Chapter Twelve
“You’re out of your wits,” Lawrence said sternly.
Julia grinned, almost fizzing with excitement. “I assure you, I am perfectly sane.”
The idea was a perfect one, and she could not understand why the tall man before her was not immediately convinced.
It had come to her in the night, and after gaining Donald’s support—that was, after arguing with him for five minutes, threatening him for five, and finally offering to loan him the twenty pounds he had been asking for, which she knew she would never see again—she had come straight to the Almonry Den.
To see him.
Lawrence pulled a hand through his hair with the air of a man driven beyond distraction. “Julia, you cannot seriously—”
“It is already arranged,” she interrupted, almost singing with happiness. “You are to arrive at seven o’clock.”
“But—Julia, the last thing your mother is going to want to do is meet me!” Lawrence said heavily, almost laughing at her excitement. “She’s trying to marry you off, not degrade you with my company! Dear God, why would you invite me to dinner?”
Because, Julia wanted to say, I am tired of having my two worlds entirely separate. Because my mother won’t be able to stop herself liking you, once she has met you. Because if I truly wish to…if I want to one day…
Well. Then you will have to be introduced to my mother. That’s all.
None of these frantic thoughts whirling through Julia’s mind were uttered, of course. That would be much too forward.
She almost laughed. Too forward? Every one of her interactions with Lawrence Madgwick was too forward. She was so forward, she was almost leaping on—
“Absolutely not,” said Lawrence firmly.
All the excitement flooded out of Julia as her shoulders sagged. “You…you mean you won’t come?”
It had all seemed so perfect. Her mother had suggested a quiet evening, just a few guests for dinner, and had asked Julia if she had anyone in mind.
And there was only one person on her mind at the moment.
“Lawrence Madgwick,” she had said to Donald’s general astonishment from across the breakfast table that morning. “I would like to invite Law—Mr. Madgwick.”
Try as he might, Donald had been unable to make her take back the words, though he had waggled his eyebrows most expressively over the teapot.
“Mr. Madgwick?” Mrs. Dryden had wrinkled her nose at the unfamiliar name. “Is he one of Lady Romeril’s proteges?”
“No,” said Julia eventually. It would have been a convenient lie, to be sure, and her mother would merely have accepted it immediately…but there was too great a chance that Lady Romeril herself would hear of it.
She would not face Lady Romeril unless absolutely backed into a corner. Which was typically how anyone found themselves facing Lady Romeril, now she came to think about it.
“Well?” Her mother had raised an eyebrow. “How do you know him, then?”
Julia had cast about for an answer that was as far away from “I saw him fighting an illegal boxing match at Almonry, which Don took me to, and I have been unable to extricate myself from him ever since” as possible.
“He’s a friend of Donald’s,” she had said weakly.
Donald had choked on his poached egg and potatoes.
“Of Donald?” repeated their mother suspiciously. “I have never heard of—”
“That is because—” Donald started darkly. “Ouch!”
Julia glared at her younger brother. Her kick had been well aimed, and it could be repeated, her look tried to communicate.
Evidently her silent expression had worked.
“A friend of Donald’s,” said Donald weakly. “I mean, of mine. Yes.”
Their mother had looked between them suspiciously, but there was no use. She had offered them each an invitation. “Fine. This Mr. Madgwick, and one of your friends, Donald—or even better, a young lady…”
Julia grinned up at Lawrence. She had found him in his rooms—not that she had been so brazen as to go up to them, obviously. She was no harlot. She may be in her imagination, but not in actuality.
Not for lack of trying. She had really thought the dip in the Thames would have convinced him, pushed him over the edge, as it were.
She had heard Donald and his friends talking once before about the allure of a woman in a sheer gown, and she had purposefully worn a white one in the hopes of enticing Lawrence if she could expertly fall into the Thames. It had all gone so well.
It wasn’t her fault the damned thing was so cold.
“Your mother,” Lawrence said warily. “Your mother. Has invited me. To dinner.”
Julia beamed. “Yes. Almost. In a way—”
“Jules,” Lawrence warned, his voice low.
All she could do was beam. He was still a little sweaty from the boxing ring, his fringe slightly damp, a heady scent rising from him like the most potent aphrodisiac ever invented.
If only they were not still standing in full view of a dissipating crowd. The afternoon’s entertainment was over. Only when evening came would they return to…
And Julia’s heart sank. “Oh. Of course, I did not think. You…you will be fighting this evening, won’t you?”
How could she not have thought of it? As guilt and shame colored her cheeks and tensed her fingers now clasped together before her, Julia knew precisely why she had not.
Because she was unaccustomed to the limitations of a profession. If one could call this a profession, which her mother certainly would not.
Every time she attempted to demonstrate to Lawrence that she accepted him for what, for who he was, she managed to stumble into a blunder!
A gentle hand tipped up her chin so she was looking once more into the handsome visage of Lawrence.
“You forgot,” he said gently.
Julia swallowed. “I so wanted you to come to dinner.”
She had not intended to plead. It was not her way. If Lawrence did not want to come, that was different from being unable to—
Lawrence sighed. “Who else will be there?”
Was it not enough that she would be there? “My mother, my brother, myself, and a Miss Banfield. I have met her a few times, I think my brother is fond of her.”
“And that’s all?”
Julia could not comprehend the anxiety the guestlist appeared to be causing Lawrence. What did it matter? “That is all.”
He hesitated for a few moments longer, a strange look of indecision on his face. Then finally, “Seven o’clock?”
A small sliver of hope shone. “Seven o’clock.”
Julia watched as he glanced away and caught the eye of his friend, the older man who was always with him. She saw something strange between them. A strange sort of silent request for permission.
It was difficult not to glare at the man as he hesitated. What sort of hold did this Alan have over Lawrence? She had never asked, had learned swiftly Lawrence was not the sort of man to answer questions, but still. That did not cease her curiosity.
Only when the man gave a sigh, then a nod before turning away from them both, did Julia relax.
“Perfect,” she said brightly. “In fact, it might be worth you turning up at six o’clock, at the side door. My brother will be leaving a jacket and—”
“I may not have received an invitation to dine at Mayfair before,” said Lawrence with something like a smile on his lips, “but I know how to dress.”
Julia hesitated. Of course, he knew how gentlemen dressed; one saw them all the time, but she had assumed…well. That he would not have the apparel of the breeding her mother would expect—
“Seven o’clock then,” Lawrence sighed ruefully with a laugh. “God help us all.”
The next few hours of the day whirled by so swiftly, it felt like no time at all that seven o’clock was chiming from all the clocks in the Dryden house.
Donald looked up from where he was standing by the fire in the drawing room. “Your Mr. Madgwick is late.”
Julia snorted. “Nonsense.”
“I heard the chimes myself!”
“Your Miss Banfield isn’t here,” Julia pointed out, trying to keep her voice level so their mother would not look up from her embroidery at the hissed conversation.
Donald rolled his eyes. “Ladies are supposed to be fashionably late, it would not do for her to be here on the dot, but your—”
From somewhere along the hall, a bell jangled. Normally this would do nothing to Julia’s sensibilities. She heard the doorbell go every day, after all. But not tonight. Tonight was different.
Heart pounding painfully in her chest, every nerve heightened, Julia forced herself to remain seated as a pair of footsteps sounded along the hall. Two pairs of footsteps.
When the door opened, Julia rose politely. It was fortunate indeed her mother took upon herself the responsibility of welcoming their first guest, as Julia was not certain whether her voice would have sounded.
Lawrence Madgwick.
There he stood, tall, dashing, in a pair of breeches and jacket that would not have looked out of place at Almack’s or St. James’s Court, looking every inch the gentleman.
He had pomaded his hair, there was a slightly battered yet serviceable pocket watch dangling from a chain, and he was the utter picture of respectability.
Julia’s breath caught in her throat, and warmth pooled between her legs. She had thought him handsome as he was, in clothing that needed seeing to, and of course he had been. He was.
But seeing him here, dressed in finery as though he was about to dance with her…
“—delighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Dryden,” Lawrence was saying smoothly, bowing just as a gentleman ought, then inclining his head to Donald, who had not stepped away from the fireplace. “Such an honor.”
Julia watched in astonishment as her mother preened, murmuring genteel gratitude. Well! She had thought her mother would be impressed with Lawrence but had not expected… expected him to turn out so well.
She flushed at the thought, for it was not particularly kind. The thing was, she had wondered, worried even that she may have to explain away a few peculiarities of manner or attire, particularly as he insisted in finding his own.
Where on earth had he found such elegant clothes?
“Ah, Miss Dryden.”
Julia blinked. Somehow, she was not sure how, Lawrence had managed to traverse the eternity that was the drawing room floor. “Lawrence.”