Simon resumed his seat, realizing that he might be in for a long evening. “What a generous offer,” he said dryly.
Ralston walked the tumbler over and sat. “Now. Let’s talk about how you happen to have my sister in your house in the middle of the night.”
Simon took a long drink, enjoying the burn of the liquor down his throat. “I told you. She was in my carriage when I left your ball.”
“And why didn’t you apprise me of the situation immediately?”
As questions went, it was a fairly good one. Simon swirled the tumbler of whiskey in his hand, thinking. Why hadn’t he closed the carriage door and fetched Ralston?
The girl was common and impossible and everything he could not stomach in a female.
But she was fascinating.
She had been since the first moment he’d met her, in the damned bookshop, buying a book for her brother. And then they’d met again at the Royal Art Exhibition. And she’d let him believe . . .
“Perhaps you would tell me your name?” he had asked, eager not to lose her again. The weeks since the bookshop had been interminable. She had pursed her lips, a perfect moue, and he had sensed victory. “I shall go first. My name is Simon.”
“Simon.” He had loved the sound of it on her tongue, that name he had not used publicly in decades.
“And yours, my lady?”
“Oh, I think that would ruin the fun,” she had paused, her brilliant smile lighting the room. “Don’t you agree, Your Grace?”
She had known he was a duke. He should have recognized then that something was wrong. But instead, he had been transfixed. Shaking his head, he had advanced upon her slowly, sending her scurrying backward to keep her distance, and the chase had enthralled him. “Now, that is unfair.”
“It seems more than fair. I am merely a better detective than you.”
He paused, considering her words. “It does appear that way. Perhaps I should simply guess your identity?”
She grinned. “You may feel free.”
“You are an Italian princess, here with your brother on some diplomatic visit to the King.”
She had cocked her head at the same angle as she had this evening while conversing with her brother. “Perhaps.”
“Or, the daughter of a Veronese count, whiling away your spring here, eager to experience the legendary London Season.”
She had laughed then, the sound like sunshine. “How disheartening that you make my father a mere count. Why not a duke? Like you?”
He had smiled. “A duke, then,” adding softly, “that would make things much easier.”
She’d let him believe she was more than a vexing commoner.
Which, of course, she wasn’t.
Yes, he should have fetched Ralston the moment he saw the little fool on the floor of his carriage, squeezed into the corner as though she were a smaller woman, as though she could have hidden from him.
“If I’d come to fetch you, how do you think that would have worked?”
“She’d be asleep in her bed right now. That’s how it would have worked.”
He ignored the vision of her sleeping, her wild raven hair spread across crisp, white linen, her creamy skin rising from the low scoop of her nightgown. If she wore a nightgown.
He cleared his throat. “And if she’d leapt from my carriage in full view of all the Ralston House revelers? What then?”
Ralston paused, considering. “Well, then, I suppose she would have been ruined. And you would be preparing for a life of wedded bliss.”
Simon drank again. “So it is likely better for all of us that I behaved as I did.”
Ralston’s eyes darkened. “That’s not the first time you have so baldly resisted the idea of marrying my sister, Leighton. I find I’m beginning to take it personally.”
“Your sister and I would not suit, Ralston. And you know it.”
“You could not handle her.”
Simon’s lips twisted. There wasn’t a man in London who could handle the chit.
Ralston knew it. “No one will have her. She’s too bold. Too brash. The opposite of good English girls.” He paused, and Simon wondered if the marquess was waiting for him to disagree. He had no intention of doing so. “She says whatever enters her head whenever it happens to arrive, with no consideration of how those around her might respond. She bloodies the noses of unsuspecting men!” The last was said on a disbelieving laugh.
“Well, to be fair, it did sound like this evening’s man had it coming.”
“It did, didn’t it?” Ralston stopped, thinking for a long moment. “It shouldn’t be so hard to find him. There can’t be too many aristocrats with a fat lip going around.”
“Even fewer limping off the other injury,” Simon said wryly.
Ralston shook his head. “Where do you think she learned that tactic?”
From the wolves by whom she had clearly been raised.
“I would not deign to guess.”
Silence fell between them, and after a long moment, Ralston sighed and stood. “I do not like to be indebted to you.”
Simon smirked at the confession. “Consider us even.”
The marquess nodded once and headed for the door. Once there, he turned back. “Lucky, isn’t it, that there is a special session this autumn? To keep us all from our country seats?”
Simon met Ralston’s knowing gaze. The marquess did not speak what they both knew—that Leighton had thrown his considerable power behind an emergency bill that could have waited easily for the spring session of Parliament to begin.
“Military preparedness is a serious issue,” Simon said with deliberate calm.
“Indeed it is.” Ralston crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. “And Parliament is a welcome distraction from sisters, is it not?”
Simon’s gaze narrowed. “You have never pulled punches with me before, Ralston. There is no need to begin now.”
“I do not suppose I could request your assistance with Juliana?”
Simon froze, the request hanging between them.
Simply tell him no.
“What kind of assistance?”
Not precisely “No,” Leighton.
Ralston raised a brow. “I am not asking you to wed the girl, Leighton. Relax. I could use the extra set of eyes on her. I mean, she can’t go into the gardens of our own home without getting herself attacked by unidentified men.”
Simon leveled Ralston with a cool look. “It appears that the universe is punishing you with a sibling who makes as much trouble as you did.”
“I am afraid you might be right.” A heavy silence fell. “You know what could happen to her, Leighton.”
You’ve lived it.
The words remained unspoken, but Simon heard them, nonetheless.
Still, the answer is no.
“Forgive me if I am not entirely interested in doing you a favor, Ralston.”
Much closer.
“It would be a favor for St. John, as well,” Ralston added, invoking the name of his twin brother—the good twin. “I might remind you that my family has spent quite a bit of energy caring for your sister, Leighton.”
There it was.
The heavy weight of scandal, powerful enough to move mountains.
He did not like having such an obvious weakness.
And it would only get worse.
For a long moment, Simon could not bring himself to speak. Finally, he nodded his agreement. “Fair enough.”
“You can imagine how much I loathe the very idea of asking you for assistance, Duke, but think of how much you will enjoy rubbing it in my face for the rest of our days.”
“I confess, I was hoping not to have to suffer you for so very long.”
Ralston laughed then. “You are a cold-hearted bastard.” He came forward to stand behind the chair he had vacated. “Are you ready, then? For when the news gets out?”
Simon did not pretend to misunderstand. Ralston and St. John were the only two men who knew the darkest of Simon’s secrets. The one that would destroy his family and his reputation if it were revealed.
The one that was bound to be revealed sooner or later.
Would he ever be ready?
“Not yet. But soon.”
Ralston watched him with a cool blue gaze that reminded Simon of Juliana. “You know we will stand beside you.”
Simon laughed once, the sound humorless. “Forgive me if I do not place much weight in the support of the House of Ralston.”
One side of Ralston’s mouth lifted in a smile. “We are a motley bunch. But we more than make up for it with tenacity.”
Simon considered the woman in his library. “That I do not doubt.”
“I take it you plan to marry.”
Simon paused in the act of lifting his glass to his lips. “How did you know that?”
The smile turned into a knowing grin then. “Nearly every problem can be solved by a trip to the vicar. Particularly yours. Who is the lucky girl?”
Simon considered lying. Considered pretending that he hadn’t selected her. Everyone would know soon enough, however. “Lady Penelope Marbury.”
Ralston whistled long and low. “Daughter of a double marquess. Impeccable reputation. Generations of pedigree. The Holy Trinity of a desirable match. And a fortune as well. Excellent choice.”
It was nothing that Simon had not thought himself, of course, but it smarted nonetheless for him to hear it spoken aloud. “I do not like to hear you discuss my future duchess’s merits as though she were prize cattle.”
Ralston leaned back. “My apologies. I was under the impression that you had selected your future duchess as though she were prize cattle.”
The whole conversation was making him uncomfortable. It was true. He was not marrying Lady Penelope for anything other than her unimpeachable background.
“After all, it isn’t as if anyone will believe the great Duke of Leighton would marry for love.”
He did not like the tremor of sarcasm in Ralston’s tone. Of course, the marquess had always known how to irritate him. Ever since they were children. Simon rose, eager to move. “I think I shall fetch your sister, Ralston. It’s time for you to take her home. And I would appreciate it if you could keep your family dramatics from my doorstep in the future.”
The words sounded imperious even to his ears.
Ralston straightened, making slow work of coming to his full height, almost as tall as Leighton. “I shall certainly try. After all, you have plenty of your own family dramatics threatening to come crashing down on the doorstep, do you not?”
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.