Season for Temptation

Chapter 33. In Which Simone Gets Lost

This newspaper is distressed to report the sudden departure of Viscount M — for his country estate. The ton will certainly be sorry to lose one of its shining stars, especially one who has provided so much recent interest for the clucking tongues of society matrons. One wonders if he intends also to make a visit to the home of Miss H—, the interesting young female so recently involved with the erstwhile viscount?

So. He was back at Nicholls. And Julia could answer quite decisively, if anyone had cared to ask her, that the “erstwhile viscount” had not made a visit to her home.

That meant she would go to his, then. She had already packed her trunk, just in case, and had notified her relatives that she might be leaving again at very short notice. Lady Irving was the only one who had raised any demur to this plan, although after Lady Oliver had taken her aside and talked to her for a solid forty-five minutes, even the countess had finally agreed that Julia might as well “try to bag the rascal” after all. She made Julia promise to take Simone with her if she went anywhere, however, since, she said with a meaningful lift of the eyebrows, it hadn’t gone all that well for Julia the last time she went running off to a man’s house without the supervision of a maid.

Actually, Julia thought, it had gone rather too well, but there was no need to argue with her aunt on this point. She agreed to the company of the French lady’s maid, knowing that Simone would be a sensible and efficient traveling companion.

Louisa offered to come along as well, but Julia declined, not wanting to give rise to the polite world’s most awkward situation since Miss Lettice Hopston’s bosoms had tumbled out of her court dress while curtsying to the queen. Which was to say — since she didn’t know how the meeting was going to go, she thought it would be better to have fewer witnesses, and to have none of those witnesses be the viscount’s former fiancée, even if that lady also happened to be one of her favorite people in the whole world.

Julia and Simone left for Nicholls within an hour of reading the newspaper with the information on James’s location. Lord Oliver was nowhere to be found at the time of departure, and thus had no idea what historic events might be about to take place. But Lady Oliver, Louisa, and Lady Irving all hugged Julia farewell and sent her off with a unique parting message.

“Don’t get married away from home, mind you,” Lady Oliver reminded her daughter. “Have him bring you back here once all is settled between you, and we’ll read the banns in the Stonemeadows church if he hasn’t got a special license.”

“If he hasn’t got a special license,” Lady Irving muttered, “he won’t be a functional male any more after I’m through with him.” She grumbled on for a few minutes, with only the words “scapegrace” and “the honorable thing” audible to Julia’s ears. Finally, with a hard, quick hug, the countess released Julia, adjuring her to return swiftly since she couldn’t get along without Simone.

Louisa simply gave Julia a long hug, her dark eyes shining. “Take care,” she whispered. “I hope all shall be well.”

“It shall be,” Julia assured her, “one way or another.”

She expected that the journey would seem unbearably long, but it passed more quickly than she could ever have hoped. Simone could tell that Julia didn’t wish to speak, and the gentle rocking of the carriage lulled the travelers into a state of quiet contemplation.

What was on Simone’s mind, Julia couldn’t even guess. Her own thoughts spun in circles as she wondered what she would say or do when she saw James. Different scenarios flitted through her mind. Should she be demure and wait for him to apologize? Should she be cold, and allow him to beg her forgiveness? Should she fling herself into his arms? Should she act as if nothing were wrong?

They made only a brief stop at a posting house to change horses and have a quick meal, arriving at Nicholls in early afternoon.

“How do I look?” Julia asked her traveling companion as their carriage pulled into the sweep of the Nicholls drive — which, she noticed vaguely, was now well-graveled and entirely devoid of the terrible ruts that had jostled the carriage on their last visit.

Simone cast appraising eyes up and down Julia’s face and form. Wordlessly, she retrained a few curls, adjusted a few hairpins, and brushed at the fabric of Julia’s dress, then leaned back to examine her charge.

She nodded, approving her work. “It is not so excellent as I would like,” she admitted, “but it cannot be helped after travel. I think you will do very well for your monsieur.”

Julia rolled her eyes and accepted this less than enthusiastic approval. As Louisa had once told her, what seemed like ages ago, her future husband wouldn’t mind what she looked like, even if she were wearing a tomatolike costume.

Besides, she knew James so well that she probably could dress like a tomato, and it wouldn’t affect his response to her. At least, not once he was done laughing.

So. Now it was time to find out what that response would be. She and Simone disembarked from the carriage and were ushered into the house by a butler so correct that he showed absolutely no sign of surprise that two young women, without a bit of baggage, were there to see his lordship. He offered to show them into either the drawing room or into his lordship’s study.

Here the dignified servant’s mask slipped a bit, and he suggested with a significant twinkle in his eye, “Might I show you into the study? It has been recently refurnished and will be much more comfortable for a discussion of any significant length or import.”

Julia gratefully accepted this suggestion, and the butler deposited the two visitors in the room in question, promising to send in some refreshment to them.

Julia sat down blindly on the first seat she saw and buried her face in her hands. She still had no idea what to say to James. Good heavens, she was going to see him in a very few minutes, and the whole course of her future life depended on what she was going to say to him. Her breathing grew shallow and quick. She was taking such a chance here, and what if it should come to nothing?

“If you will excuse me, mademoiselle,” Simone said, tapping Julia on the shoulder to get her attention, “I shall find the salle des bains for use after the journey.” Her face neutral, she added, “I do not perfectly recall where any chambers are in this house. It is very possible that I will wander for much time before I am able to return to you.”

Julia smiled at her implied assurance. Her nervousness didn’t entirely disappear, but this hint from Simone did dissipate most of it. So she was to be left alone with James, was she? That did make things easier. She could talk to him — oh, how she could talk — until everything was understood between them. Until she knew what had happened, and why, and what would come next for them.

It was beginning to feel rather exciting, actually.

“Thank you, Simone,” she replied gravely. “I do hope you don’t get too lost, but I am well aware that this is a very large house.”

With a curtsy of agreement, the maid left her alone. Alone to kick her heels against the chair legs as was her wont, waiting impatiently for James to arrive.

“Why am I always having to wait in some stupid chair for him to come to me?” Julia muttered, and at once rose from the chair to pace around the room.

Once she had worked out a bit of her nervous energy, she began to look at her surroundings.

“Why, this is lovely,” she whispered. Here James had finally been able to make the comfortable home for himself that he had never bothered to do in London; here she could at last see his taste given free rein.

And she liked it. The walls were painted a warm, muted blue, while a deep-piled Aubusson carpet in rich tones covered most of the dark wood floor. Comfortable chairs and a long sofa provided plenty of space to sit. The room was dominated by a mahogany secretaire, the cabinets of which held an assortment of ledgers and volumes, and the desk of which was covered with a litter of notes, bills, crumpled papers, and a sealed letter. The style of it, and the room’s other furnishings, was clean but sturdy, simple, and masculine, with lines lovely to behold.

Rather like their owner, actually.

As Julia was reflecting on this similarity, the door opened behind her. Before Julia could even turn around, arms wrapped around her from behind, and the beloved voice breathed her name in her ear before pressing a kiss onto her neck.

Well. That decided that, she supposed, tilting her head to allow James to kiss her neck again. She need not muck around with some elaborate plan to make him feel guilty, or to trick him into revealing his feelings, since those were abundantly clear.

He was delighted to see her. He must love her.

A breath of relief hissed out of her. She felt as if she’d been holding it for days and could at last relax.

So, she could be dignified and elegant with him. They could discuss the situation calmly and dispassionately, as mature adults.

She whirled furiously about and stomped on James’s foot.

“How could you do that to me?” she demanded, struggling to get out of his embrace. “How could you send me that terrible letter, and then just leave me like that? Didn’t you know what people would think of me? Didn’t you care anything about me at all?”

All right, so much for dignified and elegant. But at least he understood what she really thought.

Well, maybe he didn’t understand. He looked astounded at her sudden reaction and rubbed his injured foot absently behind the calf of his other leg.

Julia struggled to keep from melting back against him. Even flabbergasted, he was the most beautiful person in the world to her, and she wanted to jump into his arms again and never leave.

She turned her thoughts back to the issue at hand with an effort and tried to glower at him, waiting for a response.

“What are you talking about?” James still looked thunderstruck, but at least he put down the foot Julia had stomped on. “I never sent you any letter. All I got was one from your aunt, saying that I shouldn’t call on you or write to you ever again. I didn’t think you had changed your mind about me, but I thought she had been humiliated by the public attention to our, ah, time together, and wanted to keep us apart.”

Now it was Julia’s turn to be shocked. “She sent what? Impossible. I sent you a letter, telling you to please come for me, for I thought we should be married at once. And,” she added with embarrassed primness, “because it was what I wished for anyway.”

They stared at each other, equally confused and hurt, and then they both spoke at once.

“But it bore her seal—”

“It wasn’t your handwriting, but you had sealed it—”

And then, together: “How could you ever think I would send such a thing?”

They glared at each other for a few seconds, and then James’s mouth quivered. Julia saw his stern expression crack, then warm into a smile, and then he was laughing, and she was laughing right along with him.

He gathered her into his arms again and dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. “Obviously we have a few things to straighten out,” he said, “but I’m just so happy to see you, I can’t help myself.”

He tipped her head back and kissed her gently, with the uncertain tenderness of a man who isn’t sure whether he has been forgiven. And Julia — the dutiful daughter of the former Elise Crawford, who had compromised herself into gaining the marriage she longed for — took James’s face in her hands and kissed him back with a fervor that assured him that not only had he been forgiven, but they had a lot of catching up to do.

James broke off the kiss after a long, heated moment. “My God.”

He stepped back and reached a hand out to Julia. “We’d better have a seat and talk things over before we go on like that. I’m about two seconds away from losing all control, and I know that’s not what you need right now.”

Julia allowed him to show her into a chair, but she couldn’t resist asking, “What would happen in two more seconds?” She thought she might know the answer, and it brought an impish smile to her face.

He shook his head at her in amazement. “If you keep looking at me like that, you’re going to find out.”

Julia covered her mouth, but was unable to suppress a laugh. “Does it involve being unclothed?”

James looked at her sharply. “Yes,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “Extremely unclothed.”

Julia’s face flushed warm; the heat spread, light and tingling and aware, through her whole body. To be with James again, in that so intimate way — was that why, once again, she had come to his house?

Perhaps it was, in part. Now that she was thinking of it, she longed to see him again, naked and proud, and she longed to have him touch her and wake those primal, ecstatic feelings.

But they did have other things to talk of; James was right. How had their letters gone awry?

With an effort on both of their parts, they turned their attention from the sensual to the logical, figuring out the timeline of messages sent, messages received, visitors, and departures. For the most part, it was a calm process, except for when Julia described for James the contents of the letter she had sent, and the one she had received back in his name.

“My dear,” he whispered, reaching for her hands. “My poor love. You sent me that, and you got back — what did it say? No, never mind; don’t think of it. If I’d truly gotten the message you sent, I wouldn’t have been able to stay away from you for a second.”

He drew his chair nearer to her, his expression urgent. “I wasn’t yet dressed at the time your message came, but if I’d seen it, I would have sprinted over in my dressing gown, special license in hand.” He sat back to smile at her wickedly. “As soon as we were married. . well, there would have been less to take off that way.”

Julia smiled back at him, but absently; she was still trying to sort out the chain of events in her head. What had happened to her letter? It must have gone astray sometime while he was upstairs. It was the only possibility.

“Oh, no,” she realized with dawning horror. “It was your mother.”

“What?” James looked confused.

“It was your mother,” Julia repeated more firmly, beginning to feel angry. “It had to be. Don’t you see? She was alone for what, fifteen or twenty minutes? She must have intercepted my message, and. .” She thought for a moment. “I believe Aunt Estella had enclosed my letter in an extra sheet of paper for privacy, since I wrote so large that I covered both sides of the paper.”

She was unable to keep all of the bitterness out of her voice as she recalled that measure, intended to be so helpful. “Your mother must have broken off the seal when she saw who it was from, read my letter, and used the blank sheet with the seal to write one of her own.”

James shook his head. “No, that can’t be. I’m sure it wasn’t her handwriting.”

They both looked crestfallen for a moment. Then James snapped his fingers, seized by a sudden memory.

“She had her lady’s maid with her,” he recalled. “Some poor creature who was probably terrified of her. She must have had the maid write the letters for her.”

James looked so livid as he said this that Julia felt a bit nervous — not for herself, but for Lady Matheson, should that unfortunate viscountess happen to cross her son’s path. He rose from his chair and began pacing around the room — Julia knew that urge well — kicking at the legs of every chair in his path, and muttering something about Matheson House and eviction.

It was rather amazing, actually, but the angrier he seemed, the calmer Julia began to feel. Her anger, her sense of having been wronged, began to melt away. What, after all, had she lost? Merely a couple of days with James, and perhaps the good opinion of people she didn’t care about anyway, and might never meet again in her life. But what had the viscountess lost? In her desperate attempt to control her son, to bring him to heel and accept a bride of her own choosing, she had lost his trust. Perhaps forever.

The poor woman was almost to be pitied. Did she really think her stratagem would hold? That they would make no attempt to contact each other? That they would be so hurt they would stay apart?

No, that was too ridiculous. Although now that she thought about it, there was still one question that remained unanswered.

“James.” Julia seized his hand and arrested him in his chair-kicking path around the room. “James, it doesn’t matter. It didn’t work, don’t you see? She couldn’t keep us apart.” She stroked his arm, loving the feel of his muscles leaping beneath her touch. “Here I am. Here I am with you.”

As he stared at her, trying to calm himself enough to listen, she drew a deep breath of her own. She had to have him answer that one last question.

“I do want to know, though,” she asked in a small voice, “why didn’t you come for me? After you knew what had been printed about us, why didn’t you try to come for me or contact me in any way?”

He sat down, hard, in the chair across from her again. “But I did,” he said urgently. “I came as soon as I could herd my blasted mother and that damned prosy baronet out of my house,” he said, without the slightest touch of filial respect.

“I don’t know what business he thought it was of his, but he honestly seemed to think he was being helpful, and he said he was going to speak with you, too. And my mother was even worse. Gad, the woman simply wouldn’t leave. She was clinging to my hand and telling me about how lonely she was, and how glad she was to be having coffee with me.”

He snorted in disgust. “It was all a pack of damned lies, designed to keep me there with her until you had gotten discouraged and left.”

The fact that this was exactly what had happened did not decrease Julia’s feeling of sympathy. She had won; she could afford to be generous.

“Likely she did mean what she told you,” she murmured, breaking into James’s angry reflection. “I think she must be a very lonely woman. Although she probably did time her revelation for that very reason, to keep us away from one another. There’s no denying that was her purpose for coming. Well, maybe not precisely her original purpose, but she certainly seized the opportunity when it arose.”

James merely looked skeptical at Julia’s placating words, then explained further what had happened. He had gone by the Grosvenor Square address as soon as he could, but the knocker was already off the door. Sheepishly, he admitted, “I pounded on it anyway. And. . and I shouted for you.”

“You did?” Julia was delighted by this mental image. “I imagine you entertained the whole square.”

“Probably I did draw rather a lot of attention,” James granted, “but I didn’t even notice. Once I was sure you weren’t there, I thought maybe you — or at least your aunt — really had meant what was said in that letter I received.”

“That your mother had forged.” Julia was unable to refrain from correcting him.

All right, so she wasn’t perfect; she might still be feeling a little bit angry. This whole situation really did sting, and maybe it was for the best that the viscountess wasn’t present right now, for everyone’s sake. Julia wasn’t entirely willing to promise that she wouldn’t have taken a very unladylike swing at the older woman’s face.

“Right,” James agreed, continuing with his narrative. “I must have just missed you by a few minutes, though I couldn’t have known that. Anyway, I decided to come home — here — and shake the dust of London from my feet for a time. I traveled all day yesterday, practically. I was determined I should get here before another day passed.”

“And what about me?” Julia pressed. “What were you going to tell me, and when?”

James stood, without a word, and shuffled through the papers atop his secretaire before laying hands on the sealed missive Julia had noticed earlier. He handed it to her, and she turned it over and noticed that it was directed to her.

“I was going to post this today,” he explained. “You can read it if you want to.”

Was the man crazy? Of course she wanted to read it. She was dying to see what he would have said to her to try to make things right.

Julia, my love,

I don’t know what happened in London, or how things went so terribly wrong yesterday. I came to your aunt’s house and you had left for Stonemeadows Hall. I felt like the worst sort of fool for letting you go, regardless of what your aunt might want.

I wish I could have spared you even the smallest amount of worry. I love you still — always — and I would like to be married as soon as possible. If you feel the same, please let me know and I’ll come for you at once, special license in hand.

Yours ever,

James

“Special license in hand,” Julia whispered, joy bubbling up in her. He meant it. He wanted her. He always had.

“It is in hand, as I said,” James replied, an answering grin on his face. “Well, practically. Here it is on my desk. I was determined to keep it until either we were married or I knew you didn’t want to have anything more to do with me.”

There followed a gleeful few minutes, during which the couple eagerly sorted out the last few lingering uncertainties with kisses, laughs, and hurried explanations. They decided to be married as soon as possible from Stonemeadows Hall. James was all for being married the next day, as soon as they could return to the barony; there was no one, he insisted, that he wanted to invite.

“I’m soured on London,” he said. “Honestly, Julia, I think you are my truest friend.” He looked warmly at her as he said this, but then a little bleak as he continued, “I don’t know if any of my others were ever even real.”

“That’s no way to talk,” Julia said, even as his compliment caused her to flutter inside. “You should at least have your family present at your marriage.”

She corrected herself conscientiously. “That is, you should at least have your sister at the wedding. I can’t say I’m eager to see your mother right now. But you must have your sister there.”

She cast her memory back a long way, to a Christmas fireside, and James’s trust that she could help him bear the weight of his family’s honor. “I’ll stand at your side, and we’ll offer her and your nieces a respectable home, just as you always wanted. I intended to invite them all to the country anyway. And they really should get out of that terrible house.”

James smiled and traced a fingertip over her face. “You remembered,” he wondered.

“I remember everything,” Julia replied. “Though I’m not sure I’ll always be able to be as respectable as you hoped.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You’re just as respectable as I’d want you to be.” He touched the tip of her nose. “My dear viscountess.”

So it would happen. They were going to get married. They would be able to spend their lives together. During the day, and at night. .

James’s thoughts seemed to be roving as well; his expression grew wolfish. “Now that we’ve got all the details sorted, what shall we do next?”

His hands roamed down her back and cupped her bottom, pressing her against him. Those hands positively stole the thought right out of her.

Julia felt warm, liquid, and eager, savoring his touch, allowing it to raise fires inside her even as her own hands began to explore his body with passionate curiosity.

Then an idea bobbed into her head that she was sure James would like, and she would, too.

After all, they were going to be married so soon. . what would be the harm in anticipating the ceremony, just once more?

“I’ll show you what we can do with our time,” she said, and with a gentle shove, she laid him out, amazed, on the study’s sofa and then turned the lock of the door.

Simone remained lost for two hours before she returned to the study to check on mademoiselle. Putting a cautious ear to the door, she quickly whipped her head back at the sounds from within.

“Nom d’un nom,” she murmured, a small smile playing on her lips as she scooted away from the door. “All is well. They will certainly be getting married now.”

And then she became dutifully lost again for several more hours.