From Ruin to Riches

‘You are a pearl amongst wives,’ Will said. He laid down his knife and fork after what she supposed was a cross between breakfast and luncheon and lifted his wine glass in a silent toast to her.

‘I am?’

‘You do not prattle and cling when the sensible thing to do is wash and change and eat.’

‘Now I may do more than prattle,’ Julia said. ‘I do not know where to start.’

‘At the beginning,’ Will suggested. ‘We have our lives back, both of us. Do you want to live the remainder of yours with me?’

‘Of course.’ That was the last question she had expected him to ask. ‘I love you—do you not believe me?’

‘I was just getting used to the idea when you ran away from me.’ But he was teasing her, she could see. All the darkness was gone from his eyes and his mouth curved in a smile despite its bruising.

‘I could not let you suffer for what I thought was my crime,’ she said.

‘I know. I am not sure what I have done to deserve that you should put me first, before your own safety, your own life.’

How do I explain to a man why I love him when I cannot even analyse it myself? ‘Will, you do not even seem angry with me after all I have put you through.’

Will stood up, took her hand and led her through to the bedchamber. ‘That must be because I am in love with you,’ he remarked as he closed the door.

‘What?’ Julia spun round so fast she lost her balance and sat down on the end of the bed. ‘Did you say—’

‘I said I was in love with you.’ Will sounded thoughtful. ‘Actually, I should have said I love you because I believe there is a difference. I have never felt like this for any other woman. Nor will I,’ he added. ‘I suspect I have been lamentably slow in realising it, my love.’

‘When did you? Realise it, I mean.’ After he realised I was innocent—or before?

Will turned the key in the lock. ‘The sooner we are back in our own home and our own bed, the better,’ he grumbled as he began to undress. ‘When did I realise? I will tell you in a minute, but let me try to recount this as it happened. None of it was a blinding revelation, more a piecing together of pieces. After I had left you in this room, after I had said those things to you that I hope you have it in you to forgive, I sat and drank brandy and realised that you could never have killed a man in cold blood, or even intended to kill him in hot blood either. I realised that it must have been an accident and once I saw that I could understand how it all followed on—your flight, why you had kept it a secret.’

He trusted her. He had trusted her even when he believed she could bring his world crashing down around his ears. How could she not love him?

‘When I found that note I believed it, at first. You frightened me half to death with that tarradidle about suicide and the Thames.’ He heeled his boots off with scant regard for scratches on their glossy finish and tossed them across the room. ‘Hell, woman, I was on Blackfriars bridge before I started to think straight and remembered what you said about throwing yourself in the lake when we first met. And then I looked at the letter and saw it was so very carefully constructed not to tell any lies.

‘I did not think you would risk trying to hide in London, so the next thing was to see if you had taken a stagecoach out of town. I had men checking every ticket office. They drew a blank so I knew you must still be in town, but I didn’t understand why.’ Will sat on the bed beside her to roll down his stockings.

‘I knew then that if I lost you nothing would ever matter again. Not my own life, not an estate, however much I loved it. Even a block-headed male can put two and two together faced with that realisation. I went to sleep despite the shock of realising that I loved my own wife and woke to the realisation that the Priors knew Dalfield was alive.’

He rubbed one big hand over his face, betraying in that gesture the hours of anxiety, the lack of rest. ‘I still had no idea where you were, but I thought I had best deal with the Priors first, so I told Neil Frazer all about it and enlisted his help as a magistrate in case I needed more than brute force. And there, thank God, you were.’

Julia stroked her hand down his cheek, gently over the bruises, feeling the morning stubble prickling under her palm. He loves me and he would love me even if the worst had been true. She supposed it was possible to feel this happy and for it not to be a dream. ‘You found me. I think you would always find me.’

Will pulled off his shirt and stood to unfasten his breeches. Julia scrambled out of her own clothes, careless of pulled buttons, and looked up from unlacing her stays to find him naked, bruised all over his torso and flagrantly aroused. ‘Those bruises! Will, they must hurt so—’

‘Then take my mind off them and do not try to test your theory that I can always find you by running away again. It ruins my sleep,’ he added as he joined her on the wide bed.

Julia gave a little snort of laughter and kissed his collarbone, the nearest part of him she could reach. Ah, the smell of his skin…

‘That is good—I was wondering if I would ever hear you laugh again.’

‘I like this, having you naked and at a disadvantage,’ she murmured, pursuing the line of the bone to the point of his shoulder and biting gently. ‘Tired and battered, my poor love. I can have my wicked way with you.’

‘Disadvantage?’ He rolled her over with a mock growl and pounced, wrestling with the squirming, laughing, woman and the loose tapes of the corset. ‘It would take more than a few bruises and a disturbed night to weaken me.’

Julia lay back with a contented sigh of agreement as Will began to kiss his way down her body. He paused to twirl his tongue in her navel, which always made her giggle, then raised his head. ‘Talking of disturbed nights, do you feel any more comfortable with the idea of children?’ He spoke lightly, but she could sense his underlying hesitation in case he hurt her.

‘I feel very comfortable with that idea, my lord,’ she said. ‘In fact, I think we may have already begun the process. I am not certain, but I have hopes.’

Will moved so fast she hardly had time to blink. One moment she had been sprawled in sensual abandon, the next she was under the covers in Will’s arms and he was holding her as cautiously as he might a basket of eggs. ‘Will! I am not fragile.’ Julia twisted to try to caress him, show him that she wanted, above everything, to make love.