Prudence (24 page)

He had halted at her strategic retirement, baffled. The last thing he wished was to make her afraid! With an effort, he moderated his tone.

‘Why, Prue? What has prompted you to this?’

How was she to tell him? She had written it all in the letter which she had come to deliver. But it was a very different matter to say those words to him in person.

Prue dared to look at him, and found the hawk-look pronounced. Her heart skittered.

‘Oh, pray don’t look at me in that accusing fashion! You are angry, but—’

He flung out a hand. ‘Not that!’ A wry smile curved his lips. ‘Upset, perhaps, and a trifle hurt.’

A wash of distress flooded Prue, and she cradled Folly closer as he began to wriggle. ‘I don’t mean to hurt you, sir.’

Julius flinched. ‘You do so every time you address me with that repressive formality.’ He saw the kitten squirming in her hold. ‘I wish you will put that wretched animal down!’

Recognizing the futility of holding on to Folly for the present, Prue bent and released him. He immediately began upon an investigation of the library. She watched him a moment, and then turned back to encounter the steely eyes of Mr Rookham. A great sigh escaped her, and she sank into the chair reserved for his use, burying her face in her hands.

Julius eyed her in silence. The sensation of shocked disbelief had abated, and he was able to think more clearly. It occurred to him forcibly that there were practical barriers to this intended flight besides his own objections. Had Prudence considered them? He voiced his instant thought.

‘You must know that I cannot let you go like this, even was I willing for you to leave.’

She shook her head, but her face remained hidden from him.

‘Did you think to walk out of the place just as you came in, with a portmanteau and that wretched cat under your arm? After everything that has passed? Where in Hades had you in mind to go?’

Her hands dropped, and the bleakness in her face twisted his heart. Yet it distanced him, curbing that instinct to go to her and overbear whatever barrier it was she had set up against him.

‘I am going back to the Seminary.’ Prue saw with pain the puzzlement enter his eyes. Did he suppose she wanted to go? She drew a steadying breath. ‘Mrs Duxford, I know, will let me stay there for a day or
so. Or perhaps longer, while I search for a new appointment.’

Julius wanted to consign Mrs Duxford to hell, and her Seminary with her. But he fought down the rise of frustration.

‘And how did you propose to get there?’ he asked curtly. ‘You don’t even know if the stage runs today. And don’t try to make me believe that one of the servants told you, for they would have come to me at once.’ A hideous thought occurred to him. ‘Have you looked to Polmont for this scheme? She is the only one of my household who would be willing to aid you to leave me!’

Her eyes flashed suddenly. ‘Mrs Polmont? Have you run mad? I had rather die than seek her aid!’

‘Then how—’

‘I don’t know how!’ she threw at him. ‘I only knew I must go—and that as speedily as p-possible.’

Prue felt her voice crack on the last word, and tried desperately to hold back the rising tears. She reached out her hand for the letter she had set upon his desk, scrunching it with her fingers.

‘Is that for me?’

She nodded. ‘There is no point in it now.’

Julius watched her tuck the screwed-up paper somewhere in the recesses of her cloak. He was tempted to seize it from her, in the hope of quelling the desperate question bursting in his head. Instead he let his tongue work for him.

‘You have not yet told me why, Prue. After last night, I thought—’

Her eyes flew up, luminous now. ‘That is just it, sir. Last night is exactly the difficulty.’

It was like a blow in the chest. ‘Then your memory must be mightily at fault!’

She struck her hands together. ‘But I don’t remember! At least, I have a few hazy images.’

Julius stared at her, conscious of an abrupt lifting of his spirits. If she did not recall what had happened between them, what had been said—? Dear God, had he so quickly forgotten her condition? Had the whole been dreamlike to her in her semi-conscious state?

‘Forgive me, Prue! Finding you here has made me stupid.’ He dropped into gentleness. ‘But I remember if you do not, and I shall find ways to remind you.’

Prue’s veins began to pulse unevenly. She gazed across the desk at his softened features.

‘You remained in my room all night, did you not? The servants are all talking of it.’ Her fingers twisted together. ‘I thought it better to remove from here, so that you need not feel yourself obliged to—to—’ She could not say it!

But Julius laughed. ‘Obliged to! Don’t you know me better than that?’ There was tenderness in the steel eyes, but determination too. ‘There is no obligation, Prue. Yet I have every intention of marrying you.’

Her heart took a bound, and her eyes searched the strong features. But she resisted the more.

‘You cannot! I will not let you sacrifice yourself!’

Julius moved swiftly. Before Prue knew what he would be at, he had come around the desk, and caught her up from the chair, grasping her strongly. There was fire in his gaze.

‘You goose, Prue! Sacrifice? I wish for nothing better!’

Her pulses were rioting, but she held fast to the obstinate certainty in her head. She was unaware that her
hands crept up to his chest, unaware that she used his given name.

‘It is not possible, Julius. You are saying it only to relieve my guilt. Oh, I know that I dreamed—and perhaps some of it was real—but you
could
not want me. I have known it all along.’

Julius tried to draw her closer. ‘Then you have been wonderfully mistaken all along!’

To his chagrin, she held him off. But those impossible eyes had that pitiable look, and his heart melted.

‘If you will look at me in that fashion, my darling goose, you will induce me to kiss you.’

The endearment was almost too much to bear. As he moved his head to suit the action to the words, Prue quickly put her hand up to his mouth.

‘Don’t!’

Julius caught her fingers instead to his lips and held them there. Her bones jellied as she felt the warmth and softness of his kiss upon her skin. His gaze was altogether too close, and infinitely tender.

‘My sweet Prue, how can I convince you?’

Her eyes pricked, and only half knowing what she did, Prue curled her fingers about his hand. A little more, and he would induce her to abandon her determination. It must not be! Urgency engulfed her, and she pulled away from him, breaking the contact.

‘Pray don’t try, Julius. You see, I know that you care for me—I had realised it a little while since.’

There was a catch in her breath, and a simple air of sincerity that gave Julius pause. A chill of apprehension seized him.

‘But?’ he prompted.

Prue nodded. ‘Yes, there is a but.’

A sad little smile wavered on her lips and pain entered his heart. ‘Go on.’

‘You did not care enough, Julius. I was forced to know it, or you would have taken the opportunity—it offered more than once!—to ask me before. Only now, when your hand is forced, you feel obliged to it.’ Her eyes filled. ‘I had rather bear to live without you than to marry you upon those terms!’

His heart twisted. Julius pulled her gently into his arms. He felt her resist for a moment, and then sink helplessly against him. Julius cradled her, touched by the valiant stifling of her sobs.

How little had he thought upon her lowly opinion of her own worth! His hand played up and down her back, stroking her into quiet. He made up his mind. Nothing would serve him now but truth.

The comfort of his embrace was both balm and agony for Prue. She had said it all—more than she had penned in the letter. He had forced it out of her. She clung to him, as if she knew it to be her last moment in the haven of his arms.

Julius did indeed release her, but only that he might instead fold her hands within his own. She gazed up into his face and found a rueful gleam in his eyes.

‘My darling girl, you don’t understand at all. Yes, I did hesitate, that I admit. But it was not for lack of feeling. I have loved you—I don’t know for how long!—only I thought I loved my untrammelled life the more.’

Prue blinked dazedly. ‘I don’t understand you.’

‘That’s what I said,’ he retorted, releasing her hands and tugging instead at the ribbons of her bonnet. ‘I wish you had known my mother. She would have told you how selfish I am, just like my father. Here I have
carved out an existence in which I have no one to please but myself. I believed—or tried to!—that nothing must be allowed to change that.’

A faint stirring of hope had risen in Prue’s bosom. She paid no attention to the removal of her bonnet, and no more than glanced at it as he threw it aside upon the desk. Her attention wholly concentrated on his words, she searched for ways to refute them, in the unacknowledged desire that he should overbear her protests.

‘You are making this up.’

A smile touched his mouth. ‘I only wish I was, for it scarcely redounds to my credit.’

‘It is another ploy to try to disabuse me.’

Julius laughed, and his finger reached out to stroke her cheek. ‘I would I might disabuse you! But I cannot. For what you perceived was precisely what I was attempting to prove in myself. That I did not care enough.’

He saw her lip tremble, and into the grey eyes crept that vulnerable look of uncertainty. His heart filled to bursting. Just so had he early been made captive, on that very first day. His fingers quivered as he reached out, clasping her face between his hands.

‘Only I had not bargained for the way a hopelessly sentimental female had inveigled herself into my very soul, so that I can no longer call it my own. And, God help me, I don’t even wish to!’

Prue read the truth in his eyes. They blurred in her vision, and a sigh of pure happiness rolled out of her, along with the tears. She felt his fingers at her cheek, brushing them away. Next instant, his lips were against her own—a delicious warmth that sprang remembrance in her mind.

‘Oh, Julius,’ she murmured breathily, and felt herself caught up into that same crushing embrace that filled her sudden memory. No dream this! Her heart soared.

She felt herself released a little, but desire hungered at her mouth in a kiss so explosive that Prue became wholly lost in sensation. By the time she was at last permitted to come up for air, her head was swimming.

‘Oh, dear,’ she uttered breathily.

The hawk features glared down at her. ‘Is that all you can find to say?’

Something between a gurgle of laughter and a gasp escaped her. ‘What do you expect me to say?’

Julius felt her sagging, and held her closer. But he maintained the steely look, his nose jutting dangerously.

‘A declaration of love would be a start! Followed, perhaps, by an endearment to indicate how much my sentiments are reciprocated.’

Prue wound her arms about his neck. ‘But you know I reciprocate them.’

‘Knowing and hearing are two different things. I warn you now that I shall expect frequent assurances—both verbal and otherwise.’

She gazed up at him in a trifle of uncertainty. But that telltale quirk came at his lips and Prue let out a sigh of relief. ‘I was afraid you truly meant it.’

His most enigmatic look appeared. ‘I most assuredly do mean it. Last night, let me remind you, I had no need to request it.’ One of his supporting arms left her, and his fingers caught at her face, lifting her chin. ‘Well?’

It was softly uttered, and Prue’s unruly pulses skittered into life again—in anticipation of his kiss, and faintly apprehensive.

‘What was it I said last night?’

Julius could not forbear a smile. ‘Oh, no. You do not get out of it so easily, my Prue. You must start anew.’

‘But I don’t know what to say!’

He leaned down and brushed her lips with his. ‘Say what you feel.’

The touch of his mouth upon hers caused such a flutter within her that Prue could not bear him to withhold the kiss any longer.

‘I had rather show you,’ she breathed, and drew him down again.

The tender yielding of her mouth to his shot Julius through with renewed passion, and the tease he had begun went right out of his head. When at length he commanded himself to call a halt, he could scarce contain his elation at the spontaneous declaration that whispered from her lips.

‘I do love you, Julius—quite desperately!’

Prue found herself rewarded with yet another kiss, so full of passionate need that she could barely stand. Presently, she was seated side by side with Julius in one of the window seats, his arm firmly about her. Folly, discovering that his chosen companion had sensibly placed herself in a suitable position to provide him with comfortable accommodation, promptly jumped into her lap.

‘I might have known your wretched beast would spoil the romance of the occasion!’ complained Julius.

‘Poor Folly.’ Prue stroked him as he curled up in his customary fashion and began to purr. ‘He has become used to having me to himself.’

‘Indeed? That will soon be remedied.’

‘Oh, pray, Julius, don’t say I must let the twins take
him, for I could not bear it! I am excessively fond of them, but—’ She broke off, struck by a sudden thought. ‘Julius, I shall be their aunt! Will they mind?’

‘On the contrary, they will be delighted. Indeed, it would not much surprise me if they attempt to beg off any further scold by claiming that our union is solely due to their tricks.’

‘Well, in a way it is,’ argued Prue, petting the kitten. ‘And perhaps they will not mind leaving Folly with me.’ She turned anxious eyes upon him. ‘As long as you don’t mind it?’

But Julius was fingering the grey stuff of her Seminary uniform. ‘What I do mind is this hideous garment foisted upon you by your Duck. I wish you will remove it.’

‘What, now?’ gasped Prue, shocked.

‘Goose! I meant later. And I give you fair warning that I shall throw the thing on the fire!’

Prue gurgled. ‘That is excessively improvident of you, Mr Rookham. I am sure there must be some deserving creature who would be glad of it.’