There was nothing about Ralston that Simon liked.
He would do well to remember that.
He exited the study and headed for the library, opening the door with more force than necessary and coming up short just inside the room.
She was asleep in his chair.
With his dog.
The chair she had selected was one that he had worked long and hard to get to the perfect level of comfort. His butler had suggested it for reupholstering countless times, due in part, Simon imagined, to the fraying, soft fabric that he considered one of the seat’s finest attributes. He took in Juliana’s sleeping form, her scratched cheek against the soft golden threads of the worn fabric.
She had taken off her shoes and curled her feet beneath her, and Simon shook his head at the behavior. Ladies across London would not dare go barefoot in the privacy of their own homes, and yet here she was, making herself comfortable and taking a nap in a duke’s library.
He stole a moment to watch her, to appreciate how she perfectly fit his chair. It was larger than the average seat, built specifically for him fifteen years prior, when, tired of folding himself into minuscule chairs that his mother had declared “the height of fashion,” he had decided that, as duke, he was well within his birthright to spend a fortune on a chair that fit his body. It was wide enough for him to sit comfortably, with just enough extra room for a stack of papers requiring his attention, or, as was the case right now, for a dog in search of a warm body.
The dog, a brown mutt that had found his way into his sister’s country bedchamber one winter’s day, now traveled with Simon and made his home wherever the duke was. The canine was particularly fond of the library in the town house, with its three fireplaces and comfortable furniture, and he had obviously made a friend. Leopold was now curled into a small, tight ball, head on one of Juliana’s long thighs.
Thighs Simon should not be noticing.
That his dog was a traitor was a concern Simon would address later.
Now, however, he had to deal with the lady.
“Leopold.” Simon called the hound, slapping one hand against his thigh in a practiced maneuver that had the dog coming to heel in seconds.
If only the same action would bring the girl to heel.
No, if he had his way, he would not wake her so easily. Instead, he would rouse her slowly, with long, soft strokes along those glorious legs . . . he would crouch beside her and bury his face in that mass of ebony hair, drinking in the smell of her, then run his lips along the lovely angle of her jaw until he reached the curve of one soft ear. He would whisper her name, waking her with breath instead of sound.
And then he would finish what she had started all those months ago.
And he would bring her to heel in an entirely different way.
He fisted his hands at his sides to keep his body from acting on the promise of his imagination. There was nothing he could do that would be more damaging than feeding the unwelcome desire he felt for this impossible female.
He simply had to remember that he was in the market for the perfect duchess.
And Miss Juliana Fiori was never going to be that.
No matter how well she filled out his favorite chair.
It was time to wake the girl up.
And send her home.
Chapter Three
Ladies’ salons are hotbeds of imperfection.
Exquisite ladies need not linger within.
—A Treatise on the Most Exquisite of Ladies
Surely there is no place more interesting in all of London than the balcony beyond a ballroom . . .
—The Scandal Sheet, October 1823
“I thought that your season was over and we were through with balls!”
Juliana collapsed onto a settee in a small antechamber off the ladies’ salon of Weston House and let out a long sigh, reaching down to massage the ball of her foot through her thin slipper.
“We should be,” her closest friend Mariana, the newly minted Duchess of Rivington, lifted the edge of her elaborate blue gown and inspected the place where her hem had fallen. “But as long as Parliament remains in session, seasonal balls will be all the rage. Every hostess wants her autumnal festivity to be more impressive than the last. You only have yourself to blame,” Mariana said wryly.
“How was I to know that Callie would start a revolution in entertaining on my behalf?” Calpurnia, Mariana’s sister and Juliana’s sister-in-law, had been charged with smoothing Juliana’s introduction to London society upon her arrival that spring. Once summer had arrived, the marchioness had recommitted herself to her goal. A wave of summer balls and activities had kept Juliana in the public eye and kept the other hostesses of the ton in town after the season was long finished.
Callie’s goal was a smart marriage.
Which made Juliana’s goal survival.
Waving a young maid over, Mariana pulled a thimble of thread from her reticule and handed it to the girl, who was already crouching down to repair the damage. Meeting Juliana’s gaze in the mirror, she said, “You are very lucky that you could cry off Lady Davis’s Orange Extravaganza last week.”
“She did not really call it that.”
“She did! You should have seen the place, Juliana . . . it was an explosion of color, and not in a good way. Everything was orange—the clothes . . . the floral arrangements . . . the servants had new livery, for heaven’s sake . . . the food—”
“The food?” Juliana wrinkled her nose.
Mariana nodded. “It was awful. Everything was carrot-colored. A feast fit for rabbits. Be grateful you were not feeling well.”
Juliana wondered what Lady Davis—a particularly opinionated doyenne of the ton—would have thought if she had attended, covered in scratches from her adventure with Grabeham the week prior.
She gave a little smile at the thought and moved to restore half a dozen loose curls to their rightful places. “I thought that now you are a duchess, you do not have to suffer these events?”
“I thought so, too. But Rivington tells me differently. Or, more appropriately, the Dowager Duchess tells me differently.” She sighed. “If I never see another cornucopia, it will be too soon.”
Juliana laughed. “Yes, it must be very difficult being one of the most-sought-after guests of the year, Mariana. What with being madly in love with your handsome young duke and having all of London spread before you.”
Her friend’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, it’s a wicked trial. Just wait. Someday you’ll discover it for yourself.”
Juliana doubted it.
Nicknamed the Allendale Angel, Mariana had made quick work of meeting and marrying her husband, the Duke of Rivington, in her first season. It had been the talk of the year, an almost instant love match that had resulted in a lavish wedding and a whirlwind of social engagements for the young couple.
Mariana was the kind of woman whom people adored. Everyone wanted to be close to her, and she never lacked for companionship. She had been the first friend that Juliana had made in London; both she and her duke had made it a priority to show the ton that they accepted Juliana—no matter what her pedigree.
At Juliana’s first ball, it had been Rivington who had claimed her first dance, instantly stamping her with the approval of his venerable dukedom.
So different from the other duke who had been in attendance that evening.
Leighton had shown no emotion that night, not when she’d met his cool honeyed gaze across the ballroom, not when she’d passed close to him on the way to the refreshment table, not when he’d stumbled upon her in a private room set apart from the ball.
That wasn’t precisely true. He had shown emotion there. Just not the kind she had wished.
He’d been furious.
“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Which part? That my mother is the fallen Marchioness of Ralston? That my father was a hardworking merchant? That I haven
’t a title?”
“All of it matters.”
She had been warned about him—the Duke of Disdain, keenly aware of his station in society, who held no interest for those whom he considered beneath him. He was known for his aloof presence, for his cool contempt. She had heard that he selected his servants for their discretion, his mistresses for their lack of emotion, and his friends—well, there was no indication that he would stoop to something so common as friendship.
But until that moment, when he discovered her identity, she had not believed the gossip. Not until she had felt the sting of his infamous disdain.
It had hurt. Far more than the judgment of all the others.
And then she had kissed him. Like a fool. And it had been remarkable. Until he had pulled away with a violence that embarrassed her still.
“You are a danger to yourself and others. You should return to Italy. If you stay, your instincts will find you utterly ruined. With extraordinary speed.”
“You enjoyed it,” Juliana said, accusation in her tone keeping the pain at bay.
He leveled her with a cool, calculated look. “Of course I did. But unless you are angling for a position as my mistress—and you’d make a fine mistress—” She gasped, and he drove his point home like a knife to her chest. “You would do well to remember your station.”
That had been the moment that she decided to remain in London. To prove to him and all the others who judged her behind their fluttering lace fans and their cool English glances that she was more than what they saw.
She ran a fingertip over the barely noticeable pink mark at her temple—the last vestige of the night when she’d landed herself in Leighton’s carriage, bringing back all the painful memories of those early weeks in London, when she was young and alone and still hoped that she could become one of them—these aristocrats.
She should have known better, of course.
They would never accept her.
The maid finished Mariana’s hem, and Juliana watched as her friend shook out her skirts before twirling toward her. “Shall we?”
Juliana slouched dramatically. “Must we?”
The duchess laughed, and they moved to reenter the main room of the salon.
“I heard that she was spied in a torrid embrace in the gardens the night of the Ralston autumn ball.”
Juliana froze, immediately recognizing the high, nasal tone of Lady Sparrow, one of the ton’s worst gossips.
“In her brother’s gardens?” The disbelieving gasp made it clear that Juliana was the object of their conversation.
Her gaze flew to a clearly furious Mariana, who appeared ready to storm the room—and its gossiping inhabitants. Which Juliana could not allow her to do. She placed one hand on her friend’s arm, staying her movement, and waited, listening.
“She is only a half sibling.”
“And we all know what that half was like.” A chorus of laughter punctuated the barb, which struck with painful accuracy.
“It’s amazing that so many invite her to events,” one nearly drawled. “Tonight, for example . . . I had thought Lady Weston a better judge of character.”
So had Juliana.
“It is somewhat difficult to invite Lord and Lady Ralston without extending the invitation to Miss Fiori,” a new voice pointed out.
A snort of derision followed. “Not that they are much better . . . with the marquess’s scandalous past and the marchioness—so very uninteresting. I still wonder what she did to win him.”
“And let’s not even discuss Lord Nicholas, marrying a country bumpkin. Can you imagine!”
“Never doubt what poor stock can do to good English blood. It’s clear that the mother has . . . left her mark.”
The last came on a high-pitched cackle, and Juliana’s fury began to rise. It was one thing for the vicious harridans to insult her, but it was an entirely different thing for them to go after her family. Those she loved.
“I do not understand why Ralston doesn’t just give the sister a settlement and send her back to Italy.”
Neither did Juliana.
She’d expected that to happen any number of times since she arrived, unbidden, on the steps of Ralston House. Her brother had never once even suggested it.
But she still had trouble believing that he didn’t want her gone.
“Don’t listen to them,” Mariana whispered. “They’re horrible, hateful women who live to loathe.”
“All it will take is for one person of quality to find her doing something base, and she’ll be exiled from society forever.”
“That shouldn’t take long. Everyone knows Italians have loose morals.”
Juliana had had enough.
She pushed past Mariana and into the ladies’ salon, where the threesome were retouching their maquillage at the large mirror on one wall of the room. Tossing a broad smile in the direction of the women, she took perverse pleasure in their stillness—a combination of shock and chagrin.
Still laughing at her own joke was the coolly beautiful and utterly malicious Lady Sparrow, who had married a viscount, rich as Croesus and twice as old, three months before the man had died, leaving her with a fortune to do with as she wished. The viscountess was joined by Lady Davis, who apparently had not had her fill of the legendary orange extravaganza, as she was wearing an atrocious gown that accentuated her waist in such a way as to turn the woman into a perfect, round gourd.
There was a young woman with them whom Juliana did not know. Petite and blond, with a plain round face and wide, surprised eyes, Juliana fleetingly wondered how this little thing had found herself in with the vipers. She would either be killed, or be transformed.
Not that it mattered to Juliana.
“My ladies,” she said, keeping her voice light, “a wiser group might have made certain they were alone before indulging in a conversation that eviscerates so many.”
Lady Davis’s mouth opened and closed in an approximation of a trout before she looked away. The plain woman blushed, clasping her hands tightly in front of her in a gesture easily identified as regret.
Not so Lady Sparrow. “Perhaps we were perfectly aware of our company,” she sneered. “We simply were not in fear of offending it.”
With perfect timing, Mariana exited the antechamber, and there was a collective intake of breath as the other ladies registered the presence of the Duchess of Rivington. “Well, that is a pity,” she said, her tone clear and imperious, entirely befitting of her title. “As I find myself much offended.”
Mariana swept from the room, and Juliana swallowed a smile at her friend’s impeccable performance, rife with entitlement. Returning her attention to the group of women, she moved closer, enjoying the way they shifted their discomfort. When she was close enough to smell their cloying perfume, she said, “Do not fret, ladies. Unlike my sister-in-law, I take no offense.”
She paused, turning her head to each side, making a show of inspecting herself before tucking an errant curl back into her coiffure. When she was certain that she held their collective attention, she said, “You have issued your challenge. I shall meet it with pleasure.”
She did not breathe until she exited the ladies’ salon, anger and frustration and hurt rushing through her to dizzying effect.
It should not have surprised her that they gossiped about her. They’d gossiped about her since the day she’d arrived in London.
She’d simply thought they would have stopped by now.
But they had not. They would not.
This was her life.
She bore the mark of her mother, who remained a scandal even now, twenty-five years after she had deserted her husband, the Marquess of Ralston, and her twin sons, fleeing this glittering, aristocratic life for the Continent. She’d landed in Italy, where she’d bewitched Juliana’s father, a hardworking merchant who swore he had never wanted anything in his life more than he wanted her—the raven-haired Englishwoman with bright eyes and a brilliant smile.
She’d married
him, in a decision that Juliana had come to identify as precisely the kind of reckless, impulsive behavior that her mother had been known for.
Behavior that threatened to surge in her.
Juliana grimaced at the thought.
When she behaved impulsively, it was to protect herself. Her mother had been an entitled aristocrat with a childish penchant for drama. Even as she’d aged, she had not matured.
Juliana supposed she should have been grateful that the marchioness deserted them when she had, or think of the scars they would all have borne.
Juliana’s father had done his best to raise a daughter. He had taught her to tie an excellent knot, to spot a bad shipment of goods, and to haggle with the best and worst of merchants . . . but he’d never shared his most important bit of knowledge.
He’d never told her that she had a family.
She’d only learned about her half brothers, born of the mother she’d barely known, after her father had died—when she’d discovered that her funds had been placed in a trust, and that an unknown British marquess was to be her guardian.
Within weeks, everything had changed.
She had been dropped, summarily, on the doorstep of Ralston House, with three trunks of possessions and her maid.
All thanks to a mother without a thimbleful of maternal instinct.
Was it any surprise that people questioned the character of her daughter?
That the daughter questioned it, as well?
No.
She was nothing like her mother.
She’d never given them a reason to think she was.
Not on purpose, at least.
But it didn’t seem to matter. These aristocrats drew strength from insulting her, from looking down their long, straight noses at her and seeing nothing but her mother’s face, her mother’s scandal, her mother’s reputation.
They did not care who she was.
They cared only that she was not like them.