She was not ready.
Not yet.
“And how are things here?” she said, changing the subject. “You so rarely write, I sometimes think I do not have a middle brother.”
He gave a little laugh. “Wild and well, as usual. We’ve had three new girls in the past month . . . four if you count the baby that arrived ten days ago.”
Her eyes widened. “Baby?”
“One of the girls . . .” He trailed off.
He did not have to finish the sentence. The tale was an old one. One of the girls had made a mistake and found herself unmarried and with child. Perhaps a month ago, Juliana would not have considered such a circumstance to be the product of ignorance or irresponsibility. But now . . .
Now, she knew too well how tempting men could be.
“At any rate, Isabel is working too hard.” Nick interrupted her thoughts.
She smiled. “Isabel always works too hard.”
“Yes, but now that she carries my child, I prefer to see her in bed eating biscuits. Perhaps you could nudge her in that direction.”
Juliana laughed. Isabel was nearly as susceptible to nudging as one of the marble statues she loved so much. His smile turned soft at the laughter, and Juliana felt a pang of envy at the emotion she saw there.
“I see you think that an unreasonable request.”
“Not unreasonable. Merely doomed to remain unfulfilled.”
He barked his laughter as the object of their conversation came into view on the top steps of the manor house. Juliana waved to her sister-in-law, who returned the greeting and started down the steps toward them.
Juliana ran to meet Isabel, and the two embraced warmly before holding each other at arm’s length for inspection.
“How is it that you have been traveling for five days and still look beautiful?” Isabel teased. “I can barely get down the stairs in the morning without ruining a gown!”
Juliana grinned at her sister-in-law, now five months pregnant and happily glowing. “Nonsense. You are gorgeous!” Juliana said, holding Isabel at arm’s length and taking in the gentle swell of her abdomen. “And how lucky am I that I shall soon have two lovely nieces to indulge!”
“Nieces, are they?” Nick teased from behind.
Juliana grinned. “In this house? You think you will have a son?”
“A man can dream.”
Isabel took Juliana’s arm, leading her toward the house. “I am so happy you are here, and just in time for Bonfire Night!”
“There is a night for fire?”
Isabel waved a hand. “You will see.”
Juliana looked over her shoulder at Nick. “Should I be concerned?”
“Possibly. It involves burning Catholics in effigy.”
Juliana’s eyes grew wide, and Isabel laughed. “Nick. Stop it. She still does not trust the English.”
“And apparently, I should not!” Juliana said. “I should have known better than to come to the country. It is apparently a risk.”
“Only a risk to your daily excitement,” Isabel replied. “It’s dreadfully boring compared to London.”
“I thought you hated London,” Nick said.
“I remain worried about fire,” Juliana interjected.
“I don’t hate London. Anymore,” Isabel said to Nick, then turned immediately to Juliana. “Don’t worry about the fire. You’ll be fine. You’ll see tomorrow. Now. Tell me everything that is happening in London—all I get is the news, weeks old, from Pearls and Pelisses!”
Nick groaned at the reference to the ladies’ magazine that had once set all of London’s unmatched females after him. “I do not know why we still take the damned magazine.”
“The girls like it,” Isabel said, referring to the rest of the population of Minerva House.
“Ahh,” teased Juliana. “The girls. Well, they shall very much enjoy the next issue, I would imagine. Our mother has once again made us the talk of the town.” She paused, then, unable to resist, continued. “At least, she had done before the Duke of Leighton chose his bride.”
Nick and Isabel shared a shocked look. “Leighton is to marry?”
“He announced his betrothal to Lady Penelope Marbury last week.” She was very proud of herself for keeping her tone even and unmoved. “Are you surprised? Dukes are required to marry, Nick.”
Nick paused, thinking on the question. “Of course they are. I’m merely surprised that he hasn’t said anything to us.”
She blinked. “I was not aware that your relationship with the duke was close enough for him to write to you of his pending nuptials.”
“Oh, it’s not,” Isabel chimed in. “But you would think that it might have come up in conversation at some point.”
Warning bells sounded, and Juliana stopped walking. “Conversation?” Perhaps she had misunderstood. Her English was far from perfect.
“Yes. Leighton is here.”
“Here?” She looked to Nick. Perhaps it was Isabel she was misunderstanding. “Why would he be here?”
He couldn’t be here. Not now. Not when the only thing she needed was to be as far from him as possible.
“I suppose you’ll find out soon enough . . .” Nick said. “He came as soon as the child was born.”
A wave of panic passed through her.
The child.
He had a child.
She was overcome with emotion—a combination of sadness and shock and not a little bit of jealousy. Another woman had had his child. A woman to whom he had belonged for some length of time.
In a way that he would never belong to Juliana.
The knowledge was devastating.
“Juliana?” Isabel’s voice sounded from far away. “You’ve gone pale. Are you ill?”
“Leighton . . . he is here now?”
“Yes. Juliana . . . is there something wrong? Has the duke been rude to you?” She looked to Nick. “It’s a wonder the man hasn’t had a decent thrashing in twenty years.”
Apparently Isabel did not care for Simon either. No one in her family seemed to like him, this man who had shipped one woman off to Yorkshire to birth his illegitimate child while he proposed marriage to another.
And while he did marvelous, unspeakable things to a third in darkened conservatories.
Her family suddenly seemed to have excellent judgment of character.
“Gabriel gave him a thrashing already.”
“Did he? Good!” Isabel said.
“Did he? When?” This, from Nick.
“Last week,” Juliana said, wishing they had not started down this path.
“Why?”
“No reason.”
None Nick need know, at least.
Nick’s brows rose. “I somehow doubt that.” He paused. “So. You know Leighton.”
She felt ill. “Vaguely.”
Isabel and Nick shared a look before he said, “It does not seem at all vague, actually. It seems that you know him well enough to be unsettled by the idea that he is here.”
“Not at all.”
Why would she be unsettled by the fact that she’d escaped to Yorkshire only to find that the person from whom she’d escaped was already there?
With his secret child.
It was not the first secret he had kept from her.
Merely the most important.
“So,” she said, walking once more, hoping to sound casual. “The child. Will he acknowledge it?”
That had not sounded at all casual. It had sounded as though she were being strangled. Juliana was beginning to wish that her carriage had been set upon by highwaymen on the way there. Yes. Abduction at the hands of criminals would have been a better fate than this.
“It is not clear,” Nick said.
She stopped again, turning back to Nick. “I beg your pardon. Did you say it is not clear?”
“There are a number of things that he must consider . . .”
Her anger began to rise. “What kind of things? You mean his future bride?”
Nick looked confused. “Among other things.”
“Don’t you think she deserves to know? Isabel? Wouldn’t you have wanted to know before you married Nick?”
Isabel thought for a moment. “Perhaps . . .”
Juliana’s eyes went wide. Had everyone in the family lost their minds? “Perhaps?” she squeaked.
Isabel looked surprised, then hurried to correct herself. “All right, yes. I suppose I would have.”
“Precisely!” Juliana looked to Nick. “You see?”
She couldn’t believe that Nick would even consider accepting less than acknowledgment from Leighton. This was his child. Legitimate or no, she deserved to know from whence she came.
She deserved to know that she had a family beyond her little world.
It was hard for Juliana to comprehend the idea that Simon might not acknowledge his child. Perhaps this was the way it was done here, in the British aristocracy—this perverse universe where people were less inclined to accept an illegitimate child than they were to accept a father who admitted his mistakes.
Mistakes.
She winced at the word.
The perfect duke, who surveyed with undeniable arrogance the failures of everyone around him, had made the worst kind of mistake.
She would never have dreamed he would be the kind of man to consider walking away from his own child.
It shouldn’t matter.
As it was, she had no claim to him. He was pledged to Lady Penelope. What would change if he’d had an illegitimate child in the country?
Everything.
She knew it was true even before the word floated through her mind.
He would have been less than the Simon she knew. The kind of man who sent a woman away to bear his child was not the kind of man she believed him to be. Was not the kind of man she wanted him to be.
The kind of man she wanted for herself.
Juliana wanted to find him and shake him.
“Where is he? I want to speak with him.”
Nick hesitated. “Juliana. There is more to it than that. It’s not so simple. He’s a duke . . . and a highly respected one at that. He has options to consider. A family to think on.”
Her eyes narrowed. Perhaps she would begin the shaking with her brother.
“Well, he should have thought of that before he shipped the child and its mother off to Yorkshire!”
Isabel’s jaw dropped, and Juliana realized that she had near-bellowed the words. She gave a little huff of indignation. If they thought she was going to apologize for being outraged at his typical, horrible arrogance, they were absolutely wrong.
“Juliana.” Nick’s voice was low and calm.
“Don’t try to change my mind, Nick. Illegitimacy is a sore topic for me at the moment, as our mother has just thrown my own into public question. I won’t let that . . . impossible man simply wave his hand and send his own flesh and blood away without recognition. It’s unacceptable. And if you haven’t the courage to tell him, I will.”
She stopped, breathing heavily after her tirade, and met Nick’s gaze, seeing the frustration there. Perhaps she should not have suggested he was a coward.
“Obviously, I did not mean—”
“Oh, I think you absolutely meant, sister, and you are lucky I am the good twin,” he said. “If you feel so strongly about it, speak to Leighton. I’ve no interest in soliciting your ire. You will see him at dinner.”
Something about the words did not sit right with Juliana, but she was still too angry and eager to face down Simon to even think twice about her brother. They had reached the foot of the wide stone steps leading up to the manor house, and Juliana looked up at the enormous door at the top, which stood open, beckoning her inside.
She was not willing to wait for him.
She’d had enough.
When Juliana found him, Simon was standing at the end of a long room, staring out a window, back to the doorway. She’d almost missed him, silhouetted by a brilliant blue sky that belied the storm building in her heart.
She stepped inside the room—taking note of his sheer size, tall and broad and devastatingly handsome—and hating that even now, in her anger, she was so very drawn to him. She wanted to run to him and wrap herself around him and beg him to be the man she thought him to be.
He was not for her.
She must remember that.
She headed across what appeared to be a sitting room; she cared little for her surroundings, as she was too eager to speak to Simon—to tell him precisely what she thought of his latest ducal decision.
She approached him from behind and offered no preamble. “I thought you were different.”
He turned only his head toward her, his features vague in the afternoon shadows, making it easier for her to speak her mind. She waited for a moment, but he did not speak, did not refute her point, and so she continued, letting her ire rise. “I thought you a gentleman—the kind of man who made good on his promises and cared deeply for what was right in the world.” She paused. “My mistake. I forgot that you only truly care for one thing—not honor or justice, but reputation.”
She laughed, hearing the self-deprecation in the sound, the shaking in her voice as she continued. “I suppose I thought that even as you laughed at me and criticized me for having too much passion or being too reckless or not having enough care for my own reputation—I suppose I thought that maybe I—That maybe you—”
I suppose I thought that maybe you were different.
That maybe you had changed.
That maybe I had changed you.
She could not say any of those things to him.
She had no right to say them.
He turned to fully face her, and she realized that he was holding an infant in his arms.