Chapter Fourteen

      The evening gown was the most fashionable garment she had ever possessed. Julia regarded the sweep of silken skirts, the elaborate ruffles around the skirt and the tips of her sea-green slippers peeping out below the hem with some satisfaction.

      She had shaken off Will’s attempts to take her into every shop in Aylesbury—and probably Oxford and Thame, too, if he had his way—by the simple expedient of sending to the best local dressmaker and requesting that she attend her at King’s Acre with patterns and samples. When the fabric was chosen she had charged Madame Millicent with taking a sample to her usual shoemaker and with bringing a selection of ribbons and artificial flowers with her to the first fitting.

      With the addition of her gauze scarf and silver-spangled fan she was elegantly outfitted from head to toe without the stress of a visit to the crowded shops and was able to contemplate the thought of the first dinner party of their married life with composure.

      It had taken some time to arrive at that state. Will had been punctiliously polite since the scene with Henry, although an attempt to discuss it was met by his assurance that he had no intention of prying into her affairs, but that it might be sensible not to be alone with an impressionable young man. This advice was delivered in such a patronising manner that she went from apologetic to thoroughly irritated and made no attempt to raise it again. There were moments when she wondered if that had been his intention. She also wondered uneasily if his insistence on her buying clothes in such a lavish manner was a way of asserting his ownership.

      Now she did her best to push such thoughts away and rehearsed the guest list in her head. She knew almost everyone. There was Aunt Delia and Henry, of course. That might be awkward, although Delia would have been affronted not to be invited to the first dinner after Will’s return. Then there was the vicar and his wife; Major Frazer, Will’s groomsman and old army comrade and Mrs Frazer; the Marquess of Tranton and Lady Tranton, with whom the archbishop had, so providentially, been staying three years ago, and Caroline Fletcher and her parents, Viscount and Lady Adamson, along with her betrothed, Andrew Fallon, Earl of Dunstable.

      Will had combined the highest ranking of their neighbours and those with a special connection to the wedding and she could not fault his reasoning, even if it brought her face to face with not only Henry, but also Miss Fletcher, in Will’s presence. But Caroline would be accompanied by Lord Fallon so really, Julia scolded herself, there was absolutely no reason to feel any awkwardness. That betrothal was long over.

      Her seating plan had required some thought, and Gatcombe’s assistance, but she was pleased with the result. Thanks to a strict adherence to the rules of precedence, Miss Fletcher was almost the length of the table away from Will and separated from Julia by the marquess.

      Julia swept downstairs, reminding herself that she really was the Baroness Dereham and not an interloper. Three years of grass widowhood running the estate was no preparation for an evening of entertaining a marquess, an earl and a viscount, but they were all pleasant, civilised people, she assured herself.

      Will looked up as she entered the dining room, her seating plan in his hand. ‘This looks perfectly all right,’ he remarked, scanning it as she made last-minute alterations to the flower arrangements in the epergne in the centre of the table.

      ‘I do hope so.’ Julia went to the head of the table and tried to see whether the flowers would obscure Will’s view of Miss Fletcher. She rather thought they would. It was not irrational jealousy, she told herself, merely what any wife would do when confronted with an acknowledged beauty in her own dining room.

      ‘What are you looking so smug about?’

      Julia wrinkled her nose at him. Smug was an unpleasant word. She was merely being tactical. Since that strange day with its tears, laughter and explosion of passion she had been unable to clarify her feelings about her husband. His furious reaction to seeing her in Henry’s arms had not helped either. Possessiveness, or genuine jealousy?

      He was evasive on the subject of Caroline Fletcher, she had noticed. But whether that was because he still wanted her or whether it was simply that he felt he had let Caroline down by breaking the engagement she could not fathom.

      But she had told him she trusted him and that was the important thing, to be true to that. Trust was obviously a sensitive point with Will and she could hardly fret about any lingering feelings he might have for Miss Fletcher and forget the secret she was keeping from him herself, or Henry’s worrying revelation.

      Comparing her mild unease about Caroline Fletcher to the secrets she was keeping was like comparing the nearby Downs with the Alps, she thought with a sudden, familiar, lurch in mood. A rapid mental calculation and she realised it was, indeed, familiar. Unless she was very much mistaken her courses would start tomorrow, which meant she was not carrying Will’s child.

      The mixed feelings took her by surprise. Regret she had expected. But relief that she had another month’s respite before facing that fear took her by surprise. She wished she could confide all that in Will, but she feared she could not articulate it without breaking down.

      Gatcombe was hovering and probably thought she was finding fault with the table. Julia told herself to stop fussing and followed Will to the salon so she could pass the time with an unexceptional piece of embroidery until her guests began to arrive.

      Will seemed on edge, but that was doubtless her wretched imagination playing tricks on her, Julia decided, and managed to stab herself in the thumb with her needle. He shook out the pages of The Times and began to read, creating an effective barrier between them. And that is just your foolish fancy, she told herself, sucking at the tiny wound. Just as you are imagining that things are different in the bedroom.

      Ever since that afternoon when they had tumbled laughing on to her bed and made frantic, urgent love, it had seemed to her that Will had changed. His lovemaking was polite, restrained, considerate. He always left her satisfied...and yet it was as though he was holding something back from her. Had she revealed too much that afternoon? Was he shocked, on reflection, by her abandoned behaviour? Was he retreating back to a safe emotional distance? Or did he still harbour suspicions about Henry?

      The French knot she was working had become tangled. Julia tried to unpick it, but the light was bad, or perhaps her vision was blurred. Or perhaps I am just weepy because of the time of the month, she told herself.

      ‘I hear carriages.’ Will folded the paper and got to his feet to stand by the hearth, facing the door. Julia rose, too, and went to his side. How very handsome he looked in the severe evening clothes. Her sea-green skirts brushed against his legs as she turned to take up her position and she saw him close his eyes for a moment.

      ‘I feel as though a portrait painter will come through the door at any moment and set up his easel. Baron Dereham and His Lady