Joan Wolf (17 page)

Then Lord Minton sat down and William turned to her, and not long after that the whole party was in the ballroom. Julianne led the first dance with Lord Rutherford, but what he said or how she responded she could not afterwards remember. The ballroom only became real when a very tall dark man came up to her and requested formally if he might have the next dance. Lord Minton handed her over with smiling good humor and went to talk to the dowager duchess. John and Julianne moved onto the floor.

It was a waltz. The Mintons were very advanced people and did not disapprove of the new dance from Vienna. John held Julianne lightly in his arms and silently regarded the shining honey-gold crown of her head. After they had circled the room twice she looked up at him. “I had a letter from Mr. Murray today,” she said, seemingly at random. “He wants to know if he should put my name on my journal when it is published.”

His straight black brows rose in surprise. “Whose name was he planning to put on it?”

“It seems it is not respectable for a woman’s name to appear in print. William advises me to subscribe myself as ‘a lady.’ “

He swore and she laughingly protested, “John! You are in a ballroom, not a barracks.”

His hand tightened over hers, hard and possessive. “You listen to me,” he said grimly. “You wrote that book and by God your name is going to be on it. Rutherford hasn’t read it. He doesn’t realize what he is talking about. Damn it, Julianne, that book is
good.
When everything is finally known about Africa, people are still going to be reading that book—to find out how it was, to find out how it all started. Someone is going to follow you up—you must know that. Someone is going to go back to look for that mountain, to look for those lakes—the source of the Nile.” There was a note in his deep voice that brought a shadow to her face.

“You would love to be that ‘someone,’ wouldn’t you?” she asked softly.

He smiled a little crookedly. “Yes.”

He had to bend his head to hear her next words. “Will you go?”

His face was only inches from hers. He looked for a long silent moment at its proud beauty, then he said, with a very grim look about his mouth, “I don’t think so.” He swung her around a corner and continued after a minute, “You put your name to that book, do you hear?”

Her heightened color was not due to the exertions of the dance. “Yes, I hear.”

He grinned. “And to hear is to obey?”

She frowned a little, then remembered the previous occasion on which she had used those words with him. She smiled demurely. “Well, not always. But in this case—yes. I will sign my name to the book. It’s not as though I am ashamed of it.”

“Ashamed!” He looked astonished. “Good God, Julianne, that book is something to be proud of. And Rutherford should be proud of you for writing it. If I were he I’d shout it to the world.”

The music stopped and they were forced to move off the floor, where they were immediately joined by George Foster. A little later in the evening John appeared again and asked her if she would care to step out onto the terrace with him. She accepted his invitation immediately but when they got outside they found Anne Foster and Henry Melburne. Both young people turned as Julianne and John came out the French door, and Anne said gaily, “Hullo there. Did you find the ballroom as stuffy as we did?”

John did not reply and Julianne knew by the tightening of the muscles of his forearm under her hand that he was not pleased to discover company. “Yes,” she said pleasantly in response to Anne’s comment. “It was rather stuffy and Lord Denham kindly offered to escort me out to get some air.”

“What about a brief stroll in the garden. Miss Wells?” John said quickly. “That ought to help clear your head.”

“A good idea,” Julianne replied quietly.

“Yes, isn’t it!” said the vivacious Anne. She had been angling for John ever since he had first come to Minton. “Why don’t we do the same, Henry?”

“God damn it,” muttered John to Julianne as the four of them progressed down the terrace steps. “It was easier quelling the Wahabi uprising than it is to see you alone.”

“Yes,” said Julianne sadly. “One does always seem to be surrounded by people here.” And she smiled at Anne, who was standing waiting for them.

Julianne did not get to bed until close to three o’clock, and even then she did not sleep. She lay awake, staring at the moonlight shining in her open window, and faced grimly the knowledge she had been avoiding for so long. But she could repress it no longer. It was there, clear, whole, and inescapable. She loved John Champernoun. And that love was like a huge gulf that separated her from everything she had known these last few months. The face of everything was changed: Minton, William, the life she had thought she wanted. Nothing was, or would ever be, the same again.

She had thought she was safe. She had thought she could never love a man like her father—a restless rover, an adventurer, a man who would never be satisfied to sit by the fire and watch his children, to ride through his fields and watch the corn grow.

How had it happened? How had it happened that when John had said tonight “If I were he,” her heart had leaped and she had thought wildly, If only you were. If only it were you I was going to marry.

She had been telling herself for weeks that it was only a physical attraction she felt for him, but she knew tonight that it was more than that. If he should ever ask her to marry him, she would say yes with a glad heart and go with him wherever he wanted to go. She had thought she wanted a home like Minton, but she knew now that no place would ever be home to her unless he was there.

How had she been so blind to her own feelings? How had she allowed herself to become engaged to Lord Rutherford?

The answer she thought, lying perfectly still beneath her sheet and blanket, lay with her father. She had been telling herself since she met John that he was just like Lord Richard. But he wasn’t. Her father had been a relentless man, subduing everything and everyone to accomplish own inflexible mission. He had had no respect for the individuality of others.

John was not like that. He was the only person she had ever met who was willing to let her be what she was, who was not anxious to force her into a mold of his own making. She had railed at him about his code of “personal freedom,” but in fact it was what she loved in him. He was the most genuinely independent and free man she had ever known. He was the slave of no convention and he refused to enslave anyone else.

Given a chance, however, Lord Rutherford would. If she married him she would never write. She was deadly certain of this tonight, the night her engagement had been formally announced with such generous hospitality. If she married him she would become just like Lady Minton— very charming, very dignified, but not very interesting. She would— shrink.

And John? She closed her eyes and her lips compressed with pain. She would give her soul to marry John. But he would never tie himself down to a wife. She remembered Said’s remarks about John’s feelings in regard to women and babies. He would never allow himself to be bound by a family. He prized his freedom too highly for that.

But she loved him, and knowing that she could not marry Lord Rutherford. It would not be fair to him. It was a thousand pities she had not realized the truth of her feelings before this weekend of festivities. But it could not be helped. She would tell him tomorrow that she was breaking their engagement.

The dawn was lighting the sky before she finally fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-two

For to withstand her look I am not able, Yet can I not hide me in no dark place ...

—Sir Thomas Wyatt

The day of Lady Minton’s water party dawned clear and bright. Guests from the Minton house party mingled with the estate tenants and trades people from the town. There were rowing boats available on the lake and the guests from the lower class could partake of refreshment in the large striped tent that had been set up on the lawn. A cold supper was to be served for the upper classes in the dining room, and after dark there was to be a fireworks display.

Julianne wore a summer dress of white lace slotted through with pale pink ribbon. A ribbon of the same color confined the soft knot of hair on the top of her head. She looked very young, very lovely, and very fragile. Lord Rutherford had smiled with pleasure when he saw her, and Lord and Lady Minton both complimented the dowager duchess on her granddaughter’s appearance. The Mintons were also very satisfied with Julianne’s behavior. The modest and graceful self-possession with which she greeted a bewildering variety of tenants and trades people was very satisfying.

Julianne was feeling extremely uncomfortable. The morning had not brought with it any change of heart. She still felt she could not marry Lord Rutherford, but the social consequences of her breaking their engagement were assuming enormous proportions. After this kind of a celebration, her begging off was going to prove a deep embarrassment to the Mintons. And Julianne genuinely liked and respected them. She liked William as well; she just did not want to marry him. She was beginning to think, however, that she had better wait another week or so before she informed him of this disagreeable fact.

The afternoon progressed smoothly, with the lake filled with noisy, happy boaters and the tent filled with hungry, happy eaters. Other guests strolled about the gardens or sat in the shade of the splendid old trees. There was, however, no sign of the Earl of Denham or his aunt, and Julianne was beginning to be afraid that they were not coming. She was not even sure if they had been invited, and once or twice she started to ask William but then thought better of it.

At one point late in the afternoon Julianne caught her dress on a bush without realizing it and as she walked forward the lace tore. She had been walking with her grandmother and Lord Rutherford and all three stopped when they realized what had happened.

“Oh dear,” said Julianne contritely. “I’m so sorry, Grandmama. I’m afraid I’ve torn this lovely dress you gave to me.”

“It does not seem to be too serious, my love,” replied the dowager duchess. “If you return to the house my dresser will mend it for you in a trice.”

“I’ll go with you, Julianne,” offered Lord Rutherford and she smiled absently at him and put her hand on his arm.

They were going in a side door of the house when they heard the unmistakable thuds and grunts of a fight. “Good heavens,” said Julianne in a startled voice, “what is happening?” Before Lord Rutherford could stop her she had stepped around some concealing hedges in pursuit of the sounds.

 Lord Rutherford was right behind her and they both saw at the same moment two furious young men, dressed in their Sunday best, apparently trying to kill each other with their bare fists. They were the sons of two of Lord Minton’s tenants and Lord Rutherford recognized them immediately.

“Austin! Franklin!” he said in a peremptory, imperious tone. “Stop this instantly, do you hear me?”

But not even the clipped authoritative tones of the aristocracy penetrated the blood haze that had overtaken the two young men. They continued to pummel each other.

As Lord Rutherford hesitated, unsure of what to do next, there came another voice from behind him. “Here, we can’t have this,” said John briskly and he stepped into the middle of the fight. The intrusion of a third party seemed to inflame the first two even more and Julianne watched with hammering heart as John now became the target of the boys’ frustrated anger.

It took about two minutes before one of the boys was down on the ground, dazedly holding his head, while the other was held motionless by a very efficient and painful grip on his arm. John’s lip was bleeding, his shirt was torn, and he looked perfectly happy. “This is hardly the sort of behavior one expects to find at Lord Minton’s garden party,” he said regretfully. “I’m sorry for it, gentlemen, but the fight is over.”

The boy on the ground shook his head and, as his vision cleared and he took in the sight of Julianne and Lord Rutherford, the eye that was not swollen shut widened. “My lord,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know ...”

Julianne glanced at William’s angry face and quickly put a soothing hand on his arm. “Are you able to get up?” she asked the boy on the ground. Then, as he staggered trying to do so, she instructed her fiancé coolly, “Help him, William.” Without a word Lord Rutherford went to put a steadying hand under his arm.

Julianne turned her attention to the other boy, who was already on his feet and looking almost as horrified as his former adversary. “You had all better come into the house with me,” she said calmly. “I’ll clean you up and then, gentlemen”— she looked with strict gray eyes at the culprits— “you had better go home and cool off.” She turned, bent to pick up John’s discarded coat, and meekly the four men trailed after her into the house.

The two youngsters were clearly overwhelmed by the commotion they had caused. Julianne took them into the morning parlor, washed the blood off their faces and hands, and efficiently applied salve and bandages. All the while she was doing this, John sat on the edge of a table, swinging one leg, watching her and holding a clean handkerchief against his lip to stop the bleeding.

Lord Rutherford tried to find out what it was that had caused the fight, but both boys were shamefaced and evasive. At last John said with amusement, “Leave them alone, Rutherford. It was a girl, obviously.” At this both boys blushed a deep red and Julianne had to bite her lip.

“Well, if that is so, then I am certain she would be ashamed of you both if she knew about this,” she said severely. They hung their heads and Julianne put her hand up to her mouth and coughed. She couldn’t look at John or her gravity would be completely overset. It was hard to reconcile these two meek and embarrassed lambs with the furious and belligerent fighters of twenty minutes ago.

“Rutherford,” said John smoothly, “perhaps you would see these two on their way? I don’t think we ought to trust them in each other’s company for too long a time.”