The Rake's Redemption(37)

Amazement that she had understood what no one else had ever guessed  shifted in his eyes, but then was gone. "Perhaps at first, but battle  suited my needs  …  for awhile," forcing as much cruelty in his voice as  he could muster. "Then later in Madrid a beguiling contessa taught me  much  …  things a woman like you would not even understand … " He flinched  at the shock on her face, knowing for certain that in revealing his  sordid past she would finally turn from him in disgust. But looking into  her eyes, shimmering with tears, was his undoing. There had been too  much pain already for all of them. He couldn't make himself continue the  catalogue of his sins. "I'm not worthy of you. Can never be. I would  not degrade you by offering what little I can give, for even that is  flawed," he finished softly.

"And that I see, disposes of our future," she said, suddenly furious  with him, her chest heaving with indignation. "Do you think you know my  feelings better than I do? You are not always right!"

With great deliberation she turned her back on him. "Is that all you have to say, Dominic?"

"Yes," his voice was weary as she had never heard it before. "I wanted  you to know that the fault lies with me  …  not with you, Juliana. You are  all any man could ever hope to find."

She turned to him again. "Yet, you are letting me go."

"You are out of my reach, my darling."

"Only because you make it so … "

"No. Because you are too fine." Unexpectedly he took her hand and led  her to sit on the bed. "Perhaps if I had told you this from the  beginning you would understand." He paced the length of the chamber  considering his words.

"Will and I became friends on the Peninsula. I was with him at Badajoz."  Ignoring her gasp, he continued, "I held him in my arms when he called  for his Juliana as he lay dying. There in the midst of those bloody  battlefields he had spoken often of his young bride. She was so fine,  with glorious copper hair, soft and loving, fierce and protective.  There, dying in the mud, horror all around him, his vision of you  brought him peace. Somehow thoughts of you also brought me peace. And  you became my guardian angel. Everything I did in that war, every risk I  took, every battle I fought, was for you."

He turned away. "I used to imagine you. Safe in the countryside, the  dogs gamboling at your skirts as you strolled through fields of flowers.  Or dancing, turning to the strains of a waltz, with hundreds of candles  reflected in your eyes."

It brought her happiness to know Will had loved her so. But that was the  past. Now she must fight for her future and her love for Dominic.                       
       
           



       

"Instead, I was nursing a bitter old man who tried to bind me to the  past with promises." She stood and faced him. "As you are trying to do."

He shook his head, rejecting her words.

"Yes," she insisted. "Your vision was just a dream. My life has been far  from the perfection you imagined. It's been filled with pain and anger  and responsibility. But now, it's filled again with love. And a chance  to start over. You must give us that chance, Dominic."

"There is no second chance for me."

Clenching her fists, she rose and stared at him, trying with all the  love in her heart to reach out to him. "Why are you doing this? Why are  you denying both of us?"

There was a short silence and then, "I am not the right man for you, Juliana."

"You are wrong, you know," she returned quietly. "Nothing you have told  me, nothing I have learned, has made me love you less. Dear God, I do  not care what you have done. Yesterday belongs to the past. Tomorrow is  ours."

He stopped on his way out, turning to face her. That slight hesitation  caused hope to flicker in her heart and a new determination to take root  in her mind. She would find a way to break through his barriers.

He did not speak, but only lifted her hand and turning her palm up, pressed his lips there before leaving her.

She had been wrong and Jules right. Dominic did love her, and she would  not allow him to throw their happiness away. Mrs. Forbes, granddaughter  of a gypsy princess, had told her to follow her heart and that she fully  intended to do. She had little time left. Tonight she would seek Jules  out and discover what she needed to know to reach Dominic. Nothing else  mattered.





Chapter 13





Jules had conquered his nightmares. To reaffirm that, he had requested  his old rooms during his stay at the Towers. That the duke and duchess  had taken great pains to open the rooms again and make them comfortable  for him was evident in the faint scent of paint and beeswax.

Dinner had been nearly impossible. Without George, Charlotte was almost  silent, except to deflect one or two of her mother's most tiring  observations. The duke and duchess tried, with help from Sophia and  Rodney, to keep the conversation lively with wedding plans. Even the  duchess's grand idea of allowing a dozen pairs of turtledoves to fly  overhead in the church during the nuptials, quickly and firmly squelched  by the duke, failed to divert. And any chance look at Dominic or  Juliana was enough to dampen the evening. Dominic, grim and determined,  replied to any observation in a monosyllable; Juliana, eyes brightened  with unshed tears, merely smiled and heard nothing. The entire company  was relieved when the duchess dismissed them all early to seek their own  amusements.

After a brandy by himself in the study, Jules pushed open the door to  his sitting room. His valet, holding a thick candle, came out of a  doorway at the far end of the corridor.

"I shan't need you. Go to bed," Jules called to him softly.

Alone, Jules passed through the sitting room, entered and closed the door to his chamber behind him.

Inside, waiting for him, was Juliana.

He stopped as if he had walked into an invisible wall. Juliana stood in a  gown of softest spring green dimity, her rich auburn hair cascading  over her shoulders and down her back, looking for all the world as if  she had begun preparing for bed, and then changed her mind.

He came several steps into the room and stood looking at her guardedly.

Her eyes, wide and open in the beauty of her face, rested upon him. "I can't go on like this, Jules. I have come to help you."

She walked toward him, her hands outspread in entreaty. "But first I  must know it all, Jules. All of the ghosts that haunt you and Dominic."

"I see," he said. In that moment he paled. He had not expected this and  for a moment was set adrift. Finally he moved to stare down into the  fire, his fingers resting lightly against the mantelpiece. "Why have you  decided to help me?"

"Because I love Dominic. And it seems  …  what I feel for him  …  he also  feels for me. But there is something keeping us apart. Something besides  his rakehell past which makes him feel unworthy of me."

Jules turned from the fire and sank into the depths of the deep crewel  wing chair beside it. He knew Juliana could not clearly see his face in  the dimly lit chamber.

"I'm sorry, Juliana. But I was wrong and you were right. We cannot help Dominic. Only he has the key."

Juliana's face muscles trembled, but she stilled them. "I cannot let him throw away this gift we have been given."

"There is only one person who can finally put a stop to the legacy of  pain our parents left us. And it is not me. Or you," Jules said, not  unkindly, after a short silence.                       
       
           



       

At that Juliana turned to the fire and sank down before it as if seeking  its small warmth. "Then you have decided not to entrust me with the  truth that will enable me to reach him."

"I find that I, like Dominic, cannot easily lay open that wound to others," he said evenly.

"I see. Then you, like Dominic, choose to continue wallowing in self-pity," Juliana said contemptuously.

He moved swiftly, pulling her up and around to confront him. The he saw  the ceaseless tears pouring unheeded down her lovely face. Jules found  that he could not turn away from the appeal in Juliana's wide,  tear-filled eyes.

"My mother and Charles were an unsuitable match from the moment they  met," Jules began slowly. "They were two people trapped in the net of a  grand passion. Leticia's for my late father, and Charles's for my  mother. It was a tragedy that grew until it affected everyone and  everything around them. For as Charles tried to possess my mother, she  became more possessive of my father's memory  …  while taking lover after  lover. She told Charles she was searching for someone who made her feel  as my father had." Jules took a deep breath trying to calm his pulse.  Even after all these years it still was not easy.