There was a moment when something dark passed over his cousin’s expression and then he chuckled. “Of course. And I know exactly what I’m doing, so you needn’t run around trying to play protector. I didn’t ask for it. And that title will bemineto do with as I please, so it’s nothisproblem, either.”
“He’ll stop you,” Alexander said softly.
A smile tilted Laurence’s lips, something smug and unpleasant. “No. He won’t. You can’t put me off this, Alexander. Plans are in motion that I’ve no intention of stopping. Now I’m going to ride off to find our friends and when you join us, I hope you’ll try to be in a better mood.”
His cousin turned his horse back onto the path and galloped off without another word.
“Bollocks,” Alexander muttered beneath his breath and then stared up at the blue sky as he tried to calm himself. This conversation had offered no comfort. If anything, he was even more troubled by all this than he had been before he spoke to Laurence.
He sighed. His cousin said he wouldn’t be put off his plans. From experience, Alexander knew that was likely true. But thatdidn’t mean that Julia couldn’t be turned. After seeing her forlorn expression as she petted the little cat earlier, he had to believe she had her own doubts, no matter her motives in agreeing to this marriage.
So perhaps that was a better place to put his efforts. Turn his attention to Julia Comerford. With that decided, he followed Laurence into the wood. And wished that the idea of focusing on the pretty former courtesan didn’t give him a thrill he shouldn’t have felt about his cousin’s fiancée.
CHAPTER 9
Julia had become accustomed to men watching her over the years. Normally their stares were salacious. They wanted to track her body, fantasize about her. Given what she did, that was something she’d come to expect, even if it wasn’t something she reveled in. Unlike Arabella, who had celebrated eroticism during her years as a courtesan, Julia bore it. When she knew a man, was attracted to him, only then did those stares became welcome.
She’d somehow hoped they’d stop, though, once she was engaged to Laurence. That the men of the party would at least grant herthatrespect as a future viscountess, even if some of them…perhaps most of them…didn’t approve the match.
Alas, that was not true. She still felt the heat of the gazes of the men when she entered or exited a room. And those were always followed by the judgment of the women in attendance. They didn’t like their husbands or brothers or fathers tracking her like wolves and they blamedherfor it. Entirely unfair.
In fact, the only man who watched her that she didn’t feel hunted by was Alexander Castleton. Since their encounter in the library a few days before, he had not approached her. It wasn’t that he didn’t watch her. No, he was always doing that. But it wasdifferent. How she couldn’t explain, but sometimes when she felt uncomfortable in a room she looked for him and it made her breathe easier. Foolish considering she knew he didn’t like her.
This was all a steep mountain and she just kept trying to climb it. She tried to connect with the servants and learn her duties, she tried to play hostess with the guests and engage in small talk with the ladies. It all felt like two steps forward and three back. Sometimes those she encountered were neutral, but never welcoming. And sometimes she felt the cold slash of cruelty either to her face or behind her back.
It was exhausting. No less so tonight for yet another gathering of the engagement party. It seemed these were never-ending and the list of duties she had to fulfill for them the same. Tonight she’d had to argue with Laurence’s butler, Taylor, for a quarter of an hour for another case of claret to be opened for the guests. He’d finally agreed but so far she’d seen no one drinking it and she could have sworn she saw him whispering to Laurence and motioning his head toward her.
It was so frustrating and suddenly the room felt too hot and oppressive. She wanted to scream, so instead she moved toward the terrace. Outside she’d cool down, then perhaps she could find her aunt and see if Caroline could help.Shewas accepted by the guests, if pitied for her connection to the Comerford sisters. But Caroline would shore her up and give her a little strength, if nothing else.
That decided, Julia stepped out of the chamber onto the terrace and drew a few long, breaths of cool night air. Crickets chirped in the distance and she leaned on the edge of the stone wall and tried to calm her racing heart.
“Miss Comerford?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and wished for a moment that she could go invisible rather than turning to face the man who’d said her name. She didn’t want to talk to Alexander Castleton.
But he didn’t leave and she let out her breath in a wavering sigh before she turned to face him. He was just shutting the terrace door behind himself and then he stepped toward her. The moonlight hit his face and her breath caught despite her desire for him to go away.
He truly had a beautiful face. The kind one painted. The kind poets wrote about, the kind women traced in the quiet of a dim room while their lover slept.
“Did you come out to enjoy the night air?” she managed to choke out as she turned back toward the garden. “And the cricket calls?”
He moved to stand a respectable distance next to her and took a long breath. “It’s a mating call, you know. Cricket chirps.”
She lifted her brows. “Is it?”
He nodded. “The sound will change when a female enters the fray. Or occasionally when they have to tell another male to bugger off.”
She shook her head. “Well, we’re all animals at heart, I suppose. Or…orthopterans? Isn’t that what Kirby called them?”
“You’ve read Kirby’s paper?” he asked, his brows lowering.
She shrugged. “I like science. I had a lover once who loved to talk about insects. At first I didn’t like it, but theyarefascinating and my interest outlasted the man. But I doubt you came out here to talk to me about crickets. Were you looking for me or just air?”
He examined her a beat and then said, “I’m going to be direct. I think you’re the kind of woman who appreciates that.”
She almost slumped because it was clear he was about to put her in her place once more. Yet another person to do so and it was so exhausting. What more could she do? She was walking away from her past, she had allowed her sisters to be left behind for the most important moment in her life, she was trying to begood and kind and appropriate and ruining her prettiest gowns so no one would see too much of her décolletage.
And anger began to rise in her that she had been trying to tamp down for weeks.
