Page 2 of To Marry and to Meddle
Julian stared at his father in disbelief. “You can’t possibly think I’d make a suitable soldier. I’ve never willingly woken before noon.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” the marquess said icily. “And if it kept you respectable enough to allow your sister to be married someday—and you as well, for that matter—I’d say it would be a sacrifice well worth making.”
“Who said anything aboutmymarriage?” Julian sputtered; this conversation, with its suggestions of the military—and matrimony!—was taking a decidedly dark turn.
“I’m not suggesting you book St. George’s for next week,” his father said calmly, “but it’s something worth considering.”
“This is absurd,” Julian said. “I’ve no intention of marrying for another decade, and in the meantime, I don’t see why I can’t follow my own pursuits, if I’ve the funds to do so.” While some small part of him, easily ignored, whispered that his fatherdidhave a point—that the Belfry’s reputation, which Julian had always found somewhat entertaining, was truly becoming quite sordid indeed—this quiet voice was drowned out by the irritation coursing through him.
After all, whyshouldn’the enjoy himself, with his own money, doing as he wished? If this conversation were anything to judge by, his father’s plans for his future were nothing that Julian wanted any part of.
“Because your behavior reflects not just on yourself, but on this entire family,” his father said coldly, his voice gone quiet—always a dangerous sign. “And I will not have you disgracing us.”
Julian had to resist the urge to flinch.Disgrace. He didn’t know why the word should land so sharply, but he felt it deep in his chest. He’d spent much of his adolescence and university years being something of a trial to his parents, and particularly to his father, who always seemed to require a great deal of patience when it came to accepting the fact that his youngest son was not at all like his father or brother. His purchase of the Belfry had merely been the latest in a yearslong series of antics that made his parents sigh and shake their heads.
But he realized, in that moment, that his father, while certainly disapproving of plenty of the trouble he’d gotten into over the years, had never once made Julian feel as though he were truly ashamed or embarrassed by him.
Until now.
“Is that what I am to you, then?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat, his eyes locked onto his father’s. “A disgrace? An embarrassment?”As he spoke, Julian felt as though he were unleashing a torrent of pent-up feeling, long unspoken. Had he not for years always wondered in the back of his mind if his father loved him as much as he loved Robert—if he truly loved his roguish second son, unable to resist the opportunity to cause trouble whenever it arose?
“You are my son,” his father said, his own gaze unwavering. “And as your father, I am informing you that you’ll sell the Belfry—or you won’t see another penny from me.”
“Fine,” Julian said, his head beginning to pound, anger and brandy proving to be an unpleasant combination. “I don’t need your money, Father—I’ve plenty of my own.” He rose, and crossed the room to open the door. “Bramble can see you out.”
“Julian,” his father said, rising to his feet, then pausing, surveying his son. “I’ve humored you in your antics for years,” he continued, his voice even. “A boy has to sow a few wild oats, after all. But I refuse to allow you to drag this family into scandal, and if you disobey me now, you’ll not set foot through the doors of my house again until you’ve made things right.”
This threat should have stopped Julian, or at least given him a moment’s pause; the marquess was not a man to make threats of any sort lightly, and particularly not toward one of his own children.
But Julian was past such concerns. At the moment, he was consumed by a reckless, overpowering urge to show his father that he was his own man, someone to be treated as an equal, taken seriously, no matter what the cost of his actions.
“If you think I’m disgracing the family, then perhaps that’s for the best. But I promise you that I can do much worse,” he said, his voice soft.
“You’ll know where to find me when you change your mind,” hisfather said, his voice tight, as he passed through the doorway to the corridor where Julian’s butler was waiting to show him out.
“I could say the same to you, Father,” Julian replied. “The doors of the Belfry are always open to you, of course.”
But it would prove to be quite some time before his father took him up on that offer.
One
Elderwild, Wiltshire,1817
The English countryside in earlySeptember was a glorious place. The sun shone. The bees buzzed. The heady scent of wildflowers lingered in the air.
Emily Turner could not think of a more romantic setting for the world’s least romantic marriage proposal.
The trap had been sprung after breakfast—iftrapcould really be used to describe what had occurred. Namely: she had exited the breakfast room to find Lord Julian Belfry lurking just outside the doorway.Lurking, too, might not be an entirely fair choice of words, considering the gentleman in question made the action look far more appealing than implied.
But then, he made most things look appealing; he was tall and dark-haired and almost unfairly handsome, with icy blue eyes that had the unnerving knack of pinning one to the spot with the strength of their gaze. Or, at least, they certainly had that effect on Emily—she couldn’t speak for the other ladies of the species, she supposed.
Mustering her sangfroid as best she could, however, she merelylifted her chin and said, “Lord Julian. Have you forgotten the way back to your room?”
“Entirely possible, given the size of this house,” he responded lazily, one shoulder braced against the wall. The house in question was Elderwild, the country seat of the Marquess of Willingham, where she and Lord Julian were both currently guests at Lord Willingham’s annual late-summer house party. “But in fact, I was waiting for you. Would you care to take a walk?”
She surveyed him for a long moment, weighing her response. “I should ask permission from Lady Willingham,” she said demurely, naming the grandmother of the current marquess, who was—theoretically—Emily’s chaperone, though she had not proved to be terribly attentive thus far.
“Of course,” he agreed readily, and she was immediately suspicious, having expected some form of protest at these stipulations. After all, Julian Belfry—the black sheep of an aristocratic family, disinherited by his father, the owner of atheater, of all things—was not the sort of man to look fondly upon chaperones.
