TemptingJuliana (10 page)

“You-you-you’re afraid of Emily’s snake,” Juliana chortled. “Don’t tell me you’re not.”

James felt heat creep up his neck and into his face. He’d never seen a woman quite so consumed by hilarity. It was humiliating.

Every diner in Mr. Cosway’s Breakfast Room was staring at them, and he wasn’t sure whether that was because of Emily’s snake or Juliana’s laughter. Either way, it was humiliating, possibly the most humiliating moment of his life.

Juliana thought him laughable.

But he couldn’t deny her accusation. “Deathly afraid,” he confirmed with as much dignity as he could muster. “I was bitten by an adder at the age of seven.”

“Oh, my,” Juliana said. Her peals of laughter dwindled to giggles as she apparently tried to control herself. “That must have been dreadful.”

“Very. It was quite painful, and my ankle swelled up horridly, and I was consumed by fever.” He had also cast up his accounts several times, but he wouldn’t say so in the presence of ladies. “I should never want to experience that again,” he added, eyeing the damned snake with contempt.

“But Herman isn’t an adder,” Emily said, stroking the terrorizing creature with gentle fingers. “He’s a harmless
grass snake. He doesn’t have any poison, and he doesn’t bite.”

James knew that. He was well aware that adders were the only venomous snakes in England, and Herman was quite obviously not an adder. Herman was longer and more slender than an adder and had different markings on his back. James knew his fear was irrational.

But irrational as it was—and he was cognizant of the fact that, in the twenty-two years since he’d been bitten, his fear had expanded beyond all proportion to the incident—he couldn’t bring himself to get close to Herman or any other snake.

Even now, though he was standing a good six feet away, the sight of Herman made his pulse feel thready and his guts clench. If he got any closer, he feared he might cast up his accounts right here in Harding, Howell & Company’s froufrou little restaurant.

Juliana was no longer laughing. Instead, she was watching him very closely, so closely he was half convinced she could see right into him, see his churning stomach and his racing heart. See just how pathetic a man he was, a man too pathetic to conquer his fear of a simple grass snake.

Still watching him, she suddenly pushed back from the table. “I’ve just realized I’m not hungry.”

“But I am,” Emily said.

Juliana turned to her with a bright smile. “You can stay here with Aunt Frances while Lord Stafford and I find a few gifts for Lady Amanda.”

Lady Frances began rising. “You and Lord Stafford cannot go off alone.”

“Of course we can.” Juliana eased her aunt back onto the chair. “We’re in a public place, surrounded by dozens of people. We’ll be back in a few minutes.” And with that, before Lady Frances could voice another protest, Juliana placed her arm in James’s and headed out of Mr. Cosway’s Breakfast Room.

James wasn’t certain, but he thought Juliana might have just saved him from complete humiliation. In any case, she’d definitely saved him from losing his luncheon. His stomach was feeling better already, and his pulse had gone back to normal.

“Thank you,” he said as they headed down the staircase. “You must think me an utter coward.”

“Don’t be silly. We all have our fears.”

He doubted that. “What is yours, then?”

“Blood,” she said without hesitation. “I would make a terrible doctor. And unlike you, I don’t even have a reason for my fear. No traumatizing bloody events in my childhood.”

She laughed, but this time it was at herself, not him. Which made all the difference.

Which made him like her even more.

“Lady Amanda is not afraid of blood,” she informed him. “I should think you’d be pleased to know that, since I expect it’s an important attribute for a physician’s wife.”

“I don’t think that really matters,” he told her. An affinity for blood was not on his list of wifely requirements. Not that he was looking for a wife, anyway. He tightened his grip on Juliana’s arm, smiling to himself when she leaned closer to him. Even though it was cold and rainy outside, she seemed to smell of sunshine and flowers.

“I think Lady Amanda would like a fan,” she said, guiding him past the glazed mahogany partition that separated the fur and fan departments.

He didn’t want to buy Lady Amanda a fan, but he didn’t want to disappoint Juliana, either. And he especially didn’t want her to give up on their “lessons,” because then she’d have more time to spend with stuffy Castleton, who was entirely the wrong man for her. So he bought a fan.

“I think Lady Amanda would like gloves,” she said next. And although he didn’t want to buy gloves for Lady Amanda—although he didn’t want to buy
anything
for Lady Amanda—he dutifully paid for the lacy pair she picked out.

She thought Lady Amanda would like perfume, so they stopped by the perfumery department. She thought Lady Amanda would like candy, so they visited the confectioners. In no time at all, he was burdened with bags and boxes.

He’d always hated shopping—and he knew very well
he’d had a horrible attitude from the beginning—but all in all, Emily and her snake aside, this day wasn’t turning out nearly as bad as he’d anticipated. He rather enjoyed being gallant and saving Juliana from stuffy Castleton.

Seeing that man at her house earlier had made him grit his teeth.

They were buying some fancy writing paper when Lady Frances and Emily sought them out. “Lady Juliana,” Emily said, “you are taking
forever
.”

Looking startled, Juliana turned from the stationery counter. And the next thing she did was immediately move to put herself between Emily and James. He could have kissed her for that.

Not that he’d actually kiss her, of course—that would be highly improper.

But he wanted to…and
that
was frightening as hell.

More frightening than Emily’s snake.

He wasn’t ready for this. He didn’t think he’d ever be ready. He might be getting used to the idea of remarrying someday, but only to make his mother happy. And because he needed an heir.

Certainly
not
because he was in love.

Juliana looked between him and Herman. “Goodness, Emily,” she said, “you’re right. We
have
taken forever. In fact, we’ve taken so long that Lord Stafford is going to be late for Parliament. We’ll have to take a hackney coach home so he can go there straightaway.”

James might have been a coward, but he wasn’t a fool. He knew she’d said that to save him from riding with Herman in his carriage.

He could have kissed her for that, too.

ALMOND MACAROONS

Juliana placed little mounds of dough on a paper-lined baking tin, spacing them carefully while she hid a yawn. She’d been up since dawn. After spending the morning with Emily—who
still
refused to relinquish Herman—now she was making almond macaroons with Amanda.

According to Chase family legend, the macaroons were supposed to make a man amorous. Juliana planned to give some to James and tell him to eat them tomorrow, hoping they would induce him to act warmly toward Amanda at Lady Partridge’s ball tomorrow night. Since she wasn’t certain whether the macaroons needed to be made by the woman seeking attention—her grandmother, who’d penned the recipe, hadn’t been clear—she’d decided to ask for Amanda’s help just in case.

“Put an almond in the center of each macaroon,” she said through another yawn.

“That’s the third time you’ve yawned,” Amanda observed, plopping the nuts on top rather haphazardly. “Are you sleepy?”

Juliana’s fourth yawn seemed to echo off the basement kitchen’s walls. “This week has been exhausting.”

She’d been very busy since Monday’s visit to the Institute and Tuesday’s jaunt to the shops. Not only had she hosted another sewing party and spent every free minute stitching, but the duke had called on her every single day and danced with her twice at Almack’s Wednesday evening. He said the nicest things to her. His attentiveness was encouraging, and she was certain it was only a matter of time before he asked for her hand. A perfect gentleman, he remained careful not to touch her, demonstrating the respect due a lady.

James, on the other hand, touched her so often she was beginning to think the incidents might not all be accidental.

On Wednesday afternoon, when she and James had taken advantage of a few glorious dry hours to go riding in Hyde Park, he’d found excuses to help her on and off her horse on six different occasions—to buy refreshments from a stand, to look at some flowers, to take a stroll by the Serpentine—and his hands had seemed to rest on her waist longer and longer each time.

James had missed attending Almack’s again Wednesday night—apparently he’d had another problem at the Institute—but Thursday evening, when they’d attended the theater, he’d set his chair so close to hers in the box that his thigh was against her skirts during much of the performance. In the intermission, he’d brought her a syllabub and then claimed twice that she had white cream on her face and wiped it off with his thumb.

“Did I tell you I received another gift from Lord Stafford?” Amanda flattened a macaroon and stuck a piece of almond in it. “Three gifts in one week!”

“Use the whole almonds, Amanda. You want the macaroons to look pretty, don’t you?” Juliana picked out the broken nut and replaced it with a perfect one, thinking Amanda was almost as hopeless at cooking as Corinna.
It was a good thing that as an earl’s wife she’d never be expected to set foot in the kitchen. “What did he send you this time?” she asked.

“The most elegant lace gloves. I’m not sure Aunt Mabel would approve of something so personal. Fortunately she was napping when the package arrived. I suggested maybe she should return to the countryside, since Lady Frances is doing such a fine job as chaperone.”

Juliana supposed Aunt Frances was a fine chaperone, if one considered
oblivious
to be synonymous with
fine
. “I’m glad Lady Mabel doesn’t mind Aunt Frances filling in for her.” Not least because it would be impossible to carry out their plan with the dear lady watching over Amanda. “Still, I hope she isn’t feeling poorly enough to leave London. I enjoyed her company at Wednesday’s sewing party.”

“She surely enjoyed attending, too. It was much less strenuous than going on outings. Why, she hardly even wheezed.”

And she’d proved a much better seamstress than her niece, completing four blankets in two hours. Unfortunately, even with Lady Mabel’s help, Juliana had so far collected only thirty-three of the two hundred forty items she needed. And she had only three weeks left—the same three weeks Amanda had to find a new fianceé before she was forced to marry Lord Malmsey. “You’re planning to keep the gloves, then?”

“I wouldn’t dream of returning them. The workmanship is utterly stunning. The pink roses were beautiful, too. And I adore the painted fan,” Amanda added as she placed another almond off center. “Lord Stafford has exquisite taste, don’t you think? Especially for a man.”

Juliana was glad she’d taken it upon herself to have each of James’s gifts delivered rather than trusting him to remember. Tomorrow evening, she would make sure Amanda wore the gloves and carried the fan, which should please him. She could scarcely wait until the ball, when he’d dance again with Amanda and ask for permission to court her. She was certain Amanda would agree.

Everything was going perfectly.

Hearing the tall-case clock chime upstairs, she hurried
to place the last almonds. She had only half an hour to ready herself before James arrived for today’s excursion to the Egyptian Hall. “Thank you for your help,” she told Amanda as she shoved the pans into the oven. “I’ll have a footman deliver half the macaroons to your house as soon as they’re finished.”

Not usually one to show affection, Amanda wrapped Juliana in a loose, awkward embrace. “Thank
you
,” she said. “I had no idea that macaroons make one’s eyes sparkle, but I appreciate your telling me and letting me help bake them.”

“You’re very welcome,” Juliana murmured, feeling a bit guilty about misleading her. But only a bit. Honestly, she’d had no choice. Amanda was entirely too proper and reserved to bake macaroons with the intention of making a man amorous.

After Amanda took her leave, Juliana went upstairs to change her dress and put on a little rouge and lip salve. She was on her way back down when she heard the knocker bang. As she arrived in the foyer, expecting to see James, Adamson opened the door to reveal a deliveryman holding an enormous arrangement of red roses.

“Holy Hannah!” Paintbrush in hand, Corinna came in from the drawing room. “There must be five dozen!”

Aunt Frances came in from the library. “Goodness gracious, I can smell them from here. And just look at that gorgeous silver vase!”

“Do you expect they’re from the duke?” Corinna asked.

“They must be,” Juliana breathed, setting the gloves she was carrying on the marble-topped hall table.
Red
roses. The duke must be even more enamored than she’d hoped.

The heady scent was almost overwhelming. After tipping the deliveryman, the butler put the arrangement on the table. She plucked the card from it with shaking hands.

“A small token in comparison to the great love I hold in my heart,” she read aloud, her pulse pounding harder with each precious word. “And it’s signed—”

Her mouth gaped open, mute.

“Who signed it?” Corinna demanded. “Are the flowers not from the duke?”

Juliana closed her mouth and held the card out to Aunt Frances. “They’re from Lord Malmsey. They’re for you.”

Frances’s hand flew up to cover her heart. She looked like she might swoon for a moment, but in the end she just said, “For me?” in a squeaky little voice.

“For you,” Juliana repeated, thrilled at this evidence her project was working. And thrilled for Frances, too, of course. Seeing her aunt sway on her feet, she eased her onto the striped satin chair that sat by the table. “Are you all right, Auntie?”

Her hand still splayed on her bosom, Frances blew out a breath. “Heavens, child, I’ve never been better.” Her eyes looked misty behind their lenses. “But I do feel just a bit faint.”

A kitchen maid came up from the basement and handed Juliana a small basket covered with a lace doily. “Your macaroons, my lady. A dozen, as you requested.”

“Thank you,” Juliana said and set the basket beside the flowers.

“May I speak with you a moment?” Without waiting for her to answer, Corinna took her by the arm. “In the drawing room.”

They left Frances staring at her roses.

“Do you not think,” Corinna said once they were behind closed doors, “that this is going a little too far?”

“What?” Juliana asked, feeling bewildered.

“Sending Aunt Frances flowers and claiming they’re from Lord Malmsey. Really, Juliana, what do you think is going to happen tomorrow at the ball when she thanks him for them and he tells her he didn’t send them to her?”

“He
did
send them to her,” Juliana said.

“He didn’t.”

“Well, who did, then? Because
I
didn’t. I had nothing to do with those flowers.”

Corinna eyed her skeptically, rather as if she were a very bad painting. “He’s engaged to marry Amanda. Why would he send flowers to Aunt Frances? What
would make him think she’d be receptive to receiving them?”

“The love letters he received from her.”

“
What
love letters?”

“The ones I sent,” Juliana said, exasperated that she would have to explain such an obvious thing. “It wouldn’t do to have Aunt Frances be the only one getting mail. A true love must be two-sided.”

She’d never written so many sappy letters in her life. In a week of incessant activity, Aunt Frances’s romance had proved to be her most exhausting project. Besides writing all the letters, she’d had to take Frances shopping for shoes, bonnets, and accessories to match all of her new dresses; buy cosmetics and practice applying them; and hire a dancing master to teach Frances all the new steps. And Frances’s hair—oh, her hair! Madame Bellefleur had had to visit not once, but twice—the first time to dye Frances’s hair with henna and walnuts, and the second to trim it and tinker with various styles.

But it was all worth it. Aunt Frances was going to look beautiful tomorrow night. And Lord Malmsey was already in love with her.

He’d sent
red
roses.

“You sent fake letters to both of them?” Corinna pointed the paintbrush she was still holding at her. “What do you think will happen when they compare notes?”

“They won’t,” Juliana said confidently. “Neither of them will be willing to question their good fortune.” The knocker sounded again. “Excuse me. That will be James.”

She went back to the foyer, but it wasn’t James at the door. It was another deliveryman with flowers. White roses, and there were only a dozen, but they were in a beautiful crystal vase.

“What does the card say?” Corinna asked behind her.

Not assuming anything this time, Juliana pulled it from the arrangement. “The Duke of Castleton,” she read with some relief.

And happiness, of course.

“That’s it? No message?”

“The flowers say it all, do they not?” She gestured grandly toward the arrangement, which, in truth, looked rather paltry next to the extravagant one Lord Malmsey had sent. But the duke was not an extravagant man. He was restrained and refined and everything that was good and proper. “I don’t
need
a written message,” she said. “I know perfectly well how he feels.”

“How who feels?” James asked, walking in the still-open door.

“The Duke of Castleton,” Corinna informed him. “He sent flowers to Juliana.”

“Did he?” He scanned the foyer, blinking as his gaze landed on the hall table. “That is a
lot
of roses.
Red
roses.”

His tone implied he found something objectionable about the roses, although Juliana wasn’t sure whether it was the amount of them or their color. Or both. And why would he care, anyway?

Frances’s hand was still over her heart. “They’re mine,” she said, sounding awed.

Corinna nodded. “The
other
arrangement is from the duke.”

“White,” James said with a raised brow. He turned to Juliana. “He must think you very pure.”

What on earth did he mean by that? She
was
pure. Not that that was entirely by choice. The only man she had an interest in respected her too much to touch her.

Which was more than she could say for James.

She swept the little basket off the table and thrust it at him. “Here,” she said rather ungraciously. “I baked macaroons for you.”

“Why?” he asked, looking nonplussed.

She hadn’t anticipated that question. She didn’t want him to think she’d made them as a gift, because he might take that the wrong way. But she couldn’t very well tell him she hoped they’d make him amorous toward Amanda.

Or that they’d make his eyes sparkle.

“I thought you’d want to eat them tomorrow. They’re reputed to give a man stamina.”

That brow went up again. “Stamina of what sort?”

How many sorts were there? “Extra strength and endurance.”

“I see.” His lips quirked, as though he were trying not to laugh. “But pray tell, why should I need extra endurance tomorrow?”

“For the dancing,” she said. “At the ball. You’re not accustomed to hours on your feet.”

“Ah,” he said. Just
ah
. But something about the way he said it told her he was well aware she was making all of this up as she went along. “In all my years in medicine,” he drawled, “I’ve never heard macaroons prescribed to improve stamina. I shall have to pass this wisdom along to my colleagues.”

He wouldn’t, of course; she was sure of it. He’d be laughed out of the Royal College of Physicians. “You do that,” she said, snatching up her parasol and turning to Frances. “Are you ready to leave, Auntie?”