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and such. And I had no idea who you were. Then.”
    Marcus seated himself across from her, still rather bemused by the turn of events. “I had imagined that you were a small child, Miss Barclay.”
    She raised her brow delicately. “Did you, indeed? How extraordinary.”
    They studied each other warily in the awkward silence that fell between them. It was only interrupted when the giggling housemaids Marcus had seen earlier came in bearing a tray of refreshments.
    They arranged the food clumsily on a low table next to Julia, nearly knocking over a pot of tea in the process. One of them, he could have sworn,
winked
at Julia as they curtsied and left the room.
    What a very curious household. He would have to have a long discussion with the housekeeper about the staff.
    But tomorrow. Not tonight. Tonight, he was rather tired, and it was very pleasant to be in the company of a pretty lady, even if she
was
Julia Barclay.
    In the firelight, Anna Barclay’s daughter was very pretty indeed. Her white hands were deft as they poured out two cups of tea and arranged sandwiches and cakes on a plate. He could faintly smell her lavender scent, and she was humming some soft tune beneath her breath.
    The two of them seemed an island of warmth and golden light in the vast darkness of the drawing room. In the silence, the old house seemed to slumber around them.
    It was all so peaceful, Rosemount, his home. The home he had so foolishly run from, stayed away from. It wrapped itself around him, welcoming him back.
    He could have wept. Indeed, he feared he might have if a gentle voice had not broken into his maudlin reverie.
    “Would you care for some tea, Lord Ellston?” Julia said.
    Marcus looked up to find her hazel eyes watching him over the thin rim of a china teacup. She smiled softly, understandingly, almost as if she had divined his thoughts.
    Then he became too acutely aware that she was
not
just a pretty woman to sit peacefully by the fire with. She was the actress’s daughter. It would be wrong for him to be vulnerable before her.
    His jaw tightened, and he quickly took the cup from her, so quickly that the delicate china rattled in its saucer. “Thank you, Miss Barclay,” he said stiffly, formally.
    Her smile disappeared, and she nodded coolly.

Chapter Five
    On the sudden,
    A Roman thought hath struck him.
    —
Antony and Cleopatra
    Julia turned away to reach for her own teacup, a bit nonplussed.
    Before she met the new Lord Ellston (somehow she could not stop thinking of him as the
new
earl), she had thought he was probably a great prig. A dreadful high stickler. What other kind of person would break with his own father just because that father married an actress? And then to stay away for years!
    Julia was not accustomed to priggish people. For that reason, she had not really looked forward to meeting him at all.
    But then, he had not seemed so priggish when she met him in the lane. She had caused him to be thrown from his horse, to fall in the mud and become absolutely filthy. Any other man in his situation would have been furious. And she rather suspected he
had
been angry at first.
    Then he had laughed. He had even flirted with her. He had treated the whole awful scene as a country lark. It had been almost—fun.
    Until she realized who he truly was.
    She had tried not to show it to Abelard and the others, but she had been quite nervous at the thought of what could happen when Lord Ellston arrived at Rosemount. He had been kind and flirtatious with a strange girl on the road. How would he behave with Anna Barclay’s daughter?
    She had always suspected that he would behave as he had four years ago in the library, hurling angry words and accusations. This had been the image she carried with her through those years. Yet he had surprised her again. Once the shock of their introduction waned and they settled down before the fire, he had seemed pensive. Far away from the present moment. Carried off by the enchanted spell