She narrowed her eyes at him and folded her arms. Her fingers tapped dangerously against her sleeve. “Let me do the next one,” she said. “Where were we? Ah, yes. Item C—you never can be serious, not even when you’re making a list, which I know you hold sacred.”
“What did you say?” Christian drew back.
“You’re never serious.”
“No, no. Before that. Item C?” He looked at her in horror. “This is a list. It started with numbers. It goes one, two, three.”
“Not this list,” Judith said with a glint of a smile. “This list goes one, two, C.”
Oh, God. She knew him too well. He put his hands over his ears. “No.”
“Right,” she continued. “On to Roman numeral IV.”
Like this, glaring at him… She looked like a beautiful, victorious warrior queen, one who used badly-numbered lists instead of spears. In his case, the former was a more effective weapon.
“Gah.” He winced and rubbed his face. “Knives are stabbing my ears. I am being murdered. Someone fetch a constable and take this woman into custody.”
“Roman numeral IV,” Judith said, “you are given to excessive histrionics. Also, you are trying to have me falsely imprisoned. You have a tendency to do that with my family, don’t you?”
“Please stop. Please use numbers.”
“Very well. Eight—”
“No! You skipped six and seven!”
“Eight,” Judith said meaningfully. “I hate you because you let my brother die.”
He swallowed.
“Nine,” she continued, “I hate you because you didn’t care what would happen to me after.”
“Judith…”
“Eleven,” she went on, glowering at him.
“Ten?” he offered.
“Eleven. I hate you because you make me remember everything I could have had.”
Christian shut his eyes. It was almost physically painful to leave the list as she had. One—the book. Two, the lie. Three—not C, it would never be C—he wasn’t serious. He went through the rest of the list, putting everything in proper, numerical order in his mind.
When he finally opened his eyes, Judith was looking at him. She tapped her fingers impatiently.
“You have a task, Christian,” she said. “You can’t let me forget that I hate you. If I forget, you’ll make me laugh. Then, when I do remember, it will hurt all over again. If I have to remember for the both of us, I’ll make sure you won’t like it. Are we understood?”
He knew precisely what she meant. For a moment there, they’d been laughing together. They hadn’t been at odds. Losing that sense of camaraderie again reminded him of that empty hole in his life.
He didn’t need any more reminders.
He gave her a nod. “Understood.”
Chapter Ten
Christian’s man had telegraphed ahead for an open carriage. The team was badly matched; the bay on the left pulled a little too hard, and the gray mare on the right kept trying to slow down—but the seats were clean and comfortable and he could handle mismatched cattle for eight miles. Persuading the team to pull in approximately the same direction at approximately the same time couldn’t prove more difficult than trying to work with Judith.
She sat next to him on the single front-facing seat, looking ahead with a fixed expression that suggested she would allow him no latitude at all.
He waited until they’d left the houses behind, until the road was nothing but dust surrounded by fields.
He waited until the horses had reluctantly fallen into a productive trot and he could spare a hand from the reins.
Then he reached into his satchel. “I have a confession to make.”
Her eyes darted to him.
“I did a thing,” he told her. “A very bad thing. Something that absolutely violates our agreement. I bring the matter to your attention so that you might deal with it appropriately, but in my defense—no, no, there can be no defense.”
“Christian, what are you talking about?”
He removed a package wrapped in waxed paper from his bag. “I brought you a sandwich.”
She looked at the package suspiciously, then narrowed her eyes in his direction.
“I know,” he said. “What was I thinking? It’s a veritable peace offering.”
Her head tilted slightly. “What sort of sandwich is it?”
“That’s the worst part. I know you have Opinions on Sandwiches.” She had once made him a list of her Opinions on Sandwiches, and they had been so opinionated that he couldn’t imagine them without capitals. That list had been properly numbered, and he hadn’t forgotten any of the items.
She was becoming more suspicious. “What have you done?”
He shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry. It’s indefensible. I have no excuse. It’s curry chicken salad and cucumber.”
My favorite, she did not say, but her lips pressed together.
He gestured to his satchel. “Unless you prefer egg and ham?”
My other favorite, she also did not say.
“This is salvageable,” he said. “I simply forgot our ceasefire of mutually agreed upon hostility when I was ordering today’s luncheon. But I can fix this.” He turned to look her in the eyes. “I can make this better. I’ll eat them both in front of you, singing their praises. Nothing could be more inclined to push you into a rage.”
For a moment, their eyes met. She didn’t seem on the verge of raging. Her gaze dropped to the waxed paper in his hand, as if contemplating giving it up.
Her chin squared in determination and she snatched the packet from his hands. “No such sacrifice is needed. I’ll eat it.”
“But will that serve? Our agreement, after all, requires—”
“I’ll eat it resentfully,” she told him, and unwrapped the sandwich. She looked at it, then looked at him. Her lips pursed. Her eyes narrowed.
A woman ought not look beautiful because she was looking askance at a sandwich, but then, Judith had never done the things she ought to have done. And because he knew her, he knew precisely what the problem was. Judith loved food. All food—fruit, biscuits, sandwiches, chocolates. If one could eat it, Judith appreciated it. He’d known. She’d made him lists about food.
This was not just a sandwich of cucumber and curried chicken. It was composed of bread, precisely three-quarters of an inch thick, crusty and dark on the outside and soft and spongy on the interior. There were perfectly crisp cucumbers, sliced and laid so as to evenly cover said bread. And there was the curry chicken filling, not stingily dabbed in place, but with chunks of meat alternating with a tangy spicy sauce and a bit of pickled carrot. If Judith had been the editor of a lady’s magazine entitled Perfect Sandwiches According to Judith, this would have been the featured sandwich of the year. Every year.
Possibly Christian had miscalculated. He’d wanted to see her smile; he hadn’t thought beyond that.
“Oh, you cad,” she said in horror.
“Yes, that’s the problem with maintaining a solid front of ill will,” Christian said. “The major difficulty we have is that once we get past the mutual hatred and the ruining-your-life thing, we’re actually extremely good friends.”
She glared at him.
“Good friends,” he said hastily, “who are utterly repulsed by one another. Look at me and my nasty, suggestive sandwiches.”
“Suggestive?” She shook her head. “No need to worry. It is a logical fallacy to conflate a man with his sandwich. I am perfectly capable of castigating you while devouring your food.” She took a bite. “Oh, ducklings.” She chewed. “Mmm.”
“By all means,” he said in a low voice. “Conflate me with my sandwich. That sandwich is me in effigy. Eat my sandwich. Eat it with your mouth.”
Her eyes flickered open briefly into narrow, disapproving slits. “What are you doing now?”
He was…damn it, he was flirting with her. He hadn’t intended to do it. Really.
“I’m being reprehensible,” h
e said instead. “It’s part of our agreement. You can’t complain about reprehensibility; it’s precisely what you bargained for.”
Judith considered this as she swallowed her bite. “Very well. If I must eat you in effigy, then I am eating your sandwich with my teeth. Like this.” She took an exaggerated bite, snapping her teeth together.
“There you are,” Christian said. “Kill the sandwich. Kill it as if it were me. Rend it to pieces.”
She took another vicious bite of chicken curry. “Your sandwich,” she said after she swallowed, “tastes like victory.”
“Kill it,” he said. “Kill it dead.”
She took another bite.
Just as she was chewing, he leaned toward her. “Who is England’s greatest chicken-curry killer?”
She looked up at him, her eyes widening. He didn’t give her time to react. He whispered, “You are.”
It happened so swiftly. She laughed first. Then she choked, and then she spat out little bits of bread and chewed chicken.
“Christian.” She put one hand over her face and fumbled in her pocket with the other. “I hate you.”
“There you are.” He handed her a handkerchief. “Never trust me. Let your guard down once, and next thing you know, you’ll have curry chicken up your nose.”
“I think,” she said, “you may very well be the worst person in the world.”
He bowed at the waist and took up the reins again. “At your service.”
Judith had spent almost two years under her uncle’s care. Odd, that she should have to use chicanery now to obtain entrance. But the butler took Christian’s card and ushered her in as his guest.
“Lord Ashford,” the butler said. “Lady Ashford.”
Her entire soul twitched at that designation, but she did not correct his mistake.
This place seemed so odd and yet so familiar. She’d skipped through these halls when she was seventeen and her father had gone abroad as part of the ambassadorial attaché. She’d never really noticed that the entry table was marble and mahogany. She’d paid no mind to the golden urn, higher than her head, that graced it, or the crystal chandelier that was lowered and lit every evening, so it might sparkle with the light of a hundred sweet-scented beeswax candles.
Back then, her uncle’s house had seemed like just a normal, ordinary house to her. These sorts of riches had been expected. There had been no such thing as unpolished wood or banisters that creaked dangerously if you put any weight on them. She’d never thought about how much work she’d made for the servants when she tracked dirt in on the Turkish carpets.
This had been what her life looked like: clean, rich, bright, and unexamined.
She sat on the sofa next to Christian and inhaled. Lemon polish; apple blossoms. Everything here smelled perfectly fresh. This was what her uncle had offered, what Judith had turned down. It was what Camilla had, and Judith could only hope her sister was happy. That they might easily resolve her uncle’s role in all of this.
She heard his footsteps coming down the hall. Her uncle entered the room all smiles.
The wisps of hair Judith remembered had faded to baldness, but he was still serious and polite.
Christian stood to greet him.
“Lord Ashford.” Her uncle shook Christian’s hand enthusiastically. “Always good to see you. You’re very welcome to drop by any time you find yourself passing through Farnborough; no reason to wait for business to rear its head. And you said you’d have someone with you. This must be…”
Uncle William—no, she needed to think of him as Viscount Hawley—turned to Judith. He frowned.
“This is…” He must have placed her features then, a few seconds too late. He jumped back as if stung. “Oh, dear Lord. It’s Judith.”
Christian didn’t miss a beat. “Yes. Oh-dear-Lord-it’s-Judith. My favorite Judith, to tell the truth. Far better than good-heavens-Judith, or Judith-my-ar—”
Judith cleared her throat. “Lord Ashford,” she said a little too loudly, “and I have visited for some informational purposes. We thought you might be of assistance.”
Her uncle swallowed and looked back and forth between the two of them. He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and dabbed at his head, perhaps realizing that he’d been ambushed.
She had pondered for hours, wondering how best to phrase her question.
I’m sorry to raise a crass matter of finances, Uncle, but I suspect you have embezzled the funds that I had rightfully earned, was not the way she wanted to start the conversation.
“We have come to request your assistance on a little matter,” she finally said. “I wanted to talk with you about Lady Theresa’s guardianship.”
He shook his head vehemently. “You know I don’t want anything to do with that girl. You keep her.”
She tried not to blink.
“You can try to convince me she’s reformed—but that girl is a…a…” He gave a little shudder. “Your pardon; she is your sister. But if you’re trying to pawn her off on me? No.”
It wasn’t him. She doubted he could have feigned that little shiver, as if Theresa had sent a brigade of cats running over his grave. Judith tried another tack. “But if I were to seek out someone else as guardian, who might I consider? Surely you’ve talked to someone in the family…”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. Honestly, I do not. Nobody else would be willing.”
“No?” Perhaps there was another way to get at the matter. She had thought about it and thought about it. Mr. Ennis had said he might answer Lady Camilla’s questions in person. So…
“I also thought we might visit with my sister. Is Lady Camilla present?” Judith hadn’t realized that her heart was aching until she asked the question.
It has been so many years. They’d argued when Camilla said she wanted to go to her uncle.
He’s stuffy. He doesn’t love us, Judith had said.
I won’t starve, Camilla had shot back.
Fine. Have your wealth and your gowns. If you don’t want to be loved, we don’t want to love you. Those had been the last words she’d spoken to her sister. Afterward, Judith had written and written, taking back those words over and over. I was wrong, Camilla. I lied. I love you. I will always love you.
Camilla had never answered.
Her uncle’s smile grew pained. “Uh. Well. As to that. Um.” He scratched his head. “I’m sorry, m’dear. My hearing is not what it once was. Could you repeat yourself?”
“Yes, of course.” She leaned closer and raised her voice. “I should love to see my sister, Lady Camilla.”
Her throat was closing. Years of letters, all disappearing into the post with no reply. No word, no explanation, not even a “never speak to me again.” She was nineteen now, surely on the verge of coming out.
“It has been an age,” Judith said. “I would dearly love…” God, she would dearly love to know her sister might one day forgive her.
She hadn’t known how much she wanted to see her sister until she said the words. Eight years was long enough that the coltish, long-legged adolescent in her memories would have transformed into a beautiful lady. Camilla would have had every opportunity growing up in Viscount Hawley’s household. Why, maybe the scandal wouldn’t dog her. Much.
“Ah.” Her uncle took out a handkerchief and rubbed his head. “I had rather thought you asked that. Well. Hm. So.”
The longing in Judith’s chest shifted into full-blown anguish, a wanting that seemed all the more keen for its aching.
Her worst fears rose up. “Does she not want to see me? Surely a short visit would not be…so terrible for her?”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Her uncle gave her an uneasy smile. “She is, uh, not here. At the moment.”
All of Judith’s hopes deflated. Of course she would be gone. Judith had been out of society so long she’d forgotten what it was like. There would be house parties in the summer; eligible young ladies would be off visiting. Camilla might not have come out in London society, bu
t under the circumstances it would be more sensible for her to take on polite society in small pieces as preparation. Judith should have realized it.
“Of course,” Judith said. “Can you tell me when she will return?”
The handkerchief squished in her uncle’s hands. “Ah. Um. You see, we are…not entirely expecting her to do so.”
This information hit Judith like an arrow. “Is she ill? Is she married?”
“No, no,” her uncle said. He did not meet her gaze. “Not that I know, at any rate. It was just…ah, you see, for the first weeks or so, she was a lovely, biddable child. But you know young ladies, eh? They do chatter and ask questions. And, um, sometimes cut up the peace, and I’m not the age I once was. Which is to say, do you remember my second cousin, James Rollins?”
“No.” Judith was beginning to feel faintly horrified.
“Well,” the viscount continued. “He lives in the Peak District. I can give you his direction if you like. He had two daughters who were around Camilla’s age. We got to talking once, and, uh, we all agreed that your sister would be so much better off with them.”
“Did you.” Judith’s voice sounded as if it were coming from very far away. She had come here thinking that her uncle might have taken over guardianship of her sisters, her brother. That he might have done so for so foolish a sum as the several hundred pounds she’d laid aside for them. She should have seen it from the moment she walked in the door. He had a marble table set with a golden urn in his front entry. He had a crystal chandelier that was worth more than all she’d managed to set aside in the eight years since her father had passed way.
His morals might allow him to abscond with her sisters’ money, but to him, it would be like stooping to pick a penny off the ground—unworthy of his time and attention.
As for the guardianship of her sisters? She’d imagined everyone would want the task, treasuring it as she did.
Her uncle had abdicated it altogether.