Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart
Page 64

Suddenly, the words did not seem so true.
“No? Your English is very good for someone who does not care for the culture. I will be honest; I was surprised when Gabriel told me you were here. I cannot imagine it is easy for you to survive.” Juliana stayed silent, refusing to give Louisa the pleasure of knowing she was right. Her mother pressed on. “I imagine it is just the same as it was for me. Difficult. You see, daughter, we are not so different.”
We are not so different. They were the words she dreaded. The words she prayed were not true. “We are nothing like each other.”
“You can say it over and over. It will not change the truth.” Louisa leaned back in her seat. “Look at you. Just back from a ball, perhaps, but covered in something that indicates that you have not had the most respectable of evenings. What have you been doing?”
Juliana looked down at herself. Resisted the urge to pick at the fast-drying pulp that clung to her. “It is not your business.”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is that you are unable to resist adventure. You are unwilling to close yourself off to whatever pleasure happens to tempt you at any given time. My taste for excitement has been in you since you took your first breath. Resist all you like, but I am your mother. I am in you. The sooner you stop fighting it, the happier you will be.”
No.
It was not true. It had been a decade since Louisa had seen Juliana last . . . ten years during which Juliana had had the opportunity to grow and change and resist the parts of her mother that lay dormant within.
She did not seek out adventure or scandal or ruin.
Did she?
Memories flashed: chasing through a darkened garden; hiding in a strange carriage; riding through Hyde Park in men’s clothing; climbing out onto a log to fetch a replaceable bonnet; toppling a pyramid of harvest vegetables; waiting for Simon outside his club; kissing Simon in the barn; kissing Simon in the conservatory of his betrothed’s home.
Kissing Simon.
She had virtually gone out of her way to cause scandal in the last week—and before that, since she arrived in London, she might not have sought out adventure, but she certainly had not resisted it when it came calling.
Dear God.
She looked to her mother, meeting those blue eyes that were so much like her own, the eyes that gleamed with a knowledge that Juliana at once feared and loathed.
She was right.
“What do you want from us?” She heard the tremor in her voice. Wished it was not there.
Louisa was quiet for a long time, unmoving, her cool gaze taking Juliana in. After several minutes, Juliana had had enough. “I’ve spent too much of my life waiting for you.” She stood. “I am going to bed.”
“I want my life back.”
There was no sorrow in the words, no regret, either. There wouldn’t be. This was the closest her mother would ever come to either of those emotions. Regret was for people with a capacity for feeling.
Unable to stop herself, Juliana sat once more, on the edge of her chair, and took a long look at the woman who had given her life. Her beauty—the gift she had given all three of her children—was showing her age. There were strands of silver in her sable hair, her blue eyes were clouded with her years. There were a handful of lines on her face and neck, a blemish on one temple. A beauty mark just above one dark-winged eyebrow that Juliana remembered being less faded, more perfect.
The years had been kind to Louisa Hathbourne, but in a weathered, aged way that made the most beautiful of women think that she had lost everything.
Not that she gave any impression of feeling that way.
“You must know . . .” Juliana said, “. . . you cannot erase the past.”
Irritation flared on her mother’s face. “Of course I know that. I did not come back for my title. Or for the house. Or for Gabriel and Nicholas.”
And certainly not for me, Juliana thought.
“But there comes a point when it is no longer easy to live the life I have lived.”
Understanding flared. “And you think Gabriel will help you live a different life.”
“He was raised to be marquess. Raised to protect his family at all costs. Why do you think I told your father to send you here if anything happened to him?”
Juliana shook her head. “You deserted him.”
“Yes.” Again, she was struck by the lack of regret in the answer.
“He would never support you . . .”
“We shall see.” There was something in her eyes—a keen awareness born of years of self-interest and manipulation.
And then it all became clear.
This was London society, where reputation trumped all—even for the Marquess of Ralston. Especially for the new Marquess of Ralston, who had a wife and sister and unborn child to protect.
Juliana narrowed her gaze. “You knew. You knew you would cause a scandal. You knew he would do whatever it took to mitigate its damage. Not the damage to you . . . the damage to us. You think he’ll give you a settlement. Something to keep you in the manner in which you are accustomed.”
One side of her mother’s mouth lifted in a half smile, and she brushed a speck from her gown—a design from several years ago. “You divined my strategy quite quickly. As I said, we are not so different, you and I.”
“I would not be so certain of that, Mother.” Ralston spoke from the doorway, and Juliana turned her attention to him and Callie, who was hurrying toward her. “Which part of, ‘You are not to come near Ralston House again,’ did you have difficulty understanding?”
Louisa looked up with a smile. “Well, it has been nearly two decades since I have been in England, darling. Meanings are troublesome at times.” She raised a hand to Callie. “You must be the marchioness. I am sorry, I was so quickly escorted from the room last night that we were not properly introduced.”