by Lauren Royal
It was brilliant. In one fell swoop, Juliana might have solved both his problems, giving his aunts something to do and providing him with permanent, reliable assistants.
Apparently Juliana’s meddling wasn’t always an inconvenience.
“How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you figure out what people need and put two and two together? Why are you so good at what you do?”
She shrugged. “I just pay attention.”
It couldn’t be that simple. “What if my aunts don’t want to be assistants?”
“They’ll be thrilled at the very suggestion,” she promised with supreme confidence. “Shall I ask them for you?”
“I can ask them. I’ll stop by on my way to Parliament. Thank you, Juliana,” he said, reaching to touch her arm. When she flinched, a shock of hurt rattled him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“You were right—I’m exhausted. And overwhelmed. And the dratted lemon slices aren’t working.”
“Pardon?” He looked down to the uneaten slice in his hand and back up, horrified to see tears flooding her eyes. “What do lemon slices have to do with anything?”
“Nothing,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.” She inched around the counter and headed toward the door. “Eat the lemon slices, will you? All of them. I’ll see you at the Teddington ball tomorrow. I must go home and sew.”
FORTY-TWO
ON SATURDAY evening, Griffin watched Juliana scan the Teddingtons’ ballroom. “Where’s Lord Stafford?” she asked.
“Shouldn’t you be looking for Castleton?”
“He’s in the card room, gambling away his fortune.”
Griffin wondered why she sounded so disapproving. “Castleton isn’t an inveterate gambler. He plays only to amuse himself.”
She shrugged. “He only ever does anything to amuse himself.”
“And you find this objectionable?” He narrowed his gaze. “Since when?” She was supposed to be in love with the fellow! Unless…he was suddenly seized by an alarming notion. “Do you not want to marry him anymore?”
She looked away. “He needs me.”
“I should hope you’d want to marry someone because you need him.”
She cocked her head at him. “Rachael says people should marry because they want each other, not need each other. It’s remarkable how all the unwedded people I know are so very wise in the ways of marriage,” she added dryly.
Griffin ignored that. “Has Castleton kissed you yet?”
”Would you want to hear about it if he did?”
He supposed he didn’t; there was little more uncomfortable than envisioning one’s sister in a romantic embrace. However, he knew Juliana well enough to know she wouldn’t hesitate to give him the details in all their cringe-inducing glory, so he had to figure her response meant the duke hadn’t kissed her yet.
He’d meant to have a talk with Castleton the next time he came to call on Juliana, but the fellow hadn’t been coming around lately. “I think I’ll go play cards,” he told his sister.
“Just don’t lose thirty guineas.”
Wherever had that caustic comment come from? he wondered as he made his way to the card room. He rarely gambled, and never for high stakes.
Castleton was playing whist. “Yes?” he asked when Griffin walked up.
“I heard from my stableman yesterday. Velocity has been running well. You still want him, don’t you?”
He shifted, tossing a card on the table without meeting Griffin’s gaze. “Very much.”
“Excellent. You might try kissing my sister.”
Griffin turned to go and ran smack dab into Rachael, who was wearing a dress the same sky blue color as her eyes. She looked like she might have a slight cold—red nose, glassy eyes—though it didn’t dampen her appeal.
But for once, he wasn’t flustered by Rachael’s sultriness; he was too busy panicking over what she might have heard.
“What are you doing here?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“At the ball or in the card room? My sisters dragged me to the ball. And I followed you in here.” She glanced around at all the people uneasily. “I have something I’d like to ask you. In private.”
He relaxed. It seemed she hadn’t overheard his conversation with the duke. “Let’s find Lord Teddington’s library.”
“All right.” She walked beside him from the room. “What does Velocity have to do with the Duke of Castleton kissing your sister?”
Blast it.
He hesitated, but another explanation wasn’t springing to mind. “Ah, yes, well…I promised him Velocity if he married her.”
“You promised him a horse for marrying Juliana?” Her glassy eyes looked incredulous. “How could you do that, Griffin?”
He looked away, turning down a corridor he hoped would lead to the library. “She wants to marry him. I want to see her happy.”
“How happy do you expect she’ll be when she finds out her husband married her for a horse?”
He peeked in an open door to see a music room. “Whyever would she find that out?”
“Perhaps because I told her?”
“You wouldn’t.” He turned to her. “Tell me you wouldn’t.”
“I’m not sure I shouldn’t.”
“Rachael, please tell me you won’t say anything. It would only hurt her feelings.”
“You should have thought of that before you made the offer.” She stared at him for a moment while he shifted uncomfortably. “All right. I won’t tell her. Unless she ends up engaged to his grace, at which point I think it will be in her best interests to know, whether it hurts her feelings or not.”
“Thank you,” he said, not sure he was actually all that thankful, since the duke and his sister would likely be engaged quite soon. But maybe not. And at least Rachael wasn’t running to Juliana just yet.
They tried the next room, but it turned out to be a small family dining chamber. “Whatever made you think of offering a horse for your sister?” she asked, continuing down the corridor.
He shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Perhaps I was a bit foxed.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing you’re not often drunk.” She stopped before another open door. “Ah, the library.” Taking a deep breath, she entered and walked over to a long leather sofa. She turned and sat carefully, folding her hands in her lap. “A few weeks ago you suggested I try to find my father. I was wondering how you’d propose I do that. Seeing as he’s dead, I mean.”
Griffin frowned, noting a trace of anguish beneath her businesslike tone. Leaving the door open, he joined her on the sofa. “He might not be dead.”
“In the letter I found, Mama referred to herself as a widow.”
“The letter could have been deliberately misleading,” Griffin pointed out, and then, seeing hope leap into her eyes, hurriedly added, “although it probably wasn’t. But in either case, I may be able to help you discover his identity.”
“How?” She coughed, then sniffled. “Mama left no other letters that mentioned anything about an earlier marriage. Her parents died young, and after her sister died when I was but a child, she had no family left. She never even had any close friends other than your folks—Mama always kept to herself, do you remember?” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Her things? Did she keep nothing to remind her of her previous husband?”
“Nothing at all. I went through everything when I cleaned out her rooms to ready them for Noah.”
Noah, Rachael’s younger brother, had recently come of age and taken responsibility for the earldom—a responsibility Rachael had borne on her own since the tender age of seventeen. She was intelligent and competent. If she’d found nothing, there was likely nothing to find.
But now that she was willing to pursue the subject, Griffin didn’t want to give up so easily. “Perhaps you missed something. Or saw something but didn’t recognize it as a clue.”
She looked dubious. “There was nothi
ng, Griffin.”
“Would it hurt to look again?” If he could judge by her expression, it very well might. “I’ll go through your mother’s things with you,” he offered. “I might notice something you missed.”
She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her nose. “All of Mama’s things are at Greystone,” she said on a sigh, referring to her family’s country estate. “Perhaps we can go through them at Christmas.”
As much as Rachael clearly wished to put this off, he wasn’t willing to see her misery last until Christmas. It was so against her nature. “Christmas is six months away—”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, standing suddenly. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going home.”
FORTY-THREE
AUNTS AURELIA and Bedelia had been thrilled when James asked them if they might help out at the Institute. They’d arrived at New Hope to be trained first thing after breakfast Saturday morning and taken to their tasks with great enthusiasm, running the reception room with astounding precision. James had been able to vaccinate more patients in a day than he usually did in three.
At four o’clock, before his aunts departed to ready themselves for the Teddington ball, he’d penciled their names on his schedule, careful to make sure their assigned shifts wouldn’t overlap and run him ragged. Then he’d gone home to change, decided to lie down and rest his feet for just a moment, and awakened four hours later.
By the time he dressed and left, it was past ten o’clock. He arrived at the ball very late and a little moody. When Occlestone happened upon him just inside the entrance and made a snide remark, James nearly walked right back outside again. But he wanted to tell Juliana how well things had gone at the Institute today.
Unfortunately, Lady Amanda buttonholed him before he got the chance.
He hadn’t even been announced yet—he’d only just handed his things to the footman manning the cloakroom—when she approached him, wringing her hands. “Lord Stafford, where have you been? One of Lady Teddington’s guests is terribly ill.”
Absurdly, he noticed she wasn’t wearing gloves. And she looked quite distressed. She was usually so cool and aloof. Whose illness could she possibly be so concerned over? She seemed to have no close friends, except for—
“Is it Juliana?” he asked, his heart suddenly beating double time.
“No. Let me show you to her.” Bypassing the ballroom, she hurried him down a corridor.
“It’s another lady, then? What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know.” She turned into a room and spun to face him so fast he nearly collided with her. “Kiss me,” she said, and then, throwing her arms around him, she pressed her lips to his.
He went rigid as a corpse, stunned and disoriented and horrified and why was this strange girl attached to his mouth?
He pushed her away. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?” His wits were slowly returning, but with them came additional confusing emotions. He felt guilty for shoving her, especially because she’d almost toppled over, and he also felt bad for wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, which had been quite rude and unnecessary, but he hadn’t been able to help himself.
But the most confusing feeling of all was nothing. He’d never before kissed a girl and felt nothing. Or at least, nothing pleasant. Nothing besides a face mashed against his own.
“What was I doing? I was kissing you!” she wailed, and now he felt even worse, because she looked just as horrified as he felt. “Have you fallen in love with me yet?”
“What?”
“Juliana said that after I’d kissed you, you’d fall in love with me. Have you?”
“No!” He shook his head emphatically. Lady Amanda was a lovely girl, even more lovely now that she was finally showing some spirit. Her cheeks were flushed prettily and her blue-gray eyes were flashing.
But he loved a girl with hazel eyes.
“Where is Juliana?” He glanced around. “Good gracious, this is the ladies’ retiring room.” The room was strewn with reticules and other feminine belongings. Screens in two corners most likely hid chamber pots—but he wasn’t about to make his way over and find out. “It’s a miracle no one else is in here. Someone could appear any minute.”
“I know.”
“Ladies tend to visit in bunches. Any number of guests could have seen us kissing!”
“I know.”
“You know? You know?” He grabbed her by an arm and took a step back, and then another, and another, until they’d returned to the momentarily deserted but very public corridor. “Have you any idea what could have happened had we been caught?”
“What I was hoping would happen?”
“What you were hoping…” Bile rose in his throat. Slowly, through clenched teeth, he said, ”You and Juliana planned to trick me again, didn’t you? That meddling little—” He broke off, coughing, choking on fury.
Was it just yesterday he’d decided her meddling could be helpful? Well, to blazes with that!
“She didn’t meddle,” Lady Amanda said, her eyes flooding. ”It was my idea this time. All my idea. She refused to help me. She said it would be unethical.”
“Blasted right it is!” What was it with ladies crying around him lately? Yesterday Juliana, and now Lady Amanda. Had all the girls he knew formed a pact to watch him squirm?
A tear overflowed and ran down her cheek. “Why can’t you just agree to kiss me, then? You want to, don’t you? You’ve been courting me for weeks.”
“I most certainly have…”
Not. He’d meant to say not. But he couldn’t get the word out. Good gracious, he abruptly realized, he had been courting her for weeks. Or at least it must have seemed that way to her. He’d sent gifts and asked her to dance and—
Suddenly he needed to sit down. But there were no chairs in the corridor, and he seemed to have lost the strength to propel himself to another location. He leaned against the wall instead. “Well, that is…”
How could he explain it? Although she and Juliana had certainly been wrong to trick him, what he’d done was just as bad, wasn’t it? He’d misled Lady Amanda to achieve his own ends with another girl. There was no excuse for such behavior—all he could think was that she so rarely showed her feelings, perhaps he’d forgotten she had any. Which was despicable of him. How could he have been so thoughtless and cruel?
“I’m sorry, Lady Amanda,” he said, “I—”
“My father will be home tomorrow evening,” she interrupted in clipped tones, clearly impatient with his half-baked efforts to explain himself. “He may not let me out of the house again before my wedding. However will I escape marrying Lord Malmsey then?”
“Escape…what?” He blinked. “Your wedding? I don’t understand. What on earth makes you think Lord Malmsey would marry you? He’s in love with Lady Frances.”
“Well, he offered for my hand before he met Lady Frances. And my father is going to make us marry, unless—”
“You’re engaged?” he interrupted. “To Lord Malmsey?”
All the time Juliana had been trying to match him with Lady Amanda, the girl had been engaged?
“We’re to be wed a week from today. And the only way I can get out of it is if I’m caught with another gentleman.” She grabbed both his hands. Painfully reserved Lady Amanda grabbed his hands, and she wasn’t even wearing gloves. She was that desperate. “Could you please just cooperate?”
He knew he should. He knew it was only right to make amends for his actions by following through. But he couldn’t.
He just couldn’t.
Two chattering guests entered the corridor, heading for the ladies’ retiring room. He pulled his hands from Lady Amanda’s and lowered his voice. “I cannot,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I cannot cooperate. I cannot marry you. I’m in love with another girl.”
He fled back to the cloakroom before guilt could get the better of him. He couldn’t decide whether he was more furious with Lady Amanda for trying to trick him again
, Juliana for trying to match him with someone who was engaged, or himself for misleading them both. All he knew for sure was that he wanted to go home.
“James!” he heard as he passed the ballroom.
He turned to see Juliana, a cautious smile on her face.
Cautious? Juliana? Was she in another strange mood?
“How did it go with your aunts?”
“Fine,” he said shortly.
Her smile disappeared. “Is something wrong?”
“Your friend tried to trick me again. Your engaged friend.”
“Oh.” Her face went white. “Faith. I can explain—”
“I’m sure you can, since you always have a plan to fix everything. But I don’t want to hear it tonight. I’m going home.”
Still deathly pale, she hesitated a moment.
She hesitated. Juliana hesitated. Confident, self-assured Juliana.
“All right,” she said at last. “Can we discuss this tomorrow at Lady Hartley’s breakfast?”
“I don’t think so. I have more important things to do than attend a silly breakfast.” The Institute would be closed since it was Sunday, but perhaps he’d work on the account books. Or clip his nails. Anything would be better than wasting half the day smiling at people he didn’t care about. He’d never attended garden parties or balls by his own choice—he put up with them only to placate his mother and, more recently, to see Juliana.
But he didn’t want to see Juliana. Or rather, to have her see him. To face her in a tent full of nosy spectators.
Right now he couldn’t even face himself.
FORTY-FOUR
AFTER JAMES left, Juliana returned to the ballroom, furious and intending to find Amanda.
Before she had a chance, Amanda found her.