The Belle of Belgrave Square (Belles of London #2)(86)

?Julia had often read stories in magazines about ladies bathing at the fashionable seaside resorts of Margate or Scarborough. The women depicted wore heavy woolen bathing costumes, lace-up canvas slippers, and oilskin caps over their hair. Wheeled out into the ocean in wooden bathing machines, they emerged beneath the cover of a canopy to climb down into the water.

It was all done modestly, far from the view of anyone of the opposite sex.

Not so today.

For one thing, the pond at the edge of the moors was nothing like the sketches she’d seen of the seaside. It was wild and remote, surrounded by encroaching trees and a profusion of wavy hair grass with delicate flower heads trembling in the rippling breeze.

For another, Julia had no bathing costume. Jasper had said she didn’t require one. She would swim in her chemise and drawers, as Daisy did.

And there would be no question of separating the sexes. They were all going to swim together, with Jasper and the boys wearing even less than she and Daisy wore. Indeed, they were no sooner in view of the pond than Charlie and Alfred took off running for the water, stripping down to their drawers as they went.

Julia averted her gaze.

“You needn’t be shy,” Jasper said. He walked along at her side, the hamper containing their picnic lunch hoisted on one broad shoulder.

His black three-piece suit was gone. In its place were Bedford cord breeches, a loose linen shirt, and a pair of old top boots. If not for the fearsomeness of his scar and the proud, upright carriage of his frame—a posture that loudly proclaimed his years in the military—he might almost have resembled a country squire.

Almost.

Daisy trotted off after her brothers to the water’s edge. She was clad in a clean pinafore, her dark hair pinned up in a crown of plaits.

“It feels indecent,” Julia said when the little girl was out of earshot. “Being undressed like that in company.”

“You’re not in company,” Jasper replied. “You’re with your family. And this is the country. People don’t fret about such things out here. Who would do so? There are no strangers to see.”

Her family.

They were, weren’t they? Jasper, Charlie, Alfred, and Daisy. Even Mr. Beecham, whose role was more that of an old friend than a put-upon servant.

Julia had passed three days in their company, her confidence building by slow degrees.

At first, she’d been overwhelmed. Not only did she have to look after herself now, without benefit of a maid or a proper laundress, she had the burden of being mistress of Goldfinch Hall.

Some mistress.

She knew nothing about managing a household. Certainly not one without any staff. How was she to distinguish herself?

But the household seemed to chug along without her guiding hand. The men were surprisingly self-sufficient. The children were self-sufficient, too.

The boys still hadn’t fully accepted her. She consoled herself that they didn’t appear to have fully accepted Jasper, either. Only Daisy genuinely looked on him as a father. She even called him Papa on occasion, when she deigned to speak at all. She was a quiet, watchful child, content to keep her own counsel.

Charlie and Alfred were the exact opposite. They were loud and boisterous, capable of trying the patience of a saint.

Of the two, Charlie was the more difficult. He was a moody boy, angry and sullen at times, behaving as though he hated Jasper. Other times, he was civil, even playful, laughing at a jest or grinning over a story from their mutual past.

Jasper bore it all with an impressive degree of patience.

But then, he’d said he was a patient man.

He was waiting for her, wasn’t he? Courting her.

Julia couldn’t fail to notice his diligence. He never pressed her. And he hadn’t tried to kiss her again. Not since the day they’d arrived at the Hall. But he was there—kind and solicitous and wanting her so much. She could feel it, the desire he had for her. It was a physical sensation. A connection between them that was stretched even tighter after the events of this morning.

She shivered to think of it.

The way he’d looked at her as she’d stood at the basin, half-undressed in front of him. In that moment, it had felt as though all the oxygen had been leeched from the room. As though she couldn’t expand her lungs for want of breath.

She’d been embarrassed. Of course she had. But, alarmingly, that hadn’t been her only emotion. Something else had chased after it. A warm, delicious thrill that had made her belly clench and gooseflesh rise on her naked skin.

If he’d kissed her then, she had the ridiculous notion she might have burst into flames.

Up ahead of them, the boys leapt into the pond with a resounding splash. Alfred disappeared beneath the shimmering surface, only to reemerge a few yards away. Charlie swam after him, his arms cutting through the water in a confident arc.

“Did you teach them to swim?” Julia asked Jasper.

“I did.”

“Who taught you?”

He hesitated before answering. “My father.”

Julia knew better than to ask anything more. His parents were off-limits. That’s what he’d said before accepting her proposal.

“You’re to ask me no questions about my parents or about my time before the war.”

Perhaps he hadn’t got along with his mother and father. Perhaps the memory of them was as distasteful to him as his experiences in the Crimea.