He wanted her in his life.
Beside him.
As his duchess.
And it would not be a sacrifice to call her such. It would be an honor.
He loved her.
Juliana changed everything. She made him want all of it. She made him want to face the messy challenge of love. To embrace it. To revel in it. To celebrate it.
He would be proud to have her on his arm.
Would have been long before this morning if he were honest with himself.
He cared only about having her. About marrying her and giving her children and living with her forever . . . and hang the gossips. He didn’t care how big or brutal her brothers could be. They would not stand in his way.
“Juliana’s suffered enough . . .” Nick said, his voice quiet alongside Simon’s raging thoughts. “She doesn’t deserve your charity.”
The words sent him flying across the room, grabbing Nick’s coat and pushing him up against the wall with mighty force, shaking the pictures in their frames. “Don’t you . . . ever . . .” He pulled Nick from the wall and slammed him back again. “Ever . . . refer to what I feel for your sister as charity. She is bold and beautiful and brilliant, and you are lucky to breathe the same air she breathes.” His anger was so acute, he could barely get the words out. “She thinks herself unworthy? It is we who are unworthy of her, and if you call her a scandal one more time, I’ll destroy you. With visceral pleasure.”
They stood there like that for long minutes, Simon breathing heavily, before Nick said, calmly, “Well. That was unexpected.”
Simon took a deep breath, attempted to regain his calm.
Failed.
He loved her.
With stunning, undeniable force.
Simon let Nick go and stepped back.
She was all he wanted. He would give everything for her. Without thought. Without regret.
Because without her, he had nothing.
“I’m going after her. Try to stop me.”
“But Leighton . . .” Nick’s voice cut through his thoughts. “You’re betrothed. To another.”
Betrothed to another.
He cursed, the word harsh and wicked.
He’d forgotten about Penelope.
“I’ve made a mistake.”
Georgiana lifted Caroline from her cradle and met Simon’s gaze with a feigned look of shock. “Certainly not. Pearsons do not make mistakes. Consider me, if you will. Perfect in every way. A shining example of good behavior.”
“Juliana is gone.”
Georgiana did not appear surprised. “I heard that.”
“I was an idiot.”
She sat in the rocking chair next to Caroline’s cradle. “Go on.”
He did not know where to begin. Did not entirely understand how everything in his life had gotten so completely away from him. “I—” He stopped, dropped into the chair across from his sister, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and said the only thing he could think to say. “I love her.”
“Juliana?”
He nodded, thrusting one hand through his hair.
“Then why are you marrying the wrong woman?”
An ache started deep in his chest at the question—the only question that mattered, to which he did not have an answer. There had been so many excellent reasons when he’d devised the plan, and now it seemed that none of them carried much weight.
“I don’t know.”
Georgiana rocked back and forth in her chair, back and forth, her soft words belying their importance. “You do not love her.”
“I did not need to love her. And yet . . .” And yet he found he could not help but love another. He put his head in his hands. “I’ve made a mistake,” he repeated.
He could not back out without ruining Penelope, and she did not deserve such treatment.
“Simon . . .” There was a softness in his sister’s voice. Care that he did not deserve.
He loved Juliana.
Juliana, who haunted him with her flashing eyes and her quick wit and her brilliant mind and her fiery temper and those smiles and promises and kisses that made him want to worship her for as long as he drew breath.
“You can have her, Simon. Neither of you is married. Betrothals can be broken.”
He shook his head. “Not without ruining Penelope.”
Georgiana shook her head. “Lady Penelope is daughter to a double marquess with an estate the size of Windsor. You think she cannot find someone else? Someone who might someday care for her with more than passing interest? Someone who is not in love with another?”
Of course someone would marry her. But Simon would not be the one to throw her to the wolves. “I cannot.”
“You are far too gentlemanly for your own good!” Irritation flooded her tone, and Caroline stirred in her arms. Georgiana quieted immediately. “You have it in your power to make both you and Juliana happy. Forever. And, I assure you, Simon, there is no prize in marrying a man who loves another.”
The words, so tempting, shook something free in him. “I don’t care about the scandal. I don’t care about the lady! All I care about is having Juliana in my life! But if I do this, if I ruin Penelope, what will Juliana think of me? How can I ever ask her to trust me with her name if I am so callous with another’s?”
His words hung between them in the quiet nursery for long minutes before he said, “I cannot do it. Not without being less of a man for Juliana. Not without being less than she deserves.”
Even as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he would never be what Juliana deserved—someone who would see her brilliance and beauty and worth from the very first moment—someone who would place her well above himself from the very beginning. Someone without his faults, without his arrogance, without his failings.