Doctor...to Duchess? (10 page)

“Do what?” Oliver reached across the table, gently taking hold of her hand.

“Ask someone to give up their dream for mine.”

Their eyes met and, in an instant, any anger Julia had felt toward Oliver disappeared. At the end of the day he was exactly the same as her—someone struggling to find their place in the world.

He released her hand and drew a finger along the curve of her cheek. More than anything she wanted to press into his hand as she had the other day. Feel his touch.

“Do you want to know why I don’t—can’t—stay here?”

She nodded, hoping it would conceal the bitter taste rising in her throat. At last. At last she was getting to the heart of the matter—
his
heart.

“This place, this house, these grounds—all of it—they’re stuck in a time and place that doesn’t exist anymore. It won’t take to the change you’re so eager to impose on it. No matter what anyone thinks or dreams or tries to do, this place is stuck in the past. A past I have no interest in living.”

Julia sighed in frustration. This was hardly the truth she’d been promised. “That sounds like claptrap to me. Your father hardly seems to cling to the past. He approved the race in the moat, for one. Not to mention the fact he hired me! I can’t imagine he would’ve done that if his whole plan was to keep things as is.”

“My father was filling a void.”

The words cut straight through her. Was that how he saw her? As a void-filler?

She fought the sour taste of bile rising again. His words didn’t sit right. This was a man lashing out against something much bigger than her.

A low moan escaped his lips as he scrubbed his hands across his face. “Do you see what being here does to me? I’m not a man who says things like that! Please believe me. Things would’ve been so different for me—for you as well—if—”

“If what?” She could hardly breathe. What could have hurt him so deeply?

“If I had been different.”

What?
Now he was driving her round the bend.

“Different how? When you’re not being a jerk you seem like a wonderful man to me.”

Oliver laughed and shook his head. “What I’m trying to say—very badly—is that Bryar Estate needs someone at its helm. Someone who wants to be the Duke of Breckonshire. Or the Duchess, for that matter. You’d be great at it—but it’s never been the job for me.”

“It’s true.” Julia nodded sagely. “You’d be a terrible duchess.”

Oliver laughed again, the atmosphere between them softening to something more familiar, more relaxed. “You know what I mean. I’m not duke material.”

“Says who?” Julia couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. “You’re smart, obviously passionate about medicine, which easily translates into people. Despite your very valiant efforts to appear aloof, I can tell you are genuinely interested in the people of St. Bryar and their welfare. What more does a duke need to be?”

“Some people are born to fulfill a destiny, Julia. Mine simply isn’t here.”

“What exactly do you think will happen to you when you inherit your title, Oliver? That you’ll turn into some sort of dimwitted fop or a miserly ogre? Look around you! Your father is a wonderfully kind man. I don’t think the apple fell too far from the tree on that front.”

Oliver’s ramrod-straight posture softened a smidgen.

“My father was never the problem.”

Ah.

“So who was?”

“My mother.”

“But she sent you all those cakes!”

Oliver gave a hollow laugh and nodded.

“Yes. She sent me cake.” Oliver looked her in the eye and for the first time she saw a hollowness in them, as if he’d frozen any feeling for his mother straight out of his heart.

“You two didn’t see eye to eye?”

Oliver’s sharp laugh reverberated off the stone walls of the kitchen. “That’s one way to put it. Suffice it to say, once Alexander was gone I was never going to be able to put a foot right.”

“Who was Alexander?”

“My older brother.”

“You have an older brother?”

“Had.”

“Oh, Oliver. I didn’t know.” Julia felt a flash of understanding snap through her. Had his mother been so consumed by grief at the loss of one son, she’d lost sight of the one she still had? A son who was also grieving for his older brother? It was heartbreaking. She knew as well as anyone, no matter how old you were, you always wanted to please your parents. And Oliver was no different.

She could have protested. Could have told him dukes and earls and even kings came in all shapes and sizes. It was about leadership. And a vision. Both things he obviously had in spades.

She twiddled her chopsticks through the remains of her supper, trying to think of the right thing to say.

One look at the storm clouds in his eyes told her she should back off. Oliver was obviously wrestling with his past. But it seemed at odds with the story he’d told her. His mother had hardly tethered him here, so she couldn’t have been that intent on pinning him to a lifestyle he didn’t want.

After Matt had died she’d wanted her children close—so very close. When they had come to her and said they’d like to go to music school, she’d realized she was the only thing standing in the way of their dreams. Stifling her children so she could immerse herself in grief? It just wasn’t an option. Had Oliver’s mother come to the same conclusion?

She watched Oliver play with the few grains of rice remaining on his plate and suddenly saw her own situation a bit more clearly. Maybe she hadn’t been as “freewheeling” as she’d given herself credit for. By choosing an isolated village, perhaps she had shut herself off from fully healing—from participating in the wider world, as her children were. Was this whole discussion they were having just a case of the pot and the kettle calling each other out?

Where she was proactively hiding from her grief, he was running away at high speed. Each of them misguidedly hoping for some sort of peace.

“I’m sorry, Oliver.”

“For what?” He looked up, as if surprised to see her there at all.

“For your loss. I am truly sorry.”

“Not to worry.” He answered shortly. “It was a long time ago.”

“I know—but time doesn’t always change things, does it? Look.” She pushed herself away from the table. “I am going to go to bed. Thank you very much for the lovely dinner—I’m sorry if I spoiled it by probing too much. I always was too nosy.”

“Not to worry,” Oliver repeated, suddenly fighting the urge to share everything. To share how lonely being at Bryar Estate made him feel. How the weight of expectation suffocated him. How it seemed, no matter how much good he’d done in the world, he would never achieve what his mother wanted. How could he? He could never bring Alexander back and that was the only thing that would have made her happy.

“Whatever you decide to do here—with the estate—I’m sure it will be for the best.”

“I doubt reverse psychology is going to work on me, Dr. MacKenzie.”

Her lips pulled back into a brilliant smile and she laughed. “You give me too much credit. I was just trying to see things from your perspective and, the truth is, no one likes change. Few people are brave enough to see it through. Maybe this is one of those scenarios where you are the only one who can see the wood for the trees.”

Had kismet put her here to have it out with his demons? Was he wrong to want to shut the door on the past instead of taking a fresh look at things? He shook away the thought. Mumbo-jumbo. Facts were facts. He didn’t want to live here. That was what it boiled down to.

“You’re right, Julia.”

“About change?”

“About bedtime.” He nodded toward the flagstone stairwell. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Oliver felt as if all the life was being sucked out of the room as she left.

He’d just summarily dismissed the one person he had ever come close to opening his heart to. The one person who saw nothing but hope and possibility in a place he saw nothing but dead ends. A dull ache thumped through his veins. Would his mother have been proud? At long last, he was beginning to behave like an aristocrat.

“Julia!” He called after her receding figure as he took the steps two at a time.

“Yes?” She turned to him, cheeks flushed with emotion, eyes alight with curiosity. Expectation?

A rush of desire washed through him. Every pore in his body wanted her. Before he could stop himself, he slid his fingers along her jawline and into her hair. His lips met hers in a heated, fiery explosion of desire. By the way she responded to him, to his touch, he could tell she wanted him, too. He moved a hand to the base of her neck as the other slid down her spine to the small of her back. A small moan of pleasure left her lips as he rained kisses along her neck. He physically ached to be closer, more intimate.

“Stop. Please.” He felt Julia push at his chest, her words completely at odds with the sensations he was experiencing.

He pulled back, still holding her, not wanting to let go. “Why?”

“I can’t. Not with things so— Not until you decide what you want to do.”

“Don’t you want to be together? Tell me you don’t want me.”

Her hands slid down his chest and she shook her head sadly.

“I can’t.” She looked up into his eyes. “Not unless you’re going to stay.”

Oliver let his hands drop from her hips. He couldn’t promise that. Not now. Not yet. She must’ve seen the answer in his eyes as, before he could protest further, she turned and ran the rest of the way up the stairs to her room and very solidly closed the door.

* * *

A good run. That was what Julia needed after another night of feeling like the princess with the pea. Or was it the commoner with the coconut? The latter, judging by the cricks in her neck.

A run and a hot shower and then on to the clinic where she knew a full day’s work awaited her. The perfect way to avoid the real reasons she’d spent most of the night awake. Lord Oliver Wyatt equaled insomnia central.

She hadn’t seen him since The Incident on the Stairs which she supposed spoke volumes. He didn’t have plans to stay. Never had. She was right to have stopped things from going further. Even if it made her skin ache to think of his touch.

Realistically? She needed to face the future head-on. Oliver hadn’t said what she was filling a gap for—but, whatever it was, she obviously wasn’t the endgame. So, time for another new beginning? Perhaps a job a bit closer to the twins? Or by the ocean? Sunsets on the Atlantic could be nice. Or an inner-city appointment? Heaven knew it would be a sea change from the life she’d lived so far.

A leaden feeling began to creep through her. None of the options fit. She’d found the perfect place to live and work and she was just going to let it go? Just thinking about the woods filled to the violet-colored brim with bluebells made her want to weep. Or was it the thought of losing Oliver? Hard to tell at this point.

She had to fight. She just had to! If it meant filling out application form after application form, she would find the funding to buy the clinic from Oliver. Then she could stand on her own two feet and never think about him again. An image of his green eyes flashed through her mind—green eyes locking into hers before closing and kissing her more purely and deeply than she thought she could bear. Her stomach clenched. Maybe the “not ever thinking about him again” part wouldn’t come quite as easily.

A good run; that’s what she needed. A full-speeder through the woods would clear out the cobwebs and then she’d be ready for action.

Julia popped in her earphones and selected an intense track as she headed off down her favorite woodland track. It was a full five kilometers and she was hoping to give it some good old-fashioned welly this morning.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

“Ack!” Julia pulled out her earphones, properly startled to discover Oliver running alongside her. All her nerves gathered up in a tight coil then began to pinball through her nervous system.

“I thought I’d see you at breakfast.”

“I thought I’d be on my own out here.” Julia couldn’t keep the bite out of her voice.

Oliver smiled and made a “fair enough” face, his eyes trained on the track ahead of them.

Julie grimaced. Did he have to wear such form-fitting exercise gear? It was just plain bad mannered when a girl was trying her best to maintain a professional distance from someone. Not watch the way his T-shirt hitched up over his shoulders, or see how she now had proof positive his legs were well-defined and really nice to ogle.
Rude!

“Did you say something?”

Uh-oh. Out-loud voice?

“
No, just trying to sort out how to tackle the day.”

“A lot of patients?”

Like you care.

“No—that’s fine. I just wanted to see if I could prove you wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Oliver kept his gaze straight ahead as they ran.

“There are still a few grants I could apply for that could push the clinic in the direction of standing on its own—but I’d have to think outside the box.”

“Julia, you’re looking at a couple of hundred thousand if the estate is to get market value for the place.”

“What would you use it for?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Apologies.” Julia put her hands up. “None of my business.”

“No, it’s a fair question.” Oliver glanced over at her but she couldn’t meet his eyes. Not yet. “I’d probably donate it to the Flying Doctors or the Red Cross.”

“Oh, I see.”

“You disapprove?” Oliver was getting a bit too good at reading between the lines.

“It’s just a bit weird to me that you’d give such a huge amount of money to an overseas charity—who, granted, do good in the world—when, if you’re in the mood for giving, you could just give the building to the village.”

“That’s a fair comment.”

Julia’s heart skipped a beat.
Would he be part of the deal?
“So you’d consider donating the building to the village?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Right.”

“But I didn’t say no, either, did I, Miss Frowny-Face?” He gave her a playful kick on the bum with his foot.

“Hey! Don’t kick a girl while she’s down.” She chanced a glance up at him. Maybe those green eyes of his were actually frog-colored. The frog-faced prince-duke.