Angel in My Arms (44 page)

The ermine lining of her new cloak ruffled in the wind, brushing the
sensitive flesh of her throat. Instead of feeling soft as it should
have, it felt as abrasive as spun steel. She hated the cloak. She hated
he who had sent it. She hated her mother for making her wear the cloak.
She hated her mother for making her marry him.

"I would miss you if you went away to our Lord Jesus…"

The sound of her younger sister's voice startled Julia, and she
gripped the wall tightly. Fearing she might lose her balance and
plummet off the tower ruin, she took a step back and opened her eyes.
"Lizzy! What are you doing up here? You'll catch your death in this
cold!"

Lizzy drew her patched brown woolen cloak tightly around her
shoulders. "You wouldn't do it, would you, Sister? You wouldn't leave
me."

Julia had always wondered how Lizzy had the innate ability to read
others' thoughts. Her mind damaged since early childhood, she barely
had the sense to get in out of a hailstorm, yet she was exceptionally
sensitive to the feelings of others. Sometimes she seemed to understand
Julia's thoughts better than Julia understood them herself.

Julia offered her sister her cold hand. "I just came up here to think… to say goodbye."

She narrowed her pretty eyes. "Not to jump into the ocean and go to Lord Jesus?"

Julia thought a long moment before she replied. Had she climbed the
crumbling tower steps to contemplate suicide? Had she actually
considered the choice of death over marriage to the Earl of St. Martin?
Had she thought herself willing to abandon her sister and mother to the
perils of poverty, rather than marry a man she did not like?

Julia lifted her lashes and gazed into Lizzy's blue eyes, eyes as
blue as the heavens. "Silly chick." She squeezed her sister's petite
hand in her own. "I wouldn't leave you."

"Not ever?"

"Not ever. I just came to say goodbye to the ocean. There's no ocean in London, you know."

"London? Is that the house?" Lizzy's yellow blond hair fluttered in the wind, framing her oval face.

How Julia envied her sister's perfect blond hair. Her own hair had
too much red in it; her father had called it strawberry. "No. London is
the place, the city. Bassett Hall is the house. That's where we'll be
living, you and I."

Lizzy thrust out her lower lip. She was strikingly beautiful, even
when she pouted. "But you'll no longer sleep with me. St. Martin will
sleep in your bed, and I will have to sleep with Drusilla and her cold,
bony feet."

Julia laughed and hugged her sister as she turned her around.
"Better to sleep with Drusilla and her feet than Mother and her
snoring."

The sisters laughed in unison, Lizzy's voice the higher pitched of the two.

"Race you down the steps," Julia dared.

"And ruin my slippers? I think not!"

But the moment Julia darted down the winding, stone steps, Lizzy bolted after her.

"Mother says the coach is ready," Lizzy called. "Race you to London."

Running her hand along the cold stone wall, Julia descended the
steps as fast as she could, her heart pounding. It was time to say
goodbye to the disintegrating walls of the home of her childhood, the
home of her father's childhood, and of his father before him. She was
bound for London and a new life, bound for Bassett Hall and her new
husband.

Julia's grandfather, now dead and buried in the churchyard, had
always said that in life, each time a door closed, another opened. She
prayed feverishly that he was right.

Bassett Hall London, England

The Earl of St. Martin stood at the window of his new gallery
overlooking his gardens. He watched intently as two young women
followed a stone path toward a fountain. Both wore heavy cloaks to ward
off the October chill, but strands of hair escaped their wool hoods and
silk bonnets and fluttered in the wind.

Annoyed by the vexatious sounds of chewing saws and banging hammers,
Simeon glared at the carpenters. He clamped his jaw tight and ground
his teeth. Didn't these maggot brains realize they were disturbing his
concentration?

He considered ordering a halt to the construction, just so that he
might better enjoy his picturesque winter garden, but instead, he chose
to take a deep breath. Inhaling the chilly air, he slowly exhaled warm
breath, forcing himself to be calm. With this great control, he was
able to block out the noise so that he might better enjoy the vision of
the sisters.

His eyelids fluttered at the sight below. He crossed his arms over his chest and brushed his lips with his perfumed fingers.

One woman was quite an ordinary blonde, but the other, Julia, his
betrothed, was simply exquisite. In all his worldly travels, Simeon had
never seen hair the color of his beloved's. It was like spun fire, as
golden and red as the setting of a Caribbean sun, a sparkling jewel in
the midst of the dead winter garden. Now, that fiery hair was his.
Those sparkling blue eyes were his. Julia, heart, mind, soul, and body
were his. All his.

He let out a small sigh of satisfaction and felt his hot breath on
his fingertips. He was glad he had agreed to honor the betrothal
agreement signed many years ago with the wench's father. Though she was
now poor, this connection with her family name would be advantageous.
Her father had fought for Charles I and lost most of his lands and
possessions to Cromwell. In Charles II's court, her father was a hero.
A woman of Julia's distinction could only add to his own importance.

Simeon slid one foot forward to take a closer look, mesmerized by
the way the wind ruffled strands of his Julia's hair. His hand ached to
tuck the locks into her hood. He liked nothing out of order, not even
his betrothed's hair.

A coarse figure moved between him and the window, blocking out the
sunlight and his vision of beatitude, and Simeon shouted in rage.

A yellow-haired, filthy-faced mason yelped in surprise and attempted
to scurry by, a small pallet of bricks propped on one shoulder.

Simeon cuffed him hard against the back of his greasy head as he
slipped past. "Haven't I told you not to step so near me?" he exploded.
"Haven't I?" He struck him a second time.

Knocked off balance, the workman fell headlong to the floor, his stack of bricks scattering as he went down.

"Get away from me, you filthy turd!"

The mason scrambled to his feet and darted off, leaving the broken brown bricks in a crumble of dust where they lay.

Simeon inhaled again, breathing in calm, exhaling anger, as he
returned his attention to the window. He removed a handkerchief from
his sleeve and wiped his hand where it had touched the mason's dirty
hair. Now he would have to return to his bedchamber and wash with
strong lye soap.

Simeon folded the handkerchief carefully so that the soiled part was
inside and returned it to his sleeve. With his clean hand, he smoothed
his gray wool coat with the black velvet garniture as his gaze fell
upon his betrothed once more.

Julia and her sister sat on a stone bench facing him. As the women
arranged their cloaks around their knees, he took a step closer to the
windows that ran the length of the gallery under construction. Julie
was laughing now, as was her dim-witted sister. He wondered what had
amused her so. He wondered what he himself could say that would be
clever enough to make her laugh with him and purse her rosy lips in
such a provocative manner.

The clacking of heeled shoes on the Italian marble floor caught Simeon's attention. Who dared interrupt him now?

It was his cousin Griffin; no one else would be so bold. He was
dressed in his usual abominable fashion, this morning in lime green and
yellow striped breeches with a matching lime green great coat with
yellow looped ribbons hanging from his shoulder. The heels of his shoes
were lemon yellow, as was the hat perched on his black Stuart's wig.

Behind him trotted a Moor close in age to his master, his skin as
dark as ebony against his white turban and flowing robes. Griffin had
never voiced his relationship to the man, but Simeon guessed that like
many of the fops of Charles's decadent Court, Griffin retained him as a
sexual plaything as well as a personal servant. The thought disgusted
Simeon, but he liked Griffin, so he tried not to think about it.

"Good morning, Cousin," Simeon offered.

"Good morning, my villain with a smiling cheek." Griffin removed his
befeathered hat and bowed deeply, striking a pretty leg, Simeon drew
back his lips in a near smile. His cousin was impertinent, but at least
he knew his place. He liked a man who knew his place, especially when
it was below him. "And where are you bound this morning? I hadn't
thought you drew your shades before noon."

Griffin chuckled as he replaced his ridiculous hat and took his
silver-tipped cane from the Moor. "I've a call to make at Whitehall in
high chambers. Care to join me?" He buffed his polished fingernails on
the sleeve of his coat.

"No, thank you. I've better matters to attend to than our King's tattletales." Simeon nodded to the window. "Have you seen her?"

Griffin Sifted a plucked eyebrow.
"Her,
my lord?"

"My latest acquisition. My betrothed, of course. She's in the garden. Come see." He waved his cousin toward the window.

"Ah, the blessed Virgin Mary, of course." Griffin drew to the window, his Moor a step behind.

The men leaned on the unfinished sill and gazed down. At the same
moment, Julia looked up toward the gallery. For an instant her face was
without emotion, as it had been for the three days since her arrival
from Dover, but then, to Simeon's delight, it lit up with the most
angelic smile.

Simeon felt his heart flutter. The smile was for him. So perhaps she
didn't dislike him after all, but was simply playing coy, as women
sometimes did.

Simeon turned his head to speak to Griffin, and his smile turned to
a frown. His cousin was staring intently at his betrothed, too
intently, a strange light in his blue eyes. Simeon looked back down
into the garden and came to the unpleasant realization that Julia's
smile was not for him, but for his foppish cousin.

A quick anger bubbled up inside Simeon.
Witless female,
he thought.
Fickle.
And worse…
untidy.

"And yet I love refinement, and beauty and light are for me the same as desire for the sun,"
Griffin whispered.

For an instant, his cousin's comely face appeared different to
Simeon; the light in his eyes reflected a depth in the man he was
certain didn't exist.

Simeon scowled. His cousin was always babbling something from obscure literature."God's teeth, I don't know what
you're
staring at. Everyone knows you prefer the rod!"

Griffin blinked and the strange light in his eyes disappeared so quickly that Simeon wondered if he had imagined it.

"A might dimber wench," Griffin commented lightly. "But by the
stars, that hair. Looks like she just tumbled from your sheets, my
lord. Do let Monsieur De'nu see what he can do with her coiffure." Once
again he was his silly self.

Simeon took Griffin's comment as a compliment to his manhood and
smiled again. "Pleasant tart, isn't she? Nice, firm teats, but then you
wouldn't really appreciate that, would you?" He eyed the Moor.

Griffin fluttered a perfumed handkerchief he pulled from his coat sleeve like a magician. The man couldn't be insulted.

"God rot my bowels, you're lewdly bent." Griffin laughed, and Simeon laughed with him.

Simeon liked Griffin for his wit. That was why he tolerated his
vices and was willing to keep him in cloth and coin. Simeon liked to
keep such men under his thumb. They added to his own notability.

"Well, I should be on my way. I ordered your coach and four. You don't mind do you, Cousin?"

"Take it." Simeon gave a flip of his hand, feeling generous. "Keep it all night."