by Lauren Royal
“Juliana, I’d be pleased for you to meet the Duke of Castleton.”
A duke! Handsome, fair-haired, not too tall, and a duke! Juliana’s heart fluttered with excitement as the duke bowed over her hand. “Would you honor me with a dance, Lady Juliana?”
“It would be my pleasure,” she said and let him lead her onto the floor.
The duke’s dress and bearing were both impeccable, and he proved to be an excellent dancer. “Where have you been all season?” she asked.
“Abroad, seeing to some of my interests now that the war with France has come to an end.”
“Ah.” Though he wasn’t holding her very closely, she could smell his costly eau de cologne. “All your many interests keep you busy, then?”
“Not usually.” He had calm, pale blue eyes. “It’s been years since I’ve been overseas. I much prefer to stay here in town and fill my life with amusements.”
No profession, nothing to keep him from spending lots of time with her. His blond hair was neatly groomed—unlike tousled Lord Stafford, he obviously had time to tend to it. He was sounding better and better.
Perfect, as a matter of fact.
“I adore being amused,” she told him and gave him the look.
Unfortunately, he didn’t fall at her feet. In fact, he appeared rather taken aback, until he quickly schooled his face back into a neutral expression. “It was cold on the Continent,” he said as though nothing had happened.
So he was proper and reserved. She could admire that. He was sure to be the very soul of gentlemanly behavior. ”As cold as it’s been here?”
“Not quite. And certainly not as rainy.”
“It snowed this month. In June!”
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yes, amazing.”
They both fell silent.
Juliana could admit: scintillating conversation, it was not. But then, they didn’t know each other yet. There would be plenty of time later to speak of deeper things.
When the dance ended, the duke quite properly delivered her back to her brother.
“Well?” Griffin asked after the young man had bowed and walked away. “I suppose you want me to keep looking?”
“To the contrary,” she said. “I expect it’s likely no more introductions will be necessary. How old is the duke? Do you know?” He didn’t look terribly old, but most of the dukes she knew were downright ancient.
“You’re not dismissing him out of hand?” Griffin looked vastly surprised—and pleased, not to mention relieved. “I believe he’s twenty-eight.”
While she’d prefer someone a bit closer to her own age, twenty-eight wasn’t so very old. After all, she was a quite mature seventeen, wasn’t she? “You didn’t mention his given name.”
“It’s David. His family name is Harcourt.”
Harcourt—an elegant surname for her children. And his title, Castleton, sounded rather romantic, did it not? And he was a duke.
Could he be more perfect?
A deep voice interrupted her musings. “Good evening, Lady Juliana.”
She glanced up to see Lord Stafford. Way up. ”Good evening.”
“Cainewood,” he said, addressing her brother, “you wouldn’t happen to know any aging widowers, would you?”
The odd question drew a bark of laughter from Griffin. ”Looking for more patients, Stafford? Old ones, with many ailments?”
“No.” He gestured toward three mature women standing in a tight cluster. Was it Juliana’s imagination, or did they look a bit petrified? “I’m looking for dance partners for my mother and her sisters, Lady Avonleigh and Lady Balmforth.”
“Dance partners?” Juliana asked, her interest piqued. “Or possible suitors?”
“My sister fancies herself a matchmaker,” Griffin explained.
“I do not,” she retorted. “I just like helping people find happiness.”
“A noble pursuit,” Lord Stafford said grandly. “However, I’m not looking for suitors. Dance partners will do.”
Lord Malmsey came to mind, but although he was too old for Amanda, he was too young for Lord Stafford’s mother. And besides, she’d already decided he belonged with Aunt Frances.
“May I borrow your quizzing glass?” she asked.
Instead of taking it off, Lord Stafford handed it to her with the long chain still around his neck. She leaned closer to raise it to her left eye. He smelled not of costly eau de cologne but of soap and something vaguely spicy.
A quick scan of the room through the quizzing glass revealed several likely dance partners for his relations, and she wasted no time corralling and introducing them to the three women. Not five minutes later, she stood hip to hip with Lord Stafford, the two of them watching his mother and aunts perform a quadrille.
Or at least they would have been hip to hip had he not been so overly tall.
“That,” Lord Stafford said, looking a little stunned, “was remarkable.”
Juliana shrugged, much the same as he had when she’d remarked that he’d saved Lord Neville’s life. “I’m good at what I do.”
“You certainly are.” The musicians finished the quadrille and struck up a lilting waltz. “May I have this dance?” he suddenly asked.
Although she would rather have danced again with the duke, it wouldn’t be seemly to refuse. So she said, “It would be my pleasure.”
As he spun her around the floor, a flutter sprung up in her middle. That had nothing to do with Lord Stafford, of course—she was simply dizzy from the dance and from the evening’s happy successes. She’d found the duke, and Amanda had her pick of young suitors, and Lord Malmsey was going to fall head over heels for Aunt Frances. She might even be able to match Lord Stafford’s mother and aunts with eligible widowers this season, no matter that he only meant for them to dance. All of her projects were beginning to come together.
She glanced up to find Lord Stafford staring at her again, like he had the first time they’d danced. And again she found it unnerving. He seemed a very intense young man. Much too intense for high-spirited Juliana, but perhaps he’d make a good match for Amanda, who was a serious sort of girl. In fact, they might just be ideally suited! He was a doctor, after all, and Amanda had quite competently tended Emily’s wound. She would make an excellent doctor’s wife. And Amanda was tall, so the two of them would look wonderful together.
And meanwhile, she, Juliana, would be a duchess! She could already picture herself walking down the aisle with the duke.
But now wasn’t the time for daydreams—it was the time for making polite chitchat with one’s dance partner. So she forced herself to meet Lord Stafford’s intense gaze with a gracious, not-at-all-unnerved smile. “I missed you at Almack’s last Wednesday.”
His raised an eyebrow. “You missed me?”
She hadn’t meant it like that. “You weren’t there. Do you not like Almack’s?”
James abhorred the very idea of the place—it was little more than a hunting ground for young girls and their scheming mamas to ensnare eligible bachelors. But he wouldn’t say that to Juliana. “My mother obtained a voucher for me,” he said instead, which was entirely true, “but there was trouble at the Institute that night, so I was unable to attend.”
That was likewise entirely true. Although another truth was that he’d have found a different excuse if that one hadn’t presented itself.
“How unfortunate,” she said. “I hope the trouble wasn’t too dreadful.”
“A shortage of staff. I had to fill in myself, as well as interview new candidates.”
“What sort of staff were you looking for? Did you find anyone?”
Given her talent for matching people, he wouldn’t be surprised if she offered to find someone for him. “I needed an assistant. To coordinate supplies and greet patients. And yes, I found someone. I wouldn’t be here tonight if I hadn’t.”
Her blue-green eyes narrowed. “You would work on a Saturday evening?”
“I work often on Saturday even
ings. Many patients who are working people cannot visit during normal working hours. When I’m in town, New Hope is open from ten o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night, every day except Sunday.”
Most shops kept the same hours, so he wondered why she looked so disapproving. And he wished she didn’t. Because the more he saw of her, the more he liked her. She was so full of good intentions and liveliness. Liveliness that suddenly seemed missing from his life.
All at once, he realized that Anne’s face wasn’t shimmering before his eyes. In fact, he hadn’t thought about Anne at all while dancing with Juliana. Not for the barest moment. Probably because the two of them couldn’t be more different—where Anne had been tall, brunette, and restrained, Juliana was small, blond, and spritely. Marriage to her would never be boring.
But it wouldn’t be love.
And it wouldn’t be right for James. Juliana was quite appealing, and certainly “good at what she did.” She would make a fun, charming wife—for someone else. Someone who had time for such frivolity. He didn’t; not if he hoped to accomplish his goals.
But as long as he was stuck at this ball, he might as well enjoy her company. He liked the way she danced on tiptoe, as if she had so much energy she could scarcely keep her feet fastened to the floor. Or perhaps she was merely reaching as high as she could because he was so much taller. From his height, he could look down at the top of her blond head, which gleamed beneath the chandeliers. Her hair was an intriguing mix of pale gold and light brown and every shade in between. And when she looked up, those blue-green-hazel eyes…he couldn’t quit gazing into them, trying to figure out what color they were.
As the dance came to an end, she said, “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
He didn’t want to meet anyone. He wanted to go home to Stafford House. Without his mother. Maybe she’d sleep at her sisters’ town house tonight, the three of them giggling like young girls discussing their latest conquests. A fellow could hope.
But no, she’d come home as always, probably vexed with him for making her dance. That had been the whole idea, hadn’t it? To give her a taste of her own medicine?
“You don’t mind, do you?” Juliana’s eager voice snapped him back to attention. “Lady Amanda is really quite lovely.”
Oh, yes, she wanted him to meet someone. Lady Amanda. Right. “I don’t mind at all,” he lied. “Where is this lovely lady?”
She shot him an unreadable glance before starting across the ballroom. “Follow me, Lord Stafford.”
“James.”
“Pardon?”
He watched her graceful, springy steps as he followed her. “My given name is James.”
She slowed down until he caught up. “We barely know each other, Lord Stafford.”
True. But he’d been thinking of her as Juliana practically since the moment they’d met. Not Lady Juliana, just Juliana.
Odd, that.
“We’ve danced together twice,” he pointed out.
“That hardly makes us intimates.”
Intimates. To his very great surprise, the word made his face heat. What was wrong with him? He felt like a bashful schoolboy. “Just call me James,” he snapped.
“Very well.” She huffed out an impatient sigh and came to a stop before a clutch of gentlemen. “Come along,” she said and pushed in.
A blond girl was at the center. A lovely blond girl.
Juliana tapped her on the shoulder. “Amanda, this is Lord Stafford. Lord Stafford—James—meet Lady Amanda Wolverston.”
“Lady Amanda,” he said with a proper bow. He wasn’t tempted to call her just Amanda. Or even think of her as just Amanda. She was Lady Amanda through and through.
But Juliana was just Juliana.
This entire evening was proving most troubling.
“Lord Stafford,” Lady Amanda returned formally. “I’m delighted to meet you.”
She was lovely and delighted. Being a gentleman, he had to do the polite thing. “May I have the honor of the next dance?”
Lady Amanda smiled a lovely smile, though it looked a tad forced. “With pleasure, my lord,” she said, sounding much less pleased than she claimed.
Juliana shot them both a grin.
At least someone was happy.
Lady Amanda was a fine dancer. Although not as animated as Juliana, she chatted amiably enough. And she was quite lovely. But when the dance ended he wasn’t sorry.
Another gentleman claimed her immediately. James’s mother sidled up to him, out of breath. “What a lovely girl.”
“Quite. Did you enjoy your dance?” he asked, expecting to hear that she hadn’t. That she wasn’t ready to consider getting close to someone new. That she was sorry for pressuring him when he clearly wasn’t ready, either.
“They were delightful,” she said instead.
“They?”
“The dances. All three of them. And all three men. Aurelia and Bedelia thought one dance quite enough, so I danced with their men, too.” She took both his hands in hers. “Thank you, my dear. I’ll admit I thought the very idea was daft, but it’s high time I resumed a social life, and I appreciate your little push.”
He groaned inwardly.
“I’m going to spend the night with Aurelia and Bedelia,” she added, looking happier than he’d seen her in ages. “Good evening, dear. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
At least she was happy, he thought as she walked off. And he’d have an evening at home alone, like he’d hoped.
Now, if only he could unclench his jaw.
“Well, Stafford, you’ve certainly danced with your share of the ladies.”
He turned to see Cainewood. “I’m finished,” he said. But he wasn’t ready to go home yet—suddenly home alone sounded lonely. “Can I interest you in a game of chess?”
“Chess? Haven’t touched a board since I left the army.” Cainewood sipped from a nearly empty glass. “Sure. For how much?”
“You want to wager?”
“Afraid you’re going to lose?” Grinning crookedly, he finished his drink. “Ten guineas.”
“Deal.” The stake was high—much more than they’d ever bet in their schooldays—but James returned the grin. “Follow me,” he said, leading his friend toward the card room.
He didn’t expect he’d lose. Cainewood was looking a bit foxed.
THIRTEEN
“I SAY, Cainewood. You’re looking a bit foxed.”
Griffin looked up from the chessboard where he and Stafford were playing, to find Castleton standing over them. “I’m quite sober, I assure you,” he told the duke, fascinated to hear a bit of a slur in his own voice. Just a bit, because he was just a bit foxed. Which was perfectly reasonable, since he’d had much to celebrate this evening.
Juliana had finally—finally—found a gentleman she wanted.
This gentleman right here.
He took another sip of Regent’s Punch, an inspired mix of six different spirits. “What do you think of my sister, Castleton?”
The duke shrugged. “She’s lively.”
“Yes, isn’t that nice? Nothing like a lively young lady.” Griffin blinked. Castleton looked a bit stiff. And a bit blurred.
He wondered what his sister saw in the fellow.
Castleton was a keen judge of horseflesh—a fine recommendation, to Griffin’s mind—but surely Juliana didn’t care about that. She could sit a mount and enjoyed riding up and down Rotten Row in Hyde Park, the fashionable place to see and be seen, but she’d never been a particularly horsey sort of girl.
Griffin supposed, however, that a lady might find Castleton handsome. In a pale sort of way. And, oh, yes, he was a duke. There was that.
Besides, did it matter why Juliana wanted him? The fact that she did was good enough for Griffin.
“It’s your turn,” Stafford said.
“So it is.” Griffin focused on the board—or at least he tried to focus. He was losing, but he didn’t care. Life was too good at the moment to worry overmu
ch about a chess game or a few guineas.
Pondering his strategy, he took another celebratory sip. He’d never tried Regent’s Punch before tonight. It was astonishingly good stuff.
He moved a rook and looked back up at Castleton. “I suppose you’ve come over to ask for permission to call on my sister?”
“Not really. I was just sitting over there playing cards and noticed you looked foxed.”
Castleton sounded disapproving. And quite pompous. Why again did Juliana like him? Oh, yes, he was a duke. And her reason didn’t matter. Griffin wanted his sister to be happy—he wanted all of his sisters to be happy. If Juliana had her heart set on Castleton, he’d do whatever it would take to see them married.
“Did you know,” he said, noticing that slur again in a detached, amused sort of way, “that Velocity is part of Juliana’s dowry?”
The horse wasn’t, of course. Until now.
“You don’t say,” Castleton mused, suddenly looking much more lively himself. “I hadn’t heard that.”
FOURTEEN
SHREWSBURY CAKES
Beat half a pound of Butter to a fine cream, and put in the same weight of Flour, one Egg, a measure of grated loaf Sugar, and small spoons of Nutmeg and Cinnamon. Mix them into a paste, roll them thin, and cut them with a small glass or little tins, prick them, lay them on sheets of tin, and bake them in a slow oven. Serve spread with raspberry Jam if you wish.
Should you wish to convince someone of something, these cakes will do the trick.
—Helena, Countess of Greystone, 1784
DESPITE HAVING persuaded her cousins to attend her party, Juliana had no more ladies sewing than last week. Corinna, while present today in the drawing room, was “involved” with her latest painting and refused to pick up a needle. Aunt Frances was at Amanda’s house, visiting with Lady Mabel. And Sunday was the one day of the week Emily’s father made sure to spend time with her.
Luckily, Rachael’s mother had been artistic and had taught her girls to sew. Since Rachael, Claire, and Elizabeth were sewing much faster—not to mention better—than last week’s crew, Juliana’s panic subsided. And since Aunt Frances and Emily were missing, she took advantage of their absence to explain Amanda’s situation to her cousins.