Free All Things Beautiful by Cathy Maxwell

narrowed angrily.
    Julia doubled her hands into fists. Just let him be angry! She had a word or two in mind for him.
    Her face remained schooled in pleasantness as she smiled sweetly. “Hello, dearest. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting overlong for me to arrive.”
    “You! What are you doing here?”
    Honey dripped from her next words as she walked toward him. “Why, darling, I wanted to surprise you.” She stopped directly in front of him and, saucily wagging a finger, added, “I didn’t want mon petit chou chou ”—she enjoyed using her mother’s favorite endearment for Maestro—“to be lonely without me.”
    Wolf looked ready to explode. “Lonely?” His body tensed as he struggled physically to keep controlof his temper. He lost the battle. “Don’t you ever bloody hell do what anyone wants you to do?” His booming voice rattled the windowpanes.
    Julia lifted her chin, looked him square in the eye, and said, “No.”
    His mouth dropped open, his eyes reflecting stunned surprise. Julia laughed with the joy of winning a point on Brader Wolf.
    She wasn’t laughing a moment later when he turned away from her and stormed across the room as if he had to move away or risk throttling her with his bare hands. Looking at the size of those hands, opening and clenching, Julia suddenly questioned the wisdom of tweaking Brader’s nose in his lair, so to speak. She pushed the thought aside as cowardly and unworthy of a descendent of William the Conqueror.
    At last he appeared to have some control over himself. His eyes livid with fury, Brader turned back to her. “I have no idea what game you are playing, but I do not find it humorous.”
    “Game! I am your wife—”
    “Wife!”
    “—and I will not be left behind like a coat you tried on and decided wasn’t to your liking.”
    “That’s right!”
    Julia blinked, confused. “What’s right?”
    “You’re not to my liking. Is it possible to get that thought through your slow aristocratic head? I—did—not
—choose—you. I—do—not—want—you.” He bit each word out.
    Anger swept away any hurt she might have felt. Julia placed her hands on her hips and leaned forward to look up at him eyeball to eyeball. “And can you get it through that thick peddler’s skull of yours that I’m your wife for eternity until death us do part, whether you like it or not?”
    “Peddler!” His brows pulled together in an angry V, his eyes flashing such fire that for a moment Julia wondered if the death she spoke of might be close at hand. She took a step back.
    “You’d be wise to move farther away than that,” Brader growled, taking a step toward her. “For your information, I am not—nor ever will be—a peddler!” He continued stalking her. “You may call me a banker, or a financier, or a merchant. You may even call me a bloody moneymaker. But do not call me a peddler. I’m no damned tinker!”
    He’d backed her up against the doorframe with a thump. Cornered, Julia came back spitting fire of her own. “And you may call me your wife. For that’s what I am before God and all men, and nothing you do or say will change that fact!”
    Brader’s eyes swung skyward, his arms outstretched as if looking for divine guidance. “What do you want? It can’t be money; I’ve settled a fortune on you. It can’t be me; less than two weeks ago I wasn’t good enough to dance with you! What in bloody hell do you want?”
    “I want a child.”
    Brader’s jaw dropped as if she’d struck him. The astonishment on his face would have been comicalif Julia wasn’t wrapped up in her own shock at having just blurted out her deepest desire.
    She held her breath, waiting for his reaction. Not even the satisfaction of giving him an answer he’d never suspected steadied her nerves.
    “Bravo!” a soft, fluttering voice announced.
    Julia turned toward the speaker. A petite, older woman, dressed in black and wrapped in a heavy wool shawl, sat on a small rocker before the bay