“I told you not to try to trick him again! And why on earth did you tell him you’re engaged?” People were gawking at them, so Juliana hurried her to a corner of the ballroom where they could talk behind a potted palm. “Now he’ll never agree—” She stopped short, finally registering Amanda’s question. “What makes you think Lord Stafford is in love with anyone?”
“He told me! I kissed him, and then—”
“You kissed him?” A stab of jealousy took Juliana by surprise. Or, all right, to be honest, she wasn’t surprised. But it certainly felt bad and very wrong. “What did he do then?”
“He pushed me away. You said he would fall in love with me, but he pushed me away!”
The jealousy faded as quickly as it had flared, replaced instead by elation. Unmistakable, jubilant elation. Juliana had never felt more buffeted by uncontrollable emotions, and she wondered how she could feel so exultant when Amanda was clearly so desperate. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. Amanda had kissed James, and he’d reacted by pushing her away.
She must be a bad, bad person, because she wanted to scream with joy.
“I asked him if he’d just cooperate,” Amanda continued with a pathetic sniffle, “and compromise me so my father would have to let me marry him. But he said he couldn’t, because he’s in love with another woman.” She heaved another prolonged, woebegone sniff. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” Juliana said. It wasn’t a lie. She had her suspicions, but she didn’t know.
James had claimed he would never fall in love with anyone. While he’d certainly never pushed her away, no declaration of love had passed his lips. He’d never called her my love or even my dear. He’d never sent her flowers. And he’d seemed very angry that she’d deceived him regarding Amanda’s engagement.
“I don’t know,” she repeated, looking away.
Because although she didn’t know, she couldn’t help hoping…
Her gaze wandered the ballroom, past Lord Malmsey dancing with Aunt Frances. Had her meddling doomed them both to despair? Even if James did love her and eventually forgave her, how could she ever be happy with him while she knew other people she cared for were miserable?
And then there was the duke…
Having at last emerged from the card room, he stood gazing at her, a heated look in his eyes. He’d never looked at her with that sort of expression before. Just her luck, now that she’d decided she couldn’t marry him, he’d finally decided he wanted her.
Amanda shifted uneasily beside her. “Why is David looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Juliana asked. Then she blinked. And stared.
Dear heavens, the duke wasn’t looking at her at all, let alone like that. He was looking at Amanda. Like that. Could the duke love Amanda?
Amanda?
Well, why not? she suddenly realized, glancing back and forth between them and recalling all of their interactions. Honestly, it was amazing she hadn’t considered the possibility much earlier. The duke and Amanda were two peas in a pod. Two perfectly round, blemishless peas, with about as much passion between them as one would expect from a pair of legumes.
The duke and Amanda were ideal for each other. Absolutely ideal. He related better to Amanda than he ever had to her. Amanda’s cold upbringing had matched his own, after all. The two of them understood each other.
She turned back to face Amanda. “It’s a shame you won’t marry a by-blow, because that would solve everything.”
Amanda bit her lip. “I would marry a by-blow if the by-blow was the duke,” she said meekly.
Juliana gasped. “Are my ears deceiving me? Did you just say you would marry the duke?”
“You were right all along.” Instead of looking down at her feet as she used to, Amanda met Juliana’s eyes. “He’s not to blame for his parents’ mistakes, and he’s kind and a good man.”
“Then whyever did you say no at Lady Pevensey’s musical evening? With such vehemence, no less?”
“You want to marry him yourself. You’ve been trying so hard to help me. The last thing I want to do is repay you by stealing your intended. You’re such a good friend.”
“You’re a good friend, too.” Juliana took Amanda’s hands. “I don’t want to marry the duke. I want you to have him instead. Wait here,” she added, squeezing Amanda’s fingers before she released them. “I’m going to make it happen.”
As she walked toward the duke, Juliana couldn’t help noticing that his blond, pristine handsomeness matched Amanda’s pale beauty precisely. If he didn’t realize they belonged together, she would see that he soon did.
Coming to a stop before him, she looked up into blue eyes as bland as Amanda’s. “You’re not in love with me,” she said. Although he’d claimed he was falling in love with her, it was a statement, not a question. “You’re in love with Lady Amanda.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it love,” he demurred. “But I hold her in some affection.”
Juliana supposed it was the most Amanda could ever expect, since it was the most the woman could give herself. Neither of them possessed enough emotion for anything stronger.
“Would you like to marry her?” she asked.
He hesitated, but only a moment. “Very much. Even though she doesn’t come with a horse.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind. I would definitely like to marry her. Unfortunately, I understand she’s engaged to another.”
“She told you that?” Juliana asked. But obviously, Amanda had. While Juliana and James were kissing, Amanda and the duke must have been talking. “We can fix her engagement,” she said. “But first you need to ask her for her hand.”
The duke nodded gravely.
“It might help to tell her how you feel,” she advised as she walked him toward Amanda, thinking him the sort of man to forget that. “You may want to exaggerate a bit.”
After delivering him to her friend, she backed away and watched from afar as he and Amanda conducted a conversation that looked more like a business discussion than a proposal. In the end, when Amanda nodded, he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.
It seemed an auspicious beginning. Maybe after a year or two they’d progress to kissing on the lips.
Perhaps within a decade they’d make a child.
The negotiations complete, they summoned Juliana. In the course of the next half hour, the three of them came up with a plan. After church tomorrow, they would all attend Lady Hartley’s breakfast party, where, at precisely three o’clock, Amanda would be caught in the library with the duke, her dress unbuttoned down the back.
Amanda blanched when Juliana suggested the last bit, but they all agreed it was necessary to assure her ruin. By the time Amanda’s father arrived that evening, her compromise would be a fait accompli. He would have to allow her to marry the duke.
“Will you ask Lord Stafford to help ‘discover’ us?” Amanda asked.
“No. He told me he won’t be in attendance.” Juliana thanked goodness for that, because he’d never approve of their plot. “But I’m sure plenty of other people will come running when I call, so there’s no need for him to be involved.”
With any luck, James would never hear about what happened at all.
And after all was said and done, if she was fortunate enough to learn he loved her, she would never—never ever—meddle again.
Chapter Forty-Six
IN HIS STUDY at Stafford House the next day, James pushed aside his paperwork and sighed.
Sometime during the sleepless night, the hot fury had settled into a coldness deep inside him. Cornelia had the sniffles. He’d passed the morning in a haze, hoping she’d decide she was well enough to leave for Lady Hartley’s breakfast. When she finally did, he’d sat down at his desk, added the same column of numbers three times, and come up with three different answers.
He couldn’t concentrate. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Juliana had been hiding Amanda’s engagement fro
m him for all the time since they’d met. He’d thought he knew her.
But then again, he’d thought he knew himself, too. And when it came right down to it, his disappointment in himself was much harder to swallow.
True, Juliana had done wrong. But she was a meddler, and he’d known that all along. Sometimes her scheming worked—with his aunts, for example—and sometimes it didn’t.
Everyone made mistakes, and as bad as her actions had been, his own had been no better. He was hardly in a position to judge. They’d both been playing games. His games had hurt Amanda, and Juliana’s games had nearly saddled him with an unwanted wife.
But he loved her nonetheless. He loved every scheming, meddling inch of her. Should he be fortunate enough to marry her, he would gladly put up with her antics for the rest of his life.
And he, for one, was finished playing games.
Decision made, he pushed back from the desk, summoned his valet, and went to his newly renovated bedroom to change. The red-and-yellow-striped bedroom he hoped to share with Juliana.
It was time to buy her roses.
ONLY THE CREAM of society held “breakfasts” in the afternoon.
Beneath a tent in Lady Hartley’s garden, the breakfast was well underway when James arrived just before three o’clock. As he scanned the several hundred guests seated at round tables, searching for Juliana, Lord Occlestone rose from one nearby.
“You owe some lady an apology, Stafford?”
James glanced down to the flowers he held, a dozen red roses. “Something like that.” In his carriage between the florist’s shop and Lady Hartley’s, he’d unwrapped and nervously dethorned them. Now, rewrapped in the crumpled paper, they didn’t look like much.
“I missed you in Parliament all this week. Or rather, I didn’t miss you.”
“I was there Thursday,” James said mildly, still searching the crowd. He had more important things to do than bicker with Occlestone.
“Oh, yes, you were there Thursday. How could I have forgotten your arguments regarding your ridiculous notion that we should return the Elgin Marbles to Greece rather than purchase them for the British Museum?”
“It’s a matter of morality,” James snapped. “We have no right—”
“Where the devil is my daughter?” another gentleman cut in.
Grateful for the interruption, James turned to him, then blinked at his stern demeanor. “And your daughter is…?”
“Lady Amanda Wolverston,” Occlestone answered for him, clapping the man on the shoulder. “Good to see you at long last, Wolverston. What has it been, two years? Three? We Tories have sorely missed your voice of reason.”
While Lady Amanda’s father muttered something about excavating antiquities on his property, James looked him over. He was rather short, with fair hair and beady, pale blue eyes. His mouth was compressed and turned downward, and deep lines on either side gave the distinct impression such a frown was his habitual expression.
He didn’t look the least bit pleasant. Poor Lady Amanda. The thought of Wolverston as a father-in-law would make any man think twice before proposing to the unfortunate girl.
A flash of yellow caught James’s eye. Juliana, leaving the tent. “Excuse me,” he said quickly and moved to follow her.
He reached the garden just in time to see her enter the house. Wondering what could possibly compel to her to go into a house during a garden party, he crossed the threshold just in time to see her reach the other end of what seemed an impossibly long corridor. From there, best he could tell, she turned and stole into a room.
He hurried after her, composing apologies in his head, desperate words spilling from his brain in a rhythm that matched the cadence of his rushing feet.
Juliana, I shouldn’t have judged—
Juliana, please listen—
Juliana, I love you—
Reaching the end of the corridor, he opened what he hoped was the right door and stepped into a library. As he quietly shut the door behind him, his mouth fell open.
It had been the right door. Between two deep red velvet curtains, Juliana stood facing a window, a dark silhouette against the light. Her dress was unbuttoned all down her back, and the bodice had slipped down her arms, revealing a slim column of tempting skin.
“Juliana,” he gasped softly.
She turned and stepped forward, her hair glinting the palest blond.
It wasn’t Juliana.
“Lord Stafford!” Lady Amanda’s cheeks flushed bright red. She swiftly jerked her dress up to cover herself, but not before he glimpsed an oddly shaped birthmark on her left breast. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Had he entered the wrong room? What had happened to Juliana? “Fix your clothes, will you?”
“I—I cannot!”
She was clutching her bodice for dear life, unwilling to let go in order to button her dress. Vaguely wondering how she’d managed to unbutton it in the first place, James stalked across the room to fasten it for her.
The door opened and closed again. “What are you doing here?” the Duke of Castleton asked in an exceedingly stuffy manner.
The ass. “Buttoning the lady’s dress,” James spat, stating the obvious. “What are you doing here?” The paper-wrapped roses tucked under one arm, his fingers awkwardly worked up Lady Amanda’s spine as quickly as possible.
But not quickly enough. Before he was anywhere near finishing—before Castleton could even open his mouth to answer James’s question—the door flew open once more, and a flood of people poured in.
Led by Lord Occlestone.
“How dare you preach morality to the House of Lords, Stafford.”
James’s fingers fell from Lady Amanda’s buttons, and the roses fell, too. He scooped them up. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Occlestone’s squarish nose went into the air. He’d never looked more like a pig. “I doubt the lady’s father will agree.”
“My father is here?” Lady Amanda squealed.
“Lord Wolverston is looking for you. I shall fetch him forthwith.”
“Please don’t,” she said quickly, but he was already gone.
The onlookers turned as one to watch him, then broke out in excited whispers.
“Gracious me,” Lady Amanda breathed, slowly turning to face James. “What an unpleasant man.”
The woman was a master of understatement. Unpleasant, indeed. James hadn’t missed the smirk on the man’s face. Occlestone was enjoying this tiny bit of revenge.
And unfortunately, the revenge could turn out to be far more than tiny.
Lady Amanda’s gaze darted about the whispering crowd. “What are we going to do?” she asked in a low, panicked tone.
“Nothing. There is nothing we can do.” His instincts said to run. But escape was impossible. Alerted by Occlestone, Lady Hartley’s guests were arriving in droves, filling the doorway, cramming the room. He could only be grateful his mother and aunts weren’t among them. So far, anyway. Perhaps they’d all come down with the sniffles and gone home.
A long velvet curtain swished behind him, and he turned, shocked to see Juliana step from behind it. “What the devil is going on here?” he asked.
Her gaze swept the fascinated bystanders, then settled on him as though they were the only ones there. “I’m so sorry.” She did look sorry, not that that did any good. “We’d planned for Lady Amanda to be discovered with the duke.”
James swung to Castleton in disbelief. “You were party to this? You willingly—”
“Yes,” Castleton interrupted stiffly, but before he could explain anything, more people streamed into the room—Cornelia and her sisters among them, damnation—as Lord Wolverston arrived with a roar.
“Stafford, you will pay for this!”
James’s stomach sank. He’d never been formally introduced to Amanda’s father—in fact, he’d never even laid eyes on the man until a few minutes earlier. But he wasn’t surprised to find that Wolverston knew his n
ame. Occlestone would have supplied him with all the lurid details as the two of them made their way from the tent to the library.
He should have run.
Although he was no taller than his offspring, Lord Wolverston was commanding in his fury. “You will wed my daughter in place of Lord Malmsey. Next Saturday, as planned.”
A buzz filled the room. Gasps of surprise and astonished whispers. It seemed Lady Amanda’s betrothal had been a well-kept secret.
“No!” she cried. “This is all a mistake!”
Her father turned to her, his jaw clenched. “A serious mistake indeed, young lady.” He swung back to James. “I’ll expect you at Wolverston House at noon with a special license.”
James’s gaze flicked to his horrified mother before he nodded. There was nothing else he could do. Having been witnessed buttoning Lady Amanda’s dress at an event attended by half of the ton, he had no choice but to comply or lose all honor.
“What if Baron Malmsey still wants her?” someone shouted over the babble. “Will you deprive him of his betrothed bride?”
“I would never go back on my word.” Lord Wolverston craned his neck, searching the crowd. “Malmsey!” he bellowed. “Do you still wish to wed my disgraced daughter?”
Someone pushed Lord Malmsey forward. “I—I—” he sputtered. A meek man to begin with, he seemed to have shrunk into himself. “I—”
“The baron doesn’t want her,” Wolverston said.
Well, of course he didn’t. He wanted Lady Frances.
“She must wed the earl,” Wolverston concluded, suddenly sounding less discontented. In fact, if the man were possessed of a more pleasant demeanor, James suspected he’d have looked positively delighted.
“Please, Father!” Lady Amanda begged. “This isn’t fair! Father, you must listen! You must reconsider—”
“There will be no reconsidering.” Lord Wolverston grabbed her by the arm, making her wince. “We’re leaving.”
“Please, Father!” she wailed as he dragged her through the crush. “Pleeeease!”
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