9

The 9:20 to Paddington

He was kissing her.

Cal’s large, strong hands skimmed lightly down her back, caressing her. His palms went lower, following the curve of her bottom through her jodhpurs. He cupped one hand there and used it to pull her close. Shock hit her. Shock that his hand felt good there—that she liked the pressure of him holding her tight to his firm, warm body. His tongue traced her lips in a caress that made sparks burst and cascade through her with a hot sizzle.

Then his tongue slipped between her lips.

Panicked, Julia pulled back. Ladies didn’t kiss like this. And they didn’t do it in the kitchen of someone else’s cottage. She’d needed to be held, but she couldn’t do this. She gripped Cal’s arms, feeling hard muscle through the sleeves of his worn sweater. “No. Don’t. Please.”

He let her go. “It’s okay. We both needed comforting. Nothing more.”

Nothing more. Of course, he was a wild artist who had love affairs with his models. A kiss didn’t mean that much to him.

Embarrassment set her cheeks on fire. “I must go and see if I am needed.”

He held out his hand for her. “You can’t do anything more for them now. Let me take you home.”

She wouldn’t go until Mrs. Thomas said the same thing. Then she realized—because of her elevated social station, the midwife and the family felt awkward having her help them. She was causing them more distress by being there. When Mrs. Thomas urged her to go home, she finally agreed. Her heart hurt, her stomach hurt, and when she saw Mr. Toft, a most unsentimental man by nature, bend his head into the crook of the neck of his oldest daughter and let his back shake with sobs, she almost dissolved into tears.

Yet there was nothing she could do. Cal drove her home. They didn’t speak in the car. Stars began to wink in the darkening sky, and just looking at them made her want to cry. The car rumbled up the gravel drive—a footman was coming out of the door before they had even stopped. As she was getting out, she said, “When you had to force the doctor to come, you used your title to convince him. I won’t forget that, Cal.”

“I’m sorry, doll. It doesn’t mean anything. You aren’t going to change my mind.”

“I have to,” she said. “I can’t bear to lose anything more. Not even Worthington Park.”

* * *

I can’t bear to lose anything more.

Dawn light spilled in through the attic windows. It wasn’t enough light to paint by, but Cal didn’t care. He couldn’t sleep. He would drift off, then wake up sweating and tangled in the sheets on his huge bed. He’d stalked up here about 3:00 a.m. First, he’d plundered a few bottles of good red wine out of the wine cellar—he couldn’t find the key to the damn lock, so he’d picked it with the end of a kitchen knife.

Despite weaving on his feet from draining the wine to the last drop, he picked up the wooden board he was using as a palette. Squirted paint on it. He painted as hard and fast as he could, working out the frustration inside him.

He wanted to kiss Julia again. The heat she’d sent coursing through his body was like a drug. He wanted more.

His Irish mam had raised him to have a good sense of guilt, and a fear of paying for his sins that he never could quite shake out of his soul.

Both worked on him now, one kicking one side, and one kicking the other, like a couple of gang toughs working him over in an alley.

He’d planned to seduce Julia. Like an artistic challenge. Now he knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pour on the temptation until she gave herself up to the adventure of sex. He couldn’t do it to a woman who transcended the definition of “nice girl.”

But that didn’t stop him from wanting her. More than food. More than the clean, flower-scented country air that kept going into his lungs.

More than revenge?

Hell.

Voices buzzed downstairs. Cal could smell breakfast, even all the way up here in the attic. His gut growled, making him wonder when he’d last eaten. Not last night. He hadn’t come ho—Come back to Worthington for dinner. He’d dropped Julia off at Brideswell, then he had driven down to the local pub.

The Worthington estate was huge, and bordered Brideswell’s land. They were neighbors but miles apart. His lands encompassed several towns and villages, like that one of Chipping Worth, called that because it had been a market. The earldom received money from all the tenants and businesses within. Driving into a village and realizing that he was lord of it, that he owned his own tiny town, was crazy to him.

The beer was bitter and no one seemed to have discovered that the stuff tasted good when it was kept on a bed of ice, but he had to admit it wasn’t half-bad.

Then, in the pub, he’d met a man whose sister had gone missing...

Cal dabbed green where it shouldn’t have gone and stopped. Stepping back from Julia’s portrait, he knew he’d done something damn stupid.

He’d destroyed the picture. Lost his focus and ruined it.

It wasn’t the blob of green, but how he’d changed her. Her face didn’t glow with fiery passion anymore. The portrait was starting to capture her shielded, cool demeanor. It was like she was drawing away from him. There was no spark in her eyes that promised inside there was a lady who would go off like a firecracker.

He’d changed her face with strokes of paint here and there and now he was seeing the women who had pulled away from his kiss yesterday. Who couldn’t face losing one more thing.

He put more paint on the palette. He had to fix the damn picture.

He couldn’t live with himself if he became part of the family that had left his mother to die. Couldn’t face the guilt and pain of giving up this chance to make good on the promise he had made on Mam’s deathbed—to make the Worthingtons, as he thought of them, pay.

It meant hurting Julia. Heaping pain on a woman who had known more than her fair share and who had done nothing but care for people and give her heart to them.

He couldn’t do that. So how in hell did he get justice for his father, for Mam?

Someone was behind him. Quiet as a mouse, but he knew. Julia? He whirled around, hope, despair, desire, guilt, need and pure joy all fighting through his gut like an army.

Creeping daylight—like it was embarrassed to interject on British gloom—fell in through the window and slanted on a set of spectacles. Clutching a book to her chest, his youngest cousin stood there. Dark-haired, like Julia. Which one? Not the audacious flirt, Diana. Thalia.

“It’s a beautiful picture,” she breathed.

“It’s not,” he growled suddenly, hating the picture in front of him. Now he saw the emotion radiating out of Julia’s eyes well enough to put a name on it. Sadness. Sadness that he’d put there—and not just with a brush. “It’s a piece of damn crap.”

He threw the brush, sending a slash of yellow across Julia’s bare, color-dappled shoulders and her ethereal white dress. It felt good. Felt good destroying this thing that he’d tried to do and had failed at.

Rage flowed through his arteries and veins, pumped through his heart. He threw the palette at the top of the canvas, watching it slide partway down, covering unhappy Julia with a veil of yellow and ochre, cadmium red and cobalt blue. Halfway, the descent stopped. As if appalled at what it had done, the palette tipped backward and toppled off the painting, landing on the worn plank floor.

Thalia had stepped back, her stance a perfect mimic of a terrified deer. The rage, the act of violence had scared her. A heel—he felt just like that. And had scared himself. He thought he’d gotten the anger—the bitterness, along with the squeezing grip of having failed—under control. He let it fuel his rage but never command it. He could never hurt a woman physically, but Thalia was making little wheezing-sob sounds like she figured he would.

Then she exploded in a gush of tears and just as he said, “I’m sorry,” and took a tentative step toward her, she bolted from the room on long colt legs.

* * *

In the morning, Julia wanted to hide in bed. Wanted to pretend that the Tofts were not waking up to a day of unimaginable pain.

But she could not hide under her counterpane. There was too much to be done.

It physically hurt to sit up. Her arms ached, feeling heavy as she pushed away the bedcovers. All over, she felt as if bruised. This was the toll of grief.

Imagine how those poor children felt!

Bustling footsteps sounded outside her door. It opened, and Sims glided in, carrying a warming dish and a coffee urn upon a tray. “You are awake, my lady. Her Grace instructed that you would want breakfast in your room this morning.”

Zoe had done that. How good of her. But Julia doubted she could manage much food at all—still, she needed to eat something. Then she must get to work.

Sims set the tray across her lap and poured coffee.

“Sims, I will need a black armband.” It was what was worn when mourning someone who was not an immediate family member, where the rules were most rigid about wearing black.

Sims arched her plucked brow. Folded her arms over her chest. Sims was rail-thin and managed to look astoundingly haughty when she wished. Even Grandmama had nothing on Sims when it came to pinched lips and disapproving looks. “That would not be appropriate, my lady.”

“I wish to mourn a tragic loss. So yes, it is appropriate.”

“But this woman was not a member of your family or your class, my lady. Perhaps you could keep a black handkerchief on your person. Where it would not be seen.”

“I want an armband. Will you do it?”

“No, my lady, I could not. Your mother—”

“Do not tell me what my mother would want me to do,” Julia snapped. She was just...angry and out of sorts today. And she was not going to be bullied by Sims, who acted as lady’s maid to her and Isobel. Isobel delighted in irritating Sims, who could be tremendously snobby, by attempting to wear boys’ clothing whenever possible and leaving her graphic medical books around her room. Julia had been too polite.

She just couldn’t be polite anymore. “I am going to wear an armband even if I must make it myself. I will not be swayed on this. This is important to me.”

Sims began to speak, then stopped, as if biting her tongue. “I shall prepare you an armband.”

“Thank you. You may go,” Julia said firmly.

As Sims left, she set down her coffee and sagged back against her headboard. She was exhausted—she had been awake through most of the night. Sobbing for the Tofts and for a sweet, small baby who would never know life.

Julia lifted the tray off her lap. Instead of summoning Sims again, she pulled on a simple skirt, blouse and cardigan. Thank heaven for modern brassieres—she could put one on herself. Dressed, she went in search of her brother. She could not do much for the Toft family, but she could do one good thing.

She couldn’t find Nigel in his usual haunts—the study or the library. The dining room was empty. Frustrated, Julia poured a cup of coffee.

“What’s wrong?” It was Zoe, walking in from the salon. “Is it about Mrs. Toft? That is such a tragedy.” Zoe hugged her.

“It’s also about Dr. Hamilton,” Julia said. “He is a hopeless snob. He was going to refuse to help Mrs. Toft because she is not a highborn woman. I threatened him to force him to go.”

“You threatened him?”

“I reminded him that our family is the donor for the hospital and Nigel could force him out. Hamilton also drinks while he is working at the hospital.”

“I think we must fire him,” Zoe said firmly.

Here was her opportunity. “But we need a new doctor. Otherwise people will have no one.”

“Better no one than a pickled quack,” Zoe said. “You went with the Earl of Worthington, didn’t you? You’ve been spending a lot of time with him. Are you falling in love with him?”

The warm tingle of his kiss sat guiltily on her lips. “Of course not,” Julia protested quickly. “He wants to sell Worthington Park and I am fighting to convince him otherwise.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He hates the family because they disowned his father. I understand his anger, but I don’t want him to make the people of Worthington—the tenants, the servants—suffer.”

“And it necessitates that you spend every day with him?”

“Well, yes, it does,” she said, rather defensively.

Zoe smiled.

“Anyway,” Julia went on, “what we need is a doctor.”

“I agree. And I can think of one,” Zoe said, casually playing with the long rope of her bead necklace, trying to sound as if this was an obvious, utterly natural decision. “There is Dr. Campbell of course.”

“Impossible. He is at the London Hospital, and very happy there. And he is to be married. To someone else.”

It was easy to say that now. She no longer felt a stab of pain. When she said those words, she only thought of Cal’s mouth coming down over hers and him kissing her slow and coaxingly, and it felt as if the world had tumbled over.

“Yes, he’s said that. But is that certain?”

“Zoe, of course it is certain.” She hesitated. “Of course, he would be an excellent doctor for the people of Brideswell, but I don’t believe we could convince him—”

“We won’t even try, Julia. I’m not having you see Dr. Campbell and his new bride here. It would break your heart every single day. For once, you’re not going to make a sacrifice for the sake of everyone else. We will find someone else. I must go to London, to Harley Street. Why don’t you come with me? You can help in the hunt for a doctor.”

“Perhaps I should stay instead. For the Tofts...”

“We could be gone for only a day and a night. Enough time to make inquiries on Harley Street. I’m sure we could find recommendations easily. I’d say we need a new doctor with promise, or an older one looking to escape London’s smoke-filled fog.” Zoe picked up a plate and loaded it with selections from the warming dishes.

This was something she could do. “I will take up the task, while you go to your appointment.” Then she saw, with amazement, the food pile up on Zoe’s plate—sausage, roast beef, ham.

Zoe looked up. “I am absolutely starving. I can’t seem to eat enough and if I don’t eat, I feel sick. No one knows yet but I suppose I have told you now.”

“Told me what?”

“You must know, Julia! Why does a woman feel queasy?”

“She’s ill?”

“Or she is pregnant,” Zoe said, with American bluntness and honesty. An English lady would say “expecting” or “enceinte.”

“How wonderful!” Julia cried. Her heart gave a pang. She was so happy, but there was that envy, deep inside. That wish she could have a child of her own. A home of her own. Then the image came again. Mrs. Toft closing her eyes and simply letting go, letting go of the world that her last child never saw—

“I’m sorry,” Zoe said suddenly. “I shouldn’t have talked about this now. Not after what you went through.”

Had she looked so awful? One glance at her face and Zoe leaped to her feet and extended arms in comfort. “Zoe, I am happy you told me. Joyful news is exactly what I need. It gives hope. Little pieces of hope that all join together and become stronger than pain. It was just for a minute that I remembered... I don’t want you to walk on eggshells around me. I think I am tough enough—”

“Don’t become tough. People call it tough, but it really means they are trying not to feel anything. That never works. Trust me,” Zoe said.

Julia hugged her sister by marriage. “You’re right. I think—I think I’m going to go to Mother’s chapel. I want to say a little prayer for the Tofts. And I shall probably have a good cry. Then I shall prepare for London.”

She went out through the terrace doors off the gallery. A cool sting bit the air and clouds rumbled by, driven by a strong breeze that carried more threat of winter than promise of summer. She must go and see her war widows today, check on their progress before she went to London. On the days she hadn’t seen Cal, she had begun arranging the loans. She had gone to see Ellen Lambert, urging her to take money and begin some sort of business. But Ellen continued to refuse.

Another figure walked ahead of her, a woman with her head bowed and a scarf fluttering around her head.

Her mother.

She knew where her mother was going—the same place she was. The chapel was a place Julia rarely went. But today she wanted to go there. Julia followed the path that led to the small stone chapel their father had built for their mother when they first married. When Julia was young, she’d thought it was a symbol of her father’s devoted love for her mother. Then she’d discovered how unhappy they were. It was strange—one year a girl would have no awareness of her parents’ strife, the next year she felt it in every breath she took.

Julia pushed open the low wooden door and stepped into the chapel. The air was almost cold. Her mother knelt at the altar and at the soft hush of the door closing, she turned around. “Julia? Is something wrong?”

She walked to the altar to join Mother. “I was at Lower Dale Farm last night. When Mrs. Toft passed away and her baby was lost.”

To her surprise, her mother embraced her. Her mother had not hugged her...in years and years. “What a terrible tragedy,” her mother said softly, but Julia didn’t care about the words. It was nice to simply be held.

The largest stained glass window, with pride of place behind the altar, depicted the holy infant in the mother’s arms.

“Why a baby?” Julia whispered. “A poor child who never knew life? Why?”

“The babe has gone to heaven,” her mother said.

“You know as well as I do—any religious man would deny that was true for a baby who wasn’t baptized.” Tears leaked down.

“I cannot believe that—that an innocent soul would not be saved,” Mother whispered.

Julia met her mother’s large green eyes. Eyes just like those of her brothers, Sebastian and Will.

“This has broken your heart, my dear,” her mother said.

“I want to be strong. I want to be of use. But I’m not sad. Now I understand how I feel. So angry.”

“I know, my dear. I was so angry when we lost Will. When Nigel came home to us wounded. I was so afraid to let out that anger that I couldn’t let myself feel anything at all.”

“It was anger, not sorrow?”

“Grief is many things,” Mother said. “Oh, my dear, this has broken my heart, too. We must pray for them both.”

Julia knelt at her mother’s side. Her mother’s soft voice flowed over her as she prayed. She wanted to believe in heaven—that Mrs. Toft could look down over her children and still watch them grow. That perhaps, in heaven, her baby wouldn’t be lost and all alone.

After the prayers, Mother and she walked back to the house, their arms linked. Grief and sorrow had driven them apart for years. Yet now, it had brought them together.

“I will not push you to marry, Julia,” her mother said.

“Thank you.”

And with that, she felt she had put marriage behind her. She must look to a future without it. Once she came back from London—having found a doctor for the Brideswell Hospital—she could move toward the real life she was going to have.

* * *

The next morning, as the mist scurried away from Brideswell’s lawns, it was a flurry to get to the station for the early train.

Footmen hastened out of the front door with trunks and hatboxes. They stacked the luggage on the back of the Daimler and tied it in place, as the two lady’s maids, in their traveling outfits, ensured no box or bag or case was missed.

Julia stood with Nigel, who held Nicholas in his arms, as Zoe came down, drawing on her gloves. Zoe wore a scarlet coat and matching cloche and her heeled black shoes clicked on the tiles. She kissed Nigel farewell—not on his cheek but full on his mouth. Then she lifted her son into her arms and rubbed her nose against his, until he giggled. “I’ll miss both my men very much,” Zoe whispered, her voice catching.

Julia certainly understood the catch in Zoe’s voice, the tears shining in her eyes. Nicholas looked adorable in a blue sailor-style suit. His hair was dark as Nigel’s, fine as silk, and his eyes were huge as he said, “Go wif Mama.”

“Oh, darling, you can’t come with me this time. Just a boring visit to the doctor for me.”

“I should go with you,” Nigel said.

Zoe gave him a wry, tough smile. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure this expensive Harley Street specialist will coddle me since I’m a duchess.”

Then Julia was drawn into her brother’s embrace. “Look after Zoe,” he murmured by her ear. “You know how headstrong she is. I know you’ll convince her to be responsible. You understand duty and responsibility.”

When she heard it spoken that way, it sounded like a dreaded disease.

Zoe caught her eye and winked. “We will be the most responsible women in the country. I assure you that the prime minister will come calling by the end of our visit, to take notes on how to be properly cautious, responsible and dutiful.”

“I know you won’t,” Nigel said. “But be careful.”

“I will take care of her,” Julia promised.

“And I’ll take very good care of Julia,” Zoe added.

When they reached the station, Julia was surprised to see Diana waiting on the platform. She looked lovely in a slim-fitting dress of black crepe with a short skirt, and a jacket of white silk, trimmed in black. Ropes of jet-black beads dangled over the curve of her bosom. Diana linked arms with her. “Do you mind if I go down to London with you?”

“Of course not.” Then more quietly. “Why are you going? For shopping?”

“Why do you think? It’s to see him. This is my last chance—” Diana broke off. “It’s Cal.”

And it was. The kiss tingled on her lips, as if it were still dancing there. For days, she had thrust herself into Cal’s life whether he wanted it or not. Now she didn’t know how to stand, or where to look.

He looked stunned to see her. “Julia? What are you doing here?”

She realized she really did not want to see him. She had kissed him. She had never dreamed of kissing a man she wasn’t going to marry, even though women did that all the time now. They did just about everything you could do with a husband with men they desired but didn’t want to marry. But she could never do that.

“We’re going up to London,” Diana said.

“So am I,” he said.

Diana narrowed her eyes. “What for?” she asked, with bluntness that a lady was never supposed to use.

“To see a lawyer,” he answered. “Worthington’s man of business.”

Julia jerked her head up. She looked at him, but Cal looked innocent, as if butter would not begin to melt on that warm tongue of his.

“Why are you doing that? You’re not arranging the sale of anything, are you?” Fear gripped her. Her last words to him had been that she couldn’t bear to lose one more thing—including Worthington. But she’d never thought it would change his mind and she supposed it hadn’t. But she needed more time!

“Of course not,” he answered, after a pause.

But the light way he spoke, with a touch of a lilting Irish accent he must have picked up from his mother, made her certain he was not telling the truth. He was trying too hard to sound innocent. Her heart raced. “You haven’t even met all the tenants yet. You can’t—”

“Not to worry, doll. I’m not going to pull the rug out from under you.”

“Well...well, thank heavens for that at least. For then I would fall on my bottom.”

“I would never do that after what you’ve just been through.” He studied her and his voice was caress-soft. “But I’m thinking about making you a deal. If I keep going with you to meet the tenants, you have to sit for me.”

“Sit for him? What do you mean?” asked Zoe. She asked it politely, but she watched Cal with a rapier-sharp gaze. Julia wondered if Zoe was worried about her safety with Cal. But she wasn’t going to kiss him like that ever again.

“I’d like to paint a portrait of Julia.”

“Oh,” Zoe said. Then in a softer, but more intense tone, she said. “Oh.”

“I need to paint you, Julia.”

“I thought you already were. I saw the picture.”

“I had to scrap it. Without you to model for me, I couldn’t get it right. Say yes, Julia. This picture of you—it could be the best thing I ever do.”

He’d moved close to her, holding her gaze, his eyes full of hope and his voice full of urgency. It was as if it meant life and death to him.

She was going to say no—sit in front of him for hours? She’d yearn to kiss him.

Why couldn’t she find out about passion with Cal? She couldn’t do it without caring too much about him—she already did. And she couldn’t lose one more thing—neither Cal, nor the very last unbroken piece of her heart.

“Please, Julia?” His voice was the softest rasp.

But no didn’t come out. “Would you promise not to do a thing to Worthington while I sit for you?” she asked. She hadn’t even consciously thought that.

He cocked his head. A train whistle blew and she heard the clatter of locomotive wheels on the tracks in the distance. “I’m almost willing to do that just to get you into my studio.”

“But not willing to go that far?”

He grinned. “That’s probably the first time I’ve said it. I’m not willing to go that far.”

“Then what are you willing to do?”

“Keep an open mind. And give you another chance to convince me.”

She was about to point out that she was not getting much in return when Diana, who had been standing there, broke in. “Julia, darling, he does paint women naked.”

She had forgotten about that. “That’s not what you want me to do, is it?”

“I never would have dreamed of asking. Unless you’re willing.”

She was about to say: Of course I wouldn’t. Then she saw the wicked grin playing on his lips. He was expecting her to be shocked and outraged. So she gave him a serene smile. “The idea is more intriguing than I expected. I will be in London for three days. I’ll give you my answer at the end of the trip.”

He made a sputtering sound.

And despite the pain of yesterday, she felt a ray of hope blossom. She might just win the most important battle she’d ever waged.

The train chuffed in and smoke billowed out, wreathing them in its white mist. Julia felt a gaze on her, and turned to see Zoe staring at her with one brow raised.

People disembarked. Porters opened the doors of the first-class carriages. Farther down the platform, Julia saw all their luggage vanishing into the train, then Sims and Zoe’s maid climbed the step into their compartment. As they got on board, Julia asked Cal, “Are you opening Worthington House in London for your stay?”

“Wor—What?” he said. He’d been staring at her. She managed to hide a smile of victory.

If he wanted this from her, surely she could use it to save the estate. And to help him heal. She could use the time with him while he was painting to do just that.

“The London house. Worthington House is just a block from our London house. In Mayfair. Near Hyde Park.”

Then he said, “I plan to stay at a hotel. I don’t think a man needs more than one house that’s big enough to house a small village.”

“Worthington House is lovely,” Diana declared. “Of course, you’re going to stay there. Once we arrive, I will telephone and have it prepared. It’s short notice, but it can be done. I will stay there with you.”

“I’d rather stay in a hotel,” Cal muttered.

“It is your house,” Diana returned. “Get used to it.”

Cal murmured something. Julia barely heard it. It sounded like, “Not for long.” Her heart plunged. For a moment. Then stubborn determination kicked in as she followed Diana into one of the first-class carriages, and Zoe followed them as Cal held the door.

Maybe she would sit naked for him, if that’s what it would take.

But she knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything so intimate unless it was for a man she loved. And who loved her back.

Diana took a seat by the window and planted her hand on the cushion next to her. “Join me, Cal?”

Julia sat across, so she could sit by the window. A few whistles, much haste on the platform, then the whistle tooted once more and they set off. She pressed close to the window as the wheels began to clack on the rails. She loved to see the steam billowing around them as the train started off, then to watch the scenery stream by.

“You look like a kid on her first train trip, Julia,” Cal said. “All excited.”

She looked away from the window. Cal was looking at her—only at her—as if they were the only two in the carriage. Zoe was reading a newspaper. Diana looked bored, as only a fashionable woman could, but she was watching Cal from under the fringe of blackened lashes.

“Travel does excite me,” Julia admitted. “I love this sense of hurtling somewhere new.”

“Hardly new, dearest,” Diana drawled. “You’ve been to London thousands of times.”

Diana partly slumped on the seat in a shockingly casual pose, extended one leg so it rested alongside Cal’s long legs.

“Have you traveled farther than London?” he asked.

“We go north for shooting,” Julia explained. “But that is the absolute farthest.”

“Not Paris? Not Monte Carlo?”

She shook her head. “My mother has been very weak and troubled since after the War, when my youngest brother died. She couldn’t travel and I didn’t want to leave her. But now she’s much better. Time seems to be healing her. And there is Zoe now, who watches out for her, too.”

Zoe looked up and smiled, then returned to her newspaper. The Wall Street Journal—sent specially to her.

“So you’re free now to go wherever you desire,” Cal said. “Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.” She hadn’t traveled very much. If she had married Dougal she wouldn’t have traveled. If she married someone like Bradstock, she would be expected to travel to fashionable places—places deemed socially acceptable.

Before she could respond to that further, he said again, “You’re free to go anywhere you like. Why don’t you travel the world?”

Vivid images flooded her head. Of palm trees and the rippling water of the Nile, where pyramids could be seen from the deck of a steamer. Or the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Or the stunningly tall buildings of New York. Of course, her mental pictures were all from images in advertisements and magazines. “I couldn’t afford to do that. Nor can I travel alone. Not as an unmarried woman. It would be much too scandalous and shocking.”

“It’s a modern world. You can be shocking.”

“I’m not shocking at heart.”

Zoe was not looking at her newspaper—she was discreetly watching them. But Diana piped up, “Oh no, Julia is not wild and adventurous at all. The most daring thing she’s done is go to an underground jazz club. I’ve tried to coax her to do wild things in London with me. I mix with the most exciting crowd of young artists and bold young peers. They’ve taken to calling us the Bright Young Things.”

Cal pulled out a black-bound book from a satchel and a pencil. He began to sketch. “Where would you like to go, Julia?”

“Paris.”

His brow rose. “You’re decisive. Why Paris?” Then he smiled. “Your brother lives there. Go visit him.”

“I simply...can’t. I could hardly get on a ship alone and voyage so far.”

“Women do, doll. Or go with a friend. You know, I’d be happy to take you.” He had his sketchbook open on his thigh, but his eyes held hers. “I’d be happy to take you to see the world.”

She was aware of both Zoe and Diana taking in the whole conversation.

And her heart stuttered. He was gentle and teasing and deeply interested in her. She felt an impossible tug—a yearning to travel with him. To see the lights of Paris, the cafés, the galleries, the parks, and to do it with Cal, who was noble and exciting, naughty and sensitive—

But what did he mean? He must be teasing her.

She sat up in a straight-backed, ladylike way. “That’s really not possible,” she said briskly. “And I did want to talk to you about how women tenants at Worthington—women like Ellen Lambert—can be helped. I am still trying to push Ellen into starting a business. She is very adept with a needle and thread—and I believe she could readily learn to operate a sewing machine. That would open up many possibilities to her.”

Cal looked taken aback. “She’s going to struggle if she’s suffering from shell shock.”

Zoe frowned. “A woman with shell shock? I did not know such a thing was possible.”

“It is,” Julia said passionately. “Ellen Lambert was an ambulance driver in the War and I believe she is suffering the same symptoms as men. I spoke to Dr. Hamilton of course, but he just dismissed me. What she needs is help. Once she is able to deal with that issue, then she can begin a business.”

“Oh, Julia, you are so dreadfully serious,” Diana said. She leaned over toward Cal. “What are you doing, darling?” she trilled. “You keep looking at us, then down at your book. Are you sketching us? You devilish thing! Let me see.”

Laughing, Diana motioned him to show the pictures. But Cal shook his head.

“I shall fight you for that book,” Diana teased, batting her lashes.

“You can see them without doing that. But they’re rough.” He held out the book. Then he leaned back against the seat. His leg stretched along it. Julia realized he always sprawled over chairs in ways that looked defiant, not relaxed.

Propping the book on her skirted lap, Diana leafed through. “Julia...this is a good likeness. Here is Julia again. And—goodness, a figure without her clothing. But I can’t see her face. Who is she? That isn’t one of us, I hope. You aren’t sitting there and imagining what we look like without any clothes.”

“I hope not,” Zoe said. “I’m here as the chaperone.”

Cal gave Zoe a charming smile. “I hear you fly airplanes,” he said.

“I do. I love it. When Nicholas is older, Nigel and I will take him up. Do you still fly?”

“I haven’t done it since the War.”

Julia saw the quick look of pain that showed in Cal’s eyes. Then she glanced over at the picture. And swallowed hard. The woman was drawn with charcoal. Her hair was short and dark. She couldn’t be sure...but the woman’s figure looked like hers.

“That’s not something a gentleman would do,” Cal answered. “I admit I’m not a gentleman, but no, I wouldn’t do that. Anyway, Diana, you’re my cousin. That wouldn’t be right.”

Diana’s smile vanished. She let the pages fall. “People like us marry cousins all the time.”

But Cal just shook his head.

Diana put her hand to her mouth.

Julia realized Diana might be going to visit the married man whom she loved, but she hadn’t given up the idea of marrying Cal. Except Cal had just told her he would never do it.

Diana looked at the picture again, then up at Julia, her face sullen. It was as if the woman who had once been her best friend now hated her.

Julia looked at the picture again. Did it mean Cal had been looking at her and picturing what she looked like underneath her dress, her brassiere, her slip? He had said not, but she was not sure.

She felt hot, embarrassed. Uncertain.

Yet she looked at Cal and she remembered what he’d looked like without his shirt. What did he look like without any clothes?

“Behave yourselves,” Zoe said, glancing over the top of her newspaper.

The first-class compartment suddenly felt too small. Julia stood abruptly. “I have to use the washing compartment.”

But when she made her way back, bracing her hand against the swaying of the carriage, Cal stood in the corridor. His broad shoulders almost filled the space wall to wall.

Brilliant blue eyes gazed into hers. “Damn it, I want you, Julia Hazelton.”

Julia’s heart skipped several beats. Then she managed to give him a polite, restrained smile. “Cal, please don’t. It’s quite impossible. We kissed in a moment of intense emotion. But I cannot give myself to you in the way that you want.”

His lower lip jutted out slightly, in a sensual pout. “You could. The only thing stopping you is the stupid rules of the aristocracy.”

“It’s not the only thing stopping me.”

She moved to walk past him, but he stopped her. “I thought I could get over it. But I can’t. I dream about you.”

He dreamed about her? A forbidden image rushed in—Cal waking up in his bed, sitting up, sheets tumbling off him, revealing his naked torso. She swallowed hard. Cal made her have unladylike thoughts. Thoughts like she had never had in her whole life.

“I never thought this would happen,” he said urgently. “Not with a duke’s daughter. But you’re different. You’re special. I know you’d expect marriage. I know I can’t give that to you. I don’t know if I could even give you my heart. But I’d love to make you see what I already know—that you’re passionate and alive, and you are ready to burst out of your ladylike shell.”

“You wouldn’t give me your heart,” she repeated. She’d never expected him to be so blunt.

“I’d like to lay the world at your feet, Julia. I’d like to take you to Paris to drink wine in Montparnasse and dance to jazz. I’d take you to Santorini, where we could lie naked in the sun and eat figs and olives. I’d take you across a lake surrounded by vibrant autumn leaves in the Canadian north. I’d take you up close to the Arctic Circle, where the northern lights would dance overhead like veils of brilliant color floating through the sky. I’d like to show you the African plains, the South American jungles.”

If she never saw the world, and she did good works, and lived in the country that she knew, she could be content and happy. She was sure she would.

But deep inside, a voice whispered that she should have more. That she had waited and waited for life to begin, yet she had missed the point. She had to set her own life in motion.

What was she thinking? Cal had just told her he would never love her.

He moved toward her, bringing his lips close to hers.

On the brink of melting, she pulled away fast. “No. I can’t do it without love, Cal. Without marriage.”

“Julia is going to London, and will very likely see a man who was passionately in love with her.” Zoe’s husky voice startled. He jumped. So did Julia.

Zoe had come out into the corridor and leaned against the wall, smiling innocently.

“Who is it?” he asked. “One of those weak-chinned titled men who were chasing you at dinner? The Duke of Bradstock, a shallow, arrogant idiot who thinks he can rule over you?”

Julia was about to correct what Zoe had said, but her sister-in-law cheekily added, “He’s a doctor. A man who saves lives. He was absolutely perfect for Julia—a true hero who passionately believes in helping others, but he left Brideswell because the family objected and he listened, believing he shouldn’t marry a duke’s daughter.”

“Zoe—” Julia began. For Zoe was leaving an impression that was not quite true.

“Of course,” Zoe continued, “Julia would be willing to defy all her family...for the right man.”

Cal’s mouth was harsh, bracketed by lines. “He should have been willing to fight for you.”

“He left me for what he thought was my own good.” Julia felt she should leap to Dougal’s defense. She had no idea what Zoe was doing, and she felt a bit guilty for leaving the impression that Dougal was still in love with her. But really, did it matter if Cal thought there was someone else? She could never be his mistress. It just felt wrong inside.

Zoe moved on down the corridor. Cal moved closer.

“If I wanted you to be my wife,” he said huskily, “I’d fight heaven and earth to have you. I’d fight dirty to have you, Julia.”

“But you don’t want me to be your wife. And I’m not in love with you, Cal. Just as you are not in love with me. Now I really should return to our compartment. And you are blocking the corridor.”

He moved so she could pass him. “If anyone asks, I’m going to the dining car,” he growled.

“For lunch? They won’t be serving it yet.”

“For a stiff drink. Or ten.”