The Regency Season: Shameful Secrets

But she suppressed her own forceful nature and worked hard to foster good relations between the households. She suspected that the other woman, foolish though she was in the way she indulged her son, was both a realist and also potentially a danger.

Julia knew that Delia had demanded that the vicar show her the licence and Nancy had confided indignantly that Mrs Hadfield had questioned her about where her mistress had slept on her wedding night.

‘And did you tell her?’ Julia asked.

‘I did that! She asked me about the sheets, would you believe? I put her straight, interfering old besom,’ the maid said darkly.

So, Julia reflected, the pain of jabbing a large sewing needle into her thumb and sacrificing a few drops of blood had been worthwhile.

Mrs Hadfield might have accepted the marriage, but she had a clear eye on the calendar, and had no doubt consulted her lawyer over the necessary action to take in 1821 in the absence of proof of Will’s fate. She was intelligent enough to know that they must wait, even if she was probably crossing off the days in her almanac, and the fact that Julia made a point of consulting Henry upon every decision relating to the estate at least appeared to mollify her.

‘I do not behave like a widow,’ Julia protested now as they inched their way to the foot of the stairs, Henry protectively at their backs. ‘I do not wear mourning.’ She glanced down with some complacency at the skirt of her highly fashionable shell-pink evening gown with its daring glimpse of ankle and then the months when she had worn black, when her heart had seemed frozen with grief, came back to reproach her for her mild vanity.

She pushed away the memory of those months, of the child she had lost, and made herself focus on the present. ‘I will not give up on Will until I absolutely have to.’ And somehow that was true. A whimsical part of her mind had a fantasy of Will well and happy and living an exotic life as an eastern pasha although the letters, the straightforward letters sent via his lawyer saying where he was, had long since ceased. She had never written back for he made it quite plain he was constantly on the move and had nowhere to send the letters.

The fantasy Will was strong and handsome and responsible for some rather disturbing dreams about things that, in the cold light of day, she preferred not to contemplate.

‘I go to dinner parties and hold them,’ she went on, calmer now they were climbing the stairs and she had something to concentrate on. ‘I attend picnics and soirées and musical evenings. It is just that this seems rather...boisterous.’

And exposed. And full of people she did not know, people from outside the small, safe circle of friends and acquaintances around King’s Acre. Improbable though it was after three years that anyone would recognise a half-naked, distraught murderess in the fashionably gowned, utterly respectable, Lady Dereham.

‘Boisterous? The young people may romp. I shall not regard it,’ Mrs Hadfield observed. ‘For myself I am just thankful to be out of the house now that wretched summer cold has left me. I confess I am starved of gossip and fashions, even provincial ones.’

A faint headache, irrational fears and a growing, inexplicable, sense of foreboding were no excuse to be churlish, Julia told herself. And the Assembly Room, when they finally managed to enter it, was certainly a fine sight with the chandeliers blazing and the ladies’ gowns and jewels like a field of flowers in sunlight. She relaxed a trifle as Henry, on his best behaviour, found seats for the ladies and melted away into the crowd to find them lemonade.

‘He wants me to agree to him going off to the Wilshires’ house party next week,’ his doting mama said. ‘Which probably means there is a young lady he has his eye upon amongst the other guests.’

More likely some congenial company his own age and a tempting array of sporting pursuits, Julia thought cynically as one of Mrs Hadfield’s bosom friends greeted her with delighted cries and bore down upon their alcove. Henry was maturing, but he was still not much in the petticoat line and far more likely to flee than flirt if confronted by a pretty girl.

‘I will take a turn around the room, if you will excuse me, Aunt.’ Mrs Hadfield, already embarked upon some prime character assassination, merely nodded.

Everyone was having a very good time. So why could she not simply settle down and enjoy watching? Or even dance, if anyone asked her? The familiar crowd-induced panic was gone, but there was still this odd feeling of apprehension, of tension. Perhaps she was coming down with something. Not Aunt Delia’s cold, she sincerely hoped.

Julia stopped by a pillar halfway down the room and fanned herself, amused by the chatter of a group of very young ladies who could only just have come out that Season.

‘I do not know who he is, I have never seen him before,’ one said as she peeped through the fronds of a palm. ‘But have you ever seen such wonderful shoulders?’

‘So manly,’ another agreed with a sigh. ‘And his hair—so romantic!’

Julia looked to see the paragon who had attracted their wide-eyed admiration. Goodness. There was no mistaking which man it was as he stood surveying the room with his back to them. Silly chits they might be, but they could recognise a fine figure of a man when they saw one. That certainly is a magnificent pair of shoulders. And his glossy brown hair was indeed romantically long.

The young ladies were far too bashful and shy to do more than giggle and swoon at a distance. Julia told herself that she was a matron and therefore perfectly at liberty to wander closer to inspect this threat to female susceptibilities.

She was not given to admiring gentlemen. She was a respectable lady with a reputation to maintain and the loss of her virginity had taught her that yearning after a handsome face was one thing—the reality of amorous men, quite another. Her body might disagree sometimes, her dreams conjure up fantasies, but, waking, she knew better. A solitary bed at night was a positive benefit of life as a grass widow, as she frequently reminded herself.

Even so, this man intrigued her for no reason she could put a finger on. She paused a few feet away from him, swept her fan languidly to and fro and studied him from the corner of her eye. This was easier when the heroine of a romantic tale did it, she realised, eyes watering. What she could tell, without blatantly staring, was that his valet and tailor had between them contrived to send him forth outfitted to constitute a menace to any woman who set eyes upon him.

He was clad in a close-fitting swallowtail coat and skin-tight silk evening breeches that between them left very little of the gentleman’s well-muscled form to the imagination. Julia glanced casually around the room and managed to register, in profile, tanned skin, an arrogant nose, a very decided chin and long dark lashes which were presently lowered in either deep thought or terminal boredom.

The knot of apprehension that had been lodged uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach all evening tightened. I know you. Which was impossible: she could not have forgotten this man. I know you from my dreams. He shifted, restless, as though he felt her scrutiny and then, before she had the chance to move away, he turned his head and stared right into her face. And he was not bored or thoughtful now for he was studying her with eyes that were the amber of a hunting cat’s, the deep peaty gold at the bottom of a brandy glass.

They were the eyes she had last seen burning with scarce-suppressed frustration in the face of a dying man. The eyes of her husband.

Julia had always imagined that fainting was a sudden and complete loss of consciousness: blackness falling like a curtain. But now the margins of her sight began to narrow down until all she could see was the face of the tanned man, those extraordinary eyes locked with hers. Will. Then the only noise was the buzzing in her head and the blackness came and on a sigh she escaped into it without a struggle.

* * *

He could hold one tall, curvaceous woman without trouble. Will registered the fact with the faint surprise that still struck him when his body obeyed without faltering, when his sinews and muscles flexed and responded with their old confidence and power.

‘The lady has fainted. There is nothing to be concerned about.’ The cluster of helpful matrons surrounding him were still thrusting smelling bottles forwards, waving fans, calling for sal volatile. ‘If someone could please direct me to a quiet retiring room with a couch?’

Several led the way, bustling around and offering advice until he secured peace by the simple expedient of shouldering the door shut behind him and leaving them on the other side. Julia slid limply from his arms on to the rather battered leather chaise and he shot the bolt to give them privacy.

They appeared to be in a storeroom, now doing service as a makeshift retiring room with a cheval glass propped against the wall, a few chairs and a screen. Not the place he would have chosen to be reunited with his wife, but it had the virtue of privacy at least.

It was not the time of his choosing either, which should be a lesson to him not to yield to sudden impulses. He should have stayed in his bedchamber and ignored the lights and music from the Assembly Rooms opposite and then, as he had planned, arrived at King’s Acre in the morning. So close now to his dream, so close to coming home.

He had been thinking of the morrow when something had made him look up, glance to the side. He had recognised her at once, although this was no longer the anxious, tired woman he had married, but a poised and elegant young matron. Her eyelids flickered as he watched her now.

‘Will?’ The whisper from the chaise was incredulous. He spun a chair round and sat beside her. No time for dreaming yet. This was not going to be easy for he had no idea of what his own feelings were, let alone hers. Julia lay still, her face white, but she was thinking, calculating, he could tell. She might have fainted, but she was not in a daze any longer. ‘I thought you were a ghost,’ she murmured.

‘That was my line when we first met, if I recall. I am perfectly real, Julia.’ He remembered the courage and the pallor and the height. He recalled his body’s surprising arousal and, looking at her now, he was no longer so amazed that Julia had sent tremors of desire through a dying man.

‘I am very glad. And you are perfectly well by the look of you, which is wonderful,’ she said slowly, as though she could still not believe in him. ‘But, Will, what happened? You were so ill, and there has been no letter from you for eighteen months at least. I am delighted to see you again, of course, but it is such a shock!’

The colour was beginning to come back to her cheeks. Three years had indeed wrought changes in her. The clinging silks of her evening gown revealed lush curves, smooth skin. Her hair was fashionably dressed, glossy with health. Julia was not a fashionable beauty, but she was undeniably attractive. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, drawing his eyes to the fullness and sending a bolt of desire through him. This was his wife. The emotions that produced were confusing and not all welcome, not yet. She was real now and he was going to have to deal with that reality.

‘Yes, I am completely well.’ He might as well explain now and get it over with. ‘I was very ill in Seville and the doctor that Jervis found, quite by accident, was one who practised Jewish and Moorish medicine. He gave me some drugs, but mainly he made me rest, out in the sunshine. He took over my diet and gradually the coughing stopped and the night sweats got less frequent. I began to sleep and gain strength.

‘Then he sent me south to the coast and from there over to North Africa to a doctor he knew.’ Will shrugged. ‘There is more to it than that, of course. Exercise, massage, swimming to build up my muscles again, days when I feared I would never get back to how I was before.

‘But the miracle happened, although for months I could not believe I was really cured. Every time I picked up the pen to write I did not know what to say. If I said I was getting better and it was just a false hope... I have been fully well for over six months but it is hard to believe it sometimes.’

It was no easier speaking of it than it had been to try to write. Eventually he would learn to accept that he was going to have a future. A life. ‘I thought it would be better simply to come home.’

Julia sat up and swung her feet on to the ground. Pink satin slippers and a provocative amount of ankle showed beneath her hem. His wife had obviously decided it was far too early to go into mourning for him, or perhaps she had simply found it easier to forget him.

She is still damnably self-possessed, he added mentally as she studied him, her face almost expressionless. And yet, there was something beneath that cool scrutiny. What is she thinking? He did not like secrets. Probably she was still recovering from the shock of seeing him and that was all it was.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked. ‘At this dance, I mean.’

‘I intended to come to King’s Acre in the morning rather than turn up on the doorstep when you were about to sit down to dinner. And then I saw the lights and heard the music and decided to dip my toe into English life once more. It never occurred to me that you might be here.’

‘Aunt Delia persuaded me to come. I am not much given to large public assemblies.’ Julia studied him. ‘And you have had no news of home, of course.’

Something was wrong, he could sense it. ‘I have had no news at all. I collect that you and Aunt Delia are on good terms?’

‘We have learned to rub along together,’ she said drily. ‘And I have learned to bite my tongue even if she still sees no need to hold hers. But I should not be disrespectful, I have found her kind on many occasions. This is going to be a considerable shock to her; she has quite decided that you...that Henry is definitely going to inherit.’

‘Did you travel with her this evening?’ Time enough tomorrow to face Delia and Henry and shatter their hopes.

‘No. I used my own carriage. It is out of their way to collect me and I prefer to be independent.’

‘Then we will go back together, you and I.’ Now this meeting had happened there was no going back, no retreat into the neutral ground of a solitary inn bedchamber for the night. ‘If Delia has not seen me there is no need to tell her I have returned, not until tomorrow. Are you well enough to find her and let her know you are returning home?’ Julia nodded. ‘Then I will go and settle my account, pay off the postilions and collect my baggage. Jervis and I will meet you in the yard of the Stag’s Head opposite.’

Something flared in her eyes, but it was gone before he could analyse it. Julia pressed her lips together as if on a retort and nodded again. This was not the place to talk. Will got to his feet and let himself out, wary now that Delia or Henry might see him. A confrontation in a crowded ballroom would set the district on its ears for weeks. That was the only reason for the knot in his gut, surely? He would be home within the hour. His life could begin again—on his terms now.

* * *

Julia stared blankly at the battered door panels as the catch clicked shut. She was not a widow. She was not even the pretend-wife of a man who had vanished as though he had been a dream. Her husband was alive and fit and, as far as she could tell, in the very best of health. Which meant he would find out exactly what had happened at King’s Acre in his absence.

She had no idea what Will imagined he was coming home to, but she rather suspected that he had not thought through the implications of surviving his hasty marriage. Finally she would find out exactly what manner of man she was tied to, for this was all going to shake him off balance enough to reveal his true character. The baby. Her mind shied away from how she was going to break that to him.

Think of something else. My goodness, but he is attractive. Julia jabbed loose hairpins in securely and told herself that physical attractiveness was no guide to inner character. And if Will Hadfield thought he was coming home to her bed tonight he must think again. There was far too much to be said, to work out, before things became that intimate. She swallowed. If they ever did. She was not at all certain what she wanted, although that was probably academic. Her desires were not going to affect Will’s reactions. For all she knew he might try to repudiate her now he no longer needed her. He certainly might when he learned what had happened in his absence.

But that was something to worry about when she was alone. Now she must leave without arousing Delia’s suspicions. Julia opened the door and almost bumped into Henry. She slid her arm into his and produced a faint smile. ‘Cousin Henry! Just the person I need. I have such a headache—would you be a dear and let your mama know I am returning home now?’

‘Of course. Shall I go and call your carriage?’

He was a nice young man, Julia thought, watching him weave through the crowd to the front door. Still self-centred and inclined to believe that things would fall into his lap by right, but he would learn. Yet however little he wished his cousin ill, the discovery that he was not going to inherit King’s Acre in a few years would be a blow that would set his world on its ear.

When her carriage pulled into the inn yard the footman jumped down from the box to open the door and let the steps down and almost fell over his feet when he saw the two men waiting. ‘Mr Jervis! And—oh, my Heavens, it’s his lordship! Thomas, look, it’s his lordship just like he used to be!’

‘Praise be!’ Thomas the coachman must have jabbed the horses’ mouths in his excitement. The carriage rocked back and forth and she saw Will grin in the lamplight. It was the first time she had ever seen him smile like that. How had she ever thought him old, even when he had been so sick? This was a man in his prime.

‘Praise be, indeed, Thomas. Good to see you again, Charles. Now, load up the bags and let us be going. We can’t keep her ladyship sitting around like this.’ He climbed in, the valet on his heels.

‘Good evening, your ladyship.’ The valet sat down with his back to the horses, his hat held precisely on his knees.

‘Good evening, Jervis. Welcome home. I am delighted to see you after all this time.’ And thankful that his presence in the carriage would bar any but the most commonplace conversation. Shock was beginning to give way to apprehension. It was no more than that, she assured herself. There was nothing really to actually be afraid of. Was there? Only some very unpleasant revelations to deal with.

‘You have bought a new team,’ Will observed. Perhaps he too was glad of their involuntary chaperon. ‘There will be more horses arriving in a few weeks. I bought an Andalusian stallion and two mares and a dozen Arabians.’

‘Fifteen horses?’ Julia felt a surge of excitement sweep back the fears into their usual dark corner. ‘We will need new stabling. And to extend the paddocks,’ she added. ‘Thank goodness the feed stocks are so good and the hay crop should be excellent if the weather holds. We may need to hire new grooms.’ Mind racing, she started to make lists in her head. ‘I will get Harris the builder up tomorrow to discuss plans. Jobbins will have ideas about any likely local lads to hire, of course, but we will need someone used to stud work—’

‘I have it all in hand,’ Will said. ‘You have no need to trouble yourself with such things now that I am home.’

‘It will be no trouble,’ Julia retorted. She knew exactly what state the grass was in, how much new fencing was needed, where an extended stable block would go and the strengths and weaknesses of the current stable staff. There was going to be a territorial battle, she could tell, because she was not prepared to let three years of hard work go and retire to her sitting room and her embroidery. But that was something else that could wait until the morning.

‘We can have supper while they make up the bed in the master suite,’ she said into the silence that had fallen. ‘And make sure your room is aired, of course, Jervis.’ In the gloom of the carriage she could sense the sudden sharpening of Will’s attention. He was hardly going to discuss their sleeping arrangements now. When the time came to go upstairs she would just have to be very clear that she wished to be alone.

No doubt that would be another subject on which Lord Dereham had very firm opinions. And then there was the secret tragedy that, somehow, she was going to find a way to confess before anyone told him of it.

Chapter Seven

Will rolled over on to his back and opened his eyes. Above him, lit by the early morning light, was the familiar dark blue of the bed canopy. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and focused on the stars embroidered in silver thread by some long-ago ancestress. Home. He really was home.

Without turning his head he stretched out a hand as he had every morning since he had finally accepted that he was not about to die. Beside him the bed was empty, the covers flat, the pillow smooth and cool. No one was there, of course.

Julia had not been very communicative last night, not after the brief verbal tussle over where he was sleeping. Which she had won, he reflected. For one night, at any rate. He was hard, aroused, but then he was every morning since he had recovered.

Will threw back the covers with an impatient hand and let the cool air of dawn flow over his naked, heated body. He had made his bed and now, he supposed, he must lie on it. Not that it would be such a hardship to lie with Julia. His mouth curved at the memory of her in that pink silk last night. He had thought about her these past years, but the memories had been of her spirit and her intelligence, not of her looks.

But marrying Julia had been a brilliant piece of improvisation by a dying man. A marriage of convenience that he had expected to last mere months. For a man with the prospect of a long life ahead of him it was a sentence to a loveless but solid and respectable future.

Or, given the hideous example of his own parents’ convenient marriage, loveless and cold, although, if he had anything to do with it, not spectacularly scandalous. He winced at the remembrance of the raised voices, the banging doors, the sniggers at school and the oh-so-careful reports in the scandal sheets—It is said that a certain Lady D—... It is the talk of the town that Lord D—’s latest companion...

All those lies, all the pretence. His father pretending he was not unfaithful, his mother pretending her heart was not broken, both of them lying to him, fobbing him off, whenever he asked if anything was wrong, when Papa would be home, why Mama was weeping again. It had felt as though they simply did not care enough about him to talk to him, to explain, to comfort the confused small boy. Looking back, he saw no reason to modify that explanation.

Thousands married without love and managed to live perfectly affectionate, civilised, faithful lives, he knew that. But, for a man who had once dreamed of something more for himself, it was a damnably unpleasant place to be. He had lived with a vision of bringing love back to Knight’s Acre and he had to accept that now he never would. He could sense that Julia would find it difficult to have him home and he could understand her feelings.

The night before he had told Jervis to leave the curtain drawn back. Now the sun flooded in through the window and he gazed down the long avenue of oaks towards the glimmer of the lake in the distance while he found his equilibrium again. He had managed to survive a death sentence, the loss of his betrothed and exile from the place he loved with a bone-deep passion. He had taken a gamble to save King’s Acre and if he had not, and had stayed, he would be dead by now and Henry in his place.

You’re an ungrateful devil, he told himself. He was alive, well and had an intelligent, attractive wife. King’s Acre had been in good hands, he felt confident of that. Of course Julia had been cool and had wanted to sleep alone last night. After all, she was a virgin and was probably shaken to the core to have her virtually unknown husband turn up without notice. That would change and he would be careful with her. And she would realise this morning that the master of the house had returned and she could place all the business affairs in his hands and, no doubt, be glad to shed the responsibility.