by Lauren Royal
James, on the other hand, seemed to touch her so often she was beginning to think the accidents might not all be accidental.
On Wednesday afternoon, when she and James had taken advantage of a few glorious dry hours to go riding in Hyde Park, he’d helped her on and off her horse on six different occasions—to buy refreshments from a stand, to look at some flowers, to take a stroll by the Serpentine—and she didn’t think she’d imagined the way his hands rested on her waist longer and longer each time.
James had skipped Almack’s again Wednesday night—more trouble at the Institute, apparently—but Thursday evening, when they’d attended the theater, he’d set his chair so close to hers in the box that his leg was against her skirts during much of the performance. In the intermission, he’d brought her a syllabub and then claimed twice that she had cream on her lip and wiped it away with his handkerchief.
“Did I tell you I received another gift from Lord Stafford?” Amanda flattened a macaroon and stuck a piece of almond in it. “Three gifts in one week!”
“Use the whole almonds, Amanda. You want the macaroons to look pretty, don’t you?” Juliana picked out the broken nut and replaced it with a perfect one, thinking Amanda was almost as hopeless at cooking as Corinna. It was a good thing that earl’s wives weren’t expected to set foot in the kitchen. “What did he send you this time?” she asked.
“The most elegant lace gloves. I’m not sure Aunt Mabel would approve of something so personal. Fortunately she was having a lie-down when the package arrived. I suggested maybe she should return to the countryside, since Lady Frances is doing such a fine job as chaperone.”
Juliana choked back an unladylike snort. A fine chaperone, indeed—for her purposes, anyway. “I’m glad Lady Mabel doesn’t mind Aunt Frances filling in for her.” Mostly because it would be difficult to carry out their plan if Amanda were under anything like competent supervision. “Still, I hope she isn’t feeling poorly enough to leave London. I enjoyed her company at Wednesday’s sewing party.”
“She surely enjoyed attending, too. It was much less strenuous than going on outings. Why, she hardly even wheezed.”
And she’d proved a much better seamstress than her niece, completing four blankets in two hours. Unfortunately, even with Lady Mabel’s help, Juliana had so far collected only thirty-three of the two hundred forty items she needed. And she had just three weeks left—the same three weeks Amanda had to find a new fiancé before she was forced to marry Lord Malmsey. “You’re planning to keep the gloves, then?”
“I wouldn’t dream of returning them. They’re stunning. The pink roses he sent were beautiful, too. And I adore the painted fan.” Amanda placed another almond off-center. “Lord Stafford has exquisite taste, don’t you think? Especially for a young man.”
Juliana was glad she’d taken it upon herself to have each of James’s gifts delivered rather than trusting him to remember. Tomorrow evening, she would make sure Amanda wore the gloves and carried the fan, which should please him. She could scarcely wait until the ball, when he’d dance again with Amanda and ask for permission to court her. She was certain Amanda would agree.
Everything was going perfectly.
Hearing the tall-case clock chime upstairs, she hurried to place the last almonds. She had only half an hour to ready herself before James arrived for today’s excursion to the Egyptian Hall. “Thank you for your help,” she told Amanda as she shoved the pans into the oven. “I’ll have a footman deliver half the macaroons to your house as soon as they’re finished.”
Not usually one to show affection, Amanda wrapped Juliana in a timid, awkward embrace. “Thank you,” she said. “I had no idea that macaroons make one’s eyes sparkle, but I appreciate your telling me and letting me help bake them.”
“You’re very welcome,” Juliana murmured, feeling a bit guilty about misleading her. But only a bit. Honestly, she’d had no choice. Amanda would be scandalized if she knew they were baking amorous macaroons for her suitor—and herself, of course, as Juliana saw no harm in warming up Amanda’s demeanor as well.
After her friend took her leave, Juliana went upstairs to change her dress and put on a little rouge and lip salve. She was on her way back down when she heard the knocker bang. As she arrived in the foyer, expecting to see James, Adamson opened the door to reveal a deliveryman holding an enormous arrangement of red roses.
“Holy Hannah!” Paintbrush in hand, Corinna came in from the drawing room. “There must be five dozen!”
Aunt Frances came in from the library. “Goodness gracious, I can smell them from here. And just look at that gorgeous silver vase!”
“Do you expect they’re from the duke?” Corinna asked.
“They must be,” Juliana breathed, setting the gloves she was carrying on the marble-topped hall table. Red roses. The duke must be in love with her already!
Fragrance filled the foyer. After tipping the deliveryman, the butler put the arrangement on the table. She plucked the card from it with shaking hands.
“A small token in comparison to the great love I hold in my heart,” she read aloud, her pulse pounding harder with each precious word. “And it’s signed—”
Her mouth gaped open.
“Who signed it?” Corinna demanded. “Are the flowers not from the duke?”
Juliana closed her mouth and held the card out to Aunt Frances. “They’re from Lord Malmsey. They’re for you.”
Aunt Frances’s hand flew to her heart. She looked as if she might swoon for a moment, but in the end she just said, “For me?” in a squeaky little voice.
“For you,” Juliana repeated, beaming with pride—her project was working! And she was thrilled for Aunt Frances, too, of course. She eased the swaying woman onto a striped satin chair by the table. “Are you all right, Auntie?”
Still clutching her chest, Frances blew out a breath. “Heavens, child, I’ve never been better.” Her eyes looked misty behind their lenses. “But I do feel just a bit faint.”
A kitchen maid came up from the basement and handed Juliana a small basket covered with a lace doily. “Your macaroons, my lady. A dozen, as you requested.”
“Thank you,” Juliana said and set the basket beside the flowers.
“May I speak with you a moment?” Corinna took her by the arm. “In the drawing room.”
They left Frances gazing at her roses.
“Do you not think,” Corinna said once they were behind closed doors, “that this is going a little too far?”
“What?” Juliana asked, feeling bewildered.
“Sending Aunt Frances flowers and claiming they’re from Lord Malmsey. Really, Juliana, what do you think is going to happen tomorrow at the ball when she thanks him for flowers he didn’t send?”
“He did send them to her,” Juliana said.
“He didn’t.”
“Well, who did, then? Because it wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with those flowers.”
Corinna eyed her skeptically. “He’s engaged to marry Amanda. Why would he send flowers to Aunt Frances? What would make him think she’d want to receive flowers from him?”
“The love letters he received from her.”
“What love letters?”
“The ones I sent, of course.” Honestly, had Corinna stayed up all night again? She seemed a bit on the slow side today. “It wouldn’t do to have Aunt Frances be the only one getting letters. A true love must be two-sided.”
Juliana had never written so many sappy letters in her life. In a week of incessant activity, Aunt Frances’s romance had proved to be her most exhausting project.
Besides writing all the letters, she’d had to take Frances shopping for shoes, bonnets, and accessories to match all of her new dresses; buy cosmetics and practice applying them; and hire a dancing master to teach Frances all the new steps. And Frances’s hair—oh, her hair! Madame Bellefleur had had to visit not once, but twice—the first time to dye Frances’s hair with henna and walnuts, and the second to trim it
and tinker with various styles.
But it was all worth it. Aunt Frances was going to look beautiful tomorrow night. And Lord Malmsey was already in love with her.
He’d sent red roses.
“You sent fake letters to both of them?” Corinna pointed the paintbrush she was still holding at her. “What if they compare notes?”
“They won’t,” Juliana said confidently. “They’re both far too shy, and too grateful to question their good fortune.” The knocker sounded again. “Excuse me. That will be Lord Stafford.”
She returned to the foyer, but it wasn’t James at the door. It was another deliveryman with flowers. White roses, and there were only a dozen, but they were in a beautiful crystal vase.
“What does the card say?” Corinna asked behind her.
Not assuming anything this time, Juliana pulled it from the arrangement. “The Duke of Castleton,” she read with some relief.
And happiness, of course.
“That’s it? No message?”
“The flowers say it all, do they not?” She gestured grandly toward the arrangement, which, in truth, looked rather paltry next to the extravagant one Lord Malmsey had sent. But the duke wasn’t an extravagant man. He was restrained and refined and everything that was tasteful and proper. “I don’t need a written message,” she said. “I know perfectly well how he feels.”
“How who feels?” James asked, entering through the still-open door.
“The Duke of Castleton,” Corinna informed him. “He sent flowers to Juliana.”
“Did he?” James scanned the foyer, blinking as his gaze landed on the hall table. “That’s a lot of roses. Red roses.”
His tone implied he found something objectionable about the roses, although Juliana wasn’t sure whether it was the amount of them or their color. Or both. And why would he care, anyway?
Aunt Frances’s hand was still over her heart. “They’re mine,” she said, sounding awed.
Corinna nodded. “The other arrangement is from the duke.”
“White,” James said with a raised brow. He turned to Juliana. “He must think you’re very virtuous.”
What on earth did he mean by that? She was virtuous. She’d never even been kissed!
Though not entirely by her own choice.
She swept the little basket off the table and thrust it at him. “Here,” she said rather ungraciously. “I baked macaroons for you.”
“Why?” he asked, looking nonplussed.
She hadn’t anticipated that question. She didn’t want him to think she’d made them as a gift, because he might take that the wrong way. But she couldn’t very well tell him she hoped they’d make him amorous.
Or that they’d make his eyes sparkle.
“I thought you’d want to eat them tomorrow. They’re supposed to provide extra energy.”
That brow went up again. “Energy of what sort?”
How many sorts were there? “The extra sort,” she said firmly.
“I see.” The corner of his mouth twitched, as though he were trying not to laugh. “But pray tell, why should I need extra energy tomorrow?”
“For the dancing,” she said. “At the ball. You’re not accustomed to hours on your feet.”
“Ah,” he said. Just ah. But something about the way he said it told her he was well aware she was making all of this up as she went along. “In all the time I’ve studied medicine,” he drawled, “I’ve never heard macaroons prescribed to increase energy. I shall have to pass this wisdom along to my colleagues.”
“You do that,” she said, snatching up her parasol and turning to Aunt Frances. “Are you ready to leave, Auntie?”
TWENTY-ONE
AS JAMES’S carriage crawled toward the Egyptian Hall through the miserable London traffic, he smiled to himself. Juliana might claim their outings were for his benefit, but she wasn’t fooling him. She liked him, whether she was willing to say so out loud or not.
The proof? She’d baked him macaroons.
He lifted the froufrou doily atop the basket and pulled one out.
“No!” Juliana cried. “You’re supposed to save them for tomorrow.”
“There are plenty of them,” he said, depositing the macaroon into his mouth. It all but melted on his tongue. He’d never heard of a girl of the ton making sweets—or setting foot in a kitchen, for that matter—but given Juliana’s talents, he heartily approved. “These are delicious,” he told her and chose another.
“Please don’t eat them today!” She looked concerned…quite concerned. Certainly much more concerned than was warranted. They were just macaroons, after all, and he knew she’d invented that ludicrous ‘extra energy’ story—probably to conceal the obvious truth that she’d baked for him because she liked him. So why should it matter whether he ate them today or tomorrow?
He reached for a third.
“I’d prefer you save them,” she said firmly, taking the basket right out of his hands. She set it on the seat beside her, scooting closer to him in order to do so.
Which he didn’t mind in the least, though it was highly improper. She was all but sitting in his lap. As he finished the third macaroon, he eyed Lady Frances, thinking she’d have to object. But instead she just gazed out the window, her eyes glassy behind her spectacles.
Really, if he didn’t know any better, he might have thought she had a touch of dementia.
Once again, although it was a rainy, gray day, Juliana smelled like sunshine. And flowers. It made him want to slip his arm around her shoulders and pull her even closer. But he wouldn’t. At least not with Juliana’s chaperone watching, even if her aunt was by far the most oblivious chaperone he’d ever encountered.
Maybe Lady Frances would conveniently fall asleep.
Since that day in Harding, Howell & Company, he’d been thinking quite a bit about Juliana. Or more specifically, about kissing Juliana. Though the idea had seemed appalling at first, it didn’t any longer, because in the interim—during the hours he’d spent riding with her and accompanying her to the theater—he’d come to realize something else: He was no longer going on these outings to prevent her from wasting her time with Castleton.
Not that he wanted her to spend time with Castleton. Seeing her with that vase of white roses had made him want to scream. Perhaps even scream something like, “The prig is only courting you for a horse!” He wished he’d told her as much in the beginning, but he hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings. And he was even more reluctant to hurt her now. She was clever; she’d realize Castleton was wrong for her before it was too late. Or the duke himself might come to his senses and end the charade.
But even if Castleton did the right thing in the end, it wouldn’t improve James’s opinion of him. He was worse than a prig. He was…
What was worse than a prig?
He was a turd.
Anyhow, James was no longer going on these outings to save her from the turd—or at least not only to save her from the turd. He liked her company. She was bright and charming, and she cared about people. She’d cared about him when he’d feared a stupid snake. And, all right, she was very pretty. But he couldn’t help noticing that—it was simply an objective fact.
All of which pointed to another fact: He fancied Juliana Chase.
He didn’t love her, of course—he wouldn’t, couldn’t love her or anyone else. But fancying a girl was very different from loving her. And it wasn’t a betrayal of Anne, because it wasn’t long-lasting or meaningful. James had fancied other girls before he met Anne, and it had always taken the same course: They danced. They flirted. They went on outings. They stole a kiss or two. Then their interest waned and they went their separate ways.
It would be the same with Juliana, he thought with a contented yawn. And today she had baked him macaroons, which meant he was one step closer to kissing her.
He was very much looking forward to that part of the course.
She followed his yawn with one of her own and tried to cover it with a han
d.
“I saw that,” he said.
“I’m not bored, I promise.”
“I didn’t think so,” he assured her. “It’s a medical fact that yawns are contagious.”
She smiled, making him smile, too. He appreciated a girl who appreciated his attempts at humor.
“Are you as short on sleep as I?” she asked.
“I’m afraid I am. I was up half the night finishing the speech I’m delivering this evening in the House of Lords.”
“A speech?” She looked dubious.
“Your confidence in me is an inspiration,” he said dryly.
“It’s not that!” she said, chastened. “I was just…surprised. I’ve always pictured parliamentary speeches being given by aging lords in grey wigs. Not someone like you.”
“Someone with hair?”
She swatted his arm. “Someone young.”
He nodded his understanding. As one of the youngest members of the House, he was being rather bold. He shouldn’t have brought up the speech—now his nerves had returned.
“What is your speech about?”
“A bill I’ve put forth to publicly fund smallpox vaccinations and make them compulsory for infants.”
“Compulsory?” Her blue-green-hazel eyes widened. “I’ve never heard of such an idea.”
“I’m not surprised. England is quite behind the times on this matter. Vaccinations were made compulsory in Bavaria in 1807, Denmark in 1810, Norway in 1811, Bohemia and Russia in 1812, and now this year in Sweden.” He hoped he had all those dates right; he’d had to memorize them for the speech. “If we’re to defeat this scourge, everyone must cooperate.”
She seemed to mull that over for a minute. “This is very important to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s very important.”
“Why is that?”
