Page 121 of Better Love Next Time
Julian kept his eyes on the paper, not comprehending a single word.
“I hear your wife is spending Christmas at Farendon,” Anthony said.
“It’s a wonder you’re not there then.” Julian stuffed the paper to the table. “In fact, why do you go to the trouble of telling me anything that pertains to my wife? To gloat? I think not. If you had wanted to marry her, you could have proposed in one of your two thousand letters. Further, if you had wanted to rescue Kitty from Staverton, why not have just done it without saying a word? I didn’t go blathering about it. I walked out of the damn house without an audience and did it. Full stop.”
Anthony drew out a cigar “May I?” Julian waved him on. He lit it on a taper and dropped to his seatback. “The problem is, Kitty has only ever loved you.”
“Your problem, you mean.”
“Yes, and fortuitous. For while I regretted not rescuing her, I realized later I didn’t love her. I loved theideaof her. And getting under your skin, of course.”
“Does your brain ache, from thinking?”
“About as much as yours.” Anthony sucked on his cigar, turned it around to study the embers, and slowly exhaled. “How can I help?”
Anthony assisting with his marriage? Julian couldn’t laugh. “A fox asking to mind the henhouse. No thank you.”
“The offer stands.”
“I’ll assume you’re staying,” Julian said, rising, “and have a room made up for you. My wife planned a Christmas party this evening in our home for the men and you’re welcome to join. Until then, I have work to do.”
A thought occurred to Julian as he neared the door. “We’re to attend a children’s Christmas pageant before the party, so dress for church. Something to protect you from a lightning strike.”
Every matron and miss was charmed down to their stockings by the eligible, blue-eyed heir to the Earl of Wetherden when Julian and Anthony—courtesy titled Lord Darley—arrived at Holyrood Church for the pageant at two in the afternoon on what turned out to be a splendidly sunny day after a week of clouds and ice.
Anthony was a demon in a burgundy velvet suit and lace, a pristine tie wig to put all others to shame, doing that devilish thing he did where he gazed rapt into women’s eyes as if they were the center of his world.
While his friend basked in the glory of female company, Julian, attired in a suit of dark blue wool, a restrained amount of lace, and no wig, accepted invitations to tea and condolences on the passing of his father-in-law. Such was the life of a respectable married man. One without a wife, he reflected in misery.
“Lord Darley, you have brought the sunshine,” Miss Pettit exclaimed to Anthony, fanning herself in the drafty church.
Anthony leaned in. “I do try to be a cordial guest.”
“Do tell, my lord, is there a Lady Darley?” asked Mrs. Addicott, a mother of four grown children, grandmother to seven, and great-grandmother to three.
Anthony brushed a lingering kiss to the matron’s gloved hand. “Unfortunately no.”
Mrs. Evans said to Julian where they stood apart from Anthony, “Why did you not alert us in advance of Lord Darley’s attendance? I am inclined to be cross.”
“As am I,” Miss Hamilton said, fingering a barrel curl at her shoulder. “But then, Mr. St. Clair has had much on his mind. My condolences, sir. My mother hopes you will join us for teatomorrow afternoon. And Lord Darley, if he can bear our modest society.”
“Of course my lord can,” Mrs. Wyatt said. “Only see how he condescends so prettily to associate with us. He is not married, you say, Mr. St. Clair?”
After assuring the ladies that Anthony was unshackled, Julian moved through the crush. Down the aisle he found Sam and a few of his men loitering by a nativity scene bedded with straw, an empty cradle, and painted wood representations of barnyard animals. The men’s wives were seeing to the children’s preparations, and by the harried voices, it was going as easy as herding cats.
They conversed on the weather as it affected the yard and the plan to return to work after the Epiphany with a small group of carpenters and laborers to fabricate various fittings in the relative warmth of the loft.
“A shame Madame ain’t here,” Sam said, tugging at his stock.
Joshua Beecham and Harry Plumley in their Sunday best, nodded. Jeffrey Dillon mourned the loss of Miss Dixley’s biscuits.
They had all kept Lovett’s visit a secret from him. They had been relieved when Julian had returned from London and had discovered Lovett’s threat. So why now the long faces?
“I assumed you’d be pleased to have my wife from the yard,” Julian said, and left them to their glum thoughts. They were all boys who had smashed their favorite toy before realizing it was their favorite.
Robert Carleton announced the pageant was to begin in ten minutes, and Anthony dragged himself from his fawning audience. Julian refused his regular pew in the front of the church in order for the parents to better enjoy their children’s performance. He had already seen the rehearsed spectacleof wiggling, screeching, and scratching twice, and once was enough.
Anthony settled beside him in the back pew farthest to the left as the children shuffled into the chancel with Miss Dixley and Lucretia Carleton herding from behind.
