Julia London 4 Book Bundle (88 page)

“Are you all right?” he asked roughly. “Has he done more harm to you than …” He could not bring himself to say it, could only motion vaguely to her chin.

Sophie shook her head. “You mustn’t worry about that, Julian. It’s over now, and it shan’t ever happen again. Really, I am fine.”

She sounded so calm, so sincere, that he felt the painful prick of guilt run up his spine.
He
should be telling
her
not to worry, promising no one would ever harm her again! But when he opened his mouth to speak, no words came, and Sophie slipped her arm through his. “It’s all right,” she said softly. With a reassuring smile, she glanced over her shoulder at Mrs. Conner. “You wouldn’t mind terribly if I showed him about, would you, Mrs. Conner?”

“Lord, no. It’s high time he saw what she does for us,” Mrs. Conner responded, and squinting, paused in her work to peer out the bowed window. “Time everyone knew what she does for us,” she added quietly.

Julian had no idea who or what Mrs. Conner was talking about, nor did he particularly care to know—at the moment, he wanted only to take Sophie from this awful place, take her home where she belonged, where he could keep her safe. “There’s no time now, darling,” he said to her. “Where are your things?”

“There’s all the time in the world,” she gently contradicted him. “Another half-hour won’t make a difference, Julian. Come. I want you to see it.”

“I have seen—”

“No. No, you haven’t. Not like you should,” she said stubbornly, and with another, reassuring smile, she tugged on his arm, pulling him out of the small drawing room and into the little corridor. “Do you know what this
place is?” she asked as she led him toward the end of the hall and another staircase leading upward.

“No,” he grumbled irritably.

“I daresay there’s not another place like it in all the world. It’s a haven where women like me can come when they need shelter.”

Julian huffed his opinion of that, and tossing a glance over his shoulder, he said tightly, “These women are not like you, Sophie—”

“Yes, they are,” she said, cutting him off. “They are
just
like me. All of them have fallen on one sort of hardship or another, and all of them needed a place they could go, where they would be safe. They are just like me in that, Julian. Do you know how difficult it is, especially for
these
women?” she asked rhetorically as they reached the second floor.

Julian said nothing, but frowned at her back as she paused to open the door to a room where several small desks were crowded. He glanced around. “All right. It’s a schoolroom,” he said impatiently.

“It’s the only education some of the children who come here shall ever receive,” she said thoughtfully. Julian glanced again at the room and turned to leave—but something caught his eye. Reaching for his spectacles, he peered intently at a drawing tacked to the wall, and walked into the room.

He knew that drawing.

He had seen dozens just like it, in her sitting room at Kettering House. It was the drawing of a school that Claudia was constantly sketching. Here it was again, tacked to the wall, but this one had crude figures penciled in around the edges with names written in childish scrawl above each perfectly round head. Johnny, Sylvia, Carol, Belinda, Herman … “It’s Claudia,” he muttered.

“Why, of
course
, it’s Claudia!” Sophie said, laughing.

Julian jerked his gaze to her. “What do you mean by that?”

Sophie’s smile faded to confusion. “Surely you know!”

“Know what?” he demanded, feeling the disquiet come over him, the shift of his body inside his skin.

Sophie swept her arms wide. “
All
of this is Claudia! She is the one who made this place!”

Stunned, Julian stared at her. How could it be true? He’d never heard of this place, never so much as suspected its existence. Certainly he knew she donated to various causes, but he never in his wildest dreams—

“She started it more than a year ago. She pays for it with her allowance and Mrs. Conner keeps it for her. Mrs. Conner tells the most amazing story, really, of how Claudia rescued her from one of the textile factories. There’s so much more to it, I think, but so many women have come through here. Janet said they all know about it now, you know—the women in the factories, that is. But they keep it a secret amongst themselves. If a woman should need sanctuary, regardless of the reason, they know there is a place they can go to be safe when they’ve got nowhere else to turn. Come,” she said, and slipped her hand into his, pulling him along.

He followed, mute in his astonishment, trying to absorb the things Sophie proudly showed him. On the fourth floor, where the roof pitched sharply down, there were six beds along each wall in one long room. The children slept here, Sophie informed him. Sometimes the room was full, other times it was empty. All the beds were neatly made, and on the end of each of them were a woolen scarf and a pair of mittens. The women who stayed here were asked, in exchange for their keep, to contribute if they weren’t too beaten down by life. Not money, she quickly informed him, never that, because Claudia believed they should keep every pence they earned. One woman had been so grateful for the shelter that, with the wool yarn Claudia supplied, she had knitted several pairs of mittens and scarves for the children who would come here.

Claudia apparently supplied everything, Julian quickly learned, with her own funds or by wrangling donations.

Sophie led him through the second floor, along a row
of small bedrooms each housing two beds all neatly made up, with cheerful pictures and little pots of violets gracing the dressers. In each room was a wardrobe with a handful of serviceable gowns for those women who arrived on the doorstep with nothing. The gowns, Sophie explained as she opened one wardrobe, came mostly from Mayfair, talked out of the wardrobes of Claudia’s friends.

As they moved through the house, Sophie introduced him to several of the women in residence. Julian greeted them all with proper decorum. He couldn’t help noticing little things about them, however, like how rough their hands were, or how one woman frequently caught her back, as if in pain. And there was Stella, Sophie’s maid, happily tending two young girls. And Janet, Sophie’s new friend, sporting a horrible black eye that sent a shudder of revulsion through him.

On the second floor was the main parlor where Mrs. Conner was still sitting, her needle flying in and out of her piecework. There was also a music room with a pianoforte and a harp donated by some Samaritan, and a library of sorts. As Julian wandered through the library full of novels and works of geography, astronomy, and etiquette, he spied a stack of basic children’s primers. He picked up one child’s book and thumbed through it.

“Many of the women who come here can’t read a’tall,” Sophie whispered. “Some can only read their letters. They like the children’s books.” Julian stared at the book he held, trying to imagine a grown woman struggling to read it. Such things he took for granted; he could not imagine how difficult or limited one’s life would certainly be without the ability to read.

When they had completed the tour of the house, Sophie showed him the tiny little hothouse Claudia had talked a tradesman into erecting so that the women might have vegetables year round. As she wandered through a row of tomatoes, she said, “Mrs. Conner fears a long winter. Claudia’s allowance isn’t quite sufficient to keep them all clothed and fed, and unfortunately, the donations have dried up, what with the scandal.”

The donations
. He had thought they were all for her school project.

Julian was humbled into silence. He looked at Sophie as they stood in the little hothouse, a million thoughts, regrets, and sorrows rifling through him. “It’s a remarkable place, I’ll grant you that. But I’m sorry, nonetheless, Sophie. I’m so very sorry that you ever had to seek refuge here. I’m sorry that I didn’t see—”

“No, Julian,” she said with a firm shake of her head. “This is not your fault and I won’t allow you to believe that it is. It was my decision to elope and there was nothing you could have said or done that would have changed my mind.” She smiled tremulously and glanced away, her eyes focused on something very distant. After a long moment, she spoke again. “I am
very
glad
I came here. I didn’t want to at first, and I won’t lie—I was frightened to death when Claudia left me alone here. But these women … oh God, I can’t explain it. I just understand so much that I didn’t know even two days ago, Julian. I never would have learned it had I not come here.”

“Learned what?”

“That I am strong,” she answered without hesitation. “I am strong, and I always have been. I just never realized that I could be me.”

He really wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but thought perhaps he understood it on some remote level. How strange it was, he thought, gazing at the youngest of his sisters, the last of his charges, that she seemed so … 
grown-up
now, so very unlike the wailing, lovesick girl he had left at Kettering Park. Never had he seen Sophie so sure of herself. So
confident
.

Claudia had done that. Claudia had succeeded in doing what he had never been able to do. Not only had she given these women the means of finding their self-confidence, but she had given that precious gift to Sophie, too. That, and her life.

And all of it humbled him beyond comprehension, to the point that it was all he could do to keep from falling
to his knees in that tiny little hothouse and begging God to let him take it all back, to start all over again.

Julian gave in to Sophie’s pleas to allow her to remain at Upper Moreland Street until it was time to sail to France. Fortunately, she understood the family’s decision to send her there while he dealt with Stanwood and the Church and various courts. The family, he explained, wanted to help her seek a divorce if that was what she wanted. Sophie remarked her great surprise that the family was willing to face the scandal certain to befall them, and Julian felt the pain of their upbringing pounding at his temple—how deeply propriety had been drilled into them all! But he assured her that what the family was willing to endure was far less important than what
she
was willing to endure.

They would seek a parliamentary divorce, but it was a long, highly public process, he informed her. If he could not win it for her, the best the law afforded her was a separation. She would never be allowed to remarry, not as long as Stanwood lived. Sophie nodded, gave his hand a warm squeeze, and assured him that she was, indeed, willing to risk everything to be free of Sir William Stanwood.

What he did not tell her was that in France, Louis would protect her should Stanwood think to exact his revenge on her, or that he hoped the scandal would not mark her so deeply there as it would in England. As far as Eugenie was concerned, no one had to know that her youngest sister had ever been married. Louis was less confident that the scandal could be contained, but Julian knew he would defend Sophie’s reputation with all of his considerable influence as if she were one of his own.

Sophie’s decision was easily made; Julian kissed her on the forehead, held her tightly to him for a long moment, then bid her goodbye for a few more days.

Weary, his thoughts and emotions in complete disarray, Julian dragged himself into Kettering House. As he
handed his hat to Tinley, the old man said, “He’s come back,” and brushed beads of water from Julian’s hat with the sleeve of his coat.

“Who?” Julian asked.

“Can’t recall the fellow’s name. Lady Sophie’s husband.”

Good
. He wanted this over with.

Stanwood was in the gold salon, sipping delicately from a glass of brandy. In addition to having helped himself to Julian’s best liquor, he was wearing another new suit of clothes—yet another courtesy of the Kettering family fortune.

A sneer spread Stanwood’s lips as Julian walked into the room. “Well, Kettering? Come to your senses yet?”

Lord God
, he wanted to beat Stanwood within an inch of his sorry life. “Indeed I have,” he drawled, strolled casually to where Stanwood stood, and removed the brandy from his hand, prompting a nasty chuckle from Stanwood.

“If I were you I wouldn’t be so quick to insult me, my lord. I have the law on my side, as you well know.”

“Do you?” Julian asked, tossing the brandy into the fire and watching it flare bright along with his temper.

“Naturally. The marriage is quite legal, whether you like it or not. She is mine, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. Now, being the generous man that I am, I am willing to overlook your gross error in judgment for a small fee. I won’t press my grievance in the courts and I’ll even allow the wench to call on you occasionally.”

Bloody bastard
. Julian flexed his fist in a mighty struggle to maintain his composure. “I advise you to hold your tongue, Stanwood, lest I rip it out of your head. The fact of the matter is, on Sophie’s behalf I intend to petition the Church for a divorce.”

The scoundrel reacted with a sputtering laugh of disbelief. “You
what
? Oh, that’s
marvelous!
On what grounds? You have no
grounds
, Kettering, and even if you did, you’d not stomach the scandal!”

“Just watch me,” Julian said venomously.

Stanwood gaped at him as if he had just uttered a capital threat against the king. “But … but you have no
grounds
,” he insisted wildly.

It was Julian’s turn to smirk. “I will petition the Church for divorce
a mensa et a thoro.
Do you know what that is, Stanwood? The petition will cite grounds of extreme cruelty. And before you think to argue that, know that I have witnesses to the many bruises on her body.”

Stanwood paled. “She fell!” he all but shouted, then looked frantically to the fire. “Nevertheless, what you threaten will gain you a legal separation, nothing more—it’s not a divorce!”

“True,” Julian said, nodding thoughtfully as he strolled nonchalantly to the middle of the room. “But then I shall bring suit in Parliament for dissolution of the marriage because of your adultery, as I am confident that you will find your way into a whore’s bed before long …”—he paused to cast a scathing look of disgust across him—“if you haven’t already.” Stanwood blanched, revealing the truth in that statement, and Julian’s smirk turned into a contemptuous scowl. “In the meantime, I will be watching you every minute of every day, Stanwood. My eyes will be everywhere, you may depend on it. When you breathe, I will know it. When you eat, I will know it. When you squat on a chamber pot, I will know it. And if you think for even a moment to defy me, I will bring the power of my name down on your head. No institution or man of standing will lend you money. No one will employ you. No one will house you or clothe you or feed you. There will be nowhere for you to turn, Stanwood. Do you quite understand me?”