Excerpt of An Independent Woman by Candace Camp

JULIANA HAD NOT EXPECTED to see him again.

She had heard that Nicholas had come into the title and returned to England, which had surprised her. All her life, she had thought that it was Nicholas's uncle who was the heir, not him. Certainly, no one had ever treated him like the future earl. She had assumed that their paths would never cross. After all, he was an earl now, and wealthy, and she was a paid companion to a woman who moved only on the edges of that rarefied circle of society to which he belonged.

There had been an instant, when she had first heard the murmurs of Nicholas's return from America and his sudden elevation into the inner sanctum of polite society, that she had thought with an up-surge of an almost painful excitement that she would see him once more. Time, and an application of reason, had led her to realize that was unlikely.

Even though they had once been close, it had been many years ago. If he even thought of her, it would be only as a dim memory from his past, a person from a time and place he doubtless recalled with little fondness. Her time at Lychwood Hall had been unhappy, but his had been even bleaker. Juliana suspected that he had done his best to put the past behind him. He would not seek her out. Only a foolish romantic would hope that he would.

And there was little chance that they would accidentally run into each other. Her employer, Mrs. Thrall, however much she might like to think she was a member of the upper echelon of London society, was in reality a very small fish swimming in the outer, eddying rings of that pond. The family was at best acceptable country gentry come to the city, and it was only the undeniable beauty of Clementine, Mrs. Thrall's daughter, that got them any sort of notice.

Tonight, however, the Thralls had received an invitation to Lady Sherbourne's ball, a huge crush of an affair, so large that it pulled in many lesser members of Society. Juliana understood that it was only the sheer numbers of invitees that had made it possible for them to be here. Mrs. Thrall, of course, did not. She had been crowing for the past week about Lady Sherbourne having taken them under her wing.

Because of the size of the party, Juliana had harbored a small flicker of hope, barely acknowledged, that Lord Barre would appear. But she had not really believed it, deep down. After all, from the gossip she had managed to glean, sitting quietly listening to Clementine and her giggling friends, Nicholas rarely attended any party. His reclusiveness, of course, simply added to his mystique.

But there he was. Juliana looked up from her perusal of Clementine sweeping around the floor in the arms of one of her many admirers, and there, standing at the top of the wide staircase leading down into the ballroom, was Nicholas Barre.

Her heart skittered in her chest, and for an instant, she felt as if she could not breathe. He was handsome, more handsome even than she remembered — filled out now into a man, with broad shoulders that needed no extra padding from his tailor, and long, muscled legs. He stood, looking out coolly over the mass of people below him, confidence, even a certain arrogance, stamped on his features. His hair was thick and a trifle shaggy, jet-black in color and falling carelessly beside his face. His eyes appeared as black as his hair, accented by the straight slashes of his black brows.

He did not look like other men. Not even the black formal coat and snowy white shirt could camouflage the hint of wildness that clung to him.

Wherever he went, Juliana thought, he must immediately be the center of attention. She wondered if he was aware of that.

Perhaps he had become accustomed to it. He had always been one set apart. Dangerous, they had called him. And wicked. Juliana suspected that the same appellations were still directed at him.

She realized suddenly that she was staring, and she glanced quickly away. What was she to do? She swallowed hard, her hands curling into fists in her lap.

She remembered the last time she had seen him — the planes and angles of his face stark white in the moonlight, his eyes great pools of darkness. He had been only sixteen then, leanly muscular in a way that suggested the powerful male body he would grow into. His hair had been longer and unkempt, tousled by the wind and his impatient fingers. There had been a hardness to his face even then, a certain wariness that bespoke much about his past.

Juliana had clung to him, holding his arm with both hands as though she could make him stay, her twelve-year-old heart breaking within her. "Please," she had begged. "Don't go...."

"I can't, Jules," he had replied, frowning. "I have to go. I can't stay here anymore."

"But what will I do?" she had asked plaintively. "It will be so horrid here without you. No one but them..." Her voice invested the word with disgust.

"You'll be all right. You'll get through it. They won't hurt you."

"I know," she had whispered, tears filling her eyes. She knew that no one ever harmed her as they did him. There were no angry cuffs of the hand, or days spent without meals or companionship, alone in her room, as there were for Nick. But the thought of life without him beside her was dull and flat, almost unbearable.

From the time she and her mother had come to Lychwood Hall when she was eight, Nicholas had been her only friend, her closest companion. They had been drawn together naturally, the two outsiders on the Barre estate, disdained by Nicholas's aunt and uncle and their children. Charity children, both of them, and often reminded of it, they had formed a firm alliance, closer than a boy of twelve and a girl of eight would normally have been. And if, as he had grown up, racing toward adulthood, he had moved farther from her in interests and activities, there had always remained that special bond between them.

"Can't I come with you?" she had asked without hope, knowing that his answer would be a refusal.

He shook his head. "They'd come after me for sure if I took you with me. This way, perhaps, I have a chance of getting away from them."

"Will you come back? Please?"

He had smiled then, a rare wondrous smile that few besides her had seen. "Of course. I'll make lots and lots of money, and then I shall come back and take you away. You'll be rich, and everyone will call you 'my lady.'And Seraphina will have to curtsey to you. How's that?"

"Perfect." Her heart had swelled with love for him even as she knew, deep inside her realistic soul, that he was unlikely to return, that he would disappear from her life just as her father had.

"Don't forget me," she had said, swallowing her tears, refusing to act like a baby in front of him. She reached up, taking the simple leather thong from around her neck, and held it out to him. A gold signet ring dangled from it, simple and masculine.

Nicholas had looked at her in surprise. "No. Jules — that was your father's. I can't take that. I know how much it means to you."

"I want you to have it," she had replied stubbornly.

"It'll keep you safe. Take it."

Finally he had taken it from her hand. Then, with a last halfhearted smile, he had vanished into the night, leaving her alone in the darkening garden.

She had not seen him again for fifteen years. Juliana cast another glance toward the top of the staircase. Nicholas was no longer there. Cautiously she looked around the room, but she could not spot him anywhere in the crowd. She returned her gaze to her lap, wondering how she could manage to get out of here without his seeing her.

Her stomach was twisted into knots, partly with excitement, but mostly with fear. She did not want him to see her, did not want to have to face the fact that he might snub her...that he might not even recognize her.

Nicholas Barre had meant too much to her for her to bear a snub. She had loved him as only a child can love. After he ran away from the estate, she had not let her memories of him fade. For a long time she had held his promise in her heart, hoping he would reappear and take her away — from her mother's sadness, from Crandall's cruelties and Aunt Lilith's petty sniping, from Seraphina's casual assumption that Juliana was there to do whatever she asked. As Juliana had grown into womanhood, it had been Nicholas's image that had fueled her adolescent dreams, becoming the hero on a white charger who would come riding up to Lychwood Hall and sweep her up before him on his horse, carrying her away from the life she disliked and bestowing upon her his name, as well as fabulous jewels and fashionable clothes.

Of course, she had not been so foolish as to keep those dreams long. She had grown up and had made her own life. Long ago she had stopped believing — and then finally stopped even wishing — that Nicholas would return and seek out his childhood friend. Even when she had heard that he had returned to London from whatever far-flung place he had been, she had not thought he would come for her...or at least she had firmly squashed the little germ of an idea before it even grew full-size in her mind.

After all, when he had promised to return, they had been of more or less equal station — unwanted relatives, living on the Barres' charity — or, at least, so she had thought. But now he was Lord Barre and reportedly quite wealthy in his own right, as well as having inherited his grandfather's estate. It would be foolish in the extreme, she knew, to even hope he would look her up. Promises made at the age of sixteen rarely lasted.

She had experienced the bitter reward of being proved right. It had been two months since she had heard that Nicholas was in London again, and he had not come to her. She was too realistic to think that if he ran into her tonight, he would greet her with cries of delight. Heavens, he probably would not even recognize her as the child he had once known.