Candace Camp - Swept Away

Well, she knew now what she had to watch out for, Julia thought. Next time she would be prepared for that kiss, and she would stand firm against it. She would not let herself be swept into such a maelstrom of pleasure.

“Will you see him again?” Phoebe asked now.

“Oh, yes,” Julia responded quickly. “I mean, well, I shall have to, of course. Last night was just the beginning. I wanted to catch his interest, that was all. I didn’t expect to gain any knowledge. It will take a little while to get my hooks firmly into him, and then I will begin to reel him in.”

Phoebe giggled. “Honestly, Julia, you do say the funniest things. You make him sound as if he were a fish.”

“Well, and so he is,” Julia responded. “A prize fish, whom I intend to hang on our wall.”

“Are you—will you go back to that place?”

“I shall have to. I have no other way to meet him. Naturally I couldn’t tell him where we live.”

“Oh, no,” Phoebe agreed with a little gasp of horror. “When will you go back? Tonight?”

“No,” Julia replied reluctantly. She wanted very much to return to Madame Beauclaire’s tonight—only because she was filled with eagerness to get the truth out of Stonehaven, she told herself—but she knew that to do so would ultimately work against her. “I cannot let him think that I am eager to see him again. Men like a chase, I understand, and Stonehaven seems to me to be a man who likes it particularly. I have to build up his anticipation, make him begin to worry that he will not see me again. Then, when he does see me, he will be much more enthusiastic.”

Phoebe nodded. “I’m sure you are right. I am merely impatient. I want so much to hear his confession.”

“I think I shall return on Friday. That will give him two days to stew and wonder. How does that sound?”

“I don’t know. I was never much good at that sort of game. The only man I cared about was Selby, and I wanted to see him so much that I could not pretend otherwise.”

Julia smiled at Phoebe’s slightly guilty expression and reached out to link her arm through hers. “’Tis just that you are too honest and good a person to prevaricate, my love. It rather makes you wonder about me, doesn’t it—that I find it so easy to do so?”

“Julia! Don’t say such things!” Phoebe would never allow any negative words about one of those she loved, even from the loved one herself.

“Lady Armiger!” A man’s delighted voice came from the left of them. Phoebe and Julia turned to see a man and woman walking toward them. The man was smiling delightedly. The woman looked frozen in stone. “Miss Armiger,” the man continued. “How wonderful to see you. I had no idea that you were in town.”

“Varian.” Phoebe smiled, holding out her hand. “How good it is to see you. But how can it be that we have become Lady Armiger and Miss Armiger, when before we were Phoebe and Julia with you?”

Varian St. Leger had been a good friend of her husband’s, and he had visited many times at their home. At the time of the scandal, Varian had been one of the few who had not been immediately convinced of Selby’s guilt. “I cannot believe it of Sel,” he had often said. “I know the evidence looks black, but, damme, it just seems impossible.” They had seen little of Varian the past three years, though he had stopped in once or twice when he had been by to see young Thomas. Being Thomas’s cousin, he had taken on the responsibility of visiting with Thomas and his mother as Selby had formerly done.

“Phoebe, then.” Varian took her hand, smiling down warmly at her. “I did not wish to presume. And Julia.” He took her proffered hand next, smiling. “I have been lax this year, I am afraid. I haven’t visited Thomas even once. It is fortunate that he and his mother are in London this summer.”

“Yes, of course.” Phoebe cast a rather timid glance at the woman who was standing stiffly beside Varian, not saying a word. “How do you do, Mrs. St. Leger?”

Pamela St. Leger did not speak, merely gave Phoebe a short nod, her face not softening even slightly. Pamela, Thomas’s mother, had been long and loud in her condemnations of Selby. Julia had heard that she had wanted to sue Selby’s estate for the monies that had been removed from the trust. However, the decision had not been up to her, of course, but to the trustees, and they had not done so—due primarily, Julia felt sure, to Varian St. Leger’s influence. All Pamela had been able to do was cut them socially, and that she had proceeded to do with a vengeance. She had refused to attend any gathering where Phoebe or Julia were in attendance, and had been heard to declare at the slightest provocation that she was sure she did not know how either woman dared to show her face anywhere. She had even gone so far as to move her patronage each Sunday from St. Michael’s in Whitley, the local village, to St. Edward’s in Marsh-burrow, on the other side of the St. Leger estate. Julia suspected that her move had been at least in part influenced by the fact that the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Fairmont, had refused to knuckle under to Pamela’s social edict to shun the Armigers.

“Good morning, Mrs. St. Leger,” Julia spoke up, favoring Pamela with a blazing smile.

Pamela turned and nodded briefly toward her, as well, her nostrils flaring slightly. Julia knew that Pamela had disliked her long before the scandal, and Julia thought that she had seized the opportunity of the scandal to avoid being in Julia’s company. A raven-haired woman who had been considered a beauty in her day, Pamela did not like to be in the same room with Julia. She could perhaps fool herself into thinking that she was more attractive than the quiet Phoebe, but she could not compete against Julia’s vivid looks. Personally, Julia found life much more pleasant without Pamela’s presence, and she and Phoebe had not wanted to socialize the past few years, anyway, but she did resent the fact that Pamela had forbidden her son Thomas ever to fraternize with them. Thomas was quite fond of all the Armigers and had frequently visited Selby. Julia had come to regard him as something of a younger brother. Thomas was the only other person besides Phoebe and Julia and their servants who was convinced that Selby had not stolen the money from the trust. Julia found it cruel that Thomas’s mother had denied him the company of the other people who shared his love and his mourning for Selby.

Of course, Thomas disobeyed his mother, sneaking over to visit Julia and Phoebe whenever he got the chance. He had joined with them in deciding that Lord Stonehaven must have been the real thief and the engineer of Selby’s downfall. Stonehaven had visited him the least of his trustees and was, in Thomas’s opinion, a “cold fish.” It was Thomas who had first suggested that they capture Stonehaven and force him to reveal his criminal behavior, and he had wanted badly to play a part in the seizure. It had seemed a stroke of good luck when his mother had decided to go to London for the Season, and he had begged and pleaded and cajoled until finally Pamela had broken down and agreed to let him accompany her.

He had thought he would be easily able to join Julia in the escapade, but he had found out, much to his chagrin, that he was far more imprisoned in the house in London than he had been in the country. He was under the constant careful eye of the London tutor his mother had hired, and there were no afternoon rides, since he had had to leave his horse in the country. As a result, Julia had seen him only twice since they had come to London. Of course, she was glad now, considering the turn her plans had taken. Thomas, though only fourteen, would probably have gotten terribly male and disapproving about it all.

Her eyes twinkling devilishly, Julia went on speaking to the stony Mrs. St. Leger. “Odd, isn’t it, that we should run into one another here in London, when we never see each other in Kent, even though we live only miles apart?” When Pamela said nothing, merely raised her eyebrows, Julia pressed, “Don’t you think so, Mrs. St. Leger?”