An Independent Woman

“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.” Juliana rose, glancing toward Clementine, who also stood up.

“My lord,” Clementine said, smiling prettily and coming forward, reaching out to tuck her hand into his arm. “I am all aflutter. Is your curricle terribly high-seated? I shall be quite frightened if it is.” She let out a little chuckle, inviting him to share in the amusement of her charmingly silly feminine fear.

Nicholas looked back at her, his face wooden, and did not move to extend his arm to her. He said only, “I am sorry, Miss Thrall, there must have been some sort of misunderstanding. My invitation this morning was for Miss Holcott.”

Clementine’s jaw dropped at the obvious snub, and Juliana had to press her lips together tightly to keep a smile from forming on them.

Mrs. Thrall, too, stared in astonishment, but she recovered more quickly than her daughter, saying, “I—I presumed it was a general invitation. After all, it is scarcely proper for a gentleman and lady to jaunt about the city alone in a carriage.”

Nicholas turned his flat dark gaze on the older woman. “It is gratifying that you are so concerned about Miss Holcott’s good name, madam, but I assure you, it is perfectly acceptable. It is an open carriage. And quite small. I fear only two people are able to ride in it at a time, which is the reason that my invitation was specifically to Juliana.”

Mrs. Thrall could think of no reply, but simply stood, looking at him. Nicholas seized the opportunity to turn and offer Juliana his arm. Juliana hurried forward and tucked her hand through his. She was not about to dawdle and give her employer time to recover her wits and forbid her to go.

Nicholas was apparently of the same mind as she, for he swept her down the hall and out the front door at a fast clip, scarcely giving Juliana even a moment to appreciate the gleaming new yellow curricle before he handed her up into it. Taking the reins from his groom, who had been walking the horses to keep them warm while he was inside, Nicholas climbed up onto the seat next to Juliana.

“Abominable woman!” he exclaimed, slapping the reins to set the horses in motion.

Juliana let out a laugh of delight at having eluded Mrs. Thrall’s schemes. There would be the devil to pay when she got back, no doubt, but for the moment, she did not care. It was too wonderful to be out with Nicholas, free for the next hour, perched in a vehicle that was the height of fashion, and from which she had a wonderful view of all the hustle and bustle of London. Juliana set her hat firmly on her head, tied the ribbon beneath her chin and looked over at Nicholas with a smile.

Nicholas grinned back. “How the devil did you wind up with those two, anyway?”

Juliana shrugged. “It isn’t always easy to find a position as a companion. People usually want someone older than I am and more…well…”

“Unattractive?” Nicholas hazarded a guess.

Juliana cast him a sideways glance, smiling. “Why, thank you, sir.” Was she actually flirting with Nicholas? Somehow she could not bring herself to care about that, either. “But I was about to say ‘obsequious.’”

He let out a bark of laughter. “I can see that you have not changed. I cannot picture you at someone else’s beck and call. How did you ever seize upon the idea of being a companion?”

“It seemed a natural avenue, after living with Seraphina and your aunt Lilith all those years,” Juliana replied. “They sent me to finishing school with Seraphina.” She remembered her mother’s pleasure at Juliana’s being given the opportunity to go to a good school for girls, something they obviously could never have afforded. But she, of course, had known the reason behind Trenton and Lilith’s apparent generosity.

“They needed someone to keep an eye on Seraphina and make sure she didn’t get into any trouble. Which was not an easy task, I can assure you. Seraphina was just as flighty and silly a young woman as she was as a child. And then, after we finished, Seraphina had a tour of the continent. The war was over by then. So, again, I went along to help, and when that was over, I saw that I was amply prepared to be a companion. I knew all about fetching and carrying, and listening to boring conversation and flattering someone.”

“Did Aunt Lilith turn you out?” he asked, a dangerous note in his voice.

“Oh, no. I could have stayed. I didn’t flatter myself that Aunt Lilith liked me, but she would have liked my help in getting Seraphina through her debut, and she would not have wanted the gossip about her throwing a poor young girl upon the world. But I could not stand living in that prison any longer, and with my mother gone, there was really no reason to. Lilith was just as happy that I decided to leave, I think. If I had stayed, she would have had to bring me out, as well, at least in some small fashion, and that would have galled her.”

Juliana did not add that Crandall had begun to change his tactics when she grew up, from pulling her hair and playing mean tricks on her to trying to corner her in the library and sneak a kiss, or run a caressing hand over her body. His pursuit had been one of the major reasons that she had been determined to leave Lychwood Hall. Aunt Lilith, she thought, suspected that something was going on, but Lilith had been convinced that the situation was the other way around, even accusing Juliana on one occasion of trying to ensnare her son.

“So Aunt Lilith wrote a letter of recommendation for me, and I set out on my own. It took a little while, but then someone hired me to take care of his aging mother.” She also did not add that that bit of employment had ended when the man who had hired her showed up at the door of her bedroom one night, drunk and leering and making fumbling advances to her. “After a time I met Mrs. Simmons, and it was actually quite pleasant after that.”

Nicholas frowned. “I dislike your being at that Thrall woman’s beck and call.”

“Nor do I like it,” Juliana agreed candidly. “However, it is a price that I am willing to pay for my freedom. At least this is a straightforward business transaction. I am not dependent on anyone’s charity.”

Nicholas had maneuvered through the streets as they talked, and they had reached the sylvan paths of Hyde Park, where there was far less traffic, and he could relax and turn his attention away from controlling the horses. He looked over at Juliana.

It was still a little something of a surprise to him each time he looked at her. He had known she would be older, of course, though he had been able to recognize the child he had known in her face. But still, somehow, it was disconcerting to see the woman she had become, the sweetly familiar face of his childhood turned into a beauty.

Hers was not the pale, insipid beauty of one such as the Thrall girl, whom Nicholas found crushingly boring. Juliana’s beauty lay not just in her thick dark-brown hair, sternly constrained in a firm knot at the base of her neck, although it was the sort of hair that made a man’s fingers itch to pull out her pins and release it in a luxuriant tumble around her shoulders. Nor was it only the well-modeled features of her face. Hers was a beauty that shone out of her lively gray eyes and blossomed in the smile that curved her lips, a loveliness born of strength and personality, and the multitude of small things that made Juliana uniquely herself.

He knew her, and yet he did not know her, and he found the combination compelling. Gazing at her now, Nicholas was aware of a sudden desire to lean over and kiss that softly curving mouth, to taste what he was sure would be the piquant sweetness of her lips.

His eyes darkened, straying to her mouth, and it was only with some inner firmness that he was able to pull his gaze away. He stared straight ahead above his horses’ heads for a few moments, pondering the instant of desire that had just flashed through him. This was not the sort of feeling he should be having about Juliana, he told himself.

She was the beloved companion of his childhood, the girl who had provided the only warmth he had known after his parents’ deaths. He had been eager to find her when he returned to England, but it had been the eagerness of an old close friend…of a brother, say. He loved her, he thought, as much as he found himself able to love anyone, but it was a small, pure, uncomplicated love, a deep fondness for a childhood memory.

Yet here Juliana was, not at all a memory, looking very much like a desirable woman, and the feeling that had just speared through him was not years-old devotion but the swift lust of a man for a woman.