My darling Julie, I know you'll never see this letter, but it helps to write to you every day. It keeps you close to me. G-d, I miss you so. You haunt every hour of my life. I wish I'd never met you. No-I don't mean that! What good would my life be without my memories of you to make me smile.
I keep wondering if you're happy. I want you to be. I want you to have a glorious life. That's why I couldn't say the things I knew you wanted to hear when we were together. I was afraid if I did, you'd wait for me for years. I knew you wanted me to say I loved you. Not saying that to you was the only unselfish thing I did in Colorado, and I now I regret even that.
I love you, Julie. Christ, I love you so much. I'd give up all my life to have one year with you. Six months. Three. Anything.
You stole my heart in just a few days, darling, but you gave me your heart, too. I know you did- I could see it in your eyes every time you looked at me.
I don't regret the loss of my freedom any more or rage at the injustice of the years I spent in prison. Now, my only regret is that I can't have you. You're young, and I know you'll forget about me quickly and go on with your own life. That's exactly what you should do. It's what you must do. I want you to do that, Julie.
That's such a lousy lie. What I really want is to see you again, to hold you in my arms, to make love to you over and over again until I've filled you so completely that there's no room left inside of you for anyone but me, ever. I never thought of sexual intercourse as 'making love' until you. You never knew that.
....
I wish I had time to write you a better letter or that I'd kept one of the others I've written so I could send that instead. They were all much more coherent than this one. I won't send another letter to you, so don't watch for one. Letters will make us both hope and dream, and if I don't stop doing that, I will die of wanting you.
Before I go--I see from the newspapers that Costner has a new movie coming out in the States. If you dare to start fantasizing over Kevin after you see it, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.
I love you, Julie. I loved in Colorado. I love you here, where I am. I will always love you. Everywhere. Always.
Mots clés contemporary-romance judith-mcnaught julie-mathison zachary-benedict
Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” he asked.
Elizabeth had a vague idea, since everyone was always telling her, and she suppressed a worried impulse to reply, “Do you have any idea how intelligent I am?” It wasn’t that she was an intellectual by any stretch of the imagination, but she did like to read and even debate issues, and she wasn’t at all certain he would like that in her. He never expressed an opinion on anything except the most trivial generalities and he never asked for hers.
“You’re enchanting,” he whispered, and Elizabeth wondered, very seriously, why he thought that. He didn’t know how much she loved to fish, or to laugh, or that she could shoot a pistol so well she was almost a marksman. He didn’t know she’d once had chariot races across the yard at Havenhurst, or that flowers seemed to bloom especially well for her. She didn’t even know if he’d like to hear all the wonderful tales of Havenhurst and its colorful former inhabitants. He knew so little of her; she knew even less about him.
He stared at it in utter disbelief while his secretary, Peters, who’d only been with him for a fortnight, muttered a silent prayer of gratitude for the break and continued scribbling as fast as he could, trying futilely to catch up with his employer’s dictation.
“This,” said Ian curtly, “was sent to me either by mistake or as a joke. In either case, it’s in excruciatingly bad taste.” A memory of Elizabeth Cameron flickered across Ian’s mind-a mercenary, shallow litter flirt with a face and body that had drugged his mind. She’d been betrothed to a viscount when he’d met her. Obviously she hadn’t married her viscount-no doubt she’d jilted him in favor of someone with even better prospects. The English nobility, as he well knew, married only for prestige and money, then looked elsewhere for sexual fulfillment. Evidently Elizabeth Cameron’s relatives were putting her back on the marriage block. If so, they must be damned eager to unload her if they were willing to forsake a title for Ian’s money…That line of conjecture seemed so unlikely that Ian dismissed it. This note was obviously a stupid prank, perpetrated, no doubt, by someone who remembered the gossip that had exploded over that weekend house party-someone who thought he’d find the note amusing.
Completely dismissing the prankster and Elizabeth Cameron from his mind, Ian glanced at his harassed secretary who was frantically scribbling away. “No reply is necessary,” he said. As he spoke he flipped the message across his desk toward his secretary, but the white parchment slid across the polished oak and floated to the floor. Peters made an awkward dive to catch it, but as he lurched sideways all the other correspondence that went with his dictation slid off his lap onto the floor. “I-I’m sorry, sir,” he stammered, leaping up and trying to collect the dozens of pieces of paper he’d scattered on the carpet. “Extremely sorry, Mr. Thornton,” he added, frantically snatching up contracts, invitations and letters and shoving them into a disorderly pile.
His employer appeared not to hear him. He was already rapping out more instructions and passing the corresponding invitations and letters across the desk. “Decline the first three, accept the fourth, decline the fifth. Send my condolences on this one. On this one, explain that I’m going to be in Scotland, and send an invitation to join me there, along with directions to the cottage.”
Clutching the papers to his chest, Peters poked his face up on the opposite side of the desk. “Yes, Mr. Thornton!” he said, trying to sound confident. But it was hard to be confident when one was on one’s knees. Harder still when one wasn’t entirely certain which instructions of the morning went with which invitation or piece of correspondence.
Ian Thornton spent the rest of the afternoon closeted with Peters, heaping more dictation on the inundated clerk.
He spent the evening with the Earl of Melbourne, his future father-in-law, discussing the earl’s daughter and himself.
Peters spent part of his evening trying to learn from the butler which invitations his employer was likely to accept or reject.
If it will reassure you that I’m not a coward, I suppose I could rearrange his face.” Quietly he added, “The music has ended,” and for the first time Elizabeth realized they were no longer waltzing but were only swaying lightly together. With no other excuse to stand in his arms, Elizabeth tried to ignore her disappointment and step back, but just then the musicians began another melody, and their bodies began to move together in perfect time to the music.
“Since I’ve already deprived you of your escort for the outing to the village tomorrow,” he said after a minute, “would you consider an alternative?”
Her heart soared, because she thought he was going to offer to escort her himself. Again he read her thoughts, but his words were dampening.
“I cannot escort you there,” he said flatly.
Her smile faded. “Why not?”
“Don’t be a henwit. Being seen in my company is hardly the sort of thing to enhance a debutante’s reputation.”
Her mind whirled, trying to tally some sort of balance sheet that would disprove his claim. After all, he was a favorite of the Duke of Hammund’s…but while the duke was considered a great matrimonial prize, his reputation as a libertine and rake made mamas fear him as much as they coveted him as a son-in-law. On the other hand, Charise Dumont was considered perfectly respectable by the ton, and so this country gathering was above reproach. Except it wasn’t, according to Lord Howard. “Is that why you refused to dance with me when I asked you to earlier?”
“That was part of the reason.”
“What was the rest of it?” she asked curiously.
His chuckle was grim. “Call it a well-developed instinct for self-preservation.”
“What?”
“Your eyes are more lethal than dueling pistols, my sweet,” he said wryly. “They could make a saint forget his goal.”
Elizabeth had heard many flowery praises sung to her beauty, and she endured them with polite disinterest, but Ian’s blunt, almost reluctant flattery made her chuckle. Later she would realize that at this moment she had made her greatest mistake of all-she had been lulled into regarding him as an equal, a gently bred person whom she could trust, even relax with. “What sort of alternative were you going to suggest for tomorrow?”
“Luncheon,” he said. “Somewhere private where we can talk, and where we won’t be seen together.”
A cozy picnic luncheon for two was definitely not on Lucinda’s list of acceptable pastimes for London debutantes, but even so, Elizabeth was reluctant to refuse. “Outdoors…by the lake?” she speculated aloud, trying to justify the idea by making it public.
“I think it’s going to rain tomorrow, and besides, we’d risk being seen together there.”
“Then where?”
“In the woods. I’ll meet you at the woodcutter’s cottage at the south end of the property near the stream at eleven. There's a path that leads to it two miles from the gate-off the main road." Elizabeth was too alarmed by such a prospect to stop to wonder how and when Ian Thornton had become so familiar with Charise's property and all its secluded haunts.
"Absolutely not," she said in a shaky, breathless voice. Even she was not naïve enough to consider being alone with a man in a cottage, and she was terribly disappointed that he'd suggested it. Gentlemen didn't make such suggestions, and well-bred ladies never accepted them. Lucinda's warnings about such things had been eloquent and, Elizabeth felt, sensible.
There are no tarts in there, Charles. They were much too expensive, and Mr. Jenkins would not be reasonable. I told him I would buy a whole dozen, but he would not reduce the price by so much as a penny, so I refused to buy even one-on principle. Do you know,” she confided with a chuckle, “last week when he saw me coming into his shop he hid behind the flour sacks?”
“He’s a coward!” Charles said, grinning, for it was a known fact among tradesmen and shopkeepers that Elizabeth Cameron pinched a shilling until it squeaked, and that when it came to bargaining for price-which it always did with her-they rarely came out the winner. Her intellect, not her beauty, was her greatest asset in these transactions, for she could not only add and multiply in her head, but she was so sweetly reasonable, and so inventive when she listed her reasons for expecting a better price, that she either wore out her opponents or confused them into agreeing with her
I thought you were angry with me for interfering,” she said to his shoulder.
There was a smile in his voice as he answered, “Not angry. Stunned.”
“Well, I couldn’t let them call you a cheat when I knew perfectly well you weren’t.”
“I imagine I’ve been called worse,” he said mildly. “Particularly by your hotheaded young friend Everly.”
Elizabeth wondered what could be worse than being called a cheat, but good manners forbade her asking. Lifting her head, she gazed apprehensively into his eyes and asked, “You won’t mean to demand satisfaction from Lord Everly at a later date, do you?”
“I hope,” he teased, grinning, “that I’m not so ungrateful as to spoil all your handiwork in the card room by doing such a thing. Besides, it would be very impolite of me to kill him when you’d just made it very clear he’d already engaged himself to escort you tomorrow.
We must not let her uncle send her into the gloom, which is what he always does.”
“Is there a means to stop him?” Alex asked, smiling.
Bentner straightened, nodded, and said with dignified force, “I, for one, am in favor of shoving him off London Bridge. Aaron favors poison.”
There was anger and frustration in his words, but no real menace, and Alex responded with a conspiratorial smile. “I think I prefer your method, Bentner-it’s tidier.”
Alexandra’s remark had been teasing, and Bentner’s reply was a formal bow, but as they looked at each other for a moment they both acknowledged the unspoken communication they’d just exchanged. The butler had informed her that, should the staff’s help be needed in any way in future, the duchess could depend upon their complete, unquestioning loyalty. The duchess’s answer had assured him that, far from resenting his intrusion, she appreciated the information and would keep it in mind should such an occasion occur.
The name is somewhat familiar, but I can’t recall a face to go with it.”
Obviously disappointed in her reaction, her uncle said irritably, “You apparently have a poor memory. If you can’t recall a knight or an earl,” he added sarcastically, “I doubt you’ll remember a mere mister.”
Stung by his unprovoked remark, she said stiffly, “Who is the third?”
“Mr. Ian Thornton. He’s-“
That name sent Elizabeth jolting to her feet while a blaze of animosity and a sock of terror erupted through her entire body. “Ian Thornton!” she cried, leaning her palms on the desk to steady herself. “Ian Thornton!” she repeated, her voice rising with a mixture of anger and hysterical laughter. “Uncle, if Ian Thornton discussed marrying me, it was at the point of Robert’s gun! His interest in me was never marriage, and Robert dueled with him over his behavior. In fact, Robert shot him!”
Instead of relenting or being upset, her uncle merely regarded her with blank indifference, and Elizabeth said fiercely, “Don’t you understand?”
“What I understand,” he said, glowering, “is that he replied to my message in the affirmative and was very cordial. Perhaps he regrets his earlier behavior and wishes to make amends.”
“Amends!” she cried. “I’ve no idea whether he feels loathing for me or merely contempt, but I can assure you he does not and has never wished to wed me! He’s the reason I can’t show my face in society!”
“In my opinion, you’re better off away from that decadent London influence; however, that’s not to the point. He has accepted my terms.”
“What terms?”
Inured to Elizabeth’s quaking alarm, Julius stated matter-of-factly, “Each of the three candidates has agreed that you will come to visit him briefly in order to allow you to decide if you suit. Lucinda will accompany you as chaperon. You’re to leave in five days. Belhaven is first, then Marchman, then Thornton.”
The room swam before Elizabeth’s eyes. “I can’t believe this!” she burst out, and in her misery she seized on the least of her problems. “Lucinda has taken her first holiday in years! She’s in Devon visiting her sister.”
“Then take Berta instead and have Lucinda join you later when you go to visit Thornton in Scotland.”
“Berta! Berta is a maid. My reputation will be in shreds if I spend a week in the home of a man with no one but a maid for a chaperon.”
“Then don’t say she’s a maid,” he snapped. “Since I already referred to Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones as your chaperon in my letters, you can say that Berta is your aunt No more objections, miss,” he finished, “the matter is settled. That will be all for now. You may go.”
“It’s not settled! There’s been some sort of horrible mistake, I tell you. Ian Thornton would never want to see me, any more than I wish to see him!”
“There’s no mistake,” Julius said with completely finality. “Ian Thornton received my letter and accepted our offer. He even sent directions to his place in Scotland.”
“Your offer,” Elizabeth cried, “not mine!”
“I’ll not debate technicalities any further with you, Elizabeth. This discussion is at an end.
Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, former paid companion to several of the ton’s most successful debutantes of prior seasons, came to Havenhurst to fill the position of Elizabeth’s duenna. A woman of fifty with wiry gray hair she scraped back into a bun and the posture of a ramrod, she had a permanently pinched face, as if she smelled something disagreeable but was too well-bred to remark upon it. In addition to the duenna’s daunting physical appearance, Elizabeth observed shortly after their first meeting that Miss Throckmorton-Jones possessed an astonishing ability to sit serenely for hours without twitching so much as a finger.
Elizabeth refused to be put off by her stony demeanor and set about finding a way to thaw her. Teasingly, she called her “Lucy,” and when the casually affectionate nickname won a thunderous frown from the lady, Elizabeth tried to find a different means. She discovered it very soon: A few days after Lucinda came to live at Havenhurst the duenna discovered her curled up in a chair in Havenhurt’s huge library, engrossed in a book. “You enjoy reading?” Lucinda had said gruffly-and with surprise-as she noted the gold embossed title on the volume.
“Yes,” Elizabeth had assured her, smiling. “Do you?”
“Have you read Christopher Marlowe?”
“Yes, but I prefer Shakespeare.”
Thereafter it became their policy each night after supper to debate the merits of the individual books they’d read. Before long Elizabeth realized that she’d won the duenna’s reluctant respect. It was impossible to be certain she’d won Lucinda’s affection, for the only emotion the lady ever displayed was anger, and that only once, at a miscreant tradesman in the village. Even so, it was a display Elizabeth never forgot. Wielding her ever-present umbrella, Lucinda had advanced on the hapless man, backing him clear around his own shop, while from her lips in a icy voice poured the most amazing torrent of eloquent, biting fury Elizabeth had ever heard.
“My temper,” Lucinda had primly informed her-by way of apology, Elizabeth supposed-“is my only shortcoming.”
Privately, Elizabeth thought Lucy must bottle up all her emotions inside herself as she sat perfectly still on sofas and chairs, for years at a time, until it finally exploded like one of those mountains she’d read about that poured forth molten rock when the pressure finally reached a peak.
By the time the Camerons, along with Lucinda and the necessary servants, arrived in London for Elizabeth’s debut, Elizabeth had learned all that Mrs. Porter could teach her, and she felt quite capable of meeting the challenges Mrs. Porter described. Actually, other than memorizing the rules of etiquette she was a little baffled over the huge fuss being made. After all, she’d learned to dance in the six months she was being prepared for her debut, and she’d been conversing since she was three years old, and as closely as she could tell, her only duties as a debutante were to converse politely on trivial subjects only, conceal her intelligence at all costs, and dance.
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