Loving Julia by Karen Robards Page B

tufts of grass remained in the mud. Then he jumped up beside her, reclaimed the reins from a pokerfaced Jenkins, and clucked to the horses. The carriage lurched forward again. With a low moan Jewel clutched the side of the curricle and resigned herself to enduring more hours of misery.
    By the time dusk fell, Jewel was resigned to death. In fact, she longed for it. She had never been so physically miserable in all her life. She prayed for a crash, for the earl to suffer a heart attack, anything that would cause them to stop. But still the benighted vehicle lurched and jolted and jerked on and on through the freezing wind of an approaching winter’s night.
    They entered Norfolk, and after a while rattled through the little village of Bishop’s Lynn. Jewel felt too ill to do more than notice the spires of the two churches situated on the opposite ends of the town. Then they seemed to be drawing close to the sea because Jewel heard a faint roaring that she had at first thought was in her own head, and then decided was the sound of waves breaking on the shore. The idea would have excited her if she hadn’t felt so ill. She had never seen the sea.
    “Are we nearly there?” she was finally compelled to ask as her body seemed frozen through, and her stomach threatened to turn itself inside out again, though it was now quite empty.
    “Not nearly. We are there,” the earl responded briefly, pointing ahead with his whip. And thus, silhouetted against the backdrop of a darkening sky, did Jewel get her first glimpse of the house that she would learn was called White Friars.

VIII
    After the misery of the journey Jewel was briefly cheered when the enormous pile of gray rock that the earl indicated was their destination appeared against the mountain of charcoal clouds that shrouded the horizon. At last, she thought, a bloody end to this ’ellish rockin’, and before it rained again, too. Maybe her luck was changing for the better.
    But that was before the curricle bowled down the avenue and Jewel got her first good look at the house. It was composed of three wings in the shape of a rectangle with the bottom bar missing. The driveway closely followed the shape of the house, forming a semicircle so that one could drive up to the front entry and away from the house again without ever turning around. Dozens upon dozens of mullioned windows stared down at the driveway, their arched shape embellished by elaborate carvings of gargoyles that seemed to be laughing gleefully at the folly of those who approached.
    The house itself exuded a presence. As ridiculous as the thought was, it seemed to brood; its shadow, barely distinguishable from the deepening gloom of falling night, nevertheless fell over the curricle with a chill dampness that sent a shiver running up Jewel’s spine. Curiously, in the whole massive place only three windows were lit. Two, high up in the center wing, seemed to stare down on the approaching curricle like unblinking eyes.
    Jewel chided herself for her folly, but all the common sense of which she was capable did not help. The house looked colder and more desolate than the night it would shelter them from.
    The massive door swung open before the curricle came to a stop. A swarm of servants carrying lanterns descended the steps. The earl, who had perceptibly tensed as soon as the house was in view, reined in, jumped down from the curricle, and curtly told Jenkins to go to the horses’ heads. Then he turned to look up at Jewel, who still sat in the curricle, staring wide-eyed at the house.
    “Get down,” he said, his voice terse.
    “Eh, it be uncommon grand, but it gives me the willies,” she breathed before she could stop herself.
    He drew in a sharp breath. “It’s only a house.”
    Then she looked at him. The light from the lanterns cast an orange glow over his features, making him look far more devil than angel. His gilt hair seemed to flame. A devil master for a devil house, she thought, and