Chapter 1 #2
Andrew, Julian’s first name, was as pretty as his stupid, girly face. Julian spit, hitting his target to the left of his uncle’s black shoe. “My name is Julian.”
His uncle stiffened, and turning on his heel, surveyed the spit and then Julian beneath flat black brows. “Your name is whatever I say it is.”
“I prefer Julian,” he dared.
His uncle’s voice dropped to a murmur. “Do you now?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Very well. Allow me to show you to your room, Julie.”
Julian’s mouth went slack. What if his uncle dressed him in ribbons and petticoats? Julian realized, with approaching panic, he could. And no one could stop him.
Better not to press his luck. Julian gave his uncle the win, and after nodding, followed him through the vestibule entrance to the hall surrounded by an arcade of massive arches. The carved pillars stood like polished prison guards every eight feet. It was colder inside than it was outside.
The wide, turning, creaking staircase looked exactly like a path to the room where an executioner waited for Julian to remove his coat and stock and place his ten-year-old head on the block.
They reached the landing where Georgiana looped her arm over Julian’s shoulders and whispered, “He won’t call you Julie forever. Just do as he says, and he’ll be generous.”
Julian elbowed her. “I’ll lick the soles of his bloody shoes.”
Georgiana gasped.
“What?” he asked beneath his breath as his uncle led them through the gloomy paneled corridor. “You’ve never heard the word?”
Georgiana’s mouth bent in insult. “I have.”
“What about fuck?”
“Is that a word?”
“Anthony Philips says it is, and I heard Ollie say it.”
“What does it mean?”
“It depends. Anthony says it’s like lifting a leg on a rum-dell, and Ollie blurted it out when I unleashed the frogs.”
Georgiana halted. “Frogs?”
Julian warmed to his monster heart to have a proselyte with whom to share his vast knowledge. “I’ll tell you later.”
His uncle swung open a door and ushered them inside. The hearth was cold, but to within an inch of the perimeter, plush carpets covered the wood floors.
His uncle flourished an arm to the chamber. “Do you like it?”
Julian’s bones sighed, his brain half-asleep already at the thought of sinking down into the feather mattress with the thick layers of linens tucked at his nose. “I do, sir.”
“Excellent.” Uncle William smiled. “You’ll earn this room. Until then…” He motioned to Georgiana. “Lead us to the servants’ quarters, George.”
Twelve Days Later
As far as escapes went, Julian’s was a notch above a disaster. It had poured rain to Chedworth’s boundary and threatened to continue until he turned south where the sun beckoned like a wood nymph. Behind him, rain clouds loomed.
He wore the same clothes he’d had on his back the day he’d left London because his uncle had taken his trunks, announcing he would earn his clothes too.
Julian had washed his drawers the night before in the cold basin water.
Without a fire to dry them by, they were still damp.
The linen clung to his ballocks, which made outrunning the storm a chafing misery.
Georgiana had passed him a toothbrush and powder, which he brought along. Along with a stolen sheaf of writing paper, three pencils, two silver candlesticks to sell for a passage to London, a shawl, and a bottle of brandy.
On the outskirts of a Tudor palace, he pulled the brandy from the pillowcase. He took a swig and spewed the rot over his boots. Scraping his tongue with his teeth, he glared at the bottle. His father and brother drank this? Willingly?
He stuffed the cork back in place and twisted around at a female voice raised in song. As soon as he stepped toward the thicket bordering the wood, it disappeared.
It came again, melodious and clear as crystal. The longing it stirred had to be from one of those females who wooed men to their death. Sirens.
Julian chased after it, tearing his coat in the hawthorn to gain the wood, and spied a flash of pink. It vanished. Had he imagined it? Or was it a fairy?
To his left, a forest creature stirred. Above him, birds cocked their heads. On the current of a north wind came a soft, broken cry.
Peering at the canopy, he found the sun and, estimating the voice’s heading as north, started his pursuit.
He tracked its course for what felt like hours.
Was he traveling in circles, or had he made it to Scotland?
Hungry and frustrated, he dropped down to the forest floor at the edge of a clearing and tore open a napkin of food.
His uncle had fed Julian gruel and bread, and when Julian had asked the kitchen staff for more food, the cook had said, “We’ve been warned about you.”
Julian devoured the stale bread he’d saved for two days and weighed his choices. Chasing after a fairy wasn’t going to get him back home. Where, he vowed, he would beg and apologize and relish every meal.
He forced himself to hold down a gulp of brandy and then another, and within time, he decided he wouldn’t beg his father, only apologize.
After the third gulp had swirled like a warm fire in his belly, he decided just showing up in London and relaying his uncle’s cruelty would be enough to get him back in his father’s good graces.
He laid out a piece of paper over the shawl spread out on his lap and started drawing from memory. In his London bedroom was a sketch of his ship, the one he would build when he’d saved enough money. After he actually worked on a ship.
Maybe he should become a merchant sailor instead of returning home.
Something sniffed.
Julian froze.
No. Someone sniffed.
Careful not to make a sound, he turned his head right as far as it would go without moving his body. Straining until his eyes ached, he saw it. The slightest hint of pink.
He slipped his hands from his lap and, avoiding the fallen leaves, dug his fingertips into the dirt. Slowly, he pushed up and shifted his seat clockwise.
Julian blinked. His heart roared in his ears. He felt it in his chest too, like a caged beast slamming against iron bars.
A fairy, enveloped in a pink cloak, huddled on a log, less than a stone’s throw from him. Pink slippers with darker pink flowers peeked out from her cloak. Long, curling tendrils of shining black hair hung down from her head, almost to the forest floor, hiding her face.
She was tiny. He craved to pick her up. Hold her.
Turn her over and around and examine every part of her.
He would place her in his pocket for good luck.
They would travel the world together, him and his fairy, and she would sprinkle her fairy dust over him, and nothing bad would ever happen to him.
The fairy lifted her head. His breath emptied from his lungs as her hair drew back from her face.
Her cheeks glowed like a pearl, her nose small, with a slight impish turn. Her full pink lips trembled above a chin in perfect proportion to her nose.
He hadn’t said a word, but the fairy turned to him as if he had. Maybe she heard his heart pounding in chest. Her green eyes regarded him in silence. Sooty lashes framed her gaze. Leaves drifted from the treetops to land around her like woodland courtiers.
Was she real? Had he died and this clearing was the gate to heaven? Alive or dead, she was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
“Welcome, good sir,” she said. “We are pleased to have you.”
She smiled. He’d never seen anything like it. Bright as morning sun glinting off water, it wrapped around him like a cheery embrace.
The monster in Julian’s soul skulked away in defeat.