Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart (4 page)

He paused, considering her words. “It does appear that way. Perhaps I should simply guess your identity?”

She grinned. “You may feel free.”

“You are an Italian princess, here with your brother on some diplomatic visit to the King.”

She had cocked her head at the same angle as she had this evening while conversing with her brother. “Perhaps.”

“Or, the daughter of a Veronese count, whiling away your spring here, eager to experience the legendary London Season.”

She had laughed then, the sound like sunshine. “How disheartening that you make my father a mere count. Why not a duke? Like you?”

He had smiled. “A duke, then,” adding softly, “that would make things much easier.”

She’d let him believe she was more than a vexing commoner.

Which, of course, she wasn’t.

Yes, he should have fetched Ralston the moment he saw the little fool on the floor of his carriage, squeezed into the corner as though she were a smaller woman, as though she could have hidden from him.

“If I’d come to fetch you, how do you think that would have worked?”

“She’d be asleep in her bed right now. That’s how it would have worked.”

He ignored the vision of her sleeping, her wild raven hair spread across crisp, white linen, her creamy skin rising from the low scoop of her nightgown.
If she wore a nightgown.

He cleared his throat. “And if she’d leapt from my carriage in full view of all the Ralston House revelers? What then?”

Ralston paused, considering. “Well, then, I suppose she would have been ruined. And you would be preparing for a life of wedded bliss.”

Simon drank again. “So it is likely better for all of us that I behaved as I did.”

Ralston’s eyes darkened. “That’s not the first time you have so baldly resisted the idea of marrying my sister, Leighton. I find I’m beginning to take it personally.”

“Your sister and I would not suit, Ralston. And you know it.”

“You could not handle her.”

Simon’s lips twisted. There wasn’t a man in London who could handle the chit.

Ralston knew it. “No one will have her. She’s too bold. Too brash. The opposite of good English girls.” He paused, and Simon wondered if the marquess was waiting for him to disagree. He had no intention of doing so. “She says whatever enters her head whenever it happens to arrive, with no consideration of how those around her might respond. She bloodies the noses of unsuspecting men!” The last was said on a disbelieving laugh.

“Well, to be fair, it did sound like this evening’s man had it coming.”

“It did, didn’t it?” Ralston stopped, thinking for a long moment. “It shouldn’t be so hard to find him. There can’t be too many aristocrats with a fat lip going around.”

“Even fewer limping off the other injury,” Simon said wryly.

Ralston shook his head. “Where do you think she learned that tactic?”

From the wolves by whom she had clearly been raised.

“I would not deign to guess.”

Silence fell between them, and after a long moment, Ralston sighed and stood. “I do not like to be indebted to you.”

Simon smirked at the confession. “Consider us even.”

The marquess nodded once and headed for the door. Once there, he turned back. “Lucky, isn’t it, that there is a special session this autumn? To keep us all from our country seats?”

Simon met Ralston’s knowing gaze. The marquess did not speak what they both knew—that Leighton had thrown his considerable power behind an emergency bill that could have waited easily for the spring session of Parliament to begin.

“Military preparedness is a serious issue,” Simon said with deliberate calm.

“Indeed it is.” Ralston crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. “And Parliament is a welcome distraction from sisters, is it not?”

Simon’s gaze narrowed. “You have never pulled punches with me before, Ralston. There is no need to begin now.”

“I do not suppose I could request your assistance with Juliana?”

Simon froze, the request hanging between them.

Simply tell him no.

“What kind of assistance?”

Not precisely “No,” Leighton.

Ralston raised a brow. “I am not asking you to wed the girl, Leighton. Relax. I could use the extra set of eyes on her. I mean, she can’t go into the gardens of our own home without getting herself attacked by unidentified men.”

Simon leveled Ralston with a cool look. “It appears that the universe is punishing you with a sibling who makes as much trouble as you did.”

“I am afraid you might be right.” A heavy silence fell. “You know what could happen to her, Leighton.”

You’ve lived it.

The words remained unspoken, but Simon heard them, nonetheless.

Still, the answer is no.

“Forgive me if I am not entirely interested in doing you a favor, Ralston.”

Much closer.

“It would be a favor for St. John, as well,” Ralston added, invoking the name of his twin brother—the good twin. “I might remind you that my family has spent quite a bit of energy caring for
your
sister, Leighton.”

There it was.

The heavy weight of scandal, powerful enough to move mountains.

He did not like having such an obvious weakness.

And it would only get worse.

For a long moment, Simon could not bring himself to speak. Finally, he nodded his agreement. “Fair enough.”

“You can imagine how much I loathe the very idea of asking you for assistance, Duke, but think of how much you will enjoy rubbing it in my face for the rest of our days.”

“I confess, I was hoping not to have to suffer you for so very long.”

Ralston laughed then. “You are a cold-hearted bastard.” He came forward to stand behind the chair he had vacated. “Are you ready, then? For when the news gets out?”

Simon did not pretend to misunderstand. Ralston and St. John were the only two men who knew the darkest of Simon’s secrets. The one that would destroy his family and his reputation if it were revealed.

The one that was bound to be revealed sooner or later.

Would he ever be ready?

“Not yet. But soon.”

Ralston watched him with a cool blue gaze that reminded Simon of Juliana. “You know we will stand beside you.”

Simon laughed once, the sound humorless. “Forgive me if I do not place much weight in the support of the House of Ralston.”

One side of Ralston’s mouth lifted in a smile. “We are a motley bunch. But we more than make up for it with tenacity.”

Simon considered the woman in his library. “That I do not doubt.”

“I take it you plan to marry.”

Simon paused in the act of lifting his glass to his lips. “How did you know that?”

The smile turned into a knowing grin then. “Nearly every problem can be solved by a trip to the vicar. Particularly yours. Who is the lucky girl?”

Simon considered lying. Considered pretending that he hadn’t selected her. Everyone would know soon enough, however. “Lady Penelope Marbury.”

Ralston whistled long and low. “Daughter of a double marquess. Impeccable reputation. Generations of pedigree. The Holy Trinity of a desirable match. And a fortune as well. Excellent choice.”

It was nothing that Simon had not thought himself, of course, but it smarted nonetheless for him to hear it spoken aloud. “I do not like to hear you discuss my future duchess’s merits as though she were prize cattle.”

Ralston leaned back. “My apologies. I was under the impression that you had selected your future duchess as though she were prize cattle.”

The whole conversation was making him uncomfortable. It was true. He was not marrying Lady Penelope for anything other than her unimpeachable background.

“After all, it isn’t as if anyone will believe the great Duke of Leighton would marry for love.”

He did not like the tremor of sarcasm in Ralston’s tone. Of course, the marquess had always known how to irritate him. Ever since they were children. Simon rose, eager to move. “I think I shall fetch your sister, Ralston. It’s time for you to take her home. And I would appreciate it if you could keep your family dramatics from my doorstep in the future.”

The words sounded imperious even to his ears.

Ralston straightened, making slow work of coming to his full height, almost as tall as Leighton. “I shall certainly try. After all, you have plenty of your own family dramatics threatening to come crashing down on the doorstep, do you not?”

There was nothing about Ralston that Simon liked.

He would do well to remember that.

He exited the study and headed for the library, opening the door with more force than necessary and coming up short just inside the room.

She was asleep in his chair.

With his dog.

The chair she had selected was one that he had worked long and hard to get to the perfect level of comfort. His butler had suggested it for reupholstering countless times, due in part, Simon imagined, to the fraying, soft fabric that he considered one of the seat’s finest attributes. He took in Juliana’s sleeping form, her scratched cheek against the soft golden threads of the worn fabric.

She had taken off her shoes and curled her feet beneath her, and Simon shook his head at the behavior. Ladies across London would not dare go barefoot in the privacy of their own homes, and yet here she was, making herself comfortable and taking a nap in a duke’s library.

He stole a moment to watch her, to appreciate how she perfectly fit his chair. It was larger than the average seat, built specifically for him fifteen years prior, when, tired of folding himself into minuscule chairs that his mother had declared “the height of fashion,” he had decided that, as duke, he was well within his birthright to spend a fortune on a chair that fit his body. It was wide enough for him to sit comfortably, with just enough extra room for a stack of papers requiring his attention, or, as was the case right now, for a dog in search of a warm body.

The dog, a brown mutt that had found his way into his sister’s country bedchamber one winter’s day, now traveled with Simon and made his home wherever the duke was. The canine was particularly fond of the library in the town house, with its three fireplaces and comfortable furniture, and he had obviously made a friend. Leopold was now curled into a small, tight ball, head on one of Juliana’s long thighs.

Thighs Simon should not be noticing.

That his dog was a traitor was a concern Simon would address later.

Now, however, he had to deal with the lady.

“Leopold.” Simon called the hound, slapping one hand against his thigh in a practiced maneuver that had the dog coming to heel in seconds.

If only the same action would bring the girl to heel.

No, if he had his way, he would not wake her so easily. Instead, he would rouse her slowly, with long, soft strokes along those glorious legs . . . he would crouch beside her and bury his face in that mass of ebony hair, drinking in the smell of her, then run his lips along the lovely angle of her jaw until he reached the curve of one soft ear. He would whisper her name, waking her with breath instead of sound.

And then he would finish what she had started all those months ago.

And he would bring her to heel in an entirely different way.

He fisted his hands at his sides to keep his body from acting on the promise of his imagination. There was nothing he could do that would be more damaging than feeding the unwelcome desire he felt for this impossible female.

He simply had to remember that he was in the market for the perfect duchess.

And Miss Juliana Fiori was never going to be that.

No matter how well she filled out his favorite chair.

It was time to wake the girl up.

And send her home.

Chapter Three

Ladies’ salons are hotbeds of imperfection.

Exquisite ladies need not linger within.

—A Treatise on the Most Exquisite of Ladies

Surely there is no place more interesting in all of London than the balcony beyond a ballroom . . .

—The Scandal Sheet, October 1823

“I
thought that your season was over and we were through with balls!”

Juliana collapsed onto a settee in a small antechamber off the ladies’ salon of Weston House and let out a long sigh, reaching down to massage the ball of her foot through her thin slipper.

“We should be,” her closest friend Mariana, the newly minted Duchess of Rivington, lifted the edge of her elaborate blue gown and inspected the place where her hem had fallen. “But as long as Parliament remains in session, seasonal balls will be all the rage. Every hostess wants her autumnal festivity to be more impressive than the last. You only have yourself to blame,” Mariana said wryly.

“How was I to know that Callie would start a revolution in entertaining on my behalf?” Calpurnia, Mariana’s sister and Juliana’s sister-in-law, had been charged with smoothing Juliana’s introduction to London society upon her arrival that spring. Once summer had arrived, the marchioness had recommitted herself to her goal. A wave of summer balls and activities had kept Juliana in the public eye and kept the other hostesses of the
ton
in town after the season was long finished.

Callie’s goal was a smart marriage.

Which made Juliana’s goal survival.

Waving a young maid over, Mariana pulled a thimble of thread from her reticule and handed it to the girl, who was already crouching down to repair the damage. Meeting Juliana’s gaze in the mirror, she said, “You are very lucky that you could cry off Lady Davis’s Orange Extravaganza last week.”

“She did not really call it that.”

“She did! You should have seen the place, Juliana . . . it was an explosion of color, and not in a good way. Everything was orange—the clothes . . . the floral arrangements . . . the servants had new livery, for heaven’s sake . . . the food—”

“The food?” Juliana wrinkled her nose.

Mariana nodded. “It was awful. Everything was carrot-colored. A feast fit for rabbits. Be grateful you were not feeling well.”

Juliana wondered what Lady Davis—a particularly opinionated doyenne of the
ton
—would have thought if she had attended, covered in scratches from her adventure with Grabeham the week prior.

She gave a little smile at the thought and moved to restore half a dozen loose curls to their rightful places. “I thought that now you are a duchess, you do not have to suffer these events?”

“I thought so, too. But Rivington tells me differently. Or, more appropriately, the Dowager Duchess tells me differently.” She sighed. “If I never see another cornucopia, it will be too soon.”

Juliana laughed. “Yes, it must be very difficult being one of the most-sought-after guests of the year, Mariana. What with being madly in love with your handsome young duke and having all of London spread before you.”

Her friend’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, it’s a wicked trial. Just wait. Someday you’ll discover it for yourself.”

Juliana doubted it.

Nicknamed the Allendale Angel, Mariana had made quick work of meeting and marrying her husband, the Duke of Rivington, in her first season. It had been the talk of the year, an almost instant love match that had resulted in a lavish wedding and a whirlwind of social engagements for the young couple.

Mariana was the kind of woman whom people adored. Everyone wanted to be close to her, and she never lacked for companionship. She had been the first friend that Juliana had made in London; both she and her duke had made it a priority to show the
ton
that they accepted Juliana—no matter what her pedigree.

At Juliana’s first ball, it had been Rivington who had claimed her first dance, instantly stamping her with the approval of his venerable dukedom.

So different from the other duke who had been in attendance that evening.

Leighton had shown no emotion that night, not when she’d met his cool honeyed gaze across the ballroom, not when she’d passed close to him on the way to the refreshment table, not when he’d stumbled upon her in a private room set apart from the ball.

That wasn’t precisely true. He had shown emotion there. Just not the kind she had wished.

He’d been furious.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Which part? That my mother is the fallen Marchioness of Ralston? That my father was a hardworking merchant? That I haven’t a title?”

“All of it matters.”

She had been warned about him—the Duke of Disdain, keenly aware of his station in society, who held no interest for those whom he considered beneath him. He was known for his aloof presence, for his cool contempt. She had heard that he selected his servants for their discretion, his mistresses for their lack of emotion, and his friends—well, there was no indication that he would stoop to something so common as friendship.

But until that moment, when he discovered her identity, she had not believed the gossip. Not until she had felt the sting of his infamous disdain.

It had hurt. Far more than the judgment of all the others.

And then she had kissed him. Like a fool. And it had been remarkable. Until he had pulled away with a violence that embarrassed her still.

“You are a danger to yourself and others. You should return to Italy. If you stay, your instincts will find you utterly ruined. With extraordinary speed.”

“You enjoyed it,” Juliana said, accusation in her tone keeping the pain at bay.

He leveled her with a cool, calculated look. “Of course I did. But unless you are angling for a position as my mistress—and you’d make a fine mistress—” She gasped, and he drove his point home like a knife to her chest. “You would do well to remember your station.”

That had been the moment that she decided to remain in London. To prove to him and all the others who judged her behind their fluttering lace fans and their cool English glances that she was more than what they saw.

She ran a fingertip over the barely noticeable pink mark at her temple—the last vestige of the night when she’d landed herself in Leighton’s carriage, bringing back all the painful memories of those early weeks in London, when she was young and alone and still hoped that she could become one of them—these aristocrats.

She should have known better, of course.

They would never accept her.

The maid finished Mariana’s hem, and Juliana watched as her friend shook out her skirts before twirling toward her. “Shall we?”

Juliana slouched dramatically. “Must we?”

The duchess laughed, and they moved to reenter the main room of the salon.

“I heard that she was spied in a torrid embrace in the gardens the night of the Ralston autumn ball.”

Juliana froze, immediately recognizing the high, nasal tone of Lady Sparrow, one of the
ton
’s worst gossips.

“In her brother’s gardens?” The disbelieving gasp made it clear that Juliana was the object of their conversation.

Her gaze flew to a clearly furious Mariana, who appeared ready to storm the room—and its gossiping inhabitants. Which Juliana could not allow her to do. She placed one hand on her friend’s arm, staying her movement, and waited, listening.

“She
is
only a
half
sibling.”

“And we all know what
that
half was like.” A chorus of laughter punctuated the barb, which struck with painful accuracy.

“It’s amazing that so many invite her to events,” one nearly drawled. “Tonight, for example . . . I had thought Lady Weston a better judge of character.”

So had Juliana.

“It is somewhat difficult to invite Lord and Lady Ralston without extending the invitation to Miss Fiori,” a new voice pointed out.

A snort of derision followed. “Not that they are much better . . . with the marquess’s scandalous past and the marchioness—so very uninteresting. I still wonder what she did to win him.”

“And let’s not even discuss Lord Nicholas, marrying a country bumpkin. Can you imagine!”

“Never doubt what poor stock can do to good English blood. It’s clear that the mother has . . . left her mark.”

The last came on a high-pitched cackle, and Juliana’s fury began to rise. It was one thing for the vicious harridans to insult her, but it was an entirely different thing for them to go after her family. Those she loved.

“I do not understand why Ralston doesn’t just give the sister a settlement and send her back to Italy.”

Neither did Juliana.

She’d expected that to happen any number of times since she arrived, unbidden, on the steps of Ralston House. Her brother had never once even suggested it.

But she still had trouble believing that he didn’t want her gone.

“Don’t listen to them,” Mariana whispered. “They’re horrible, hateful women who live to loathe.”

“All it will take is for one person of quality to find her doing something base, and she’ll be exiled from society forever.”

“That shouldn’t take long. Everyone knows Italians have loose morals.”

Juliana had had enough.

She pushed past Mariana and into the ladies’ salon, where the threesome were retouching their maquillage at the large mirror on one wall of the room. Tossing a broad smile in the direction of the women, she took perverse pleasure in their stillness—a combination of shock and chagrin.

Still laughing at her own joke was the coolly beautiful and utterly malicious Lady Sparrow, who had married a viscount, rich as Croesus and twice as old, three months before the man had died, leaving her with a fortune to do with as she wished. The viscountess was joined by Lady Davis, who apparently had not had her fill of the legendary orange extravaganza, as she was wearing an atrocious gown that accentuated her waist in such a way as to turn the woman into a perfect, round gourd.

There was a young woman with them whom Juliana did not know. Petite and blond, with a plain round face and wide, surprised eyes, Juliana fleetingly wondered how this little thing had found herself in with the vipers. She would either be killed, or be transformed.

Not that it mattered to Juliana.

“My ladies,” she said, keeping her voice light, “a wiser group might have made certain they were alone before indulging in a conversation that eviscerates so many.”

Lady Davis’s mouth opened and closed in an approximation of a trout before she looked away. The plain woman blushed, clasping her hands tightly in front of her in a gesture easily identified as regret.

Not so Lady Sparrow. “Perhaps we were perfectly aware of our company,” she sneered. “We simply were not in fear of offending it.”

With perfect timing, Mariana exited the antechamber, and there was a collective intake of breath as the other ladies registered the presence of the Duchess of Rivington. “Well, that is a pity,” she said, her tone clear and imperious, entirely befitting of her title. “As I find myself much offended.”

Mariana swept from the room, and Juliana swallowed a smile at her friend’s impeccable performance, rife with entitlement. Returning her attention to the group of women, she moved closer, enjoying the way they shifted their discomfort. When she was close enough to smell their cloying perfume, she said, “Do not fret, ladies. Unlike my sister-in-law, I take no offense.”

She paused, turning her head to each side, making a show of inspecting herself before tucking an errant curl back into her coiffure. When she was certain that she held their collective attention, she said, “You have issued your challenge. I shall meet it with pleasure.”

She did not breathe until she exited the ladies’ salon, anger and frustration and hurt rushing through her to dizzying effect.

It should not have surprised her that they gossiped about her. They’d gossiped about her since the day she’d arrived in London.

She’d simply thought they would have stopped by now.

But they had not. They would not.

This was her life.

She bore the mark of her mother, who remained a scandal even now, twenty-five years after she had deserted her husband, the Marquess of Ralston, and her twin sons, fleeing this glittering, aristocratic life for the Continent. She’d landed in Italy, where she’d bewitched Juliana’s father, a hardworking merchant who swore he had never wanted anything in his life more than he wanted her—the raven-haired Englishwoman with bright eyes and a brilliant smile.