And their last.
Moisture pricked at the backs of her eyes. It was silly to be so affected. But what lady wouldn’t be to have shared such a kiss with such a man?
“I shall remember it for as long as I live,” she said.
“So will I, Miss Wychwood,” he vowed softly. “So will I.”
Thirteen
The trouble with an unforgettable kiss was that, within a startlingly short period of time, remembering it wasn’t enough. Julia was no sooner back in her bedroom in Belgrave Square than she was consumed by thoughts of repeating the experience.
Her foolish heart couldn’t accept that it was never going to happen again.
But it wasn’t.
It couldn’t.
Henceforward, all Captain Blunt’s kisses belonged to Miss Throckmorton.
As Julia sat in front of her dressing table, head bent for Mary to brush her hair, a sickening jealousy sank its claws into her soul.
She was unaccustomed to the sensation.
It wasn’t in her nature to be jealous of anyone. Not young ladies who were prettier than she was, or who had experienced more of life. She prided herself on being a good friend. On being genuinely happy for those of her acquaintance more fortunate than she was herself.
But not now. Not at this moment.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Mary remarked. “And here I thought you’d be chattering my ear off about the ball.” She ran another stroke of the brush through Julia’s hair. “You’re not really ill, are you?”
“I don’t know,” Julia said. She certainly felt poorly.
It’s what she’d told Mrs. Major anyway.
After parting ways with Captain Blunt in the garden, Julia had returned to the house in search of her chaperone. She’d found Mrs. Major at the edge of the ballroom, all atwitter over Lord Gresham’s departure.
“Quite a to-do,” she’d said. “The earl over imbibed. He’s gone home in a cab.”
“I’d like to go home, too,” Julia had said. “I’m not feeling at all well.”
In the Wychwood family, there was no statement more powerful than one intimating ill health. Even Mrs. Major had snapped to attention. The earl had left his carriage at their disposal. She’d wasted no time in bundling Julia into it and seeing her straight back to Belgrave Square.
On arriving, Mrs. Major had accompanied Julia into the hall to leave a note for her father. While writing it, she’d fretted loudly over Lord Gresham’s drunkenness, Julia’s sickness, and the prospect Sir Eustace would blame Mrs. Major for both.
All the servants had heard her.
“You are pale,” Mary acknowledged as she set aside the silver-plated brush. “Is there anything I can bring you? A cup of chocolate? Or some warm milk?”
“There’s nothing you can do for me,” Julia said bleakly. “Not unless . . .”
Once again, she thought of Miss Throckmorton and her boundless fortune.
Was that the reason Captain Blunt had chosen her instead of Julia? Not because of Julia’s personal failings but because of her financial ones?
There was only one way to find out.
“Not unless you can discover how much Miss Daphne Throckmorton is worth,” she said.
Mary’s brows shot up. “That toffee heiress everyone’s talking about?”
Julia wasn’t surprised Mary had heard of her. As the longest-serving servant in the Wychwood household, Mary prided herself on knowing all the fashionable comings and goings in Mayfair.
“Hmm. I suppose I could find out.” She gave her a quizzical look. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because,” Julia said, “the information might make me feel better.”
Or not.
Either way, at least she’d know the truth.
“The state you’re in, you don’t need information.” Mary examined Julia’s face in the mirror. “What you need is bed. Or a doctor. You sure you don’t want Jenkins to send for one?”
“No. No doctors.” Julia didn’t wait for her maid to plait her hair, or even to draw back the coverlet on her bed. Rising from her dressing table, she crossed the room and climbed up onto the mattress, slipping beneath the covers to burrow her head in her pillow.
Mary followed after her, her brow creased with uncharacteristic worry. “What’s wrong, miss? It’s naught to do with the earl, is it? I heard as how he was in his cups.”
“He was.”
“Did he take liberties?”
Julia made no reply.
Mary tsked and shook her head. “There’s some men made foolish by drink. You can’t judge ’em too harshly.”
“What does it matter?” Julia grumbled. “He could be the drunkest man in Christendom, and if he proposed, I’d still be obliged to marry him.”
“You’ll be a countess,” Mary reminded her.
“I don’t want to be a countess.”
“What do you want, then? To stay in this room all day? In this bed, reading your romances?” Mary cast a disparaging glance at the teetering stack of J. Marshland novels on Julia’s bedside table. “Much more of that and people will say you’re an eccentric.”
“They already say that.”
“You want them to say worse?”
Julia turned over onto her back. “What I want is for a gentleman to love me like a hero in a story. Someone who doesn’t care about my dowry or my pedigree or whether or not I can give him an heir. I want a gentleman who’ll take me in my underclothes, exactly as I am.”
Mary scoffed. “You can’t compare your life to one of them novels. Haven’t I told you? None of that’s real.”
“I know it isn’t real. If it were, I wouldn’t have endured nearly three seasons only to receive an offer from a man like Lord Gresham. And now I must accept him because Papa has said I must.”
And because no one else wants me.
Her vision blurred in spite of herself. “I suppose I am sick. Pray leave me alone, Mary.”
In the absence of her friends, Julia had so far refrained from claiming illness to avoid her responsibilities. It was an unsustainable excuse. But Mama was arriving in the morning. There would be Lord Gresham’s suit to contend with. And then, as if that weren’t enough, there was to be a picnic in Richmond Park. Everyone who was anyone would be in attendance. Miss Throckmorton, certainly. And if she was there, Captain Blunt was sure to be present as well.