Chapter Three
It had been a daring move on Julian’s part to write to Romola’s half-brother.
To write to a duke—and a Campbell on top of that.
His enemy. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
For too long he had held on to the past, and that night at the Havershams’ ball, seeing Romola again had reminded him of what he needed to change.
Seeing her had given him hope—after all, if she were indifferent to him, he knew he would have seen that in her eyes, in her manner and bearing toward him.
Yet she wasn’t. This had given him hope for what he did next—seeking the duke’s help.
All he knew was that he had been a fool, and his mother’s prejudices and rules were to be put aside and not carried with him for another moment.
In his letter, he had explained to the older aristocrat what a fool he’d been with Romola and how, with hindsight, he wanted to make amends to his beloved.
Julian hoped he could convince her to wed him.
In laying himself bare, he had expected a brutal rejoinder, if not to be called out by His Grace.
However, the following morning, Hugo Campbell had sought him out at Boodle’s, and between the two of them, they had concocted their plan.
On entering the duke’s Belgravia townhouse, Julian was ushered through a labyrinthine elegance and into a formal salon that looked out onto the rear garden.
The chamber was decorated in the finest apricot furnishings.
Sat in the middle of the room, perched on a small valentine settee, was Romola.
The girlish sixteen-year-old was gone, replaced by a slim redhead whose fierce green eyes dared him to say all the foolish things he’d bottled up for too long.
In the moonlight at the ball, he’d not seen her freckles, but in the fresh light of day they peeked out and gave him confidence.
“I am sorry not to have seen you since the ball,” he said.
“I understand you have written to my brother.” It was not a question, and there was a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“I had to,” Julian said. “I wanted him to underst—”
“You wished to humiliate me into relinquishing my only claim to independence while further ruining my reputation. I see it all now.” Here she was again, cutting him off, and still Julian found it charming, despite how much he needed Romola to know the truth.
He drew out the little jewelry box he had recently purchased on Bond Street. The pearls and intertwined diamonds hopefully made for a suitable engagement ring for Romola. He had spent too long selecting, wasting time when he would have been better off apologizing to her.
Romola did not see any of this—she was too busy jumping to her feet, and then marching this way and that, her fists balled up and her cheeks flaming.
The skirts of her green gown swished about, and she looked as magnificent as a queen.
“I worked so hard to…to…to find my place here amongst these people. My family… You might not care for the Campbells, but they are all I have. I might just be a companion—the forgotten girl—but I have a place here. Amongst them. And that is all I have ever wanted—to belong.”
“I thought you wanted to travel and see the world?”
“I did ten years ago, but now I see that was what I wanted to believe, to be the sort of woman who did not care what others said about her mother. If I were a great traveler and explorer, who would care what my parents were? Who would care that my father was a brutal duke, hated throughout Scotland? If I were bold and brave, then nobody would care where I came from. You might hate my family, but my father warned me about your family…”
“So, what do you want, then, Miss Campbell?” Julian asked, a little knot of worry twisting through him.
Perhaps she might declare now that she wanted to move to Australia or India.
Or join a nunnery. He was done with being afraid and putting the wishes and fears of his family ahead of his own desires, but what if those no longer aligned with Romola’s?
He had been so sure in his youth, so certain of her affection, and now that he finally had the ring and her brother’s blessing, was he to be shot down? Had he waited too long?
“I want to fall in love. To forget you, and…” She turned back to him and her pace slowed, until she was directly in front of him. “I don’t want to be haunted by the past.”
“Neither do I.”
“You will chase me for that land, won’t you?
” She gave him a cynical little smile, one that hinted at how close she was to tears, and all Julian wanted to do was hug her.
“Twist and steal and beg and… So, I will sell it to you, if it means never seeing you again. Perhaps then I shall be free. But will you be free, connected so to land that belonged to a Campbell?” Her eyes narrowed as she watched him.
“How will your mother react knowing that your little fiefdom is only there because of a Campbell?”
“I don’t care what she might think,” Julian said.
“Not anymore. I have lived for too long by what rules have governed my family. I think we both have.” He moved over to her and, despite the shock in her eyes, took her hand, pulling her close so that the air between them rang with energy, with unspoken passion, with memories of their one-time love that he had never forgotten.
“Romola, I had this plan to win the land from you, and then to gift it back, so you knew I loved you. But I owe you more than that. Let me start with an apology. Countless ones, probably. I should have said something years ago when my mother found us, but I was heartbroken, and I thought you indifferent.” Gently he pulled her toward the settee until they were both seated.
“I was too young to know that those golden, honeyed weeks we spent together in Fife would be the best of my life. Those memories are the ones that keep me warm on winter nights and the ones I pray God to deliver to me when I am ill. I could not appreciate that what I felt was love, and it would not fade away, no matter how much time and effort and miles I put between us. Please let me finish,” he added, as she looked ready to interrupt.
“I want to make amends, not because I want the land you have been given—that was merely an excuse for seeking you out. I needed to see you again, to say what I should have said when I was seventeen—I love you. You are the only woman I have ever loved and will ever love. Tell me how I can make it right, how I can make it better.”
For a long moment Romola stared back at him, her expression seemingly frozen, caught between worry and consternation, as if waiting for him to yell, or surprise her, or worse—reveal that it had been some ghastly trick on his part.
When none of these things happened, she sniffed and then swatted at him before bursting into tears. “You love me?” Then, through her sobs, she managed to say, very loudly, “You’ve no right. None at all.”
Behind him, the door swung open to reveal three female faces alight with curiosity and smiles, and the frowning face of the duke, all staring in that them.
“Has he proposed?” said one of the women.
“I don’t think so,” said the youngest-looking one, who was cradling a cat. “At least, she doesn’t look very happy about it if he has.”
“Your Grace will permit me a few minutes more,” Julian said, getting to his feet and giving his supposed enemy turned ally a bow.
His mother had ruined his first attempt at a proposal, and he was not going to allow Romola’s assorted relatives to do the same now, no matter that these people seemed good natured rather than malicious.
“Romola?” The duke was looking at his crying sister on the sofa. “Are you happy for the laird to continue with his proposal?”
To this, Romola dropped her hands and cried, “He hasn’t proposed at all. He just said he loved me.”
“Chop-chop,” commanded the duke as he pulled the door closed, shutting away the assorted gaping females. “I say, I should probably have given you a limited time for it. I will do better with you three when the time comes.”
“Better that you shouldn’t have revealed his intentions,” came a dry reply from one of Romola’s relatives.
Julian turned back to Romola to see the tears that rolled down her face. But they left her still as dazzling as he remembered, and that drew him back to her side.
“Was the duke telling the truth?” she asked.
“Yes,” Julian said. He pulled the engagement ring from his pocket and dropped down on one knee before her, staring up at her in her seat on the settee.
It was not the most elegant of positions, but given the previous interruptions, he thought it best to say everything as neatly as he could before someone tried to steal Romola away from him again.
Tentatively her eyes dropped to the box. “You love me?” she asked again, and it was a dagger in his heart that she might fear the implausibility of this.
“I promise you I do, and I will spend the rest of my life making you know the truth of that, so you can never doubt it again.”
An unsteady smile touched her lips, and she shifted closer so she was looking down at him. Her hand cupped his face; her breath stirred his hair as she leaned in. “And you swear this isn’t just some ruse to steal my inheritance?”
“Can you not believe I would want you just for yourself? If you want, we can sell the land, and you can keep the profits for whatever you like. All I want is you.”
“Damaged, cursed-named bastard though I am?”
Her mouth was so close, its rosebud shape as beautiful and beguiling as lips had any right to be.
“I want you more than life itself. Whosever daughter you might be, whatever your inheritance, literal, physical, emotional…spiritual…”
At last, he had her laughing at his ever-growing list. The light was sparkling in her luminous eyes, and as she bent down and pressed her mouth to his, Julian’s heart sang.
Her touch was thrilling as he had always imagined it would be, slow and all consuming as his hands tangled in her hair and he pulled her down on top of him.
The taste was as delicious as chocolate and as delicate as the famed Gunter’s ices.
They kissed until they were both breathless and panting, their tongues tangling and exploring as their hands explored with curiosity each other’s bodies.
“I think she must have said yes.”
That blinking door had been opened again to reveal the pair of them sprawled out on the elegant carpet for all of Romola’s family to see.
Hastily Julian helped her to her feet as her family crammed into the parlor.
“You will marry me, won’t you?” he finally asked, and Romola nodded.
“Yes, because I love you too.”