The Worthington Wife Read online

  He put more paint on the palette. He had to fix the damn picture.

  He couldn’t live with himself if he became part of the family that had left his mother to die. Couldn’t face the guilt and pain of giving up this chance to make good on the promise he had made on Mam’s deathbed—to make the Worthingtons, as he thought of them, pay.

  It meant hurting Julia. Heaping pain on a woman who had known more than her fair share and who had done nothing but care for people and give her heart to them.

  He couldn’t do that. So how in hell did he get justice for his father, for Mam?

  Someone was behind him. Quiet as a mouse, but he knew. Julia? He whirled around, hope, despair, desire, guilt, need and pure joy all fighting through his gut like an army.

  Creeping daylight—like it was embarrassed to interject on British gloom—fell in through the window and slanted on a set of spectacles. Clutching a book to her chest, his youngest cousin stood there. Dark-haired, like Julia. Which one? Not the audacious flirt, Diana. Thalia.

  “It’s a beautiful picture,” she breathed.

  “It’s not,” he growled suddenly, hating the picture in front of him. Now he saw the emotion radiating out of Julia’s eyes well enough to put a name on it. Sadness. Sadness that he’d put there—and not just with a brush. “It’s a piece of damn crap.”

  He threw the brush, sending a slash of yellow across Julia’s bare, color-dappled shoulders and her ethereal white dress. It felt good. Felt good destroying this thing that he’d tried to do and had failed at.

  Rage flowed through his arteries and veins, pumped through his heart. He threw the palette at the top of the canvas, watching it slide partway down, covering unhappy Julia with a veil of yellow and ochre, cadmium red and cobalt blue. Halfway, the descent stopped. As if appalled at what it had done, the palette tipped backward and toppled off the painting, landing on the worn plank floor.

  Thalia had stepped back, her stance a perfect mimic of a terrified deer. The rage, the act of violence had scared her. A heel—he felt just like that. And had scared himself. He thought he’d gotten the anger—the bitterness, along with the squeezing grip of having failed—under control. He let it fuel his rage but never command it. He could never hurt a woman physically, but Thalia was making little wheezing-sob sounds like she figured he would.

  Then she exploded in a gush of tears and just as he said, “I’m sorry,” and took a tentative step toward her, she bolted from the room on long colt legs.

  * * *

  In the morning, Julia wanted to hide in bed. Wanted to pretend that the Tofts were not waking up to a day of unimaginable pain.

  But she could not hide under her counterpane. There was too much to be done.

  It physically hurt to sit up. Her arms ached, feeling heavy as she pushed away the bedcovers. All over, she felt as if bruised. This was the toll of grief.

  Imagine how those poor children felt!

  Bustling footsteps sounded outside her door. It opened, and Sims glided in, carrying a warming dish and a coffee urn upon a tray. “You are awake, my lady. Her Grace instructed that you would want breakfast in your room this morning.”

  Zoe had done that. How good of her. But Julia doubted she could manage much food at all—still, she needed to eat something. Then she must get to work.

  Sims set the tray across her lap and poured coffee.

  “Sims, I will need a black armband.” It was what was worn when mourning someone who was not an immediate family member, where the rules were most rigid about wearing black.

  Sims arched her plucked brow. Folded her arms over her chest. Sims was rail-thin and managed to look astoundingly haughty when she wished. Even Grandmama had nothing on Sims when it came to pinched lips and disapproving looks. “That would not be appropriate, my lady.”

  “I wish to mourn a tragic loss. So yes, it is appropriate.”

  “But this woman was not a member of your family or your class, my lady. Perhaps you could keep a black handkerchief on your person. Where it would not be seen.”

  “I want an armband. Will you do it?”

  “No, my lady, I could not. Your mother—”

  “Do not tell me what my mother would want me to do,” Julia snapped. She was just...angry and out of sorts today. And she was not going to be bullied by Sims, who acted as lady’s maid to her and Isobel. Isobel delighted in irritating Sims, who could be tremendously snobby, by attempting to wear boys’ clothing whenever possible and leaving her graphic medical books around her room. Julia had been too polite.

  She just couldn’t be polite anymore. “I am going to wear an armband even if I must make it myself. I will not be swayed on this. This is important to me.”

  Sims began to speak, then stopped, as if biting her tongue. “I shall prepare you an armband.”

  “Thank you. You may go,” Julia said firmly.

  As Sims left, she set down her coffee and sagged back against her headboard. She was exhausted—she had been awake through most of the night. Sobbing for the Tofts and for a sweet, small baby who would never know life.

  Julia lifted the tray off her lap. Instead of summoning Sims again, she pulled on a simple skirt, blouse and cardigan. Thank heaven for modern brassieres—she could put one on herself. Dressed, she went in search of her brother. She could not do much for the Toft family, but she could do one good thing.

  She couldn’t find Nigel in his usual haunts—the study or the library. The dining room was empty. Frustrated, Julia poured a cup of coffee.

  “What’s wrong?” It was Zoe, walking in from the salon. “Is it about Mrs. Toft? That is such a tragedy.” Zoe hugged her.

  “It’s also about Dr. Hamilton,” Julia said. “He is a hopeless snob. He was going to refuse to help Mrs. Toft because she is not a highborn woman. I threatened him to force him to go.”

  “You threatened him?”

  “I reminded him that our family is the donor for the hospital and Nigel could force him out. Hamilton also drinks while he is working at the hospital.”

  “I think we must fire him,” Zoe said firmly.

  Here was her opportunity. “But we need a new doctor. Otherwise people will have no one.”

  “Better no one than a pickled quack,” Zoe said. “You went with the Earl of Worthington, didn’t you? You’ve been spending a lot of time with him. Are you falling in love with him?”

  The warm tingle of his kiss sat guiltily on her lips. “Of course not,” Julia protested quickly. “He wants to sell Worthington Park and I am fighting to convince him otherwise.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He hates the family because they disowned his father. I understand his anger, but I don’t want him to make the people of Worthington—the tenants, the servants—suffer.”

  “And it necessitates that you spend every day with him?”

  “Well, yes, it does,” she said, rather defensively.

  Zoe smiled.

  “Anyway,” Julia went on, “what we need is a doctor.”

  “I agree. And I can think of one,” Zoe said, casually playing with the long rope of her bead necklace, trying to sound as if this was an obvious, utterly natural decision. “There is Dr. Campbell of course.”

  “Impossible. He is at the London Hospital, and very happy there. And he is to be married. To someone else.”

  It was easy to say that now. She no longer felt a stab of pain. When she said those words, she only thought of Cal’s mouth coming down over hers and him kissing her slow and coaxingly, and it felt as if the world had tumbled over.

  “Yes, he’s said that. But is that certain?”

  “Zoe, of course it is certain.” She hesitated. “Of course, he would be an excellent doctor for the people of Brideswell, but I don’t believe we could convince him—”

 
“We won’t even try, Julia. I’m not having you see Dr. Campbell and his new bride here. It would break your heart every single day. For once, you’re not going to make a sacrifice for the sake of everyone else. We will find someone else. I must go to London, to Harley Street. Why don’t you come with me? You can help in the hunt for a doctor.”

  “Perhaps I should stay instead. For the Tofts...”

  “We could be gone for only a day and a night. Enough time to make inquiries on Harley Street. I’m sure we could find recommendations easily. I’d say we need a new doctor with promise, or an older one looking to escape London’s smoke-filled fog.” Zoe picked up a plate and loaded it with selections from the warming dishes.

  This was something she could do. “I will take up the task, while you go to your appointment.” Then she saw, with amazement, the food pile up on Zoe’s plate—sausage, roast beef, ham.

  Zoe looked up. “I am absolutely starving. I can’t seem to eat enough and if I don’t eat, I feel sick. No one knows yet but I suppose I have told you now.”

  “Told me what?”

  “You must know, Julia! Why does a woman feel queasy?”

  “She’s ill?”

  “Or she is pregnant,” Zoe said, with American bluntness and honesty. An English lady would say “expecting” or “enceinte.”

  “How wonderful!” Julia cried. Her heart gave a pang. She was so happy, but there was that envy, deep inside. That wish she could have a child of her own. A home of her own. Then the image came again. Mrs. Toft closing her eyes and simply letting go, letting go of the world that her last child never saw—

  “I’m sorry,” Zoe said suddenly. “I shouldn’t have talked about this now. Not after what you went through.”

  Had she looked so awful? One glance at her face and Zoe leaped to her feet and extended arms in comfort. “Zoe, I am happy you told me. Joyful news is exactly what I need. It gives hope. Little pieces of hope that all join together and become stronger than pain. It was just for a minute that I remembered... I don’t want you to walk on eggshells around me. I think I am tough enough—”

  “Don’t become tough. People call it tough, but it really means they are trying not to feel anything. That never works. Trust me,” Zoe said.

  Julia hugged her sister by marriage. “You’re right. I think—I think I’m going to go to Mother’s chapel. I want to say a little prayer for the Tofts. And I shall probably have a good cry. Then I shall prepare for London.”

  She went out through the terrace doors off the gallery. A cool sting bit the air and clouds rumbled by, driven by a strong breeze that carried more threat of winter than promise of summer. She must go and see her war widows today, check on their progress before she went to London. On the days she hadn’t seen Cal, she had begun arranging the loans. She had gone to see Ellen Lambert, urging her to take money and begin some sort of business. But Ellen continued to refuse.

  Another figure walked ahead of her, a woman with her head bowed and a scarf fluttering around her head.

  Her mother.

  She knew where her mother was going—the same place she was. The chapel was a place Julia rarely went. But today she wanted to go there. Julia followed the path that led to the small stone chapel their father had built for their mother when they first married. When Julia was young, she’d thought it was a symbol of her father’s devoted love for her mother. Then she’d discovered how unhappy they were. It was strange—one year a girl would have no awareness of her parents’ strife, the next year she felt it in every breath she took.

  Julia pushed open the low wooden door and stepped into the chapel. The air was almost cold. Her mother knelt at the altar and at the soft hush of the door closing, she turned around. “Julia? Is something wrong?”

  She walked to the altar to join Mother. “I was at Lower Dale Farm last night. When Mrs. Toft passed away and her baby was lost.”

  To her surprise, her mother embraced her. Her mother had not hugged her...in years and years. “What a terrible tragedy,” her mother said softly, but Julia didn’t care about the words. It was nice to simply be held.

  The largest stained glass window, with pride of place behind the altar, depicted the holy infant in the mother’s arms.

  “Why a baby?” Julia whispered. “A poor child who never knew life? Why?”

  “The babe has gone to heaven,” her mother said.

  “You know as well as I do—any religious man would deny that was true for a baby who wasn’t baptized.” Tears leaked down.

  “I cannot believe that—that an innocent soul would not be saved,” Mother whispered.

  Julia met her mother’s large green eyes. Eyes just like those of her brothers, Sebastian and Will.

  “This has broken your heart, my dear,” her mother said.

  “I want to be strong. I want to be of use. But I’m not sad. Now I understand how I feel. So angry.”

  “I know, my dear. I was so angry when we lost Will. When Nigel came home to us wounded. I was so afraid to let out that anger that I couldn’t let myself feel anything at all.”

  “It was anger, not sorrow?”

  “Grief is many things,” Mother said. “Oh, my dear, this has broken my heart, too. We must pray for them both.”

  Julia knelt at her mother’s side. Her mother’s soft voice flowed over her as she prayed. She wanted to believe in heaven—that Mrs. Toft could look down over her children and still watch them grow. That perhaps, in heaven, her baby wouldn’t be lost and all alone.

  After the prayers, Mother and she walked back to the house, their arms linked. Grief and sorrow had driven them apart for years. Yet now, it had brought them together.

  “I will not push you to marry, Julia,” her mother said.

  “Thank you.”

  And with that, she felt she had put marriage behind her. She must look to a future without it. Once she came back from London—having found a doctor for the Brideswell Hospital—she could move toward the real life she was going to have.

  * * *

  The next morning, as the mist scurried away from Brideswell’s lawns, it was a flurry to get to the station for the early train.

  Footmen hastened out of the front door with trunks and hatboxes. They stacked the luggage on the back of the Daimler and tied it in place, as the two lady’s maids, in their traveling outfits, ensured no box or bag or case was missed.

  Julia stood with Nigel, who held Nicholas in his arms, as Zoe came down, drawing on her gloves. Zoe wore a scarlet coat and matching cloche and her heeled black shoes clicked on the tiles. She kissed Nigel farewell—not on his cheek but full on his mouth. Then she lifted her son into her arms and rubbed her nose against his, until he giggled. “I’ll miss both my men very much,” Zoe whispered, her voice catching.

  Julia certainly understood the catch in Zoe’s voice, the tears shining in her eyes. Nicholas looked adorable in a blue sailor-style suit. His hair was dark as Nigel’s, fine as silk, and his eyes were huge as he said, “Go wif Mama.”

  “Oh, darling, you can’t come with me this time. Just a boring visit to the doctor for me.”

  “I should go with you,” Nigel said.

  Zoe gave him a wry, tough smile. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure this expensive Harley Street specialist will coddle me since I’m a duchess.”

  Then Julia was drawn into her brother’s embrace. “Look after Zoe,” he murmured by her ear. “You know how headstrong she is. I know you’ll convince her to be responsible. You understand duty and responsibility.”

  When she heard it spoken that way, it sounded like a dreaded disease.

  Zoe caught her eye and winked. “We will be the most responsible women in the country. I assure you that the prime minister will come calling by the end of our visit, to take notes on how to be properly cautious, responsible and dutiful.”
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br />   “I know you won’t,” Nigel said. “But be careful.”

  “I will take care of her,” Julia promised.

  “And I’ll take very good care of Julia,” Zoe added.

  When they reached the station, Julia was surprised to see Diana waiting on the platform. She looked lovely in a slim-fitting dress of black crepe with a short skirt, and a jacket of white silk, trimmed in black. Ropes of jet-black beads dangled over the curve of her bosom. Diana linked arms with her. “Do you mind if I go down to London with you?”

  “Of course not.” Then more quietly. “Why are you going? For shopping?”

  “Why do you think? It’s to see him. This is my last chance—” Diana broke off. “It’s Cal.”

  And it was. The kiss tingled on her lips, as if it were still dancing there. For days, she had thrust herself into Cal’s life whether he wanted it or not. Now she didn’t know how to stand, or where to look.

  He looked stunned to see her. “Julia? What are you doing here?”

  She realized she really did not want to see him. She had kissed him. She had never dreamed of kissing a man she wasn’t going to marry, even though women did that all the time now. They did just about everything you could do with a husband with men they desired but didn’t want to marry. But she could never do that.

  “We’re going up to London,” Diana said.

  “So am I,” he said.

  Diana narrowed her eyes. “What for?” she asked, with bluntness that a lady was never supposed to use.

  “To see a lawyer,” he answered. “Worthington’s man of business.”

  Julia jerked her head up. She looked at him, but Cal looked innocent, as if butter would not begin to melt on that warm tongue of his.

  “Why are you doing that? You’re not arranging the sale of anything, are you?” Fear gripped her. Her last words to him had been that she couldn’t bear to lose one more thing—including Worthington. But she’d never thought it would change his mind and she supposed it hadn’t. But she needed more time!

  “Of course not,” he answered, after a pause.

  But the light way he spoke, with a touch of a lilting Irish accent he must have picked up from his mother, made her certain he was not telling the truth. He was trying too hard to sound innocent. Her heart raced. “You haven’t even met all the tenants yet. You can’t—”