Page 111 of The Belle of Belgrave Square

In answer, she abandoned her efforts at plaiting her hair and angled herself on the bed to make room for him.

The mattress springs creaked under his weight as he sat behind her. He was dangerously close. Closer even than he’d been last night. And this time there was no cashmere shawl to act as a barrier between them. There was only him—large and warm at her back.

He gathered her hair in his hand, pausing to run his fingers through it. She heard him take a deep breath. “How beautiful it is.”

She didn’t reply. Not because she had nothing to say, but because it seemed he was on the verge of saying something more himself.

But he didn’t speak again. He simply brushed her hair.

Her eyes closed with pleasure at the sensation. “Thank you.”

“For the compliment?”

“Yes. And for the service. It feels divine.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You made a splendid effort with the children this evening. I’m grateful for it.”

“I hope I wasn’t too silly, telling them about Nanny Plum and Nanny Bracegirdle.”

“Not at all. It amused them greatly.”

But not him, it seemed. Julia sensed an underlying tension in his frame. As if something about their dinner conversation had troubled him.

“Have you always escaped into stories?” he asked.

“For as long as I can remember,” she said. “What is it you called novels at Lady Clifford’s musicale? ‘An inexpensive escape from the realities of life’?”

It’s what they’d been for her. An escape. A gateway to another world. Somewhere she could experience romance and adventure without anxiousness or fear—even if that experience was only in her imagination.

“I did,” he said. “But that’s not all they are.”

“What else?”

He ran the brush through her hair—one long, deep stroke from her roots to the end of her thick tresses. Julia’s limbs turned to treacle under his ministrations. Mary’s brushing had never had this effect. It had never made Julia feel so warm and languorous, as if she might melt with every sweep of the bristles.

“Stories like the ones we read in novels help us understand the human condition,” he said. “They teach us empathy. In that way, they’re more than an escape from the world. They’re an aid for living in the world. For being better, more compassionate people.”

Julia frowned. She hadn’t thought of it in those terms before. “Is that what novel reading has done for you? Made you more empathetic?”

“It has.” He ran the brush through her hair for another long stroke. “And you as well, I suspect. Perhaps that’s why you’re so unlike your parents.” His deep voice tickled her ear. “It wasn’t them who raised you. It was romances and fairy tales.”

She smiled, even as a shiver traced down her spine at the huskiness of his words. “One could just as easily say I was raised by penny dreadfuls. And what kind of parent would Varney the Vampire make? Or Sweeney Todd?”

He chuckled. “Fair point.”

Her smile faded as he continued brushing. “Speaking of empathy . . . Is Mr. Beecham responsible for all the household chores?”

“God no. He’s too old for any of the heavy work. He attends only to the cooking and light housekeeping. And to tutoring the boys now they’re out of school.”

“What about the laundry?”

“I do the laundry.”

She cast him a startled look. “You?”

“Why not? It’s generally too taxing for Beecham—all that bending and scrubbing. And it isn’t as though I’ve no experience with the job. Any good soldier knows how to wash and press his clothes.”

Her brows knit. “Goodness. I never considered it.”