Scandal of the Year (18 page)

Suddenly, it was all too overwhelming to bear, and she tore her lips from his. Panting, she stared up at him in shock, for she’d never felt this when she’d kissed him that day in Cornwall. She’d been too driven, too focused on her goal, too detached. But now, she felt vibrant, alive, raw, and afraid. So terribly afraid.

She shook her head, trying to deny what had just happened, but there was no possibility of denial. She strove to think, but she couldn’t form coherent thought. She wanted to hide, but there was no refuge. Suddenly, his arms around her felt like chains, binding her to him, and all her deepest fears came roaring up, like the snarl of a cornered, wounded animal.

“I don’t want this!” she cried, hardly knowing what she was saying, her palms flattening against his chest to push him away, her body twisting out of his embrace. “I don’t want it, damn you!”

Overwhelmed, she did the only thing she could. She bolted.

Whirling around, pulling folds of her gown up in her fists, she ran out of the maze, guided only by the vaguest memory of how she’d come in, her panic growing with each wrong turn, until at last, her heart racing and her breath coming in shuddering gasps, she found the exit. Free, she raced like a mad thing across a wide expanse of lawn to seek refuge in the woods beyond, and she ignored the sound of Aidan’s voice calling her name.

Aidan didn’t go after her. He might not have Julia’s exceptional perception when it came to people, but in this case, he didn’t need it. Her face and her body had told him everything a man needed to know.

He shut his eyes, envisioning her in that split second before she’d turned and fled. Her eyes, silvery gray in the moonlight, wide with shock. Her lips, puffy from his kiss. Her cheeks flushed, and her breasts heaving from her uneven breathing. Her hands, shaking, as she’d grasped folds of her skirt. She’d been stunned by that kiss, and confused, and unmistakably aroused, giving him the confirmation he’d been seeking. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

But he also recognized fear when he saw it, and that was something he didn’t understand at all.

That kiss had terrified her.

Aidan opened his eyes, confounded. What on earth was she afraid of? Him? Surely not, or she never would have come tonight. Kissing? Not that, either, for she’d kissed him plenty of times that afternoon in Cornwall, and there had been no sign of fear in her then. Still, he had no intention of running after her, asking questions and seeking explanations. That would only agitate her more, and he doubted she would answer him anyway.

Still, he now had the answer to one question, but though it was a gratifying answer to be sure, he feared it was only drawing him into a deeper mystery, the mystery of Julia’s soul. And that, he reflected, thinking of her frightened face, was a place she did not want him to go.

A whine brought him out of his reverie and he turned to find Spike sitting by the carved granite rook where he’d been leashed. The bulldog was looking at him, head cocked to one side in a quizzical fashion, as if trying to understand what had just taken place.

“I know how you feel, old chap,” Aidan said with a sigh. “I don’t really understand, either. But we are talking about Julia, so that’s no surprise.”

Chapter Fifteen

Gwithian, Cornwall
1903

D
ovecotes, the Cornish cottage Julia had inherited from her grandmother, was a small, square, stone farmhouse north of St. Ives. Tucked into the isolated eastern side of a little promontory above the beaches at Gwithian, Dovecotes had a pretty little beach of its own, a few caves, a few acres of empty, overgrown pasture, and a sadly neglected garden of herbs, roses, and, of course, a dovecote. It was Julia’s favorite haven, the place to which she often escaped when Yardley didn’t feel inclined to chase after her.

But in the summer of 1903, Yardley was always chasing after her. The work to stay one step ahead of him was becoming exhausting, and she was running out of time. For most of August, she’d been hiding at Pixy Cove, Lord Marlowe’s villa at Torquay, but when she received her husband’s final ultimatum, a letter informing her that he was in Torquay and would call the following afternoon to fetch her and take her home to Yardley Grange, she knew she couldn’t hide any longer. Yardley’s letter assured her that he had the proper legal decree granting constables the authority to drag her from Marlowe’s villa, or any other residence to which she decided to flee, by force.

Julia, who didn’t give a damn about legal decrees, had promptly put petrol in the Mercedes and fled to Cornwall. If she was to be dragged anywhere by constables, it wasn’t going to be done in front of her family and friends, who would have to stand by helpless, unable to come to her aid.

Spike and a small valise were the only things she’d brought with her, for she hadn’t wanted to linger long enough to pack her things. Giselle, along with her husband, Pierre, were packing up the rest of her belongings and following her by train.

She didn’t mind making the journey alone. She was used to this sort of thing, and she knew that on this long stretch of Cornish road, with only Spike for company, she would have time to think. The problem was, six hours later, she was nearly to Dovecotes, and she had no solution to her problem.

What was she going to do? Even before her husband had laid down his ultimatum two summers earlier that she was to come home to Yardley Grange for good, be a proper wife, and give him a son, Julia had been determined to free herself from her marriage, but she’d never been able to gain a way out.

Yardley had given her no grounds for divorce, according to the various legal minds she had consulted on the subject.

Nor would any adultery on his part be considered proper grounds. Divorcing one’s spouse for adultery alone was a privilege reserved for men. Women had to charge adultery with some other pertinent offense, such as desertion or impotence. And since the letters from his attorneys demonstrated that Yardley was willing to take up residence with her again, desertion as a secondary cause was not possible, nor was impotence. Yardley had at least four bastard children that she knew of.

No, she’d been over this a thousand times, and she knew there were only two ways to be free of her husband. Murder was one, and though by the summer of 1903, Julia’s numbed soul ought to have become hardened enough for homicide, she couldn’t ever quite bring herself to contemplate that course, partly because of conscience, and partly because being locked in prison until she died was hardly the sort of freedom she was looking for. Making Yardley divorce her was the only option she had.

Yardley, however, wasn’t cooperating with that plan. She’d staged a few affairs over the years, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to actually have one. She’d flirted with the idea two years earlier when she’d seen Aidan at the St. Ives Ball, but with that exception the thought of having a man touch her in a sexual way had the unfortunate tendency to make her physically sick. And none of her staged affairs had ever been convincing enough to inspire her husband to a divorce suit.

As she drove the road to St. Ives, Julia couldn’t help remembering the last time she’d been here, when a means of escape had danced before her eyes. But then Aidan had met Trix, and she had stepped aside, fleeing to Biarritz. It was from there that she’d received Trix’s letter announcing their engagement. But now, two years later, Trix was married, not to Aidan, but to Will, her childhood sweetheart, the Duke of Sunderland, and Julia’s sacrifice had been for naught.

It wasn’t Trix’s fault. She’d always loved Will, probably from the day she’d first laid eyes on him, and she was ecstatically happy digging up relics with him in the Egyptian desert. Her world was opening up to include all sorts of new experiences and adventures. Julia’s life, on the other hand, was narrowing, thinning down with each option that was taken away.

She tried to look on the bright side. At least she was going home. The Mercedes sped through the Cornish countryside amid green pastures and hedgerows, and the salty tang of the sea was in her nostrils. She smiled, breathing deep. No matter what tragedies befell her, the smell of the sea could always lift her spirits.

Spike was happy, too, she noted, glancing sideways at the bulldog. He loved riding in the motorcar. He sat in the passenger seat, his square head lifted into the wind that rushed past his wrinkled face and flapped his heavy jowls, an expression of canine ecstasy on his face.

Julia returned her attention to the road ahead, and her smile faded, for she was nearly home, and she had no idea what she was going to do after that. She downshifted, slowing the vehicle, and turned onto the rutted lane that led to Dovecotes. At the end of the lane, she guided the motorcar into the narrow drive, came to a stop in front of the seventeenth-century farmhouse, and set the brake. She hopped down, circled to the back of the Mercedes, and pulled her small valise from the open boot. Whistling for Spike, she walked to the front door and unlocked it, and the bulldog she’d acquired two years ago jumped down from the vehicle and followed her into the house.

Blinking at the dim interior after the bright sunshine outside, she set down her valise by the stairs. Almost two years to the day since she’d been here with Trix. What a grand time they’d had that summer.

Julia stood in the foyer for several minutes, looking around. Against the far wall of her tiny parlor, swathed in white sheeting, was her grandmother’s pianoforte, and she thought of how she and Trix had sat here with the windows open to the summer breeze, drinking champagne and playing comic songs. Just as when they were children, they’d toasted bread and cheese over the fire and walked barefoot on the small stretch of beach down below, explored the tide pools and taken midnight swims, and it was the freest, most glorious time she’d had since she was a girl.

Julia swallowed past the lump in her throat. There was no point in standing here mooning about the times when she’d been happy. She had to think, to plan, to decide what to do. But first things first. Spike at her heels, she walked through the tiny foyer past the parlor and dining room, making for the kitchen at the back, where she took stock of what supplies she needed for the larder. Tea, of course, milk, sugar, bread, butter, perhaps a few eggs, and some fish paste for sandwiches. She didn’t need much, she knew, for she wouldn’t be staying long.

Yardley would arrive at Marlowe’s villa tomorrow and discover she’d fled. No one at Pixy Cove would tell him where she’d gone, but he would simply have to go into Torquay and make a few inquiries. He would learn she had filled the Mercedes with petrol—for motorcars and their need for fuel were not a commonplace thing in the West Country, even in the seaside resort of Torquay. He would also discover that Giselle and Pierre had taken the early train to St. Ives, which meant they were following her to Dovecotes. He would follow on the first train he could, the afternoon one that would bring him to her doorstep about five o’clock tomorrow evening. Julia, pulling her little pocket watch from her skirt pocket, saw that she had thirty hours left. If she didn’t come up with a plan before then, she would have to catch a ship for the Continent out of St. Ives or Plymouth, as she had done so many times before, but really, what was the point?

She didn’t want to run anymore. She just wanted to come home. Once Yardley had her imprisoned at Yardley Grange, it wasn’t likely she’d ever be able to return here. Wasn’t that why she’d come? Wasn’t that why she really hadn’t bothered to cover her tracks this time? Because she knew it was over, and she’d wanted to see her beloved home one last time before the end.

She didn’t know what the end was, precisely, but she felt it coming. She could sense it, like a change in the air just before a thunderstorm. On the one hand, she didn’t think she could bear what she knew Yardley had in store, and yet, on the other, she was so tired of trying to stop the inevitable. So, so tired.

She walked to the window and looked out at the rocky cliffs that jutted out into the sea. She could escape that way. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and she turned away from the window.
Maybe tomorrow
, she thought, not without a touch of humor. She was such a terrible procrastinator.

Leaving Spike at the house, she once again jumped into the Mercedes, but she drove only the few miles around St. Ives Bay, where she stopped at the grocer and bought tea, sugar, a pot of jam, and a pot of fish paste. She would stop by the dairy at Gwithian for milk, butter, and eggs, she decided as she placed her purchases in the boot of the Mercedes. She then circled to the front of the vehicle and cranked the engine, but before she could drive away, she spied a tall, wide-shouldered, and very familiar figure coming out of Grammercy’s Bookshop across the street.

One hand on the steering wheel, one foot on the running board, Julia froze, giving a gasp of surprise. Was it really him? She stared, watching as he caught sight of her and stopped, seeming as astonished to see her as she was to see him.

The last time they’d met had been last year at Pixy Cove, when they’d both seen Sunderland haul Trix into his arms and lay an absolutely ripping kiss on her. As Trix’s fiancé, Aidan probably wouldn’t have deemed it ripping, but Julia wondered if he’d really been all that surprised by it. She herself had been able to perceive within a day of her arrival at Pixy Cove that Trix’s feelings for Will were anything but gone, even though her wedding to Aidan had been a mere six weeks away.

Julia studied his face across the street that separated them. He didn’t look happy to see her, but she couldn’t really blame him. She’d been rather awful to him at Marlowe’s house party, playing ragtime when she knew he hated it, teasing him mercilessly, and wondering how long his manners would hold out before he told her to sod off. She had no excuse, except that she’d been aggravated to know her selfless sacrifice at the St. Ives Ball seemed to have gone utterly to waste. Of course, there was also the fact that she’d always found chaffing Aidan deuced good sport.

But no matter how she’d teased him during that house party, he hadn’t ever been anything but polite to her, and perhaps it was time she made amends. Odd, she reflected, how when one’s day of judgment loomed, one began to feel contrite about one’s past sins.

Still, a girl couldn’t change her entire character because of one newfound resolution to be good, and when he glanced away, clearly uncomfortable, she couldn’t resist being a bit—just a bit—of a tease. When he looked at her again, she flashed him a grin and waved. “How now, my prince has come!” she called across the street. “Hail, sweet prince.”

He smiled, trying not to by pressing his lips together. He looked away again, and she thought perhaps he was seeking a means of escape. But then she realized he was only looking away to verify there was no traffic coming up the street before he crossed to her side.

“Baroness,” he said with a bow as she hopped off the Mercedes’ running board to land in front of him on the sidewalk. “Have you come to St. Ives for the summer?”

“No, winter,” she answered at once.

Her unerring tendency to tease him over obvious statements made his pressed smile widen a little. “You’re early,” he pointed out.

She laughed. “So I am. Are you staying at Trathen Leagh?”

He nodded at the mention of his Cornish estate twelve miles down the coast, but then he tilted his head to one side, studying her. “You look tired, Baroness,” he said unexpectedly. “Are you all right?”

“Of course,” she said at once. “I’m right as rain.”

“Why are you not at Torquay for August? I thought you would be.”

“You did? Why, Aidan, I’m touched to know you’ve been thinking of me.”

He shifted his weight a bit, embarrassed at having been caught doing such a thing, and she relented. “I was at Torquay, actually,” she said, “but I decided to come home for a bit.”

“Home?” His brows drew together quizzically. “I didn’t know Yardley had property here.”

“He doesn’t. I mean my home. I own a cottage above Gwithian.”

“Ah. I didn’t know that. By the lighthouse?”

She shook her head. “The other side. It’s called Dovecotes.”

He frowned as if trying to place it. “I can’t seem to recall an estate of that name.”

“Estate?” She laughed at such a grand description. “Heavens, Dovecotes isn’t an estate, by any means! It’s just a little farmhouse, quite isolated, very spartan, but I do adore it. It’s at the end of the Churchdown Road, although you can’t see it from there. You have to turn down the lane to the sea at the point the road ends in order to find it. It’s on the promontory there.”

“So it has a sea view?”

“One of the best on the coast. And,” she added proudly, “there’s a pretty little cove below it, with a nice scrap of beach and some caves. But since you’re a duke, it wouldn’t seem like much to you. You’re used to much grander places, I daresay.”