Chapter One #2
The Tudor-designed brick-walled enclosure had been his late mother’s chief delight.
Arranged around a central walkway were rectangular beds planted in ornamentals, alternating with square areas intended for herbs and vegetables, with espaliered fruit trees on the brick walls beyond the pathways that outlined the whole expanse.
Graceful carved statues of wood sprites and smiling maidens decorated some of the corners, fancifully shaped topiary shrubs as their backdrop, while the outside edges of the beds were bordered by low-clipped boxwood hedges.
At least, that’s the way the garden had looked the last time he’d strolled through it. After his mother’s passing while he was still a teen, his father and then his brother had maintained it according to her design.
She’d hardly recognize it now.
Walkways were still visible, but the grass that had once been low-cut and even now grew in untidy clumps.
Weeds surrounded the hardy herbs in the vegetable plots and a haphazard mix of roses and cottage garden flowers filled the ornamental beds, the most aggressive ones leaning out over the uneven boxwood borders into the pathway, as if to grab at the heels of passers-by.
An unrecognizable sprawl of greenery spread in all directions behind the statues, while untrimmed extra branches reached out like beseeching arms from the untended espaliers on the walls.
The whole area gave an impression of forlorn abandonment.
Rafe turned to Juliana in dismay. ‘Is the house as bad as this?’
Her expression solemn, she said, ‘Not quite. But the evidence of neglect is still apparent. Which is why we’ll go to the Dower House first, where we can be sure of a warm fire in the hearth, hot tea and something edible to accompany it.
As no one tried to interfere, Baxter and I saw to putting it in order right after we arrived. ’
‘If the house looks anything like the Long Walk, I’ll need sterner sustenance before I see it,’ he replied grimly.
‘But why is everything in such disarray? Ian was no more enthusiastic about estate management than our father, but surely he tended things better than this! Or his staff should have. I’d understand it better if he had been ailing for years, but he only fell ill last autumn, didn’t he?
How could so much damage occur in just a few months? ’
‘First, tea and a warm fire. Then I’ll explain.’
A short while later, Rafe was seated in front of a snug fire in the small front parlour of the Dower House.
He wasn’t much acquainted with the dwelling, for the place had been shut up for decades, there being no Dowager Countess who had required separate living quarters since well before his lifetime.
He looked up as Juliana walked in with a plate of cakes, her maid following to deposit a tea tray before withdrawing with a curtsey.
‘Is Baxter not remaining to observe the proprieties?’ Rafe asked as the maid exited.
‘No one batted an eyelid when you roamed the woods with me when you were ten years old, but you’re a grown woman now, Mouse. And quite a pretty one.’
Grimacing, Juliana waved off the compliment.
‘If we were anywhere we could be observed, Baxter would have remained. But as it’s highly unlikely we will be disturbed, she can safely leave.
And though I may be grown now, you needn’t pay me empty compliments.
I’m no more proper or conventional than I was when we roamed the woods together. ’
‘Still crawling into hollow logs to observe the wildlife and mimicking bird calls, with the bright observant eyes and quick movements that won you your nickname?’
‘You were the only one who ever called me “Mouse.” I thought it rather apt, though Mama was horrified when my sister tattled about it. Darling Agatha. The perfect, pretty, maidenly paragon Mama tried so hard and vainly to force me to become. How fortunate that Aggie snared her courtesy earl and Ian agreed to take me in her place, sparing me further aggravation and Mama the frustration of trying to turn me into something I could never become.’
‘That union was agreed upon almost six years ago, just before I left for the Army,’ Rafe said, abandoning his concern over the estate’s condition to seize instead the opportunity she’d just handed him to discover what had happened between her and his brother.
‘So why…why am I talking to Ian’s fiancée instead of his wife? ’
‘Well, neither of us were in any particular hurry to wed. Though Mama occasionally taxed me about setting a date, with the engagement announced and the settlements drawn up, making the match almost as official as if we were wed, she was content to pursue her own interests and leave us alone.’
‘Ian, like your father, was much more interested in books than in people. He was also the only one besides you who ever accepted me as I am, tolerant of my disinterest in society and my preference for exploring the outdoors and its creatures. He was the kindest, gentlest man I kn-knew.’ Her voice breaking, she swallowed hard, a sheen of tears augmenting the glisten of her bright eyes.
‘We weren’t a…conventional couple, but we loved each other in our own ways. I will miss him t-terribly.’
A hollow pang of grief reverberating in his own chest, this time Rafe followed his instincts, rising to pull Juliana into his arms, compassion for her muting that unexpected physical response.
‘I’ll miss him, too, Mouse,’ he whispered, stroking her hair, his heart aching for her.
‘But you still have me to watch out for you.’
After clinging fiercely for a moment, she pushed him away, brushing the tears from her eyes with one impatient hand as she walked over to seat herself on the sofa. ‘Y-yes. You will always be my dearest friend,’ she said, an odd note in her voice as she looked away to begin pouring tea.
Not sure what that intonation meant, Rafe followed to take the armchair she indicated.
Any other bereaved maiden might have clung to him, weeping, but Juliana had always been oddly independent.
Holding herself apart, observing, her bright, sharp eyes taking in everything.
She used to silently creep after him and Cary, one of the farm boys with whom he’d rousted about, when they went fishing or hunting, the boys unaware of her scrutiny until Rafe caught a glimpse of those dark, shining eyes.
Often she’d try to scurry away before he could hail her—another reason he’d bestowed the nickname, though he’d been more concerned about her safety, especially if they were hunting, than annoyed that she’d followed them.
He’d also witnessed enough interactions between her and her mother, who made ceaseless and sometimes abusive efforts to force her daughter into the conventional mold her older sister fit so well, to believe that he and Ian had been the only ones to appreciate her.
What would her family do with her now that she was no longer affianced to an earl? And how to discover the answer without intrusive questions that might upset her even more?
But pressed by the imperative to find out, he said, as delicately as he could, ‘I know it’s early days yet, and you may well not know your own mind. But…do you have any plans for the future?’
‘It’s been several months since Ian’s passing, so I’ve had time to think.
It had already become evident by that last month that he was not going to recover—which is why I’m here, by the way.
Baxter’s cousin, Thomas Sterling, is a tenant on one of the farms and sent her word when he began to fail.
When I learned he was here alone, with no one to help him, I gathered Baxter and came immediately. ’
‘Ian had written that he’d been suffering a cold. How and when did it turn fatal? Did he not take care of himself, and when it grew worse, he didn’t seek treatment?’
She nodded. ‘Margary, your old Nurse, who’s retired to a cottage on the estate, told me after I’d arrived that he’d gone out walking, alone.
It was early October, but a foul day with a sharp wind blowing in cold rain.
He was away for hours, she said, and returned soaked to the skin, his lips blue and shuddering with cold.
By the next morning, he’d developed a cough and a fever.
Once Sterling let me know, I came at once. ’
‘Your parents approved your coming to nurse him, with no one but your maid as chaperone?’
‘As we were already affianced, it wasn’t as if I could be compromised. Or, if any gossip did occur, Mama would have been only too happy to call for an immediate wedding. She’d been pressing for it for years.’
‘I’m sure she was!’ he retorted. ‘With good cause, as it turned out.’
Ignoring that comment, she continued, ‘I arrived to find him already very ill. I summoned the local physician, who listened to his cough, shook his head and told me the lungs were compromised. He had the apothecary make up some medicine to relieve the congestion. But his condition didn’t improve.’
‘But Ian was young, strong. I should think he could have fought it off.’
She paused a moment before replying, ‘I’m sure he did fight, as much as he was able. He was never as robust as you, remember. You, who grew up going out in all weathers, coming in drenched, and never seeming the worse for it. A quality that stood you in good stead in the army, I imagine.’
‘It did. But don’t try to distract me. I’m trying to allow for illness, but I still fault Ian for not insisting on wedding you, protecting you, while he still could.’
She shook her head. ‘By the time I arrived, his fever was so high, he was delirious much of time, too weak to even sip the broth I offered. I suppose I could have pushed for the wedding, though I’m not sure any man of the cloth would have agreed to it, with Ian not always coherent.
How could a vicar swear Ian was of sound enough mind to agree to plight his troth, with him in such a condition? ’