Tarleton's Wife (17 page)

Her elbows planted firmly on the wooden table, Julia sunk her head in her hands. “You are impossible,” she declared.

“There you sit,” Jack taunted, “the black-clad witch among her magic potions, worrying about me when you should be looking to yourself. You’ve a birthday in two months time. You should be hiring a solicitor to demand your rights from Woodworthy, to protect yourself from Oliver—who, if he cannot force you into marriage, will probably kill you.”

Julia’s eyes flew to his face, to find Jack staring straight back at her. “You cannot believe that,” she asserted.

“Cain and Abel,” said Jack cryptically. “I suspect Oliver Tarleton is capable of almost anything.”

“I cannot deny I despise him,” Julia admitted. “To have him fawning over me after the rudeness of his initial visit is beyond belief.”

“You are his sole chance to win back his inheritance.”

“He is a greedy, narrow-minded popinjay but I do not think him a murderer.”

“Humor me in this,” Jack demanded sternly.

With a small sigh of acquiescence, Julia murmured her agreement. Head down, she fingered the folds of her well-worn black muslin. “I suppose you would think me less witch-like if I put off my blacks—Sophy has been after me to do so—but it’s as if it were a final admission that Nicholas is really gone.”

“Nonsensical, my Jule,” Jack countered with maddening logic. “To wear black because you wish to show you do
not
believe him dead.”

Forgetting the constant caution she exercised with Jack, Julia impulsively reached out and clasped his hand. “I am a trial to you, I know but I never could have managed without you.”

“As for myself,” Jack retorted, “without you I’d sleep far better at night.” His large hand curled around her wrist, hauling her onto his lap in one smooth motion. “No!” he ordered, his lips poised a mere inch from hers. “Don’t wiggle, don’t pull away, don’t even frown. I’m no saint, Jule. I find my patience thin today and it’s time you paid the toll.”

He brushed a featherlight kiss over her lips, shocking them both with the intensity of an arousal all the more strong for having been kept in check for so long. Before Julia’s stunned mind could react, Jack’s lips returned, covering hers in an endless, mindless exploration. “Hell and damnation,” he muttered as he drew back at last.

Snatches of pungent barracks room language flew through Julia’s mind as well. It was all so wrong…but she needed him. Burying her head against Jack’s shoulder, she savored the comfort of a place to lay her burdens. The solidity of real arms, real lips, a very real man. Jack Harding was no phantom lover conjured by an overactive imagination. They had teetered on the brink of this encounter for months now, Julia acknowledged, their friendship no longer enough to satisfy their needs. And yet…to go farther along this route was unthinkable.

“I’m sorry,” Julia murmured without taking her face from the rough tweed of his jacket. “I’ve used you quite shamelessly. I’ve allowed myself to be another of Captain Hood’s charitable endeavors when I can give as little in return as the poorest of our workers.”

His arms tightened about her. A shudder passed through him. “It’s nearly two years, Jule. How long must I wait? ’Til Coruña is free of the French? ’Til all our soldiers come home? The requisite seven years?” With barely repressed violence Jack pushed her away to arm’s length. He seized her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. “Tell me
now
, Julia. Is there hope at all?”

Jack Harding. The rod of iron behind Willow Herbals. The deep well of local knowledge and solid strength that had sheltered her these many months. Another time, another place…a world without Nicholas Tarleton and she could so easily feel more than friendship. She owed Jack Harding something more than years of endless waiting.

Julia removed herself from Jack’s lap, sinking back into the old wooden chair. Giving him her answer without a spoken word. She drew a deep breath. “You are very dear to me, Jack. And no, I don’t intend to mourn Nicholas forever. But as long as there is a possibility he may be alive, I am his. Ours was a marriage of convenience but I loved him long before that. I don’t believe he knew it—I was unwilling to admit it myself—but that’s the truth of it.”

Julia held up her hand, palm out. “No, don’t say anything. I have been assured by Horse Guards that they will investigate as soon as La Coruña can be reached. The battles are still far to the south and not going too well, I fear.” Julia gave a heartfelt sigh. “My very special Jack, my constant friend, I have no right to ask for your patience but I am unable to say or do more until I am free. So I ask for your forgiveness instead.”

Grimly, Jack nodded. “A foolish fantasy, at best. I am an outlaw with a price on my head. A bastard and a rebel. Our only hope for a life together would be to leave everything we have and flee to America or the Colony of New South Wales and no man in his right mind would ask a woman to do so. To have contemplated anything else only shows how badly love has scrambled my mind.”

“The earl would never allow you to be taken up.”

“My dear father has issued broad hints he would pay dearly to see me settled elsewhere.”

Julia gasped. “Then he knows?”

“He strongly suspects. He does not wish to know. He is, after all, the local magistrate.”

“Dear God!” Julia breathed as the sound of light wheels and the clip clop of a single horse could be heard coming up the rutted drive.

“Dear Sophy,” said Jack. “You are most fortunate in the loyalty of your dragons. I shall leave you to your witches’ brews. And on the Sabbath yet!” When Sophy Upton came through the door, Jack’s cheerful greeting, combined with Julia’s stricken face, left Sophy shaking her head.

* * * * *

The Nightmare came but seldom, rearing its ghoulish images only in moments of abject discouragement when the vision of Willow Herbals seemed totally impossible. Or in times of black depression when Julia was all alone, passionately despising Nicholas Tarleton for deserting her.

The Dream was another matter entirely. It appeared with startling frequency, banishing the fearful remnants of The Nightmare and bringing a glow of excitement to her life. It was sinful, Julia was sure. Unnatural. Yet she had come to depend on her phantom Nicholas almost as much as the flesh and blood reality of Jack Harding.

The Nightmare was always the same. The Dream was not. At first, the harbinger of soothing safety and gentle caring, the dream images had metamorphosed with such subtlety she had barely noticed the changes. She simply embraced the gift that was being given and never sought to analyze its content. But now…

Julia lay in her solitary bed, her eyes tightly closed against the telltale breaking of dawn. This night she did not attempt to prolong the dream. She did not tighten her arms around Nicholas, determined to stay in his ephemeral embrace. Instead, she woke with a start, a hot blush suffusing her body. How
could
she have dreamed such a thing? It was quite, quite impossible.

When Meg brought her morning coffee, Julia sipped it slowly, eyeing her maid’s positively annoying morning cheerfulness with only a modicum of her usual tolerance. Meg, ever practical, had faced her widowhood, mourned and moved on with her life. She and Daniel had been married six months now. There was a light in Meg’s eyes, a lilt to her voice, a bounce to her step. Julia could only envy her. And wish she could be gifted with such pragmatism as well. It was twenty months since that fateful day in Spain. Why couldn’t she let go? Find peace. Meg was humming as she selected Julia’s wardrobe for the day. A sensible woman, Julia thought, with her feet firmly planted in reality. Meg would laugh and blow away the mists of her dream. Julia put aside her coffee cup and took a deep breath.

“I had The Dream again, Meg.”

Meg eyed her mistress’s untouched toast, the half-empty cup. “Aye, miss?” she said, carefully smoothing Julia’s chemise over a chair of blue brocade.

“I believe I’ve mentioned the dream changes, have I not?” Julia began with great care. “Well…this is very difficult for me, Meg—I know not how to say this!” Julia broke off, staring out across the brilliant array of gardens to the lake sparkling in the sun, the graceful droop of willows lining its shore. A backdrop of beauty to match the glow of love which had come back into her life. “The last few times Nicholas has come to me we have…done things I know nothing of.” Julia’s voice, never loud, fell to a whisper. “Things I could not possibly have imagined.”

Meg, ever pragmatic, seemed not to find this as strange as she should have. “What about with Mr. Jack, ma’am? Dreams do get confused like.”

“
With Jack!
” Startled out of her train of thought, Julia stared at Meg in horror. “You cannot think that Jack and I are lovers.”

Far from apologetic, Meg stood her ground. “And why should you not have a tot of ’appiness, I ask you. ’Tis only right you should have a bit of somethin’ for yourself. Always worritin’ about the farmers, the cottagers and those bleedin’ plants. If you kin git a bit of snuggle on the side, Dan’l and me thinks you should. Mr. Jack’s a good ’un, he is. And much good the major is to you now. No dream is going to protect you when you come of age. Or get you with child neither,” she added with grim satisfaction.

“Meg Runyon, that’s enough!”

Her jaw set in a determined line, the recalcitrant maid set about preparing a basin of sweetly scented warm water for Julia’s morning wash. “Meg?” Julia ventured softly. “I truly have no knowledge of some of the things I have done with Nicholas in my dreams. And with such clarity,” she clasped her hands tightly in her lap, ”such detail. I do not understand how I can know of these things.”

Meg relented. “’Tis a puzzlement, ma’am, that it is. There’s nothin’ about your dreams what seems like those of other folk. Have you thought you might have the
Sight?”

Julia sighed. “I fear it may be so. My grandmother had it and at the end my father showed a touch of it too. Though I’ve never heard of it bringing such…such
vivid
dreams. But perhaps…well…I suppose it is not the kind of tale one spreads about,” Julia admitted slowly. “’Tis not something discussed over tea.”

“To be sure, it don’t sound like it, missus.” Meg’s lips twitched. “Though it’s certain there be a goodly number of ladies who might like to have such a dream.”

Smiling to herself as she helped her mistress dress, Meg wondered if this might be the right moment to admit she was making a fourth attempt at bringing a child into the world. Awkward, it was, to have so much happiness when her mistress had none. And her so good to let herself and Dan’l be married. There was nothing for it. First broke, soonest mended.

So Meg told her. And tried hard not to notice the telltale sparkles of tears in Julia’s deep blue eyes.

* * * * *

A week later Julia sat at her desk in a room she had converted to a study, far from the estate office ruled by Louis Tyler. As she worked on the Willow Herbals account books, a smile of satisfaction playing over her lips, Peters announced an unexpected visitor. Although Julia and Ebadiah Woodworthy had exchanged a series of sharp notes on a regular basis over the past year and a half, the solicitor had never before called upon her at The Willows.

After an exchange of politely mannered greetings, Mr. Woodworthy plunged directly to the heart of the matter. “You are creating a scandal, Mrs. Tarleton. This herbal trade must cease immediately. I’ve been tolerant, overly tolerant of this matter.”

In truth, he had not been able to discover how she had financed her venture into trade, for the little minx surely had not had a penny from the estate.

“I have been indulgent of your little whim to help the cottagers.
Noblesse oblige
is, of course, expected from a woman in your position. And a few herbs to local shops could be tolerated. But you cannot, you simply cannot, go into trade on a massive scale. I assure you the major would be horrified. As are your neighbors. Surely you have remarked the whispers in church…”

“Mr. Woodworthy,” Julia interrupted the spate of words, “you may save your breath. I have done nothing more than encourage my people to grow and harvest herbs for sale to apothecaries and the finest ladies’ shops. You know how desperately the cottagers needed a new source of income. Raising herbs hardly constitutes a scandal and even if it did, I should not allow you to berate me for it.
I
assure
you
, Nicholas would always have a care for his people and would expect me to do what I could to help them.”

Inwardly, Julia experienced some qualms. She was, in truth, not at all certain what Nicholas would have thought of his wife going into trade. As she most certainly had.

“Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Oliver Tarleton,” Ebadiah Woodworthy continued with emphasis befitting royalty, “are quite displeased. They are concerned about devaluation of the estate and of their good name.”

“Ah,” said Julia, light dawning in her lovely blue eyes. “I should like to take this opportunity to assure you, Mr. Woodworthy, that the Tarletons,
père et fils
, have no interest whatsoever in this estate. You have, I know, received depositions from several of the witnesses to my wedding. There can be no doubt I am Nicholas Tarleton’s wife. Therefore, with the aid of a solicitor in Nottingham, I have written a will of my own which ensures that whether I gain control of this estate tomorrow or five years from now, it will never fall into the hands of Ramsey or Oliver Tarleton. And if Oliver thinks to marry me, he is fair and far out. In truth, every time he dares pay me a visit, I am infinitely thankful my anomalous position makes it impossible for me to marry anyone at all.”