there?’ he enquired. ‘Or have you climbed down the ivy to escape me?’ There was a pause, then she appeared in the doorway in a gown of floating white lawn, her hair loose on her shoulders, her hands knotted before her. His breathing hitched. ‘You are a white ghost tonight, not a grey one.’ She was certainly pale enough to be a spirit.
Julia took one step into the chamber. Her feet were bare. For some reason that was both touching and disturbing. ‘I had not realised that you would expect me to share your bed,’ she said. Her chin was up.
‘I am sharing my title, my home and my fortune with you,’ Will pointed out, goaded by her obvious reluctance into tormenting her a little.
She went, if anything, paler. ‘Of course. I have no wish to be difficult. It is simply that we had not discussed it.’
‘True. I have to confess that I have no experience of virgins.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ Julia said, with so much feeling that Will blinked. ‘I mean, one would hope that a gentleman does not go around seducing virgins.’ She bit her lip, then put back her shoulders, tossed her robe on to a chair and walked over to the bedside.
Will was powerfully reminded of pictures of Christian martyrs bravely facing the lions and felt a pang of conscience. For all her maturity and poise and her scandalous circumstances, Julia was an innocent and his own frustrations at his weakness were no reason to scare the poor girl. ‘Perhaps I should make it clear that I do not expect you to do anything but sleep in this bed.’
‘Oh.’ Julia froze, one hand lifting the covers to turn them back. The colour seemed to ebb and flow under her skin and he wondered if she was about to faint. ‘Truly?’
Her relief was palpable. Will told himself that he was a coxcomb to expect anything else: she scarcely knew him, he looked like a skeleton, he could hardly stand up half the time—why on earth would the poor woman want to make love with him? The very fact that she feared he might attempt it showed how innocent she was.
‘Get into bed, I promise you are quite safe.’
