Page 65 of The Earl Takes All
Was he hoping to find her there, stumble across her? Well, she wasn’t going to allow it. Julia surged to her feet. She would have her maid deliver a missive instructing Edward to stay out of her room—
Only it was no longer hers. It was his. The entire residence was his, every room, every painting, every knickknack, every bauble, every statue. She couldn’t order him about. He would simply laugh. She was here by his good graces. Everything he gave her was only because he deemed it worth her having. She sank back into her chair. Suddenly she desperately wanted to watercolor. Since she’d learned the truth of her widowhood, she’d only left her bedchamber to visit the mausoleum and Alberta. The remainder of the time she’d remained in seclusion, grieving a loss that often made it difficult to even consider climbing out of bed. Now there was a chance she would run into him in her sanctuary, if she should decide to go there. How easily he took things from her.
“Thank you, Torrie. You may go.”
“Wish I knew why you were so sad, m’lady.”
She offered her maid a solemn smile. “I discovered the earl was not who I thought he was.”
Honest, but cryptic. The words no doubt failed to satisfy the young woman’s curiosity, but they did cause her to make a hasty retreat. Julia rose and walked to the cheval glass and studied her reflection. The black made her appear so somber. The staff probably wondered at her change in attire. She’d seldom dressed in mourning when it was Edward supposedly in the mausoleum, but now she wore only black. Thank goodness she did not have to explain her actions to the servants. It was difficult enough to explain them to herself, especially when the clock on the mantel neared the stroke of two and she pressed her ear to the door.
He was always so punctual. She didn’t know why she had this insane urge to listen for his footsteps. They were muffled by the carpet but still she heard them, marking off his long strides. They went silent, and she knew he had stopped right outside her door. He always did. It was madness to think that she could feel his gaze on the wood, hear his breathing. Madness to believe his scent somehow permeated the room to tease her nostrils.
Not wanting him to know she was there, she held her breath, and yet she feared that he did know, that he was as aware of her on this side of the door as she was of him on the other. She wondered if he was tempted to knock, to call out to her, to flatten his palm against the wood—in the same spot where her own hand rested.
She heard the unmistakable sound of him carrying on, his steps brisk and quick. Releasing her breath on a little shudder, she pressed her forehead to the door and waited. Waited until she heard the rapid click of the nanny going down the back stairs. Yes, she knew the nanny always left.
Slowly, carefully, she opened the door, peered out into the empty hallway. With far more confidence than she felt, she straightened her shoulders and stepped out. After glancing around once more, she lifted the hem of her skirt and crept on bare feet down the carpeted hallway to the nursery. The door was open. It always remained open.
She got as close to it as she could without being seen and pressed her back to the wall. The creak of the rocking chair wafted through the doorway, and she envisioned him holding her daughter cradled in his arms as he swayed back and forth. She closed her eyes and listened.
Thehalf hour that Edward spent with Allie in his arms was his favorite time of the day, and not just because his niece blinked up at him with such big blue eyes. Her mother’s blue eyes. But because he had her mother’s attention as well. He could see a quarter of an inch of black skirt creeping past the doorjamb, and he knew before he was done it would be a full inch as Julia leaned closer to the threshold in order to hear him. It wasn’t until the third day that he’d noticed the edge of her gown. Until then he’d given all his attention to Allie, but on that particular afternoon she’d fallen asleep. He’d looked up, seen the bombazine, and continued waxing on.
“Let’s see, Allie, where were we?” He was so tempted to call out and ask Julia where he had ended yesterday’s tale, but he knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t appreciate the teasing. She would no doubt cease her scurrying down the hallway to secretly join them as he wove his story. That she was there gave him hope that perhaps at some point they could at least get on civilly. They needed to, for Allie’s sake.
“Ah, yes, the great and magnificent steed that oversees all the animals has discovered that trouble is afoot. I think we should give him a name. Shall we call him Greymane, the Grey in honor of your father? I think he’d like that. Badger, who is in fact a badger and wears a green waistcoat, is telling Greymane that he saw Stinker the Weasel, with his beady eyes and his sharp jagged teeth and his long pointy nose, lurking about behind the trees. They think he’s up to no good, planning to ruin the picnic that Princess Allie is planning to have for all her forest friends in the clearing with the yellow wildflowers.”
He continued to weave the story of the beautiful princess and her noble friends. And the jealous and selfish weasel that wanted to ruin everything. Rocking, he talked until an inch of black skirt became visible. He did wish it was red, blue, or green. But she was truly in mourning now, fully aware that she was a widow.
Each morning, an hour before dawn, unknown to her, he quietly followed her as she made her way to the mausoleum. Hidden within the trees, he would stand guard. By the time she headed back, the sky was lighting to a pale blue so he couldn’t follow her as closely. At least she was making the trek when the servants were too busy to notice. It might make them wonder why she was suddenly devoted to early morning walks and time spent within the family’s resting place.
Other than that, he only caught a glimpse of her skirt when he rocked Allie. He was more the fool for taking pleasure in a scrap of cloth simply because it belonged to her. He continued to eat alone, to sit in his library alone, to play billiards alone. In the late hours of the night when sleep eluded him, he worked on the story he was writing for Allie about whimsical creatures that wore clothes, spoke, and behaved in a manner that very much resembled humans.
Looking down on her now, asleep in his arms, he knew he would write her an entire bookshelf of stories. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the skirt disappear. Three seconds later he heard the rapid tapping of the nanny’s shoes as she entered the corridor just beyond the door.
Standing, he carried Allie to her crib and carefully set her down in it. She opened her eyes wide, waved her arms and feet. “See you tomorrow, little one.”
With a final word to the nanny, he walked into the hallway. Julia’s scent was stronger now. Like a desperate man, he inhaled deeply, taking his fill. He carried on until he reached her door. Halting, he placed his hand on the wood. He didn’t know why it made him feel closer to her. It was a silly, stupid thing to do, yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
Then he headed down the stairs into the lonely emptiness that was now his life.
Herheart thundering, Julia awoke to crying. For a moment she thought perhaps her own sobbing had disturbed her sleep, because her cheeks were damp and now there was only silence so it must have been her crying out that brought her from the depths of slumber.
Laying there in the dark, in the quiet, she stared at the canopy, striving to determine what was amiss. During the past week, she’d slept fitfully. She was tired of the sorrow, the ache in her chest that felt like a physical bruising, the doubts, the guilt. Tonight she’d had enough and gone to the bedchamber previously designated for Edward and taken a bottle of brandy from the little cabinet where he kept spirits. She’d sipped until she was barely able to keep her eyes open. Then she’d clambered into bed and succumbed to the allure of welcome oblivion.
But now she was awake, and she had the sense that something important had lured her from the dream in which she was continually running toward Albert only to have Edward constantly stepping in front of her, blocking her path. Or was she running toward Edward? She couldn’t even tell them apart in her dreams.
Sitting up, she pressed her elbow to her knee, her forehead to her hand. Her thinking was muddled, as though she were striving to make her way through a ball of cobwebs. In her dream, she’d heard crying in the distance. She’d begun racing toward the sobbing but the faster she ran the farther away it became, until it faded to nothing. And the silence, a portent of bad tidings, had terrified her.
Alberta. It had been Alberta bawling. In the dream? No, outside of the dream. Bawling until her cries invaded the dream. If not for the brandy dulling everything, she would have woken up sooner, would have realized where the crying originated. Flinging back the covers, Julia scrambled out of bed. She was certain Nanny had soothed Alberta, but still she had a strong need to hold her daughter to her breast, to comfort her, to let her know that nothing would hurt her.
She flew out of her bedchamber, down the hallway to the nursery. Nanny was sitting in a chair with a lamp burning low and a book in her hands. Not Alberta. She wasn’t holding Alberta.
Edward was. Lying on Nanny’s bed, his eyes closed, Alberta on his chest, her knees tucked beneath her so her tiny bum was sticking up in the air. Pillows formed a barrier on either side of his body so if she rolled she wouldn’t roll far. Not that Julia thought she was likely to move at all. One of his large hands was splayed over her back, holding her in place.
Setting the book aside, Nanny got up and approached her, tiptoeing. “She was crying something awful. I couldn’t soothe her. The earl came in, none too happy. Said he could hear her howling in his library. Thought he was going to sack me on the spot. Instead he took her, placed her against his chest, and she quieted right down.”
He’d come to her rescue, Julia realized, while she had been suffering from too much drink to do anything but stir to life sluggishly. How had Edward managed to live like this for years, drinking to excess every night? Waking up was most unpleasant.
