Warily. Yet another unexpected reaction. He couldn’t explain it.
She looked out at the silver expanse of water. “Being at the river always makes a day fine.”
“As does seeing you,” he said.
Her eyes moved to Kes, then dropped away. She shifted about, clearly uncomfortable. She did not employ the white face powder and rouge that most ladies did, making her blush obvious. Had she grown timid in the company of someone she didn’t know? The eager mischief-maker he’d once known hadn’t been the least bashful.
He would, for the moment, rely on civility to move forward until he could sort out the inexplicable change. “Julia, may I introduce to you Mr. Barrington of Livingsley Hall in Cumberland. Kes, this is Miss Cummings of Farland Meadows.”
Kes bowed. Julia offered a quick and decidedly bashful curtsy. Perhaps this was shyness after all.
“I am told my parents are here calling on your father,” Lucas said.
She kept her books pressed to her, almost like armor. Her chin tipped upward, and she looked less unsure. “They are here often and will, I’m certain, be pleased you are home.” She looked to Kes. “And they will be equally happy to have a friend of Lucas’s here.”
“I believe they already have one of Lucas’s friends here.” Kes indicated her.
She shook her head and sighed. “I would explain to you the myriad ways that sentence is incorrect, but I suspect Lord and Lady Lampton would not appreciate being delayed in seeing their son after a year away.” Books still held to her, she turned away.
“You cannot run off so quickly,” Lucas called after her. “It has been so long since I last saw you.”
“Not long enough,” she tossed back over her shoulder without slowing her swift escape. Just as her braids had once bounced against her back when she had run, her wavy hair did the same now.
“‘Not long enough,’” Kes repeated her declaration. “I hadn’t expected that.”
“Neither had I.” He rubbed at his neck, tension building.
“There was no warmth in her ‘welcome home’ either.”
He nodded. “I noticed, but I cannot explain it.”
“She’s a beauty.”
“Gorgeous,” Lucas admitted. “I will need time to reconcile this grown Julia with the young girl I still picture in my mind. She became a young lady while I was away.”
“And, apparently, took something of a disliking to you.”
He shook his head, unable to make sense of the change. “It is unaccountable. She used to run to greet me, not slowing enough to prevent me from stumbling or tumbling over at the impact. We were dear friends. I cannot imagine what has rendered her so standoffish.”
Kes watched him through narrowed eyes. “Is she to be your latest rescue, Lucas?”
“Rescue?”
“If there is one thing you cannot resist, it is the chance to ease someone’s unhappiness. Ask any of the Gents; we all know it’s true.”
While it was true, it was also worrisome. “Do you think she’s actually unhappy?”
“Perhaps not generally. But I would wager my entire estate that she is quite specifically unhappy with you.”
Chapter Three
Julia thought she was done crying over Lucas Jonquil. Yet, as she rushed from the spot where they’d stood, tears pooled in her eyes. Hurt, angry tears. How was it he could still wound her after all these years, after all the effort she’d made to shore up her defenses? He wasn’t unkind or cruel. But he had abandoned her over and over again without a backward glance, without a moment’s regret.
“We can have our picnics still this summer,” he’d once promised before he and Stanley had spent that summer traveling to the homes of their schoolmates for the remainder of the summer holiday.
“We’ll keep in touch through letters.” That promise, made when he had been nearing the end of his time at Eton, hadn’t resulted in any correspondence.
“I won’t leave you,” he’d said the day Charlotte had been buried, two weeks before he’d left her to return to Cambridge.
“I’ll visit the neighborhood before the London Season.” He hadn’t.
“I’ll return from Brier Hill now and then.” He’d gone more than two years without returning to Lampton Park from the estate where he’d lived since reaching his majority, though she knew he’d made journeys to London and York and Brighton and later to Europe.
People were forever leaving her behind. Unlike most who’d gone, though, Lucas had had the option to return. He could have. But he’d chosen not to.
She slipped through a gap in the ruins of a stone wall on the east end of Farland Meadows. It had once been an outbuilding of some kind but was now only three dilapidated walls. It was secluded enough to afford her a great deal of privacy. She sat in this place often, thinking and reading and studying. It was her sanctuary.
“Why did I have to sit by the river today of all days?” She would have avoided Lucas had she remained here in her haven.
Her books on her lap, she closed her eyes and pushed away the anticipated pain that too often surfaced in her, focusing on the pounding of her heart. She breathed slowly until her pulse matched the rhythm of her lungs. When her heart quieted, so did her mind. She could think clearly.
“He caught me unawares,” she said. “I hadn’t the opportunity of preparing myself for the memories and broken dreams.” She felt calmer by the moment. “Now that I know he is here, there will be no chinks in my armor until he is gone again.”
She looked out over the trees and shrubs lining the edge of Farland Meadows, then pushed from her mind dozens of other promises he’d made and broken, countless days she’d watched for a letter from him, waited for him to visit as he’d promised. Some young ladies would have pined away, drowning in the misery of lies and abandonment. She had taken herself firmly in hand and seized a life she could be proud of.
She ran her hand over the cover of Jackson’s A Mathematical Miscellany. She’d found it in Father’s library months earlier and had been making her way through it. Her governess had refused to include in her education any arithmetic beyond the balancing of household budgets. That visionless lady had restricted Julia’s understanding of the world to the memorization of the most basic of maps. Her reading was not permitted to include anything scientific. She was allowed nothing that could not be labeled an “improving text.” Upon her governess’s departure, Julia had abandoned those restrictions with alacrity and had taken on the task of teaching herself, selecting whichever books in Father’s library caught her eye and studying them. It was an arduous process but one she relished.