“Grandpapa was human,” she hissed at him. “So is Aunt Millie. They have allowed me to live, to have some enjoyment out of life. You would squash the life out of me,Daniel, if you had your way. There would be nothing butsitting at home embroidering and taking tea with callersand walking outdoors with a maid or riding in the carriage.I could not live that way. I would suffocate.”
“There are assemblies and balls and concerts and picnics and all sorts of legitimate ways in which to enjoy oneself,Julia,” he said. “One does not have to be scandalizing theworld by swimming in next to nothing and engaging in footraces and dressing in a manner unbecoming to one’s sexand riding in a manner that invites a broken neck.”
“I pity the woman you will marry,” she said. “If she has any life in her when you marry, it will be sapped from hersoon afterward. There is no room for spontaneity, for sheerjoy in your life, Daniel. Only for what is right and proper.Only for what other people expect of you. I would rather bedead than subjected to such a fate. I did not speak impulsively two days ago. I meant it.”
“Did you?” he said curtly. He was feeling that inexplicable hurt again. “I did not doubt for a moment that youmeant what you said. I will not renew the offer, Julia, soyou must not worry that you will be the victim of my repressive, killjoy ways. Someone else will, someone whoperhaps will feel that life with me might be a desirablething. Someone who will believe that I can perhaps bringher happiness.”
“What is her name?” she asked.
He hesitated. He was no longer at all sure that he would be returning to Blanche. Somehow that relationship seemedto have been spoiled, almost as if he had been unfaithful to her. But then he had been, in intention if not in actual fact. He had wanted to possess Julia and had almost done it too.“Blanche,” he said. “The Honorable Blanche Morriston.”
She was quiet for a while. “And will she be able to bring you happiness, Daniel?” she asked.
“I believe so,” he said stiffly. “She is everything I have looked for in a wife.”
She was quiet for so long this time that he thought the subject had been exhausted. But she spoke again. “Daniel,”she said, “you used to be so different. I had forgotten agreat deal since I was so young at the time, but I havethought about those distant years a great deal in the pastfew days. You were always into mischief. You even morethan Freddie. You used to lead the way and he used to follow.”
“I was a child, Julia,” be said. “Or a boy, I suppose in the years you can recall. It is part of boyhood to get into asmuch mischief as possible, to get caught nine times out often, and to get thrashed most of those times. It is somethingone grows out of if one is to be a mature adult. I grew outof it.”
“Too soon,” she said. “When your father died.”
“I had a mother and a sister,” he said, “and a home and estate. And suddenly I was heir to an earldom and the estates and fortune that went along with it. I had to learn totake responsibility for all that, Julia. Perhaps I grew upsooner than I would have done otherwise, but it had to happen anyway. I was fourteen. Hardly a child.”
“But all the light went out of you,” she said. “All the joy. I can remember my bewilderment, Daniel, the summer youcame back as the Viscount Yorke. You were like a differentperson inside the same body. I can remember that for thosefirst two summers I was at Primrose Park you used to ignore me much of the time—I was a very young child. Butsometimes you used to take me up on your shoulders tocarry me around. And occasionally you would take me upbefore you on your horse to give me short rides. You taughtme to swim, you and Freddie. I suppose you have forgottenthat you were my hero. I used to live for the time whenyou would come back.”
Good God, the earl thought, was she speaking the truth? But he could remember the years when younger cousinshad treated him worshipfully because he was older andtaller and stronger than they. Julia must have been one ofthem for a few years. Her father and stepmother had stillbeen alive and had neglected her shamefully. He had usedto feel sorry for her. Yes, he could remember her launchingherself into the lake and clinging, giggling, to him andFreddie while Susan and Stella and young Viola had hungback on the bank, terrified to take the dare that had been issued.
Julia had never refused a dare. It had been very easy to teach her to float and even to swim. She had bobbed like acork in the water, totally without fear provided he or Freddie stayed close. God, he had forgotten. All those goldenyears.
“And then you came back,” she said, “and you were cold. Not just neglectful. Young children expect that ofolder ones. And not even occasionally indulgent. Just coldand disapproving. And never joining in any of our games ifthey smacked of mischief. And always I was the one introuble with you. Because I was a girl, I suppose, and likedto keep up with the boys. I could never do anything right inyour eyes. Never. I came to hate you, Daniel. I was neverso glad as when you stopped coming. But I did not set outto say this. Somewhere I lost track of what Iwasgoing tosay. Oh!” She jerked her arm from his suddenly and turnedsharply away to fumble in her reticule. Out came his crumpled handkerchief. “An insect must have flown in my eye.Now both eyes are watering. How ridiculous!”
“Let me see,” he said. But she slapped his hand away from beneath her chin.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “Don’t touch me, Daniel.”
He swallowed and felt all his emotions raw again, as they had been for the last two days. He wondered why shewas crying. For a lost childhood? For a lost hero? For the fact that he had returned to bring shadow back into her sunny world? He waited until she blew her nose and announced that the horrid insect was gone.
“The point I was going to make,” she said, starting to walk again, ignoring his arm, “was that you were robbed ofsomething, Daniel. I don’t know if it was just circumstances that were to blame or if it was Aunt Sarah, perhaps,demanding too much of you too soon. You were too youngto know that doing your duty did not prevent you from alsohaving fun out of life. You don’t have fun, do you? Notever?”
He wanted to do violence to something or someone. They had emerged from the tree-lined section of the driveway. The house was in sight, fortunately. They did not have too far to go.
“What do you call having fun?” he asked, and he could hear the anger in his own voice. “Riding neck or nothingacross uneven fields and jumping thick hedges? Swimmingin the raw? Climbing trees? No, of course I do not indulgein any of those things, Julia. They are childish or dangerous or can bring great embarrassment to others.”
“When done in private?” she said. “On one’s own property? Of course one would not climb a tree in Hyde Park or swim—in the raw or even in a shift—in the Serpentine.Even I did not get into any trouble when I spent a Season inLondon, you see, Daniel, though I ached for more freedom sometimes. But when you are alone or with people towhom you feel close, don’t you ever have the urge to shed your titles and your duties and even your adulthood? Don’tyou ever want to run down hills shouting your lungs out?Don’t you?”
He had a vivid mental image of her racing down the steep side of the hill, shrieking and keeping her balance bythe sheer effort of will and of himself catching her at thebottom and twirling her about. And wanting to kiss her.
“Oh,” she said crossly. “I hate being given the silent treatment. You don’t, do you? You don’t even know what Iam talking about. Do you?”
Everything snapped in him suddenly and he clamped one hand on her wrist, not even knowing with his consciousmind why he did so or what he intended to do next. But heturned off the path, taking her with him, and strode acrossthe lawn in the direction of more trees and the lake. Juliatrotted along at his side, not saying a word. His consciousmind knew that he was walking too fast for her, that thegentleman in him would cause him to reduce his pace. Buthis unconscious mind drove him on until they were deepinto the trees, not far from the lake.
He stopped at an oak tree, an ancient oak that appeared not to have changed by so much as a twig in fifteen yearsand more. Except that its lowest branch seemed lower tothe ground, perhaps. He looked up at branches and footholds that were impressed indelibly upon his memoryeven across the span of so many years. A tangible and unchanged link with childhood.
“Climb!” he said tersely, releasing Julia’s wrist. He looked at her for the first time since his control hadsnapped back on the driveway. She was wearing a flimsyand very feminine muslin dress and a straw bonnet. “I don’tdoubt that you can do it even dressed as you are. Climb.”She looked at him for a few moments, her expressionblank. And then she dropped her reticule, removed her bonnet and dropped that too, slipped off her shoes, and turnedto the lowest branch. She held up a staying hand when hewould have helped her.
She climbed and he climbed after her.
14
