Loving Julia Page 6

  “Mr. Timothy’s wife, my lord?” Mrs. Masters’ voice was squeaky with disbelief as her eyes ran over the new Mrs. Julia Stratham.

  Jewel stiffened, conscious of the picture she must present with the still wet red gown clinging to every slim curve, the pale flesh of her breasts peeking out above the bodice, and her eyes shadowed with exhaustion and hunger. Mrs. Masters looked scornful, affronted, and offended in turn—until her rheumy blue eyes met the celestial ones of her master. Then all expression was quickly wiped from her face. Jewel’s sizzling temper subsided. There was no need for her to say anything to put the snooty creature in her place when the earl’s silence was so eloquent.

  “Yes, Mrs. Masters. Didn’t I just say so?” He turned to Jewel, who looked at him as a drowning man might a life line. “Go with Mrs. Masters. She will provide all that you require. I will see you in the morning.”

  “Please follow me, Miss Julia.” Mrs. Masters turned to go. Her tone was stiffly correct, but Jewel knew that her dislike of having to treat courteously one whom she had instantly dismissed as a guttersnipe or worse was fairly choking her.

  The earl made a gesture indicating that Jewel should follow the housekeeper. With a final sideways look at the beautiful masculine face, which suddenly struck her as being a port in a storm of dislike, and a determined straightening of her shoulders, she did.

  V

  When the girl had gone, Sebastian Peyton, eighth Earl of Moorland, moved back to the chair behind his desk and sat down, feeling suddenly weary. Automatically his hand reached for the mother-of-pearl cigar box that held the thin brown cheroots that were one of his numerous vices. Extracting one and lighting it, he inhaled the aromatic smoke with pleasure. He was engaged to meet a trio of cronies for dinner and a night of activities that would no doubt add to their unsavory reputations as scions of noble families whose scandalous careers put them outside the social pale. But for once his heart was not in it.

  He leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and put the cheroot between his lips, savoring it. Life held too few pleasures, he thought bleakly. It was a cold and barren business with only small things like his cheroots, a good glass of brandy, or maybe a particularly ravishing high flyer to provide leavening. Which was probably why he hadn’t sent the brass-faced little chit about her business. He was bored, deadly bored, and she looked like she might provide some amusing moments. Added to which, admitting her to the family had annoyed his mother mightily, and he enjoyed annoying his mother. It paid her back in small measure for all those years when she had ignored him.

  Funny how life worked out when you thought about it. Edward, his sainted brother who had been the darling of his mother’s heart and would have been the earl now if he had lived, had been dead these past ten years. And he himself had been widowed for what would be two years next month. And now Timothy, too, was gone.

  Sebastian had never cared greatly for the lad, whose mother had spoiled him rotten just as Sebastian’s mother, sister to Timothy’s mother, had spoiled Edward. But he had been very young to die.

  “Here’s one in the eye for old Seb.” Sebastian could imagine how the thought had cheered the dying youth. Timothy had deeply resented his cousin because Sebastian had refused to pay another farthing of his monstrous gambling debts, or to finance his taste for expensive light-skirts, or to advance him any sums over and above the allowance which came to him each quarter. In addition, he had rung a rare peal over Timothy’s head the last time the boy had come begging to him, and recommended that he find honest employment if he could not support himself on the funds that were available to him. It was an object lesson designed to put a damper on Timothy’s rackety ways before the boy came into his adequate but not enormous principal and promptly ran through every last shilling of it. But Timothy had been furious, and had stormed out of the house in high dudgeon. That had been some six months ago, and as Timothy had his own bachelor lodgings Sebastian had not seen him since.

  But there was one thing that Sebastian could do for Timothy, and he had already set the wheels in motion to do it: He could see that the boy’s killer was hanged from the highest tree at Tyburn. Already he had a pair of Bow Street runners on the job. Now that Mistress Jewel Combs—no, Julia Stratham, how could

  he have forgotten?—had turned up they would have far more to go on than they had before. The girl’s story had enough holes in it to drive a carriage through, but he was sure somewhere in her web of lies lay the truth.

  He opened his eyes and reached for pen and paper, scribbling a brief note, then sanding the missive, folding, and sealing it. He got to his feet, moving over to the bell pull and tugging it impatiently. When Smathers answered his summons, he handed the butler the note.

  “Have this taken around to Bow Street if you please. At once.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Smathers bowed himself out, and Sebastian stared at the closed door for an instant. He found himself hoping that the stupid little chit had not been the one who had knifed Timothy. For all her vulgarity she was scarcely more than a child, and a hungry, frightened one at that. It would sit ill with him to have her hanged.

  Sentimental nonsense, he told himself harshly. Moving abruptly toward the door, he decided he would go out after all.

  VI

  “I tell ya, I will not do it!” Jewel glared at the assembled trio of women who were regarding her with varying degrees of exasperated contempt.

  “The master said you were to have a bath, Miss Julia, and a bath you shall have.” Mrs. Masters advanced on Jewel with a martial light in her eye. Jewel, an equally battle ready gleam in her own eyes, crouched slightly and raised her clenched fists into fighting position.

  “C’mon, then, ya fat sow,” she hissed. “I’ll dump ya and yer gang in this contraption if ya like, but that’s as near as I’ll come ter it! And ya may take those words as ’oly writ because I mean wot I say!”

  Mrs. Masters stopped in her tracks, glaring at Jewel as she seemed to think better of her plan to strip the girl and place her in the steaming porcelain tub by main force. Behind her one of the young maids put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. The other one merely watched goggle-eyed.

  “Very well then, Miss Julia, I will see to it that the master is informed of your wishes,” Mrs. Masters said stiffly, a light that promised retribution in her eyes. With a martial nod of her head and a swish of her ample black skirts, Mrs. Masters swept from the room, leaving the two maids to follow.

  The door closed with awful gentleness behind the three of them. Jewel slowly allowed herself to relax. Mrs. Masters’ threat of going to the earl was an empty one, she guessed. The housekeeper would not dare bother her master about such a matter. Even if she did, Jewel thought, it would make no difference. The earl could have no notion of the dreadful thing that that woman expected her to do in the guise of carrying out his orders.

  A peremptory knock at the door made Jewel start. She whirled to face it just as it swung open. To her horror she found herself looking at the earl. He wore a fine topcoat of soft dark wool and a white silk scarf around his neck. Obviously he had just been about to go out. He entered without waiting for her permission to do so, moving with a deceptively lazy stride, his eyes narrowed as they ran over her person. Jewel took an instinctive step backwards at the coldness of his look, knowing from her short experience of him that it meant trouble. As she sternly tried to control her quailing insides, she caught just a glimpse of a smirking Mrs. Masters in the hallway outside before the earl gently closed the door in her face.

  “Wot do ya want?” Jewel was apprehensive, but the words came out sounding belligerent. The earl, crossing to stand in front of the finely wrought white marble fireplace in which blazed a luxurious fire, merely looked at her over his shoulder for a moment without answering. Jewel felt herself wilting under that chilling gaze.

  “I thought we had agreed that you were to do as I bade you?”

  Jewel nodded once.

  “Well then, did I not instruct you tha
t you were to bathe?”

  Jewel’s chin came up at that. Here, she thought, she was on

  strong ground. “Ayeh, ya did, and I like ter ’ave a bath as well as the next one. And I would, but not in that!” Her hand came out to point in a gesture of loathing at the steaming tub that sat innocently in front of the fire. The earl looked at the tub, then his eyebrows rose ever so slightly.

  “Is something amiss with it?”

  Jewel almost choked. “I can’t ’ave a bath in that!”

  “Why ever not? That is what it is for, you know.”

  “Because they tell me I’m ter get right down inside it! Get me whole body wet! I’ll die of the bloody ague, I will.” Her eyes narrowed on him suddenly. “Is that wot ya want? Ter murder me, so that you’ll not ’ave to worry about me bein’ married to yer cousin?”

  “You are becoming very boring, you know. Of course I don’t wish to murder you! The matter comes down to this: You agreed to obey me without question, I have instructed you to bathe, and you refuse. For the final time, you may either do as I bid you or you may leave my house. It is entirely up to you.”

  Jewel met those cold blue eyes, and felt anxiety knot like a wet rope in her chest. It was clear that he meant what he said. Yes, she was worried about the ills that complete immersion could cause—everyone knew that they were many and serious—but there was another problem, one that she hated to divulge to a man. Especially this one.

  “I—I can’t,” she muttered wretchedly, her eyes on the carpet. She couldn’t do as he asked and she couldn’t tell him why. She just couldn’t…. His eyebrows rose again, and he turned toward the door.

  “Very well then, I will tell Smathers to retrieve your hat and shawl and show you out. We shan’t meet again, so I will bid you farewell.”

  He was walking toward the door as he spoke, his black-clad shoulders very broad and formidable from the rear. Jewel stared at that unyielding back, hesitated, bit her lip, and spoke.

  “Ya don’ unnerstan’,” she cried, and he cast her a look over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifted questioningly.

  “What is it I don’t understand?”

  “They want me ter—ter get naked! In front of them! I can’t do it, and I won’t! Not even if it means I ’ave to leave ’ere!” The shame of having to tell him made her avert her blushing face.

  The earl turned slowly to face her, his expression disbelieving as his eyes ran up and down her slender body.

  “You object to undressing before other females?”

  “Before—before anybody!” Jewel blurted, her eyes as they swung back to him blazing gold. The earl’s eyes were expressionless as they met hers.

  “So the little guttersnipe is modest, is she?” he said softly, as though to himself. “Well, well.” His voice hardened. “If this is an act designed to impress me with your virtue, you needn’t bother. I could care less if you have whored for half of England in your short span of years. What interests me is what you will do from today on.”

  “I never did nothin’ like that! I keep tellin’ ya, I ain’t no ’ore!”

  The earl looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. “Very well then, the problem is easily solved. You may bathe in privacy if you wish. I will instruct Mrs. Masters.” He turned away again, one hand on the intricately carved gilt doorknob that had caused Jewel to marvel when she had first touched it. Then he looked back at her. “I rely on you to do a thorough job. To, uh, get right down inside there.” His nod at the tub told her to what he was referring as he repeated her own words to her.

  “I will. I promise.” The color was receding from her face now. Funny, but she no longer felt embarrassed.

  “My lord,” he prompted, and as she echoed him he turned and left her alone, closing the door behind him.

  She could hear him speaking softly to the housekeeper in the hallway. Although she waited some minutes to see what would happen next, nothing did. As she had already guessed, the earl’s word was law in the house.

  After a long time she began slowly undressing in front of the fire. Naked, she approached the tub with trepidation. It was, she found as she slid first a toe and then a leg and then her whole body into the water, not unpleasant at all. She sat there gingerly for a few minutes, waiting to see what effect the water would have on her skin, but when nothing happened, she succumbed to the lure of the sweet smelling little cakes of soap. Picking one up, she sniffed. Roses! They grew masses of them at Kensington Palace in the summer, and she had often stopped to admire their lush beauty and heady perfume. Now she could anoint her whole body with the scent. Slowly she began to lather her hands, her face, the rest of her. The sensation was heavenly, and by the time she had washed her hair and climbed out of the tub—leaving the water gray with grime and her skin surprisingly white—she had decided that an all-over bath was not a bad thing at all. O’ course, she could still come down with the ague….

  VII

  The next morning Jewel was dressed and standing in the grand entryway with an impassive footman in attendance for a good quarter-hour before the earl came downstairs. Even on so brief an acquaintance she sensed that it would be unwise to keep him waiting. He would undoubtedly leave without sparing her a second thought, and she found she hated the thought of that.

  The black wool dress she wore beneath a matching pelisse was whole and clean, but with its high neck and its long tight sleeves it was as ugly as any garment she had ever seen. And it was miles too big, hanging around her slender frame like a gunny sack around a twig. Added to that, it itched. Jewel scratched her midriff resentfully as she thought about it. After seeing the garment, she would have worn her red silk again if it had been anywhere to be found. But upon asking a maid, she had been told that the most beautiful dress she had ever owned in her life had been taken and burned.

  When the earl finally put in an appearance, he was clad in a tan ankle length coat with many capes on the shoulders that made him appear much broader than he had the night before. Beneath it, she caught just a glimpse of a plain black coat, a white, intricately tied cravat, and biscuit colored breeches. The heels of his gleaming white-topped boots echoed against the polished wood of the stairs as he descended. Watching him, she was struck again by how gorgeous he was. Last night, in her dreams, he had figured as the devil. Looking at him, today, she was again reminded of a statue she had seen of one of the Lord’s archangels. There was no flaw to be found in that smooth countenance at all. The molding of forehead, cheekbones, chin, the set of the heavenly blue eyes beneath slanting ash-brown brows, the carving of the long, straight nose and neither too full nor too thin lips were perfection itself. Surely even Gabriel himself had not been so beauteous to look upon. Just the sight of him as he walked toward her was enough to make Jewel’s toes curl in her too big shoes, and she chided herself impatiently for her folly. He was not interested in her, nor likely to be, she told herself. But still, a niggling voice inside her head answered back, a cat can look at a king.

  A stray sunbeam slanted in through the carved glass semicircle over the door to touch on his hair, bringing it to shining, gilded life. The effect was uncanny, almost as though a halo encircled his head. Jewel stared, and as she stared he looked down and met her eyes.

  “Good morning, Julia,” he said tranquilly as he stepped into the entryway, nodding once to Smathers, who came hurrying to hand him his hat and gloves. To Jewel’s surprise Smathers was now as courteously correct with her as he was with the earl. Just as though she had never forced her way into his house or kicked him on his shin, he also handed her a hat and gloves. The gloves were black as was the hideous bonnet. After one look of utter repulsion, she resignedly pulled on the gloves and set the bonnet on her head, tying the ribbons in a crooked bow.

  “The carriage is outside, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Smathers. Come, Julia.” He walked by her, settling the slouch hat on his head and pulling on his gloves as he did so. Jewel followed, feeling a little like a stray dog.

  Outsi
de the sun was just beginning to peep over the trees in the park opposite, lending a yellow glow to the retreating blanket of fog. The rain had stopped, but puddles lay on the cobbled street, and the air was frigid. Fat flakes of soot drifted down from smoke rising from chimney pots all around the square. The few individuals who were about so early—servants mostly—were well wrapped against the cold. A stooped little man bundled up to his eyebrows in a long coat and knit scarves pushed a handcart down the street. The noise of the cart’s wooden wheels against the cobblestones all but drowned out his monotonous cries of “Milk, maids! Here’s milk!” A liveried groom walked a team of matched bays up and down in front of the house, hurrying over when he saw the earl.

  “Mornin’, my lord. They be in fine fettle today.”

  “That’s as well, Jenkins, because I hope to make good time. The air of London sits ill with me of late.”

  “Aye, my lord.” The groom sounded knowing as the earl paused at the single step leading into the open carriage. He held out a hand to her, clearly intending to help her up. Jewel, as unaccustomed to such courtesies as she was to riding in a carriage at all, hesitated briefly before taking his hand. Her heart pounded, and this time it wasn’t from the earl’s touch; she was nervous about riding in such a rackety looking vehicle. But she would die rather than reveal her fear to him. Setting her teeth, she settled herself into the seat without a word.

  The earl stepped briskly into the carriage after her, and called, “Let ’em go, Jenkins!”

  The curricle lurched forward, nearly unseating Jewel, who was not prepared for such a sudden start. She regained her balance with an angry mutter just as the groom leaped nimbly up behind them, to stand woodenfaced at the rear. Jewel felt his curiosity about her, but the earl had made no attempt to enlighten him as to her identity. Apparently servants were entitled to know only what their masters wished…. At the realization that she was, in the earl’s eyes at least, of even lower status than a servant, a hot rush of damaged pride surged through her veins. Which was just as well because it helped her to stay warm for nearly an hour, during which time not a single word was spoken by the earl. The groom and she were equally silent, not wanting—or daring?—to impinge on “my lord’s” mood. As another hour crept forward, and Jewel grew steadily colder and less comfortable with her precarious perch on the slippery leather seat, the silence began to irk her.