They did not hear her open the door and she stood there, her hand on the latch, frozen into silent immobility, while she absorbed the shock that followed the relief. Somehow part of her had not quite believed she would find them like this. Caroline had her arms around Will, her head rested on his chest and he was holding her against his body, his cheek crushing the elaborate curls of her coiffure.
The only sound was of muffled sobs, the only movement, Caroline’s shoulders shaking and Will’s hand stroking her back. Julia found she could not stir. Certainly she could not speak, even if she had any idea what to say. Then Will opened his eyes and looked straight at her.
The spell broke as she met Will’s gaze. It held nothing but a desperate appeal for help. Julia found her voice. ‘I suggest that you go back to the salon as soon as possible, my lord, before someone notices exactly who is missing.’
Caroline went rigid. Will dropped his hands from her and turned. ‘Julia.’
‘Leave her. Go back now—do you want to make a scandal?’ Will did not move and Julia’s tenuous hold on her emotions gave way. ‘Go,’ she hissed. ‘It is quite safe to leave her with me, I am not going to start a cat fight!’
He shot her another harassed look, then strode past her without another word and she was alone with Caroline who stood, head averted, face buried in her hands.
‘Do you need a handkerchief or to wash your face?’ Julia demanded. ‘Or are those crocodile tears?’
The other woman dropped her hands to show dry eyes, an unmarred complexion. ‘You have no feelings!’
‘No, apparently not. But I do have a quantity of common sense. It may be a cliché, but you really cannot have your cake and eat it, Miss Fletcher. However delightful it is to use your powers on Will, you risk a scandal and if that happens you would lose your earl and a great deal of money.’ Caroline’s big blue eyes filled with furious tears. ‘For goodness’ sake, do not start crying now! Do you want people to feel sorry for you?’
‘What?’
‘It will seem that you cannot bear to see Will healthy and happily married.’ Julia shrugged and turned to the door. ‘I was going to say your flounce had snagged and torn and we were pinning it up, but if you want to make an exhibition of yourself—’
With a gasp of outrage Caroline pushed past and swept down the corridor towards the salon. Julia caught up to her and linked her arm into hers as they entered the room.
‘Such a pity if that has damaged your lovely gown,’ she said clearly as they entered. ‘I am not surprised you were upset.’
Caroline glared at her and swept away to her mother’s side.
Spoiled little madam, Julia thought, trying to feel sorry for the other woman, shocked to realise that she had been suspicious when she had found them both gone and that she was jealous and upset now.
Ridiculous, she scolded herself. She trusted Will and, if he had been misguided enough himself to offer his ex-fiancée some comfort then who was she to complain? He had hardly protested his love and devotion to her, had he?
Will was standing before the fireplace, staring at her as he might at a bomb with a hissing fuse. He started across the floor as, behind her, salvation arrived.
‘The tea, my lady.’
‘Thank you, Gatcombe. Over there, if you please.’ She turned to Will. ‘Have you come to help me with the cups?’ Faced with two full teacups, he had little choice but to take them. The surface of the liquid shivered as she handed them to him, and his hands, it seemed, were no steadier, but the vibration was not visible and he, too, kept his poise.
* * *
The clock struck twelve before Will could finally make his way upstairs and along the gallery to his room. The last guests had gone. The little crisis with the trace on the vicar’s carriage snapping had been dealt with by sending them home in his own vehicle. The servants had been thanked and the house was secure. Now there was nothing between him and the confrontation with his wife and the consequences of his own actions.
Nancy passed him, her arms full of linens. ‘Her ladyship’s retired for the night, my lord. She’s not feeling quite herself, you understand.’
For a hideous moment he thought Julia had confided in her maid, then he saw there was no accusation in Nancy’s expression, only mild concern. Julia must have said she was suffering from a headache.
‘Thank you. Goodnight.’ He went into his own room and endured Jervis’s punctilious attentions for twenty minutes until finally, mercifully, alone he went and listened at the jib door between their dressing rooms. Nothing. He opened it, half-surprised to find it unlocked, and went through. The door into her room was unlocked too. Will tapped and entered.
‘Julia?’
She was sitting up in bed, her hair in its night-time plait on her shoulder. ‘Come in.’
Will had not known what to expect. Reproaches, certainly. Tears, probably. Accusations, of course. Even, although he had never seen Julia lose her temper, things thrown at his head. He deserved the lot, especially after the scene he had created when he found her with Henry. What he had not expected from his wife was calm.
‘I am sorry,’ he said, knowing it was insufficient but that it had to be said. ‘That should never have happened. I had no intention that it should.’
‘But Miss Fletcher waylaid you, threw herself on your chest and sobbed?’
That was exactly what had happened. Caroline had followed him when he went out to fetch a book he thought the vicar would be interested in and the next thing he knew he was in the library with the door shut and feeling more confused than he could ever remember. Short of violence he had no idea how to detach her and he had absolutely no experience in dealing with a sobbing woman. He shoved all the explanations away and said, ‘I cannot lay the blame on Caroline.’
‘It was inevitable, I suppose, given her refined sensibilities,’ Julia remarked as though he had not spoken. ‘Will, I do not blame you for embracing her, I just wish it had not happened where it would have been so easy for you to have been discovered.’
‘You do not mind?’ He stared at her, his mind going back, as it so often did, to the day he had found her in the chapel. After that rough, impulsive coupling she had slipped from the bed cool, collected, distant. She had been through an emotional storm in the church and the laughter, the passion afterwards, had been a reaction to that, he supposed. And when she had come to herself she had been disgusted with his crude lovemaking and his lack of tact in mentioning Caroline minutes later—he had seen it in her reserve, the way she had distanced herself from him emotionally and physically.
He had been very careful with her ever since, even after the scene with Henry when he had wanted to find the comfort and forgiveness in their lovemaking that he could not bring himself to ask for in words.
But this? It seemed as though Julia was not even remotely jealous, simply annoyed that he had risked a scandal. But what did he expect? Their marriage had been a sham from the start, there had not even been acquaintanceship to precede it. He had made no bones about his reasons for marriage, she had been betrayed and discarded by a lover she had given up everything for. So why then, when he could perfectly understand her indifference, was it so painful now?
‘I am not in love with Caroline,’ he said.
‘You do not have to tell me whether you are or not. It is not my business. And I do not believe that you would do anything...dishonourable.’ Julia studied her hands as they lay on the lace edge of the sheet. She was twisting her wedding ring round and round her finger.
‘But I am glad if you are not breaking your heart over her, because I do not