Claudia's faint smile broadened. "And what do the students do while the priest performs his ballet?"
"Ah, the students," he murmured. "They are generally quite appalled, you see, because the ballet interferes with their picnic." He smiled; but a shadow scudded across her face, and her smile faded in it. He started to move away, but Claudia suddenly rolled over and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. Astonished, Julian quickly put his arms around her, held her close. She said nothing, just clung to him, hiding her face in his shoulder . . . crying?
His chin on top of her head, Julian soothed the loose curls of her hair, wincing with the sound of each muffled gasp into his coat. "What is it, my love? What is wrong?"
She shook her head, tightened her grip around his neck. "Nothing . . . I'm sorry. I don't know what is wrong with me. It's so unlike me to cry," she gasped, and another sob escaped her.
"It's all right," he said, stroking her hair.
"I was thinking how precious life is," she continued raggedly, "and how quickly and easily it can be ended. One moment someone is here and then the next they are gone, just like that."
Everything in Julian convulsed; the feeling of discomfort washed over him so quickly that he actually felt faint for a brief moment. How was it possible that Phillip could find him even now, in this single moment with Claudia? "Why would you be thinking such a thing?" he demanded, a little more roughly than he would have liked.
"I_. . ._ I know someone who died, a woman, a young woman . . . she died so unexpectedly, and it's so unfair! I keep asking myself, why her and not me? Why should she be taken in her prime? What was the purpose of her life, then, if she was to die so young? It_. .__ ._ it frightens me."
It sickened him. Phillip would never be gone from him.
"I'm sorry," she said again, her arms sliding from his neck. "I suppose I'm being ridiculously sentimental."
Silent, Julian let her pull away, fearful of what he might say if he opened his mouth. This . . . this mar-riage was his hell. He had known it for weeks now. Claudia leaned back, looked up at him with luminous blue-gray eyes shimmering with tears. His arms fell away from her, and he stood from the bed. "You aren't feeling well, that's all. Why don't you rest?" he said blandly, and turned toward the door, hardly thinking or feeling anything but the pain of his despair and guilt.
"Julian—"
"I'll have Tinley send up a tray, all right?"
That suggestion was met with a moment of silence, but Julian dared not turn back and look at her again for fear that he might shatter. "Yes. Thank you," she murmured, and he heard the creak of the bed as she lay down.
He walked blindly down the corridor, simply moving away from her, away from his fantasy that one day Phillip would be gone and Claudia would love him. He kept walking, down the great curving staircase, until he was standing in the foyer. "Have a mount saddled," he said to a footman, and still continued on, until he was standing out in the stone portico of his home, feeling the wet and cold seep into him, waking him from the slumber of his hell.
It occurred to him, as he stood there staring out at nothing, that perhaps he should maintain his distance from Claudia not because she wanted it so much, but because it was the only method of self-preservation he had left to him. If he wasn't near her, she couldn't make him feel the monster of guilt and regret that seemed to destroy everything in his path while vicars sang about the quality of love.
He moved to the corner of the portico, withdrawing one of his American cheroots from his pocket, and struck a match. Cupping his hand around the flame, he lit the cigar. When he lifted his head, he noticed a plain black gig on the curb just beyond the gates of his house.
That was curious. Julian leaned to one side to have a better look at it. It was a gig, all right, a two-wheeled, one-horse carriage—not something one saw very often in Mayfair or St. James, where phaetons and barouches and landaus symbolized the elite status of the residents there. A man and a woman were in the gig; he fumbled in his pocket for his spectacles and looked again.
His heart started badly—it was Sophie, engaged in a rather torrid kiss.
Julian inadvertently dropped the cheroot.
His first inclination was to yank her from that gig and throttle her then and there for such unseemly behavior. His second inclination was to wait and confirm his worst fear—that the man kissing her was Stanwood. Before he was forced to decide, however, Sophie stumbled out of the gig, awkwardly pushing her gloves up as she simultaneously tried to attach her bonnet to her head. Stanwood was talking to her; Sophie was nodding enthusiastically. She took several steps backward, bumped into the gate.
"Your mount, my lord," a young groom called.
Perfect timing. He would have his talk with Stanwood somewhere other than the front of his house, as he would hate to see the bastard's blood all over the walk. He marched to where the lad was holding his mount and vaulted up onto the roan's back. As he gathered the reins, Sophie walked through the gate, clearly entranced. "Sophie!"
The girl started so badly that she stumbled. "Julian!" The blood drained rapidly from her face. "I—I didn't know you had returned," she stammered.
"Where have you been?" he asked, dispensing with any greeting as he tightened his hold on the anxious roan.
"Ah, I. . . where have
I
been? Why, ah, with Aunt Violet."
Oh God, Sophie! "Go inside and wait for me," he snapped, and signaled the roan forward, riding through the gate the groom opened, veering sharply to the right in pursuit of the goddam gig.
It wasn't hard to find Stanwood; the gig was in front of a Piccadilly public house. Julian tethered his horse and strode inside, ignoring the barmaid who tried to greet him. He scanned the crowded room and spotted Stanwood as he sauntered toward a table in the back where two barmaids were entertaining a patron. Julian started after him, roughly pushing past one man who made the mistake of stepping into his path.
Stanwood turned just as Julian reached him. Surprise flitted across the blackguard's face just before Julian shoved him into the wall. "I told you in May, and I'll tell you once more, Stanwood. Stay away from my sister. Next time, I'll kill you for it," he said low.
Fear flashed briefly in Stanwood's eyes before he clawed at Julian's hands. "Unhand me, Kettering!" he spat. "You've no right to treat me in such a manner!"
"I've every right," he breathed angrily, and shoved him hard against the wall again, knocking from their mountings two porcelain plates that shattered on the wood floor. "Don't think I don't know about your debts, sir, or that no bank will lend to you. Don't think I don't know about your inquiries into my sister's annuity. You want nothing more than her bloody dowry!"
Stanwood shoved back, unbalancing Julian. "What of it? I'm not so different from you! Rumor has it Redbourne settled quite a sum on you to take that harlot off his hands!"
Julian's heart stopped cold; the room suddenly seemed to shrink. His hands curled into fists, and he saw nothing but the whites of Stanwood's eyes as he lunged at him. The barmaid's shriek was lost in the thud of his fist against Stanwood's face. The two of them crashed to the floor, Julian's fist finding purchase twice more before shoving Stanwood's head into the floor and scrambling to his feet. "You son of a bitch," he snarled, "stay away from my sister, do you hear me?"
Touching his split lip gingerly, Stanwood looked at the blood on his fingers. He smirked at it, then at Julian. "How will you stop me?" he asked mockingly. "Sophie will be one and twenty in less than a month's time. You can't hold her prisoner."
It took every ounce of strength Julian had to keep from killing the man right there, in that crowded room, with his bare hands. "If you come near her, I will use every ounce of my influence to ruin you, Stanwood. There is not a bank in Europe that will lend you a single shilling. Your debts will be called in. You won't be able to find employment with a reputable establishment. You can't hide from me," he said evenly, "so you had best heed me." And with that, he turned on his heel and walked from the room with Stanwood's biting laughter pounding in his ears.
Sophie's heart would not stop pounding from her near-disastrous encounter with Julian and the sheer terror of imagining what he might have done had he seen William's carriage in front of the house.
On the couch in her rooms, she frantically assessed her situation as impossible and completely hopeless. How long could she continue to steal out of the house to meet William in obscure places with a desperate hope that no one saw them? Was she to avoid her own brother for the rest of her life? She wanted to tell Julian the truth, but William said that if they went to him now, he would only be angered because she had disobeyed him. They needed to allow some time to pass, William said, so that Julian would come to see how he truly adored her and did not care a whit for her fortune.
But she'd never be able to endure the wait!
The door banged open; with a start, Sophie jerked around—and she knew the moment she saw Julian's face. He knew! Her stomach plummeted instantly; she felt as if she had just been rammed against the wall, the breath knocked clean from her lungs. The room seemed to spin as a million thoughts roared through her mind, centering quickly on one—William. He meant to take her from William, banish her just as Sarah Cafferty had been banished from London, to deny her the one man who would make her happy. Unable to speak, unable to breathe, Sophie gripped the arm of the couch and tried to catch her breath. Claudia. She had to speak with Claudia.
"A word, Sophie." His voice filled the room, reverberating against the walls, the furniture, the ceiling. Sophie squeezed her eyes shut; cold fear pricked at every fiber in her. Desperate, she turned her back to the door and to her brother, frantically seeking to put the pieces of her shattered composure back together.
"Where did you go this afternoon?"
The fear paralyzed her tongue. Stumbling to her feet, she moved awkwardly to her bed and clutched at the hangings.
"Answer me!" he demanded, and she realized he had moved closer. Her grip tightened on the hangings, and she desperately sought a way out, a plausible lie—
"You were with Stanwood. In spite of the fact that you have been forbidden to see him, you were with him, in front of my house."
He had seen them. The floor seemed to shift under her feet and Sophie's grip on the bed hangings slipped. She stumbled, landing on the edge of the bed. Julian was suddenly towering over her, glaring down at her with eyes as black and as hard as coal. "You have disobeyed me one time too many, Sophie," he breathed angrily. "You and I leave for Kettering Hall at once."
That single pronouncement verbalized her worst nightmare. "No, Julian!" she cried frantically. "You don't understand! William loves me!"
Something flared in his eyes, and he roughly grabbed her shoulders. "Stanwood does not love you, Sophie! He loves your bloody fortune!" he roared.
Hot tears spilled from her eyes, blinding her, and Sophie shoved helplessly against his chest. "Yes, he does love me! Why won't you believe a man like William could love me?"
Julian stilled; his grip on her arm slackened. "My God, Sophie," he muttered hoarsely. "Have you no more esteem for yourself than that?"
Esteem for herself? With a groan of pain, Sophie struggled out of his grip and stumbled away from the bed. Julian had no idea what her life was like. He was a man, he was handsome, he was a wealthy earl to whom women flocked like geese. He had no idea what it was to be the youngest sister of such an earl, the plainest and dullest of them all, the one who had to be sent to finishing school if there was to be any hope of a decent offer for her. She knew that the men Aunt Violet brought around to court her were appropriately pedigreed, but were not considered prize catches among the ton. But William— William made her feel desirable and alive. He loved her! And Julian would deny her love for the sake of a proper pedigree!
His hand was on her shoulder. "Sophie, darling, there are many other lads who—"
"No!" she cried, shrugging his hand off. "No, Julian! I love William!"
"Be that as it may," he said hoarsely, "I cannot sit by and allow that blackguard to ruin you. I have no choice— I forbade you and you expressly defied me. I gave you my trust and you betrayed me. I have no choice but to take you away from here before you are ruined."
The fear was suddenly strangling her. "No!" she sobbed, and whirled around to face him. "You can't send me away! I shall die there! Oh, Julian, I beg of you, do not send me away—I swear I won't see him again, I swear it on Valerie's grave!" she begged hysterically. "Just don't send me to Kettering Hall!"
Julian hesitated only a moment before he shook his head. "You leave me no choice, Sophie. I cannot trust you, and as I am responsible for your health and safety, I will do what I must. There will be no more discussion of it. Get ready to leave," he said tightly, and turned on his heel, striding for the door.
Terrified, Sophie watched his retreat. "Julian, please!" she screamed.
He paused at the door; through the blur of her tears, she saw his shoulders sag and for one insane moment, she hoped. "We depart in an hour," he muttered, and walked out of her room, ignoring her as she collapsed on the floor in despair, sobbing uncontrollably.
The laudanum had helped Claudia to sleep, and when she awoke, she felt much improved—enough to contemplate joining Julian for supper. Perhaps she was feeling altogether a bit too sentimental, but when he had wrapped his arms around her this afternoon, she had felt secure, almost as if nothing could touch her there—death could not touch her in his arms. But the glimmer of comfort, both physical and emotional, had ended so soon. Too soon. Yes, well, if it hadn't been for her little display of tears and self-pity, he might have stayed.
Claudia paused in the brushing of her hair to frown at her reflection. No doubt he thought her very silly, crying and carrying on like that. In truth, she hardly knew Ellie at all, but she had grieved as if the woman was her very own sister. Slowly, she resumed the brushing of her hair, swearing that she would not be so sullen, when Sophie burst into her suite, her face streaked with tears. Claudia started with great surprise. "Oh, Claudia!" Sophie wailed, and hurled herself across the room, landing at Claudia's feet to bury her face in her lap.