Miracles

"Perhaps," he said noncommittally.

"You know he had to have done! Nicholas may have a long history of defying propriety in his personal life, but there has never been a breath of scandal that involves anyone else. He would never have taken Julia

Since he couldn't argue that logic, her husband smiled reassuringly. "Perhaps everything will work out, then."

His wife's shoulders sagged. "I've thought of saying something to Julia

Twelve

Alone in her bedchamber, Julia

Nicki and his parents had been very generous to her, though Nicki's gifts were completely impersonal and only for appearances. He had given his parents their presents as if they came from Julia

But the truth was, Julia

She was in love with him, she'd learned that during this wonderful, agonizing week with him. She'd learned other things, too, that made it seem essential to make one more attempt to heal the breach between them. First and foremost, according to Nicki's mother, Nicki loved children and doted on his nieces. He wanted children, she said, while Nicki's mother was hoping specifically for a grandson to carry on the family name. As things stood now, all that was impossible. Because of Julia

An empty childless life, unless she did something, and there was only one thing left that she hadn't already done. .She had not shown him the letters. They were the only "evidence" she could offer Nicki that she hadn't pla

The problem was that she could not let him see the evidence without simultaneously letting him see all of herself… Everything she had been and wasn't and wanted to be. It was all in there, and once he read it, she would be more nakedly vulnerable than she had ever been in her life. It was still fairly early, and she could hear Nicki moving about. Uttering a fervent prayer that this would work, Juliana walked over to the adjoining door that co

Nicki got up and opened the door, took one look at what she was wearing and nearly slammed it shut in self-defense. Clad in a cherry velvet dressing robe with a deep oval neck and her hair tumbling about her shoulders like molten gold, Julia

"I-I have something to give you," she said, moving toward him in a halo of shimmering hair, alluring skin, and rich velvet. "Here, take it."

Nicki glanced at her and then at it. "What is it?"

"Take it, please. Just take it."

"Why in hell should I?"

"Because it's – it's a present – a Christmas present from me to you."

"I don't want anything from you, Julia

"But you do want children!" she said, looking almost as stu

"I don't need you in order to sire children," he said contemptuously.

She paled at that, but persevered. "Any others wouldn't be legitimate."

"I can legitimize them later. Now get out of here!"

"Damn you," Julia

A slow, sarcastic smiled crossed his saturnine face. "Really," he drawled in a scathing voice, "who did you think I was."

"God!" Julia

She whirled on her heel and fled. Ignoring the box, Nicki fixed himself a drink, carried it over to the sofa, and picked up the book he'd left lying there when he answered her knock. He opened it to the first page, then glanced at the box of letters. Out of sheer curiosity to see what ploy his clever and imaginative young wife had concocted this time, he decided to read one of the letters instead.

The one on top was dated last spring, and he presumed he was supposed to start there, though he'd never set eyes on Julia

Dear Grandmother,

I met someone in the park today and made such a cake of myself, I can hardly bear to think of it. There's always so much gossip about gentlemen in London -about how handsome one of them is supposed to be, and it's always such a disappointment when you see them. And then I saw Nicholas DuVille… He was beautiful, Grandmama… so beautiful. Hard, too, and cold, at least on the surface, but I think he laughed at what I said when I walked away. If he did, then he can't be hard at all, merely cautious.

Two hours later a log fell from the grate and crashed in an explosion of orange sparks as Nicki laid the last letter aside, then he picked up the one that he had already read twice, and he read the same lines that had filled him with self-loathing.

I know how ashamed you are of me, Grandmother. I only meant to dance those three dances with him, so that Sir Francis would withdraw his offer… I knew I shouldn't let him kiss me, I knew it, but if you'd ever been kissed by Nicholas DuVille, you'd understand. If you'd ever seen his smile or heard him laugh, you'd understand. How I yearn to see his smile and hear his laughter again. I long to make things right somehow. I yearn and I yearn and I yearn. And then I cry…

With her hip perched on the window seat, Julia