A Tale of Two Lovers (9 page)
F
or Roxbury to discover her in such a situation—dressed as a man, in a gentlemen’s club—seemed to Julianna like an occasion when a man would declare that a drink was in order. Thankfully, at that very moment the waiter—a man who surely predated the flood—brought her first ever brandy.
Roxbury’s attentions made her nervous, and her hands shook as she tilted the brandy glass back for a sip. She took far too much and was sure her face turned bright red as the brandy burned its way down to her belly. Tears stung her eyes. But she could not reveal that she was a novice drinker.
Not here, and not with Roxbury watching.
She stood, intending to wander around the place, perhaps finding a room where he wasn’t watching her. She noticed Lord Brookes deep in a conversation she ached to overhear, for it seemed so serious. Mitchell Twitchell was betting high on a very bad hand of cards in a game with Earl Sheldon and others beyond his league, and Lord Brandon was reading
The London Times
!
It was the sight of Lord Walpole filling up pages with an unfortunately illegible scrawl that piqued her curiosity like nothing else. That was quite a damning sight, considering he was her prime suspect for The Man About Town.
Because she was in disguise in White’s, she didn’t grin and laugh with glee as she wanted to do. Instead, she coolly made note of it and took another small sip of brandy, trying to seem like a man of the world.
That was damned hard to do when Roxbury was watching her. She knew it by the way her skin felt warm and exquisitely sensitive. Maybe it was the brandy instead of the smoldering gaze of a handsome man. She hoped so.
She hadn’t gone far before she came to the famed White’s wager book open and lying on an empty table, and a sigh of pleasure escaped her lips. Oh, the tales that had originated about the stupid bets and idiotic wagers recorded in this volume!
She traced her fingers along the spine and flipped it open, enjoying the pleasure of the pages fluttering along her fingertips. A shadow fell over the book. It was not her own.
Roxbury pulled out a chair and indicated that she should sit. It was such a gentlemanly gesture and years of training to be a lady forced her to accept, even though it was at odds with her disguise.
Roxbury availed himself to the seat beside her. For the sake of her disguise and reputation, she did not protest even though she wanted to howl at the unfairness of having waited so long to get near this book, and now he would steal her moment.
“It was your legs that I noticed and your lips that gave you away,” he murmured. Her cheeks flushed pink.
“That’s a rather personal comment to make. Very ungentlemanly of you,” she reprimanded. She was keenly aware that she was wearing breeches and a waistcoat, among other items of a man’s attire, while lecturing him. She saw the mirth in his brown eyes.
“
I’m
being ungentlemanly?” he said with a laugh. She scowled because he absolutely had a point.
Ignoring him, she took another swallow of brandy, stifled a sputter, and focused upon the book.
Something was scrawled about Lord Alvanley and a raindrop and three thousand pounds. She would have loved to know more, but Roxbury was looming and leaning close to her, and it was distracting.
She felt overheated—the brandy, certainly.
“What you are is a tremendous bother,” Julianna retorted.
“I could say the same of you. A monumental bother. An infernal nuisance. A constant pain in my ar—”
“I am bored of this conversation, Roxbury,” she drawled.
“I have something that might interest you,” he replied. He flipped through the pages until he found a particular one.
The gentlemen of White’s had created a table rating the ladies of the ton on beauty, wit, sensibility, and principles.
“Oooh,” she sighed, utterly delighted. This was the sort of gossip sure to have Londoners in a heated, lively debate. When the news was discussed and argued about, more copies were sold. When more copies sold, Knightly was happy and she so needed to please him after getting him shot.
Julianna was not surprised to see that Lady Jersey was rated highly for beauty and received a zero for her principles. Oh, she would pitch a hysterical fit when she read that! Everyone whispered it, but never said so aloud in polite company. In contrast, Lady Melbourne had been rated very low for her figure (zero) and very high for her principles (fifteen).
“Do you think her principles are so high because she has a figure that discourages anyone to tempt her to misbehave?” Roxbury voiced her own shameful thought.
“I couldn’t say,” she deferred.
“I think it is,” he replied, leaning in even closer. It annoyed her, because it was actually enjoyable in some way to be pouring over a book of secrets together. That, and he smelled good, and as a man ought to—like leather and soap and brandy.
“What is this on a scale of?” she queried.
“Considering the drunken louts that compiled it, I don’t think there is one,” he replied.
High marks went to Lady Barrymore for sense. Low marks for Lady Sefton’s wit. She had to concur.
“Lady Stewart-Wortly has been rated very low for her principles,” Julianna noted. “By whom, I wonder?”
“Well, that’s interesting, given her work,” Roxbury said, sounding genuinely intrigued. She had to agree; one would think the author of
Lady Stewart-Wortly’s Daily Devotional for Pious and Proper Ladies
would have to be highly principled.
“I wonder what someone knows,” Julianna mused. There was probably a story there for her to pursue.
“I cannot enlighten you. She’s one of the few women I have not tried to seduce,” Roxbury remarked as he perused the pages.
Julianna looked away, for he hadn’t tried to seduce her, either, and it was mortifying to be lumped together with the likes of the aging and eternally evangelizing Lady Stewart-Wortly when it came to a rake’s to-do list.
“I’m afraid to see if I’m rated in here,” she whispered.
“I am as well. If you don’t like what is written, you’ll make me suffer for it.”
“Why are you showing me this?” she asked in a whisper. The mere fact that he hadn’t yanked off her hat and completely exposed her as a woman was an extraordinary kindness, given what her writing had done to his social life. In a word: murder.
“I’m giving you something to write about other than myself,” he answered plainly. “It’s not an act of kindness, mere self-preservation.”
She smiled wryly. Given the lustful feelings this debauched and sinfully attractive man inspired in her, she could not afford to be wooed and wowed by kindness, so it was good he didn’t provide any—other than not ruining her disguise in public. She owed him for that.
And yet, in the spirit of her own self-preservation—keeping Roxbury away from her and her traitorous feelings of desire—she spoke cuttingly.
“How clever. I had no idea there was a brain behind that pretty face,” she said, smiling charmingly, and forgetting she was supposed to be a man. His eyes widened. She had insulted him by describing him with a feminine adjective.
“I’m not
pretty
, Lady S—” he said hotly.
“Shush!” She placed her finger over his lips. He mustn’t expose her now!
The volume in the room suddenly dropped considerably, and they both froze in a very compromising position.
T
oo late, Roxbury realized the error of being near her. He leaned back in his chair, putting as much distance between them as possible, short of leaving entirely. Something like gentlemanly concern kept him near her, for he could not leave her to be discovered by someone much more nefarious than he.
Or perhaps he did not wish to leave just yet.
It was so obvious to him that she was a woman dressing up as a man. But as he took a glance around at his companions—and not one of them would meet his eye—it was clear that they believed her to be a man.
A man who had leaned in close and touched his lips. In public. Dear God.
They had spent the past quarter of an hour perusing the betting book and conversing in hushed tones. It would not look good. In fact, it would look like the rumors were true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But look at
her
! He wanted to yell.
Her.
No man had a mouth like hers, with its ability to curve into a sphinxlike smile. Her features were too delicate. Julianna’s green eyes were wide with wonder at her surroundings when every other man’s gaze here was tired and jaded. And those legs—for the love of God, those long, luscious legs leading up to perfectly curved hips that could only belong to a woman.
At best, she could be passed off as someone’s young cousin from the country.
He should expose her. Just yank off that cap and revel in her auburn hair tumbling down in waves. Laugh as jaws dropped on the stodgy old men and young swaggering bucks drinking unsuspectingly in the club.
By God, he’d like to run his fingers through her fiery hair, drawing her closer, to kissing distance. He’d claim that mouth of hers as his own, silencing her “witty” remarks until the only sound she was capable of uttering was a moan of pleasure. The jacket, the cravat, all the things of her boy disguise would go, until she was undeniably a woman, and a ravished one, at that. And his.
At some point, the fantasy had moved from club to bedroom. God, he needed a woman. It had been too damned long.
“You’re staring, Roxbury. What will people think?”
Well, he wanted to say that it depended upon people’s ability to read his mind. But that was not an avenue of conversation to pursue with her. Instead, he said, “I don’t know how they are deceived by you.”
“People see what they want to see,” she said with a shrug.
“For example, you insist on seeing me as a rake with questionable tastes,” he replied.
“And you see me as a complete harridan,” she replied.
“And so much more,” Roxbury said. “I see you as a complete and utter she-devil shrew who is destroying my life for no apparent purpose, other than to sell more newspapers.”
“Tell me how you really feel, Roxbury,” she retorted. “And I thought we were having a moment.”
He would have never said such a thing to a woman he was seducing. But though he may have entertained lusty thoughts of Lady Somerset, he had no intention of seducing her. Frankly, he wasn’t sure he’d survive.
“We might have been, in spite of myself. Everyone here thinks you are a man, which means they are thinking the worst of me right now.”
Roxbury reached for her brandy glass and took a sip. She opened her mouth to protest but he gave her a sharp look and let it go. Amazing.
“It’ll all blow over in time, Roxbury,” she said softly. “Scandals always do.”
“I don’t have the time,” he said tightly. Every day flew by, each more scandalous than the last. Marriage to a gently bred woman was unfathomable—no one would have him.
Never mind the fact that he did not actually want to get married. He just didn’t want to go broke. It was quite the conundrum.
“So you’ve mentioned, Roxbury, but you have not explained why you don’t have time. Will you tell me now?”
“No. But a great idea just occurred to me,” he said, grinning devilishly.
“What is that?” she asked suspiciously, rightfully so.
“If I were to take that hat off your head . . .”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered, holding on to said hat with both hands.
“I might. Or I might just taunt you with the possibility. I do enjoy having you at my mercy.” Roxbury caught himself grinning in true amusement. There was nothing like taunting a tightly coiled woman like Lady Somerset. One day she’d open up, let down her hair . . . he probably wouldn’t be there, but he would like to see it.
“Enjoy it this once. I’m going to go,” she said, rising from her seat.
“Are you?” he queried, just after indicating to Inchbald that their glasses needed replenishing. Within a moment, they each had a full glass of brandy. Julianna looked at hers warily.
“Now that I think of it,” she mused, “you are at my mercy as much as I’m at yours.” Then she smiled, and he felt a mixture of terror and pleasure deep in his gut.
“Oh, the things I could do . . .” she began. “I could rest my hand upon your knee. Or higher.”
She didn’t actually do it, thank God. But the thought of her pale, soft ladylike hand on his knee, sliding higher and then higher . . . He took a sip of his drink.
“Perhaps I could clasp your hand in mine,” she said, as she placed her palm over his hand resting on the table. This was high on the list of things that were just not done.
A few of the old windbags, unwinding after a session in parliament, took note. Who knew eyebrows could reach so far up one’s forehead? Roxbury took a sip of brandy and pulled his hand away.
But that thought was fleeting. Instead, he thought of her hands upon other parts of his anatomy. Said other parts responded enthusiastically.
“At the end of it, when I unmask you,” he said, “I’ll be redeemed and you’ll be the brazen hussy that dressed as a man and attempted to seduce me.”
Julianna choked and sputtered on her sip of brandy.
“Or,” he continued, with a grin. “When the brandy works its magic, and you unmask yourself.”
“I shall do no such thing,” she retorted. But already, she was beginning to slur her words. Her cheeks were very pink, and she was quite adorable. He was smiling at her, marveling, really, and feeling something like affection for this troubling, meddlesome girl dressed as a boy.
“You are handsome when you smile,” she said grudgingly and that’s how he knew for certain that she was tipsy.
“I know,” he said. He knew that because everyone—ladies, mainly, always sighed so. But to hear it from the lips of such a lady termagant? He liked it.
“It is proper to say ‘thank you’ upon receiving a compliment,” Little Miss Manners reminded him.
“It was a statement of fact as much as a compliment,” he answered, just to vex her.
“You are impossible. I finally say something remotely nice to you and then—”
“I’m incorrigible, insufferable, etcetera, etcetera,” he finished for her, for if she launched into a tirade about what an incorrigible, insufferable, vexatious good-for-nothing rake he was, then she would really give herself away.
“Assuredly,” she muttered, taking another sip, and wincing. Another giveaway. It was impossible not to find her adorable. Her courage and effort at her disguise was admirable.
“I hope I am not interrupting anything serious,” Brandon said, stopping by their table. Julianna nodded her head in acknowledgment.
“Not at all,” Roxbury said. And then, quite loudly, he added, “I’d like to introduce my cousin Julian, newly arrived from Shropshire.”
Roxbury grinned as Brandon and Julianna awkwardly shook hands, and obviously recognized each other—she was the good friend of his wife after all. She was also wearing his clothing.
“I had a jacket just like that one, in my Eton days,” Brandon said pointedly.
Julianna only smiled faintly.
“Pardon him. He’s not quite all there upstairs,” Roxbury said loudly, and damn, did she scowl at him for that! He only smiled in return, thinking he’d never enjoyed himself more at White’s—and what did that say?
It was why he did not reveal her disguise, because he wanted her company. She was a shrew, but she was a pretty one, and he was aching for a woman and hungering for company. Even if it came in the tempting, troubling, entertaining, and vexing form of Lady Somerset.
It was a troubling thought, quickly pushed aside.
“I wasn’t aware you had a cousin, Roxbury,” Brandon said, playing along.
“Neither was I. But you do know how poor relations have a way of coming out of the woodwork,” he explained. Loudly.
Quite a few men in the vicinity nodded and grumbled their agreement.
“Come along, Julian,” Roxbury said, clapping her on the back. “You’ve had your taste of London. Time for you to return to Shropshire.”