Juliana (23 page)

“You mentioned chess,” he said. “Would you care for a game?”

“Lady Amanda adores chess.” She really had something she needed to discuss. “I prefer playing cards, especially casino.”

“I enjoy whist,” he said. “Perhaps someday you can teach me casino. When is our next outing?” He reached for his glass of port, his arm brushing up against her in the process.

He should be touching Amanda instead. He should be making
her
shiver. Juliana leaned closer and lowered her voice. “You don’t need any more lessons.” She could smell his spicy scent.

“Oh.” He took a sip and set down the glass, looking relieved. Or maybe disappointed.

No, relieved. For what reason could he be disappointed?

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Quite. I’ve been thinking…”

“Yes?” Grazing her again, he forked up another bite.

Juliana lowered her voice. “We need to plan a way for you to publicly compromise Lady Amanda.”

The fork clattered back to the plate. “Compromise Lady Amanda? Whyever would I do that?”

“In order to get her father to agree to your marrying her.”

“What could make you think I’d do something so underhanded?” he hissed. Juliana couldn’t tell whether he was more shocked or affronted. “And besides, why should her father reject me? It’s not as though I’m a pauper.”

That much was clear—a pauper didn’t set his table with gold spoons. But if James reacted this way to the very idea of compromising Amanda, what would he do if he found out she was already engaged? What would he do if he realized that in order to marry her, he’d have to trick Lord Wolverston into breaking a contract with another man?

He’d refuse to marry her, that was what.

He was apparently too honorable to have anything to do with something as
underhanded
as what Juliana and Amanda had planned. But their plan wasn’t underhanded—it was necessary. And under the circumstances, it was justified.

Lord Wolverston wasn’t honorable—he was treating his daughter hideously—which meant dishonorable means were entirely justifiable to stop him.

But she knew James wouldn’t see it that way. He was too good. Too good for his own good.

As Amanda and the duke stepped into the room from the alcove, Juliana sighed and moved to a chair so Amanda could sit beside James. But Amanda didn’t, choosing another chair to sit upon instead, because, after all, she was a reserved sort of girl, and James’s tall frame didn’t leave very much room on the cozy love seat.

Heaven forbid Amanda should sit too close to a young man—even one she was planning on marrying.

Juliana rolled her eyes and took a bite of her tart, thinking that if James and Amanda weren’t going to share the love seat, she should share it herself with the duke so she could start teaching him to be more affectionate. He’d chosen the chair beside her, unsurprisingly, but that wasn’t close enough. Of course, before she could share the love seat with the duke, she’d have to get James to move off of it.

“Lord Stafford would like to pass some time playing chess,” she told Amanda.

“Another time,” James disagreed. “An evening is never long in good company.”

“An ancient proverb,” Amanda said with a small smile.

Whether it was a proverb or not, Juliana had failed to get James off the love seat. Oh, well, she thought with an internal sigh, she’d have to sit closer to the duke next time. And so she spent the evening being good company…all the while wracking her brains for a way to help a too-good person like James win the happiness he deserved.

And failing utterly to come up with anything.

“WHAT A LOVELY
girl,” Cornelia said after closing the door behind their guests.

James turned to her wearily. Spending time with Juliana—without being able to touch her—seemed to have worn him out. “Yes, Mother,” he said. “Lady Amanda is quite lovely.”

“Well, yes, she is, but I was speaking of Lady Juliana.” She started up the wide, cantilevered stone staircase that led to the upper floors. “Lady Juliana is lovely on the inside, don’t you think? Not that she isn’t pretty, mind you—she’s a darling little thing—but I think the way she tries so hard to help is lovely in itself. She really cares about people. She brought us all a sweet she made from her great-grandmother’s recipe. She makes clothing for the Foundling Hospital. And she even volunteered to help at the New Hope Institute.” Halfway up, she paused and turned to look back at him, her hand on the trompe l’oeil-painted metal balustrade. “A lady of the
ton
, helping at your Institute!”

James was quite aware that Juliana had mistakenly manipulated herself into that position, but he wouldn’t say so to his mother. Because Cornelia was right. Juliana
was
lovely inside. She wasn’t nearly as frivolous as he’d once thought. In fact, she wasn’t frivolous at all.

“She’s a treasure,” his mother declared. “I think you should marry
her
instead of Lady Amanda.”

“I never said I was marrying anyone!” James burst out in shock. The second time he’d been shocked this evening. Or rather, the third. The first had been when Juliana suggested he deliberately compromise Lady Amanda. The second had been when he nearly turned to her and replied,
What if I want to marry you instead?

But he didn’t want to marry her. He didn’t want to marry anyone. He wasn’t yet ready to face a loveless marriage. Least of all to a
treasure
like Juliana.

“Good night, Mother,” he said, suddenly even wearier than before. But he took the steps two at a time so he could escape before his mother said anything more. “Sleep well,” he called on the landing. Then he made his way down the corridor, ducked into the study, closed the door behind him, and dropped to the long leather sofa that sat before his father’s big oak desk.

And there, without undressing—without even a thought of moving to his bedroom—he slept.

“I CANNOT
believe you didn’t tell me you’d talked to Lord Stafford,” Amanda said the next afternoon. “What did he say, then?”

The day had dawned bright and sunny for a change, and if it wasn’t exactly warm, at least it wasn’t freezing. Following Juliana’s rescheduled sewing party—after which, despite everyone’s help, Emily had calculated that Juliana
still
needed a hundred and seventy-eight items of baby clothes—she’d taken Amanda across the street into Berkeley Square, where they sat on a bench beneath a plane tree, eating ices from Gunter’s Tea Shop.

Or at least Juliana was eating hers.

“Do you know,” she said, “this is the first ice I’ve had all summer.” She scooped up the last spoonful and let it melt on her tongue. “Delicious. White currant is the best.”

Amanda’s strawberry ice sat in her dish untouched. “What did he say?” she repeated. “When does he think we should carry out our plan?”

Juliana sighed and licked her spoon. “He doesn’t think we should carry out our plan at all. He called it
underhanded
.”

“Underhanded?”

“Yes. He wants to ask for your hand outright. He says there’s no reason your father shouldn’t agree.”

“He doesn’t know my father, then,” Amanda said dejectedly. She poked her spoon at her melty pink ice, staring at the statue of King George in the middle of the square. “What did he say when you told him Father is too stubborn to break the agreement with Lord Malmsey?”

“I didn’t tell him that. James—I mean, Lord Stafford—would never pursue you if he knew you’re already engaged. He’s too
honorable
.” She spit out the last word.

“Like my father, putting his honor before my happiness.”

“Lord Stafford isn’t selfish, just principled. It’s not the same.”

“I don’t see how it’s different.” Amanda slowly stirred what was now strawberry soup. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night? On the way home in Lord Stafford’s carriage?”

“I don’t know,” Juliana admitted. She shifted her gaze from Amanda’s mopey face to the statue of their monarch. His Majesty was mounted on a horse, wearing some sort of draped garment she supposed was intended to be Greek or Roman. “I guess I was trying to figure out how to fix this.”

“And what did you come up with?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Amanda set the dish on the bench beside her. “You
always
have a plan.”

“No, I don’t.” Juliana sighed. “I don’t have a plan this time.”

“Well, I do,” Amanda declared.

Juliana couldn’t have been more surprised if King George had suddenly come to life and danced a jig atop the horse. “You have a plan?”

“Yes. We shall trick Lord Stafford into compromising me.”

“
We
shall do no such thing.” Juliana wasn’t sure which shocked her more: prissy Amanda suggesting such a plan or the thought of tricking someone who’d become her friend. “That would be reprehensible. Unethical. Completely disgraceful.”

“Why? You said he wanted to marry me. If his supposed honor is standing in the way, we’d be doing him a favor, wouldn’t we?”

“No,” Juliana said, and then, “Well, maybe. I don’t know.”

Amanda had a point. James
did
want to marry her. He’d said as much, hadn’t he? He’d said Amanda was lovely—many times—and he’d said her father should accept his suit. He wouldn’t
have
a suit if he wasn’t wanting to marry her. Why else would he have bought her gifts and asked her to dance? More than once. At every ball, as a matter of fact. And he’d invited Amanda to his home.

Well, technically his mother had done the inviting. But it was his home, and surely she’d had his approval. “Do you enjoy playing whist?” she suddenly asked.

“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

Amanda liked whist, as did James. And chess. And she wasn’t sickened by blood. No wonder James loved her and wished to marry her. And the only way to make his wish come true was to…

Wasn’t it?

“I think we should do it this Saturday,” Amanda said, interrupting Juliana’s line of reasoning. “At the Billingsgate ball.”

Apparently Amanda had
destroyed
Juliana's line of reasoning, not just interrupted it. Because suddenly she wasn't sure everything quite made sense. “I don’t know,” she said again. “It just seems wrong somehow to plot behind Lord Stafford’s back. It makes me feel guilty.”

“Guilty? I think not.” Juliana couldn’t remember Amanda ever sounding so sure of herself. “I told you, we’ll be doing him a
favor
.”

There it was, that
we
again. That guilty-making
we
. “Maybe you should do this alone, Amanda.”

“Why?” Amanda shifted to face her on the bench, her eyes not sparkling but pleading. “I cannot plan this alone. I need your help, Juliana—you’re the bright one of us, after all.”

Well, Amanda had
that
right. Bookish was not the same as bright.

“You cannot really feel guilty,” Amanda added.

“Maybe just a bit.”

“Well, you shouldn’t.”

Perhaps Amanda’s arguments were valid. After all, James wanted to marry her. And Lord Malmsey certainly didn’t. And Aunt Frances—dear, myopic Aunt Frances—would be devastated if Lord Malmsey left her for Amanda. The only person who would be happy if Amanda
didn’t
trick James was her dratted, conniving father. Surely that would be the greater wrong.

That all sounded well justified, did it not?

Juliana’s sisters often said that justification was one of her many talents.

“Well?” Amanda asked.

“All right. We’ll make a plan.”