“And then, when we were ready to fly from the nest and I finally heeded your advice—choosing the banker’s son—look what happened.”
Juliana’s hand shot up to cover her face. She shook her head.
“The hazards of the business,” Cecilia Black interjected. “Which no one can anticipate. Nor anyone take blame.”
“Except the so-called gentlemen in question,” Belle muttered.
“True enough,” Cecilia agreed without heat. “Though, like Holly, I suspect I would be poxed or dead by now if our daring Dragon Lady had not taken us up.” A murmur of agreement from Belle and Holly confirmed this statement. “So,” Cecy continued briskly, “the residents at Princes Street will do all we can to help. As you know, Nick, though confined to lurking in the shadows, is not without power.”
At that, her three listeners stifled smiles.
“Perhaps we should lend her Fetch,” Holly offered, a mischievous light dancing in her dark eyes. If ever there was someone with as Machiavellian a turn of mind as Mr. Black—”
“Or Mr. Wolfe,” Cecilia added.
“Indeed.” Juliana intoned, her face gone grim.
“A dinner party, I think,” Belle offered. “To test the waters. If all goes smoothly, Lady R may—”
“Juliana.”
Belle flashed a quick smile, nodded. “Juliana may leave cards with the closest of her friends from schooldays and from the years of her marriage. There must be some among them willing to ignore any gossip they might have heard.”
“In the course of my expanding charity work,” Cecy offered, “I have met a number of fine ladies. A few have even been bold enough to invite us to social events, though I fear it was for what I heard one call the “frighteningly delicious palpitations” caused by having Nick Black in their midst.”
All four ladies chuckled.
“So that’s it then,” Belle declared. “Allow me time to select a guest list of charming raconteurs and the least insipid ladies I know.” She cocked her head to one side, mentally scanning the roles of London society. “Spiced with a few liberal-minded Whigs modified by a sober Tory or two, so they will be at each other’s throats, thus distracting everyone from the thought of sitting down at table with the headmistress of the Aphrodite Academy.”
“Belle!” Cecilia chided, while Holly clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
“No one said this was to be easy,” Belle shot back. “We must be as clever as Wellington planning his campaigns.”
“I think it’s a grand idea,” Holly cried. “Truly, Belle, you have found the right path.”
“May have found,” Juliana murmured, flinching at thought of the rebuffs she might well encounter. Wisely, her three former pupils remained silent.
She would find her way back into the ton, Juliana vowed. Not because she wanted to but because she must. It was the only way she could find a high-ranking gentleman in search of a wife instead of a mistress. And wave him under Darius Wolfe’s nose like the Union Jack flying over Whitehall.
The dinner, carefully staged by Belle, Viscountess Ashford, went more smoothly than Juliana had dared hope. The ladies declared themselves delighted to renew her acquaintance and hoped she was fixed in town for the entire Season. They even seemed eager to include her on their guest lists. But it was, of course, the gentlemen Juliana feared most. None, however, seemed startled to see her—Juliana suspected they had been forewarned. After all, Gabriel, Lord Ashford, had always been socially adept. Heir to an earldom, he had the gift of being able to move with ease from the haut ton to the questionable fringes of society, even surviving with ease his forays into London’s vast underworld, the purview of Nick Black.
Yes, her girls had done well. Juliana sighed. Now she too needed to be rescued. Needed to find a hero. An almost insurmountable task when, in her heart, only one man reigned. In her head and heart, a bell tolled but one note. Darius, Darius, Darius.
Darius Wolfe—one of the sharp angles of a triangle. She, another. The two of them forever held apart by the third angle—Geoffrey, Baron Rivenhall.
A silent scream echoed through her head. Gone, gone, gone, he must be gone!
Faintly, insidiously, the bell still tolled. Darius. Darius. Darius.
While Madame Francine rushed her seamstresses to finish Lady Rivenhall’s new garments, Juliana visited Princes Street, where she renewed her acquaintance with Nicholas Black and his young apprentice, Fetch, a remarkable lad of nearly seventeen who remained determinedly nameless, declaring he’d know when the time was right to choose a name for himself. As Nick Black had done.
Juliana also visited Holly and her brood of three, the twins a whirlwind of energy, the baby a handsome mix of fine looks from both mother and father. And then there was Cathy, the nursery maid, breathtakingly young, her devotion to Fetch—and he to her—stretching back into difficult years neither cared to remember. As much as the ladies of the Aphrodite Academy shook their heads over love in the infantry, they could not help but admire the pair’s constancy. Love came in all forms, and besides, Holly informed them rather tartly, Royce had made sure Fetch knew what would happen if the boy ever left Cathy with her apron riding high. And be damned to Nick Black. Considering that Black was Royce Kincade’s employer, at least for one more voyage, Juliana thought the captain’s threat remarkably courageous.
Juliana also returned to Thornhill Manor for an overnight stay, delivering one of her pithy lectures on the life a courtesan might expect, the inevitable pitfalls to be weighed against the distinct advantages of independence, of being sole owner of what one earned instead of a husband’s chattel. This year, however, her words of advice seemed to come more slowly to her lips. Perhaps because she had just witnessed, in the bosom of their homes, the happiness of her former pupils. Each married, and with seemingly no major problems beyond Cecilia’s inability to conceive.
Yes, Juliana conceded, she was actually teetering on the verge of admitting that if one had the right husband . . .
Yet how could she fault Geoffrey? In his own way he had treated her well. With the wisdom of hindsight she could accept that he could not help being what he was. He had always been kind to her. He had left her all his worldly goods. Outright, not in trust with a panel of his cronies to dole out funds as they saw fit. She owned a vast number of properties, had money in the funds, was headmistress of a school that rescued young women from appalling situations. She had arranged marriages, found respectable positions for those who wished it. And trained the finest, best-educated, most adept courtesans London had ever seen.
Yet without Darius, her triumph had turned to dust.
With a frown, Juliana returned to the small stack of invitations she had found on her desk when she returned from Richmond. Invitations. She had actually received invitations to ton events. God bless Belle. And whatever kindness the Almighty was granting her in allowing her to slip back into society, if only on its outer fringes.
Her hands, she noted with some surprise, were shaking as she broke the seal on the first note and began to read.
Chapter Six
Juliana edged her way through the Mablethorpe’s crowded drawing room, a pleasant if somewhat lofty expression fixed firmly in place. Distance, she needed distance, a moment of respite from the crowd. Time to calm her racing heart, catch her breath, assure herself this was not the fatal hour when all was lost.
Not that Lord Bromley, one of Geoffrey’s cronies, had said a single word, but the look he gave her—salacious yet amused, as if he shared the joke she was playing on the ton . . . And then he’d dared—a paunchy, dissolute earl who would never see fifty again—he’d dared wink at her before sauntering off to the card room.
She had known this would happen, of course. She should have been better prepared, yet after nearly a fortnight of being accepted without a murmur, the encounter had shocked her to the core. This, on top of meeting Darius and his inamorata at every turn—the opera, a musicale, a rout, twice again in Hyde Park. And tonight
. There they were, next to one of the room’s two magnificent green marble fireplaces, talking, smiling, laughing—clearly being incredibly witty. Displaying their intimacy for everyone to see!
Juliana gritted her teeth, unsure which urge was strongest—the desire to swat the abominably perfect Countess of Charlbury over the head with the nearest handy object, do the same to Darius, or simply stand there and scream to the heavens, protesting the rules that divided society into such strict striations of class. Rules that could sweep away a reputation—a fate confined solely to a female’s reputation, of course—plunging her from parties such as this to the depths of scandal. Forcing her to retreat not only from the ton but from London itself. If the poor female was among the more fortunate rejects, she would be able to lose herself in the obscurity of the countryside. If not so fortunate, she would be plunged into the pit of degradation, shunned on every side.
Pain rippled through her. Was this not what had happened to many of her students, girls like Belle who had been born into the nobility, or like Cecilia, a product of middle-class gentility? Yet censure was almost never directed against men. Men could do anything, short of murder, and still be considered gentlemen. Still acceptable at their clubs, at Almack’s, private house parties, the hunt. It was not fair!
Ha! Whoever said life was fair?
“Lady Rivenhall.”
Startled, Juliana placed a steadying hand against a pillar, gulped a breath, and forced herself to look at the owner of the strident voice that had interrupted her thoughts. The voice that belonged to a woman built like a plow-horse and currently advancing on her with patent determination. She was accompanied by a sharp-faced woman half her size but whose shoulders were set just as firmly, proclaiming her a woman on a mission. Oh dear God, it’s begun. Juliana had met them earlier, both wives of Members of Parliament. Frantically, she searched for their names. Dunholm. Hortense Dunholm. And Albinia . . . Huffington? No. Houghton. Albinia Houghton. Mrs. Dunholm was the plow-horse, Mrs. Houghton the skinny, intense one.
They were upon her.
“Ladies,” Juliana offered, deciding on the safe choice, in case she had mixed up the names. She offered her most gracious smile while ordering her quivering insides to turn to ice.
“How fortunate to find you unengaged,” Mrs. Dunholm boomed.
“Yes,” Mrs. Houghton echoed in a voice more like a pennywhistle than her companion’s near baritone, “we most particularly wished to speak with you.”
Juliana summoned a polite smile and waited for the blow that was sure to come.
“To be plain,” Hortense Dunholm declared, “we understand you are acquainted with Mrs. Nicholas Black. Is that true?”
Attacking from an oblique angle, were they? Double, double, toil and trouble. “I consider Cecilia Black a good friend,” Juliana responded, head high. Never would she deny one of her students, most particularly one who had become a close friend.
“How fortunate.” Albinia Houghton’s shrill voice assaulted Juliana’s ear. A long moment passed before she could process her surprise at the woman’s words.
“I beg your pardon?”
Mrs. Dunholm, clearly sensing victory in sight, leaped in to explain. “Our husbands are sponsoring a bill to stop the dreadful practice of using children little more than babies as chimney sweeps. Since we are aware, of course, of Mr. Black’s humble origins, we hoped he might be willing to contribute both money and his considerable influence toward passage of this bill.”
Juliana tried not to gape. For one of a very few times in her life, a wave of dizziness passed over her. These women wanted her help? “I am certain Mr. Black will look favorably on your cause,” she managed. “I will speak to his wife about it as soon as possible.” As the ladies expressed their thanks, Juliana added, “I wonder if you are aware that I too contribute to many charities. I should be happy to join in such a cause.”
Both women were political wives, well schooled in hiding their thoughts and emotions, but Juliana saw their hesitation. Not surprise at her wealth but reservation. They knew. And had approached her, willing to accept funds and support from the master of the Underworld, but doubtful about a contribution from the headmistress of the Aphrodite Academy. Juliana stood proud, slamming closed the narrow gaps in her armor that had begun to open over the past fortnight.
Hortense Dunholm, after what might have been a wince, gathered her considerable girth and pronounced, “We would, of course, be delighted to accept any contribution you might wish to make, Lady Rivenhall. Thank you for your time. Come, Albinia, I believe I see Lord Mablethorpe is free at the moment. We shall try him next.”
As the ladies turned their backs on her and walked away, Juliana closed her eyes, swaying slightly. Not as bad as she’d feared, but a blow nonetheless.
A strong hand closed over her arm. “Are you all right?”
Juliana’s eyelids popped open and she found herself face to face with almost the last person she expected to see. Although Jason, Marquess of Longmere, was a high-ranking member of the ton, he tended to eschew society events, preferring the company of other gentlemen doing their best to avoid the marriage mart while indulging in female companionship of a more temporary kind.
Longmere, who had beaten Cecilia Lily before falling into a drunken stupor while she stumbled out of his house on Cavendish Square, only to collapse at the foot of his front steps.
Longmere, Nicholas Black’s younger brother.
“I am quite well, my lord.” Juliana stared at his hand until he retrieved it, a rueful smile twitching his lips.
“I have reformed, you know,” he told her. “I no longer drink to excess or indulge in orgies. I haven’t even snapped at my valet more than a time or two in past year. Behold.” He spread his arms wide. “I even attend an occasional ton event.”
“Because Nick Black threatened you.”
“Because on the morning after I hurt Cecy, I awoke to the knowledge of what I had become. Believe me, I did not need Nick’s threats or that absurd trap at his gaming house. Or the rest of it,” he added grimly.”
Oddly, she wished she could believe him. He was a handsome man, his light brown hair arranged in a nonchalant Brutus cut, his usually cool blue eyes displaying a surprising warmth.
“You realize, of course, that I am one of the many men here who knows all about you. One of the many who would prefer to enjoy your charming company rather than see you ostracized.”
“Are you threatening me?” Juliana demanded.
A bark of laughter. He seized her by the hand, towing her into a dark corner behind a potted palm. “Good God, woman, I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you that you’re being protected. A good quarter of the men here have availed themselves of what your so sparkling and adept pupils have to offer. Betray you? Never.”
Juliana fought to present the portrait of the woman of the world she knew herself to be, even though at the moment she felt as uncertain as a girl in her first Season. She could not thank Longmere for such condescension—rather like the pot excusing the kettle for being black—but she inclined her head in acknowledgment of his alleged reformation.
“Do you still play piquet as well as you once did?” he asked, deftly changing the subject.
“It has been a while, my lord. I fear I am greatly out of practice.”
“Then it’s time to polish your skills.” The marquess offered his arm. “My lady?”
For as long as ten seconds Juliana stared at the proffered arm, her face oddly blank. And then she laid her hand over his and sailed past the stares—the most shocked from Belle—as she exited the room on Longmere’s arm.
“The Marquess of Longmere.”
Chatter among the ladies taking tea at the house on Mount Street ceased abruptly at the butler’s words. All eyes focused on the doorway where Jason, Marquess of Longmere, paused as if framed for a portrait. Juliana rose, dropping into the curtsy demanded by good manners, even as a rush of heat shocked her with its intensity. Just because they ha
d fallen into a flirtation over cards did not mean she had forgiven him for what he did to Cecy.
Longmere stepped forward, took her hand in his, and kissed the air above her knuckles in an outmoded gesture that provoked a flutter of whispers from her visitors. Juliana reminded herself she was no green girl. It had been more than a decade since she made her debut in society. She could manage a lion come stalking among the lambs.
“Please join us, my lord. I believe these ladies are already known to you.”
The marquess acknowledged each visitor in turn, before saying, “I did not mean to intrude, ladies. I have merely come to invite Lady Rivenhall to drive out with me this afternoon.” He turned the full effect of his rare smile on Juliana. “Will you join me, my lady?” Leaning closer with words for her ears alone, he added, “It would be quite a coup, you know, being the first gentleman to be seen driving you through the park since your return to town.”
Juliana came close to gasping out loud. The nerve of the man. Particularly when she, with Darius and Nick Black, had been instrumental in his punishment for what he had done to Cecy, forcing him into severe financial losses from which he was only beginning to recover. He had to have some ulterior motive for casting his eyes in her direction.
Yet she had come alive last night during their many rounds of piquet. Surely the admiration in his eyes had not been wholly false. And even if it was . . . she could use Longmere as he was perhaps using her. Was she not seeking a man to flaunt before Darius? A man of rank and power. Who better than the Marquess of Longmere? That there was already enmity between the two men made her revenge all the sweeter.
Juliana offered a smile as cool as his ice blue eyes. “I should be delighted, my lord.”
“Until five.” He bowed, inclined his head to the other ladies. Several soft sighs were heard as his broad shoulders disappeared through the door.
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