It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels

by Grace Burrowes

  If a woman feared being kissed, the duke was a much safer bet than James.

  “Do you see them?” she asked James, trying to peer around him.

  He drew her toward the staircase. “Maybe they’ve gone downstairs. I think we should go and see.”

  They walked all the way down, around and around, but the others were nowhere to be found. At the bottom, they retraced their steps down the corridor, laughingly feeling their way along the walls again. James, Juliana noticed even in the darkness, was definitely limping more than usual. Reaching the end, they opened the door and looked out into Leicester Square.

  She blinked in the bright sunshine. There was no sign of her aunt or Amanda or the other men. “They must still be upstairs,” she said.

  “They must.” A family was approaching the door, so James drew her back inside to let them pass.

  The children giggled when the door closed behind them and the corridor plunged into darkness. “Don’t run!” the parents cautioned as their offspring made their way toward the staircase.

  The youngsters giggled again and again, bumping each other and the walls. Still, when James took Juliana’s hand and began to follow them, she could hear his uneven gait.

  “Your leg is hurting you, isn’t it?”

  She felt rather than saw him shrug. “It was a tall staircase. I’m fine.”

  The vast number of steps hadn’t occurred to her when she’d suggested today’s outing. Unlike Amanda, she never really thought about James’s limp at all. He never mentioned it, and it was usually so slight. “Does it hurt very often?”

  “Only when it’s cold and rainy.”

  “Dear heavens.” She gripped his arm with her other hand, effectively dragging him to a stop. “It must hurt all the time this year.”

  His laughter echoed down the corridor. “It’s not that painful. The limb is stiffer than I’d like, but the sensation is just a dull ache. Nothing to merit your concern. In a strange sort of way I actually embrace the discomfort—it reminds me how fortunate I am to still have it.”

  “When did it happen? And how?”

  “Peninsular War,” James explained. “Took a ball right below the knee.” The giggles grew fainter as, at the other end of the corridor, the family started up the staircase. “The army surgeons wanted to amputate, but one managed to save it instead.”

  “I’m glad,” Juliana murmured, thinking he was stoic and brave.

  Amanda should be so grateful to have him.

  “I was lucky.” The footsteps faded away, and James continued walking down the corridor. “And extremely grateful for the man’s skill. Since I could no longer march with the army, I needed another profession, and—”

  “That’s why you became a doctor,” she interrupted softly.

  “Have you still been puzzling over that?” he wondered with a low laugh as they neared the steps. “Yes, this time you’re more or less correct. Eventually, though, I chose the life of a physician over that of a surgeon. I decided I’d rather work with stethoscopes than saws.”

  Suppressing a sickening vision of a surgeon’s saw covered in blood, Juliana took a while to notice that instead of starting up the staircase, he’d drawn her around and underneath it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “People will bump into us if we wait in the corridor. We’ll wait here instead.”

  It was very dark under the steps, and James would take advantage of the dark. He’d claim he wanted to practice and try to kiss her again. She’d told Amanda as much, hadn’t she, because she knew it to be true from experience. “I think we should go back upstairs.”

  “If we wait here,” he argued, “your aunt and the others will surely come down.”

  “Aunt Frances won’t be able to see us under here.” Especially considering Frances was probably busy kissing Lord Malmsey. Bold men had a tendency to take advantage of the dark, and while Lord Malmsey might have started out rather shy, he was obviously getting bolder by the minute. Already today he’d been bold enough to kiss Frances in James’s carriage and call her my love.

  Juliana’s stomach felt queer—and suddenly she knew why.

  Lord Malmsey had called Aunt Frances my love.

  Juliana wanted someone to call her my love.

  She wanted James to call her my love.

  Because she loved James, and she wanted him to love her back.

  But that would never happen.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  She wanted to love the duke. But she loved James instead, because James was warm and affectionate and charitable and everything else the duke wasn’t. It didn’t matter anymore that James was too tall and had dark hair and a profession. He was brave and stoic. They fit perfectly together, and he was the most handsome man she knew, and as for his profession, well, he was trying to rid the world of the scourge of smallpox, and whatever could be wrong with that?

  But she couldn’t marry James, because he would never love her. Like her mother, she’d be unhappy all her days. And the duke needed her, and he was very kind, and he was sending her flowers and falling in love with her. James and Amanda belonged together. They shared interests that Juliana didn’t. They filled each other’s needs.

  Juliana’s stomach didn’t just feel queer anymore—it hurt. And she wished she’d never said she didn’t know what to do, because she couldn’t possibly explain any of this to James.

  Fortunately, he interpreted I don’t know what to do in an entirely different context. “It doesn’t make much sense to walk all the way up again only to turn around and come back down.” Edging her even deeper under the steps, he raised a hand and traced one finger in a shivery line down her jaw. “Don’t worry about whether your aunt will see us. I’ll watch for her and the others. And while we’re waiting, we can practice kissing.”

  She’d known he would say that, hadn’t she? And she knew she shouldn’t agree. But she also knew she shouldn’t insist he walk up all those stairs again or his poor leg would pain him even more.

  “You don’t need to practice kissing,” she told him with no small amount of conviction. James had been married, after all. She hadn’t known that when she’d first suggested he might need lessons, but she knew it now. He’d had practice. He kissed so well a woman would have to be daft to think he needed practice.

  His finger lingered at the base of her chin, tracing little circles there, threatening to break her resolve. At the far end of the corridor, the door opened, admitting more people and a little light, just enough so Juliana could see James’s gaze, which was so intense she could tell he knew exactly the effect his actions were having on her.

  Oh, yes, he’d had practice.

  The door shut, plunging the corridor back into darkness as the people made their way to the stairwell. “It’s been a long time since I’ve kissed a woman,” he said quietly, apparently reading her mind again.

  “It’s been less than twenty-four hours.”

  “But before that, it was a long time.”

  His finger continued down her throat, slowly, slowly. Wishing she could see him, she swallowed hard. “You’re not going to unbutton, are you?”

  His laugh was quick, low, and pleased. “No, I’m not going to unbutton here.” His finger zigzagged down her chest, lightly, lightly, making every nerve in her body sing. “Practice with me, Juliana,” he murmured as it disappeared into the little valley between her breasts.

  She couldn’t breathe. No man had ever touched her there, and now his finger was tracing up and down, making her heart pound and her breasts ache.

  More people were coming down the corridor, but she couldn’t seem to care.

  “They cannot see you,” he whispered, bending his neck, angling his head, lowering his mouth toward hers. “Will you practice?” His breath whispered across her lips. “Will you?”

  And she let him. She whispered, “Yes.” God help her, though he clearly didn’t need practice, she allowed him to practice anyway. Just o
nce. Or maybe twice.

  She lost count.

  His kisses were drugging. Little nipping ones at first, and then deeper ones, until she opened her mouth and invited him in. People went up and down the stairs overhead while his tongue tangled with hers in a dance so exciting it made heat gather low in her middle. His finger still played between her breasts, and his other hand pressed against her back, pulling her closer.

  Her pulse raced, and her head swam, and she didn’t want him to stop. She wanted him to kiss her forever. She wanted him to make her forget that she shouldn’t be wanting him.

  He shifted his finger inside her bodice and touched a nipple.

  She sucked in her breath, breaking the kiss.

  “I’m not unbuttoning,” he murmured, rubbing the sensitive crest.

  No, what he was doing was much more effective. It made the heat down lower more urgent. She rocked against him as he kept rubbing and kissed a tingling trail down her throat.

  She feared her knees might fail. “James!” she breathed.

  “Hmm?” He placed little damp kisses all across her low neckline, maneuvering his hand inside her bodice until he managed to free her other breast.

  And his warm mouth closed over it.

  “James!”

  “Juliana, is that you?”

  His mouth left her. “Is that you, Lady Frances?” He whirled around and started down the corridor while Juliana yanked her dress back into place.

  More footsteps sounded on the stairs, growing closer. Juliana stepped into the corridor just as four dark forms made it to the bottom. “There you all are!” she said.

  At the other end, James opened the door, admitting a shaft of light. “We were looking for you.”

  “We were looking for you,” Frances said, blinking madly. Well, it was dim, and she wasn’t wearing her spectacles. “Lady Amanda wishes to return home.”

  “I was dizzy up there,” Amanda said.

  Juliana had felt a little dizzy up there, too, but she felt much more dizzy now. Dizzy and confused. She followed the others out into Leicester Square. Her knees still felt shaky. Her breasts ached as though James were still touching them.

  She wished he were still touching them.

  Her stomach was hurting again.

  James would never love her. He needed to kiss Amanda and marry her, or everything would be ruined.

  “Where should we go now?” she asked.

  “Parliament,” the duke said.

  James pulled out his pocket watch, opened it, and snapped it shut. “Good God, it’s nearly four o’clock.” Indeed, people were starting to stream out of the Panorama. “The two of us should definitely go to Parliament.”

  How in heaven’s name was James going to kiss Amanda and decide to marry her if he was always in Parliament? “I’ve a sewing party from one o’clock until three tomorrow, but how about if we go somewhere in the late afternoon or the evening? The House of Lords doesn’t meet on Wednesdays.”

  “We can go to Almack’s,” Amanda suggested.

  “No,” James said at the same time Juliana said, “I think not.”

  She wondered why he didn’t want to attend Almack’s, but it didn’t really signify, because Almack’s was a bad idea. Aunt Frances might be rather blind these days, but the lady patronesses who ran Almack’s had vision sharper than tacks. James would never be able to kiss Amanda there. “How about Vauxhall Gardens?” she suggested instead.

  “I adore Vauxhall Gardens,” Frances put in approvingly. “Especially at night.”

  “Only ladies of easy virtue attend Vauxhall Gardens at night,” Amanda said, either unaware or unconcerned that she’d just insulted Frances. “I enjoy gardens, but I’d prefer to visit one that is more respectable.”

  “How about Chelsea Physic Garden, then?” James asked.

  “Chelsea Physic Garden?” Juliana had never heard of the place. “Where is it?”

  “In Chelsea,” the duke said dryly.

  Juliana shot him a peeved glance before turning back to James. “Is it very exciting?”

  “It’s very peaceful. If you haven’t heard of it, that’s because one must be a physician or apothecary to gain entrance. But I’m allowed to bring guests, and I think Lady Amanda would like it. I shall ask my cook to prepare a picnic supper.”

  “It sounds perfect,” the duke said. “Shall we say five o’clock? Now I think we should be off.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  JAMES’S AUNTS were even better seamstresses than Rachael and her sisters. Better and faster. As Juliana sat stitching like mad while her guests chatted, she tried to convince herself that, with Lady Avonleigh’s and Lady Balmforth’s help, she could successfully finish making all the baby clothes before her deadline a week from Saturday.

  At the end of Monday’s party, she’d had a hundred and twenty-one completed pieces and needed only a hundred and nineteen more. Well, perhaps the word only was a bit optimistic, especially considering a majority of the finished pieces were simple blankets and clouts. But it had been the first time the number of items accumulated exceeded the number of items still unmade, which seemed a milestone of sorts.

  Counting today, she had six sewing parties left. Which meant if all twelve of her guests were willing to attend every time, she’d need them to finish…

  Her head hurt. “Emily, how much is a hundred and nineteen divided by six?”

  “Miss Emily isn’t here,” Lady Mabel wheezed.

  Oh, that was right. Emily had finished cutting, and she still refused to sew, and she’d been busy lately anyway for some reason or another. Which meant Juliana had eleven ladies—well, twelve if she counted herself—and needed—

  “Nineteen and five-sixths,” Elizabeth said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Pardon?”

  “One hundred nineteen divided by six is nineteen and five-sixths.”

  “You did that without paper?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “I like to exercise my brain.”

  “My younger daughter was like that,” Lady Avonleigh said. “She could do any calculation in her head.”

  “Our mother was good at arithmetic, too,” Rachael said. “I expect Elizabeth inherited that ability from her.”

  “Brains do tend to run in families.” Lady Stafford smiled toward Juliana. “My James was Aurelia’s daughter’s cousin.”

  “Much younger cousin,” Lady Balmforth pointed out.

  “Yes, had she lived she’d have been a grandmother by now, I expect—unlike my James, who’s of marriageable age.” Lady Stafford shot another smile to Juliana. “I was noticing at my dinner party, my dear, that the Duke of Castleton seems a mite reserved for a young lady of your enthusiasm.”

  “Yes, the duke surely is reserved,” Juliana said distractedly, trying to figure out if they could make nineteen and five-sixths items at each party. “But that’s only to be expected, considering his lonely childhood. Did you know he was born in this house? His cruel uncle and aunt sold it and made him move. The thought of it quite breaks my heart.”

  Rachael nudged Juliana and leaned close to her ear. “I think Lady Stafford is hoping you’ll marry her son.”

  Juliana wished things were different so she could. In fact, she wished so hard it made her grit her teeth. “Brilliant observation,” she said tightly under her breath, “but much as I like Lady Stafford, her son doesn’t love me. I’m marrying the duke. He’s very nice and he needs me.”

  “For God’s sake,” Rachael whispered, “I should think you’d rather have a man who wants you.”

  “He does want me. He told me he’s falling in love with me. He sends me roses. He dances with me at every event.”

  “From about three feet away. Don’t you want a man who physically wants you?”

  It wasn’t the duke’s fault he was physically undemonstrative. He’d never known anything else. That was why he needed her.

  Juliana’s stomach hurt. She turned away and raised her voice. “I cannot thank you enough for
coming, Lady Avonleigh and Lady Balmforth. You’re both excellent seamstresses.”

  “Our mother taught us both to sew,” Lady Balmforth said, “along with Cornelia, of course.”

  Lady Avonleigh nodded. “Cornelia and Bedelia didn’t have daughters, but I followed tradition and taught mine to sew. My younger daughter was quite artistic and especially good with a needle.”

  Juliana and Rachael turned toward Lady Stafford expectantly. She didn’t disappoint them. “My son is good with a needle, too. He does excellent sutures.”

  The cousins shared a smile, but Juliana’s faded. “Do you think that together we can finish nineteen and five-sixths items this afternoon?”

  “Twenty,” Elizabeth said. “It’s close enough to call it twenty.”

  “Of course. Do you think we can finish twenty? Twelve of us?”

  “Of course,” Corinna echoed. “We did twenty-three on Monday, remember? Without Ladies A and B.”

  Ladies A and B smiled, their needles flashing.

  “Those were all clouts,” Juliana said. “Not frocks, coats, caps, and the like, which are more complicated and take much longer.”

  Alexandra rubbed her belly, even though it still looked flat. “We can finish twenty pieces, even if they’re more difficult,” she said soothingly. “We’ll just stay later, until we’re done.”

  “We can’t,” Amanda said. “Juliana and your aunt and I are leaving at five to go to Chelsea Physic Garden, and we’ll need time to ready ourselves first.”

  “Chelsea Physic Garden?” Claire looked up from the little frock she was sewing. “What’s that?”

  “Some garden for doctors,” Juliana said. “James thinks Amanda will like it.”

  Rachael tied off a thread. “You call him James?”

  “Lord Stafford,” Juliana gritted out, “said Chelsea Physic Garden is very peaceful.”

  “My son knows exactly what women enjoy,” Lady Stafford said. “He’s taken me to the garden in Chelsea, and it’s lovely.”

  Reaching for a spool, Rachael leaned closer to Juliana. “So tell me about James,” she whispered.