From Ruin to Riches. Louise Allen

made herself breathe slowly and shallowly. These people laughing and talking were nothing like that avid crowd and no one looking at her would guess that the new Lady Dereham in her pretty gown and elegantly coiffed hair was a fugitive with a deadly secret.

      ‘I thought I loved another, you see...’ Julia let her voice trail off artistically. ‘And then...’ Really, where did I get this ability to play-act! I have been reading too many novels. Desperation, I suppose. ‘Then we found each other again, when Will’s betrothal had been ended and I had realised that there was no one else for me but him,’ she finished. ‘So romantic, is it not?’

      ‘So William knew you some time ago?’ Mrs Hadfield was intent on pursuing this mystery.

      ‘I would rather not talk about the past,’ Julia murmured, improvising frantically. Will had assured her no one would ask awkward questions. He might have been correct so far as he was concerned, for she was sure he could depress vulgar curiosity with one look, but she had been an idiot to take his word for it and not prepare a careful story.

      ‘I was sadly disillusioned in the man I thought I loved and that made me see Lord Dereham’s qualities in a different light.’ Set against a scheming, mercenary rake who tried to force her, she was certain even Will’s undoubted faults would be preferable.

      ‘Lady Dereham—or may I call you Cousin Augusta?’ With an inward sigh of relief she turned to Henry Hadfield, Will’s cousin and heir. She could see the relationship in the height and the straight, dark brows and something about the way his mouth curved when he smiled, but there was no strength of character in the handsome, immature, face. She tried to imagine those features superimposed on Will’s strong bones and experienced a slight shock of...what? Attraction? Not desire, surely, not after what she had experienced.

      The momentary feeling passed and she was able to concentrate again. It would not do to let her guard down with either of the Hadfields. Henry had not quite worked out what a threat to him she represented, but his mama would soon enlighten him.

      ‘Why, Cousin, certainly. But Julia, please. I never use my first name.’ She smiled. He was young and it was up to her to get to know Henry and to influence him if she could, instil in him a love for an estate she did not know and remain on good terms through seven long years of uncertainty.

      The setting sun slanted in through the long windows, setting the silverware gleaming and painting a pink glow over the faces of the guests. Not that they needed much colouring, Julia thought. Will had not spared the champagne and cheeks were flushed and conversation still lively, although it was almost half past seven and the party had gathered to eat after the church service at noon.

      ‘Friends.’ Everyone turned. Will was standing in front of the cold hearth, a glass in his hand. Did everyone see how his knuckles whitened where his left hand gripped the mantelshelf, or was it only she who realised how tightly he was controlling himself?

      The image of the statue of the dying Gaul that she had seen once as an engraving caught at her imagination. Will was still on his feet but only because of that same indomitable refusal to give up and die. What was it? she wondered. Pride? Anger partly, she was certain. Courage. He was fighting Death as though it was a person who had attacked his honour.

      Her eyes blurred and she swallowed hard. If she had met him before he became sick... He would have been betrothed to Caroline Fletcher, she told herself with a sharp return to reality. And he would probably have been as dictatorial and single-minded as he was now.

      ‘Firstly my wife and I must thank you for your support today at such short notice. Secondly, I must ask you for further support for Lady Dereham as I will be travelling abroad for some months and must leave immediately on the morrow.’

      A babble of questions broke out and then the tall man who had come down from London to stand as groomsman, the friend from Will’s army days, Major Frazer, said, ‘Abroad?’

      ‘I intend to develop the stud here and I wish to purchase Andalusians from Spain and Arabians from North Africa.’ The major said something in an undertone, but Will answered him in the same clear voice. ‘My health? I am feeling much stronger. It is best that I go now while the weather holds. And finally, my friends, I must ask your indulgence if we retire so I can rest before the start of my journey.’ He raised his glass, ‘To my wife, Julia.’

      ‘To Lady Dereham!’

      Blushing, Julia made her way through the scarcely repressed whispers and speculation to Will’s side. ‘That has put the cat amongst the pigeons with a vengeance, my lord,’ she murmured. ‘I had no idea you intended to leave so abruptly.’

      She saw with a pang of anxiety that the lines of strain around his eyes and mouth were even more pronounced than before. ‘There is not a great deal of time to waste, is there?’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Come, let us go up.’

      He was so determined. She felt sick at the thought of what he was going through, but there was nothing she could do to help him except what, for such selfish reasons, she was doing now.

      People were considerate and did not detain them with more than a few words of good wishes. Julia made her way into the deserted hallway before she slid her hand from resting on Will’s arm to a steadying pressure under his elbow. ‘I will ring for your valet,’ she said when they paused at the second turn.

      ‘Jervis will be already waiting with your maid in our bedchamber.’

      ‘Our chamber?’

      ‘Certainly.’ Julia looked up sharply and thought she caught just the faintest hint of a smile. ‘In my state of health you surely do not expect me to be negotiating draughty corridors in the middle of the night in order to visit you?’

      ‘Are you saying that you expect me to share your bed tonight?’ It had never occurred to her for a moment that this marriage would be anything but one in name only. Surely a man in his state of health could not...could he? She stumbled on the next step with images, sensations, shuddering through her memory.

      ‘Shh,’ Will murmured as a door below opened and the noise of the dispersing guests filled the space. ‘This is not the place to be discussing such matters.’

      Julia swallowed, nodded and somehow managed the rest of the stairs without blurting out the protests that were on the tip of her tongue. When Will opened the door to the master bedchamber Nancy, the chambermaid, was waiting there, chatting to Jervis, filmy white garments draped over her arm and a wide smile on her lips. This was no place for that discussion, either. The servants had to believe this marriage was real as much as anyone.

      ‘There you are, my lady! I’ve had hot water brought up to the dressing room for your bath and Mr Jervis will see to his lordship in here.’ She swept Julia in front of her through another door into a small panelled room with a steaming tub standing ready.

      ‘I’ve sprinkled that lovely nightgown with rosewater,’ she went on chattily as Julia stood like a block to be undressed. She had indulged herself with a pretty summer nightgown and robe when she had shopped for her wedding clothes and the other wardrobe essentials in Aylesbury. What she had not expected was that anyone but herself and her maid would ever see them.

      ‘Excellent,’ she managed as she climbed into the bath and began to soap herself. From the other room came the sounds of conversation, the bang of a cupboard door closing, the rattle of curtain rings. Next door was a man, a virtual stranger, getting ready to go to bed and expecting her to join him. The last man with those expectations had played on every one of her love-filled fantasies, taken her virtue and then betrayed her.

      This one, she reflected as she climbed out of the bath and was swathed in towels, had at least married her. But could a man in Will’s state of health consummate a marriage? She had no idea how the mechanics of male desire actually worked, but the performance was certainly physically demanding. What if Will expected her to do something...? With Jonathan she had simply lain there, held him and tried to do what he wanted of her. It seemed from his words that she had not been very good at it. Julia pressed her hand to her midriff as if that would calm the rising panic.