Ralston hesitated, debating whether he should allow her to leave. “Do not go far. I don’t want you wandering through the theatre.”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
He stayed her movement with one firm hand on her wrist. “I mean it, sister. I am well aware of the trouble you can find in a theatre during a performance.”
She raised a dark brow in a gesture they shared. “I look forward to hearing more about that soon.”
His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “You’ll have to ask Callie.”
She smiled. “You can be sure that I will.”
And then she was in the hallway, which was empty save a handful of footmen, and she could breathe once more.
There was a cool breeze blowing through the corridor, and she headed instinctively for its source, a large window on the back end of the theatre where the hallway ended abruptly above what must have been the stage. The window had been left open to the October evening, a chair beneath it, as though waiting for her arrival. It was likely too far from the box for Ralston’s taste, but it was a perfectly public place nonetheless.
She sat, leaning on the sill and looking out over the rooftops of London. Candlelight flickered in the windows of the buildings below, and she could just make out a young woman sewing several floors down. Juliana wondered, fleetingly, whether the girl had ever been to the theatre . . . whether she’d ever even dreamed of the theatre.
Juliana certainly hadn’t . . . not like this, with a family of aristocrats that she’d never known existed. Not with jewels and silks and satins and marquesses and earls and . . . dukes.
Dukes who infuriated her and consumed her thoughts and kissed her like she was the last woman on earth.
She sighed, watching as the light from the waxing moon reflected on the tile roofs, still wet from a brief rain that afternoon.
She had started something that she could not finish.
She’d wanted to tempt him with passion—to punish his arrogance by bringing him to his knees—but after the embarrassing episode at the lake, when he’d all but told her that she was the very last thing he would ever find tempting . . .
There were ten days left in their agreement, and he was courting Lady Penelope, planning a lifetime of proper, perfect marriage with a woman who had been reared to be a duchess.
The wager was supposed to end in Leighton’s triumphant set down; so why did it feel like it was Juliana who would be the losing party?
“Why aren’t you in your seat?”
She gave a little start at the words, laced with irritation.
He had followed her.
She should not care that he had sought her out.
Of course, she did.
She turned, attempting to appear calm. “Why aren’t you in your seat?”
He scowled at that. “I saw you leave the box without escort.”
“My brother knows where I am.”
“Your brother has never in his life accepted an ounce of responsibility.” He came closer. “Anything could happen to you out here.”
Juliana made a show of looking down the long, quiet hallway. “Yes. It’s very threatening.”
“Someone should be looking out for your reputation. You could be accosted.”
“By whom?”
He paused at that. “By anyone! By an actor! Or a footman!”
“Or a duke?”
His brows knitted together, and there was a pause. “I suppose I deserve that.”
He did not deserve it. Not really. She turned back to the window. “I did not ask you to come after me.”
There was a long moment of silence, and she was expecting him to leave when he said, softly, “No. You didn’t.”
She snapped her head around at the admission. “Then why are you here?”
He ran a hand through his golden curls and Juliana’s eyes widened at the movement, so uncontrolled and unlike him, a mark of his disquiet.
“It was a mistake.”
Disappointment flared, and she did her best to hide it, instead making a wide sweep of the corridor with one hand. “One easily corrected, Your Grace. I believe your box is on the opposite side of the theatre. Shall I ask a footman to escort you back? Or are you afraid of being accosted?”
His lips pressed into a straight line, the only indication that he had registered the sarcasm in her words. “I don’t mean coming after you, although Lord knows that was likely a mistake as well, albeit an unavoidable one.” He stopped, considering his next words. “I mean all of it. The wager, the two weeks, the morning in Hyde Park . . .”
“The afternoon in Hyde Park,” she added softly, and his gaze flew to hers.
“I would have preferred not to have given the gossipmongers something to discuss, but of course I do not regret saving you.” There was something in the words, irritation mixed with an emotion that Juliana could not quite identify, but it was gone when he continued, coolly, “The rest, though, it cannot continue. I should never have agreed to it to begin with. That was the mistake. I’m beginning to see that you are virtually incapable of behaving with decorum. I should never have humored you.”
Humored her.
The meaning of the words echoed even as he danced around what he was really trying to say.
She was not good enough for him.
She never had been.
And she would never be good enough for the world in which he lived.
As much as she had sworn that she would change his view of her, that she would prove him wrong and make him beg for her forgiveness . . . for her attention . . . the resolve in his tone gave her pause.
She refused to be hurt by him; it would give him too much power over her. Would give them all too much power over her. There were others who did not think her somehow less because she had been born in Italy, because she had been born common, because she struggled with the rules and restrictions of this new world.
She would not be hurt.
She would be angry.
Anger, at least, was an emotion she could master.
And as long as she was angry, he would not win.
“Humored me?” she asked, standing and turning so that they were face-to-face. “You may be accustomed to others simply accepting your view of a situation, Your Grace, but I am not one of your adoring minions.”
His jaw steeled at the words, and she pressed on. “You did not appear to be merely humoring me when you agreed to two weeks; and you most definitely were not merely humoring me in Hyde Park several mornings ago.” Her chin lifted, light and firm with a mix of anger and conviction. “You gave me two weeks. By my count, I still have ten days.”
She stepped closer to him, until they were nearly touching, and heard the shift in his breathing—the tension that would have been imperceptible were she not so close.
Were she not so angry.
Were she not so drawn to him.
“I mean to use them,” she whispered, knowing that she tempted fate and that, with a word of refusal, he could end it all.
The moment stretched into an eternity, until she could no longer meet his unreadable gaze. She lowered her attention to his lips—to their firm, strong lines.
A mistake.
Suddenly, the open window did nothing for the stifling air in the theatre. The memory of his kisses was cloying in the dim hallway . . . the desire for more of them overwhelmed all else.
Her eyes skidded back to his, their amber darkened to a rich oak.
He wants me, too.
The thought sent a shiver of fire through her.
He stepped closer. They were touching now, just barely, the swell of her br**sts brushing his wide chest. Her breath caught.
“You don’t need me for your scandals. You’ve got an earl in the palm of your hand.”
Confusion flared at the words and his nearness. “An earl?”
“I saw you with Allendale, laughing and . . . cozy.” The last came out like gravel.
“Allendale?” She repeated like an imbecile, willing her mind clear. What was he talking about? Understanding dawned. “Oh. Benedick.”
Something not altogether safe flashed in his eyes. “You should not refer to him with such familiarity.”
A thread of excitement weaved its way through her. He looked angry. No . . . he looked livid. He looked jealous.
The look was gone before she could savor it, shuttered behind his careful gaze, but courage surged nonetheless, and she gave him a small, teasing smile. “You mean I should not refer to him by his name?”
“Not by that name.”
“You did not ascribe to such rules when we met . . . Simon.” She said his name on a whisper, and the breath of it curled between them like temptation.
He inhaled sharply. “I should have.”
“But you wanted me to think you something you were not.”
“I think we were both guilty of hiding our true identities.”
Sadness flared, mixed with anger. “I did not hide.”
“No? Then why did I believe you were—”
More. She heard the word. Loathed it.
“You seemed to think me enough then.” She lifted her chin, her lips a hairsbreadth from his.
Desire was coming off him in waves. He might not want to want her—but he did. She could feel it.
He leaned in, and she held her breath, waiting for the feel of those unforgiving lips—wanting them with a desperation to which she would never admit.
The world faded away, and there was nothing but this moment, the two of them in a quiet darkness, his golden gaze on hers, his warmth consuming her. His mouth hovered above hers; she could feel his soft breath on her skin and she wanted to scream with the anticipation . . .
“You are a scandal waiting to happen.”
The words were a kiss of breath, their feel running counter to their message. And then he was gone, stepping back, away from her—leaving her alone and unsatisfied and utterly wanting.
“One I cannot afford,” he added.
“You want me.” She winced at the desperation in the accusation; wished, instantly, that she could take it back.
He was stone. “Of course I want you. I would have to be dead not to want you. You’re bright and beautiful, and you respond to me in a way that makes me want to throw you down and bend you to my will.” He stopped, meeting her wide eyes. “But actions have consequences, Miss Fiori. A fact you would do well to remember before running headlong into your childish games.”
She narrowed her gaze. “I am not a child.”
“No? You haven’t any idea what you’re doing. What if you were to teach me about your precious passion, Juliana? What then? What next?”
The question whipped through her. She had no answer.
“You’ve never in your life considered the future, have you? You’ve never imagined what came next, after whatever you are experiencing in the here and now.” He paused, then cut deeper. “If that does not speak to your childishness, nothing does.”
She hated him then. Hated the way he stripped her bare. The way he knew her failings before she knew them herself.
He continued. “I am removing myself from our wager. I should never have agreed to it in the first place. You are a danger to yourself. And to me. And I haven’t the luxury to teach you the lesson you so richly deserve.”
She knew she should acquiesce. Knew she should release him—release them both—from the stupid, damaging agreement that threatened their reputations, their feelings, their reason.
But he made her so irate, she could not let him win.
“You say removing, I say reneging.” The word was a taunt.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I should tell Ralston everything.”
She raised a brow. “And you think that will help your cause?” They faced off in the dimly lit hallway, and Juliana could feel the fury pouring out of him. Reveled in it—it was so rare to see his emotion. She could not resist poking the lion. “Take heart. I should not need so very long to bring you to your knees.”
His eyes grew instantly dark, and she knew that she had gone too far. She thought for a moment that he might shake her, recognized the barely controlled anger in his corded muscles.
“I have bested far worse threats to my reputation than you, Miss Fiori. Do not think for a moment that you will prevail. Temptation is no match for reputation.” He paused. “You want your ten days? Keep them. Do your best.”
“I intend to.”
“Do not expect me to make it easy for you.”
She should have taken pleasure in the way he turned on one heel and left—in the way she had damaged his cool façade.
But as she watched him return to his box—and to the perfect English bride he had selected—it was not triumph that flared.
It was something suspiciously like longing.
Chapter Eight
Rudeness is the ultimate test of perfection.
The delicate lady holds her tongue.
—A Treatise on the Most Exquisite of Ladies
The most exciting finds at the modiste are not wisps of silk, but whispers of scandal . . .
—The Scandal Sheet, October 1823
“Englishwomen spend more time buying clothes than anyone in all of Europe.”
Juliana leaned back on the divan in the dressmaker’s fitting room. She had spent more hours than she would care to admit on that particular piece of furniture, upholstered in a fine, scarlet brocade that was just expensive enough and just bold enough to echo the proprietress of the shop.
“You must never have seen the French shop,” Madame Hebert said drily as she artfully pinned the waist of the lovely cranberry twill she was fitting to Callie.
Mariana laughed as she inspected an evergreen velvet. “Well, we cannot allow the French to best us at such an important activity, can we?” Hebert replied with a pointed grunt, and Mariana hastened to reassure her. “After all, we have already won their very best seamstress to our side of the Channel.”