Chapter 1
Chapter
Near Dawn
Fred did not sleep. He lay on the small sofa in his study and stared at the ceiling overhead while the wind worried at the eaves of the house. The storm had lost much of its fury, but the branches still scraped against the windows like clawing, restless fingers.
But not as restless as he was. He’d left Julianna snoring lightly next to the fire, only to find that sleep refused him entirely.
He wished he could will it into submission with an icy tone and the arch of his eyebrow like he could most other things.
But no—sleep was more churlish than even he was and it currently had the upper hand.
Each time he closed his eyes he saw the same images in rotation: Thomas, ashen-faced with fever beneath the blankets. Julianna, soaked through and shaking in the great hall. Julianna again, curled up on that chaise, her shoulders trembling with the effort of holding back tears.
And then—worse than either of those—the feel of her in his arms.
Christ.
He turned sharply onto his side and swore again.
It had been a mistake to touch her. He’d made a great many mistakes in his life, so he shouldn’t be surprised at that one—although it seemed graver than most, if only to himself.
But he wasn’t aware of how he could have done anything else.
He’d only had to look at her—ice clinging to her hair, eyes wild with fear—before he was moving closer to her.
This urge, to act first and explain later, was always at the root of his most egregious failings.
He didn’t regret it but he knew he’d pay for it in sleepless nights and the ache of wanting what he could not have.
He shoved aside the paltry blanket he’d managed to rustle up from the chest at the foot of his bed, the bed that Thomas now slept in, and sat up. He wasn’t going to sleep and he might as well stop pretending.
He glanced at the mantel clock. Half past four.
He nearly rolled his eyes at the indignity of being awake at that hour, but instead swung his legs to the floor, pulled on his boots without bothering with stockings, and shrugged into his waistcoat.
He did not trouble with any further layers; the kitchens would be warmer than the study.
And he was hungry. He was nearly always hungry.
The Manor was silent as he descended the back staircase. The servants would not rise for another hour or two, probably. They’d had as long a night as he had. Gilbert might already be awake—he always seemed to be present—but the kitchens would be empty, even if he’d asked for them not to be.
He hadn’t, but the arrogance of the chef bothered him. The fit she’d made when he’d moved the skeleton staff to Dorset from London was more than enough to have let her go. If he could stomach the place while renovations were finished, she certainly could.
Fred stepped inside the kitchen and was greeted by the long wooden work tables, and the faint smell of yesterday’s supper. A banked fire smoldered in the hearth, its coals dull and red beneath a drift of ash.
Good enough.
He stoked it until the coals glowed again, then added a handful of kindling from the basket beside the stove. The wood caught quickly, flames licking upward with a low crackle.
There. Funny how such a small thing could steady him but it did the job nonetheless. He rose and began opening cupboards. The chef would certainly have thoughts about him rummaging around in the pantry too, but she could, truly, go to hell.
Fred found what he needed quickly enough. Bones left from yesterday’s roast. An onion. Carrots. A bundle of rosemary. He set a pot on the hob, lit the stove fire too, and then set to work with the knife.
His hands moved easily through the familiar motions.
Onion halved. Carrot sliced. Herbs crushed lightly beneath the blade to release their scent.
It had been years since he had done this regularly but one did not forget.
He listened to the cadence of the knife against the table and let the scent of the herbs soothe him.
Fred dropped the bones into the pot and skimmed the first gray foam as it rose. He’d add the onions and carrots later, along with the rosemary twined into a bouquet.
He didn’t know the exact moment he felt her eyes on his back, staring, but he knew she’d been there watching him for some time. He waited several long moments before he spoke, debating what exactly he should call her. Jules, Julianna, Countess, wife?
“I know you’re there, Jules,” he eventually said. “You may as well make yourself useful and hand me the salt cellar.”
“I—” she said indignantly, but he felt the little blue enamel pot of salt in his hands a few moments later.
He finished salting the broth and added the vegetables before he turned to look at her.
Her hair hung loose down her back, dark and slightly tangled from sleep.
She wore the simple night rail he’d given her earlier—it had been one of Eva’s—beneath a woolen shawl she’d found from somewhere. Her feet were bare on the stone floor.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Then she said, “I did not expect to find you here,” which was an understatement of such magnitude he had to laugh.
“This is my kitchen.”
“Surely the Earl of Chester does not often haunt his kitchens before dawn?”
Fred set the salt cellar down and leaned against the counter. “Not anymore, no. Come in if you’re hungry.”
Julianna had gone back to hovering by the threshold but stepped fully into the room now. The kitchen firelight caught the purplish shadows beneath her eyes. “I’m not hungry.”
He looked at her. “Then what finds you here?”
“I was going to make a broth for Thomas. I was in such a rush earlier I didn’t think to bring any with me. I don’t know if he’ll eat it but—”
“It will comfort him. When he realizes where he is.”
“Yes. I thought it might.”
“You could have sent down for the chef to make it,” he said, but he knew why she hadn’t.
She’d wanted to make it with her own two hands, to infuse the thing with as much love as she could. He’d done the same for Eva. It was why he was making her favorite broth for Thomas now.
Julianna’s eyes skimmed over the remains of onion skin and carrot top, the scattered sprigs of rosemary too short for the bouquet. And then she looked back at him. “It seems I didn’t need to. Thyme instead of rosemary but you’ve basically got it. How did you know what he’d like?”
“I didn’t.” Fred stirred the soup and left it to simmer. “Not what Thomas would specifically like but—” He trailed off, not intending to finish that sentence.
“But what?”
“This was the broth that soothed Eva when she was ill. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume Thomas might benefit from the same.”
Her gaze lingered on his hands where they rested beside the pot. “You’re making this for Thomas?”
“It’s certainly not for me. I had my eye on the cold chicken, personally.”
“I don’t understand.”
Fred skimmed the surface of the soup again, then tasted it before adding another pinch of salt. “You don’t understand why I should want something more substantive than broth?”
“Of course not. I don’t understand why it’s you who hemmed Eva’s gowns and made her meals. Were you her sole caregiver? Surely, she could have stayed here after you—”
She stopped and shook her head and he hoped she might let this line of conversation drop. The last time they’d broached the subject of the accident he’d nearly had an attack of nerves. But she was staring at him, waiting, her brow furrowed and her head tilted to the side again.
“Who else would have done it?” he finally asked, knowing that wasn’t any sort of answer.
The memories came back to him anyway. Eva’s confusion. How she had cried. She hadn’t lasted the year in France after they’d fled, no matter what he’d done to make her life calmer, easier.
Julianna opened her mouth, then closed it again. Fred returned his attention to the pot because it seemed the safest place for his eyes to be. He knew she was staring at him though, and that she was aware the story he’d been telling the past decade didn’t quite add all the way up.
“Thomas prefers a little bread with his broth,” she said eventually, allowing him to keep his secrets for now. “If you soak toast in the bowl, he can manage it.”
“I’ll give the chef instructions for his breakfast.”
Fred went back to skimming the top. And after he’d done that for far longer than was plausible, he began unnecessarily stirring. All the while, she kept looking at him.
Finally she said, almost reluctantly, “I am sorry about Eva. She was always kind. I didn’t know—word didn’t reach us here when she passed.”
“No. It wouldn’t have.” He looked at the soup again and then down at her feet. “You should not be standing on this floor without stockings. You’ll catch cold.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up. It was the first time he’d seen her smile. Or, rather, the first time he’d seen her smile at him, in over a decade.
“And would you make broth for me too if I did?”
“If you wished it.”
She made some noise at the back of her throat that he didn’t know what to make of. He didn’t know if she knew what to make of it either, because then she said, “I should not have come down here.”
“You may go wherever you like, Jules. This is your house now.”
But she only shook her head, as if what he’d said was nonsense. “Will you ask the chef to—”
“Ask the chef to what?” An angry voice cut through her sentence from the darkened hallway behind her. “As if I didn’t have enough to do without random requests from—”
Clara, the chef, appeared in the kitchen then, her mouth agape as she realized who she’d been addressing.
She dipped into a curtsey, her graying, ginger hair sticking out from beneath her cap. “I apologize, my lord,” she said. “I did not realize it was you in my kitchens.”
“They’re my kitchens. And this is the Countess, so they are also her kitchens. Proper introductions will be made tomorrow. The mistress and her brother have moved into Sedgewick Manor.”
The chef curtsied again. “I’m aware, my lord.” And then to Julianna. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am. The footman will be along in a moment. Your brother is awake and asking for you.”
“Thank you. I should go to him,” Julianna said.
She was already halfway to the door when she stopped and turned back, the first faint light of dawn creeping through the high kitchen windows.
“How is he?”
The chef’s mouth flattened even more than usual. “Agitated, my lady. He has been calling your name.”
Julianna did not spare Fred another glance before she hurried from the room, which was, he told himself, how it should be.
He remained still, one hand resting on the edge of the worktable, completely at odds with himself.
He was relieved and aggrieved all at once.
He could breathe a little easier now that the moment between them had been broken, before he’d done something unforgivable.
Like take her into his arms and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her.
And yet the same interruption left him with a restlessness that felt even more dangerous than before.
He reached for the ladle simply to give his hands something to do.
“That will be all,” he said at last to the chef. “You may go.”