An Independent Woman

Because of the size of the party, Juliana had harbored a small flicker of hope, barely acknowledged, that Lord Barre would appear. But she had not really believed it, deep down. After all, from the gossip she had managed to glean, sitting quietly listening to Clementine and her giggling friends, Nicholas rarely attended any party. His reclusive-ness, of course, simply added to his mystique.

But there he was. Juliana looked up from her perusal of Clementine sweeping around the floor in the arms of one of her many admirers, and there, standing at the top of the wide staircase leading down into the ballroom, was Nicholas Barre.

Her heart skittered in her chest, and for an instant, she felt as if she could not breathe. He was handsome, more handsome even than she remembered—filled out now into a man, with broad shoulders that needed no extra padding from his tailor, and long, muscled legs. He stood, looking out coolly over the mass of people below him, confidence, even a certain arrogance, stamped on his features. His hair was thick and a trifle shaggy, jet-black in color and falling carelessly beside his face. His eyes appeared as black as his hair, accented by the straight slashes of his black brows.

He did not look like other men. Not even the black formal coat and snowy white shirt could camouflage the hint of wildness that clung to him. Wherever he went, Juliana thought, he must immediately be the center of attention. She wondered if he was aware of that.

Perhaps he had become accustomed to it. He had always been one set apart. Dangerous, they had called him. And wicked. Juliana suspected that the same appellations were still directed at him.

She realized suddenly that she was staring, and she glanced quickly away. What was she to do? She swallowed hard, her hands curling into fists in her lap.

She remembered the last time she had seen him—the planes and angles of his face stark white in the moonlight, his eyes great pools of darkness. He had been only sixteen then, leanly muscular in a way that suggested the powerful male body he would grow into. His hair had been longer and unkempt, tousled by the wind and his impatient fingers. There had been a hardness to his face even then, a certain wariness that bespoke much about his past.

Juliana had clung to him, holding his arm with both hands as though she could make him stay, her twelve-year-old heart breaking within her. “Please,” she had begged. “Don’t go….”

“I can’t, Jules,” he had replied, frowning. “I have to go. I can’t stay here anymore.”

“But what will I do?” she had asked plaintively. “It will be so horrid here without you. No one but them…” Her voice invested the word with disgust.

“You’ll be all right. You’ll get through it. They won’t hurt you.”

“I know,” she had whispered, tears filling her eyes. She knew that no one ever harmed her as they did him. There were no angry cuffs of the hand, or days spent without meals or companionship, alone in her room, as there were for Nick. But the thought of life without him beside her was dull and flat, almost unbearable.

From the time she and her mother had come to Lychwood Hall when she was eight, Nicholas had been her only friend, her closest companion. They had been drawn together naturally, the two outsiders on the Barre estate, disdained by Nicholas’s aunt and uncle and their children. Charity children, both of them, and often reminded of it, they had formed a firm alliance, closer than a boy of twelve and a girl of eight would normally have been. And if, as he had grown up, racing toward adulthood, he had moved farther from her in interests and activities, there had always remained that special bond between them.

“Can’t I come with you?” she had asked without hope, knowing that his answer would be a refusal.

He shook his head. “They’d come after me for sure if I took you with me. This way, perhaps, I have a chance of getting away from them.”

“Will you come back? Please?”

He had smiled then, a rare wondrous smile that few besides her had seen. “Of course. I’ll make lots and lots of money, and then I shall come back and take you away. You’ll be rich, and everyone will call you ‘my lady.’ And Seraphina will have to curtsey to you. How’s that?”

“Perfect.” Her heart had swelled with love for him even as she knew, deep inside her realistic soul, that he was unlikely to return, that he would disappear from her life just as her father had.

“Don’t forget me,” she had said, swallowing her tears, refusing to act like a baby in front of him. She reached up, taking the simple leather thong from around her neck, and held it out to him. A gold signet ring dangled from it, simple and masculine.

Nicholas had looked at her in surprise. “No. Jules—that was your father’s. I can’t take that. I know how much it means to you.”

“I want you to have it,” she had replied stubbornly. “It’ll keep you safe. Take it.”

Finally he had taken it from her hand. Then, with a last halfhearted smile, he had vanished into the night, leaving her alone in the darkening garden.

She had not seen him again for fifteen years.

Juliana cast another glance toward the top of the staircase. Nicholas was no longer there. Cautiously she looked around the room, but she could not spot him anywhere in the crowd. She returned her gaze to her lap, wondering how she could manage to get out of here without his seeing her.

Her stomach was twisted into knots, partly with excitement, but mostly with fear. She did not want him to see her, did not want to have to face the fact that he might snub her…that he might not even recognize her.

Nicholas Barre had meant too much to her for her to bear a snub. She had loved him as only a child can love. After he ran away from the estate, she had not let her memories of him fade. For a long time she had held his promise in her heart, hoping he would reappear and take her away—from her mother’s sadness, from Crandall’s cruelties and Aunt Lilith’s petty sniping, from Seraphina’s casual assumption that Juliana was there to do whatever she asked. As Juliana had grown into womanhood, it had been Nicholas’s image that had fueled her adolescent dreams, becoming the hero on a white charger who would come riding up to Lychwood Hall and sweep her up before him on his horse, carrying her away from the life she disliked and bestowing upon her his name, as well as fabulous jewels and fashionable clothes.

Of course, she had not been so foolish as to keep those dreams long. She had grown up and had made her own life. Long ago she had stopped believing—and then finally stopped even wishing—that Nicholas would return and seek out his childhood friend. Even when she had heard that he had returned to London from whatever far-flung place he had been, she had not thought he would come for her…or at least she had firmly squashed the little germ of an idea before it even grew full-size in her mind.

After all, when he had promised to return, they had been of more or less equal station—unwanted relatives, living on the Barres’ charity—or, at least, so she had thought. But now he was Lord Barre and reportedly quite wealthy in his own right, as well as having inherited his grandfather’s estate. It would be foolish in the extreme, she knew, to even hope he would look her up. Promises made at the age of sixteen rarely lasted.

She had experienced the bitter reward of being proved right. It had been two months since she had heard that Nicholas was in London again, and he had not come to her. She was too realistic to think that if he ran into her tonight, he would greet her with cries of delight. Heavens, he probably would not even recognize her as the child he had once known.

But Juliana did not want to have to face that situation. She did not want to see him look at her with the blank expression of lack of recognition. Worse, she did not want to see him see her, recognize her, and then turn away, not acknowledging the bond. Almost as bad would be having him converse with her with the stiff formality of a stranger, or the faintly harassed look of someone caught in a social situation he wished he could get out of.

She must get away from the party, she thought, but that was far more easily said than done. Mrs. Thrall had hired her as a companion primarily because she wanted help watching over her lively, headstrong daughter. Clementine was both beautiful and spoiled, accustomed to getting her way. She was also foolish enough to think that she could ignore the dictates of Society. Unwatched, she was likely to flirt more than was considered proper, or to dance with the same bachelor more than twice. Juliana had even once caught her attempting to slip out an opened French door into the darkened gardens beyond with an ardent suitor.

And since Mrs. Thrall was a rather indolent woman, she used Juliana as Clementine’s primary chaperone. Mrs. Thrall liked to think that this tiresome duty was a gift she bestowed upon her companion, pointing out to Juliana how nice it was that she got to attend all these balls. Frankly, Juliana would have preferred spending the evening curled up with a book or playing games with the Thralls’ younger—and far more likeable—daughter, Fiona. It was no pleasure to sit, as plainly dressed as a wren among peacocks, against the wall with the mothers and wallflowers, watching people dance and enjoy themselves.

Mrs. Thrall would be highly displeased if Juliana were to plead a headache or other illness and wish to leave the party, and she certainly had no desire to listen to her employer complain that she was attempting to ruin the grandest ball of her daughter’s career. Moreover, she had little hope that Mrs. Thrall would send her home, even with a lecture. She was far more likely to tell Juliana to simply bear up like a proper British gentlewoman…and then send her off to fetch a cup of punch.

The best course, she thought, would be to simply keep her eyes glued on Clementine. That way her gaze could not happen to meet Nicholas’s, and she would be able to avoid seeing the expression that would come over his face. It was unlikely that Lord Barre would look over at the duennas watching their charges, and even if he did, if she was not watching, at least she would not know if he then turned away without speaking.

“Juliana?” A deep masculine voice cut through the air, filled with surprise and—surely she could not be mistaken—delight, as well.

Juliana’s head snapped up. Despite the years between them, she knew the voice immediately. Nicholas Barre was walking rapidly toward her, a smile lighting his handsome face.

“Nicholas!” The word came out breathlessly, and without realizing it, Juliana rose to her feet.

“Juliana! It is you!” He stopped in front of her, so tall she had to tilt her head back to look up at him, his dark eyes alight, a smile curving his full, firm lips. “I can scarcely believe it! When I think of all the time that I have looked for you…” He reached out his hand and, somewhat shakily, she gave hers to him.

“I—I’m sorry. I should say Lord Barre,” she went on hastily.

“I beg you will not,” he replied. “I would think you no longer counted yourself my friend.”

Juliana blushed, unsure what to say. She felt unaccustomedly shy. Nicholas was at once so familiar and so different, the traces of the boy still evident in the man, yet far removed from what he had once been.

“I am surprised you recognized me,” she told him. “It has been so long.”

He shrugged. “You have grown up.” His eyes swept briefly, almost involuntarily, down her form. “Still, your face is much the same. I could scarcely forget it.”

There was a loud, admonitory clearing of a throat from the chair beside Juliana, and she started. “Oh, I am so sorry. Lord Barre, please allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Thrall.”

Juliana half turned toward her employer. “Mrs. Thrall, Lord Barre.”

The middle-aged woman simpered, extending her hand to Nicholas. “Lord Barre, what a pleasure. No doubt you wish to meet Clementine, but I am afraid she is out on the dance floor. Her dance card is always full, you know.”

“Mrs. Thrall.” Nicholas gave the woman a polite bow, his dark eyes summing her up quickly before he turned back to Juliana. “I hope that you will give me the honor of a waltz, Juliana.”

Juliana knew that her employer would doubtless frown on her shirking her duty in that way, but she wanted quite badly to accept his invitation. She never got to dance at any of the parties they attended; she could not count the number of times she had sat, toes tapping, heart aching, watching the other couples swirl merrily around the floor.

“I would love to,” she said recklessly, then turned toward her employer. “If you will excuse me, Mrs. Thrall.”

She expected at best a scowl from the other woman, with a deferred lecture about the impropriety of her taking to the floor with young bachelors when she should be overseeing Clementine. But she hoped that Mrs. Thrall would not have the gall to flatly refuse, right in front of one of the peers of the land.