‘Certainly.’ Julia looked up sharply and thought she caught just the faintest hint of a smile. ‘In my state of health you surely do not expect me to be negotiating draughty corridors in the middle of the night in order to visit you?’
‘Are you saying that you expect me to share your bed tonight?’ It had never occurred to her for a moment that this marriage would be anything but one in name only. Surely a man in his state of health could not...could he? She stumbled on the next step with images, sensations, shuddering through her memory.
‘Shh,’ Will murmured as a door below opened and the noise of the dispersing guests filled the space. ‘This is not the place to be discussing such matters.’
Julia swallowed, nodded and somehow managed the rest of the stairs without blurting out the protests that were on the tip of her tongue. When Will opened the door to the master bedchamber Nancy, the chambermaid, was waiting there, chatting to Jervis, filmy white garments draped over her arm and a wide smile on her lips. This was no place for that discussion, either. The servants had to believe this marriage was real as much as anyone.
‘There you are, my lady! I’ve had hot water brought up to the dressing room for your bath and Mr Jervis will see to his lordship in here.’ She swept Julia in front of her through another door into a small panelled room with a steaming tub standing ready.
‘I’ve sprinkled that lovely nightgown with rosewater,’ she went on chattily as Julia stood like a block to be undressed. She had indulged herself with a pretty summer nightgown and robe when she had shopped for her wedding clothes and the other wardrobe essentials in Aylesbury. What she had not expected was that anyone but herself and her maid would ever see them.
‘Excellent,’ she managed as she climbed into the bath and began to soap herself. From the other room came the sounds of conversation, the bang of a cupboard door closing, the rattle of curtain rings. Next door was a man, a virtual stranger, getting ready to go to bed and expecting her to join him. The last man with those expectations had played on every one of her love-filled fantasies, taken her virtue and then betrayed her.
This one, she reflected as she climbed out of the bath and was swathed in towels, had at least married her. But could a man in Will’s state of health consummate a marriage? She had no idea how the mechanics of male desire actually worked, but the performance was certainly physically demanding. What if Will expected her to do something...? With Jonathan she had simply lain there, held him and tried to do what he wanted of her. It seemed from his words that she had not been very good at it. Julia pressed her hand to her midriff as if that would calm the rising panic.
* * *
Jervis bowed himself out. A moment later Nancy bustled from the dressing room with her arms full of towels, bobbed a curtsy in the direction of the bed and hurried after the valet. The outer door closed with a heavy thud, the inner one stood open on to an apparently empty room.
Will lay back against the heaped pillows and got his breathing under some sort of control. He was bone-weary, aching and the night fever was beginning to sweep through him, but he had to stay in sufficient control to cope with Julia who, it seemed, had not thought beyond the marriage ceremony. She is a virgin, he reminded himself.
‘Are you still in there?’ he enquired. ‘Or have you climbed down the ivy to escape me?’ There was a pause, then she appeared in the doorway in a gown of floating white lawn, her hair loose on her shoulders, her hands knotted before her. His breathing hitched. ‘You are a white ghost tonight, not a grey one.’ She was certainly pale enough to be a spirit.
Julia took one step into the chamber. Her feet were bare. For some reason that was both touching and disturbing. ‘I had not realised that you would expect me to share your bed,’ she said. Her chin was up.
‘I am sharing my title, my home and my fortune with you,’ Will pointed out, goaded by her obvious reluctance into tormenting her a little.
She went, if anything, paler. ‘Of course. I have no wish to be difficult. It is simply that we had not discussed it.’
‘True. I have to confess that I have no experience of virgins.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ Julia said, with so much feeling that Will blinked. ‘I mean, one would hope that a gentleman does not go around seducing virgins.’ She bit her lip, then put back her shoulders, tossed her robe on to a chair and walked over to the bedside.
Will was powerfully reminded of pictures of Christian martyrs bravely facing the lions and felt a pang of conscience. For all her maturity and poise and her scandalous circumstances, Julia was an innocent and his own frustrations at his weakness were no reason to scare the poor girl. ‘Perhaps I should make it clear that I do not expect you to do anything but sleep in this bed.’
‘Oh.’ Julia froze, one hand lifting the covers to turn them back. The colour seemed to ebb and flow under her skin and he wondered if she was about to faint. ‘Truly?’
Her relief was palpable. Will told himself that he was a coxcomb to expect anything else: she scarcely knew him, he looked like a skeleton, he could hardly stand up half the time—why on earth would the poor woman want to make love with him? The very fact that she feared he might attempt it showed how innocent she was.
‘Get into bed, I promise you are quite safe.’
Julia pushed back the covers, climbed in and sat upright against the pillows. A good eight inches of space and the thickness of his nightshirt and her gown separated their shoulders: it must be imagination that he could feel the heat of her skin against his. She smelled of roses and Castile soap and warm woman and her tension vibrated between them like a plucked harp string.
‘It is important that no one can challenge this marriage,’ he explained, more to keep talking until she relaxed than anything else. ‘We have a licence from the Archbishop, we were married by the local vicar in the face of the largest congregation I could bring together and now both our houseguests and our servants will vouch for the fact that we spent the night in this room. If and when my aunt decides she is going to challenge your control of the estate, she will not be able to shake the legitimacy of this marriage or contest your position as my wife.’
‘I see. Yes, I understand why it is necessary.’
It sounded as though Julia was having difficulty controlling her breathing. She was not the only one, Will thought with an inward grimace. The spirit was very willing indeed as far as he was concerned—but the flesh was certainly too weak to do anything to upset the composure of the warm, fragrant, softly rounded and very desirable female so close to him. She was not a beauty, but she was, he was uncomfortably aware, an attractive, vibrant woman.
‘Go to sleep,’ he suggested and reached out to snuff the candles.
‘Goodnight,’ she murmured and burrowed down under the covers.
Will willed himself to stillness as gradually her breathing slowed and he waited for sleep to take her. Then a small hand crept into his. He froze. After a moment Julia shifted, murmured something and, before he could react, she snuggled right up to his side, her cheek on the thin cotton of his nightshirt over his heart.
‘Julia?’ His heart pounded in his chest until he felt dizzy. Or perhaps it was simply the scent and the feel of her. Somehow Will managed not to put his arms around her and drag her tight against him
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I should have known I would be quite safe with you, that you are a gentleman. I do not want you to think I was unwilling because you are ill.’ She wriggled and came up on her elbow. Before he realised what she was doing she bent her head. The kiss would have landed on his cheek—instead, as he turned his head, their lips met.
Soft warmth, the yielding curve of that lovely mouth he had been trying to ignore for days. The whisper of her breath between slightly parted lips, the hint of the taste of her—champagne, strawberries, woman.
Hell. The torture of this was going to kill him. He couldn’t breathe, his heart would surely give out. He wanted to touch her, caress