Joan Wolf by Lord Richards Daughter Page B

were just as anxious to get rid of me, I may add. When a friend of my uncle’s was persuaded to find me a position with our embassy in Constantinople, we parted ways with mutual enthusiasm. I had wanted an army commission, but he wouldn’t buy me one. As it turned out, the job in Constantinople was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
    Her eyes were still on his profile. “Tell me about it.”
    He rose to his feet, put the notebooks on his chair, and went to lean on the rail. “There isn’t a whole lot to tell. I wasn’t in Constantinople that long—just long enough to pick up some Turkish and some Arabic. I’ve always been a quick study at languages. That was why Sir Sidney Smith took me to Egypt with him. I remained with Sir Sidney for a few years and when the British finally pulled out, I stayed.”
    She came and joined him at the rail. “Is this the first time you’ve been back to England since you left?”
    “Yes.”
    “Don’t you miss it at all?”
    “No.” His dark lashes were lowered, staring down at the water, concealing his eyes. “In England everyone is expected to conform to the same dull mold. In Egypt one has room to breathe. I like the freedom of being able to do what I want to do, be what I want to be, with no one pushing the god of respectability down my throat.”
    “But don’t you miss having a real home?”
    He shrugged a little. “Home is wherever night finds me, and that suits me just fine.”
    She stared down at her hands, which were gripping the rail tightly. “You sound just like my father. He could not—he would not—renounce his missionary dream for the safety of Crewe Rectory. He was incapable of any of the domestic ties that ordinary people feel, incapable of the love that binds families together.”
    “Then why did he marry?” His voice sounded harsh and she raised her eyes to his face. He had turned and was looking at her, his eyes hooded and unreadable.
    “I imagine he thought my mother would be useful to him,” she answered with a trace of bitterness. “He couldn’t have loved her. If he had, he would never have brought her to Africa. She wasn’t strong. She went because she loved him and she desired, above all else, to please him.” The bitterness was more pronounced now, in her voice and in the curve of her mouth. “I will never,” said Julianne with deadly certainty, “marry a man like my father.”
    “A man like your father, a man like myself, ought never to marry.” There was an edge in his voice that told her she had hit a nerve. “Women have no concept of personal freedom.” His blue gaze flicked angrily across her face. “Even you,” he said. “You have traveled where no European has been before, you have seen places and things that most of us have only dreamed of, you have the talent to produce something like this”—he gestured to her journal—”and yet all you can talk about is safety, security, and domestic ties. God Almighty!” He turned back to the water, his profile like granite,
    Julianne was furious. “Personal freedom! Don’t talk to me about personal freedom!” Her voice was shaking. “It is only another way of being selfish. In pursuing your own great vision, you heroes of personal freedom trample upon the lives of all the little people who look up to you, who depend on you. There is nothing in the world as utterly ruthless as a man who is intent on pursuing his own personal freedom .  I’m sick of it!” She was white with temper, her eyes blazing as she stared defiantly up at him.
    The air between them vibrated with angry tension. Then, “Are you, by God,” he said in a breathless, goaded undertone, and pulled her into his arms.
    The bruising pressure of his mouth on hers caused Julianne to push desperately at his chest, trying to free herself. He only held her more tightly and with the hardness of his mouth he forced her own lips open. After a minute his kiss became more gentle, slow, deliberate and quite