Why was that?
Her puzzlement must have shown on her face, because the next thing she knew, James was standing over her, looking concerned. "Is something wrong?"
"No, not at all," she assured him—and herself. "Are you finished?"
"I've prescribed hot, damp towels for my aunts' aches. I'm certain they shall be fine."
She rose and walked over to where his aunts sat while their maids obligingly applied the towels. "I hope you'll both be feeling better soon."
"Oh, we shall," Lady Balmforth said as her maid wrapped one of her wrists. "Our James always knows what to do. I'm sure we'll feel better by the time Cornelia comes to fetch us in an hour. We're going to Gillow's to look at some new furniture for her house."
"Your needlework is lovely. I'm having a little sewing party tomorrow afternoon, to make some baby clothes for the Foundling Hospital. Would either of you be interested in joining me?"
"Cornelia told us about your sewing parties," Lady Avonleigh exclaimed, appearing better already. The odd camphor smell was hers—along with a rather strong scent of gardenias. "They sound delightful, my dear. I should love to attend."
Lady Balmforth clasped her hands together so enthusiastically she lost a towel in the process. "I should love to attend, too."
"Thank you so much. Shall I send my brother's carriage at one o'clock?"
"Oh, no," Lady Avonleigh said. "We have our own carriage, and John Coachman has much too much time on his hands."
"He naps," Lady Balmforth added. "Even more often than we do."
Juliana noticed James and Amanda both inching toward the door. "Excellent," she said before going after them. "I live at forty-four Berkeley Square, and I very much look forward to seeing you."
"That was rather presumptuous," Amanda said as they walked out to James's carriage where Frances and Lord Malmsey were waiting.
"I disagree," James said. "I think it was kind. My aunts were thrilled to be invited."
Juliana smiled. "They're very sweet."
"And very healthy," he said dryly. "Such a pity they don't know it."
"They just need something else to occupy their minds. That's why I invited them to my party—well, besides the fact that I do need their help. And I'm thinking I should introduce them to a few more charming gentlemen."
"I don't believe either of them is interested in gentlemen, charming or not."
"Have they never been wed?"
"Oh, yes. Aunt Bedelia was married four times."
"Four!" Amanda exclaimed.
"A baron, two viscounts, and an earl. They all died," he added as a footman opened the carriage door. "That sweet old lady must be toxic."
Juliana began to laugh, but ended up gasping instead. Inside James's opulent carriage, her aunt was kissing Lord Malmsey.
"Gracious me!" Amanda cried, clearly scandalized. Not because she cared that Lord Malmsey was courting Frances, Juliana thought. After all, Amanda wanted to marry James; she'd given Lord Malmsey permission to court other women; she'd told him she was going to find a way out of their marriage. Amanda would have been scandalized to see any two people kissing. She was scared to death of kisses.
The older couple jerked apart. A flush rushed up Frances's neck and spread to her cheeks. Not a delicate flush, either—it was more like a bright red flood.
But she kept her composure. "Are your aunts feeling better?" she asked James, folding her hands in her lap.
"Remarkably." He handed Amanda in first, then Juliana before himself. She left space for him in the middle, but it seemed there wasn't enough, because he ended up squished against her. "To the Leicester Square Panorama," he instructed and settled back.
They all rode in silence for a few awkward moments. James felt very warm against Juliana. Her stomach was feeling even more queer. "Lord Stafford was telling us his aunt Bedelia has been married four times," she told Frances.
"Oh, my," Frances said.
After a few more awkward moments, Juliana looked up to James. "Were there no children?"
"None that lived. And Aunt Aurelia's life has been even more tragic."
"How many husbands did she have?" Amanda asked in a tone that Juliana found rather disapproving.
James didn't seem to notice, however. "Only one, the Earl of Avonleigh. But their children failed to bring her happiness. Her eldest daughter eloped with a cousin, prompting her husband to disown the girl. Aurelia never heard from her again and learned she'd died a number of years later. Her middle child, a son, drank too much and accidentally drowned. And her youngest, another daughter, ended her own life soon after marrying. She jumped off the London Bridge, taking her unborn child with her."
"Oh, my," Frances said again.
"Aunt Aurelia's husband died soon thereafter. A 'visitation from God' was the coroner's official verdict, but I expect his spirit was broken."
"I don't doubt that," Lord Malmsey said.
Juliana nodded. "It's a wonder your aunt survived."
"She's a strong lady. They both are. It's a shame they have no children or grandchildren to dote upon."
"They have you," she pointed out.
"I know, and I adore them. I admire their pluck." The carriage came to a halt. "I just wish they had someone else to pluck at once in a while."
The door opened to Leicester Square and a huge round building. Over a rather nondescript entrance, a fancy marquee said panorama. Before it stood the duke.
Juliana was relieved to see he didn't look perturbed. On the other hand, he didn't look happy, either. He looked the way he usually did: reserved and rather bland. His pale blue eyes calm, his expression pleasant.
Everyone clambered out of the carriage. "Good afternoon, my dear," the duke said to her. "I was very pleased to receive your invitation."
After everyone else exchanged greetings, the men bought tickets at the box office and they all proceeded inside. A long, narrow, dimly lit corridor stretched ahead, and it got even darker when the door shut behind them.
Amanda shrieked.
"There now," a voice said, soothing her. "Take my arm."
It was the duke, not James.
James took Juliana's arm instead. Even in the dark she knew it was James, because he smelled like soap and starch instead of eau de cologne. And because her stomach felt even queerer.
"You should be escorting Lady Amanda," she whispered as they all groped their way down the hall, laughing and feeling their way along the walls.
"She'll be fine," he said.
Of course Amanda would be fine. The duke was very kind to soothe her. It was somewhat of a shock going from the busy, open square to the dim, closed-in corridor, but it wasn't really scary. In fact, it was sort of fun. However, James could hardly kiss Amanda while she was with the duke, and that wasn't a good thing.
By the time they reached the end of the corridor, Juliana's eyes had adjusted to the low light and she could see somewhat. A tall staircase spiraled up. And up. And up. The light in the stairwell grew a little brighter as they went.
"My knees hurt," Amanda complained halfway up. "Can we please stop and rest?"
"Of course we can," the duke said.
Propelled by James, Juliana passed them and kept going.
Behind her, Frances giggled. "I cannot remember the last time I turned in so many circles!"
Indeed, Juliana felt like a blindfolded child being spun around as part of a game. It was a bit disorienting. She held tighter to James, noticing he seemed to be limping a little more than usual. Maybe Amanda had been right when she said he shouldn't have been kneeling.
Suddenly the staircase ended, and they emerged to find themselves transported to another time and place. Like magic, they'd gone from Leicester Square to Belgium in a matter of minutes.
Feeling like she was still spinning, Juliana wormed her way through the crowd and gripped the platform's rail. All around her, above and below, a battlefield stretched miles into the distance.
"Amazing," James breathed behind
her.
It was overwhelming. She knew the panorama was only a giant painting, but everything in the rotunda was designed to trick the eyes. Indirect illumination, provided by narrow skylights beneath the edge of the domed ceiling, made it look like outdoors at dusk. Far below, a three-dimensional terrain stretched from under the platform up to the walls, filled with lifelike vegetation, objects, and figures that blended into the picture, making everything seem real.
And all around, the Battle of Waterloo raged.
Chaos reigned. Cavalrymen charged on horses with bayoneted infantry at their backs. Officers gave orders, soldiers aided the fallen, smoke rose from cannons in a stand of trees. The ground was low in places, muddy in others, fenced and open, brown and green, flat and rough and everything in between. Fields that should have been smooth were littered with the killed and wounded, the contents of their knapsacks strewn all over. As far as the eye could see, men scrambled and fought, their guns and swords flashing in the glistening haze made by spent artillery.
When Juliana finally felt steady enough to release the rail, she edged sideways around the platform, working her way through the other milling spectators. It seemed they were all standing in a pavilion on the top of a small hill in the center of the battle. The soldiers looked wet, dirty, and blue with cold. She could have sworn she saw a mounted officer raise a hat to signal an attack. A shiver ran down her spine.
"I feel seasick," Frances said from somewhere close on the platform.
"Hold on to me," Lord Malmsey said. "You have delicate nerves, my love."
His love? Blinking in the twilight, Juliana tore her gaze from the panorama and turned toward the voices.
But the couple was no longer nearby.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Where's my aunt?" Juliana cried. "And Lord Malmsey?"
James curved an arm around her, pulling her close. "We'll find them later," he said, his low voice seeming to vibrate right through her.
Though she knew she shouldn't, she leaned into him. "Where are the duke and Lady Amanda?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes!" Amanda was supposed to be here with James in the dark. Kissing him. No matter that the thought of his kisses made Juliana's stomach feel queer.
She swayed.
"Are you feeling seasick, too?" he asked.
"No." It was just the sound of his deep chocolate voice making her dizzy. And the thought of kissing him. She couldn't kiss him. Not again. If she was going to kiss anyone, it should be the duke.
But the duke didn't want to kiss her until they were married, and in any case, he was with Amanda. In fact, Amanda had probably latched on to him knowing he wouldn't kiss her.
If a woman feared being kissed, the duke was a much safer bet than James.
"Do you see them?" she asked James, trying to peer around him.
He drew her toward the staircase. "Maybe they've gone downstairs. I think we should go and see."
They walked all the way down, around and around, but the others were nowhere to be found. At the bottom, they retraced their steps down the corridor, laughingly feeling their way along the walls again. James, Juliana noticed even in the darkness, was definitely limping more than usual. Reaching the end, they opened the door and looked out into Leicester Square.
She blinked in the bright sunshine. There was no sign of her aunt or Amanda or the other men. "They must still be upstairs," she said.
"They must." A family was approaching the door, so James drew her back inside to let them pass.
The children giggled when the door closed behind them and the corridor plunged into darkness. "Don't run!" the parents cautioned as their offspring made their way toward the staircase.
The youngsters giggled again and again, bumping each other and the walls. Still, when James took Juliana's hand and began to follow them, she could hear his uneven gait.
"Your leg is hurting you, isn't it?"
She felt rather than saw him shrug. "It was a tall staircase. I'm fine."
The vast number of steps hadn't occurred to her when she'd suggested today's outing. Unlike Amanda, she never really thought about James's limp at all. He never mentioned it, and it was usually so slight. "Does it hurt very often?"
"Only when it's cold and rainy."
"Dear heavens." She gripped his arm with her other hand, effectively dragging him to a stop. "It must hurt all the time this year."
His laughter echoed down the corridor. "It's not that painful. The limb is stiffer than I'd like, but the sensation is just a dull ache. Nothing to merit your concern. In a strange sort of way I actually embrace the discomfort—it reminds me how fortunate I am to still have it."
"When did it happen? And how?"
"Peninsular War," James explained. "Took a ball right below the knee." The giggles grew fainter as, at the other end of the corridor, the family started up the staircase. "The army surgeons wanted to amputate, but one managed to save it instead."
"I'm glad," Juliana murmured, thinking he was stoic and brave.
Amanda should be so grateful to have him.
"I was lucky." The footsteps faded away, and James continued walking down the corridor. "And extremely grateful for the man's skill. Since I could no longer march with the army, I needed another profession, and—"
"That's why you became a doctor," she interrupted softly.
"Have you still been puzzling over that?" he wondered with a low laugh as they neared the steps. "Yes, this time you're more or less correct. Eventually, though, I chose the life of a physician over that of a surgeon. I decided I'd rather work with stethoscopes than saws."
Suppressing a sickening vision of a surgeon's saw covered in blood, Juliana took a while to notice that instead of starting up the staircase, he'd drawn her around and underneath it.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"People will bump into us if we wait in the corridor. We'll wait here instead."
It was very dark under the steps, and James would take advantage of the dark. He'd claim he wanted to practice and try to kiss her again. She'd told Amanda as much, hadn't she, because she knew it to be true from experience. "I think we should go back upstairs."
"If we wait here," he argued, "your aunt and the others will surely come down."
"Aunt Frances won't be able to see us under here." Especially considering Frances was probably busy kissing Lord Malmsey. Bold men had a tendency to take advantage of the dark, and while Lord Malmsey might have started out rather shy, he was obviously getting bolder by the minute. Already today he'd been bold enough to kiss Frances in James's carriage and call her my love.
Juliana's stomach felt queer—and suddenly she knew why.
Lord Malmsey had called Aunt Frances my love.
Juliana wanted someone to call her my love.
She wanted James to call her my love.
Because she loved James, and she wanted him to love her back.
But that would never happen.
"I don't know what to do," she said.
She wanted to love the duke. But she loved James instead, because James was warm and affectionate and charitable and everything else the duke wasn't. It didn't matter anymore that James was too tall and had dark hair and a profession. He was brave and stoic. They fit perfectly together, and he was the most handsome man she knew, and as for his profession, well, he was trying to rid the world of the scourge of smallpox, and whatever could be wrong with that?
But she couldn't marry James, because he would never love her. Like her mother, she'd be unhappy all her days. And the duke needed her, and he was very kind, and he was sending her flowers and falling in love with her. James and Amanda belonged together. They shared interests that Juliana didn't. They filled each other's needs.
Juliana's stomach didn't just feel queer anymore—it hurt. And she wished she'd never said she didn't know what to do, because she couldn't possibly explain any of this to James.
Fortunately, he interpreted I don't know what to do in
an entirely different context. "It doesn't make much sense to walk all the way up again only to turn around and come back down." Edging her even deeper under the steps, he raised a hand and traced one finger in a shivery line down her jaw. "Don't worry about whether your aunt will see us. I'll watch for her and the others. And while we're waiting, we can practice kissing."
She'd known he would say that, hadn't she? And she knew she shouldn't agree. But she also knew she shouldn't insist he walk up all those stairs again or his poor leg would pain him even more.
"You don't need to practice kissing," she told him with no small amount of conviction. James had been married, after all. She hadn't known that when she'd first suggested he might need lessons, but she knew it now. He'd had practice. He kissed so well a woman would have to be daft to think he needed practice.
His finger lingered at the base of her chin, tracing little circles there, threatening to break her resolve. At the far end of the corridor, the door opened, admitting more people and a little light, just enough so Juliana could see James's gaze, which was so intense she could tell he knew exactly the effect his actions were having on her.
Oh, yes, he'd had practice.
The door shut, plunging the corridor back into darkness as the people made their way to the stairwell. "It's been a long time since I've kissed a woman," he said quietly, apparently reading her mind again.
"It's been less than twenty-four hours."
"But before that, it was a long time."
His finger continued down her throat, slowly, slowly. Wishing she could see him, she swallowed hard. "You're not going to unbutton, are you?"
His laugh was quick, low, and pleased. "No, I'm not going to unbutton here." His finger zigzagged down her chest, lightly, lightly, making every nerve in her body sing. "Practice with me, Juliana," he murmured as it disappeared into the little valley between her breasts.
She couldn't breathe. No man had ever touched her there, and now his finger was tracing up and down, making her heart pound and her breasts ache.
My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 31
