The Worthington Wife Read online

  Zelda liked to say shocking things, Julia felt. She answered thoughtfully, “I don’t know. I was raised to expect to marry, manage a house, and let my life be directed and shaped by my family and by circumstances. And yes, it would have been best if I had been nothing more than a beautiful fool. Now I realize it’s frightening to want more. But I’m ready to face being afraid.”

  “The Lost Generation,” Hemingway said then, his voice carrying over the table. “It’s a name for us all. Gertrude gave it to me. She had work done on her car. The young mechanic didn’t impress her. She asked the garage owner where the man had been trained. The owner said the man had been through the War and they were all une génération perdue.”

  “The Lost Generation. It suits us, doesn’t it?” said Fitzgerald.

  They looked at her.

  Julia said, “It does. I feel quite lost sometimes. As though there is something of great importance I could do, but I don’t quite know what it is.”

  She felt Zelda Fitzgerald staring at her.

  Couples got up to dance then. Not wives with husbands—the couples split apart and paired up with others. Julia was left at the table with Cal, Hadley Richardson and a female author—the woman in the man’s tuxedo.

  “What do you do?” The question came from the author. She smoked a cigarette in a long holder. Her dark hair was cropped short and slicked back with pomade. “You must do something.”

  What did she do? She thought of Ellen. Of the Brands. Of the people on the estate like Mrs. Billings, who had lost all her sons to the War. “The work that I do that truly inspires me is my charity work. Though I have rather shocked Society with what I do.”

  “Darling, you look as if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. How could you shock anyone?”

  “I work with women who lost their husbands and have to turn to drastic measures to support their families. Fallen women.”

  “You, darling? Work with prostitutes?” The woman’s hand stroked down her arm.

  The woman blew a smoke ring. Julia found the woman’s kohl-ringed eyes rather magnetic. They were huge and pale blue. She had a strong nose and high cheekbones. Almost masculine features, but she was strikingly beautiful.

  “You’re really lovely, Lady Julia. I’ve been on a man kick for the last few months. About every six months, I change my mind. My last really serious love affair was with a woman. She was married, but I adored her. Then, I decided it was time for men. But you’ve tempted me to change my mind tonight.”

  The woman’s hand settled on her leg. And squeezed.

  And in that moment, Julia knew she hadn’t wanted quite this much adventure. Paris was wild and she wasn’t. Not desperately, determinedly wild, anyway. She loved art and literature and beauty—but she loved her work at Brideswell, her home, country life.

  But suddenly, a strong hand gripped hers and she was lifted to her feet. “Julia isn’t available.” To her, Cal said, “We should get you back to the hotel. We’ll tell your brother that you’re leaving.”

  They were almost at the door—the crowd had magically parted for Cal. She gripped the door frame to stop him. “I don’t want to run away. I know I’m not wild. I wasn’t going to slip off with her into a corner and do—do Sapphic things, you know.”

  Cal groaned loudly. “That is an image I didn’t need right now, Julia.”

  “Well, I don’t need a man rushing me away from something a little scandalous.” In truth, she was rather glad to get away—but she didn’t want to be hastened away as if she were a young virgin who mustn’t see anything.

  “That’s not what I’m doing. I’m rushing you to the hotel because I need to paint you.”

  “Paint me?”

  “I’ve watched you all night, falling more and more under your spell. The only thing that’s going to save me is to paint you. I thought I wasn’t going to do it. But I have to.”

  “You mean our bargain. The one we hadn’t actually made yet.” She was confused. She thought that hadn’t mattered anymore. And she thought it didn’t need to matter—not after he’d talked about future changes for the estate. Not after he’d chosen to take care of Diana and Ellen. “Where you said you’d be willing to leave Worthington untouched while you painted me?”

  “I’m willing to give you anything you want for it, Julia.”

  18

  Painting in Paris

  A lady should not be alone with a man in a hotel room.

  Julia stood in the middle of the living area, on the elegant Turkish carpet. She was surrounded by furnishings of royal blue silk and gilt in the style of Louis XIV. A canvas was set up near the window. The deep blue and gold curtains were tied back, and Paris glittered below them. Cal was pouring champagne.

  Julia could just imagine Mother falling into a swoon at the thought of her doing such a scandalous thing. In England, if a rumor began to spread that she had been in Cal’s room her reputation would be in shreds.

  Of course, nothing would happen. This was for her to sit for a portrait. She knew he loved Alice and she believed Cal would not try to seduce her. He’d teased her with that before, but he’d proven himself honorable.

  “You aren’t going to want me to take off my clothes, are you?” She had wanted adventure in Paris. And for art, why would she be so nervous about doing that? Could she do it?

  The champagne bottle jerked in his hand and the stream flew clear of the glass.

  “I’m not sure if I can do it,” she admitted. “Tonight, I met the most exciting, artistic people of our times and—and I was shocked. By what they said, how they live, the fact some of them take both men and women as lovers.” She sighed ruefully. “I’m simply not modern. I don’t belong in this world. Even if you asked me to pose naked to save Worthington, I now know I couldn’t do it. I’m not daring and brave. I’m dull and boring. A true English lady.”

  Champagne dripped off his hand and Cal grabbed one of his painting rags to clean up. “You are anything but dull and boring. Just because you were shocked doesn’t mean you don’t belong here. I’m not going to ask you to take off your clothes. You’re something special, Julia. Something remarkable and unique. You are really the perfect lady.”

  Strangely, she wasn’t so sure she liked that. She didn’t know quite what he meant. She thought Cal disliked perfect ladies.

  He handed her the flute of champagne. She sipped and the bubbles tickled her nose.

  “I’ll show you how I want you to pose. Fully clothed.” He pulled a stool over so it stood in front of the window and the view of Paris. “First, I want you to sit there. Talk to me.”

  As she settled down delicately, Cal took off his dress jacket and his tie. Watching his shoulders and back move and his muscles bunch made her feel giddy. He kicked off shoes and socks so he was barefoot. Even in his fine shirt and tailored trousers, he looked bohemian. Wild.

  But his heart was Alice’s.

  He began to squirt paint onto his palette.

  “Why do you need to paint me?”

  “Because you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life and an artist gets an obsession to record something like that,” he said.

  The champagne was loosening her inhibitions—on top of the cocktails she’d drunk. He gave instructions and she sat as he wanted. As he sketched on the canvas, he kept looking at her so intensely. With a hot, penetrating gaze. She knew it was just to get the detail, but she felt her cheeks grow warm.

  Giggling a little, she said, “You told me that the staff of the hotel knew you because you came here to celebrate after you sold a painting. I don’t believe that. They know you too well.”

  “What I told you was true. Whenever I sold a painting, I always came here. I tipped well, which guarantees they’ll look after you and remember you.” He shrugged. “I always took the viewpoint that mon
ey would come from somewhere, so I spent it when I had it.”

  “Truly? Even though you had been poor?” The English aristocracy used to take it for granted they would be the upper tier of society, with grand houses and grand lives. They feared losing everything now. Brideswell was safe, but she remembered how terrifying it was to fear losing her home and having the tenants lose theirs. That was why she sympathized with Lady Worthington, Diana and her sisters.

  “Having been poor once meant I wasn’t scared of being poor again,” he said. “After the War, everything felt like heaven. Even camping out and sleeping beneath the stars felt like luxury after catching a few minutes’ sleep standing up in a trench that was ankle-deep in sloppy, stinking cold water.”

  “You camped under the stars?” Goodness, had he not been able to afford a roof over his head?

  He laughed. “That shocks you, doll? I went to paint the north—the wilds in the north of Canada, just below the Arctic Circle. There are artists painting landscapes not as dainty places tamed by men, but as wild and untamed land. I joined them, canoeing into the north, then camping and sketching.”

  “But didn’t you get wet and cold?”

  “I set up a canvas tent. I had to fit what I took in a canoe.” He grinned. “I had a sleeping sack made of waterproof cloth and sheep’s wool. I cooked food over a campfire. I learned I could live with very few belongings.”

  She stared at him, amazed. He was so intriguing—he knew so much, had done so much.

  He sketched, looking at her, then at the easel.

  She loved to watch him draw, with all his focus on the picture. He brushed his hair back as he worked, as the pencil flew over the canvas. He frowned, smiled, grimaced, as if experiencing all the emotions possible in the minutes while he sketched.

  She couldn’t stop watching him. She wanted to touch him.

  All of him.

  Suddenly the room felt hotter than even on the most baking summer’s day. But she couldn’t touch him. She couldn’t have a love affair with a man who truly loved someone else.

  “I would be scared of being poor,” she admitted. “I don’t have that much courage.”

  “I think you have a lot of courage,” he said.

  She was about to shake her head, then remembered models were not supposed to move. “I don’t really. I just hide things very well. Ladies do. For a long time, we had no money and we thought we would have to lose Brideswell. But the aristocracy wants to ‘keep up appearances.’ We threw dinner parties we could not afford and ate tiny meals as a family. We burned fewer fires and shivered more in the winters. We shut up much of the house.”

  “What would you have done if you’d lost the house?”

  “I guess we would have found somewhere smaller to live. We would have had much less, but we would have still tried to carry on as if nothing changed. That is what people like us do.”

  He shook his head. “You come from a world I’m never going to understand.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to me anymore, either. Our world has value and meaning but it needs new ideas—it needs men like you. You truly were born to be an earl,” she insisted. “To be a true self-made man, you are obviously quite brilliant at business. And you truly care about people. You are probably more qualified to be an earl than most men who have the title.”

  He didn’t answer.

  She went on, in a voluble rush, “You could make Worthington into a great place. You could marry Alice Hayes and have a family. You could be happy.”

  “Marry Alice?”

  “I—I overheard her tell you that she is in love with you. I am sorry. That was most unladylike of me. I know you don’t want to hurt your brother—”

  “Julia, there are a hell of a lot of reasons I wouldn’t marry Alice. David is only one of them.”

  He looked past her at the city beyond, and she was sure he was drawing in the background. She knew she mustn’t stop now. “I understand why you hate Worthington. How could you ever forgive the old earl and the countess? But it was their mistake and it’s wrong for innocent people to suffer—”

  “They forced my mother into committing a sin—at least she believed it was a sin. Mam apologized to me. She said she was already damned forever. She said she was better dead than alive to poison us. Don’t you see I can’t forgive that? Goddamn them. I hope there is a damn curse.”

  Julia jumped at his rage. She almost fell off the stool. “A sin? I don’t understand—”

  “It was my fault, don’t you see? My fault... Christ.” He threw the palette to the floor.

  She was shocked. His head was bowed. His shoulders were tense, his hands fisted. She got off the stool. “Whatever it was, whatever this sin was, it was not your fault.”

  “It was. It—Damn, you don’t know.”

  She kept trying to reassure him.

  Tears glittered in his eyes and she thought of a fourteen-year-old, too late to save his mother, blaming himself for her death. It was so wrong.

  “Maybe you are right,” she whispered. “Maybe Worthington has been poisoned by pride and arrogance. If there was a way to ensure the people who live on the estate are safe, I guess I would say—destroy it.”

  “Julia—”

  She jumped off the stool, hurried to him. She kissed him. A passionate kiss.

  He pulled away, cupping her face. Then he groaned with such frustration and pain, she felt it shiver down her spine.

  Cal braced his hand against the top of the canvas. He tossed the pencil to the small ornate table beside him. “I’m going crazy, Julia. Crazy with wanting you.” His blue eyes blazed at her. “You’re the real reason I wouldn’t marry Alice. I thought I loved her—until I met you.” He kissed her again, trailed kisses down her neck and she was turning to steam.

  She should stop him. She was still a lady. Years of training told her that she must not do this. She had been taught five words: wait until your wedding night.

  But she wanted Cal.

  His arms went around her and he swept her up off her feet. He lifted her so high that an instinct kicked in and she wrapped her legs around his hips so she didn’t fall.

  She didn’t want him to stop and she knew, with a lady’s intuition, that they were perilously close to the point she must stop him.

  His lips trailed over her jawline. Teasing sensations made her whimper.

  His mouth skimmed down, and he eased the straps down her shoulder—the straps of her dress and her brassiere.

  She knew he would kiss her nipple. He couldn’t—he mustn’t—but she ached for it. Her nipple puckered and poked against the firm fabric of her lingerie. Her back arched, lifting her bosom toward him. His lips trailed over her skin, above the lacy trimming of her undergarment.

  Julia never dreamed she would physically hurt with the wanting.

  His hand cupped the top of her thigh and she gasped. She’d never had anyone touch her so close to her private place. His rough palm slid up her bare thigh, above her rolled-down stockings. Oh, the touch of fingers on her skin—

  He pulled something out of the back waistband of his trousers. His paintbrush. A clean one. He brushed the soft bristles across her lower lip. Then down, across her collarbones, into the low neckline of her dress to caress the swells of her breasts held up by her brassiere.

  With his paintbrush he teased her all over. He drew up the skirt of her dress, revealing her girdle and her panties. Up went the brush, making her tremble. The soft bristles tickled her inner thighs.

  She moaned with the sheer need.

  Cal got onto his knees in front of her. He took hold of her girdle, unfastened it and drew it down. She stared at him, but she didn’t want to stop. Then she stood in front of him in her filmy underpants. He leaned forward and kissed her. There, right between her legs, against her silk undies.
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  She almost died of shock.

  He swept her up into his arms and carried her easily to the bedroom. Julia gasped as she saw the huge ornate bed, festooned with silk and gilt, and large enough to fit the entire court of Louis XIV on top of it.

  She wanted Cal. But this was disaster. Every lady knew that. Panic took her. Panic she couldn’t stop or control. “No!”

  He set her down on her feet.

  “I can’t. I want to, but I don’t dare. I know you have no intention of marrying me. I desire you like I have never desired any other man. But I can’t have a love affair.”

  * * *

  Cal panted hard, his brain full of hot desire. One promise would be all it took. One question.

  He’d come to Worthington full of rage. Being in Paris with Julia had been the sweetest time of his life. He’d loved seeing her delight, her shock. She made him laugh, made his heart glow. She made him want something more than anger and revenge.

  He wanted to laugh with her, make love to her. Wanted to watch her eyes go wide and flash with pleasure when she came beneath him. Or on top of him. He was more than happy to bow to a woman’s desire for equal control in sex.

  He wanted it so much his every breath hurt.

  “I won’t ruin you, Julia. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Yet even as he made that promise, he knew he needed her. “I was thinking of asking you to marry me.”

  “Just so you could sleep with me? Cal, that’s a terrible reason.”

  He laughed; a raw, hoarse laugh from deep inside him. She had no idea what a damn hellish thing he was doing—proposing to her when she didn’t know the truth about him. “A better reason than an aristocratic one like marrying you to get your dowry or a tract of land. At least marrying you for lust would be all about you, doll.”

  “That is rid—” She broke off. “I suppose it is true. But it’s not a very wise reason.”

  He stroked her hair “Marrying me would be a dangerous thing for you. I wouldn’t accept separate bedrooms and discreet visits for the purpose of making an heir.” He didn’t know what he was doing—trying to scare her into saying no? To ease his conscience. When he ached for her.