Amanda McCabe (7 page)

“No,” she admitted. “I am not really very tired.”

“Neither am I.”

She perched on the edge of the window ledge, balancing there as she looked down at him. “Would you like to see something special, then?”

He would, indeed. If that something was her. “What is it?”

“Wait there. I’ll be down in a moment.” She withdrew from the window, and then shut the casement and drew the curtains closed.

Marcus was left alone in the suddenly very silent night.

He sat down on a nearby bench to wait for her, feeling bemused and utterly unlike himself.

What
was he doing?

Chapter Nine

The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,

When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees

And they did make no noise.

—
The Merchant of Venice

“What are you
doing
, girl?” Julia muttered to herself, as she pulled a simple muslin morning dress over her head and looked around for her half boots. “You just vowed to be sensible, and now you are running off into the night with
him
?”

She
had
just made up her mind to distance herself from Marcus, to cut off any budding tender feelings before they caused any real trouble. She had resolved to be her own sensible, practical self.

And now what was she doing, not fifteen minutes later? Preparing to go off with him, to show him her own special, secret place.

She was moon mad, indeed.

Well, if she was, then so be it. For just this one night, she would be mad and not fear the consequences. One day, when she was old and alone, she could remember this night, and remember a man with eyes as blue as the sea who shared it with her.

“ ‘Let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon,’” she murmured as she swirled her red woolen cloak over her shoulders.

***

“Where are we going?” Marcus asked as Julia led him across the meadows and along a narrow lane.

“I told you, it is a surprise,” she said. “You will see it when we get there. It is a special place.”

“A special place, eh? I walked this lane many times as a boy; I would vow I know every special place for miles around.”

Julia laughed and shook her head. “I would vow you do not know this one! It is very well hidden.” She ducked off of the lane suddenly and into the woods, her red cloak fading into the shadows. “Hurry up, now!” she called. “You would not want to get lost.”

She reached for his hand then and led him deeper into the woods, following a seemingly directionless path.

Marcus almost asked her again where they were going but then thought better of it. The moment was too perfect to ruin with words. Julia’s fingers were warm and soft as they grasped his; her lavender scent was sweet. Her hair fell over her shoulders in a loose cloud of curls, and in the moonlight she looked in truth like a fairy being. An unearthly sprite who would vanish with the dawn, instead of the angel he had fancied her earlier.

She tugged him through a break in the trees, and he saw their destination at last.

It was an ancient circle of stones, laid out carefully in a small clearing. The standing stones glowed in the darkness with an almost palpable magic.

Marcus shook his head. Lud, but when had he become so fanciful? Angels, fairies, now magic stones. There must have been some odd mushrooms in that mushroom-and-spinach tart at supper that were affecting his senses.

But he knew, in his heart, that it was not some mushroom, or the brandy he had drunk, that was causing such romantical thoughts. It was Julia.

She stood close to him, her head just barely reaching to his shoulder. One long, soft curl touched his arm as she whispered, “Is it not beautiful?”

“Yes,” he whispered back, watching her face. “Beautiful.”

Marcus was as affected by the stones as she was, Julia could tell. He stared at the ring solemnly, his eyes glistening.

“Isn’t it glorious?” she said quietly.

“I have never seen anything like it,” he answered. “Not in all the places I have been. I didn’t even know it was here.”

“Soon after I arrived at Rosemount, one of the old local farmers told me about it. He said that legend has it that it was built by the fairy folk, and as I had the eyes of one of ‘the wee ones,’ I should see it. Of course, I was enchanted by it.” She looked around at the familiar, sheltering stones. “It became my own special, secret place, where I could come whenever I was sad or afraid or even very, very happy. I have never shown it to anyone before.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Not to anyone?”

“No.”

“Then I am very honored indeed that you have brought me here.”

“Well, you have the eyes of the wee ones, as well.” Julia smiled at him and walked into the circle of stones. She touched the tallest one, laying her palm flat against the cool surface. “It must seem rather paltry to you, after the pyramids of Egypt. It is not even as large as Stonehenge!”

“Perhaps not, but I think your farmer was right—it must have been built with the magic of the fairy folk.” Marcus sat down on one of the flat stones and looked around him in wonder. It
was
enchanted, and unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Just as Julia was unlike any other person he had ever known. She didn’t smile coyly, like other women he had known, or flirt and laugh in any practiced way. She was only herself. Like now, as she twirled about in the moonlight, her red cloak swirling like that of an ancient priestess invoking the moon goddess.

“When I was a child,” she said, “my mother read me plays instead of storybooks. Shakespeare, mostly, whatever she was rehearsing. And
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was my very favorite then. I would tell my mother that one day I was going to run away to live with the fairies. I made her call me Peaseblossom for a while.” She sat down beside him, her cloak settling around her in a soft woolen puddle. “I could envision Titania and Oberon living here. I could almost feel myself back in my childhood. With my mother.”

She looked away, but not before he saw the unshed tears shimmering in her eyes.

A pang of guilt touched Marcus’s heart. “You must miss her very much.”

“Yes. I also miss Gerald. Just as you do. He was so kind to me.”

He
did
miss his father. But what he missed the most was not what they had had, which had always been rather distant, but what they might have had if he had stayed at Rosemount, as he should have, and accepted his father’s new wife. Perhaps then they could have been truly close, as Marcus had always wished for them to be.

“Yes,” he said. “Julia, I know that you have little reason to trust me, as I said before. I behaved so badly in the past. But I hope you know that I would like to be your friend, if you will let me.”

She looked up at him, her lips parted in a little “o” of surprise. “We are friends, Marcus. Or why else would I have brought you here?” She touched his arm, oh so lightly, like a butterfly landing, but it felt as if all the warmth of the sun lay there. “Somehow I felt like you needed its magic as much as I do.”

Marcus had the overwhelming urge to pull her into his arms, to bury his face in her soft hair and lose all worries and responsibilities in her warmth. He wanted to stay like this, sitting beside her on these magic stones, in the moonlight, forever.

Instead, he looked away from her, rubbing his hand over his eyes. He should not be thinking this way. No matter how pretty, how unique Julia Barclay was, or how enchanted he was by her company, he could not afford these feelings.

She was not at all the sort of woman to make a suitable Countess of Ellston—sophisticated, pedigreed, a grand Society hostess. Julia was none of those things, but oh, how she made him laugh! Made him feel alive, truly alive, in ways he never had. But he had a duty and a name to uphold, a duty he had been taught all his life. He couldn’t just abandon it, as his father had.

Could he?

Julia was staring up at him, her forehead wrinkled in concern.

“We should be getting back to the house,” he said. “You will catch a chill here in the night air.”

“It is not cold,” she answered quietly. “I have my cloak.”

“Nevertheless, I would never forgive myself if you became ill.”

She nodded and slid down off the rock, turning her steps back to the narrow pathway. “Perhaps it is cold, after all,” she said. Then she looked back at him over her shoulder, straight into his eyes as if she could see right into his very soul. “But I want you to know, Marcus, that you can come back here whenever you like. Its magic is always present.”

She walked quickly away, forcing him to rush after her or be left behind.

***

Julia hurried along the lane, trying not to listen to the crunch of Marcus’s footsteps behind her, or feel the warmth of him at her back.

He had been so kind, so understanding earlier; why was he suddenly so distant? Why did she feel like whenever she came close to a glimpse of Marcus, the
real
Marcus, the Marcus she could admire, he skittered away from her? Hid behind the cool blue of his eyes.

He would seem to want so much to confide in her, to be close to her. Then he would retreat into formality.

Why? Why would he do that, when she so wanted to be his friend? To help him heal some of the pain she sensed he held in his heart.

But she feared she knew the answer to that already. It was because she was the daughter of Anna Barclay, the actress. She was not a “proper” lady, and all of his upbringing held him back, reminded him of his duty. Somehow he could not break free, as Gerald had.

And Julia did not know how to help him. She could only hope that the stones would work their ancient magic and bring him some relief.

At first she did not hear the sound of the vehicle coming along the lane behind them, so deep in her thoughts was she. Then the noise of the horses and the wheels penetrated her melancholy fog, and she realized how scandalous it would look, her and the Earl of Ellston alone on a country lane after midnight.

She grabbed Marcus’s arm and pulled him with her into the shadows of the trees that lined the lane.

“Who is it?” Marcus whispered.

“I do not know,” she whispered back, straining to see who it was coming up the lane. All she could tell was that it was a small, black, open landau. “No matter who it is, though, you would not want to be seen here with me alone, would you?”

“I quite see your point.”

His warm breath stirred one of her loose curls against her nose, causing a sneeze to well up. It escaped in a great “Choo!” just as the landau came up alongside their hiding place.

“Did you hear something, Mr. Elliott?” asked the vicar, Mr. Whitig, to his curate.

Mr. Andrew Elliott turned his handsome blond head, and Julia feared for a moment that he could see them there.

But he just said, “It was probably an owl, Mr. Whitig.”

“No doubt. I do hate these late-night errands. I fear I am becoming too old for the chill night air.”

Then they were gone, the landau rolling off down the road.

Julia sighed in relief. “Thank the stars they didn’t see us!”

“The vicar?”

“Mr. Whitig is the biggest gossip in the neighborhood,” she said, starting to walk again toward home. “He just can’t seem to help himself. And, unfortunately for any malefactors, he is in the best position to know all the
on dits
, and spread them far and wide. After all, he does marry, christen, and bury everyone.”

Marcus fell into step beside her. “Who was that man with him?”

“The handsome blond one? That was Mr. Elliott, the curate. He hasn’t been with us very long. He is quite the local beau ideal.”

Marcus felt an unpleasant frisson of jealousy. Julia found the curate handsome? “Is he your beau ideal, too, Julia?”

She just laughed and quickened her steps through Rosemount’s garden.

***

“Faith, and will you look at that?” Abelard said as he looked out the morning room window. He had gone to close the draperies but was arrested by the sight he saw.

Julia and his lordship were walking along the garden path, talking with their heads bent together.

“What is it?”

Mary and John, who had been rehearsing a scene, abandoned their scripts to come and peer over his shoulder.

“Well,” Mary breathed. “Julia and his lordship out strolling in the moonlight.”

“Who would have thought that stuck-up lordship had it in him?” said John.

As they watched, Marcus lifted Julia’s hand to his lips for a brief salute before they parted and went their separate ways.

For just one instant, Marcus’s face was illuminated by the moonlight as he watched Julia leave. His expression was very telling indeed, a spasm of tenderness and longing. Then a cool, expressionless mask descended on his features, and he turned away.

Mary, John, and Abelard ducked down until he was safely out of sight.

“Well, Mary and Johnny,” Abelard said, rubbing thoughtfully at his ginger whiskers. “Are you thinking the same thing I am thinking?”

“Oh, yes, Abby,” Mary answered. “I am sure we are.”

John looked at them, puzzled. “What are you thinking?”

Mary just smiled and patted his arm. “Don’t you worry about a thing, John. You just do as you’re told, and leave the thinking to us. We are going to see everything right for Julia. Are we not, Abby?”

“Indeed we are, Mary dear. Indeed we are.”

Chapter Ten

By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.

—
Macbeth

“I am sorry, Miss Barclay, but I can’t work under these conditions!” Early the next morning, before Julia could even open up the household account books, Smithson, the head groom, came marching into her book room. He held Charlie Englehardt, whose face was scrunched in a pained grimace, firmly by the ear.

Julia regarded them through bleary eyes. She had managed only an hour of sleep, between running about in the woods with Marcus and then spending the rest of the night thinking about him. Being utterly confused about him.

After a quick breakfast of chocolate and toast in her chamber, she had hoped to make some progress on the accounts before she presented them to Marcus. Apparently, that was not to happen in the near future.

Thanks to Charlie, she must now placate an irate servant. Again.

Julia carefully set aside her pen and folded her hands atop the account books. “What seems to be the trouble, Smithson?” she asked calmly.

“It is this . . . this
actor
, Miss Barclay! He knows nothing about horses.”

That is why he is an actor and not an ostler
,
Julia thought. Aloud she said, “I told Charlie not to bother the animals, to just polish tack or muck out stalls; whatever you instructed him to do.”

“Well, begging your pardon, miss, but he is not following those instructions.”

Julia raised her brow sternly at Charlie, who promptly curled up in a little ball on the floor. “No?”

“No, miss. He told young Harry, the new stable lad, that he, Charlie, was to exercise his lordship’s prized Beelzebub.”

Julia gasped and shook her finger at Charlie. “Charlie Englehardt! I told you specifically not to go near any of the horses. Did I not?”

“Oh, Julia!” Charlie wailed, pulling his cap down to cover his eyes. “Lovely, merciful Julia! I only wanted to help. . . .”

Julia held up her hand, halting the flood of his words. Then she turned back to Smithson. “Was the horse harmed?”

“No, Miss Barclay, he—”

“Was the
horse
harmed?” cried Charlie. “Not a word about was
Charlie
harmed!”

Julia glared at him, causing him to whimper and draw his cap completely over his face. “Please, go on, Smithson,” she said.

“Harry is looking after Beelzebub now. The poor horse isn’t used to people jumping up on him bareback and yelling ‘a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.’”

Julia bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud at the vision of it all. She clutched her fingers together tighter and said, “I would imagine it is not something that happens to him every day.”

“No, miss. It spooked him something awful. He threw this one off in a trice and went crazy in the stable yard. We like to have never gotten him back in the stall. We were just lucky that his lordship chose another horse to ride out on this morning.”

“Yes. Very lucky. Well, I can see that you are quite right, Smithson. It will never do for Charlie to stay in the stables frightening the horses.”

A look of profound relief flashed across Smithson’s weathered face. “Thank you, Miss Barclay.”

“You may return to your duties.”

Smithson bowed and departed in great haste, as if afraid she would change her mind and force him to take Charlie back to the stables if he tarried.

Charlie rolled about on the floor and moaned, “‘There is no creature loves me; and if I die no soul will pity me.’”

Julia sighed deeply. “Oh, do get up, Charlie, and cease that nonsense at once. I have no time for your caterwauling this morning.”

“I only meant to help them, Julia, to make their day a little brighter. . . .”

“Just as you tried to brighten up the day of Mrs. Gilbert and Betty? No! Now you have very nearly cost me a head groom, as you nearly cost me a cook. What a fine mess we would have been in then. I am sending you to the head gardener, Charlie, and I vow that this is your last chance. You will have to go ahead of everyone else to Brighton if this does not work out well.”

His face puckered in disgust. “The gardener!”

“Yes. He is to begin spreading the leavings from the stable on the flower beds today.”

“But . . . but that is . . .”

“Yes, Charlie. That is manure. It helps the flowers grow in the spring. ‘Our dungy earth alike feeds beast as man.’”

For once, Charlie Englehardt was outquoted.

***

Marcus returned from his ride late that afternoon. And he was not alone.

Julia watched from her book room window as he rode up the drive, accompanied by another gentleman, a rather portly man who sat his mount awkwardly. With them was a lady, elegant and very stylish in a blue-and-red riding habit designed
à la militaire
, with gold epaulets and gold buttons that dazzled in the sun. Her auburn hair was coiled smoothly beneath her blue tricorne hat, as if she had just left a hairdresser.

As Julia watched, the lady threw back her head and laughed at something Marcus said to her, revealing the swanlike length of her white throat.

Lady Angela Fleming.

Julia felt a sourness stir deep in her belly. What was
she
doing here, laughing with Marcus, looking so cool and elegant and graceful? Julia had known she would have to see Lady Angela again one day; she had just hoped it would not be quite so soon. And certainly not where Marcus would have a chance to compare Lady Angela’s sophisticated perfection to Julia’s more informal ways.

Marcus dismounted at the foot of the front steps and turned to assist Lady Angela. His hands almost spanned her tiny waist, and she smiled up at him charmingly as he placed her on her feet. She smoothed his cravat with her small, gloved hand before taking his arm and allowing him to lead her up the steps.

She swept one long, proprietary glance at the house, as if gauging changes she would like to make. Then she, Marcus, and the other man, whom Julia now recognized as Lady Angela’s father, the Marquess of Belvoir, disappeared into the house.

Julia turned away from the window with a disgusted sigh. Marcus had looked so charmed, so dazzled as he gazed down at Lady Angela. But, then, he
was
a man, and like every other man in the neighborhood, he would be easily ruled by the Beauty.

Julia had thought, hoped, that he would be different. He had seemed very different last night, amid the ancient stones. How could he be snared by a charming smile and a stylish wardrobe?

Perhaps he had just been blinded by all the gold on her habit, Julia thought snidely.

She sighed again, knowing she would be summoned to the drawing room to play hostess at any moment. Somehow she would have to make herself more presentable than she had been the first time she met Lady Angela.

Julia went up to her bedroom and sat down at her dressing table to brush the snarls from her curls, remembering that less-than-auspicious occasion.

It had been her very first ball after coming to live at Rosemount. She had been quite nervous, since it was her first proper ball. Oh, she had attended parties before, suppers and dances and card parties with her mother’s friends. But never anything this grand. She wore her first grown-up ball gown and a lovely pearl necklace Gerald had given to her.

The very first thing she had done, there in the Flemings’ grand ballroom, was to trip on the hem of that grown-up gown and spill punch down the skirt of Lady Angela’s silver satin-and-gauze gown.

Thereafter, Lady Angela never missed an opportunity to make a cutting remark about Julia’s appearance, intellect, or general demeanor.

Not that it had really mattered to Julia, except for the hurt it caused her mother. Julia had gathered her own small circle of anti-Fleming friends, and could, and often did, laugh about the Punch Incident.

It never mattered, that is, until now. Now that Marcus was here to hear Lady Angela’s comments.

Julia laid down her brush and studied her reflection in the mirror. Her hair fell in its usual wild profusion of curls, always refusing to be tamed. It was ordinary brown, not gleaming auburn, or even guinea gold, as her mother’s had been. Her eyes were only hazel, and not a fashionable blue. She was no Diamond.

But really, she was no troll either. Her nose was rather nice, and she had her mother’s creamy complexion. If only she had some dazzling afternoon gowns, some stunning creations . . .

A sudden idea struck her. She rose from her dressing table and went out into the corridor.

Mary and Daphne were there, listlessly running feather dusters over picture frames and chatting aimlessly. They brightened when they saw Julia coming toward them.

“Where are you going, Jule?” asked Mary.

“Can we come with you, wherever it is?” said Daphne. “Dusting is only interesting for so long, you know.”

“I am going to the attics,” said Julia. “And yes, you can come with me. I could use your counsel.”

“Ooh, the attics!” breathed Mary. “How exciting! What are you going to do there? Rattle chains so his lordship will think there’s a ghost?”

Julia was so surprised at this that she quit walking. “Why would I want to do that?”

Mary and Daphne bumped into her, forcing her to move forward again. They turned up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the attics.

“It’s not really such a bad idea,” said Daphne. “We
could
rattle chains and drag furniture across the floor. Maybe moan a bit.”

“But why would we want to do that?” Julia repeated.

“To make him think he is going insane, of course!” said Mary. “To drive him away from Rosemount so we can rehearse in peace.”

“To send him fleeing in horror across the moors . . .” whispered Daphne.

Julia shook her head at them. “There are no moors nearby. Even if there were, I have no desire to send him fleeing across them.” She unlocked the attic door and went inside. It was only dimly lit by the high, narrow windows, but it was still light enough to see the piles of trunks and crates.

“Then what are we doing up here?” asked Mary, gazing about at the jumble.

“Not devising a ghost.” Julia walked over to the corner, where there was a group of trunks, all of them stamped in gold with the initials ABH—Anna Barclay Hadley. “We have guests this afternoon. So I need the most beautiful, the most dashing frock I can find.” She opened up the nearest trunk to reveal an array of jewel-bright silks, satins, and muslins. “Who was ever more dashing than my mother?”

“Oh, yes!” Daphne stared down at the gowns, her visions of playing ghost vanishing before the allure of costuming. “Julia, we shall have you looking lovely in no time at all.”

***

“Why, Miss Barclay. What a . . . sweet frock,” Lady Angela said, her smile of welcome more of a lupine stretching of the lips over her teeth.

It
was
a sweet frock, as Julia well knew—more than sweet. And, if the rather stunned look on Marcus’s face was any indication, he was aware of it, too.

“Thank you, Lady Angela. Your habit is also very . . . sweet. So much
gold
.” Julia lowered herself onto a small chair opposite where the Flemings sat on a settee, careful not to crush her sapphire blue silk skirt or muss her white satin-slashed sleeves. “I do apologize for my delay in greeting you. Very remiss of me!”

Lady Angela’s father, the Marquess of Belvoir, merely grunted, being far too occupied with stuffing his mouth with almond cakes. Marcus, still looking dazed at Julia’s sudden transformation to fine lady (at least Julia
hoped
that was why he looked dazed, and not from the long exposure to Lady Angela’s charms), murmured, “Not at all, Miss Barclay. The tea has only just arrived.”

“As you can see, I poured for everyone,” said Lady Angela, gesturing toward the filled teacups arranged on the table. “So we were scarcely bereft, dear Miss Barclay. Marcus was just entertaining us with such delightful tales of his travels. Oh, I should call him Lord Ellston, should I not?” She smiled at Marcus, a genuine smile that made her blue eyes sparkle. “But we are such
old
friends that it is so difficult to be ridiculously formal.”

As Julia poured out her own cup of tea, Lady Angela ostentatiously twitched her skirt aside, as if she feared tea would be spilled on it. Julia considered dropping in the lemon slice so hard that amber liquid would be sprayed out of the cup. Then she decided that she would never stoop to Lady Angela’s petty level, and refrained. She smiled blandly as Lady Angela continued with her prattle.

“Do you remember, Marcus—Lord Ellston—that time we went fishing in your father’s trout stream as children? You were such a horrid boy, you tried to put a fish in my pinafore pocket.” She gave a trill of silvery laughter.

Julia grimaced and put a cake into her mouth so that it would be too occupied to say anything rude.

Marcus turned his attention from Julia, who looked so pretty in her new blue gown, to look at Lady Angela in amazement. Of course he recalled that trout incident. Angela had been trailing after him and his friends all that morning, complaining about the mud and threatening to go to his parents and tell that he was fishing when he was meant to be at his lessons. At last, fed up and goaded on by his friends, Marcus had stuffed that fish into her pocket.

That
had sent her fleeing across the fields, shrieking and screaming. It had earned him a scolding to rival the one received for sliding down the banister. But it had been worth it to free himself of Angela’s whining.

And now the tagalong child had grown into an admittedly beautiful woman, one with a poise, style, and family lineage that even his mother would have approved of. He should be rejoicing that he would not have to go to Town on his matrimonial search, that a suitable choice had family lands that marched with his own.

But somehow his attention kept wandering away from Angela’s chatter. He kept glancing at Julia, who sat sipping her tea silently, a curious half smile on her lips. He wondered what she was thinking; she looked as if the entire scene had been set up in the drawing room for her personal amusement. As if the chattering Angela and her stout father, now stuffing himself with all the salmon sandwiches on the tray, were characters in a tableau.