Amanda McCabe (13 page)

“I-I just do not like dark spaces,” she whispered. “I don’t like feeling trapped.”

“Of course not. Here, you should sit down.” Marcus placed his candle on a small stone ledge carved in the wall and put his arm around Julia’s shoulders. He led her over to sit down on an upturned crate and removed his coat to place it carefully over her thin dress.

“You are wearing the scarab,” he said, forcing a light tone into his voice. “That should bring us good luck and get us out of here very soon.”

A ghost of a smile whispered over her lips. “I certainly hope so.”

Marcus sat down on another crate and took her hands in his, trying to rub some warmth back into them. He decided to distract her with some conversation. “Who is Abelard?”

She looked at him, startled. “Where did you hear of Abelard?”

“You shouted for him just now, when the door shut.”

She looked down again, to where their hands were clasped together. “He is the butler.”

“I thought his name was Douglas.”

“Abelard is his first name.”

Marcus was shocked. “You call the butler by his first name?”

She shrugged. “It is a long story.”

“It appears we are not going anyplace for a while. Would you like to share the story with me over a bottle of wine?”

“Wine?”

“Yes. There is plenty of it here.” He gestured toward the long rows of shelves. “Or perhaps you would prefer sherry or brandy? There is plenty of that, as well. It would help warm you.”

“Are you sure it is a good idea to have wine to drink so soon before the ball?”

“It’s not as if we’re going to become thoroughly disguised or anything like that. Just a little warming sip.”

Julia considered this. A bit of wine
would
help to get through this confinement. “Very well. Just a sip.”

Marcus disappeared between some of the shelves. There was a loud popping noise, and then he reappeared with a bottle of wine raggedly uncorked.

“I apologize if there are bits of cork floating in the wine,” he said, handing her the bottle. “I had to open it with my stickpin.” He held up the emerald-headed pin, now hopelessly bent.

Julia laughed. The first drink of wine was already helping her to relax, its warmth spreading to her very fingertips and toes. “It was very good of you to sacrifice it to the cause of wine, Marcus.”

“Indeed it was.” He took the bottle back from her and drank from where her lips had just been. “Now, tell me the story of why you call the butler by his first name.”

Julia took another drink of the wine and said, “Well, you did guess part of the truth the other day. He was once an actor, but he had”—she thought quickly—“stage fright. Terrible, crippling stage fright. He had nowhere else to go, and we had just lost our butler. So my mother let him stay here.” She hated to lie to Marcus, but the thought of her friends being homeless held her back.

Marcus seemed to believe that. He nodded and reached again for the bottle. He looked pensively around the dark cellar as he drank. “I haven’t been down here in years. I used to play pirates in here as a child.”

“Pirates? In the cellar?”

“Yes. My mother never came down here, you see, so she could not scold me for getting my clothes dirty or being noisy. It was a perfect place to hide treasure, as well.”

Julia took another drink. “Were you scolded often, then, Marcus?” She gave a little hiccup, but hid it quickly with her hand.

“Not all that often. I learned very quickly how to hide my mischief from my mother, and my father was often away from home.” Marcus took a long, thoughtful drink. “The worst scolding I ever received was for sliding down the banister of the grand staircase.”

Julia giggled. “
You
slid down the banister, too? I am shocked, Marcus. Shocked.”

“Oh, yes. But only once. Mother caught me and spent hours lecturing me on how, as a viscount and future earl, I had certain standards to uphold. A certain example of propriety to set.”

“So you never slid down the banister again?”

“Never.”

Somehow that struck Julia as being terribly sad. She took another drink of wine. “Oh, poor, poor Marcus. Missing out on all that fun. You should go and slide down the banister. Tonight. Now. Well, now when we get out of here.”

Julia’s feet felt hot. She kicked off her kid dancing slippers and leaned back against the wall. All of her fear of being trapped had faded away, and she felt only a giddy well-being. Why should that be, she wondered?

She lifted the bottle for another drink.

Marcus shook his head and took the bottle back for his own drink. “I could not do that. I’m the earl now. I have an example to set. My life is not my own.”

Somehow “is” came out sounding like “ish,” and that struck them both as being very funny indeed.

“What do you think, that Lady Jersey is going to come from London, see you, and refuse to let you into Almack’s the next time you are in Town?” Julia said between her hiccups of laughter. “You can do whatever you like in the privacy of your own home. Or else what use is there in being an earl?”

That made a great deal of sense to Marcus. He nodded solemnly. “You are right. Absolutely. I will slide down the banister this very night.”

“Excellent! I will toast to that.” Julia tipped the bottle. “It is empty.”

“How terrible.”

“Yes, indeed. Do you think your pin could open another bottle?”

“I think maybe it could.” Marcus stood up to go fetch another bottle of wine and found that his legs were distinctly unsteady. Things were also a bit hazy around the edges.

Surely he had not had
that
much to drink! Had he?

“Does it feel a bit warm in here to you, Julia?” he asked, sitting back down on his crate.

“Um, yes, quite. Perhaps you should take off your coat.” Then Julia giggled. “Oh!
I
am wearing your coat.”

“Then you should give it back to me so I can take it off.”

“Of course. Excellent idea.”

Julia stood, wobbling just a bit on her stockinged feet, and went to wrap his coat around his shoulders. As she leaned close, he smelled her sweet lavender scent and felt the brush of her hair against his cheek. Long curls of it had escaped its ribbons and pins.

If he tilted his head just so, he could rest his head on her creamy shoulder. Or he could reach out his finger and trace the interesting pattern of freckles spread across her collarbone.

He
did
reach out and touch the largest freckle, a golden dot just where the graceful curve of her neck met her shoulder. He could not seem to stop himself.

“You are so beautiful, Julia,” he whispered, tugging her down so that she sat across his lap. “So beautiful.”

She curled against him, winding her arms about his neck. “So are you, Marcus.”

“I want to kiss you.”

“Then what is stopping you?”

Marcus had just lowered his head to hers, their lips barely brushing, when the cellar door was flung open and a flood of lamplight fell across them.

Standing there were Abelard, Mary, Ned, Lady Edgemere, and Mr. Whitig, all starting in varying degrees of shock.

Julia gave a small shriek and went tumbling off of Marcus’s lap onto the floor. Marcus quickly helped her to her feet and stepped in front of her, blocking her from the view of the others.

The wine fumes cleared suddenly from his head.

“We were trapped in here,” he said. “The door stuck, and we could not get out.”

Lady Edgemere’s sharp gaze took in the mess on the floor, the empty wine bottle, and Marcus’s coat and Julia’s shawl, all tangled up together.

Then she looked up at the disheveled couple.

“So I see,” she said. “Well, my dears, I think we all know what this means.”

“A wedding. By special license,” Mr. Whitig answered sternly.

Julia closed her eyes and groaned deeply, longing to bang her head against the stone wall. Then she opened her eyes and looked straight at the culprits—Mary, Abelard, and Ned. They were trying, without much success, to hide their satisfied smirks.

Julia was absolutely going to kill them.

***

“Here, my dear. Drink this.”

Julia took the glass of soda water Lady Edgemere offered and sipped at it gratefully while she watched the dancers swirl around the ballroom. She had already greeted all the guests, and her cheeks felt frozen in a smile. Her temples throbbed.

Surely they could all read the disaster on her face?

But in reality, no one seemed to notice. They were all much too excited to be in Rosemount’s grand ballroom again.

Julia was just grateful that Mr. Whitig had left, taking Mr. Elliott with him. She couldn’t face their disapproval just yet.

She finished off the soda water and felt a bit better. Her headache was lessening. “Thank you, Lady Edgemere,” she said. “You are so kind.”

“Pish!” Lady Edgemere answered, reaching up to straighten her bright green-and-gold turban. “I have often overindulged, myself, and I know how it feels. Is the soda settling your stomach?”

“Yes, thank you.” As Julia placed the empty glass on a passing footman’s tray, her gaze fell on Marcus. He stood across the room, talking to Lady Angela. His smile looked as frozen and pained as Julia’s head felt, as Lady Angela frowned up at him. Lady Angela’s slipper tapped, fluttering the hem of her pink satin gown.

Finally, Lady Angela accepted the arm of one of her faithful swains, who led her into the dance. Marcus moved away, out of Julia’s sight.

“Lady Edgemere,” Julia said softly, “you will not tell anyone what you saw in the wine cellar, will you?”

“Me, my dear? Of course not. I am no tittle-tattle—not about my friends, anyway. But you must know that my silence can only buy you perhaps this evening. Mr. Whitig will have it spread far and wide by tomorrow.”

Julia groaned and brought her white lace fan up to hide her face.

“Oh, Julia, it is not so horrible as all that!” Lady Edgemere said with a laugh. “Marcus is an honorable boy. He will do the right thing by you.”

“That is what I am afraid of,” Julia muttered.

“Whatever do you mean, dear? You are fond of Marcus, I can tell. You will be so much better for him than . . . well, than anyone else ever could be. Your mother and Gerald would have been so happy to see their children settled together. Where is the rub? Everything has worked out perfectly.”

Julia just shook her head. How could she explain to Lady Edgemere what she did not even fully understand herself? She did want to marry Marcus. But only if he wanted to marry her every bit as much in return.

Chapter Sixteen

If thou remember’st not the slightest folly

That ever love did make thee run into,

Thous hast not lov’d.

—
As You Like It

Julia awoke the next morning with a terrible headache. It felt as if an orchestra composed entirely of drummers were playing inside her brain. She tried to open her eyes, but the thin line of sunlight peeping beneath the draperies caused a pierce of pain, so she slid back down beneath the bedclothes.

Why did she feel so wretched this morning?

Then she remembered. The wine cellar, the darkness, the old fear of closed spaces coming back upon her. The wine, Marcus, their near kiss.

And Lady Edgemere and Mr. Whitig staring at them with shocked eyes.

Julia groaned and buried her head in the pillow, trying to blot out those images.

It did not work. There they still were, flashing endlessly across her mind. Especially the part about getting caught.

She had really landed in the scandal broth now. Before, people had only thought her a bit unusual. Now they would think she was a complete wanton. Mr. Whitig was sure to spread the news, and if he did not, his wife would. He was a good person, of course, and an excellent steward of St. Anne’s, but he was also a terrible gossip. He just couldn’t seem to help himself. And one word said “in confidence” to his wife or to a lady in his choir or altar society would soon spread to the whole neighborhood.

This was surely the most interesting
on dit
the neighborhood had seen since Lord Hallsby’s youngest daughter eloped with the music master two years ago. News of Julia’s disgraceful behavior would spread like wildfire through the drawing rooms.

Marcus would do the honorable thing, of course. It was the only thing he
could
do, being such an honorable man. He would ask her to marry him, and she would be expected to say yes.

She did want to marry him. More than she had ever wanted anything in her life. She wanted to make a life here at Rosemount with him and raise their children here. She wanted to sit with him before the fire every evening, go to parties with him and talk about them with him in the carriage after. She wanted to breakfast with him every morning. She wanted to travel with him to all the places he had seen. And yes, she wanted very much to sleep with him in the grand bed in the Earl’s Chamber every night.

She wanted to be old with him, to shout her conversation into his ear trumpet, and watch their grandchildren push his bath chair around the Pump Room in Bath when they went there to take the waters for their rheumatism.

She longed for all these things and so much more. She should be dancing for joy that now they would have to be wed.

All she felt was misery. The life she envisioned, the life she longed for, could only be if Marcus loved her and wanted that life in return. If he did not, it would only be a mockery of her dreams.

Surely he would come to resent her, and she would have to watch him take a mistress and drift farther and farther away from their life together. It would be preferable to never see him again than to live apart from him beneath the same roof.

Elly came into the room then, Julia’s tray of toast and chocolate in her hands. She helped Julia sit up against the pillows, propped the tray against her knees, and went to open the curtains at the window.

The rush of late-morning light hurt Julia’s eyes, but she determinedly went about buttering her toast. She was going to need sustenance for the long day ahead.

“Shall I lay out your blue morning dress, Miss Barclay?” Elly asked, opening up the wardrobe.

“Mm-hmm,” Julia murmured around her bite of toast. “Whatever you think, Elly.”

Elly nodded decisively. “The blue. You’ll want to look your best today, miss.”

“Will I? Why is that?”

“Because his lordship has asked if you’ll walk with him in the garden, miss. When you’re ready.”

***

Marcus paced impatiently around the perimeter of the small summerhouse and took out his watch to check the time again. Where
was
she?

By Jove, but he wanted to get this proposing business out of the way so that they could get on with what was really important. Deciding how they were going to go on for the next thirty or forty years.

Thirty or forty years.

Marcus ceased his pacing as the enormity of this situation struck him anew. He would soon be married. To Julia.

A strange new excitement fluttered inside of him.

This was not what he had planned at all, of course. He had planned to take a Society wife, to resume his place among the
ton
, and increase the consequence of the earldom. All of the things he had thought were so important in his long-ago youth.

But he had found, as he lay awake in the gray-pink of dawn, that he could let go of those plans with hardly a pang. Much to his surprise, the thought of having Julia as his wife was so much more appealing.

She might have no position of consequence in Society, and her only dowry was that of money settled on her by his own father. But life with her would never, ever be dull.

Then he saw her coming along the lavender-lined pathway to the summerhouse. She wore a very pretty pale blue muslin dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat, but her steps were slow and dragging. As she came closer, he saw that she was very pale, her eyes wide and anxious.

Not at all like an eager bride-to-be.

Marcus frowned.

Julia looked up, saw his scowl, and turned even whiter.

Marcus made a concerted effort to smooth his features into unthreatening blandness. He held out his hand to help her up the summerhouse steps.

“I am so glad you agreed to meet me, Julia,” he said.

She sat down on one of the benches and removed her hat. Curls sprang free from their confining blue ribbon. “Did I really have a choice?” she murmured in a small voice.

Marcus felt another frown tugging at his mouth again. She was behaving rather oddly, not like her usual ebullient self, and not at all like a woman about to become betrothed to an earl.

“I suppose not,” he answered. “Neither of us has the luxury of choice in this matter.”

She looked at him, the merest flash of hazel eyes, then dropped her gaze back to the hat in her lap. “And what is this matter?”

“What happened last night, of course! Surely you have not forgotten.”

“No. I have not.”

“Lady Edgemere and Mr. Whitig came upon us in a rather . . . compromising situation.”

“I particularly remember that part.”

“Julia, you yourself said that Mr. Whitig is one of the worst gossips in the county.”

Julia plucked at the ribbon roses on her hat. “That is true. The poor man just cannot seem to help himself.”

“The only way to avert a great scandal is to wed. I
have
to marry you,” Marcus said impatiently, puzzled by her distant air. She didn’t seem concerned about their situation at all; instead, she seemed very far away. “Therefore, I have the honor of requesting your hand in marriage.”

“When you put it so romantically, how can a girl refuse?” she said quietly. “But I fear I must.”

Marcus was shocked. He stared openmouthed at Julia’s composed face. “Are you refusing me?”

“I am. I am very aware of the great honor you do me, Marcus, but I must decline. I cannot marry you.”

He had never been so flummoxed in his life. He had thought the proposal a mere formality before Julia fell on him with grateful kisses. Now she had refused him! He had no idea what to do next.

“You
have
to marry me!” he said, sounding even to his own ears like a petulant schoolboy. “Otherwise there will be a scandal.”

“I am used to scandal,” she said, her even voice breaking a bit for the first time. “How can I marry you, Marcus? You do not love me.”

Love?
“You don’t love me, either. Marriage has nothing to do with love.”

“No. It has to do with land, money, and family connections. I have none of those things. You would do so much better to wed Lady Angela, as you had planned.”

Perhaps he
had
thought of marrying Angela, very briefly. But those plans had immediately fallen aside, with nary a qualm, when he decided to marry Julia.

But Julia did not want to marry him. Did she find him so repulsive, then? Was the thought of a life with him complete anathema to her? It had not seemed so, from the sweetness of her kisses.

Marcus was thoroughly confused.

“I did not compromise Lady Angela,” he said, raking his fingers through his carefully arranged hair. “I compromised
you
.”

“Yes. And you have done the proper thing by offering for me.” Julia stood up and came to his side, laying her hand briefly on his shoulder. “That was very dear of you. But I care about you too much to ruin your life. The scandal will only be a nine days’ wonder for you, and then you can make your offer to Lady Angela.”

She went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. Then she smiled and left him. Soon, she disappeared back into the house, and he was alone.

He sank down onto the bench she had vacated, his early morning headache returning a hundredfold. She
cared
about him, but she would not wed him?

What he wouldn’t give to know, just this once, what was going on in the labyrinth of Julia Barclay’s mind.

***

“My lord? I am sorry to disturb you, but there is someone to see you in the library.”

Marcus sat up, startled. He must have dozed off there in the summerhouse. The shadows were long on the leaf-strewn floor, and one of the maids stood before him, wringing her hands in her apron. She was not one of those odd, winking housemaids; he thought she might be Julia’s lady’s maid.

“Yes?” he said, still rather groggy. The puzzle of Julia and her refusal must have proved too much for his tired mind. “Who is it?”

The maid bit her lip uncertainly. “Well, my lord, it is Mr. Thompson. Who used to be butler here.”

The former butler? What could he want? “I will be in shortly.”

Marcus vaguely remembered the man who waited in the library furtively scanning the bookshelves. He had only been the butler for a very brief while before Marcus left, but it was hard to forget those distinctive, rabbitlike features.

“You wanted to see me?” Marcus said, going to stand behind his desk.

The man swung around from the bookshelf, startled. “L-Lord Ellston. I daresay you do not remember me, but I am Thompson, former butler here.”

“I remember you. Why have you returned to Rosemount?” Marcus studied the man. He did not like the desperate glow in Thompson’s eyes at all.

“I came to retrieve a possession I inadvertently left behind, my lord.”

“A book, perhaps?”

“Why, yes, my lord! How did you know?”

“A lucky guess. But how did your book come to be here in the library?”

“I-I am not sure, my lord. Sometimes the housemaids can be very careless.”

“Indeed. Well, Thompson, feel free to look about.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Thompson climbed up on one of the stepladders and began to dig about behind a row of Greek classics. As he did this, he said, “I also find that I can give you some valuable information about your staff, my lord. Something you may not be aware of.”

Marcus raised his brow. “Oh?”

“Yes, my lord.” Thompson came down from the ladder, a black leather-covered book clutched in his hands. When he turned to face Marcus, his watery eyes gleamed with a certain satisfied malice. “Did you know that your butler is Abelard Douglas, the actor?”

“I know that he is an out-of-work actor whom the late countess took pity on.” Marcus looked at Thompson warily. The man sounded rather unbalanced.

Thompson laughed wildly. “He is hardly out of work, my lord! He and his troupe have been here since April, rehearsing for their tour. Or so they said.”

Marcus frowned. “Is that so?”

“Yes. And those two footmen I noticed in the foyer are also actors in that troupe, my lord. As is the odd man in the Chinese hat I saw in the garden.”

Marcus stared at the man, a dawning realization creeping through his mind.

Thompson might be unbalanced, but what he said made perfect sense when laid against what Marcus himself had observed in the last few weeks. The fact that the footmen dressed so eccentrically, played dice on the floor of the foyer, and spilled syllabub all over guests. The way the housemaids loitered about in the corridors, whispering together, winking and giggling.

They weren’t servants at all, they were
actors
. Friends of his father’s wife, no doubt.

What a fool he had been.

Julia had thought to hide them beneath his very nose, to make him pay for their upkeep under false pretenses. She had lied to him from the very moment he entered the house.

She had refused his proposal,
and
she had lied to him.

Anger swept through his heart, replacing all the excitement and confusion he had felt earlier.

Thompson slowly approached the desk, still clutching at his book, seemingly emboldened by Marcus’s dumbfounded reaction. “My lord,” he said, “if this information has any, er, value to you . . .”

Was the little rabbit daring to ask him for money? Marcus shot him a cold glare, and Thompson retreated.

“You have retrieved your property,” he said. “If there is nothing else, you may take your leave.”

“O-of course, my lord. Good day, my lord.”

Thompson beat a hasty retreat, the door to the library banging shut behind him.

Marcus drummed his fingertips on the desk, his mind seething. It was time, past time, for him to have a long-overdue discussion with Miss Julia Barclay.

***

Julia was coming down the stairs when she saw Thompson crossing the foyer to the front door. She wondered what he could possibly be doing at Rosemount; then she saw the book he was clutching against him. It was the black volume of naughty drawings Daphne had found hidden behind the Plato.

So it
was
his. Julia couldn’t help but smile at the vision of the rabbity little man eagerly devouring the drawings.

He looked up and saw her there smiling. His watery eyes narrowed as he shot her a glance filled with venom.