Chapter 1
Chapter
The house was quiet save for the last whispers of the storm outside and an occasional creak of a floorboard from the footsteps of the doctor. Tom’s fever had broken and the man assured Julianna he would make it through the night. Laudanum had already carried him into sleep.
“Get some rest, my lady,” the doctor had said. “You’ll do your brother no good by wearing yourself out.”
She’d let him push her from the room, not because she wanted rest, but because she could not bear the thought of Thomas waking to the sound of her crying. His fever had broken but it had been close.
Too close.
She knew the tears were going to come spilling out, no matter how hard she tried to stop them. And perhaps, she thought, it was time to let them come.
She found her way to the only other bedchamber the staff had prepared, a small guest room near the master, and stoked the fire until it crackled brightly.
But the warmth did little for her. Her dress was still damp, clinging coldly to her skin.
Shuddering tremors wracked her as the panic slowly drained from her body, leaving exhaustion and dread in their wake.
Along with a roiling pit of nausea in her stomach.
She curled herself onto the chaise, knees pulled to her chest, and let the truth in at last.
Thomas was tubercular.
He had been slipping away—bit by bit and breath by breath—since he returned from Crimea. She could no longer pretend he wasn’t. The war had stolen his health, and he was not one of the rare ones who rallied. No broth, blankets, tea, prayers or wishing could turn him back from the path he was on.
Her brother was going to die.
And when he did, there would be no one left who belonged wholly to her.
And she, in return, would belong to no one.
She bent her head and let the sobs come, harsh and broken, tearing through her throat until she thought she might choke on them.
They shook her shoulders, stole her breath, and left her folded in on herself.
Too small in the too empty room. And too utterly alone.
She did not hear the door open over the sounds of her own weeping at first, but she felt the shift in the air of another presence anyway—tenuous, as if someone had paused on the threshold and nearly turned back. And then she breathed in the scent of him a moment before he spoke.
“Julianna,” he murmured. “Don’t cry.”
The storm no longer howled outside, but the one in her heart went wild. And in that moment, he was her only shelter from it. But she didn’t turn her face to him, not yet. Because she could not bear to see him hesitate; could not bear it if he turned and fled.
His footsteps edged closer to her and she drew in a hitched breath.
“I don’t know what else to do,” she whispered. “He’s going to die.”
“I know.”
His honesty calmed her in a way no empty promises or lies could. Thomas was going to die. Perhaps not tonight, but too soon.
“Would you like me to stay?”
She should have said no. But she didn’t do that either. She needed comfort; she wanted it from Fred. And just as she had once let Robert Rothchild into her bed when she was grieving and alone, she reached for Fred now and drew him down beside her.
Except she knew they were not the same. Robert had swept her off her feet with too many pretty words she ought to have known better than to believe. When she’d discovered he’d been married the whole while, she hadn’t felt heartbroken so much as foolish.
Fred was the opposite of that. She doubted he could come up with pretty words if he tried. But his actions these last weeks, brusque and unwanted as they had often been, had been rooted in care. And kindness. She could admit that to herself.
So when he perched beside her and placed one tentative hand on her shoulder, she leaned into it.
“Julianna,” he murmured, so close now that his words seemed to brush the shell of her ear. “Jules.”
She shivered. She was cold and her gown was still wet.
Or that was what she told herself, anyway.
And when his hand brushed her arm again—it was only to provide her with warmth.
But what she could not excuse was what she did next: how she reached for his hand and pulled him down beside her until he lay half on and half off the chaise.
The room that had seemed so large a moment ago now felt too dreadfully small to hold them both, and she pressed back into him anyway.
She turned so that her face was buried in his chest and his body formed a protective wall around hers. She was not going to move, not when his warmth was right there, so immediate and undeniable. She grasped her fingers into his shirt instead while she let herself be embraced.
One of his hands cradled the back of her head, while the other pinned her close, as if his arms alone could keep her from falling apart. Perhaps, just for tonight, they could.
She didn’t know how long they stayed that way. She didn’t care.
Eventually, when her tears had run themselves dry he whispered, “Jules,” and began to ease himself back from her.
“No.” She didn’t know where that word, rough and hoarse from her throat, had come from. “Stay. Don’t leave me tonight.”
His eyes flicked to hers and she saw his pupils widen and darken.
His thumb brushed the curve of her cheek, lingering at her jaw.
She parted her lips without realizing it.
For a moment she had the insane notion that he might kiss her.
Instead his breath hitched and his jaw clenched; he was holding even his muscles in a rigid check.
She leaned into him harder, reckless in her grief. If she was going to fall apart, let it be into something warm. Let it be into him.
His breath mingled with hers, so close she could feel it warm against her skin. “Fred,” she said and heard the way his name came out in a breathy whisper.
He answered with a groan from deep in the back of his throat and a shudder that ran through his body. For one long, long heartbeat, he looked as if he might give in. Like he might lean closer and give her this thing she didn’t want to want from him.
But then he pulled back and his hands fell away, his expression wrecked. She swallowed hard when Fred rose unsteadily, running a hand through his hair. His jaw worked but no words came out. Finally, he managed to say, “We can’t,” in a thick, rough voice.
The rejection cut sharper than it should have. Shame and anger rushed up into her chest. ‘We can’t’ should be her line, not his.
“Go, then.” Her voice broke. “Run away as you always do.”
He reached for her shoulder, but she jerked backward.
“Don’t touch me,” she snarled before she quickly buried her face in her hands.
She heard him sigh and then his footsteps echoed against the floor. The door creaked open and then shut again. And Fred was gone.
He left. He always left.
And Julianna was always alone.
This was better, she tried to tell herself. Frederick Sedgewick ruined everything he touched. Including her, apparently. How had she fallen apart so thoroughly that she’d invited him to touch her? She pressed her fist to her mouth to keep another sob from escaping.
When she heard the latch and creak of the door opening again a few moments later, she groaned.
She didn’t want to look up and find herself face to face with some parlor maid or the butler.
She couldn’t face having to politely brush away offers of tea or scones or whatever it was servants provided for crying Countesses.
She just wanted to be left alone with her sadness and her embarrassment and her grief.
She lifted her head to dismiss whomever had entered, but the words died on her tongue. Fred was standing in the doorway. He’d come back and she didn’t care to think too deeply about her reaction to that.
He stood there, waiting, a folded bundle in his hands. “Julianna.” He took one step forward. “Jules, I’m sorry.”
He took another step, so that the firelight caught the melted snow still in his hair. The little droplets gleamed like cut crystals in his locks. His stupid dimples were showing.
“Take this,” he said and held the bundle out to her: a night rail, soft and dry, and a heavy wool blanket.
“No.”
“You’re shivering. You need to change.”
She squeezed her eyes shut again. It was too much. This night, the storm, her marriage, him. All too much.
“Jules, look at me.” She opened her eyes at the command. Any tentativeness that he’d shown earlier was gone. “I need you to take off that dress, dearheart. And put this on. Can you do that?”
She stared at him, speechless, but she nodded. Julianna Farrow, who had never once in her life given up control of anything, handed over her comfort and well-being to…to her husband.
“Good. That’s good.” He reached out to deliver the bundle to her and then, when her hands were full, he briefly caressed her arm. One, last, lingering touch before he turned around and faced the wall, adding, “I won’t look.”
Julianna breathed in, trying to clear her head.
He was right, of course. She was still in her wet dress; she hadn’t thought to bring anything else with her.
She glanced down at the night rail in her hands.
God knows who it had belonged to. She was afraid to ask; she remembered his reputation well enough.
She lifted it to her nose and gently sniffed. It was clean, if a little musty. A far sight better than her own wet, bedraggled clothes. She sighed and hauled herself to her feet. She’d wear the night rail.
She stripped out of the sodden dress as quickly as she could and into the dry linen, wrapping herself in the blanket when she was done. “I’m finished,” she said finally. “You may turn back around.”
He turned, wearing an expression she’d never seen on his face before. He looked thoroughly shaken.
“Fred? Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he croaked. “I’ll..I’ll just go and—”
“No,” she said for the second time that night. “Stay with me. I don’t want to be alone.”
Even if the only person in the world to keep her company was Fred, he was better than the empty room and the dark tendrils of grief encircling her heart.
Fred inhaled, shakily, and then nodded, striding for her in two enormous steps. He opened his arms and she fell into them.
“Rest, Jules.” He held her tightly to him. “I’ll stay with you until you can sleep.”