A Spy's Devotion (The Regency Spies of London #1)(22)
The way her uncle looked at her . . . her mind was flooded with the memory: She was seven years old and had only just come to live with the Wilherns. She was standing on the front lawn when her uncle’s horse threw him. She’d been paralyzed with fear that her uncle might have been killed or seriously hurt.
Mr. Wilhern had picked himself off the ground and started beating the horse, repeatedly, with his riding crop. The horse screamed, over and over. Uncle Wilhern yanked on the reins until the horse reared, and still he continued beating him. Julia fell to the ground and covered her ears with her hands, squeezing her eyes tight.
That was where the nursemaid found her, trembling and crying.
“Julia! Get up off the ground,” Betsy had said. “What are you doing? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
She wasn’t sure how long she had been crouching on the ground, but she had been trembling all over as she looked around. Her uncle and the poor horse were gone.
Now, as he glared down at her, Mr. Wilhern’s face was the same shade of red it had been that day as he was beating the horse.
“I will advise you to think on this matter some more, to consider the inferiority of your life as a governess, the struggles and lowliness of your position compared to what you could enjoy as a gentleman’s wife.”
All her life she had striven to avoid her uncle’s anger. Her heart was sinking, her stomach twisting, the painful manifestations of a guilty, utterly miserable awareness of her uncle’s disappointment in her, as well as what she felt were his unjust demands. But what else could she do? She could not, would not, agree to marry someone she could not love or respect.
“You are determined to persist in this stubborn, ungrateful response, I see.” His jaw twitched again, as he seemed to be grinding his teeth. He turned away from her abruptly. “I have raised you to think too highly of yourself, have given you too many advantages. But you will change your mind. In the meantime, I will inform Mr. Edgerton that you are considering his generous offer of marriage. You may go.”
His refusal to accept her answer to Mr. Edgerton’s proposal made her face burn even hotter. Should she tell him truthfully that she had no intention of changing her mind? The memory of his fury at that poor horse so long ago, and the same look in his eyes now, stopped her. Instead, Julia curtsied and hurried out of the room.
Her heart pounded as if she were that child once again, witnessing the uncontrolled fury of a man upon whose kindness she was dependent.
She ran up the stairs to her room, wanting to cover her ears and shut out his words and the sound of his voice, to close her eyes and blot out his scowl and cold stare.
Stepping inside her room, she closed the door and burst into tears. She kept her sobs as quiet as possible so no one—not Phoebe or the servants or her aunt—would hear.
CHAPTER NINE
“I won’t be content unless I marry him,” Phoebe said between sobs as she sat on the side of her bed. Her eyes were red, her cheeks blotchy, and tears dripped off her nose and jawline.
“Phoebe, it does no good to carry on like this. Please, don’t cry so.” Julia’s heart squeezed painfully to see her dear cousin’s distress. Phoebe’s tears and obvious pain tore at Julia, but the poor man could love whomever he wanted. Why couldn’t she accept that?
Phoebe clutched Julia’s arm. “Please, Julia. Promise me you will help me. I can’t love anyone else. I will never love anyone but Nicholas Langdon. There must be a way to make him love me. I simply will never get married if I can’t have him. I’ll die of a broken heart.”
“Don’t say such things,” Julia said as sternly as she could. “Indeed, you should not.”
Phoebe looked up at her, her lower lip trembling. Julia was reminded of Felicity’s words about her cousin not being as attractive as she. Phoebe didn’t look very pretty at the moment, even Julia had to admit. But no one looked pretty when they were sobbing without restraint.
“Listen to me, Phoebe.” Julia sighed. She pulled a small chair up to the bed and sat down, taking hold of her cousin’s arm. “You should not give your heart to someone who hasn’t asked for it. You never know who may fall in love with you, or who you might come to love, if you are sensible and stop being so focused on one man.”
“You don’t understand, Julia.” Phoebe shook her head and rubbed her nose with her soaked handkerchief. “You’re not romantic. You’re sensible and will marry a sensible man for sensible reasons. You don’t understand love.”
Julia was glad Phoebe wasn’t looking at her at that moment, for she was afraid her expression would reveal her thoughts. Didn’t understand love? And Phoebe did? This pining over a man she hardly knew? That was not love.
But did it matter whether Phoebe was truly in love or not? She thought she was, and she was making herself completely miserable over it. If it wasn’t love, it was close enough, and Julia was heartily sorry Phoebe was in it.
“Julia, promise you will help me.”
“I will help you if I can, but you can’t force a man to have feelings for you.” If only both she and Phoebe could fall in love with men who were in love with them, all their problems would be solved. Phoebe would not be sobbing over a man who seemed to feel no preference for her, and Julia would not feel pressured to marry a man who repulsed her.