To Catch A Duke (2 page)

While the other females he knew had
been learning the various feminine arts, Julia had roamed free with her
brother, since it was assumed that she would never be out much in society, let
alone marry.
 
She'd been promised a
season, true, but no one, least of all Julia, expected it to result in anything
more than a few nights of entertainment and enjoyment in London.
 
No, she would be given the season, as well
as the presentation at court that befitted her station, and then she would
become a spinster, old well before her time.
 
If Julia had any objection to that plan, she'd never voiced it.
 
Instead, she simply roamed wild in Sussex,
even after Nicholas and Benjamin had gone off to Eton, somehow knowing that she
would never have what other young ladies of her station took for granted.

That had been the plan, anyway,
until Reginald Rosemont had passed away, leaving his family to pick up the
pieces of their shattered life, and a new duke to put the estate's affairs in
order, something the old duke had never been particularly good at
handling.
 
And somewhere along the way,
the plan for Julia's life changed.

Nicholas insisted that his sister,
even though she was essentially living in exile in Sussex, had all of the
tutors and lessons that a young woman of quality would need to be presented to
society.
 
Her wild ways were reigned in,
and she was taught the feminine arts that other society misses already
knew.
 
In essence, she became the
perfect lady, skilled at just about everything she attempted.

That the Duke of Radcliffe had been
the one urging Nicholas to do those things for his sister was beside the point.

It was never lost on Benjamin that
the tragedy that had befallen the Rosemont family had affected Julia most of
all.
 
Even at his young-ish age six
years ago, that had been rather plain to him.
 
While Nicholas had returned to town and resumed his life, Julia had
languished in Sussex, seeing no one and going nowhere.
 
For some reason, that had made Benjamin
unaccountably sad, and he was a man not given overmuch to sentimentality.
 
However, he could not stand to see his old
friend become stagnant and grow old before her time.
 
It was just not right.

So he'd convinced, in an
underhanded way, of course, Nicholas to give his sister the season she'd been
denied, promising to watch over her at functions, not to mention adding a
little additional money to the coffers for her dresses, as the Rosemont estate,
while financially recovered, was still not quite flush, and generally being a
silent, if a bit menacing, guardian angel.
 
Until tonight, that plan had worked splendidly.
 
Julia may have seen him at events, but he
was confident that she had no idea he was responsible for her season - even
though it was indirectly.

Then those two vipers had unleashed
their poisoned tongues on Julia and all of the hard work, including his part in
it, had nearly come undone.
 
Even now,
he wasn't certain that Julia believed he'd just shown up out of nowhere.
 
Still, from the expression on her face, she
was somewhat grateful for his assistance.
 
He hoped.

"Don't allow them to see that
they've gotten to you," he said with a forced smile as he spun Julia
around the room, leading her in the dance and tying not to notice that she felt
soft and warm against him.
 
"If
they know, they'll attack again, harder and more vicious next time."

She gave a low snort, very
unladylike, but so soft that no one else heard.
 
So much like the Julia he remembered.
 
"As if it could be worse."
 
She looked up at him with eyes so brown that they seemed as if
they were tinged with mahogany and amber, reminding him of his favorite
scotch.
 
"Thankfully, the season is
less than another month long, and then I can return to Sussex and never see any
of these dragons again."

"It cannot be that bad, can
it?" Benjamin asked uncertainly.
 
He'd thought things were going well for Julia.
 
At least Nicholas had intimated as much.
 
Was it possible that was not the case?

Looking to her left where Letitia
and Henrietta still fumed, Julia's skin flushed crimson and white again.
 
"It is worse than you can possibly
imagine, my lord."
 

He noted that she was careful not
to call him by his Christian name, as they would have done had then been
alone.
 
Her mother, who had been so
fearful that Julia would make such a mistake, would have been proud.
 
Except that she was no longer among the
living, leaving it up to Benjamin to note such things.

"It was my understanding that
you where having a go of things," he tried again, attempting to ascertain
the truth of the situation.
 
"I've
not heard anything to the contrary from Nicholas."
 
He did, however, think it prudent not to
mention the bet in White's legendary book regarding whether or not her scars
went all the way down to her stomach, or the lengthy discussions held in many
card rooms about her and how she had received the nasty markings.

She lowered her thick, black
lashes, and in that moment, Benjamin thought she looked every bit the perfect
society miss.
 
Simply lovely.
 
It was a shame others could not see her this
way.
 
Though at the thought of another
man gazing at Julia thus, his gut tightened, and he found that he did not care
of the idea.
 
Not at all.

"He does not know.
 
I have not told him."
 
Her voice was barely a whisper now.

"And Miss Thomas?"
 
Really, the woman was a chaperone and should
know better.

Julia turned her gaze back to him,
and he was more than a little distressed to see the look of hurt in her
eyes.
 
"She sleeps quite a
bit.
 
More often than not, actually, and
I do not believe her health is as good as we were led to believe.
 
Nicholas does not wish to trouble her and
rarely asks her about anything.
 
Not
that she could tell him much if he did.
 
She sees very little, particularly what goes on about me."

That made sense, Benjamin decided,
and made a note to have a doctor visit Candlewood House on the morrow to check
on Miss Thomas.
 
It couldn't hurt, and
really, if she was ill, there was a possibility that Julia could become
infected as well.
 
That would never do.

As the music swirled around them,
Benjamin executed the steps flawlessly.
 
After so many waltzes, he could perform the dance in his sleep if
necessary.
 
However, he also noted that
Julia was just as skilled as he, or near enough.
 
If she did not dance, was not enjoying the season, then how could
she become so skilled?
 
A dancing master
could only do so much, after all.
 
He
asked her as much.

"I practice alone, or with
Meggy, my maid," she said with a sigh, as if it pained her to admit such a
thing.
 
"I wish to dance, my
lord.
 
Truly I do.
 
But you know as well as I that I am not a
diamond of the first water and never shall be.
 
Men are interested in me only a curiosity.
 
Or worse.
 
And I will not
allow myself to be pawns in their games as they try to see which one might be
the first to lift my skirts."

The words were scandalous, and, had
it been anyone other than Julia, Benjamin would have laughed and thought that
the chit was coming on to him, hoping to be the next to warm his bed, even
though it was well known that he did not seduce virgins.
 
But it was Julia, and she was, as usual,
being brutally honest with him, as she always was.
 
This time, however, her words made him see red.

The very idea that any man might
attempt to use Julia in that way dredged up the rage he'd felt over the Misses
Worth and Cartwright, rage he'd managed to tamp down for Julia's sake, back to
the forefront of his mind.
 
No one, but
no one would take advantage of Julia, at least not while he was around.

He had sworn to protect Julia when
he'd been very young, but he'd never wavered in that commitment.
 
He was not about to begin now.

"Has anyone touched you?"
he demanded, knowing that he was glowering at her, his violet eyes probably as dark
as a gathering storm, but unable to help it.
 
"If they have, tell me their names and I will gladly dispatch them
for you."

In times past, she might have
slapped his arm in jest for a remark like that, but tonight, she only squeezed
his shoulder, the pressure of her hand on his body so light that he wasn't
certain that he'd felt it.
 
"No one
has touched me, but word is out among the young men of the
ton
that I am
not an easy mark, despite my physical issues.
 
There are few left at this point who are even interested in
trying."

"And so they do not approach
you at all," he said what she could not bring herself to.

"Indeed."
 
Julia looked up at him again, and once more,
he wondered again why other men could not see what a delight she was.
 
"That leaves only the other young women
who have come out this season for companionship, and while some, like Lady Amy
Cheltenham, daughter of the Earl of Evanston, are perfectly lovely, many others
are, well, not."

Benjamin knew that was as close as
she would come to spelling out explicitly what the other young ladies had done
to her, but he could guess.
 
As a lot,
this year's batch of debutantes were cruel, mostly because of a decided lack of
fresh young men available on the marriage mart as well.
 
Those that were eligible were like him -
confirmed bachelors who steered clear of the young virgins on display, as well
as their matchmaking mamas.

He also felt slightly guilty about
the misery she was enduring.
 
Had he not
practically forced Nicholas to allow Julia to have her season, she would be
safe and secure in Sussex, tucked away in her own little world rather than out
here in town at the mercy of the dragons and their daughters.
 
He also worried that she would look back on
her time in London as nothing but sheer misery, and that wasn't at all how he'd
intended for it to be.

Yes, she had the scars, but, to his
mind, they rather added to her beauty, not detracted from it.
 
On the other hand, he could also see how
they would make her a target for derision and humiliation.
 
She was different from the rest of the young
women, and, if nothing else, the
ton
feared that which was
different.
 
It was part of the reason
why they feared him.
 
After all, no one,
not even his father, had his lavender eyes, leading many to suspect one or both
of his parents had made a deal with the devil.
 
Ridiculous, but then, so was much of society.
 
So while they all respected him, there was a healthy does of fear
mixed in as well.

As a woman, Julia was simply mocked
and belittled for her differences.
 
And
he had been, indirectly at least, the one responsible.
 
That needed to change.
 
He needed to fix the damage he'd caused her
and give her some happy memories before she returned to Sussex.
 
For he had no doubt that once she did, she
was unlikely to ever leave Seldon Park again.

"We need to change that,"
he said finally, as the dance began to wind down.

This time when she looked up at
him, there was a hint of mirth in her soft smile.
 
"And how, exactly, do you propose to do that, my lord?
 
It is not as if you can force these women to
befriend me or the men to dance with me."

He gave her an imperious look, one
that normally stopped men in their tracks, but seemed to do little more than
annoy her.
 
"If I wanted them to,
they would."
 
He squeezed her hand
gently.
 
"But I will not.
 
However, have no fear, my lady.
 
I will make this right for you."

"You do not need to, my
lord," she assured him, but there was an air of sadness about her that he
didn't care for.
 
"It is not as if
I will see these people again after next month.
 
I will not attend their weddings, nor will they attend
mine."
 
Another delicate
snort.
 
"I will not have a wedding,
so there will be nothing to attend."

That made Benjamin growl, though
whether from her words or the idea of her marrying another, he could not
say.
 
"Do not say that!
 
There is a man out there for you."
 
He kept his voice low so that the other
dancers on the floor would not overhear them.
 
Again, this was another probably inappropriate conversation, but he and
Julia had passed that stage of familiarity long ago.