“Would you?” he said. “I thought you were incapable of feeling embarrassment, Julia. Except when you are caughtout in some weakness, like being terrified to descend castlestairs, for example.”
“I don’t like the topic of this conversation at all,” she said. “I suppose it is the topic of a large number of conversations these days, though, isn’t it? Whom will Julia marry?I hate it. Let us turn the tables. Whom will you marry,Daniel? I suppose it would be entirely in your nature not tomarry at all. I cannot imagine that it would be easy for youto find a woman worthy of your great dignity and consequence. But of course you will marry, nevertheless, because you are always dutiful and it is your duty to marryand set up your nursery someday soon so that the succession will be assured. Am I right?”
“You are right,” he said curtly. His anger felt almost like hurt, he thought in some surprise. Must it be assumed thathis sense of duty and responsibility made him a cold and anunfeeling man? Incapable of tenderness? He was not incapable of the finer feelings.
“Well,” she said, “then you must be looking about you. You were in London for the Season when Aunt Millie summoned you, weren’t you? Were you shopping at the marriage mart? And had you singled out anyone special,Daniel?”
Blanche. He did not want to discuss Blanche with Julia.
“Your silence speaks louder than words,” she said. “What is she like? Is she pretty?”
“Small,” he said, “and delicate. And blonde. Exquisitely lovely.”
“Ah,” she said. “My antithesis. But then she would have to be. And is she worthy of you, Daniel? Is she very ladylike and proper? Will she make a perfect countess?”
“She is everything that is decorous,” he said. “I would not know one moment of anxiety with her. Only pride.”
“Ah,” she said and was quiet for a while. “Do you loveher, Daniel?”
Love Blanche? Did he love her? The word was not appropriate. It had nothing to do with anything. Blanche was everything that he wanted and needed. And she was morethan pleasing to the eye. He could have a life of peace andcontentment with Blanche.
“Let me put it another way,” she said. “Do you want to put yourself inside her?”
“The devil!” he said, coming to an abrupt halt.
“You were the first to say the words,” she said. “Beside the lake a few mornings ago, remember? You wished toshock me. So you cannot accuse me of saying somethingquite improper without accusing yourself in the samebreath. Well, do you?”
“No!” he said. “Of course I do not— Julia, I could shake you. I could shake you until your teeth rattle.”
“That makes a change,” she said. “So you don’t. I suppose that is not important when you are choosing a wife. A very proper wife. Only when you are choosing a mistress.Oh, don’t look outraged, Daniel. 1 am not a green girl. Ihave heard of the existence of mistresses. But I don’t thinkit would be a very joyful marriage if you could not take allthe pleasures there are from it. Would it?”
He inhaled deeply. No other woman—no, not just no other lady, but no otherwoman—would think of holdingsuch a discussion with a man. Good Lord, how did shecome to know of the difference between respect for a ladyand lust for a woman? And how did she come to disapprove of the fact that most gentlemen chose to keep the twoquite separate in their lives?
“Won’t your marriage be rather dull?” she asked.
“Julia.” He was speaking through his teeth, showing her as he did not wish to do that she had him rattled. Hebreathed inward again. “The woman I choose to marry andthe quality of my future marriage are none of your concern.None whatsoever. Do you understand me?”
“I hate that question,” she said, “especially when it is posed in just that tone of voice. It is so despicably rhetorical. Do you enjoy the dull life, Daniel? Don’t you sometimes long for adventure? Don’t you sometimes long tobreak loose and do something quite—”
“Outrageous?” he said. “Daring? Dangerous? No, I don’t, Julia. I grew up several years ago. I have no wish torevert to childhood.”
“You grew up when you were fourteen,” she said. “I can remember when I first came here with Papa and Stepmamathat you were fun-loving and always laughing. You andFreddie both. I was very young but I can remember that.You were like two gods to me. I can remember looking foryou one day and being told that you had been confined toyour room for the rest of the day after a thrashing. I can’tremember what mischief had provoked it.”
“I was a child, Julia,” he said. “Children get into mischief. It is part of growing up.”
“But you grew up too soon,” she said. “Fourteen is too soon, Daniel. Freddie was still having fun long after that.”
“Freddie is still having fun,” he said. “And a long way ithas got him. I hope you have given up all thought of marrying him.”
She sighed. “And so we are back on the topic again,” she said. “He has kept his distance for the last few days. He juststands back and grins at me and looks at me in that lazyway of his and sometimes winks. I think he is waiting foreveryone else to have his say before moving on to the nextstage of his courtship. I look forward to seeing what it is.At least life is always exciting when Freddie is involvedwith it.”
“If you marry him, Julia,” he said, “I doubt you will be saying that to me in ten years’ time. Or even five. Don’t doit.”
She smiled up at him. “The trouble with you, Daniel,” she said, “is that you want to drag everyone else down toyour level. You want us all to be sober and dull.”
He felt that strange mixture of anger and hurt again. If they had not been moving away from the stream and rounding the hill and coming in sight of other relatives, he mighthave clamped her arm to his side and pulled her to a haltand turned her to face him. He might have had it out withher. Face to face, toe to toe.
He was not dull. His life was not dull. It was rich with meaning—with relatives and friends and duties and responsibilities. And there was marriage in his future—withBlanche if he was fortunate—and children. A wife and afamily. People of his own. People to relax with and laughwith and love with and have f— Yes, and have fun with.Fun did not have to be daring and reckless. It could simplybe fun. It must be years since he had relaxed and had fun.Fifteen years, perhaps? Could it be that long? Was he reallytwenty-nine? Had all his youth passed him by since the unexpected death of his father had catapulted him out of boyhood and into an early manhood?
