An Independent Woman. Candace Camp

like her sister’s, her hair pale blond and her eyes blue, but there the resemblance ended. Fiona was already as tall as her petite sister and showed no signs of stopping growing yet. Her face was squarish in shape, with a firm chin, and none of the soft, dimpled look for which Clementine was well-known. In sharp contrast to Clementine, her blue eyes were sharp and gleaming with intelligence.

      “She has done nothing but talk of the man the whole day,” Fiona went on in irritation. “How handsome he is, how wealthy he is, how respected his name is.”

      “Lord Barre is a…remarkable man,” Juliana told her.

      The younger girl made a face. “No one could be the paragon that Clementine describes.”

      Juliana chuckled. “Well, that is probably true. But he is a friend of mine. We grew up together, and long ago he was the best friend I had.”

      “Really?” Fiona looked up at her in astonishment. “You are friends with the man Clemmy is going to marry?”

      Juliana raised one brow skeptically. “Is that what she said?”

      “Oh, yes. She said he would be head-over-heels about her in a few days.” Fiona grimaced. “And she’s usually right about men, even if she is abysmally ignorant about everything else. Men seem to be disgustingly taken with her.”

      Juliana automatically started to remind Fiona that she should not talk so disparagingly about her sister. But on second thought, she decided that it was wrong to reprimand the girl for speaking the truth. “I’m not sure that she will have the usual success with this one.”

      The evening before Juliana had wondered if Nicholas might become attracted to Clementine’s beauty. He had, after all, smiled and conversed with her. But his actions today had left little room for misinterpretation. He had left, pleading lack of time, shortly after Clementine had entered the room and taken over the conversation, and, whatever Mrs. Thrall might choose to think about Nicholas’s invitation, he had not included Clementine in it. Mrs. Thrall and her daughter might be able to arrange it the next morning so that he had to take Clementine along, but Juliana was quite certain that he had not intended for Clementine to go.

      Juliana, too, had seen Clementine wrap men around her finger, and she could not say with certainty that she might not be able to eventually work her wiles on Nicholas, but she did not think it would be easy.

      “That would be wonderful,” Fiona said, grinning. “He must be smarter than most of the men Clemmy sees.”

      “Yes, I rather think he is. Nicholas was always perceptive.”

      “How did you know him?”

      “He was orphaned and had to live with his uncle. My mother was a cousin to his uncle’s wife, and we lived in a cottage on the estate. Nicholas and I formed a—well, a sort of alliance of outcasts.”

      “Why was he an outcast? I mean, he is a lord now,” Fiona pointed out.

      “It was odd,” Juliana agreed. “He wasn’t treated like a future lord. I never even realized until I heard that he’d come into the title that he was the heir. His grandfather was ill and lived in Bath, and Nicholas’s uncle was his guardian. The way everyone acted…well, I never asked, but I assumed that his uncle Trenton was the one who would inherit the title and the estate, and that after him, Trenton’s son Crandall would. Trenton Barre ran the estate for his father, and everyone acted as if he were the lord and master.”

      “Why?” Fiona asked.

      “Trenton Barre was a tyrant. I think probably everyone was too scared of him to cross him. There were people—some of the servants and some of the farmers who lived around there—who were nice to Nicholas. But in a secretive way, not in front of his uncle. I never understood why Uncle Trenton disliked Nicholas so. Now I can see that it was because he knew that Nicholas would inherit the title, not him or his son. It must have galled him terribly to know that one day he would have to turn over the estate he ran to Nicholas. That he would have to call him ‘my lord.’”

      “Well, he can’t have been terribly smart. I mean, wouldn’t it have been better to be kind to him? Maybe then he wouldn’t have had to lose everything when Lord Barre came into the title.”

      “I don’t think Uncle Trenton thought that way. It seemed to always be all or nothing with him. He had to be in command. I think he viewed the estate as his and hated Nicholas for being a reminder that it really was not.” Juliana shrugged. “At any rate, he didn’t have to see Nicholas succeed to the title. He died several years ago.”

      “It sounds as if he was a terrible man,” Fiona commented.

      “He was. I was glad I was in Europe with Mrs. Simmons at the time he died and couldn’t be expected to return for the funeral. I would have found it difficult to honor him.”

      They walked on in silence for a few more minutes, and then Fiona said, “Well…if Lord Barre is a friend of yours, then I suppose I cannot dislike him. As long as he does not fall in love with Clementine, that is.”

      “Yes,” Juliana agreed. “I think that I would have a hard time liking him, too, if he did that.”

      Fiona began to talk about the book she had just finished reading, and Juliana listened to her chatter, her mind only partly on what the girl was saying. The rest was occupied with mentally sorting through her small wardrobe, trying to find a dress that was not horribly dull to wear on her ride the next morning.

      That, she soon realized, would be an impossible task. All her dresses were plain and sewn of sensible fabrics in dark shades of gray, blue and brown, chosen for their durability and practicality, with an eye to giving Juliana the appearance of dull reliability that people sought in a paid companion. Companions, after all, were not usually hired in the hopes that they would be entertaining and interesting people to have around. They were there to provide a certain respectability for a woman on her own, or to fetch and carry and respond to someone’s boring conversation with apparent interest.

      Juliana found that she could not bear to appear the next morning looking dowdy, so that evening she took out her best bonnet and re-attached the saucy little cluster of cherries that she had removed from it in order to dress it down. There was little she could do to the dress to improve it other than add a small ruffle of lace around the modestly high neck and long sleeves.

      She thought of sitting beside Clementine, who would be wearing a doubtlessly fetching new hat, and she could not help but feel a stab of jealousy. She had spent her life around people who had more than she did, and Juliana thought that she had done very well at not feeling envious. She had always tried to think instead of the graces of her life—good health and reasonably attractive looks, and her ability to make her own way in the world without being at the mercy of others, as her mother had been. She was free and had at least a small amount of savings, and she had made some very good friends in her life. These things were much more than some people had, she knew, and she normally felt grateful for them and did not hunger over what others possessed.

      But this time she could not shrug off the black resentment that crept over her as she thought of Clementine wedging her way into this moment that belonged to Juliana. Clementine would talk and preen and spoil the moment. There was nothing she could do, however, except hope that Clementine would, in her usual way, be so late that they could leave without her.

      Unfortunately, the next morning Clementine was in the sitting room ready to go only minutes after Juliana. She was flushed with excitement, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks rosy, looking, Juliana had to admit, quite lovely. And the hat she had bought yesterday was indeed fetching, a chip straw with a shallow brim that showed her face to full advantage and tied with a great blue satin ribbon that accentuated the blue of her eyes.

      When Nicholas was announced a few minutes later, he strolled into the room, his eyes sweeping over Clementine and her mother. “Mrs. Thrall. Miss Thrall.”

      His gaze came to rest on Juliana, and a faint smile lightened his dark visage. “Juliana. Are you ready?”

      “Yes.”