Kathryn Smith - [Friends 03] (38 page)

The lovers stared at him as though he were a ghost— an awful, moaning, pustuled ghost.

Now that he had caught them, Julian didn't know what to say.
Boo
just didn't seem appropriate, but neither did ranting and raving. He was tired and drawn and he just wanted to sit down and see if the three of them couldn't be honest with each other for a change.

"What are you doing here?" Letitia demanded, her cheeks blooming with color where just a few seconds ago there had been none. "You cannot stop us, Julian. I do not care what you do— "

"Oh, Lettie, do be quiet!" he snapped.

She opened her mouth to reply, but Wesley stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. He smiled soothingly at her, then turned his gaze to Julian.

"Perhaps we could go somewhere a bit less…public, Wolfram?"

Yes. Privacy would be good. He didn't need the servants hearing him and Letitia rip into each other like fighting children, and he didn't need them overhearing the particulars of Letitia's elopement.

"Follow me," he said and he kept glancing over his shoulder to make certain that they did.

Inside the blue drawing room once more, Julian turned to face his sister.

"I imagine you are surprised to find me here." He managed a small smile. "Imagine my surprise when I discovered you were gone."

Letitia's chin came up in a gesture he was beginning to hate. "What did you expect me to do? Meekly accept your dictate and marry a man I do not love?"

"Yes," he replied honestly. "I believe that is exactly what I expected. When you put it that way I see why you did not find it so appealing."

Letitia gaped at him.

"I also expected your honesty. I do not want you to marry a man you cannot love, Lettie." His gaze left hers and settled on Wesley. "Nor am I about to allow you to marry someone unsuitable just because you think you
do
love him."

Wesley didn't even flinch. Julian's estimation of the younger man rose a notch.

"That is not your decision to make, Julian," Letitia informed him quietly.

He didn't raise his voice. "I'm afraid that, by law, it is."

"Why?" she cried, her sudden outburst of passion hitting him like a blow to the chest. "Why are you doing this? I love Marcus. He loves me. I do not care if he is not rich. Why do you?"

"You are my responsibility."

"I am your sister!" Pressing her clasped hands to her breast, she gazed imploringly at him. "This is my life.
Mine
. Why will you not allow me to have control of it?"

Julian scowled. "You think I want to control you?"

She looked as though the answer was obvious. "Ever since Mama and Papa died you have not allowed me to make any decisions on my own unless it was what color of gown to buy. It is as though you have never wanted me to grow up, as if you hoped to keep me a child forever."

Her words struck a chord deep within him. He thought he was protecting her from the world, keeping her safe, since he had failed with Miranda. He realized, with the sickening feeling that came with seeing one's own actions clearly, that he hadn't just been protecting Letitia. He had been protecting himself, keeping her close so he couldn't lose what family he had left.

He had been Letitia's age when Sophia's father tried to force him to marry her. He had reacted by refusing and by turning his back on Sophia and what was right. He didn't want Letitia to turn her back on him. And she would.

"I do not want to see you get hurt," he rasped, jerking his gaze back to hers.

"With all due respect, Lord Wolfram," Wesley said, coming up to stand by Letitia's side. "I plan to love and care for your sister for the rest of her life, not hurt her."

Letitia and Wesley smiled at each other. It was a lovers' smile. They loved each other, it was painfully obvious. How could Julian deny his sister the joy of loving and being loved? He couldn't, not when he envied her so terribly for it.

It was time for another confession. "I do not want to lose you."

Letitia's eyes widened, filling with tears at the admission. "You will always be my brother, Julian. I will always need you, but I need Marcus too."

It felt as though someone were sitting on Julian's chest, it was so tight. She was right. When had his brat of a little sister grown up? She was her own woman and if he didn't allow her to live her own life and make her own mistakes she would never forgive him and then he really would lose her.

Sophia had been right.

"Will you at least allow me to give you away?" his voice was so thick he almost didn't recognize it.

Gasping, Letitia broke away from Wesley and launched herself into Julian's arms. He held her tightly, pressing a hard kiss to her temple. Her arms twined around his neck, lifting herself up on her toes so that she could brush her lips against his cheek. He squeezed his arms tighter around her as though he could make her see how much he loved her by the force of his embrace. And then he did what he had to do.

He let her go.

Good lord, just how far away
was
Yorkshire anyway?

It was late morning now. They had traveled all day and all night. Even though Letitia and Mr. Wesley would no doubt be a bit more relaxed in their speed, given the fact that they didn't expect to be caught, Gabriel didn't want to waste time. They didn't stop longer than the necessary time to purchase food and answer nature's call— not that Sophia would have agreed to stop for anything else. She wanted to find Julian, and would have gone on horseback if she'd had to!

"How much longer?" she asked, stretching her cramped legs out before her.

Gabriel glanced out the window. "Another hour or two." He smiled. "Is being cooped up with me beginning to fray your nerves?"

Sophia smiled. "Lord, yes. I never want to travel from one end of the country to the other with you ever again."

He laughed and Sophia joined him. She liked Gabriel. He teased her and made her comfortable. Brave was more serious and he had a way of looking at her that made her feel as though he were trying to see inside her soul. It made her uneasy. Quiet people always made her feel very self-conscious. She preferred loud, boisterous people— people who talked more than she did, so she didn't feel compelled to reveal things about herself.

And then there was Julian, who actually made her
want
to reveal things about herself. He knew more about her marriage to Edmund than anyone else, except herself. There were some things she would never tell him— he didn't need to know all the sordid details. They didn't matter anymore.

"Do you think he managed to catch up with them?" Sophia asked. As much as she wanted to see Julian, she hoped that Letitia had succeeded in eloping with Marcus Wesley. Then Julian would have to acknowledge her as an adult and allow her to live her own life.

Gabriel shrugged. "If Yorkshire was truly their destination, then I think yes, he probably caught them. But if they really were headed for Gretna Green I think they will be man and wife before he finds them."

Man and wife. Another smile tugged at Sophia's lips. Letitia would never be satisfied just to be a wife. She would not lose her identity as Sophia had when she married Edmund.

Poor Mr. Wesley. Did he know what he was doing?

For that matter, did she? She was chasing Julian across the country. He would not be impressed when she arrived at Heatherington Park demanding that he face her.

Other lines swam around in her mind, but it was that one that stood out because he had obviously written it before their marriage, which meant he had been falling in love with her even then.

"How many other poems has he written about me?"

Gabriel started at her question. Perhaps she should have asked in a nicer tone.

"I could not begin to suppose," he replied with a shrug of his wide shoulders, made even wider by the capes of his great coat. Lord, he was big. How could Lilith stand it?

When he didn't offer any more information, Sophia frowned. "Well, when did he start?"

She should be ashamed of her own insistence, but Gabriel already knew so much about her relationship with Julian, what did it matter if he knew how much it meant to her to find out how long Julian had been writing about her? It wasn't as though she asked out of a sense of vanity, although every woman liked to hear such things.

She wanted— needed— to know because…because she
needed
to hear it. Needed to know that when she stopped and thought of him during all those years apart that he had thought of her too.

"The poem that launched his career was written about you."

Sophia's brows went up in shock. She remembered reading that poem— she had read almost everything he ever published. Never once had she stopped to think that he might have written it about her, although now she realized she should have. It was about a man haunted by the memory of a woman he had loved and been betrayed by. If she recalled correctly the poem was not a flattering one. The man in it did not want to remember his lover at all.

Was that true?

"Sophia?" It was Gabriel's voice, hauling her back to the present, to the jostling carriage that seemed to be crawling like a turtle over the countryside.

She looked up at him.

"Surely you must have known?"

"If I had known, Gabriel," she replied, a hard lump in her throat, "you and I would not be in this carriage right now. This situation would be very different, I assure you."

Yes, different. She would have driven herself mad by now, looking for mentions of herself in his work.

There were so many things they needed to talk about when she caught up with him, but the first thing she was going to do was tell him she loved him and make him believe it.

"Are you all right?"

Sophia smiled at the concern in Gabriel's voice. "I am fine. Thank you."

There was silence for a moment.

"He loves you, you know."

The tightness in Sophia's throat increased. Hot wetness pricked the backs of her eyes as she jerked her gaze toward the window. "I know."

"Julian is my friend. I do not like to see him hurting."

When Sophia's gaze came back to meet his, it was devoid of tears. "He is the man I love. I do not like seeing him hurting either. I dislike even more knowing I am the cause of it."

Their gazes held for what felt like an eternity. Obviously Gabriel saw what he wanted in hers because he smiled kindly before turning his attention to the scenery passing outside.

They passed the rest of the journey in relative silence. Occasionally Gabriel would offer some tidbit of information about Yorkshire and the time he spent there as a boy with Julian and Brave, or Sophia would ask a question about either, but mostly she kept to herself and wondered whether or not Julian would be happy to see her.

"We are here," Gabriel said finally as the carriage turned down a long, wooded drive. "We should be at the house by the quarter hour."

Her heart thumping brutally against her ribs, Sophia sat up and plastered her face to the carriage window. There was nothing to see but trees, but every tree they passed brought her closer to Julian.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually the house came into view. It was bigger than she expected, its rosy gold stone far more inviting than she would have expected given the tragedy that had taken place there.

She didn't want to imagine the foolish, dramatic girl who must have felt like Ophelia as she sank beneath the surface to her death. And she didn't want to imagine the anguish in Julian's heart. She knew him well enough to know he would have put on a brave and stoic face for all those present, but alone he would have wept like a child.

Or a parent.

"Julian's parents and sister are buried just beyond that copse of trees," Gabriel informed her, pointing out the window to a spot far beyond the house, on the opposite side from the pond, where a path cut through the forest.

"There's a small chapel there," he continued as the carriage rolled up in front of the house. "The family used to have services, but the last time it was used was for Miranda's funeral."

"You were here for it?"

Gabriel turned his sorrowful gray eyes to hers. "I helped carry her casket. I carried Julian's mother's as well."

Sophia didn't have to ask to know that Brave had been there as well, helping to bury Miranda, the girl he had thought he loved.

"Thank you for being there for him."

Gabriel's eyes widened at her words, but before he could reply, the carriage door opened and a footman lowered the steps.

"Are you coming inside?" Sophia asked, as her stiff legs awkwardly carried her to the ground.

"I think I will walk around a bit first," Gabriel replied, stretching. He smiled. "He needs to see you more than he needs to see me."

Sophia watched the large, dark-haired man as he set off in the direction of the forest. She knew exactly where he was going.

Draping her shawl around her shoulders, Sophia took her bonnet in both hands and climbed the steps to the house. A robust woman with pale eyes and gray curls peeking out from beneath her cap opened the door.

"Good morning. May I help you?"

An uncertain smile curved Sophia's lips. Would Julian let her inside? "I am Lady Wolfram," she replied. "Is my husband here?"

The woman's plump jaw dropped and Sophia thought she saw something very much like tears in the old gel's eyes.

"Oh, my dear lady!" she gasped. "Come in, come in! I'm Mrs. Berry, the housekeeper. I cannot tell you how happy I am to meet you!"

Sophia found herself enveloped in a fierce embrace as she stepped inside. Stunned, she could do nothing but stand there and wait for the woman to release her. She had never been hugged by a housekeeper before.

"His lordship's in the blue drawing room," Mrs. Berry remarked, wiping her eyes with the backs of her strong little hands as she released Sophia and took her belongings. "Second door on your right down the corridor there."