Page 50 of Wed By Proxy

Guy stared at her. “Is something amiss with Allworthy House then?” he asked in some bewilderment. The letter had not mentioned as much.

Julia gave him a look of sweet reproach. “Allworthy House will never be my true home, Guy,” she said sadly. “And I think you know that.” She turned and made her way over to the window seat, elegantly arranging herself there.

It was on the tip of Guy’s tongue to point out that a wife’s home was wherever her husband lived, but then he remembered his own circumstances. He didn’t want to add hypocrisy to his ever-growing list of transgressions. “I, er, have a few things to be getting on with before supper, Julia,” he said briskly.

She smiled indulgently. “I’m sure you know me better than to think I will interrupt you when you are busy with your estates,” she responded archly.

Guy eyed her warily as he rounded his desk. She had no needlework or anything to occupy her, he noticed with irritation. Julia had never been a peaceable woman. She was the sort who expected to be entertained, and lavishly. Ignoring her, he opened his ledger and started checking the entries before totaling them up for the month. It was exactly two minutes before Julia interrupted the peace.

“How this takes me back,” she declared huskily. “Was it not ever thus, between us?” Guy’s frown deepened. He didn’t remember her as being quite this annoying, in truth. “True accord,” she continued when he did not respond. “Is when you can sit in perfect silence with another person and feel no obligation to speak.”

“Quite,” said Guy tersely. He dipped his quill in the ink and returned to his columns.

“Alas,” she sighed. “That I cannot spend my every day thus employed. How vastly contented I would be!” She paused expectantly, clearly expecting some rejoinder from him.

Why the hells would she want to sit all day watching someone about their business? “Where’s Cecil on this visit? He does not accompany you?”

“Cecil?” she sounded surprised.

“Your husband,” he reminded her.

Her smile faltered. “Poor Cecil, he will never feel as we do about the north.” Guy shrugged and returned to his page. “Do you remember, Guy,” Julia asked pressing a hand to her breast. “That summer I turned eighteen?”

Guy suppressed a sigh and laid down his pen. “We are the same age,” he pointed out. “So, of course I do.”

“And the words you said to me, down at the hollowed oak?” she asked, casting down her eyes demurely, raising the floaty scarf to her cheek. “I will never forget them. Never!”

Guy thought a moment. Was that where he had proposed to her? He had some vague recollection of it.

“How you must hate me!” she flung at him passionately, making him start. “For the way I trifled with your heart, fool that I was! How —” She lowered her voice again. “How I hate myself for the wretched mistakes of the past.” Her bosom heaved; she raised her stormy violet eyes to meet his. “Can you — can you ever forgive me, Guy?” she asked tremulously.

Guy blinked. What the hells was all this? He had seen Julia several times since her marriage and she’d never subjected him to such a scene.

“Of course, Julia,” he said stiffly. “Don’t distress yourself.”

For one horrible moment, he thought she was going to rise off the window seat and fling herself at his feet in impassioned entreaty. Jumping up from his chair to forestall her, he made some excuse and beat a hasty retreat.

“Firmin!” he bawled as he strode down the corridor. He heard Firmin answer him from the long gallery and made haste in that direction. He spotted him at last instructing one of the underservants next to a portrait of the fourth Marquess. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me Lady Julia was lurking in my study?” he fumed, as Firmin hastily dismissed the servant. “I do not want to be left alone with her for the duration of her stay, do I make myself clear? And I want it made very plain my private rooms are strictly out of bounds to guests!”

A soft chuckle from the other side of the gallery made him wheel around. On a cushioned bench there lolled her brother, Tristan, resplendent in a purple doublet, his auburn locks gleaming about his shoulders. He looked very like his sister. Guy wondered waspishly if they had deliberately dressed in matching colors. “Kerslake,” Guy greeted him coldly.

“Guy,” Tristan greeted him effusively. “Well met! It must be some fourteen months or so since I last saw you.”

Guy nodded brusquely. “Or thereabouts,” he agreed.

“It seems my sister is making herself at home,” Tristan murmured, a gleam of unholy amusement in his eye. “How she loves these trips back to the land of our forebears. I vow each time she grows more nostalgic and waxes yet more lyrical than the last.” Guy glared at him resentfully. “I daresay you’ve noticed, she has now recast you in her memories?” Tristan gave a gurgle of amusement. “You are no longer the disappointed suitor,” he explained with relish. “But the man from whose arms she was torn, by cruel circumstance and an indifferent fate.”

Guy glowered. “She jilted me in favor of Allworthy, as I remember it.”

Tristan tutted. “Tsk, tsk, now that just won’t do Guy! That just won’t do! She’ll get very hurt if you don’t fall in line and play along in the role she’s assigned you.”

“I’ve no intention—” Guy started hotly, before another thought crossed his mind and he turned back to Firmin. “Get Temur to bring that wife of his up to the house,” he said shortly. “She can keep Julia company for the duration of her visit.”

Firmin bridled. “Lettys?”

“Aye, that’s her. Well remembered.”

“I doubt very much her company is refined enough —” Firmin started, but the expression on Guy’s face halted him. “Aye,” he muttered. “If that’s what you want, Guy.”