do that,’ Julia said. Pretend he doesn’t exist. That is easy, he doesn’t, because I killed him. He was a wicked man, but he did not deserve to die for it. ‘But I cannot promise that his ghost is not going to haunt me sometimes.’ Every night.
‘It will have to get past me,’ Will said. ‘Now, forget him and the past. I’ll not stir that up again. Can you read in the chaise without getting sick? Because my London agent has sent me details of a number of eligible houses he thinks would be suitable to rent for the Season. See what you think.’
‘How exciting.’ Julia took the portfolio he handed her and infused her voice with as much enthusiasm as she could. Will was looking forward to London, to the London Season in the new year, to the sort of married life a man of his station should expect. And she could bring it crashing down around his head at any moment if she did not have the courage to keep her mouth shut and the intelligence to hide the truth. Whatever happened, she must make his happiness last as long as she could, she owed it to him.
‘My goodness.’ She riffled through the stack of papers. ‘The addresses all sound very grand. I like the sound of this one.’
He took the paper. ‘Half Moon Street? Why? It might be a trifle small, I thought.’
‘I like the name.’
As she guessed it would, that made him laugh. ‘Julia, you are a delight of a wife.’
And she laughed, too, as her conscience tore at her.
* * *
It was only half an hour later as she laid the stack of house particulars on one side that Will’s actual words came back to her. A delight of a wife. Did he truly mean that? She watched him as he studied the work he had brought with him, his dark head bent over the papers, his face remote and intelligent as he studied the pages. She had wanted him to want her as his wife, to build a relationship with him. Certainly things were good in the bedchamber and harmonious in everyday matters. She believed he would be faithful. That was all she had hoped for, surely, so why did her heart beat faster at his affectionate teasing? Did she want him to fall in love with her?
Julia stared out of the carriage window at the passing landscape. Do I? Am I in love with him? She was not certain what that meant any more. She had thought herself in love with Jonathan, so much in love that she would trust her entire future to him, and yet that feeling had evaporated the moment she realised his deception.
And what she felt for Will was nothing like that light-headed, romantic dreamy feeling. She liked him, she respected him and she desired him, but she was no longer so naïve that she thought a woman must be in love in order to ache for a man to lie with her. She felt for Will, in short, all those things that a woman making a marriage of convenience would hope that she would come to feel for her husband.
But it was not love. That was just a romantic dream and a sure way to a broken heart, Julia decided. And why should she want to be in love with her husband in any case? If she was fortunate, there would be children who would be healthy and strong and she would experience all the love she could want with them. Julia closed her eyes for a moment in silent supplication that if she was fortunate enough to become pregnant again then all would be well this time.
But even so, when Will looked up and caught her studying him, and his eyes crinkled with amused affection, her heart made that foolish little leap again. ‘Your hair needs cutting,’ she said prosaically. ‘You must add that to the list of things to do in town.’
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