Chapter 1 #2
His heart thumped in his chest at the sight of her but he didn’t call out. He just watched her, as still as one of the icicles hanging from the pine boughs. He could have stood there and watched her forever.
But she turned her face to his, sensing his presence as she always seemed to do, and it was too late to flee. For a moment, she looked almost happy to see him, surprise blooming on her cheeks before unfurling into a smile.
“Countess,” he said, walking to her. “Good morning.”
She shuttered that smiling expression entirely as he neared. “Fred. I didn’t know you were out.”
“Just clearing my head. I was recalling when you hit your brother with a pine cone, right over there.”
A wry smile hitched up the corners of her lips.
It was different from the surprised, pleased one she’d just shown him, but familiar all the same.
This was a smile he remembered, the one she’d been developing at twelve, toeing the line of adolescence.
Her lips were a woman’s now though, as plush and welcoming as they had been that night by the fire.
He felt his stomach clench with desire and he had to avert his eyes.
She raised an eyebrow at him in response, at his pointed refusal to look at her. Neither of them spoke while the silence stretched and grew into something more awkward than he could abide.
“And your brother?” he finally asked. “He is recovering well, I hear.”
He’d grasped for something, anything, to say. But that had not been the right thing. Her answer, when it came, was cold and formal. “His fever’s broken and he’s moving about. Thank you for your assistance.”
“There’s no reason to thank me, Jules,” he said, wishing he could take that question back.
Wishing they could revert to the warm domesticity of the kitchens.
But he knew nothing he said now could reclaim that fragile pocket of understanding they’d shared two nights ago.
That closeness had been borrowed, not earned.
Grief, not grace.
Fred drew a breath and let it out slowly, watching the plume of it dance between them. Then he extended his arm. “Walk with me?”
Her lips curved faintly again and he didn’t know if she was feeling hopeful or reckless or as dangerously unsteady as he was when she took it.
They—her lips—were pink from the cold air and he thought they looked made for savoring.
Like fresh cherries or plums plucked straight from the tree.
He tried to banish that thought as they fell into step together, boots crunching in rough unison.
“I do remember, you know,” she said after a while. “Hitting Tom with the pine cones. How much I longed to be included in your games. I followed you all the time.”
“I know.” He found himself smiling as he sank back into the warm familiarity of her company. “You were a little pest.”
“I was not!”
“Oh, believe me, you absolutely were.”
“Well—” Her voice was ripe with mock indignity. “I’m no pest now.”
“No. No, you’re not that.”
Julianna faltered in her steps, skidding on a patch of ice, and Fred reached to steady her. His hand slipped around her waist as he pulled her up and close to him.
“I’ve got you,” he said and held her closer still.
Long enough to notice how well she fit against him. Long enough to remember the cost if he let her stay there in his arms, the curves of her breasts pressed against his chest.
He stifled the growl he wished to make and stepped away from her instead. “Are you alright?”
She blinked, as if gathering herself. “Yes. I think so.” And then, as though grateful for the excuse to put even more distance between them, she said, “Listen.”
Her gaze locked on a snow-laden hedge. A faint, fluttering sound emerged from it. “There’s something in there.”
She crouched down but Fred held her back with his hand. “Let me. Whatever it is will be dangerous if it’s hurt.”
He brushed away a snow drift and peered beneath the hedge. There was a small thrush caught inside it, its wings ensnared in a twisted branch that had iced over in the storm.
“Oh!” Julianna exclaimed, leaning over his shoulder to see. “Look! Poor dear.”
She knelt beside him then, her skirts brushing his coat, her smell wafting into his nostrils.
Then she tugged her gloves more snugly onto her hands and reached into the narrow space.
The bird gave a panicked flutter and pecked at her fingers, but she only murmured, “Hush, little one,” before cupping it gently between her palms.
Fred edged his way closer, careful not to bump her or the bird. Any sudden movements would injure it, or cause it to panic and injure itself. He pressed his shoulder to hers and eased himself down until he was laying on the snow.
He was so close to her now their cheeks were nearly touching. He inhaled and blew, his breath a warm stream over the ice still catching the bird’s wing.
“Do it again,” Julianna said, urgency sharpening her voice, and Fred ignored—very deliberately—how those words might have sounded in another, more intimate context. Instead, he inhaled and blew again over the frozen knot of ice. He did it once more, until the ice gave a faint crackle in reply.
“It’s working,” Julianna said and the bird fluttered its free wing in reply.
Fred removed one glove and reached his bare fingers between her cupped hands. “This will be better.”
“He’ll bite you!”
“He will.” He tried not to flinch. “He already did.”
But he’d gotten his two fingers flush against the ice that trapped the bird’s wing and the heat of his hand was warming it. He pressed a little harder until, finally, the ice broke and the delicate bird was free.
“There.” He leaned back as Julianna pulled the thrush out from beneath the hedge and opened her hands.
Her face broke into a wide, unguarded grin as the bird darted into the air. Snowflakes scattered in its wake as it flew away.
“We saved him,” she said and Fred could hear the pure joy in her voice.
“We’re heroes,” he agreed and offered her his hand. “To thrushes at least.”
She let him pull her to her feet. They stood too close, her hand still caught in his. Smiles still plastered across their faces. And then, as if they both realized at the same moment they could not stay that way, they each took a step backward.
“Well.” Julianna’s voice sounded strange to him and put him on edge, even before she said the next words. “Never fear. I’m certain you’ll be back to being the Darling of Dorset soon enough.”
Her words felt, absurdly, like she’d slapped him. He took another step back. “I’ve no wish to be the Darling of Dorset. I never did.”
She studied him, her head tilted to the side and her gaze searching his face. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know why I did, Fred. I’m sorry. That boy’s been put to bed for a long time.”
“It no longer matters. We should get back.”
“In a moment,” she agreed but did not move. And when she asked her next question she phrased it quite differently. “You know they still call you the Local Adonis?”
“I’m aware.” He wasn’t aware though, what she was trying to ascertain now.
“And does it still fit?”
Ah. What she meant to ask was: are you still the reckless, feckless dunderhead you were at ten and eight years of age? He certainly hoped not. “I don’t think it ever fit.”
She gave a small, thoughtful hum. “No. Perhaps not.”
“Let’s get back, Jules.”
He turned to walk away before she could see his discomfort. He didn’t want to have this conversation mostly because he loathed contemplating the kind of person he’d been. The kind that wrecked lives. He was no longer that young fool, but nor was he as far away from it as he’d like to be either.
He held out his arm to her once more and she gave him her hand. They continued on, just as he suggested, but he found the Manor rose before them more quickly than he wanted it to. He slowed his steps, searching for any excuse to prolong their time together.
“Jules—” he began.
“Yes?”
She turned toward him, her arm still threaded through his. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold and from laughter, and for a moment he forgot entirely what he had meant to say.
“Thank you,” he said at last.
Her brows drew together. “For what?”
He glanced back toward the hedgerow they had left behind. “For that. For letting me…be more than what they say. Even for just a moment. It was important to me.”
“I would assume it was important to the thrush too.” She smiled at him, her dark eyes warm and steady on his face. “Just as it was to me.”
He had more to say to that. More to…feel. He could simply reach for her. Hold her close. For the first time he thought perhaps she might not push him away. She might…not welcome his embrace exactly but—
—but the front door opened suddenly and Thomas stood there, one frail hand braced against the frame. The look he levelled at Fred was made of pure hostility.
Fred dropped Julianna’s arm but it was too late.
“Thomas,” she said, “what are you doing out of bed?”
“Looking for you, sister. I was afraid something terrible had happened to you.”
Fred didn’t miss the look in Thomas’s eyes that said something terrible had happened to Julianna. And that he was the terrible thing.
And neither did Julianna. Her gaze flicked between them both and she stepped half a pace closer to him. Although he didn’t think she meant to do it, it still gave him an immense amount of satisfaction that she had.
“Come inside, Julie-bug.” It was more a command than an invitation and Fred squelched the entirely inappropriate urge to plant Thomas a facer for that tone.
“Farrow,” he said instead, “close the door. You’re letting out what little comfort this Manor still holds. And we all know there was never much to spare.”
Thomas’s lips curved into something that was not quite a smile.
“Well, Chester. We all know who to blame for that, don’t we?”