“Shelly,” Northwich greeted him with a ready smile. “You look like death this morning, my friend. Are you certain you are ready?”
“I woke up ready,” he lied.
“If I were a wagering man, I would hazard a guess that you woke up ready to lose your breakfast.”
Bastard.
He had lost his dinner.
Small difference.
“I did not see you at the Black Souls last night,” he said instead of either denying or corroborating his friend’s words.
“Observant of you, old friend.” Northwich raised a brow. “That is because I was not there.”
“You have been a fixture of late. I was surprised you were not present.”
“Eh.” Northwich shrugged. “I had matters to attend to.”
“Matters?” Sidney donned his mask and Northwich did the same, followed by gloves and foil.
The master, Jean Beltrande, was not present today, which allowed for a more informal match, not presided over by anyone else. Sidney did not particularly mind; he fenced to relieve himself of pent-up aggression and not for rules.
That principle was certainly no less true today.
Sidney and the duke entered their positions opposite each other for the bout, en garde.
“Yes, matters.” Northwich’s voice was unusually curt. “As I said.”
“Matters concerning a female?” Sidney guessed.
“Is that what made you drink yourself to oblivion last night?” Northwich responded in kind.
Hell.
“Ready?” he snarled at his friend, feeling once more like the beast he had told Grove he felt like that morning when he had refused a shave.
Behind the shield of his mask, it hardly mattered anyway.
“Always.”
“Allez!” Sidney called, in lieu of the master or a referee.
Northwich advanced first, his foil slashing forward with the motion of his body. Sidney met him with a tierce parry, as ready as the duke. And it felt good, raising the foil to his defense, then countering with a lunge and an attack of his own. Northwich answered him with a seconde parry.
“You never did answer me.” The duke feinted, then parried Sidney’s renewed pursuit.
They were trapped in a sparring match that became vicious. Sidney was determined to win, and his friend seemed equally resolved to maintain his pattern of serial victories. Sidney managed to score a hit, then another. Northwich followed by a series of four, until he was within one point of victory.
When the duke attacked, Sidney parried with a septime and a riposte that earned him another point. In the end, however, Sidney’s distraction proved his greatest enemy. Northwich landed a hit and was the first to score five.
“That was one hell of a bout,” Sidney said as they removed their masks. “Naturally, you defeated me again.”
Northwich shed his mask and smirked. “If I allowed you to win, I would lose your respect.”
That much was true.
Still, it rather nettled that he could not defeat the duke, on today of all days.
He sighed. “I needed a victory.”
“Oh?” Northwich did not elaborate.
Getting others to speak without saying a word was another of his gifts, along with trouncing anyone who dared to stand opposite him in a sporting match of any sort. Riding, shooting, football, cricket, fencing, rowing—the Duke of Northwich was an athlete unlike any other. And a good friend, which was what made his irritating penchant for winning supportable.
“It was a woman,” he admitted, careful that no other club patrons overheard their conversation as he removed his padded glove. “You were right.”
“The reason you look like a corpse who was reluctantly called back to life?” Northwich asked with an unrepentant grin.
Did he truly look that bad? Sidney’s lip curled as he recalled his reflection in the looking glass. Yes. He did.
“Thank you for your friendly reminder concerning my appearance,” he drawled, voice dripping in sarcasm.
“As one of your oldest and best friends, I consider it my duty,” Northwich continued, grinning.
Arse.
“Do you recall the lady I told you about?” he asked his friend, trying to ignore his aching head.
“The one you were weeping about the night we drank two bottles of whisky and went swimming in the Serpentine?” the duke asked.
“I do not weep,” he denied calmly, though it was possible he had shed a tear or two. One never knew what happened when one was in one’s cups so thoroughly one could not entirely recall what had happened the day after. “But yes, if memory serves, I do think I may have mentioned her that evening.”
Northwich snorted. “And many others since.”
Had he truly spoken about Julianna that frequently? If so, Sidney was going to need to abstain from drinking spirits. Forever. Clearly, it brought out the worst in him, the decision to go swimming in the Serpentine at midnight in the middle of November aside.
He scowled at the duke. “To the devil with you. You are merely bitter because I beat you at swimming that night.”
“Treasure the victory, old chap. It was only because I was drunk enough to mistake a hedgehog for my mother. Had I been in any condition to race, I would have bested you by at least twenty paces.”
That was also true. Sadly.
But Sidney was still clinging to the positive points of that long-ago evening rather than the negatives. “Your inability to lose with grace aside, yes. The lady in question—she has unexpectedly reappeared in my life.”
Northwich removed his gloves at last, setting his foil aside. “Ah.”
“Ah? That is all you have to say?”
“I am waiting for you to tell me the rest, friend.” The duke flashed a grin.
Sidney tapped his foot on the polished floor. Where to begin?
“She said she wants to marry me,” he grumbled.
“Excellent news.” Northwich thumped him on the back.
“Decidedly not excellent news.”
“Seems excellent from where I stand,” his friend said easily. “You wanted to marry her two years ago, and she would not have you. Now she will have you. Your father is pressuring you into making a match. It stands to reason that marrying her is far preferable to marrying Lady Heloise.”
“Lady Hermione,” he corrected grimly.
“Er, yes. Forgive me. She is rather…”
“Forgettable,” Sidney finished, understanding completely.
Lady Hermione was bland. Her appearance was not unpleasant; it was merely unremarkable. However, it was not her physical attributes that inspired such apathy. Rather, it was her personality. In other words, she had none.
She was neither clever, nor amusing, and everything she said was a repetition of his words followed by a simper, as if she could not bear to offer her own opinion. The perfect wife for some. He knew she would allow him to carry on with life no different than as if he had been a bachelor. She would bring her dowry. Offer him an heir. Get his father off his arse.
It should have been perfect. And it would have been, if not for the untimely return of Lady Julianna Somerset.
“Yes, forgettable is an excellent way to describe the lady in question,” Northwich agreed. “Problem solved, old chap. Marry the lady you love and forget about Lady Heloise.”
“Hermione,” he said out of sheer habit.
His friend made a dismissive gesture. “Precious little difference.”
There was a large difference between the two names, but Sidney was not in the mood to argue. Instead, he recalled the other, far more troubling part of what Northwich had said.
“I do not love Lady Julianna,” he bit out. Because the distinction was important.
He had certainly believed himself in love with her two years ago when he had asked her to marry him. She had more than cured him of that foolish notion, however. Drunken night swimming in the Serpentine aside.
“Love does not die,” Northwich
told him.
It was not a belief he expected his friend to espouse, knowing him as Sidney did. “Yes, it does. It did. Mine for her, specifically, is dead.”
The duke shrugged. “It is a spirit, haunting you then, if it is dead. Why would you spend all night drinking yourself to oblivion and come here too distracted to offer me a proper match, otherwise?”
“I almost defeated you,” he defended, nettled.
Northwich’s words were not what he wanted to hear. And they were getting perilously close to the truth.
“I gave you an easy bout, and you know it,” Northwich countered.
Damnation.
“I would never marry her,” he snapped. “Not even if I had to do so. No one and nothing could induce me to accept her as my wife.”
He meant those words. Lord, how he meant them.
Northwich shrugged. “If you insist, old chum. What do you say about a change? The Black Souls?”
And more Sauternes? Despite the fact he had risen thinking he would never drink another drop, Sidney could not deny the allure of numbing himself and wiping Julianna from his mind entirely.
“Excellent plan,” he said.
* * *
Necessity demanded she ignore all sense of propriety.
And so she had—not for the first time.
Which explained why Julianna was huddled in her father’s carriage in the mews behind Shelbourne’s townhome, awaiting his arrival. Her future depended upon speaking with Shelbourne. So did Emily’s.
That was why she was here, she reminded herself.
That was why she was swallowing her pride.
Returning to the place where she had fled from in ignominy the night before.
She had chosen her arrival with care, however. This time, she had not arrived after supper. Instead, she had made certain to be here before he disappeared to his club. Or to his mistress.
The last thought stung far more than it should, even after the years separating them. Time should have blunted the pain of realizing he was no different than any other heartless society lord. But it had not. Whether it was returning to England or seeing Sidney again for the first time in so long, she could not be sure.
Whatever it was, she was not nearly as impervious as she had told herself she must be during all those days traveling over storm-tossed seas, calming Emily whilst she feared the worst, casting up her accounts in a chamber pot. During the journey spent warning herself of how strong she would need to be, of how she needed to fight for the both of them.
Of how she could never allow herself to submit to the same weakness for Shelbourne she once had, to her ruination.
The last time had almost destroyed her life and cost her everything. Before her was her second chance. Her chance to remove herself from her mother’s and father’s cloying wings. For freedom and independence, the opportunity to grow her fledgling cold cream business into something more. To give Emily the life she deserved.
There was only one component of her flawless scheme missing.
Shelbourne.
He was not at home. And there was no sign he would return any time soon. He may have chased her from his townhome the night before, but she had gathered her resolve and her determination in the hours since she had left him. And she had vowed this time, she would not be diverted from her course. She would stop at nothing.
He would hear what she had to say.
And he would agree it was for the best.
If he did not?
Well, Julianna was nothing if not determined. No was unacceptable. The offer she had for him was reasonable, fair, and more than generous. All she had to do was get him to listen to it.
And to do that, he needed to appear.
Damn him.
Where was he?
As the question hit her, a sleek carriage arrived and slowed.
There he was.
Julianna threw open the door of her own carriage and leapt into the street, not caring that the step had not been lowered. Her ankle twisted a bit on the landing, but other than that, she was fine. She was far too preoccupied with her quarry to pay it any heed. As she neared his carriage, Lord Shelbourne was descending.
Elegant, forbidding, beautiful.
Oh, how she wished the sight of him did not feel akin to a dagger plunged into her heart. But it did. She suspected it always would. All the better for them to continue their lives on different sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
He began stalking toward the rear of his townhome.
“Shelbourne!” she called, hurrying after him.
He paused, his broad shoulders stiffening, before he turned to face her. He was dressed unusually. Trousers of flannel, a strange jacket. He had been fencing, she realized belatedly.
His green gaze burned into hers as she continued her hasty approach. “Lady Julianna, what the hell are you doing here? Did I not turn you out on your pretty rump last night?”
“No, you did not.” She stopped just short of him. Near enough she could touch him, if she chose. Not close enough to give in to any disastrously foolish temptations. “I left because you were threatening me and being a boor.”
“Threatening you?” He raised an imperious brow, studying her in a way that was far too familiar.
In a way that made her nipples go hard and sent a rush of heat to the apex of her thighs even as she told herself she must remain unaffected by him. And she would remain unaffected. He was handsome. She had cared for him once. She had shared her most intimate self with him. He had been the first and only lover she had ever known. But that would change, in time.
There was no place for Lord Shelbourne in her world now save one.
“Yes,” she told him, holding her ground, squaring off against him in the fashion of a pugilist. “You threatened me. Told me you would toss me over your shoulder and haul me from your home if I did not leave. Do you not recall? You were dreadfully soused last evening. I can understand if you do not remember a bit of what happened.”
He cocked his head. “And yet, if I were such a brute, one cannot help but to wonder why an intelligent lady such as yourself would dare to return and once more place herself beneath the behest of my boorish whims?”
He was not wrong. Coming here again, seeking him out to begin with, had been a gamble. It was still a gamble. She had no reason to believe he would be amenable to the agreement she offered him. And if he denied her, she would have to find someone else.
But she would not fret over that now.
“Because I need to speak to you, Shelbourne,” she ventured. “Just as I said to you last night. I will not go until you allow me to say my piece.”
His lip curled, and he allowed his gaze to fall over her body in a way she could not help but to find insulting and titillating at once. Drat the man. He did such strange things to her, left her in perpetual upheaval. She did not know whether to kiss him or slap him.
Slap him, urged her conscience.
Kiss him, said her stupid heart.
She ignored them both.
“I have a dinner engagement, my lady. If you want to speak with me, you shall have to do it on my terms.”
His terms? What could they be?
Unfortunately, she did not have the luxury of caring.
“I will have my audience with you however I must,” she said boldly, relief hitting her at his sudden and unexpected capitulation.
“Good,” he said, grinning.
Her breath caught.
And she knew, undeniably, that she had just made a bargain with the devil. One she would soon regret. But that was why she was here, was it not?
The devil she knew was better than the one she did not.
Julianna could only hope that proverb proved correct in this instance.
Chapter 3
My darling Julianna,
I have been spending a great deal of recent time wondering. What could I have done differently? Was I mistaken in thinking you cared for me? Did your kisses lie? Was I too far gone in my ow
n foolish feelings for you that I failed to see the truth? Some days, I want to believe you are not the viper who crushed my heart with a careless laugh and a smile. Other days, I persuade myself you are. And then, inevitably, I turn to drink for solace…
Still yours (damn you),
Sidney
Sidney had gone mad.
That was the reason why he had agreed to listen to Lady Julianna Somerset. Why she was accompanying him into his home. Why she was near enough he could be vexed by her luscious scent.
She was dressed quite well today, wearing a purple gown that made her eyes ludicrously bright. He wished she had been wearing something brown and ill-fitting instead. And veils.
Hell, a sack would have been preferable.
Not seeing her at all would have been optimum.
They made their way inside through the rear entrance. Within, there was not a hint of Wentworth anywhere, which was just as well. Fewer eyes to witness Sidney parading the same female who had been haunting his halls last night up the main stairs.
“Where are we going?” she dared to ask.
“I need to change,” he clipped.
“I cannot go to your chamber, Shelbourne.”
She sounded scandalized. And ever-so-slightly American.
And he was feeling as beastly as ever. Devil-may-care, too.
“Why not?” he threw over his shoulder. “No need to act the frightened virgin. We both know you are not one.”
Her swift inhalation reached him. And affected him. He would be lying if he claimed it did not.
“You are being cruel,” she accused softly.
And correctly.
He was being cruel. What had she expected? A bouquet and an embrace? For him to fall on his knees before her with unending gratitude that she had returned and wanted to marry him, two years after he had asked and she had rejected him?
Lady Wicked: Notorious Ladies of London Book 4 Page 3