Chapter 14

"Put the tea and coffee pot there," Louisa directed her staff, "And the additional cakes, tarts and sweet things on the sidebar in case we need them."

It was the day Lady Diana was to arrive, and Louisa was in a flurry to make sure everything was in place. The main drawing room was aired, the eyelet curtains were fluttering.

Her eyes ran worriedly over the table, even though it was orderly covered in artfully arranged lilacs, greenery, and silver serving dishes. Not a thing was out of place, but a thought lingered in the back of her mind about what more she could have done.

"There," she nodded in temporary relief. "That's good. Oh, Miriam, fetch the smelling salts from the surplus in the attic, please."

She hoped not to have to use them, but the truth was that Rose was still delicate and Louisa did not know what might overwhelm her. Lucius had gone to collect Rose and take her to the townhouse, and she wanted to make sure everything was in place.

"Your Grace," Sawyer bowed. "Lady Diana has arrived."

Tuning, her gaze ran over a slender lady, tall but not obscenely so, her pale blonde hair was parted in the middle, ringlets dangling over her cheeks, and her accessories were simple pearls at her ears and gloves of cream kind. She looked like an exquisite doll in an simply ivory satin gown trimmed with a feather fringe, that accentuated her figure to perfection.

Her wide, innocent eyes met Louisa and she instantly dropped into a curtsy, as did her maid behind her.

"Your Grace," Lady Diana greeted her voice as musical as silver bells. "I am overjoyed to finally meet you."

"So am I," Louisa smiled, instantly enchanted by the young girl.

For so many of her school years, Louisa had amassed a third sense to feel deception and disingenuity from her fellow schoolmates; the ones who smiled in your face but had an arsenal of spiteful words to lobby like swords into one's back. She sensed no outward duplicity from this girl.

Taking Lady Diana's hand, she knew the gracious ingénue knew nothing of the harsh world. She had never had another girl tell her she was disgusting to her face or have a group of hateful debutants poison the water against her.

"Welcome to my home," she said. "You have such a lovely, sophisticated gown. Not a fan of the flounces, florets or a mass of ribbons, are you?"

Diana's eyes widened, "How did you know? Oh goodness, no one believes me when I tell them such a thing. Thank you for being the first one."

"Please sit," she said, "My husband and his sister, your old friend will be here soon."

"Gladly," Lady Diana blinked, then turned, "My apologies, this is my lady-maid Mary, and she will attend to me during our delightful luncheon."

"Your Grace," the young woman curtsied again. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"You are welcome, please be?—"

"I hope we're not too late," Julius said while striding in.

His strong presence easily commanded her attention as he strode powerfully across the floor. He was dressed to perfection in a dark silk coat and his black waistcoat only emphasized the strength of his torso.

His cravat studded with a single emerald. was a stark white, as the shirt below it, and his black breeches clung tightly to his thighs and his black polished boots were like a mirror.

Reaching Louisa, he took her hand and kissed it, then turned as Rose entered the room. Diana turned and her face lit up at seeing the other young lady. Rose, clad in a simple, but stunning peach dress with puff sleeves, had her hair up and pinned with pearl clips.

"Lady Diana," Rose came forward, grasping her friends' hands as they exchanged French kisses. "So happy to see you again."

"As am I," Diana said. "Oh my, what has it been? Two years? Three? I never forgot you, as you were one of the most accomplished ladies in the school. I am sure, to this day, your legacy still holds strong at Lady Westbury's."

"I doubt that but thank you for saying such a kind thing. Excuse me a moment," Rose parted from Diana to hug Louisa and in her ear whispered, "Thank you for being a buffer for me today."

Smiling, Louisa nodded, then turned, "Shall we all sit? Our tea is getting cold."

Whatever the ladies were talking about, went in one of Julius' ears and out the other. Sipping his coffee, he trained his attention on Rose, trying to spot the barest hint of discomfiture or anxiety so he could stop the proceedings and whisk her out of the room—but there was none.

He was tempted to drop his guard, but he knew he could not, not when he remembered the stage he had found Rose in a year ago.

"I must warm you, Master Julius," Gregory's face was pained. "We didn't realized how far Lady Rose had gotten untethered until we tried to ask her to come outside for tea and she just started pacing and muttering under her breath.

"We knew she was upset when Her Ladyship passed but we were not aware how deeply it had affected her." Gregory said. "One day, when she spent a day wrapped up in what I can only saw was a cocoon, we sent a letter for you only to find that you already at sea.

"There were moments when she did recognize us and have tea with my wife. When my wife asked if we should send for you, she explicitly forbit it," he said. "But we knew it was not wise, so we sent the letter at the naval post, waiting for you to return."

"Where is she?" Julius asked.

"In her rooms. Please, go gently, she is not in her best state of mind."

Grimly, Julius had taken the stairs to Rose's rooms and opened the doors, the chamber was dark except for a curtain tacked away on a pin and Rose was sitting in the window seat, gazing vacantly at the lawns beyond.

Gently, he approached, "Rose?"

She turned, eyes wide, her gaze full of fear—and unrecognition. Drawing on the hunting lessons he had learned over the years, he approached her like he would do a skittish fawn. "Rose, it is me, your brother, Julius."

She'd stared at him, eyes wide, unsure until her face changed and blessed recognition brightened her face, "Julius? Brother?"

"Yes," he said, stepping forward. "I'm here, Rose, I am here for you. You have nothing to fear anymore."

Moving from her perch on the window seat, Rose rushed to his arms and hugged him tight. Relieved, Julius wrapped his arms around her. "I promise, I will never leave you again. I will protect you with my life. You're safe, Rose, you're safe."

The warm touch to his arm jarred him out of his memories and a second before his war-honed reflexes kicked in, rationality did. He was not at war anymore, he was not in danger, it was not an enemy touching him.

"Julius?" Louisa said, her brows lightly furrowed. "Are you with us?"

"I apologize," he replied, giving the two girls a comforting smile. "I tend to get lost in my thoughts when I woolgather. Don't fret about it. Did I miss anything?"

"We were talking about going to Thomas Co," she said and at his blank look, added, "Wellington House, on Fleet Street. It a millenary."

"Did I miss anything important," Julius drawled.

"Remind me to stick pins in your pockets," she said sweetly.

He lifted his cold cup of coffee in a mock salute. "Would you please renew my cup?"

She relieved him of the cup, and made a new one, gently setting it before him. "The girls want to take a walk through the garden," she said. "I think we can supervise from the porch."

The look of peace and care on her face pierced Julius with the sweetest, unexpected feeling. She had caught her hair up in a coronet of a strand of diamonds woven into her auburn locks. Silky wisps framed her face, and she wore the most beautiful high-waisted ivory silk gown seeded with pearls.

"I can do that, but if you do go hat shopping or ribbon spinning, or milk-churning?—"

"Pistol seeking, perhaps?" Louisa said charmingly.

His eyes narrowed, "— please do not regale me with the minutiae of your discoveries, or what hat pin goes with which flowers. You will perhaps achieve the unachievable and bore me to death."

"Girls," Louisa ignored him. "We shall go shopping in by the next week and if you still want to walk the garden, I will show you the way."

Both girls linked arms and followed Louisa down to the one of the back patios, pushed the glass open and the stood aside as the two swanned down the steps and unto the path.

Coming to stand beside her, cup still in hands, Julius asked, "You never told me which book you read on that certain subject."

"Do you recall the book on intimate love written by Signor Givoanni Russo of?—"

"You read that book?" Julius' jaw dropped. "How did you get your dainty little hands on such a scandalous treatise? The last time I heard, the church had burned all those copies and for the ones that were not found, have been buried for centuries."

Louisa canted her head and gave him a saucy little smirk, "I am a Duchess, remember? You name holds the power that opens doors and, in this case, buried coffers."

"But why would you read it?" he asked. "It is as scandalous as Marquis de Sade's writings, but these have no brutality."

She gave a one-shoulder shrug, "Curiosity."

That night, once again, Julius entered her room like a shadow, but her awareness of him was duly heightened. She became aware of her wildly thrumming pulse as his unique scent curled in her nostrils. Keeping still, she waited until he made his nest on the other side of the bed and sunk down.

Time tickled by, as slow as molasses, yet she could not sleep a wink. She had heard his breathing steady and even out; he had been asleep for an hour now and Louisa prayed that his sleep would do him good as it was eluding her.

Gently, shifting on the bed, Louisa inched to the edge of the bed and gazed down; When she rejoined her dozing lover, she curled on her side to face him.

He was ludicrously attractive, even in sleep. A wave of hair lay over his brow, and his long eyelashes lay in shadowed crescents against his pale skin, and a night beard shaded his jaw and around the sensual shape of his lips. Through the unlaced vee of his sleeping shirt, she saw the taut, hair-dusted planes of his chest.

"Ah Julius," she whispered.

The firelight threw his licked muscular shoulders and down to his trim waist, the thin shirt lay light over the rippling ridges of his belly. His hips were taut and hollowed, and when he shifted on his side, his backside was firm and steely.

Her fingertips hovered over his forehead… but she pulled away. Folding her hands under her head, she closed her eyes— but a soft whimper from below had them fluttering open again.

Julius was on his back again, his brows contracting, and his lips were pressed so tightly, they for a bloodless hyphen. In a breath, the grim expression was gone, but in another heartbeat, the rigor was twisting his face again.

It was only when his head started thrashing, Louisa was on her guard. She sat up, unsure of what to do, but knew he was fighting the claws of night-terror. She reached for him— just Julius jackknifed, and a ragged shout left his mouth.

Frightened, she dropped to the floor and reached for him. He slapped her hand away, even while his eyes were closed, as if he sensed her preternaturally.

Undeterred, she flung herself at him and cradled his head, "Julius, Julius, I- I'm here. You're safe, I promise you, you're safe. listen to me, you're safe."

His hands flung to hers and clamped hard, making her wince but she kept on, trying to pull him out of the murk in his mind.

"Julius! Julius, listen to me, you're safe," she said wincing at the pain in her wrists. "You're safe. Listen to me, you're safe—I, please stop, you're hurting me."

His eyes popped open, and a raging wildfire was in their depths. The moment his gaze steadied, Julius dropped his hands and Louisa sucked in a breath, but her lungs strained to pull in air. With his chest heaving, the worried lines on his face deepened while the blue eyes were dark with pain and worry.

Surprise flitted across his features. "Louisa?" his tone was rough and ragged. "What—what happened?"

"You've had a night-terror, Julius," she said, swallowing, "A bad one. I don't know what you saw in your dreams, but you're not there anymore. You're safe at home with me."

His rigid spine slumped, and he pressed his forehead to her shoulder as she sat atop the tangle of bedclothes knotted around his waist.

"Your voice seemed to come through cotton in my ears, or through the stone wall around my estate," he said roughly. "I was in darkness, Louisa, stunned by enemy cannon fire with a dead body holding me down. That body had been the one between me and death… his name was Jonathan Lewis, an infantry man with a wife at home."

His hold on her body was fixed, like a person gripping driftwood to stay away from sinking into the depths below.

Daringly, she ran her hand up his back soothingly like she would do a sick child. His skin was chilled and clammy. "Do you want to talk more about it?"

Pressed close, she could feel his steady, strong heartbeat, and it rooted her in the present. She nosed against his temple, feeling the damp, sweat curls at his temple, another needed reminder that this was real.

"After Waterloo, they were horrible," His voice was still scratchy, rough, raw. "I saw the faces of men who stood by me in training but fell in war. I saw their bloody face, their vacant eyes, that though empty still held this hostile emotion, as if they were accusing me of living while they were dead."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, pulling away, unsure if he was comfortable with more contact. "Julius, do you take… substances to help?"

He scoffed, "Like Laudanum or the increasingly popular eastern opium to numb myself? No, Louisa. I may fear the dreams I have at night, but I will not remove them. In some ways, they still prove to me that I am alive."

Something about the way he'd phrased that sentence perturbed her. Why did he have to specify at night? As much as she felt pressed to ask, she decided that conversation would be best at a different time.

Sitting on her haunches, Louisa offered, "Would you like to sleep with me in the bed? I do not suppose the floor in anyway comfortable."

To his credit, Julius did turn his head to the bed and true consideration marked his face, but the sudden sinking feeling in her gut told her the answer before he said it.

"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head slowly. "It would not be a good plan."

"Would you care to tell me why?"

His eyes closed off, whether to keep his secrets or to hide shame, she didn't know. Julius simply shook his head.

Accepting but unhappy, Louisa let out a long breath, sighing heavily but nodding. She ran her hands up to his shoulders, looking into his face, trying to see if the tension had begun to fade from his face.

Boldly, she levered up and pressed her lips to his for just a moment, brushing a kiss across his mouth, in somewhat of a goodnight, or goodbye kiss, and hearing his swift intake of breath as she stepped back.

I did something wrong again, didn't I?

And then, without warning, Julius pulled Louisa into an unexpected embrace, pulling her into him and holding her tightly, his lips to hers and his head angled to one side to deepen their kiss.

Surprised, Louisa melted into him at once, her arms about his neck and her heart pounding with such a furious joy that she felt as though she was being broken into pieces without any hope of being put back together again.

The kiss was light, tender, and Louisa could feel Julius holding himself back…but from what? Passion? His true desire?

Pulling back, Julius coasted his thumb over her cheekbone. "You should go back to sleep, Louisa. I regret waking you."

"I don't," she replied. "We're husband and wife, Julius, I should know what perturbs you, as you should know the same for me. It is the bare minimum we can do for a married pair. We promised each other to tell each other truth, and now, of all times, I need you to tell me the stark, naked truth. Is there something specifically from the war that is haunting you?"