Page 6 of Somewhere I'll Find You
Aside from several discreet greetings from a few servants she had known since childhood, no one dared speak to her. It was known to everyone at Hargate Hall that she was not a welcome visitor—her father had forbidden her to set foot on the property—yet no one would stop her from visiting her ailing mother, Eva.
Wrinkling her nose at the stale air in Eva's bedroom, Julia went to the curtains, drew them apart, and opened a window to admit a breeze from outside. There was a stirring beneath the covers on the bed, and Eva's weak voice.
“Who is that?”
“Your prodigal daughter,” Julia replied lightly, and went to the bed, bending over to kiss her mother's pale brow.
Eva blinked rapidly and tried to sit up, her face stiff with consternation. She was a small, slim woman, with ash-blond hair streaked with silver, and large brown eyes. She seemed to have aged a great deal in the past two years, her colorless skin etched with tiny lines and the bones of her face more prominent than ever. “Julia, you shouldn't be here. It's dangerous!”
“It's all right,” Julia said quietly. “You wrote to me and said that Father would be gone today. Don't you remember?”
“Oh, yes,” Fretfully her mother rubbed her forehead. “Things slip from my mind so easily of late.” She sighed and let her shoulders press back into the pillow. “I've been ill, Julia…”
“Yes, I know.” Julia was tight-lipped as she stared down at her mother, who had always been slender. Now she appeared birdlike in her frailty. “You shouldn't be closed in this dark room, Mama. You need light and fresh air, and a walk outside—”
“You mustn't stay long,” her mother said weakly. “If your father comes home unexpectedly…”
“He would throw me out,” Julia finished for her, her mouth curling sarcastically. “Don't worry, Mama. I'm not afraid of him. There's nothing he could say or do that matters to me now.” Her face softened as she saw her mother's distress, and she sat carefully on the edge of the mattress. Taking one of Eva's thin, cool hands in her own, she pressed it carefully.
“I've made a new life for myself. I'm an actress now, a fairly good one.” She couldn't help smiling as she saw her mother's expression. “Actress, not prostitute…though I'll admit most people don't seem to understand the difference. This season I'll be working at the Capital Theatre, training under Logan Scott himself. I'll have a handsome salary, my own carriage, a house…and I've chosen a new name for myself. Jessica Wentworth. Do you like it?”
Eva shook her head. “It's not what you were born for,” she said through dry lips. “It's not who you are.”
“Who am I, Mama?” Julia asked softly, although she knew the answer. Her chest tightened with sudden unhappiness.
“You're the Marchioness of Savage.”
Julia shot off the bed, unable to bear the sound of the name. “Only because I had no choice in the matter. I'm married to a man I don't know, all to satisfy Father's social ambitions. It's an absurd situation. I don't know Lord Savage by sight, I've never even corresponded with him. Sometimes I wonder if he exists at all!”
“It appears that Lord Savage has no more desire than you to acknowledge the marriage,” her mother admitted. “Neither your father nor the Duke of Leeds could have expected that both children would resent the marriage so greatly.”
“Not resent having our futures stolen?” Julia strode around the room as she continued heatedly. “I was sold for the price of a name, and Lord Savage for a fortune. Father secured a title for his daughter, and the Savages were saved from financial ruin. And all they had to do was sacrifice their firstborn children.”
“Why must you bear such ill will against your father?” her mother asked sadly. “What he did was no different than what other parents of our position do. Marriages are arranged all the time.”
“It was different. I was onlyfour years old, and my so-called husband wasn't much older.” Julia went to the window and stared through the parted drapes, filtering the silk-fringed velvet through her fingers. “That first time I found out, I was twelve and fancied myself in love with a village boy …until Father took me aside and said I would never have the right to love any man because I was already married.” She shook her head and laughed without humor. “I couldn't believe it. I still can't. For years I've been haunted by thoughts of my ‘husband,’ wondering if he's grown up to be a half-wit, a bore, a skirt-chaser—”
“From what we have heard of him, Lord Savage's reputation is that of a quiet and responsible man.”
“I don't care what he's like,” Julia said, knowing that her mother would think this pure stubbornness on her part—and perhaps that was partly true. But it was also because of the awareness that if she accepted the life her father had chosen for her, she would fade into the same kind of docile, unhappy creature that her mother had become. “It doesn't matter if Lord Savage is a saint. I never intend to become the Duchess of Leeds. I won't agree to the plans Father made for me. He controlled every day, hour, and minute of my life until I finally gathered the courage to run away.”
“He wanted to shelter and protect you—”
“Father kept me cloistered on this estate, never allowing me to go anywhere or meet anyone. From the day I was born, he was determined that I should marry a man with a great title. I wonder, did it ever occur to him that I might someday have landed a duke or an earl without his interference? Or did he even once consider that I might not have wished that for myself? I suppose it was too much to expect that he might have wanted me to be happy—”
Julia broke off, realizing that her fingers were clutched in the folds of velvet. She loosened her grip and took a calming breath. It pained her to know that even though she had escaped her father's domination, Eva was still under his control. Her mother's only recourse was to take refuge in illness, gradually turning herself into an invalid. It was Eva's only defense against an autocratic husband who manipulated the lives of everyone around him.
Edward, Lord Hargate despised illness of any kind. He was actually rather afraid of it, for it was so completely alien to his robust nature. He was a strong man whose relentless drive led him to dismiss anyone's feelings but his own. He could be cruel at times, denying people the things they wanted most in order to demonstrate his wealth and power. The rest of the Hargate family—cousins, brothers, uncles, and aunts—all avoided him as much as possible. Yet even when he was at his worst, his wife defended and supported him, as was her duty.
“There must be something else you can do,” Eva murmured, “other than turn to a life in the theater. The idea of my daughter living among those people, working on the stage…It sounds very sordid.”
“I'll be quite safe at the Capital,” Julia said firmly. “It's a reputable company. And acting is the perfect occupation for me. After being secluded so much of the time when I was a child, I developed quite an imagination.”
“I remember how I worried,” Eva murmured. “You seemed to live in a fantasy world most of the time, always pretending to be someone else.”
Julia returned to the bedside and smiled down at her. “Now I'm being paid a very good salary for it.”
“And what about Lord Savage?”
