The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews

Author:Mimi Matthews [Matthews, Mimi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

Pushing back the curtain, Julia peered out the rain-streaked window of the hired carriage. It was still pouring outside, the lonely Yorkshire landscape a blurry expanse of stormy skies and eerily empty countryside. They’d been on the road for nearly three hours—a distance of more than fifteen miles from the roadside inn outside of Malton.

“Is it much further now?” she asked.

“Another hour,” Jasper said. Dressed in a sober black suit, with an equally sober expression on his face, he was seated across from her in the carriage, not beside her. Indeed, since they’d left the inn, he’d seemed resolved to put a bit of distance between them.

Julia couldn’t think why. Had she said something? Done something? Or was it only that he was brooding about returning home with a new wife in tow?

She was anxious, too. Though her anxiety had nothing to do with regrets about their marriage. Last night, tucked beside him in their narrow attic bed, she’d slept more soundly than she ever had in her life.

It had been an entirely new experience—and not only because he was a man. She’d never shared a bed with anyone before. Even as a little girl, none of her ever-changing roster of nurses had slept beside her. And Julia had never been permitted to have any of her friends stay over, or to stay over with them in return.

Sleeping with Jasper had felt scandalous at the start. He was too big—too male. It was impossible to move an inch without touching him. But exhaustion quickly overtook any thought of shyness or embarrassment. She’d drifted off as soon as she closed her eyes.

After that, she couldn’t remember much of anything about the experience. But she could readily recollect the feelings it had engendered. She’d been wonderfully warm and utterly and completely safe.

At dawn, she’d awakened to an empty bed. Her new husband was an early riser. He was already up and half-dressed, standing in front of the washstand, shaving himself. She’d watched him for a moment from the warmth of the tangled bedcovers, fascinated to witness such a private masculine ritual.

Her spying hadn’t lasted long.

He’d caught her gaze in his shaving mirror. His razor had stilled on his jaw. Taut seconds passed, and then: “I’ve ordered breakfast,” he’d said. “If you’re equal to it, I’d like to be on the road within the hour.”

She’d pushed her tousled hair back from her face, feeling suddenly self-conscious as she registered the change in his mood. “Of course. It won’t take me long to wash and dress.”

As the poorly sprung carriage rattled through the mud, jolting her in her seat, Julia again wondered what had happened to alter his manner toward her.

Perhaps it was only now sinking in that he was stuck with her. That he hadn’t only gained her fortune, but her as well—until death would they part.

She reminded herself once more that she hadn’t married him for romance. She’d married him to free herself from the oppressiveness of London, and from an inevitable betrothal to Lord Gresham.

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