Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart (35 page)

It was only then that he noticed that he was not alone.

Juliana smiled from the other end of the seat. “You did not think I would let you leave without saying good night, did you?”

He quashed a flash of intense pleasure and affected his most ducal tone. “We are going to have to discuss your penchant for stowing away in carriages.”

She moved toward him slowly, and a wave of awareness shot through him. “Only one carriage, Your Grace. Only yours. This time, I checked the seal before entering. Tell me, what do you plan to do with me now that I am here?”

He watched her intently for a long moment before leaning in, stopping a hairsbreadth from kissing her. “I plan to love you, Siren.” He wrapped one hand around her waist, hauling her onto his lap so that she was above him.

She looked down at him with wicked intensity. “Say it again.”

He grinned. “I love you, Juliana.”

His hands were stroking up her sides, tracking over her shoulders, tilting her head to bare her neck. He pressed a soft kiss to the skin at the base of her throat, where her pulse was pounding.

“Again.” She sighed.

He whispered the words against her lips—a promise—and claimed her mouth, his hands stroking, pressing everywhere.

She opened for him, matching his long, slow kisses stroke for stroke. For the first time, there was no urgency in the caresses—no sense of their being stolen from another time.
From another woman.

She pulled back at the thought, lifting her head. “Penelope,” she said.

“We must discuss this now?” One of his hands was headed for the full swell of her breast, and she bit back a sigh of pleasure as it reached its destination.

“No.” She scrambled off his lap and onto the seat across from him.

He followed her, coming to his knees in front of her, the carriage rocking them together. “Yes.”

“Lady Penelope’s father has dissolved the agreement.” His hands grasped her ankles, and Juliana was not sure if it was the feel of his warm hands stroking up her legs beneath her skirts or the fact that he was no longer engaged that made her light-headed. He met her gaze, serious. “I would have ended it if he hadn’t, Juliana. I couldn’t have gone through with it. I love you too much.”

A thread of pleasure coiled through her at the words. “He called it off because of Georgiana’s scandal?”

“Yes,” he said, and the way the word rolled from his tongue gave her the distinct impression that he was not replying to her question. He folded back her skirts with reverence and cursed, dark and wicked in the carriage, and pressed a kiss to the inside of one knee.

She clamped her legs together, resisting his movements. “Simon . . .”

He stilled, meeting her eyes in the flickering light from outside before he kissed her again, long and thorough before he pulled back abruptly. “My sister announced her own scandal. Actually sent a letter to the
Gazette
! It was her wedding present. To us.”

Juliana smiled. “A broken engagement?”

“In exchange for a quick one,” he replied, taking her lips again, his urgency sending a wave of fire through her.

She reveled in the caress, in the feel of him, for a long minute before pushing him away once more. “Simon, your mother!”

“She is not at all a topic I care to discuss right now, love.”

“But . . . she will be furious!”

“I don’t care.” He returned his attention to the inside of her knee, swirling his tongue there until the silk was wet. “And if she is, it shan’t be because of you. You are her best hope for a respectable grandchild.
I’m
the one with the terrible reputation.”

She laughed. “An abductor of innocents. A seducer of virgins.”

He parted her legs slowly, pressing lovely, languorous kisses up the inside of her thigh. “Only one innocent. One virgin.” She sighed and let her eyes close against the pleasure as he licked at the place where garter held stocking, a promise of what was to come.

“Lucky me.” She leaned forward, taking his unbearably handsome face between her hands. “Simon . . .” she whispered, “I have loved you from the beginning. And I will love you . . . I will love you for as long as you’ll have me.”

His gaze darkened, and he grew very serious. “I hope you plan to love me for a very long time.”

She kissed him again, pouring herself and her love into the caress, because words suddenly seemed lacking. When they stopped, both gasping for breath and desperate for more of each other, Juliana smiled. “So how does it feel to have thoroughly ruined your reputation?”

He laughed. “I shall never live it down.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Never.” He pulled her to him for another kiss.

Simon’s scandal was one for the ages. It would be fodder for whispers in ballrooms, and chatter on Bond Street and in the halls of Parliament, and years from now, he and Juliana would tell their grandchildren the story of how the Duke of Leighton had been laid low by love.

Epilogue

May 1824

H
er Grace, the Duchess of Leighton, was high on a ladder in the library—too high to hide—when her husband entered the room, calling her name, distracted by a letter he held.

“Yes?”

“We’ve news from—” He trailed off, and she knew that she had been discovered. When he spoke again, the words were low and far—too calm for her husband, who had found that he rather enjoyed the full spectrum of emotion now that he had experienced it. “Juliana?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing twenty feet in the air?”

She brazened on, pretending not to notice that he had positioned himself beneath her, as though she would not crush him like a beetle should she go hurtling to the ground. “Looking for a book.”

“Would you mind very much returning to the earth?”

Luckily, the book for which she had been searching revealed itself. She pulled it off the shelf and made her way back down the ladder. When she had both feet firmly on the ground, he let loose. “What are you thinking, climbing to the rafters in your condition?”

“I am not an invalid, Simon, I still have use of all my extremes.”

“You do indeed—particularly your extreme ability to try my patience—I believe, however, that you mean extremities.” He paused, remembering why he was irritated. “You could have fallen!”

“But I did not,” she said, simply, turning her face up to his for a kiss.

He gave it to her, his hands coming to caress the place where his child grew. “You must take better care,” he whispered, and a thrill coursed through her at the wonder in his tone.

She lifted her arms, wrapping them around his neck, reveling in the heat and strength of him. “We are well, husband.” She grinned. “Twelve lives, remember?”

He groaned at the words. “I think you’ve used them up, you know. Certainly you’ve used your twelve scandals.”

She wrinkled her nose at that, thinking. “No. I couldn’t have.”

He lifted her in his arms and moved to their favorite chair, evicting Leopold. As the dog resumed his nap on the floor, Simon settled into the chair, arranging his wife on his lap. “The tumble into the Serpentine . . . the time you led me on a not-so-merry chase through Hyde Park . . . lurking outside my club . . .”

“That wasn’t a real scandal,” she protested, cuddling closer to him as his hand stroked across her rounded belly.

“Scandal enough.”

“My mother’s arrival,” Juliana said.

He shook his head. “Not your scandal.”

She smiled. “Nonsense. She’s the scandal that started it all.”

“So she is.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I shall have to thank her someday.” He pressed on. “Toppling Lady Needham’s harvest bounty . . .”

“Well, really, who decorates a staircase in vegetables? And if we’re going to count all my scandals, how about the ones in which you were scandalous as well?” She ticked them off as she listed them. “Kissing me in my brother’s stables . . . ravishing me at your own betrothal ball . . . and let’s not forget—”

He kissed the side of her neck. “Mmm. By all means, let’s not forget.”

She laughed and pushed him away. “Bonfire Night.”

The amber in his eyes darkened. “I assure you, Siren, I would never forget Bonfire Night.”

“How many is that?”

“Eight.”

“There, you see? I told you! I am the very model of propriety!” He barked his laughter and a worried look crossed her face. “Nine,” she said.

“Nine?”

“I insulted your mother at the dressmaker’s.” She lowered her voice. “In front of people.”

His brows shot up. “When?”

“During our wager.”

He grinned. “I would have liked to see that.”

She covered her eyes. “It was awful. I still cannot look her in the eye.”

“That has absolutely nothing to do with cutting her in a modiste’s shop and everything to do with the fact that my mother is terrifying.” She giggled. “There were at least two that first night—at the Ralston ball.”

She thought back. “So there were. Grabeham in the gardens and your carriage.”

He stiffened. “Grabeham, was it?”

Her fingers wandered into the curls at the nape of his neck. “He does not require additional handling, Simon.”

Simon raised a brow. “You may not think so . . . but I shall enjoy paying him a visit.”

“If you are allowed into his home, considering what a scandal
you
are,” she teased.

“There! That is your twelfth. The Northumberland Ball,” he announced, wrapping her tightly in his arms. “No more climbing of ladders while
incinta.
”

“Oh, no,” she protested. “Your storming of Northumberland House is entirely
your
scandal. I had nothing to do with it! Take it back.”

He chuckled against the side of her neck, and she shivered at the sensation. “Fair enough. I claim that one in its entirety.”

She smiled. “That’s the best one of them all.”

He raised a brow in ducal imperiousness. “Haven’t I told you that I find it is not worth doing anything if one does not do it well?”

Her peal of laughter was lost in his kiss, long and expert, until they pulled apart, gasping for air. He pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “My magnificent wife.”

She dipped her head at the worshipful tone, then remembered. “You had news. When you entered.”

He settled back in the chair, removing a letter from his jacket pocket. “I did. We have a nephew. The future Marquess of Ralston.”

Juliana’s eyes went wide with pleasure, snatching the paper from his hand, reading eagerly. “A boy! Henry.” She met Simon’s gaze. “And two becomes three.” Nick’s daughter, Elizabeth, had been born two weeks earlier, and now shared the nursery at Townsend Park with a growing, happy Caroline.

Simon pulled Juliana to him, placing a kiss at the tip of her eyebrow and tucking her against his chest. “Come autumn, we shall do our part and add a fourth to their merry band.”

Pleasure coiled as she thought of their blossoming family—a wild, wonderful family she’d never dared imagine. “You realize that they shall be the worst kind of trouble,” she teased.

He was silent for a long time—long enough for Juliana to lift her head and meet his serious, golden gaze.

When she did, he smiled, broad and beautiful. “They shall be the very best kind of trouble.”

A
nd they were.

Acknowledgments

A
s the third book in this series comes to a close, I must make a confession. Gabriel, Nick, and Juliana would never have found their way to the page without the help of some amazing people.

Carrie Feron, my editor, has flawless insight and infinite patience, and she made these books what they are. Carrie comes handsomely packaged with the fabulous Tessa Woodward and the rest of the incomparable Avon Books team—Pam Spengler-Jaffee, Christine Maddalena, Jessie Edwards, Adrienne Di Pietro, Tom Egner, Gail Dubov, Ricky Mujica, and Sara Schwager—who have worked tirelessly to bring this series to life.

My agent, Alyssa Eisner-Henkin, had the surprise of her life when I told her that I was writing an adult romance. Alyssa, thank you for taking this leap with me.

Then there are my friends—geniuses all—without whom these books would have either never been written or simply been awful. Thanks to Sabrina Darby, Cate Dossetti, Saundra Mitchell, Aprilynne Pike, Carrie Ryan, Lisa Sandell, and Meghan Tierney for helping me find paths out of the weeds. Sophie Jordan, I still can’t believe you take my calls; thank you for showing me the ropes. And thanks to all my Facebook and Twitter friends for endless encouragement!

To my family, thank you for always letting me come back home. Special thanks go to my parents for checking my Italian (all errors are entirely my own), and equally to my father for proverbial brilliance and Juliana’s lovable quirks.

And to Eric, thank you will never be enough. Ever. I am yours.