Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart
Page 34

Juliana felt ill.
“Do you see anything of interest?”
She inhaled sharply, nearly dropping the glasses at the whispered question.
She turned to meet Mariana’s gaze. “I—I was merely testing the opera glasses. I wanted to be certain that they were in working condition.”
“Ah.” A small smile played across her friend’s lips. “Because I could have sworn you were looking at the Duke of Leighton.”
“Why would I be doing that?” Juliana said, and the question came out at a near-inhuman pitch. She thrust the broken glasses into Mariana’s lap. “Here. They work.”
Mariana lifted the glasses, making absolutely no attempt to hide that she was looking at the Duke of Leighton. “I wonder why he is with Penelope Marbury?”
“He’s going to marry her,” Juliana grumbled.
Mariana gave Juliana a quick look of surprise. “Really. Well. She’s made the catch of a lifetime.”
The cod served at luncheon must have been off. It was the only reason why she would feel so very . . . queasy.
Mariana returned to her inspection. “Callie tells me that you’ve had several run-ins with him.”
Juliana shook her head, and whispered, “I don’t know what she is talking about. We haven’t run at all. There was a riding incident, but I didn’t think Callie knew about it . . .” She stopped talking as she noted that Mariana had lowered the glasses and was staring at her in shock. “I think I have misunderstood.”
Mariana recovered and said with a triumphant grin. “Indeed you have. How I adore that you still have not mastered English turns of phrase!”
Juliana clasped her friend’s hand. “Mari! You must not repeat it!”
“Oh, I won’t. On one condition.”
Juliana looked to the ceiling for salvation. “What?”
“You must tell me everything! A ‘riding incident’ sounds so very scandalous!”
Juliana did not reply, instead turning resolutely to the stage. She tried to pay attention to the action on the stage but the story—of two lovers avoiding discovery of their clandestine affair—was rather too familiar. She was in the midst of her own farce . . . broken opera glasses and scandalous meetings and all, and she’d just been discovered.
And she was not amused.
“He’s looking at you,” Mariana whispered.
“He is not looking at me,” she replied out of the corner of her mouth.
But she could not help but turn her head.
He was not looking at her.
“He was looking at you.”
“Well, I am not looking at him.”
And she did not look at him.
She did not look during the whole of the first act, as the lovers slammed in and out of doors and the audience howled with laughter, not as the curtain fell on them locked in a passionate embrace, in full view of her husband and his sister . . . who for some reason cared a bit too much about the skirts her brother was chasing.
She did not look as the candles were lit around the theatre, throwing London society back into view, and not as the stream of visitors to the Rivington box began once more and she had the opportunity to look without scrutiny.
She did not look while the Earl of Allendale entertained her during intermission, nor when Mariana suggested they go to the ladies’ salon to repair themselves—a thinly veiled ruse to get Juliana talking—nor after she declared that no, she did not have reason to attend the salon, and Mariana was forced to go alone.
She did not look until the lights had dimmed once more and the audience was settling in for the second act.
And then she wished she hadn’t.
Because he was guiding the grape into her seat, his large hand lingering at her elbow, sliding down her arm as he took his seat beside her.
And she found she could not look away.
The caress was over quickly—although it seemed to Juliana that it stretched out interminably—and Lady Penelope, unmoved, turned to the stage, immediately absorbed in the next act.
The duke, however, looked at Juliana, fully meeting her gaze. Distance and dim lights should have made her somewhat uncertain but, no . . . he was looking at her.
There was no other explanation for the shiver of awareness that shot down her spine.
He knew she had seen the caress.
Had wanted her to see it.
And suddenly there was not enough air in the box.
She stood abruptly, drawing Ralston’s attention as she headed for the exit. She leaned down to speak quietly in his ear, “I find I have something of a headache. I am going into the hallway for some air.”
His gaze narrowed. “Shall I take you home?”
“No no . . . I shall be fine. I will be just outside the box.” She smiled feebly. “Back before you realize that I am gone.”
Ralston hesitated, debating whether he should allow her to leave. “Do not go far. I don’t want you wandering through the theatre.”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
He stayed her movement with one firm hand on her wrist. “I mean it, sister. I am well aware of the trouble you can find in a theatre during a performance.”
She raised a dark brow in a gesture they shared. “I look forward to hearing more about that soon.”
His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “You’ll have to ask Callie.”
She smiled. “You can be sure that I will.”
And then she was in the hallway, which was empty save a handful of footmen, and she could breathe once more.
There was a cool breeze blowing through the corridor, and she headed instinctively for its source, a large window on the back end of the theatre where the hallway ended abruptly above what must have been the stage. The window had been left open to the October evening, a chair beneath it, as though waiting for her arrival. It was likely too far from the box for Ralston’s taste, but it was a perfectly public place nonetheless.