The recollection of their bitter parting made Julia wince and set her jaw stubbornly. Damon wouldn't offer comfort; he would probably make some scornful remark and tell her she was welcome to shoulder her burdens alone. It would be hypocritical of her to make grand statements about her freedom and independence, and then turn to him for help at the first sign of trouble.
As the carriage and accompanying outriders traveled across the hilly countryside and approached the Hargate estate, Julia's urgency changed to apprehension. She realized she was afraid of what she might find at her childhood home, afraid of seeing her father ill, and certain that he would order her off the estate as soon as he saw her. The tall house perched among the hills like a hawk, dark and magnificent with its towers stretching toward the sky.
The vehicle stopped before the front entrance. A pair of footmen helped Julia from the carriage, while other servants came to take the horses and show the driver to the stables and carriage house. Before Julia had reached the top step, the massive door opened and the butler was there to welcome her inside.
In a matter of moments Eva appeared, wordlessly enfolding Julia in her arms.
“Mama,” Julia said in surprise, her cheek crushed against the pleated blue linen of her mother's gown. Although Eva's health had always varied greatly, she had never appeared as well as this. Somehow her mother had summoned a strength and sense of purpose she hadn't displayed in years. She was still far too thin, but the bones were no longer starkly prominent in her face, and there was a gleam of tranquillity in her brown eyes. It appeared that Eva took well to the unusual situation of being needed by her husband. For once he was the invalid and she was the head of the household.
“I'm glad you came,” Eva murmured. “I was afraid your schedule wouldn't allow a visit.”
“How is he?” Julia asked, walking with her through the entrance hall to the stairs. It seemed that a shroud had been pulled over the house; everything was unnaturally quiet and still.
Eva replied calmly, her face tense with worry. “Your father took to his bed with a fever several days ago. It was a very bad one—the doctor says it weakened all his organs. We weren't certain he would live, but now it seems the worst has passed.”
“Will he recover fully?”
“The doctor says he'll never be quite the same. The fever was enough to have killed a lesser man. It will take some time for Edward to regain his strength.”
“He won't want to see me,” Julia said, her insides drawn as tightly as violin strings.
“That's not true. He's been asking for you.”
“Why?” she asked warily. “If he wants to express his opinion that I've ruined my life and disgraced the family, I'm already aware—”
“Give him a chance,” Eva murmured. “He's been through an ordeal, Julia, and he wants to see his only child. I don't know what he wishes to say to you, but I entreat you to go to him in the spirit of forgiveness.”
Julia hesitated before replying. “I'll try.”
Eva shook her head ruefully. “If you only knew how like him you are. I believe you love him in spite of everything, but you won't set aside your pride long enough to admit it.”
“I do love him,” Julia admitted defiantly, “but that doesn't erase the things that have been said and done. Love doesn't keep people from hurting each other.”
They were both silent as they ascended the stairs together. “Would you like to freshen up in your room?” Eva asked.
“I'd prefer to see him right away,” Julia replied. She was too nervous to wait, and her tension built with each minute that passed. “That is, if Father is strong enough.”
Eva accompanied her to Edward's room. “Julia…” she said gently, “you must allow for the fact that people can change. Even your father. It's frightening to come so close to dying. I believe it made Edward face some events in his past that he has tried to ignore for years. Please be kind to him, and listen to what he has to say.”
“Of course. I'm hardly going to rush into his sickroom and start hurling accusations, Mama.”
Julia stopped at the doorway, waiting as Eva entered the room. Her mother's slender form was silhouetted against the strip of sunlight that had managed to slip through the lemon-colored window curtains. Bending over the lean form stretched out on the bed, Eva touched Edward's hair and murmured quietly.
As she watched the scene, Julia was troubled by her own lack of emotion. Her heart was blank and numb, unmarked by grief or even anger. She couldn't seem to summon any feeling for her father, and it bothered her profoundly.
Eva looked up and gestured for Julia to enter. Slowly she crossed the threshold and approached the bed, where her father lay shadowed beneath the chintz canopy. All at once a rush of feeling came, a tide of remorse and sympathy that overwhelmed her. Edward had always been a powerful figure, but he seemed small and solitary as he lay in bed with the covers pulled to his shoulders. The robust quality he had possessed in abundance had fled, leaving him immeasurably older. There was a waxen look about his skin, the result of having recently been bled by the physician.
Carefully Julia sat on the edge of the mattress. She took his hand, feeling the skin move too easily over the long bones. He had lost weight. She pressed his hand as hard as she dared, wishing she could impart some of her vitality to him.
“Father,” she said softly. “It's Julia.”
A long time passed, and his pale lashes lifted His eyes were as bright and acute as always as they took measure of her. Julia had never known her father to experience a single moment of awkwardness—he was always in command of any situation. Strangely, however, he seemed to share her uncertainty, searching in vain for words.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice alarmingly thready. His hand twitched, and for a split second Julia thought he meant to draw it away. Instead his fingers closed more firmly over hers. It was the most affection he had shown to her in years.
“I thought you might have me ejected from the house,” Julia said with a self-conscious smile.
“I thought you might not come.” Edward sighed, his chest moving in a shallow rise and fall. “I wouldn't have blamed you.”
“Mama told me how ill you've been,” Julia murmured, retaining his hand. “I could have told her and the doctor that you were too stubborn to let a mere fever get the best of you.”
Laboriously her father tried to prop himself up in bed. Eva moved forward to assist him, but Julia was already pushing a nearby pillow behind him. Edward gave his wife an enigmatic glance. “My dear…I would like to speak to Julia alone.”
Eva smiled faintly. “I understand.” She disappeared from the room with wraithlike grace, leaving father and daughter to confront each other.
Withdrawing to a nearby chair, Julia stared at Edward with a perplexed frown. She couldn't imagine what he wanted to tell her, after all the arguments and bitter feelings between them. “What is it?” she asked quietly. “Do you wish to talk about my professional life or my personal one?”
“Neither,” her father said with an effort. “It's about me.” He reached for a glass, and Julia filled it with fresh water from a small porcelain pitcher. Carefully he sipped the cool liquid. “I've never told you about my past. There were…details about the Hargates that I failed to mention.”
“Details,” Julia repeated, her fine brows quirking. The history of the Hargates was basic and uncomplicated. It was a family of moderate prestige and considerable wealth, ambitious to gain the high social status that could only be gained by intermarriage with blood even bluer than their own.
“I told myself it was necessary to protect you from the truth,” Edward said, “but that was pure cowardice on my part.”
“No. There are many qualities I would ascribe to you, Father, but cowardice is not one of them.”
Edward continued resolutely. “There are things I've never been able to talk about because I find them painful…and I've punished you because of them.” His rusty voice contained a poignant regret that astonished Julia. It
was a revelation, albeit a discomforting one, to see that her father was capable of such emotion.
“What things?” she asked softly. “What is it you want to tell me?”
“You've never known about…Anna.” The name seemed to leave a bittersweet taste on his lips.
“Who is she, Father?”
“She was your aunt…my sister.”
Julia was amazed. She had never known anyone in her father's family except a pair of uncles who had each married and chosen to live quietly in the country. “Why has no one ever mentioned her? Where is she now, and what—”
Edward lifted his hand to stop the flow of questions. Slowly he began to explain. “Anna was my older sister. She was the most beautiful creature on earth. If not for Anna, I would have had the most barren childhood imaginable. She made up games and stories to entertain me…she was a mother, a sister, a friend…she was…” Failing to find an appropriate word, he paused helplessly.
Julia listened intently. Her father had never spoken to her like this before, his face softening in reflection, his steely eyes turning hazy with memories.
“Neither of our parents was fond of children,” he said. “Not even their own. They had little to do with us until we had reached maturity, and even then we held little interest for them. Their only concern was that they had fostered a sense of discipline and duty in us. I can't say I had a fondness for them either. But I loved Anna…and I knew she was the only person in the world who truly loved me.”
“What was she like?” Julia asked in the silent interlude that followed. It seemed that Edward found it difficult to continue the narrative, memories entangling him in their fragile threads.
His gaze was unfocused, as if he were staring across a great distance. “She was wild and fanciful, very different from my brothers and I. Anna didn't care about rules or responsibilities. She was a creature of emotion, completely unpredictable. Our parents never understood her—she drove them mad at times.”
“What happened to her?”
“When Anna was eighteen, she made the acquaintance of a foreign diplomat who held a position at an embassy in London. He must have seemed the embodiment of all Anna's dreams. My father disapproved of the man and forbade Anna to see him. Naturally she rebelled and took every opportunity to sneak away and be with him. She fell in love as she did everything else…wholeheartedly, committing herself to him body and soul. But she had chosen unwisely. She…” A shadow came over Edward's face, and it seemed that he wanted to stop. He had said too much, however. Having come this far, he would follow the narrative to its painful conclusion.
“Anna conceived a child,” he said, strangling briefly on the words. “Her lover abandoned her after explaining that he was already married and had nothing to offer. My family abhorred any kind of scandal, and cast her out of our midst. It was as if she had suddenly ceased to exist. My father disinherited Anna, leaving her nearly destitute. She decided to leave for Europe to bear the consequences of her shame alone.
“Before she departed, she came to me. She didn't ask for money or any kind of help…only my reassurance that I still loved her. And I couldn't give it to her. I turned my back on her. I wouldn't even speak to her. And when she persisted in calling my name and trying to put her arms around me, I…called her a whore and walked away.”
Edward began to weep openly, the tears seeming to drain what strength he had left. “That was the last time I saw her. Anna went to France to stay with a distant cousin. Later we learned that she had died in childbirth. I managed to put her out of my mind for several years—it was either that or go mad thinking about her. Just when I had almost forgotten that she had ever existed, you were born.”
He blotted his face with a handkerchief, the stream of moisture from his eyes refusing to abate. “You looked so much like her that it shocked me every time I looked at you. I thought it a cruel twist of fate to see her in your face, your eyes…you were a constant reminder of my cruelty to Anna. And worse, you had her spirit, her way of looking at things. You were my sister reborn. I didn't want to lose you as I did her. I thought if I could make you more like me…sensible, serious, completely without imagination…then you would never leave me. But the more I tried to mold you, the more you resisted…the more like her you became. Everything I thought I was doing for your good was a mistake.”
Julia wiped a trickle of tears from her own cheeks. “Including the marriage to Lord Savage.”
“Especially that,” Edward agreed in a choked voice. “I thought it would leave you no choice except to become exactly what I wanted you to be. But you rebelled just as Anna did. You discarded your name and took to the stage, and worse, you became successful. I tried to punish you by disinheriting you…but that didn't seem to matter.”
“You're right, the money didn't matter,” Julia said, her voice unsteady. “All I wanted was for you to love me.”
Her father shook his head, the movement resembling the wobble of a broken toy. “I didn't want to love you if I couldn't change you. I couldn't bear the risk.”
And now? Julia longed to ask, questions hovering on her lips. Was it too late for them? Why had he brought himself to tell her all this? She was afraid to hope that he would want her back in his life, that he might try to accept her as he hadn't been able to in the past. But it was too soon for questions. For now, understanding was enough.
She stared at her father, seeing the exhaustion in every line of his face. His eyelids drooped, his chin dipping toward his chest. “Thank you for telling me,” she whispered, and leaned over him to arrange his pillows. “Sleep now—you're tired.”
“You'll…stay?” he managed to ask.
She nodded and smiled tenderly. “I'll stay until you're better, Father.”
Although her father's confidences had left her too stunned to be hungry, Julia mechanically consumed a small plate of chicken and boiled vegetables from a tray sent to her room. She had told Eva all that had been said, and her mother had reacted without much surprise. “I knew about poor Anna,” Eva had admitted, “but none of the Hargates were inclined to talk about her. Your father never told me that you reminded him so strongly of his sister. I suppose I should have guessed. It explains so many things…”
“Why did he tell me now?” Julia had wondered aloud. “What did he mean to accomplish?”
“He was trying to tell you that he is sorry,” her mother replied softly.
It was strange to be sleeping beneath her parents' roof once more, listening to the subtle creaks of the house, the sound of the wind whipping against the windows, the night noises of the countryside beyond. All of it was acutely familiar. Julia could almost believe she was a little girl again, and that she would wake in the morning to spend the day studying her lessons and seeking private places to read piles of books.
Staring open-eyed into the darkness, Julia saw images of her childhood pass before her in a slow parade…her father's iron-fisted rule of the house, her mother's timid presence, her own elaborately wrought fantasies…and as always, the shadow of Damon. Throughout her adolescence he had been the focus of her curiosity, fear, and resentment. He had been an invisible burden she had yearned to cast off. And when she had met him, she discovered that he was not so much torment as temptation, luring her dangerously close to a betrayal of her hard-won freedom.
Damon had shown her what she would miss if she spent her life merely interpreting roles on the stage, going home each night to an empty house and a solitary bed. She loved him now in spite of her will to resist; how much more she could love him if she let herself! She wanted him even despite his entanglement with Lady Ashton. Beneath his controlled exterior Damon was a passionate flesh-and-blood man, one who struggled with questions of desire and honor and responsibility. She admired his relentless pursuit of his goals, his efforts to shape the world to his will. If she had met him before she became an actress, how might it have changed her life?
When she finally slept, there was no respite in her dreams. Images of
Damon and the sound of his voice filled her mind, tormenting her sweetly. She awoke several times during the night, reshaping her pillow, constantly changing positions in the effort to get comfortable. “Will you send for him?” her mother had asked earlier in the evening. The question still plagued Julia. She couldn't help wanting him…she ached to feel his arms around her. However, she would not send for him. She would not depend on anyone but herself.
For the next three days, Julia spent endless hours at her father's bedside, helping to care for him, entertaining him by reading aloud from novels. Edward listened with rapt attention, his gaze locked on her face. “I'm certain you must be an accomplished actress,” he said at one point, surprising her into silence. For a man who was so bitterly opposed to her career, it must have been a difficult admission. “When you read, you make the printed word come alive.”
“You might come to see me at the Capital someday,” Julia said, her tone more wistful than she had intended. “That is, if you could bear the idea of watching your daughter on stage.”
“Perhaps,” came Edward's dubious reply.
Julia smiled. Merely allowing for the possibility was more than she ever would have expected from her father. “It's possible you would enjoy it,” she said. “I'm known as a fairly proficient player.”
“You're known as a great actress,” he corrected. “I can't seem to avoid every mention of you in the papers. It seems that you are a favorite subject of the gossips—most of it highly discomforting for a father to hear, I might add.”
“Oh, gossip,” Julia replied airily, enjoying the experience of actually conversing with him. “Almost all of it is false, I assure you. I lead a very quiet life in London—no affairs or scandals to boast of.”
“You're often mentioned in the same breath as your theater manager.”
“Mr. Scott is a friend, nothing more.” Julia met his gaze directly. “The theater is his only true love, and no other passion could come close to it.”
“What of Lord Savage? Your mother seems to think you may have some feelings for him.”