Joan Wolf (11 page)

As soon as she realized what she was thinking, she was horrified. How could she possibly criticize the way of life here at Minton? Hadn’t she been wishing all month that a man like Lord Minton had been her father? She felt a pang of disloyalty to her own chosen ideal of perfection. To make up for her brief defection she smiled up at her fiancé with warm admiration. “How splendid of them, William,” she said softly.

“Julianne.” His voice was not ringing now, but rough and a trifle breathless. They were alone in the rose garden and he pulled her into his arms and kissed her more passionately than he had ever done before. She let her hand lightly caress his smooth brown hair and idly noticed the beauty of the roses. When he raised his head he was breathing as though he had been running, a fact she remarked with clinical detachment. “I wish we didn’t have to wait until November,” he said fiercely.

She smiled at him and gently patted his cheek. “I must do as Grandmama wishes, William. And I think she would wish that we go into the house now.” She slipped a hand through his arm and began to walk him toward the open French doors.

“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “I suppose she would.”

Shortly after this disturbing incident, during which her own thoughts had briefly turned traitor, Julianne encountered another aspect of life at Minton that ruffled her determined admiration. The entire house party became infected by the acting sickness.

It all started when George Foster, one of Lord Rutherford’s cousins, proposed that they get up a play for the benefit of their neighbors. As Julianne discovered, amateur theatricals were very popular with the English upper class. Some of the great houses even had their own theaters, with a ballroom and a supper room attached. Minton was not so spectacularly equipped, however, and he gallery would have to do as a makeshift playhouse.  But Lord Minton promised that he would ask the estate carpenter to build them a stage.

It seemed that nearly everyone in the house party had acted at one time or another. It was decided that the play would be given twice, once for the servants and tenants of the Minton estate, and once for the Quality of the neighborhood.

 After dinner one evening they all gathered in the library to choose a play and to assign parts. George Foster, who was twenty-three and enthusiastic, took charge. After a great deal of discussion, they narrowed the choice down to a comedy. In the end, it was George’s choice that prevailed. They would do
She Stoops to Conquer.

Julianne had attended the meeting out of courtesy. It had never occurred to her that she would be asked to take part in this project, and she was appalled to hear William’s cousin assigning her a role. “But I’ve never acted before!” she protested with alarm. “Surely you have a sufficient number of people without me!”

“Well, we don’t,” said George. “Not
young
ladies, at any rate. Don’t fuss, Julianne. You’ll be perfectly splendid. And you’ll be playing opposite William.” He smiled at her as if that must certainly take care of all her objections.

Julianne cast a hunted look around the room. It was true what George had said about the age of the ladies. She and William’s two cousins Anne and Maria were the only girls. And Maria had a stammer; Julianne could understand why she would not wish to act. That left only Julianne and Anne for the two heroines. Julianne compressed her lips

She did not want to take part in this play. It all seemed very silly to her. She had no desire to display herself on stage for all the world to gawk at. It was not that she did not enjoy the theater. She had adored the plays she had seen in London. But they had been acted by
professionals.
She looked up to find Lord Rutherford watching her. “If you don’t wish to act, certainly we will not force you,” he said to her in a low voice.

“Could you not find a play that required only
one
young lady?” she asked him in the same tone.

“It has just taken us forty minutes to choose a play that had only two,” he returned patiently, “Weren’t you attending?”

She had not been. She looked around the room to find a sea of hopeful eyes watching her and sighed. “Oh, very well. I suppose I can manage to get through it.”

“You’re a great gun, Julianne,” said the enthusiastic George. “Wait till you see how much fun you will have!”

Julianne doubted it, but she smiled pleasantly. “I’m sure you are right, George,” she said and Lord Rutherford gave her hand an approving squeeze.

The disturbance she felt over the play, however, was as nothing compared to the alarm that ran through her at the announcement so calmly made by the earl a little later in the evening. “We have a new neighbor in residence,” he said after he had accepted a cup of tea from his wife. He went to stand by the chimneypiece and everyone looked at him.

“Who is that, my lord?” asked Lady Minton placidly.

“Denham is at Lansdowne. The
new
Lord Denham, that is. I met him in town this morning and we had quite a pleasant conversation. Apparently, he found the property in sore need of repair.”

“Well, the Denhams never had a groat to bless themselves with,” said Frederick Foster, Lord Rutherford’s brother. “I understand this new man is some sort of a nabob, though.”

His father frowned disapprovingly. “There isn’t a better blood line in the country than the Champernouns. Denham is certainly not a nabob. His father was the old earl’s second son.”

“But he is rich,” put in Lord Rutherford.

“Yes.” The earl nodded. “And I was very glad to ascertain that. It would be a shame to see an ancient family property like Lansdowne fall into some
real
nabob’s hands.”

“It is so pleasant to have neighbors who are congenial to one,” said Lady Minton serenely.

Julianne had been standing like a frozen statue all during this conversation, but at Lady Minton’s words she had a wild desire to laugh out loud. The thought of John Champernoun as congenial to the Mintons! She cleared her throat. “I hadn’t realized that Lansdowne was in this neighborhood.”

“Oh yes,” said Frederick. “It is only a few miles to the east.”

“I see,” said Julianne quietly.

Lord Minton looked at her curiously. “Are you acquainted with the family, my dear?”

“I met Lord Denham out in Egypt.”

Her future father in law smiled at her. “He is an extraordinary man, is he not?”

Before Julianne could answer, Lord Henry Melburne, one of the uncles who was a member of the government, said, “He probably knows more about that part of the world than anyone else.  His knowledge could be a real asset to us.”

“Well, I invited him to come over to Minton for a few days. He seems a very pleasant fellow.”

“And is he coming?” The voice was Lord Rutherford’s.

“He said he would when he can get away from his estate agent,” Lord Minton returned with a smile.

“Speaking of repairs, Uncle Minton,” said George, “do you think we might have a curtain with the stage?” And the conversation drifted off to the all-absorbing topic of the play.

It had been a nasty shock to Julianne to hear that John Champernoun was living so close to Minton. It was even more alarming to discover that he was expected for a visit. For the next few days his expected presence hung over her, looming and menacing. Every minute of the day she was braced to hear his name announced.

As if in reaction to her uneasy, turbulent mood, the weather changed. The cloudless skies of the first week of August turned dark and threatening and rain fell intermittently. The rain did not dampen the spirits of the house party members, who were plunged into rehearsing their parts for the play, but it made Julianne even more restless.

She read through her part a few times, but even though the role of Kate was both witty and attractive, she could get up no enthusiasm for it. For the first time since she had been at Minton she began to feel confined, and late in the afternoon three days after Lord Minton had spoken about his invitation to the Earl of Denham, Julianne decided to escape from the eager thespians and go for a walk.

It was a dark and blowy day. The pleasant English garden did not suit her mood and she turned her steps eagerly toward the hilly downs. Julianne had always been an inspired walker and she had had little opportunity to do more than stroll around gardens and shrubberies since she came home from Africa. She felt so free and unrestricted out on the hills, with the wind whipping her hair loose from its stylish chignon, blowing her clothes and roaring in her ears. It was marvelous, she thought with exhiliration. She had not realized how cramped she was feeling until she had gotten out here.

It was with great reluctance that she finally turned back toward Minton. It was closing in on dinner time and she did not want to be late. She covered the ground quickly with her long effortless strides, but she had been away longer than she intended. The dinner party was already gathered in the drawing room as she came in by a side door, and unfortunately, Lord Rutherford saw her as she attempted to hurry past the open door unnoticed. “Julianne!” he called. “I’ve been worried about you. Where have you been all afternoon?”

Reluctantly Julianne paused in her flight and came to the door of the drawing room. Her hair had come down and she had pushed it back off her face by hooking it behind her ears. It hung, a windblown golden tangle, almost to her waist. There was brilliant color in her cheeks. She did not at all resemble the well-behaved young lady they were all accustomed to seeing. “I went out for a walk and stayed longer than I meant,” she said to her fiancé. She looked quickly around the room in rueful apology and with a little shock of concussion met the brilliant blue-green gaze of John Champernoun.

Chapter Fourteen

Who when retired here to Peace,

His warlike Studies could not cease....

—Andrew Marvell

Julianne changed her clothes with admirable haste, had her maid braid her hair into a coronet on top of her head, and was back downstairs by seven o’clock. Lady Minton, who had been resigned to pushing dinner back for at least half an hour, was astonished to see her. “You needn’t have rushed so, my dear,” she said gently. “We would have waited for you.”

Julianne smiled at her future mother-in-law. There was such peace, such kindness, in the eyes of Lady Minton. “I know, ma’am,” she replied even more gently. “But I would have minded keeping you waiting.”

They went into dinner and to her consternation Julianne found herself placed between her fiancé and John Champernoun. “You looked as if you enjoyed your walk this afternoon,” John said to her amiably as the soup was served.

“Yes, I did,” she replied with less than amiable shortness.

“Feeling a bit ‘cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in’?” he asked in mocking sympathy.

He had hit too close to a nerve for her comfort. She gave him a cool look. “You are mistaken, my lord. I do not find Minton at all confining.”

“I see,” he responded equably. They had neither of them begun to eat their soup yet. He was watching her face and she was regarding her steaming plate with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. She picked up her spoon and he said, twin sparks suddenly glowing in the depths of his eyes, “It must be that you are enjoying the prospect of acting. I understand you and Rutherford have the leading roles in this play you are doing.”

Julianne put down her spoon and looked at him. His expression was perfectly bland, but she saw the malicious sparkle in his imperfectly masked gaze. Her own eyes narrowed. “Don’t bait me, John,” she said, glancing at her fiancé and diplomatically lowering her voice. “I am content here at Minton. 1
am not
going to allow you to rip up my peace, so stop trying. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.” He was watching her still.
“Could
I rip up your peace?” His voice was low like hers, but unlike hers his was very soft.

She turned her head away from him and once more picked up her soup spoon. “No,” she said calmly and definitely, “you could not.”

He seemed to accept his dismissal, turned to the table himself, and picked up his own spoon. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of white on his hand and turned to look at it. He was holding the spoon a little awkwardly due to a bandage wrapped around his right palm. “What did you do to your hand?” she demanded.

“I cut it on a rusty nail in one of the sheds at Lansdowne. There is a depressing amount of rust everywhere on my ancestral estate.”

“I hope you had it cleaned properly.” There was an unmistakably sharp note in her voice. “Rust can be very dangerous.”

The ghost of a satisfied smile touched his mouth. “I had it cleaned,” he said.

For some reason Julianne felt color coming into her cheeks. It was with great relief that she heard Lord Rutherford’s voice addressing some remark to her. She turned to him instantly and for the remainder of the dinner managed to avoid any further extended conversation with her other dinner partner.

The food was superb, as it always was at Minion. The atmosphere also contributed greatly to a guest’s enjoyment; the dining room was splendid, the table set with an impressive display of plate, and numerous footmen hovered, ready to see to any guest’s needs. As the meal concluded, Lady Minton rose and ushered the ladies out of the dining room through the saloon and into the drawing room. The gentlemen remained behind to drink port, to smoke, and to talk.

When the men finally rejoined the ladies they discovered that one of Lord Rutherford’s aunts was playing the piano. Julianne was seated on a small sofa by the window and Lord Rutherford went immediately to sit beside her. John, moving at a more leisurely but equally determined pace, sat himself down in a chair near both of them.

The music halted and Lord Rutherford looked at the black-haired man sitting at a right angle to him. The young man’s handsome fresh-skinned face was a little more flushed than usual, his boyish mouth a little tighter. “Are you planning to make Lansdowne your permanent home, my lord?” he asked in a voice of careful courtesy.