by Maya Rodale
She knew she deserved it. She could even faintly discern the humor of the situation. Regardless, Julianna was furious about it all.
It had been foolish of her to step outside and engage the enemy, but her rage had clouded rational thought. Had she known what he was about to do next, she would have never left the house.
Roxbury stumbled toward her, wrapping an arm around her waist. As she tried to disentangle herself, he leaned forward and drunkenly pressed his mouth against hers for a hot, fleeting, drunken, damaging kiss.
Julianna shoved him away easily, but it was too late. For this, all this, he would suffer. She would see to it.
It was too late to deny that any of this was attached to her. The only thing she could possibly do to salvage this situation—and her precious reputation—was to make it abundantly clear that this behavior was not welcome or encouraged by her.
She turned her back on him, and returned to the house.
“Don’t go, my lady!” Roxbury called.
“Penny, the pistols please,” Julianna said to her maid, who was watching from the open front door.
In the drawing room where she took tea and entertained visitors, Julianna calmly cleaned and loaded the guns. They were a lovely but mismatched set. One had belonged to her late father, the other her late husband. These were now the only protection those gentlemen offered her, not that they provided much more when they were living.
Taking the one that had been Somerset’s, Julianna marched outside. Her silk wrapper billowed around her. It was not the typical shooting attire, but she did not have time to change.
From where she stood on her front stoop, in close range to the bane of her existence, Julianna aimed her pistol and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 22
Roxbury was enjoying this immensely. He was the ringleader of the Bloomsbury Square Singers! Their voices were rising in song to drown out the naysayers in perfect unison. Some of the more vocally ambitious had added a harmony. It was an exquisite event, the likes of which hadn’t happened before and would probably never occur again.
And when she was married she told of her fun
How she went a-hunting with her dog and gun
Julianna did not seem tremendously pleased with the performance of his neighborhood serenade. No matter; with bottle in hand, jacket long gone, his cravat limp and waistcoat unbuttoned, he sang louder.
But now I have got him fast in a snare
I’ll enjoy him forever, I vow and declare
No snare for him, Roxbury thought drunkenly. He would not marry. He would not surrender his freedom to his father and participate in that damned ultimatum.
When she reappeared, his singing stopped. Her wrapper and nightgown—pale blue and pure white in the moonlight—billowed around her as she stepped into the night. Ghostly. Hauntingly beautiful. His breath caught in his throat and he stopped singing.
The Bloomsbury Square Singers carried on without him.
Her hair tumbled down her back. In the daylight, he knew her hair was auburn, verging on red, and tonight it was purely dark and luscious.
Roxbury had wondered what it would be like to see her thus. Now that he did, he began to wonder what it would feel like to run his fingers through her hair, or to see those long, lovely locks splayed against his pillow or just slightly covering her bare breasts.
Roxbury stood admiring her, lost in fantasy, with the neighbors singing more of “The Golden Glove.” She raised her hand, and he saw that she held something and squinted to see what, exactly. His vision was a bit blurry, but some things were clear: Lady Somerset held a pistol and she aimed it at him.
In fact, he saw about eight Lady Somersets holding eight pistols, every last one pointed at him.
She wouldn’t dare shoot him! Very well, she would—but not here and now with every resident of Bloomsbury Place watching. That would be stupid and she was frighteningly intelligent.
Smugly sure that she wasn’t going to pull the trigger, Simon lifted the bottle of champagne to his lips for one last sip and then he joined the chorus of singers for a repeat of the last line.
. . . I vow and declare . . .
The explosion of the gunshot was breathtakingly loud. In an instant, the singers quieted down, and those hollering for silence ceased their yells.
Simon dropped the bottle of champagne and it shattered on the cobblestones at his feet.
The lady’s expression was calm and collected—which was as terrifying as it was beautiful. Glancing behind him, he saw that her aim had been perfect: her bullet hit the dead center of the Roxbury crest emblazoned on the side of the carriage. The wood splintered and the gold leaf chipped. The point was definitely made.
Strangely, his arm ached.
“My dear lady,” he mumbled, stumbling toward her intent upon something like an apology and congratulating her for her outstanding marksmanship.
“I. Am. Not. Your. Dear. Lady.” Julianna sauntered closer to him, her hips swaying ominously. His heart began to pound. The Square was quiet now, but everyone was probably watching.
They stood toe-to-toe, and she tilted her head back slightly to look him in the eye. He squinted, so that he would see the one and only Julianna and not the doubles and triples the alcohol made him see.
It occurred to him that they were within kissing distance, which was to say, not very much distance at all. But though the Square was now quiet, it was erroneous to presume all had gone to bed. It was best not to kiss her—not here, not now, not again and not when he was unsure how many bullets she had left to fire. But he wanted to.
“Roxbury,” she said his name as if it were a warning. “If you are intent upon revenge and ruining my reputation, so be it, but at the very least—oh dear God you’re bleeding!”
Chapter 23
The good news: it could only be a flesh wound. Julianna concluded that the bullet must have grazed or gone through his arm before piercing the crest on his carriage.
The bad news: her choices consisted of allowing him to potentially bleed to death on her front stoop, or to bring him inside and bandage him up. She had debated which was more scandalous. A dead rake in the night? Or a live one emerging from her home in the morning?
Reluctantly, she decided she ought to let him live. Looks and charm like his shouldn’t be wasted.
Second thoughts swiftly followed. But nevertheless, she brought him into the drawing room.
“Remove your shirt, Roxbury,” she ordered wearily.
“Oh my, Lady Somerset. How forward of you,” he mumbled, stumbling around.
“Please, before you bleed all over the furniture,” she said.
“Yes, madam, I shall remove my shirt. Breeches, too?” he asked with a rakish grin. She sighed impatiently.
His attempt to remove his shirt involved much drunken stumbling and strange contortions. Julianna gave up and laughed at him. That is, until he took it off.
The notorious rake Roxbury stood nearly naked in her drawing room, and what a marvelous sight it was. In the dim glow of candlelight, his chest appeared golden, taut and smooth, save for the contours and shadows of his muscles. Somerset was nothing compared to Roxbury, but Julianna did not want to think of her dead husband now. Not when a real, live man displayed himself thusly, intensely watching for her reaction, which was a combination of speechlessness and wide-eyed wonder.
Fortunately, he could not see the heat surging through her and rising to her cheeks. Or the way she was suddenly acutely aware of her silk nightgown caressing her skin. Or perhaps he could see these things—this was Roxbury, after all.
Then, again, she recalled the wound on his arm, which was up near his shoulder and bleeding quite profusely. Roxbury at least had the sense to press his shirt to it.
With Penny’s assistance, she cleaned and bandaged the wound, which was not serious at all. He’d been a surprisingly docile patient, but only because the alcohol had finally claimed victory.
Julianna sat beside her wretched, undeserving
patient alone with her thoughts, and the facts. The bane of her existence lay unconscious and in a state of undress on her settee. Outside, his damned carriage was parked in front of her townhouse. The driver had vanished. Nearby were the remains of a shattered champagne bottle on the cobblestones.
This was it, then—she knew social ruin when she saw it. Or, in this case, when it serenaded her with debauched ballads, parked in front of her house, and included compromising positions and gunshot wounds.
There would be talk, and it would be vicious and incessant. The ton would assume that he had spent the night and no one would believe it a chaste encounter. Yes, he’d been loud and kept the neighborhood up half the night. But the other half—after all of Bloomsbury Square saw them enter her house together—was unaccounted for.
Given that the man in question was Lord Roxbury—rumors of his partner preferences aside—who had spent his entire social life known as a tremendous flirt, scoundrel, lover of many women, and all-around rake, there was no way anyone would believe he and a woman hadn’t spent the late night hours in sin together.
She was a widow. And she knew what the ton would think. It wouldn’t be good. All those years of trying to make herself respectable after Somerset’s exploits were now for naught. She was about to go down in a massive, flaming explosion of ruin.
Would she have to change her name and move to America? As long as she had her column to write, she would be fine. Julianna had weathered scandals before and was determined to do so again, but a tight little knot in her stomach suggested this would be no run-of-the-mill scandal.
Julianna gave one last glance to the idiot rake on her settee. He had the nerve to smile in his slumber. She went to her bed—alone—but she did not sleep.
Chapter 24
The following morning, it was no surprise to Roxbury that the lady of the house was not pleased to find him at her breakfast table. He gathered that his presence in her house had to do with the bandage on his arm. There was singing in the street, he recalled with a lazy smile. The gunshot was remembered less favorably. Clearly, he had caused a scene. Little by little details returned to him as he drank his coffee.
After he’d just poured a second cup, Julianna sauntered into the breakfast room, soft from sleep. First she glared at him, then her eyes widened and her lips parted when she noticed he did not have a shirt on, just his waistcoat. He hadn’t been able to find his shirt or jacket.
She gave a sharp look to her maid, Penny, that asked, What is he still doing here?
“I’m sorry, milady. But he’s a charmer,” was all her redheaded maid said by way of explanation.
“Please find him his shirt. Promptly,” Julianna ordered. Penny gave him a wink before she left him alone with the shooting she-devil.
Roxbury suppressed a smirk. He was glad to know his talents for charm hadn’t gotten too rusty since he’d been out of practice lately. It was one of his rules of seduction and love affairs to always enlist a lady’s maid to his cause. Success was impossible without her favor. It was something Edward had taught him.
Not that Roxbury had such intentions with Julianna. But he did recall that she looked like quite the temptress last night. A vision returned, unbidden, of her wrapper and silk nightgown, of the palest blue and nearly sheer white. She’d been magnificent. Had Somerset known what he had? Or had he been too terrified of such towering strength and beauty?
Roxbury knew not, and as he took a sip of coffee turned his thoughts to Julianna. It was a gross violation of etiquette to be at a table, shirtless, in front of a gently bred lady. But what could be done?
Julianna prepared a cup of tea for herself.
“Ah, nothing like tea to restore nerves, now is there,” he quipped. It was remarkably effective. Since he had kept her up half the night with his neighborhood serenade, he suspected she would be in great need of it.
“I am remarkably calm,” she stated. Her voice was still a little low and raspy from having just woken. He loved a woman’s voice first thing in the morning. Suddenly, he was not sorry to be here.
“You are not fully awake and haven’t yet come to your wits,” he said. And when she did, those pistols would reappear. Hopefully he’d be long gone by then.
“Why are you still here?” she asked. “If you had any decency you would have left at first light.”
He felt a fleeting pang of guilt, but ignored it. “I was in great need of coffee when I woke this morning. I slept in; it seems I was out quite late last evening.” In other words, he was a drunken, lazy, good-for-nothing bounder who had wreaked all sorts of havoc on Julianna’s life, just for a spot of amusement. That thought made him nauseous and he set down his coffee.
“You will ruin me,” she whispered.
“My dear Lady Somerset, I already have.” He tried to make his voice sound grand and carefree when that wasn’t how he felt at all. Aye, she deserved it. But that did not bring him much pleasure.
A long silence ensued, in which she quietly sipped her tea. He noticed that her hand wavered—in anger or anxiety—and any feeling of triumphant revenge began to evaporate. His head began to ache and guilt began to burn in his gut. His arm started to throb in pain.
But it wasn’t like she was an unmarried young woman—in which case he’d be obliged to offer for her, right here and right now. Since she was a widow, the same rules did not apply. So he did not have to beg her hand in marriage on bended knee in her breakfast room. While he had no intention of taking a wife, he did stand to gain—tremendously—if he married.
However, Roxbury suspected Julianna would accept utter social ostracism, change her name, and move to another country before she became his wife.
Roxbury sipped his coffee and dared a glance at her; she was glaring at him. Still, she managed to be beautiful.
Her hair was piled loosely atop her head. She wasn’t as wide-eyed as usual—not when she was sleepy, and not when she was glaring—and it made her seem more mysterious.
He didn’t know much about her at all, really, other than that she was always so tightly coiled and tense. She fiercely loved her writing and she was uncommonly daring. Her late husband had been a bad man. And she was the one woman in London who was not swayed by his charm.
What the hell was he doing here?
Playing fast and loose with a respectable woman’s reputation and then sitting at her breakfast table, drinking coffee, uninvited. He had sung “Country John” outside her window, with the whole neighborhood joining in. She had put a bullet through his carriage and his arm.
Last night had been hazy and now that the pieces came together, he was beginning to grasp the enormity of the scandal that was about to clobber them both.
His behavior had not been gentlemanly. But Lady Sharpshooter in a nightgown hadn’t been very ladylike, either.
What was it about her that reduced him to the behavior of an uncontrollable young lad, or provoked him to the most ungentlemanly outbursts? She incited his passions in the worst way.
Was it her beauty, or sharp wit, or the way she sipped her tea—obviously exasperated but still so very pretty?
Warily, he watched as she set down her tea and rang the bell. Penny returned quickly, with Roxbury’s revolting, bloodstained shirt from last night. He cringed at the thought of wearing it, but the alternative was to drive through London shirtless or request something else.
“The pistols, please, Penny.”
“No need. I was just leaving,” he said hastily, because Penny probably had them ready to fire.
“Pity, that,” Julianna said dryly.
Roxbury stepped out of 24 Bloomsbury Place at midmorning, only to find an entire congregation filtering out of the church across the Square. More than a few people saw him, and pointed.
He winced, aware of what a spectacle he was, going out lacking a jacket or cravat. But the bloodstained shirt was so vile, he considered going without it. Pete, his driver, was missing, and the poor horses had been left there all night.
There was no choice but to drive his bullet-ridden carriage through London, wearing a bloodstained shirt and horrified expression as he began to comprehend the magnitude of the scandal that was about to hit.
Poverty or matrimony or defiance? Mere days remained for him to decide, but what choice did he really have?
Chapter 25
Fortunately, Julianna’s friends would be there to help her weather the storm. They gathered in her drawing room later that afternoon. The curtains were drawn, blocking out the sunlight and the rest of the world. Penny provided tea and biscuits. Sophie brought issues of La Belle Assemblée. Annabelle and Eliza joined, too, with one providing optimism and the other offering the truth of the matter.
“The news is all over town, is it not?” Julianna asked, dreading the answer. Sophie nibbled on a biscuit and Eliza took a sip of tea. That was a yes.
“It has yet to be mentioned by the Man About Town,” Annabelle offered consolingly. She brushed a blond curl out of her pretty blue eyes.
“That’s because his column will not be published until tomorrow,” Eliza answered before helping herself to another lump of sugar in her tea.
“And then it will be mentioned,” Julianna said. “Prominently. In great depth. I am ruined.”
No one knew quite what to say to that and they all looked sheepishly away, uncomfortable by their silence.
To be fair, it was hard to fathom what a disaster it might be. No one could recall an instance of a gentleman acting so brazenly to a lady. Leaving his carriage parked in front of her home all evening! Singing a vile song like “Country John” in the presence of ladies, and in public! Not to mention how he knelt before her and wrapped his arms around her, or how he was seen entering her house at night, and leaving the next morning. And then there was the gunshot, too.
On the scandal scale, this could rank somewhere far above a third waltz, higher than a couple discovered in a compromising position but just a shade below a particularly gruesome murder of a prominent member of high society. Just. Barely.
