Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart (33 page)

His words hung between them in the quiet nursery for long minutes before he said, “I cannot do it. Not without being less of a man for Juliana. Not without being less than she deserves.”

Even as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he would never be what Juliana deserved—someone who would see her brilliance and beauty and worth from the very first moment—someone who would place her well above himself from the very beginning. Someone without his faults, without his arrogance, without his failings.

But he would be damned if he would give her up.

He’d found her.

And he wanted a lifetime with her.

“At least give Penelope the opportunity to choose, Simon.” She watched him carefully, taking in his anguish. His conflict. “She deserves a chance to choose. And God knows you and Juliana deserve the chance at happiness.”

That part, at least, was true. Hope flared. “Do you think there is a chance that Penelope will release me?”

Georgiana smiled, and there was something in her eyes—a knowledge that he did not entirely understand. “I do.”

They fell silent, and he watched Caroline, asleep on his sister’s shoulder, her little mouth making soft, sweet motions while she dreamed. And he imagined another child, with dark hair and sapphire eyes, asleep on her mother’s shoulder.

He closed his eyes at the image, longing spiraling sharp and deep.

He wanted that child. He wanted that family.

Wanted their life to begin.

Immediately.

But first, he owed his sister an apology. “I made a mistake with you as well.”

“Only one?” He scowled, and she grinned. “To which mistake do you refer?”

“I should not have left you here. In Yorkshire.”

Georgiana considered the words for a long while. “I wanted to be here.”

“Yes. And you could have stayed here. But I should not have left when I did. The way I did. I should have been more concerned for you. And less for the scandal.” He went to the window and looked out over the heath. “I cannot change it. But I am sorry.”

“Thank you,” she said, simply, and he was struck by how she had grown, by the young woman she had become.

“I wish I could have fixed it. I wish you would tell me who—”

She stopped him. “He is gone.”

“I could find him. We could still repair this damage.”

“You could not find him,” she said. “Simon, I am beyond repair. Surely you must see that.”

Frustration flared in him, the urge to protect her undeniable. “It’s not true. So we are too late to find a man to claim the child . . . but you are the daughter of a duke. We could surely find a man to wed you. To be a good husband to you. A good father to Caroline.”

“Stop.” He watched as she stroked one hand down the baby’s back, an instinctive, soothing touch.

“You think you can stay here in this little corner of England for the rest of your lives? What will happen when Caroline is old enough to understand? How will you answer her questions about who she is? Where she came from? What will happen when this is discovered? I cannot hide you forever, Georgiana.”

Georgiana met his gaze, firm and unwavering. “I never asked you to hide us. Indeed, I would prefer not to be hidden. My reputation is ruined, Simon. You can try all you like to change such a thing, but the die has been cast.”

The words were so simple, as he imagined the truth often was.

“You deserve—”

“I deserve to be a mother. I deserve to raise a child who is healthy and strong and who knows that she is loved. God knows we did not have such a thing.”

“I want you to be happy,” he said.

Funny, how he had never given happiness much thought until recently. Until Juliana.

Georgiana smiled. “And I will be, in time. But not in the way you had planned.”

The irony of the situation was not lost on him. She was sister to one of the most powerful men in England. And still, with all his concern for reputation and honor, he could not change the course of her life. He could not restore her reputation or stop the gossip that would eventually find her—find them all—but he could give her his support. And he could give her his love.

“Georgiana,” he said, his words thick with promise. “Whatever you want. Whatever you decide. It is yours. You and Caroline—I shall stand beside you.”

“Are you certain you wish to tempt fate in such a manner?”

One side of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “I am.”

“I ask because the sentiment may be tested sooner rather than later.”

He narrowed his gaze on her. “What does that mean?”

“Only that I wish for one of us to have our happy ever after, Simon. And since it cannot be me, it shall have to be you.”

Juliana.

She was his happiness. She was his passion.

And he could no longer live this passionless life.

He had to go after her. Now.

He stood and moved toward his sister and niece. Bending low, he placed a kiss on the top of Caroline’s head and another on Georgiana’s cheek. “I must go. I must get her back.”

Georgiana smiled. “Mother will be furious.”

Simon lifted a brow. “Mother will make an excellent dowager.”

She laughed. “Tell me you plan to put her out to pasture.”

“It is not an impossibility,” he tossed over one shoulder, heading for the door, thinking only of Juliana.

“Simon?” his sister called.

He turned back, eager to follow his love.

Eager to begin his life.

“Your betrothal gift is already on its way to London.” Her face split in a wide grin. “Give Mother my regards.”

Chapter Nineteen

Reputation is all any woman can claim.

The refined lady protects hers at all cost.

—A Treatise on the Most Exquisite of Ladies

There are times when the source of the scandal surprises even us . . .

—The Scandal Sheet, November 1823

J
uliana went straight to see her mother.

It was late in the evening, long past an appropriate time to make or receive calls, as she stood in the beautiful receiving room of Nick and Isabel’s London town house, filled with Greek and Roman marbles collected during Nick’s time abroad, and waited for her mother to join her.

There was a statue of Aphrodite and Eros at the center of the room, a stunning depiction of the goddess of love, holding her son in her arms as he reached for something beyond her shoulder. The child god’s every muscle seemed to strain, his arms and fingers extended, his chubby legs kicking out from his mother’s chest, pushing in desire for something he would never reach.

The statue stood as a pale, beautiful reminder that sometimes even the gods were refused their wishes and that mere mortals were silly to expect anything different.

The journey from Yorkshire had been terrible, Juliana unable to eat, unwilling to rest until she had put as much distance as possible between herself and Simon . . . as though distance could cure her of the devastating ache in her heart that came whenever she thought of him.

Which was constantly.

She had known that running was not the most respectable of actions, but she could not stay in Yorkshire—in that house—not while he tempted her into his arms and his bed and his life. Not when she knew that she would never be enough for him.

Not when she could not give him that which he held in such high regard—a fine pedigree, an untarnished reputation, propriety.

All she had for him was a messy past and her love.

And sometimes, sadly, love was not enough.

How I wish it could be.

She sighed, running a finger along the perfectly wrought foot of Eros. She should not be here. Not at this hour, likely not at all. But four days trapped in a carriage with nothing but her thoughts had made her desperate to prove herself.

She had nearly driven herself mad playing over the last weeks in her head—all the time with Simon, all the conversations, all the moments when he had questioned her actions, when he had saved her from scandal.

When he had held her in his arms and made her believe that she might be enough for him.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She knew better . . . knew that the faster she left, the better off they would all be. She would never have him—she could never be a true partner to him. He would always be a duke, she always a commoner with a questionable history. But it did not make her love him any less, even as she wished it did.

She could not prove to him that she was more.

But she could prove it to herself.

And so she waited for her mother.

She was here because of the scandal. Because her mother’s actions had colored the world’s view of her . . . for her entire life. Because her mother’s actions had made her question her own actions, her own motivations, her own desires.

Because she had to know, once and for all, that blood did not out.

She had to know she could be more. Better. Different.

She had lived for too many years in her mother’s shadow; it was time for her to come out into the sun.

“An odd time for a call,” Louisa said as she entered the room, swathed in a dressing gown that floated around her as though she were wrapped in wind. She looked beautiful. As usual.

She sat, casting a critical eye over Juliana, taking in her gown, wrinkled and dusty from the journey, her mud-covered boots, and her hair, coming loose from the simple coif that Carla had arranged at the last staging post. “You look awful.”

Juliana resisted the temptation to smooth or settle. She had nothing to prove to her mother. Instead, she sat and watched as Louisa poured a glass of sherry without offering Juliana anything.

“So you have come to visit me in prison.”

“Hardly a prison,” Juliana said drily.

Louisa waved a hand dismissively. “All these statues make me feel like I live in a museum.”

“No one is forcing you to remain in London,” Juliana pointed out.

“That much is true . . . but I don’t have anywhere else to go, darling.” Juliana did not care for the endearment, so cold and casual. “I don’t suppose that Gabriel has decided what to do with me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I hope he does it sooner rather than later. I should like to be gone from here before I am made a grandmother. I do not need the reminder that I grow old.”

One side of Juliana’s mouth rose at the complete and unbelievable self-absorption. “I do not think that Gabriel has much interest in your schedule.”

Louisa rolled her eyes. “It is not that I am not happy for him. He and his wife seem comfortable. But that life . . . the clinging children . . . the crying . . . the incessant requests . . .” She sat back in her chair. “It was not for me.”

“I had not noticed.”

Louisa’s gaze narrowed on her. “You have grown up to have your father’s bold tongue.”

Juliana shrugged, knowing the movement would grate on her mother. “I was lacking additional examples.”

Louisa sighed. “Well, if you are not here to bring news of my future, what brings you here in the middle of the night?”

So typical. Such concern for herself and no one else.

Juliana did not hesitate. “Do you regret it?”

Louisa was not a fool. She did not pretend to misunderstand. “Which part?”

“All of it.”

She did not have to think about the answer. “I do not regret it on the whole, no. I do not regret being a marchioness, or even a merchant’s wife—though your father was less wealthy than he initially let on, and things were not always easy . . .”

“I assure you, things did not become easier after you deserted us.”

“
Deserted,
” Louisa scoffed. “What a dramatic word.”

“Would you refer to it in another way?”

“Juliana . . . it was my life. And I wanted it to be lived. Surely you can understand that, darling. You are so obviously that way.”

The casual observation sent a chill through her. “What does that mean?”

“Only that one learns plenty of things when one is trapped in a town house with nothing to read but the gossip rags from the past six months. You have been as scandalous as I was. All garden trysts and toppling vegetables and falling in the Serpentine!” Louisa laughed, a high, tinkling sound that Juliana loathed. “My! What fun that must have been!”

“It was terrifying. I nearly drowned.”

He saved me.

“Oh, I’m sure you’re exaggerating. And you were rescued by a dashing duke! It sounds precisely like something I would have done if I hadn’t been married at a foolishly young age and become the mother of twins. I will tell you, if I had it to do again, I would have been more of a scandal and less of a marchioness, that is certain.”

“You were plenty of scandal, Mother, I assure you.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t here to see it, darling, so it’s almost as though it didn’t happen,” she said as if she were speaking to a child. “You, however . . . you are living your scandal.”

It wasn’t true. She was living the reputation that she had inherited from this woman, who seemed not to care at all for the burdens with which she had saddled her children.

She was more than that.

Wasn’t she?

Her mother pressed on, her tone airy, as though she had never given much thought to her actions. To the way they might have affected others. “You did well without me, darling. To think . . . you’ve found your brothers . . . and they care for you. Yes . . . I’ve done my job.”

Louisa’s self-satisfaction was undeniable. Juliana could not help her laugh. It was rather impossible to hate someone who seemed so utterly disconnected from her own actions.

“I know you want a better reason, Juliana. I know you wish there were some answer that would make everything cleaner. That would make you forgive me. But there isn’t. I made some difficult choices. And if I had it to do over again, I’m not sure I would make them again.”

“You mean, choosing to have us? Or choosing to leave us?”

Louisa did not speak.

She did not have to. The answer was in her eyes.

And everything became clear.

She was nothing like her mother.

Juliana let out a long breath, a breath she felt she had been holding for a decade, and stood, taking in her mother, who looked so much like her—as though she were looking into the future.

A different future than before.

A better one.

Because of a mother who had never once shown caring or attention, and who, once she had left, had never looked back, Juliana at last had a family. And perhaps it was enough.

Perhaps she could convince herself of it.

Soon her brother’s house would be filled with laughing children and loving parents, and perhaps the noise would block out the time when she had been close to finding love of her own.

Perhaps there would be a time when he was not constantly in her thoughts.

When she did not love him so much.

It seemed impossible.

She looked to the statue again, watching as Eros stretched for that elusive thing beyond his reach.

It was all she could hope for.

S
imon stood just inside his study, exhausted and covered in mud from his journey across England. He’d arrived at his town house in the dead of night, only to discover that all hell had broken loose while he was gone.

Boggs had taken his cloak and hat, handed Simon the
Gazette
with an even-more-somber expression than usual on his usually-quite-somber face, and gone to find food, as Simon had done nothing but change horses in the last eighteen hours, so desperate had he been to get back to London.

And to Juliana
.

Simon stared down at the newspaper, reading the words again and again, as though repeat viewings could somehow change them. Take them away. But no, every time he read the article, it was precisely the same. Precisely as damning.

First person account . . . Duke of Leighton . . . his sister, not even out . . . in a family way . . . a daughter, born just days ago.

He was going to murder his sister.

She’d known he would never reveal the scandal himself. She’d known he’d never risk her reputation, or Caroline’s, in such a way.

And so she’d taken matters into her own hands.

Why?

The answer flashed, quick and so obvious, he couldn’t believe he had missed it. He moved to his desk and lifted the pile of correspondence there, sifting through until he found the square of paper that he was looking for.

Slipping his finger beneath the wax seal, he allowed himself to hope. Not much. Just until he read the single line of text there, underlined. Twice.

The engagement is off. –Needham

Georgiana had made certain that his betrothal to Penelope could not stand.

Your betrothal gift has already been sent to London.

She’d ruined herself. Ruined them all.

To ensure his happiness.

Now he had only to reach out and take it.

T
he Northumberland autumn ball was planned as the last official event of the season, before Parliament’s special session finished and society packed up and headed for the country for the close of the year.

The stairs leading up to the house and the foyer were packed with throngs of revelers, passing their heavy cloaks to footmen and moving up the grand staircase to the ballroom, where the main festivities were already under way.

All of London society had braved a particularly nasty rain to be there, a fitting end to this altogether-too-long of a season.

And if Simon’s evening went according to plan, this ball was going to be the talk of not only that season but several more to come.

Unfortunately, he appeared to have been uninvited to the festivities.

“I am sorry, Your Grace, but the duke and duchess are not receiving.” The head footman of Northumberland House, who’d been assigned the unfortunate task of asking Simon to step out of the crowd, delivered the unfortunate news with a slight tremor.