Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart (28 page)

“Miss Fiori, is it?”

Juliana looked up again, hands wrist deep in pastry. “Juliana.”

Georgiana nodded. “And what do you know of my brother’s heart, Juliana?”

“I—I simply mean he must have a heart, no?” When none of the women replied, returned to the dough. “I don’t know.”

Fold, turn, fold.

“It sounds like you know quite a bit.”

“I don’t.” She meant for it to sound more emphatic than it was.

“Juliana,” Georgiana asked in a pointed way that was all too familiar, “are you . . . fond of my brother?”

She shouldn’t be. He was everything she didn’t want. Everything she loathed about England and aristocrats and men.

Except the parts of him that were everything she loved about them.

But his bad far outweighed the good.

Hadn’t he just proven it?

Juliana slapped her hand into the dough, her hand spreading the mass flat on the table. “Your brother is not fond of me.”

There was a long silence before she looked up to find Georgiana smiling at her. “That is not what I asked, though.”

“No!” she burst out. “There is nothing about that man to be fond of.” Georgiana’s mouth dropped open as she continued. “All he cares about is his precious dukedom”—she collected the dough violently into a ball—“and his precious reputation.” She punched the ball, enjoying the sensation of dough pressing through her fingers. She flipped the disk over and repeated the action before she realized that she had just insulted the lady’s brother. “And you, of course, my lady.”

“But he
is
handsome,” Gwen interjected, trying for levity.

Juliana was not amused. “I don’t care how big he is or how handsome. No, I am
not
fond of him.”

There was stunned silence around the table, and Juliana blew a strand of hair from where it had come loose. She rubbed one floury hand across her cheek.

“Of course you aren’t,” Georgiana said carefully.

There was a chorus of agreement from around the table, and Juliana realized just how silly she must look. “I am sorry.”

“Nonsense. He is a very difficult man to be fond of. You needn’t tell me that,” Georgiana said.

Gwen snatched the dough from Juliana’s grip, returning it to the bowl. “I think this is kneaded very well. Thank you.”

“You are welcome.” She heard the pout in her tone. Did not care for it.

“He’s not so handsome, either,” said the tall woman.

“I’ve seen handsomer,” chimed another.

“Indeed,” Gwen said, handing Juliana a freshly baked biscuit, still warm from the oven.

She nibbled on one end, amazed that this group of women whom she did not know ignored her mad behavior, returning to their tasks one by one.

What a fool she had become.

She stood at the thought, pushing the stool back so quickly that it tipped and barely righted itself. “I should not have . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

Only one of the two beginnings was true.

She swore softly in Italian, and the women looked to each other, seeking for a translator in their midst. They did not find one.

“I must go.”

“Juliana,” Georgiana said, and she heard the plea in the girl’s voice. “Stay. Please.”

Juliana froze at the door, back to the room, feeling instantly sorry for anyone who had or would feel the way she did at that precise moment—the combination of shame and sadness and frustration and nausea that made her want to crawl into her bed and never come out again.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I cannot stay.”

She opened the door and hurried toward the stairs. If she could just reach the house’s center staircase—if she could just find her way upstairs—things would be better.
She
would be better.

She increased her pace, eager to escape the embarrassment that seemed to be chasing her from the kitchens.

“Juliana!”

Embarrassment followed nonetheless, in the form of Lady Georgiana.

She spun back around, facing the smaller woman, wishing she could eliminate the last few minutes, the last hour, the whole trip to Yorkshire. “Please.”

Georgiana smiled, a dimple flashing in her cheek. “Would you like to take a walk with me? The gardens are quite nice.”

“I—”

“Please. I am told I should take air after the baby. I should like the company.”

She made it impossible to refuse. They exited through a sitting room set off to one side of the corridor, out an unassuming doorway and down a small set of stone stairs into the vegetable garden at the side of the house.

They walked among the perfectly organized rows of plants in silence for long moments before Juliana could not bear in any longer. “I am sorry for what I said in the kitchens.”

“Which part?”

“All of it, I suppose. I did not mean to criticize your brother.”

Georgiana smiled then, running her fingers along a sprig of rosemary and bringing the scent to her nose. “That is unfortunate. I rather liked that you were willing to criticize my brother. So few ever do.”

Juliana opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, uncertain of what to say. “I suppose that he does little to deserve their criticism,” she said, finally.

Georgiana gave her a look. “Do you?”

The truth was far easier than attempting to say the right thing. She gave a little self-deprecating laugh. “Not entirely, no.”

“Good. He’s infuriating, isn’t he?”

Juliana’s eyes widened in surprise, and she nodded. “Exceedingly so.”

Georgiana grinned. “I think I like you.”

“I am happy to hear it.” They walked a while longer. “I have not said congratulations. On the birth of your daughter.”

“Caroline. Thank you.” There was a long pause. “I suppose you know that I am a terrible scandal in the making.”

Juliana offered her a smile. “Then we are destined to be friends, as I am considered by many to be a terrible scandal already made.”

“Really?”

Juliana nodded, pulling a sprig of thyme from a nearby shrubbery and lifting it to her nose, inhaling deep. “Indeed. I have a mother, as I’m sure you know. She is a legend.”

“I’ve heard of her.”

“She returned to England last week.”

Georgiana’s eyes widened. “No.”

“Yes. Your brother was there.” Juliana tossed the herb aside. “Everyone thinks I am made from the same clothing.” Georgiana tilted her head in the way people did when they did not entirely understand her. Juliana rephrased. “They think I am like her.”

“Ah. Cut from the same cloth.”

That was it. “Yes.”

“And are you?”

“Your brother thinks so.”

“That was not the question.”

Juliana considered the words. No one had ever asked her if she was like her mother. No one had ever cared. The gossips of the
ton
had immediately condemned her for her parentage, and Gabriel and Nick and the rest of the family had simply rejected the idea of any similarities out of hand.

But Georgiana stood across from her on this winding garden path and asked the question no one had ever asked. So, Juliana told the truth. “I hope not.”

And it was enough for Georgiana. The path forked ahead of them, and she threaded one hand through Juliana’s arm, leading the way back to the house. “Never fear, Juliana. When my news gets out, they will forget everything they have ever thought of you and your mother. Fallen angels make for excellent gossip.”

“But you are the daughter of a duke,” Juliana protested. “Simon is marrying to protect you.”

Georgiana shook her head. “I am well-and-truly ruined. Absolutely irredeemable. Perhaps he can protect our reputation, perhaps he can quiet the whispers, but they will never go away.”

“I am sorry,” Juliana said, because she could not think of anything else.

Georgiana squeezed her hand and smiled. “I was, too, for a while. But now I am here for as long as Nick and Isabel will have me, and Caroline is healthy, and I find it difficult to care.”

I find it difficult to care.
In all the time that she had been in England, for all the times that she had scoffed at the disdainful words and glances from the
ton,
Juliana had never not cared. Even when she had tried her best, she had cared.

She had cared what Simon had thought.

Cared that he would never think her enough.

Even as she had known it to be true.

And she envied this strong, spirited woman who faced her uncertain future with such confidence.

“It may not be proper for me to say it,” Juliana said, “but they are idiots for casting you aside. The ballrooms of London could benefit from a woman with such spirit.”

Georgiana’s eyes gleamed with wry humor. “It is not at all proper for you to say it. But we both know that the ballrooms of London can hardly bear one woman with spirit. What would they do with two of us?”

Juliana laughed. “When you decide to return, my lady, we shall cut a wide, scandalous path together. My family has a particular fondness for children with questionable parentage, you see—” She trailed off, realizing that she had gone too far. “I am sorry. I did not mean to say that . . .”

“Nonsense,” Georgiana said, waving one hand in the air to dismiss the apology. “Caroline is most definitely of questionable parentage.” She grinned. “So I am quite happy to know that there is at least one drawing room where we will be received.”

“May I ask . . .”

Georgiana met her gaze with admiration. “You do not worry about propriety, do you, Miss Fiori?” Juliana looked away with chagrin. “It is an old tale, tiresome and devastatingly trite. I thought he loved me, and maybe he did. But sometimes love is not enough—more often than not, I think.” There was no sadness in the tone, no regret. Juliana met Georgiana’s amber gaze and saw honesty there, a clarity that belied her age.

Sometimes love is not enough.

They walked in silence back to the house, those words echoing over and over in Juliana’s mind.

Words she would do well to remember.

Chapter Sixteen

Lifelong companionship begins with softness and temerity.

Delicate ladies do not speak freely with gentlemen.

—A Treatise on the Most Exquisite of Ladies

The Guy is not the only one with a fiery temperament this autumn . . .

—The Scandal Sheet, November 1823

M
ost days of the year, the village of Dunscroft was a quiet place—the idyllic country life interrupted by the occasional loose bull or runaway carriage, but in the grand scheme of small English towns, there was little in the village worthy of note.

Not so on Bonfire Night.

All of Dunscroft had come out for the festivities, it seemed. It was just after sundown, and the village green was filled with the trappings of the celebration—lanterns had been lit around the perimeter of the greensward, bathing the stalls that lined the outside of the space in a lovely golden glow.

Juliana stepped down from the carriage and was immediately accosted by the smells and sounds of the carnival atmosphere. There were hundreds of people on the greensward, all enjoying one part of the fair or another—children in paper masks chased through the legs of their elders before tripping upon impromptu puppet shows or smiling girls with trays of candy apples.

There was a pig roasting several yards away, and Juliana watched as a group of young men nearby attempted to shake a living statue from his impressively rigid pose with their jesting and dancing. She laughed at the picture they made in their buffoonery, enjoying the welcome sensation.

“You see?” Isabel said from her side. “I told you that you had nothing to worry about.”

“I am still not certain,” Juliana replied with a smile. “I do not see the bonfire you promised.”

A pyre had been set up at the center of the town square, an enormous pile of wood topped with a sorry-looking straw man. The head of the effigy listed dangerously to one side, threatening that it would take a light breeze rather than a blazing fire to bring him down. Children were running in circles around the unlit bonfire, singing and chanting, and a fat baby sat off to one side, covered in sticky toffee.

Juliana turned to her sister-in-law with a smile. “This does not seem at all frightening.”

“Just wait until the children have eaten their fill of sweets, and there is a great inferno from which to protect them. Then you shall see frightening.” Isabel peered through the crowd of people, searching. “Most of the girls should be here already. The house was empty save for Nick and Leighton when we left.”

The mention of Simon set Juliana on edge. She’d been thinking of him all day—had spent much of the morning finding reasons to move in and out of rooms, to fetch things from near the nursery and visit her brother in his study, all to no avail.

He’d all but disappeared.

She knew she should be happy that he was keeping his distance. Knew she should not tempt fate. He had made his choice, after all—it was only a matter of time before he returned to London and married another.

Someone he thought highly of.

Someone who matched him in name and station.

And now, instead of doing her best to forget him, she was standing in the middle of a mass of strange Englishmen, wearing one of her most flattering frocks, and wishing that he was here.

Wondering why he
wasn’t
here.

Even as she knew he was not for her.

It should be easier—here in the country, protected from the rest of the world, from the scandal of long-missing mothers and illegitimate children, far from marriages of convenience and betrothal balls and whispers and gossip.

And still, she thought of him. Of his future.

Of her own.

And of how they would differ.

She had to leave.

She could not stay. Not if he was here.

Isabel lifted her nose to the air. “Ooh . . . do you smell apple tarts?”

The question shook Juliana from her reverie. This was a carnival, and all of Yorkshire was in celebration, and she would not let the future change the now. There was enough time to worry about it tomorrow.

“Shall we have one?” she asked her sister-in-law with a smile.

They set off down the long line of stalls in search of pastry, as Isabel said, “You are warned, once I start, it is possible I shan’t stop until I have turned into an apple tart.”

Juliana laughed. “It is a risk I shall take.”

They found the stall and purchased tarts before a young woman stopped Isabel to discuss something about uniforms for the Townsend Park servants. Juliana wandered slowly, lingering in the stalls nearby as she waited for the conversation to finish, watching as the greensward grew dark, the only light at the center of the square coming from candles that people held as they chatted with their neighbors and waited, presumably, for the bonfire to be lit.

Everything in this little village had been distilled to this simple moment of conversation and celebration. The air was crisp with the smell of autumn, the leaves from the trees around the greensward were falling on the breeze, and there was no worry in this moment . . . no sadness. No loneliness.

Here she was in the country, where life was rumored to be simpler. She had come for this. For bonfire night and children’s rhymes and apple tarts. And, for one evening, she would have it.

She would not let him stop her.

She paused outside a booth filled with dried herbs and flowers, and the large woman manning the stall looked up from the sachet she was tying. “What’s your pleasure, milady?”

“My pleasure?”

The woman hefted herself from her stool and made her way to the high table where Juliana stood. “Children? Money? Happiness?”

Juliana smiled. “Plants can give me those things?”

“You doubt it?”

She gave a little laugh. “Yes.”

The woman watched her for a long moment. “I see what you want.”

“Oh?”

I want one evening of simplicity.

“Love,” pronounced the shopkeeper.

Far too complicated.
“What about it?”

“That’s what you want.” The woman’s hands flew over the collection of herbs and flowers, faster than someone of her size should be able to move. She pinched a tip of lavender, a sprig of rosemary, thyme and coriander and several things that Juliana could not identify. She placed them all in a little burlap bag, tying it up with a length of twine in a knot Odysseus himself would not be able to undo. She handed the pouch to Juliana then. “Sleep with it under your pillow.”

Juliana stared at the little sachet. “And then what?”

The woman smiled, a great, wide grin that revealed several missing teeth. “He will come.”

“Who will come?” She was being deliberately obstinate.

The woman did not seem to mind. “Your love.” She put out a wide hand, palm up. “A ha’penny for the magic, milady.”

Juliana raised a brow. “I will admit, that does seem a bargain . . . for
magic.
” She dropped the herbs into her reticule and fished out a coin.

“It will work.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure it will.”

She turned away resolutely and froze.

There, propped against the post at the corner of the stall, arms crossed, was Simon, looking as little like a duke as the Duke of Leighton could look.

Which was still extraordinarily ducal.

He wore buckskin breeches and tall, brown riding boots, a white linen shirt, and a green topcoat, but there was nothing elaborate about the clothes—his cravat was uncomplicated, his coat simple and unassuming. A cap rather than a hat was pulled down over his brow and, while he was wearing gloves, he did not carry the cane that was required in town.

This was Simon with a nod to the country.

A Simon she could love
.

Then she would give him up. To his reputation and his propriety and his responsibility and all the things she had come to love about him.

But tonight, they were in the country. And things were simpler.

Perhaps she could convince him of it.

The thought unstuck her. She began to move.

Toward him.

He straightened. “Are you buying magic potions?”

“Yes.” She tossed a look over her shoulder at the woman, now standing just outside the stall.

She smiled her toothy grin. “You see how quickly it works, milady?”

Juliana could not help but smile. “Indeed. Thank you.”

Simon looked uncomfortable. “What did she sell you?”

She met his gaze for a long moment.

It was now or never.

“What if I said she sold me one evening?”

His brow furrowed. “One evening of what?”

She gave a little shrug. “Simplicity. Ease. Peace.”

One side of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “I would say, let’s buy a lifetime of it.”

Juliana thought about the conversation long ago, when they had discussed the perfect Leighton lineage—the reputation he protected, the honor he valued. She recalled the pride in his voice, the heavy responsibility that was understood.

What must it be like to bear such a burden?

Difficult enough to be tempted by a night of freedom.

Juliana shook her head. “We can’t have a lifetime. Just one evening. Just this evening.”

He watched her for a long moment, and she willed him to accept her offer. This night, in this simple town in the English countryside, without gossip or scandal. A bonfire and a fair and a few hours of ease.

Tomorrow, next week, next month might all be horrible. Would likely be horrible.

But she would have now.

With him.

All she had to do was reach out and take it.

“I’ve enough for both of us, Simon,” she whispered. “Why not live for tonight?”

Please.

He hovered on the brink of answering, and she wondered if he would turn her away—knew he should turn her away. Her heart pounded in her chest as she watched the muscles in his jaw twitch, preparing for speech.

But before he could answer, the church bells on the far side of the square began to chime—an explosion of sound. Her eyes went wide as the people around them let up a powerful, raucous cheer. “What is happening?” she asked.

There was a beat, as though he had not heard the question right away. Before he offered her his arm. “The bonfire. It’s about to begin.”

W
hy not live for tonight?

The words echoed in Simon’s mind as they stood in the heat of the blazing bonfire.

One evening.

One moment that would be theirs, together, here in the country. Without responsibility or worry . . . just this Bonfire Night, and nothing more.

But what if he wanted more?

He could not have it.

Just one evening. Just this evening.

Once again, Juliana was issuing a challenge.

This time, he was afraid that if he accepted, he would never survive.

He turned slightly, just enough to take her in. She was in profile, staring at the bonfire, a look of glee upon her face. Her black hair was gleaming in the firelight—a riot of reds and oranges, a magnificent, vibrant thing. And her skin glowed with the heat of the fire and her excitement.

She sensed his gaze, turning toward him. When she met his eyes, he caught his breath.

She was beautiful.

And he wanted this night. He wanted whatever he could get of her.

He leaned down, his lips close to her ear, and resisted the urge to kiss her there, where she smelled so wonderfully like Juliana. “I would like the potion.”

She pulled back, her blue eyes navy in the darkness. “You are certain?”

He nodded.

Her lips curved in a wide, welcome smile, open and unfettered, and he felt that he had experienced a wicked blow to the head. “What now?”

An excellent question. People had begun to wander away from the fire; they were returning to the rest of the excitements on the square. He offered her an arm. “Would you take a turn about the green with me?”

She considered his arm for a long moment, and he understood her hesitation, saw the trepidation in her gaze when she met his gaze. “One evening.”

Every bit of him screamed that it wouldn’t be enough.