Tarleton's Wife (25 page)

Though Julia’s clenched hands were noticeably white at the knuckles, she responded in a tone as precisely controlled as his own. “As I told you in my letter, you did not intend to marry me. You agreed to be my guardian, nothing more.” Her voice trailed away as a new thought occurred. “You’ve been told about the card game?” Julia inquired. In spite of the blazing warmth of the fire, a shiver swept through her.

“I’ve had the gist of it from Daniel but not the details.” Nicholas waited, the air between them bristling with expectation. A hint of sarcasm. A not-so-hidden skepticism.

She would recite nothing but the facts, Julia decided. Nicholas could believe them or not, as he chose. It was not right that a man—men—could have such control of a woman’s life. But for now…she would give him the truth in a manner as detached as his own.

By ruthless control of her emotions, Julia reduced high drama to a dry recitation of foreshortened facts. “They let you win,” she ended. “Father and Miles Bannister. At first they were playing to shut Colonel Sedgwick out of the game. After that…after that you were the only choice left, were you not? I believe Miles Bannister was playing for the sport of it, for the challenge. He relished the role of the spoiler. Certainly, he had no desire for such a useless appendage as a maiden of good family.” For a moment Julia was unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “You didn’t want me either, of course but were far too noble to shirk the responsibility.”

Her voice dropped but not so low Nicholas could not hear. “I have sometimes wondered if Father did not plan the whole thing. I’m sorry but there’s the truth of it. You can see why it is clearly impossible for me to remain an obstacle to your happiness. I shall manage very well, I assure you. You may arrange the annulment as quickly as possible and I’ll not trouble you again.”

Seemingly oblivious to her magnanimity, Nicholas stared at his wife in disbelief. “How could
you
, Julia, of all people, allow yourself to be sold?”

She hung her head, steepling her hands before her face. “You would not have recognized me that night, Nicholas. I did not recognize myself. You recall the march through the mountains? I suppose I’d simply reached the limit of my endurance. For weeks we’d lived a nightmare and just as we seemed to be safe, Father announces that he is going to die the next day. There’s enough of the Irish in me that I believed him. All through those terrible days with the French on our heels, I did everything that was expected of me. I endured but it took all the strength I had. I had nothing left to fight with.”

“Did you
expect
me to rescue you?”

With her eyes fixed on the black leather half boots that peeked out from under her gown, Julia seemed not to have heard him. “I have often thought you liked me better that night than you ever had before,” she mused. “I was soft and helpless and so very much in need of a knight errant.”

“
Did you expect me to rescue you?
” The words were slow and clear. Inexorable. Demanding an answer.

One glaring omission about that night was all the evasion Julia could manage. This question she would have to answer with the complete truth. “I asked Lieutenant Dunstan to get you. I hoped you’d put a stop to it…shame them into quitting. I never thought you would join the game.”

“A-ah.” Nicholas laid his head against the tall back of the chair and closed his eyes. After a lengthy silence he shuffled the papers until he found their marriage lines, duly signed by chaplain Randolph Wedderburn and what appeared to be most of those present in the field hospital during those last few hours in La Coruña. Daniel Runyon had warned him about the multitude of signatures but the actuality was astonishing. How was it possible so many people witnessed this major event in his life and he had absolutely no recollection of it? There were no swirling mists, shadowy shapes, or brief flashes of past events. Nothing but a black void which he would never penetrate.

Except, perhaps, in his dreams.

“If you were already protected by my will,” Nicholas asked, “why then did we marry?”

Julia had been expected the question. She was prepared. Nonetheless, it hit her with nauseating impact. She must…she
would
stay in control. Nicholas must never know about that night…about their one glorious, desperate night of love.

“You must have had a better inkling of Ebadiah Woodworthy’s character than you admitted,” she stated. “You thought you were dying—we all did—and you wished to be absolutely certain I would be protected. It was the kind of noble gesture we had all come to expect from you.” If Nicholas detected a hint of irony, he did not acknowledge it.

“When did I give you the will?” he inquired, sounding only mildly interested in her reply.

Julia’s throat constricted, her hands turned ice cold in spite of the brisk fire. “The next morning—before you left for the battle,” she whispered.

The loss of two days in La Coruña had not obliterated a welter of memories from the many months before. Nicholas knew Julia very well and something was not right. She was lying to him and he could not even begin to imagine why.

“I’m going out,” Nicholas announced abruptly, rising to his feet. The room was too cozy. Too warm. Too…familiar. He needed to run, far and fast. To some place where the delicate image of his lovely Violante was not obliterated by the overwhelming presence, the statuesque regality, of the woman who was his wife.

“In the morning we will order clothes for you,” Nicholas announced. After a curt nod, he strode across the room toward his bedchamber, intending to change into evening clothes.

Julia’s voice stopped him before he reached the door. “You can’t buy me clothes. We’re getting an annulment.”

Nicholas eyed her brand-new silver-gray kerseymere with disdain. “I imagine what you are wearing is the best you have and I’ve seen what you left behind. It’s certain no one could accuse you of spending my money on clothing. And, besides, if I must go about with a woman wearing sackcloth and ashes, I might feel obliged to be deceased and that would never do at all. You’ll not wear mourning for a husband who is walking by your side!”

Nicholas pointed to a door on the opposite side of the room from his own bedchamber. “That room is yours and I warn you I’m leaving Daniel here to see you stay in it. We’ll breakfast at ten. Goodnight.” With an air of command Julia found insufferable, Nicholas crossed his arms, outwaiting her glare. When she finally stalked across the room and opened the door he had indicated, every movement of her statuesque body screamed indignation. The door closed slowly, with exaggerated care, as if to demonstrate she could, she really could, control her temper.

Noble was he? Nicholas mocked. Not bloody likely. Why then had he done it? Why had he tied himself to a woman whose looks were not to his taste, whose independence irked the hell out of him? Yet…he was now beginning to find the situation intriguing. A challenge. He should, of course, accept Julia’s offer of annulment and run like the devil was after him, straight back to his enchanting Violante.

Nicholas slammed his door with a satisfying reverberation. Twenty minutes later, he strode out into the London night.

* * * * *

After yet another fruitless search through London clubs frequented by military officers, Nicholas stumbled into bed at dawn. Which did not prevent him from being fully dressed and calmly reading the newspaper when his wife appeared for breakfast. After minimal conversation, they set out for a modiste highly recommended by the Clarendon’s concierge. Julia maintained a stoic stance while she was measured, draped and pinned but her independent spirit was sorely tried as Nicholas and the modiste carried on a colloquy on color, style and fabric quite as if she were deaf, dumb and blind.

She came even closer to rebellion when Nicholas, having finally grown bored, instructed Madame Solange to choose all necessary undergarments, hats, shoes, gloves and anything else Mrs. Tarleton might need. The outfits were to be delivered as soon as they were complete. The major also chose, quite arbitrarily, a walking dress of soft wool the color of amber and a gown of turquoise silk to be delivered to the Clarendon before six that evening. Julia clamped her teeth over protests of Nicholas’ high-handed ordering of her wardrobe. Truth to tell, he was spending a small fortune and it behooved her to be grateful.

A kaleidoscope of enchanting colors danced through her head. A riding habit of dark blue merino with red velvet piping— “A far cry from that old thing you wore on the trail,” Nicholas had told her. Day gowns in russet and sky blue and forest green. There were evening gowns in glorious rainbow shades, carriage dresses, walking dresses, a muff of magnificent red fox. She’d protested that extravagance but was again ignored.

Julia’s conscience troubled her sorely. It wasn’t right. Then again, Nicholas was a wealthy man, far wealthier than she had known when she married him. Perhaps these extravagant gifts eased his conscience. She should consider them an annulment settlement. More like, a blatant bribe. She sighed. Wearing mourning for a man as hale and hearty as Nicholas was indeed absurd. She would welcome color back into her life.

When Julia sat down to dinner that evening, wearing her mother’s pearls with the turquoise silk gown, she was defiantly pleased to note that Nicholas’ gaze lingered longer on the white expanse of her décolletage than on the gown itself. It was only fair, after all. She was bought and paid for. He had a right to look. Of course, if she had an ounce of integrity, she would throw it all in his face, even if she had to strip to the skin to do it!

A blush clashed with the turquoise of the gown. Julia choked on the scathing words pride demanded she utter. No matter how autocratic and overbearing—so like his father!—Nicholas had done her a kindness. He did not need to buy her clothes merely to hide her away in some obscure cottage until the annulment was granted.

No. She was mistaken. Nicholas demanded nobility of himself. It wasn’t kindness or conscience so much as
noblesse oblige
.
His
pride demanded he be kind to her.

Another faint hope cast down.

Conversation over dinner was polite, undemanding. Julia knew she should bring up the subject of where she was to live but it was so much easier to let it all slide. To eat, mouthing innocuous nothings. To bid Nicholas a quiet farewell, as once again he left the hotel to make the rounds of London’s clubs and gaming hells.

Alone at last, Julia succumbed to shame. She was a coward, shying away from precipitating a quarrel. Allowing herself to bask in the glow of Nicholas’ presence. Absorbing memories to take with her into a future so bleak she refused to think of it. Beneath her cool facade she was a quivering blancmange waiting—no, eager!—to melt at the slightest indication of her husband’s interest.

Examining her decolletage did not qualify as interest, she told herself sternly. It simply indicated Nicholas was a male of the species. It was not personal. No. Definitely not personal.

In the depths of mourning Julia Tarleton had remained dry-eyed, her grief beyond tears. That night, cruelly taunted by a glimpse of what might have been, she cried, alone and nearly soundless, for all the days and nights that had never been. And never would be.

* * * * *

The city of London glistened under a chill fall rain. The sound of carriage wheels squishing against the puddled cobbles was punctuated by the staccato beat of hooves, the snap of an occasional whip, an echoing halloo for a hackney. Heedless of the misting rain, Nicholas paused outside the Clarendon and breathed in the air of the city. Grime and dust should be tickling his nose, the enticing odors of cooking food unable to blot out the underlying stench of fetid garbage, raw sewage, manure, chimney smoke and rank humanity. But the rain had washed it clean, only a drift of smoke lingered in the air above the darkened streets. The lamplighter had long since passed by, leaving a trail of soft beacons to illuminate the way. Nicholas half raised a hand for a passing hackney but instead settled his top hat more firmly on his head, pulled his cloak more tightly about his broad shoulders. He would walk. He needed time to think. And cool off.

Lord but the girl was a witch. Had her figure always been so…so ample? Her eyes so blue? So filled with determined pride? So shadowed by hurt when she thought he wasn’t looking?

Passersby sneaked glances at the stalwart gentleman who strode past them swearing under his breath with all the fluency of a cavalry trooper. Nicholas never noticed the beckoning smiles, the outstretched hands of the women lingering in doorways or standing in the meager shelter of nearly leafless trees. Fleetingly, he pictured Julia in all her glittering new finery. But each time, the statuesque, fashionably dressed beauty dissolved into a ragged girl struggling up a snowy mountain pass. To the woman at The Willows whose expression of absolute joy and love turned to shock, pain and utter defeat upon her introduction to Violante Vila Santiago. That look would go with him to the grave. Nothing could ever erase it. A suite at the Clarendon, a new wardrobe, a settlement which would keep Julia in comfort for the rest of her life amounted to mere conscience money. Nothing he could do would ever be enough.

Women were the very devil, wrecking havoc on the men around them. Time for a bit of sanity. Time to immerse himself in the world of men.

Each night since coming to London Nicholas had made the same rounds, though seldom in the same order. He traversed every club in which military gentlemen might be found, from the hallowed halls of White’s and Watier’s to gaming hells he had not frequented since his earliest days in the army. He now found it embarrassing to admit he had been nearly as foolish and full of himself as every other young man who thought he was master of all he surveyed.