Chapter 21

CHAPTER21

As it turned out, that brief respite was enough to buoy Julia’s spirits as she descended to the gardens for afternoon tea with Mary.

Lord and Lady Colman spared no expense in hosting the house party, and afternoon tea was no exception. Several tables were placed under canopies in the sprawling gardens, and the young ladies had naturally gathered towards one particular table with a towering array of scones, cakes, and dainty, little sandwiches.

“Lady Julia, you look well recovered,” Lady Amanda remarked with a pretty smile.

Julia replied with a saccharine smile of her own at the backhanded compliment. “Thank you, Lady Amanda.”

“Papa says that they will just wash up before joining all of us for afternoon tea,” Miss Delaney interjected with the deftness of a hot knife through butter.

“They” being the gentlemen attending the house party, of course.

Almost immediately, the table erupted into a burst of giggles and excited chatter as the young ladies settled into their favorite pastime of angling for a good match. Julia nearly rolled her eyes as she helped herself to a tiny slice of carrot cake. Fortunately, no one was as tactless to comment on her supposed courtship with Lord Cosby as Lady Amanda had been earlier.

Soon enough, the gentlemen began to file into the gardens—having washed and changed from their foray into the woods, of course—and the chatter was turned down a notch as the young ladies sought to carry themselves as elegantly as they could while stealing glances at the other table.

When Lord Cosby arrived, he looked as if he might approach their table, but Julia hastily ducked her head and made a great show of heaping a lavish amount of clotted cream on her scone. Being the gentleman that he was, he hid his disappointment extremely well as he joined Lord Montgomery instead.

“Mama will not be pleased that you have chosen to pointedly ignore Lord Cosby,” Mary remarked under her breath.

“Mama is hardly pleased with me at all these past few weeks,” Julia muttered in reply.

Her sister smiled wryly. “True.”

“Lord Cosby is ever so handsome,” they heard one of the young ladies, a Miss Penelope Jennings, gush. “And such a perfect gentleman.”

Julia nearly laughed out loud at that. If only these ladies could spend a little more time with him, then they might be obliged to change their opinions regarding the Viscount.

But were not most gentlemen the same, anyway?

Perhaps this is merely because he thinks in the way most of the gentlemen in the ton actually think.

A young lady’s marriage, after all, was more transactional than anything, and as long as a gentleman was landed, titled, and wealthy, then most would agree that he was a good catch, indeed. It hardly mattered if their temperaments matched or if they could tolerate each other’s presence for more than half an hour at best.

Such was the predicament Julia found herself in with Lord Cosby, who, for all intents and purposes, was considered an exceedingly good catch. In fact, there were many—like Miss Penelope Jennings—who would be over the moon should the Viscount express his favor towards them, like a monarch bestowing a boon upon a peasant.

“Oh, there is no hope with that one, I’m afraid,” she heard Miss Catherine Fletcher tell her friend with a sad tone. “It is no secret that Lord Cosby is already extremely taken with another young lady, and there have been talks of a possible betrothal, or so my mama says.”

Julia pretended not to see the furtive looks the young ladies shot her way when they talked about Lord Cosby. If Miss Penelope wanted the Viscount so much, she was more than welcome to have him.

“Then what about him?”

“Him who?”

“Him.” The word came out in a hiss as if Miss Penelope did not want to attract undue attention to herself as their gazes collectively swiveled to the latest gentleman to walk into the gardens.

Even Julia looked up from her tea and scones as she watched Andrew walk confidently into the area with the air of a man who knew his place in the world. For a moment, their eyes met, and she felt that familiar heat rushing through her blood, that slight tingle dancing down her spine. She saw a smile curve his lips briefly before he turned away and walked towards Lord Cosby.

Julia released the breath she did not know she had been holding the whole time.

“I think we have our answer now.” Mary laughed softly as she gently nudged her sister in the ribs.

Julia shook her head with a slight frown. “What do you mean?”

“You could hardly take your eyes off him,” Mary pointed out. “And the moment he walks in, he searches for you.”

A thrill of happiness ran through Julia before she immediately tamped it down. “He is probably thinking up ways to torment me throughout the entire weekend,” she grumbled.

“And have you never wondered why he goes through all that trouble?”

Julia’s cup paused midway to her lips as Mary smiled to herself in satisfaction.

“You, of all people, should know how men react in different ways towards women—particularly those whom they are attracted to,” Mary said simply.

But was Andrew truly attracted to Julia in the way her heart craved in its deepest, most desperate recesses? Or was it simply lust and nothing more?

They had already spent one night together, and in his estimation, it should have cured them of the fierce longing that seemed to have consumed them both. Yet, why was it that she still longed for him so ardently?

Why did it not seem enough for her to spend just one night with him?

Instead of curing her, he had become a drug—one that she craved with an almost painful intensity.

At that moment, Julia knew that she should never touch Andrew Walford again, or she would never be rid of this madness that had taken hold of her.

* * *

Andrew was all too familiar with young ladies casting longing glances at him, but he was unprepared for the sheer intensity that burned in Julia’s eyes when he met her gaze that afternoon. It was as if her eyes were twin flames that burned, branding themselves on his very soul, just before she averted her gaze as if nothing had happened.

Temptress,he wanted to call out. Cunning witch.

He had thought that after that night they spent together, he would be cured of his insatiable longing for her, but the opposite had happened instead—she had bewitched him, body and soul, and now she was like a siren song that had wrapped itself around his consciousness. His every breath craved her scent. His legs longed to run towards her.

He was mad. She was madness.

When he finally turned away from her, the loss seemed so visceral that he felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

But he could not disgrace them both by running towards her in the presence of the other guests, so he turned towards Lord Colman, hoping the older gentleman would be able to distract him with bland politics and the like. As he strove to focus on his host’s take on the countless dilemmas that besieged Parliament, he could not help but count the moments until William and Selina finally arrived.

Either that or he could plot to get to Julia alone—a notion that would have been so preposterous to him just a few weeks ago.

Liar. You have wanted her from the very first moment you saw her. Wanted and hated and burned for her…

The line between hatred and attraction was very fine, indeed, and he had been walking along it for years now. While their most heated exchanges should have fueled his revulsion of her audacity, they had instead drawn him ever closer to her, as if he was a moth and she was a living flame.

He would burn for it, he knew. They both would.

It was only his concern for her that stayed his basest desires in seeking her out and bringing about her ruin. As much as he wanted her, craved her, he could not do that to her.

Moments later, when he had finally managed to keep himself under control by indulging Lord Colman’s great love for talking about politics ad nauseum, Andrew finally decided to mingle with the other guests. Perhaps if he distracted himself with the most unpleasant activity of dealing with tenacious mamas foisting their unmarried daughters on him, he might be able to survive the rest of the day until he managed to talk to Julia alone.

Alone. That word sent a thrill through him when it should not.

“Well, I suppose you can lay those wishes to rest.” He heard a young lady sigh despondently. “It seems like Lady Julia has made another conquest today.”

Andrew stopped in his tracks. He had never been much of a gossip, but these two young ladies were all but airing their opinions for the rest of the party.

“What? She could not have!”

“Have you seen the way Lord Trowbridge looked at her? The man could hardly take his eyes off her!”

“Really, Annie… you must have been imagining things!”

The young lady named Annie let out a delicate snort. “I wish I was, truly.”

“Could she not leave us with at least a few suitors?” the other one cried. “She cannot possibly marry them all!”

A snicker. “Perhaps she can. Perhaps she intends to lead them all along a merry chase before her papa finally marries her off to Lord Cosby and ends our collective misery.”

That final statement had the particular effect of making Andrew want to burst out in righteous indignation on Julia’s behalf. He had known that young ladies held a particular disdain for those they saw as rivals in their matrimonial quests rather than comrades.

But beyond that, he also saw that Julia had become a threat to these young ladies, as well as some kind of prize that most of the young bucks in attendance probably sought to win.

And there was one way that would make her less of a target for all—she had to become unavailable.

The young ladies wanted to see her married off. The gentlemen likely would not stop until someone laid a legitimate claim on her. Julia had said as much herself when she agreed to spend the night with Andrew—courtship would solve her problems.

And if he courted her, that would solve his problems as well. His mother would quit trying to foist unmarried young ladies on him in the hopes that one of them might be able to entice him to become his Marchioness.

But how was he supposed to court a woman who was now, for all intents and purposes, trying to avoid him?

Andrew looked up at the sky which had started to turn pink and purple. Already, the guests were starting to head back inside the house to get changed for dinner.

Julia Lewis might try to avoid him with all her might, but at a house party, how far and how long could she really run from him?