He returned to the library, and the second the door closed, Simon took a step toward her, reaching for her even as he stopped several feet away. He dropped his arms, raked one hand through his drenched hair, and shook his head. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to win you.”
You’ve already won me, she wanted to say. You’ve already ruined me for all others.
He continued. “So I shall simply tell you the truth. I have spent my entire life preparing for a cold, unfeeling, unimpassioned life—a life filled with pleasantries and simplicity. And then you came into it . . . you . . . the opposite of all that. You are beautiful and brilliant and bold and so very passionate about life and love and those things that you believe in. And you taught me that everything I believed, everything I thought I wanted, everything I had spent my life espousing—all of it . . . it is wrong. I want your version of life . . . vivid and emotional and messy and wonderful and filled with happiness. But I cannot have it without you.
“I love you, Juliana. I love the way you have turned my entire life upside down, and I am not certain I could live without you now that I have lived with you.”
He moved again, and she caught her breath as her great, proud duke lowered himself to his knees before her. “You once told me that you would bring me to my knees in the name of passion.”
“Simon . . .” She was crying freely now, and she stepped forward, placing her hands on his head, running her fingers through his hair. “Amore, no, please.”
“I am here. On my knees. But not in the name of passion,” He took her hands in both of his and brought them to his lips, kissing her, worshipping her. “I am here in the name of love.”
He looked up at her, his countenance so very stark and serious in the dimly lit hallway. “Juliana . . . please, be my wife. I swear I will spend the rest of my days proving that I am worthy of you. Of your love.”
He kissed her hands again, and whispered, “Please.”
And then she was on her knees as well, her arms wrapped around his neck. “Yes.” She pressed her lips to his. “Yes, Simon, yes.”
He returned the kiss, his tongue sliding into her hot, silken heat, stroking until they both required air. “I’m so sorry, my love,” he whispered against her lips, pulling her to him, as though he could bring her close enough that they would never be apart again.
“No, I am sorry. I should not . . . I left you there . . . at the ball. I didn’t see until now . . . how much it meant.”
He kissed her again. “I deserved it.”
“No . . . Simon, I love you.”
They stayed there for long minutes, wrapped in each other, whispering their love, making promises for the future, touching, reveling, celebrating in one another.
And that was how Ralston found them.
He opened the door to the library, the lush golden glow from the candles beyond flooding the hallway and illuminating the lovers.
“You had better get a special license, Leighton.”
Simon smiled, bold and brash, and Juliana caught her breath at him—her angel—the handsomest man in England. In all of Europe. “I already have one.”
Ralston raised a black brow. “Excellent. You have two minutes to compose yourself before we go downstairs and discuss this.” Juliana smiled at the words, and Ralston caught her gaze. “You, sister, are not invited.”
He closed the door to Simon and Juliana’s laughter.
An hour later, Simon exited Ralston House, having made all the appropriate arrangements with his—he winced—future brother-in-law. He supposed it was only right that he was finally tied to this raucous family, the only people in England who did not care that he was a duke. Rather, the only people who had never cared. Now most of London would happily turn their backs on the House of Leighton for fear of being touched by its scandal.
And he found he did not care much about it.
He had a healthy niece and a woman who loved him, and suddenly those things seemed like more than enough.
He had wanted desperately to say good night to Juliana, but she had been nowhere to be found as he was leaving, and Ralston seemed disinclined to allow Simon abovestairs to seek her out. He supposed he could not blame the marquess; after all, he was not exactly good at keeping his hands off of his soon-to-be wife.
But they were to be married in less than a week, and he would bear the loss of her tonight, even if it brought with it an all-too-familiar and utterly unpleasant ache.
He waved the coachman off his duty and opened the door to his carriage—the one where it had all begun weeks ago. Lifting himself up and in, he took his seat and swung the door closed, rapping the roof quickly to set the coach in motion.
It was only then that he noticed that he was not alone.
Juliana smiled from the other end of the seat. “You did not think I would let you leave without saying good night, did you?”
He quashed a flash of intense pleasure and affected his most ducal tone. “We are going to have to discuss your penchant for stowing away in carriages.”
She moved toward him slowly, and a wave of awareness shot through him. “Only one carriage, Your Grace. Only yours. This time, I checked the seal before entering. Tell me, what do you plan to do with me now that I am here?”
He watched her intently for a long moment before leaning in, stopping a hairsbreadth from kissing her. “I plan to love you, Siren.” He wrapped one hand around her waist, hauling her onto his lap so that she was above him.
She looked down at him with wicked intensity. “Say it again.”
He grinned. “I love you, Juliana.”
His hands were stroking up her sides, tracking over her shoulders, tilting her head to bare her neck. He pressed a soft kiss to the skin at the base of her throat, where her pulse was pounding.
“Again.” She sighed.
He whispered the words against her lips—a promise—and claimed her mouth, his hands stroking, pressing everywhere.
She opened for him, matching his long, slow kisses stroke for stroke. For the first time, there was no urgency in the caresses—no sense of their being stolen from another time. From another woman.
She pulled back at the thought, lifting her head. “Penelope,” she said.
“We must discuss this now?” One of his hands was headed for the full swell of her breast, and she bit back a sigh of pleasure as it reached its destination.
“No.” She scrambled off his lap and onto the seat across from him.
He followed her, coming to his knees in front of her, the carriage rocking them together. “Yes.”
“Lady Penelope’s father has dissolved the agreement.” His hands grasped her ankles, and Juliana was not sure if it was the feel of his warm hands stroking up her legs beneath her skirts or the fact that he was no longer engaged that made her light-headed. He met her gaze, serious. “I would have ended it if he hadn’t, Juliana. I couldn’t have gone through with it. I love you too much.”
A thread of pleasure coiled through her at the words. “He called it off because of Georgiana’s scandal?”
“Yes,” he said, and the way the word rolled from his tongue gave her the distinct impression that he was not replying to her question. He folded back her skirts with reverence and cursed, dark and wicked in the carriage, and pressed a kiss to the inside of one knee.
She clamped her legs together, resisting his movements. “Simon . . .”
He stilled, meeting her eyes in the flickering light from outside before he kissed her again, long and thorough before he pulled back abruptly. “My sister announced her own scandal. Actually sent a letter to the Gazette! It was her wedding present. To us.”
Juliana smiled. “A broken engagement?”
“In exchange for a quick one,” he replied, taking her lips again, his urgency sending a wave of fire through her.
She reveled in the caress, in the feel of him, for a long minute before pushing him away once more. “Simon, your mother!”
“She is not at all a topic I care to discuss right now, love.”
“But . . . she will be furious!”
“I don’t care.” He returned his attention to the inside of her knee, swirling his tongue there until the silk was wet. “And if she is, it shan’t be because of you. You are her best hope for a respectable grandchild. I’m the one with the terrible reputation.”
She laughed. “An abductor of innocents. A seducer of virgins.”
He parted her legs slowly, pressing lovely, languorous kisses up the inside of her thigh. “Only one innocent. One virgin.” She sighed and let her eyes close against the pleasure as he licked at the place where garter held stocking, a promise of what was to come.
“Lucky me.” She leaned forward, taking his unbearably handsome face between her hands. “Simon . . .” she whispered, “I have loved you from the beginning. And I will love you . . . I will love you for as long as you’ll have me.”
His gaze darkened, and he grew very serious. “I hope you plan to love me for a very long time.”
She kissed him again, pouring herself and her love into the caress, because words suddenly seemed lacking. When they stopped, both gasping for breath and desperate for more of each other, Juliana smiled. “So how does it feel to have thoroughly ruined your reputation?”
He laughed. “I shall never live it down.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Never.” He pulled her to him for another kiss.
Simon’s scandal was one for the ages. It would be fodder for whispers in ballrooms, and chatter on Bond Street and in the halls of Parliament, and years from now, he and Juliana would tell their grandchildren the story of how the Duke of Leighton had been laid low by love.
Epilogue
May 1824
Her Grace, the Duchess of Leighton, was high on a ladder in the library—too high to hide—when her husband entered the room, calling her name, distracted by a letter he held.
“Yes?”
“We’ve news from—” He trailed off, and she knew that she had been discovered. When he spoke again, the words were low and far—too calm for her husband, who had found that he rather enjoyed the full spectrum of emotion now that he had experienced it. “Juliana?”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing twenty feet in the air?”
She brazened on, pretending not to notice that he had positioned himself beneath her, as though she would not crush him like a beetle should she go hurtling to the ground. “Looking for a book.”
“Would you mind very much returning to the earth?”
Luckily, the book for which she had been searching revealed itself. She pulled it off the shelf and made her way back down the ladder. When she had both feet firmly on the ground, he let loose. “What are you thinking, climbing to the rafters in your condition?”
“I am not an invalid, Simon, I still have use of all my extremes.”
“You do indeed—particularly your extreme ability to try my patience—I believe, however, that you mean extremities.” He paused, remembering why he was irritated. “You could have fallen!”
“But I did not,” she said, simply, turning her face up to his for a kiss.
He gave it to her, his hands coming to caress the place where his child grew. “You must take better care,” he whispered, and a thrill coursed through her at the wonder in his tone.
She lifted her arms, wrapping them around his neck, reveling in the heat and strength of him. “We are well, husband.” She grinned. “Twelve lives, remember?”
He groaned at the words. “I think you’ve used them up, you know. Certainly you’ve used your twelve scandals.”
She wrinkled her nose at that, thinking. “No. I couldn’t have.”
He lifted her in his arms and moved to their favorite chair, evicting Leopold. As the dog resumed his nap on the floor, Simon settled into the chair, arranging his wife on his lap. “The tumble into the Serpentine . . . the time you led me on a not-so-merry chase through Hyde Park . . . lurking outside my club . . .”
“That wasn’t a real scandal,” she protested, cuddling closer to him as his hand stroked across her rounded belly.
“Scandal enough.”
“My mother’s arrival,” Juliana said.
He shook his head. “Not your scandal.”
She smiled. “Nonsense. She’s the scandal that started it all.”
“So she is.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I shall have to thank her someday.” He pressed on. “Toppling Lady Needham’s harvest bounty . . .”
“Well, really, who decorates a staircase in vegetables? And if we’re going to count all my scandals, how about the ones in which you were scandalous as well?” She ticked them off as she listed them. “Kissing me in my brother’s stables . . . ravishing me at your own betrothal ball . . . and let’s not forget—”
He kissed the side of her neck. “Mmm. By all means, let’s not forget.”
She laughed and pushed him away. “Bonfire Night.”
The amber in his eyes darkened. “I assure you, Siren, I would never forget Bonfire Night.”
“How many is that?”
“Eight.”
“There, you see? I told you! I am the very model of propriety!” He barked his laughter and a worried look crossed her face. “Nine,” she said.
“Nine?”
“I insulted your mother at the dressmaker’s.” She lowered her voice. “In front of people.”
His brows shot up. “When?”
“During our wager.”