Джудит Макнот - Miracles

He was not completely certain he'd made all the right turns until they rounded the last corner and he found the secret exit that led around to the side of the house. Knowing in advance that they were going to be in plain view of the revelers for a few paces – albeit at a reasonably safe distance – Nicki carefully stationed himself on her left, between the house and her. "Why are we walking faster?" she asked.

"Because we happen to be in view of the gardens from here," he cautioned.

She peered around him to see for herself. "Let them eat cake too!" she announced cheerfully with another wave of her arm. Raising her voice, she called out, "All of you have my permission to eat cake!"

Nicki felt his shoulders shake with silent, horrified, helpless laughter, but he said nothing to encourage another outburst.

In his bedchamber, Julianna sat upon a small sofa upholstered in rich gold brocade, feeling as if she were in a dream, as she watched him slowly strip off his coat and loosen his snowy-white neckcloth. A thousand warning bells were clanging madly in her head, making her feel extremely dizzy. Or perhaps it was the memory of his mouth crushed to hers that made her head swim.

She lowered her gaze, because that seemed like the right thing to do, and then became preoccupied with what she saw.

Divested of his coat and neckcloth, Nicki loosened the top of his shirt and walked over to the polished table where a tray of glasses and decanters had been left. Pulling the stopper out of the brandy decanter, he glanced over his shoulder to ask if she wanted anything, but what he saw made him frown with concern and turn fully around. She was seated on the sofa, but bending as far forward at the waist as she could, looking at something on the floor. "What are you doing?" he asked.

She answered without looking up. "I don't have any toes."

"What do you mean?" Nicki demanded irritably as it began to occur to him that nearly everything she'd done and said in the maze that had seemed shocking or hilarious at the time, including her request to be ruined, could very likely be the result of intoxication or an unbalanced mind. His voice was intentionally sharp. "Can you stand up?" he snapped.

Julianna stiffened at his tone and slowly straightened. Transfixed by the change in him, she stood up as commanded, scarcely able to believe the forbidding man standing there was the same one who had joked with her and… and kissed her.

She looked completely dazed, Nicki realized. Dazed and disoriented. With an anger that was heightened by disappointment and self-disgust for his own naivete, he said scathingly, "Are you capable of uttering anything at all that could convince me you are capable of intelligent thought at this moment?"

Julianna flinched from that all-too-familiar voice. It had the same clipped, authoritative tones, the same contemptuous superiority that had humiliated and antagonized her in the park. Tonight her reaction was slowed by brandy and shock, but when she did react it was just as instinctive and just as effective, although more restrained. She wanted this to be a night to remember, to cherish. "I think I am," she said softly, lifting her chin, her voice trembling only slightly.

"Shall we begin with Greek philosophy?" Clasping her hands behind her back, she turned sideways, pretending to study the painting above the fireplace, as she continued: "Socrates had some interesting observations about knowledge and ethics. Plato was more profound…"

Julianna paused, trying desperately to clear her head and remember what else she knew of philosophers, ancient or otherwise. "In modern times…" she tried again, "Voltaire is a particular favorite of mine. I enjoy his wit. But of all the modern…" Her voice trailed off as Julianna heard him coming up behind her, then she made herself go on: "Of all the modern philosophers, the one I am best acquainted with was a woman. Her name was Sarah."

He stopped so near to her that she could actually feel him standing at her back. Shaking with uncertainty, Julianna said, "Shall I share Sarah's favorite theory with you?"

"By all means," he whispered contritely, his warm breath stirring the hair at her temple.

"Sarah's theory was that females were once considered superior to males, but that males, in their deceitful arrogance, found a way to -"

Julianna's entire body tensed as his hands curved around her shoulders, drawing her back against his full length. "Males found a way to convince us, and themselves, that women are actually birdwits and -"

His warm lips touched a sensitive place behind her ear, sending shivers racing down her entire body. "Go on," he urged, his voice like velvet, his mouth against her ear. Julianna tried, but her breath came out in a shuddering sigh. She was losing control again, letting the brandy soothe her and convince her this was right. It was either this or Sir Francis Bellhaven: sweet, forbidding torture with memories to cherish… or life with a man who sickened her. Surely she was entitled to a few more moments, she decided.

Nicki felt her heart racing beneath his hand as he slid it over her midriff, taking his time before he let himself touch the full, tantalizing breasts that were within his reach. He slid a kiss over her smooth temple and trailed another down the silken skin of her cheek. She smelted like fresh air and flowers, and in his arms she felt like…

Wood.

She was breathing as if she were running, her heart was thundering from…

Fright.

Nicki lifted his head and wordlessly turned her around. In disbelief, he stared down at the hectic color on her cheeks and eyes, eyes that had darkened to violet pools, eyes that watched him in uncertainty. The color in her cheeks deepened with embarrassment as he inspected every feature of that elegant face, looking for something, anything, to indicate that this wasn't new and terrifying for her. He wanted to discover one thing that indicated experience.

And all he could find was innocence.

This was her first time.

She had not done any of this before.

He wanted her despite that. No, he realized with disbelief, he wanted her three times more because of that. She was there for the taking, she had asked him to do this, had even volunteered to pay him to do this. And still he hesitated. Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he forced her to meet his gaze. In a voice that was devoid of anything except reassuring neutrality, Nicki asked, "Are you absolutely certain you want to be here… to do this?"

Julianna swallowed audibly and nodded slightly. "It's something I have to do – to get it over and done with."

"You're completely certain?"

She nodded, and Nicki did what he'd been longing to do all along. Except that as he bent his head, he had the disquieting thought that he wasn't merely despoiling a virgin, he was destroying an angel. He seized her mouth with violent tenderness, forcing her to respond and then pushing her harder until she was moaning in his arms and his hands were clamping her to him, then moving forward, sliding up to cup her trembling breasts.

"No!" She broke free with such suddenness that she caught Nicki off guard. "I can't! I can't! Not that!"

She shook her head wildly, and Nicki stared at her in frowning disbelief. One moment she'd been kissing him back, her arms twined sweetly behind his neck, her body molding instinctively to his. The next, she was running across the room, leaving him there, jerking the door open and leaving…

Straight into Valerie, and another woman who was raving about her daughter being abducted and demanding a search of the house for her. As if in a dream, a nightmare, he saw the woman who had accosted him in the park wrap her arms protectively around the girl who had been his a moment before.

Only the older woman was different now. She wasn't groveling about what a pleasure it was to meet him, she was looking at him with triumphant hostility all over her face, saying, "After I have put my daughter to bed and summoned my husband, we will discuss this privately!"

"JULIANNA?" Her mother's normal speaking voice sounded like a screech. Julianna's head hurt so terribly that even her teeth seemed to ache in their sockets. In all the world, the only thing that wasn't awful this morning was her mother. Her mother, who should have been livid, who Julianna had thought would disown her for less than what she'd done last night, was the soul of gentle understanding.

No questions, no recriminations.

Curled up in a tight ball of misery against the door of the coach, Julianna watched the house where it had all happened sway and pitch and lunge from view. "I'm going to be sick," she whispered.

"No dear, that wouldn't be at all pleasant."

Julianna swallowed and swallowed again. "Are we almost home?"

"We aren't going home."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going right… here," her mother said, leaning to the side and searching for something with narrowed eyes that widened suddenly with delight.

Julianna made an effort to see where "here" was and saw only a pleasant little cottage with her papa's carriage in front of it, and another carriage with a crest painted on its side. And then she saw the chapel. And in the yard of that chapel, ignoring her father and watching their coach draw up, was Nicholas DuVille.

And the expression on his dark, saturnine face was a thousand times more glacial, more contemptuous, than any she had seen in the park.

"Why are we here?" Julianna cried, feeling faint from shock and nausea and headache.

"To attend your wedding to Nicholas DuVille."

"My what?! But why?"

"Why is he marrying you?" her mama said dryly as she opened the door. "Because he has no choice. He is a gentleman, after all. He knew the rules, and he broke them. Our hostess and two servants saw you running out of his bedchamber. He ruined the reputation of an innocent, well-bred young lady. If he didn't marry you now, you would be ruined, but he could never again call himself a gentleman. He would lose face among his peers. His own code of honor requires this."

"I don't want this!" Julianna cried. "I'll make him understand!"

"I didn't want this!" Julianna was babbling a quarter of an hour later as she was shoved roughly into her new husband's coach. He had not spoken a word except in answer to his vows. He spoke now: "Shut up and get in!"

"Where are we going?" she cried.

"To your new home," he said with scathing sarcasm. "Your new home," he clarified.

Humming a Yuletide melody as she sat before the dressing table in her bedchamber, Julianna tucked tiny sprigs of red holly berries into the dark green ribbon that bound her heavy blond hair into curls at the crown. Satisfied, she stood up and shook the wrinkles from her soft green wool gown, straightened the wide cuffs at her wrists, then she headed for the salon where she intended to work on her new manuscript in front of a cheery fire.

In the three months since her husband had unceremoniously deposited her in front of this picturesque little country house a few hours after her wedding, and then driven off, she had not seen or heard from Nicholas DuVille. Even so, every detail of that hideous day was burned into her mind with such vivid clarity that it could still make her stomach knot with shame.

It had been an obscene parody of a real wedding, an eminently suitable ending for something that had begun at a masquerade. Far from condemning Julianna's breach of conduct the night before, her mother actually regarded it as a practical and ingenious method of snaring the Ton's most desirable bachelor. Instead of offering maternal advice about marriage and children before her daughter walked down a short aisle to become a wife, Julianna's mother was advising her on the sorts of furs Julianna ought to insist upon having.

Julianna's father, on the other hand, obviously had a clearer grasp of the real situation, which was that his daughter had disgraced herself, and her groom had participated in it. He had dealt with that by anesthetizing himself with at least a full bottle of Madeira before he walked her unsteadily, but cheerfully, down the aisle. To complete the gruesome picture, the bride was clearly suffering from the aftereffects of extreme inebriation, and the groom…

Julianna shuddered with the recollection of the loathing in his eyes when he was forced to turn to her and pledge his life to her. Even the image of the vicar who had performed the ceremony was branded into her brain. She could still see him standing there, his kindly face a mirror of shocked horror when, at the end of the ceremony, the groom responded to his suggestion that he kiss the bride by raking Julianna with a look of undiluted contempt, then turning on his heel and walking out.