Page 17 of Atone, Adonis

She walked toward one of the beds, pushing aside a tangle of briars with her boot. “You could bring the roses back, you know. If you cared at all. Although, I doubt you—”

“Truly?” He was staring at the mess of thorn and dirt with a look flickering across his face that she’d have called hopeful if she didn’t know better.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “If you bothered even a little it wouldn’t be hard. I remember these so fondly. They were striped.”

“They were.” He still had that stupid look on his face. “Camaieux they were called. Galician roses. Eva loved their stripes too.”

His voice had gone quiet in a way she didn’t care for. It was his fault his stepmother had lost her beloved roses, after all. Everything was his fault and he shouldn’t sound wistful about it.

“She must have missed them in France then.”

“Not at that point, no. I don’t imagine she did.” He turned abruptly for the house and began to stride away, calling over his shoulder, “The gardens will require rebuilding. You may oversee the gardener, if you’d like.”

“About that,” she said briskly, hurrying to keep up with him. He had insufferably long legs. “We should discuss the matter at hand.”

“You may outfit the Manor and staff however you like. Tend to the gardens if you wish. I don’t see what else there is to speak about.”

“Is that why you brought me here? To decorate the house you couldn’t be bothered to take care of? To re-grow the rose gardens you let die? I am not your refurbishment act, sir.”

He stopped on the wayward, broken front steps of Sedgewick Manor and stared at her. He looked precisely as he had the day before—perfectly composed, perfectly controlled—despite the devastation all around him.

And she hated that. She hated him. “No. I won’t do it.”

The wind stirred the dead rose canes but neither of them moved. “Then don’t,” he said eventually.

Julianna opened her mouth, found she had nothing to say and closed it again. She didn’t know whether he meant don’t get married, don’t decorate Sedgewick Manor, or don’t oversee the growing of the roses. He offered nothing to make his words clearer.

“We should return,” she finally said. “Thomas will be wondering what became of me.”

“You have not seen the house.”

“I’ve seen quite enough, thank you.”

Chapter

7

Farrow Cottage

Julianna stared at the old cedar chest where her mother’s wedding dress was stored as if it were a coffin from which she was meant to exhume a dead body. She’d managed to open the chest and rifle through its contents of folded linens that smelled faintly of lavender and sad, sad memories.

She hadn’t quite been able to take the dress out yet, but she could see it in there. A heap of ivory muslin and lace, yellowed at the seams and frayed at the hem—still beautiful because everything that had once belonged to her mother was beautiful, although in a different way than it might have been were her mother still alive. Precious because of her attachment to it, not for its value.

She had not looked at the gown since the day she and Thomas had stored away what few things they kept after their parents had died. She hadn’t even opened the chest since.

Now she stood in her shift and stockings, trying to convince herself to just reach down and pull out the dress. If she was to have a wedding gown at all it would be this one. Or else she would go down the aisle in her muddy boots and her special walking dress with pockets, full of the stones she used to throw at foxes. Or unwanted fiancés. She rather enjoyed the idea of hurling a rock at Frederick Sedgewick.

But instead she sucked in her breath and reached out her hands, retrieving the gown from its cedar-lined burial ground. And then she drew it over her head and reached her arms awkwardly around to try and fasten the tiny pearl buttons that ran along the back.

She twisted and turned but couldn’t quite manage it. One glance at the looking glass on the washstand showed her why: her shoulders and hips were broader than her mother’s had been while her waist was smaller.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek and tugged again at the fabric. It did not give an inch. Lace and muslin generally didn’t. She closed her eyes and forced herself to keep moving. If she stopped, she would think. If she thought, she would feel. And if she felt—she would do what she ought not to do, something akin to running, screaming, in the other direction from this proposed marriage.

She couldn’t do that as much as she couldn’t throw a stone at Fred. Instead she reached for a pin in the little cushion she’d fetched from the parlor earlier, and jabbed it into the seam at her side. The pin went in crooked and stabbed her.

“Damnation,” she hissed.

“Julie-bug?” Thomas called, his voice thin through the floorboards. “Are you all right down there?”