Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart
Page 69

“Nieces, are they?” Nick teased from behind.
Juliana grinned. “In this house? You think you will have a son?”
“A man can dream.”
Isabel took Juliana’s arm, leading her toward the house. “I am so happy you are here, and just in time for Bonfire Night!”
“There is a night for fire?”
Isabel waved a hand. “You will see.”
Juliana looked over her shoulder at Nick. “Should I be concerned?”
“Possibly. It involves burning Catholics in effigy.”
Juliana’s eyes grew wide, and Isabel laughed. “Nick. Stop it. She still does not trust the English.”
“And apparently, I should not!” Juliana said. “I should have known better than to come to the country. It is apparently a risk.”
“Only a risk to your daily excitement,” Isabel replied. “It’s dreadfully boring compared to London.”
“I thought you hated London,” Nick said.
“I remain worried about fire,” Juliana interjected.
“I don’t hate London. Anymore,” Isabel said to Nick, then turned immediately to Juliana. “Don’t worry about the fire. You’ll be fine. You’ll see tomorrow. Now. Tell me everything that is happening in London—all I get is the news, weeks old, from Pearls and Pelisses!”
Nick groaned at the reference to the ladies’ magazine that had once set all of London’s unmatched females after him. “I do not know why we still take the damned magazine.”
“The girls like it,” Isabel said, referring to the rest of the population of Minerva House.
“Ahh,” teased Juliana. “The girls. Well, they shall very much enjoy the next issue, I would imagine. Our mother has once again made us the talk of the town.” She paused, then, unable to resist, continued. “At least, she had done before the Duke of Leighton chose his bride.”
Nick and Isabel shared a shocked look. “Leighton is to marry?”
“He announced his betrothal to Lady Penelope Marbury last week.” She was very proud of herself for keeping her tone even and unmoved. “Are you surprised? Dukes are required to marry, Nick.”
Nick paused, thinking on the question. “Of course they are. I’m merely surprised that he hasn’t said anything to us.”
She blinked. “I was not aware that your relationship with the duke was close enough for him to write to you of his pending nuptials.”
“Oh, it’s not,” Isabel chimed in. “But you would think that it might have come up in conversation at some point.”
Warning bells sounded, and Juliana stopped walking. “Conversation?” Perhaps she had misunderstood. Her English was far from perfect.
“Yes. Leighton is here.”
“Here?” She looked to Nick. Perhaps it was Isabel she was misunderstanding. “Why would he be here?”
He couldn’t be here. Not now. Not when the only thing she needed was to be as far from him as possible.
“I suppose you’ll find out soon enough . . .” Nick said. “He came as soon as the child was born.”
A wave of panic passed through her.
The child.
He had a child.
She was overcome with emotion—a combination of sadness and shock and not a little bit of jealousy. Another woman had had his child. A woman to whom he had belonged for some length of time.
In a way that he would never belong to Juliana.
The knowledge was devastating.
“Juliana?” Isabel’s voice sounded from far away. “You’ve gone pale. Are you ill?”
“Leighton . . . he is here now?”
“Yes. Juliana . . . is there something wrong? Has the duke been rude to you?” She looked to Nick. “It’s a wonder the man hasn’t had a decent thrashing in twenty years.”
Apparently Isabel did not care for Simon either. No one in her family seemed to like him, this man who had shipped one woman off to Yorkshire to birth his illegitimate child while he proposed marriage to another.
And while he did marvelous, unspeakable things to a third in darkened conservatories.
Her family suddenly seemed to have excellent judgment of character.
“Gabriel gave him a thrashing already.”
“Did he? Good!” Isabel said.
“Did he? When?” This, from Nick.
“Last week,” Juliana said, wishing they had not started down this path.
“Why?”
“No reason.”
None Nick need know, at least.
Nick’s brows rose. “I somehow doubt that.” He paused. “So. You know Leighton.”
She felt ill. “Vaguely.”
Isabel and Nick shared a look before he said, “It does not seem at all vague, actually. It seems that you know him well enough to be unsettled by the idea that he is here.”
“Not at all.”
Why would she be unsettled by the fact that she’d escaped to Yorkshire only to find that the person from whom she’d escaped was already there?
With his secret child.
It was not the first secret he had kept from her.
Merely the most important.
“So,” she said, walking once more, hoping to sound casual. “The child. Will he acknowledge it?”
That had not sounded at all casual. It had sounded as though she were being strangled. Juliana was beginning to wish that her carriage had been set upon by highwaymen on the way there. Yes. Abduction at the hands of criminals would have been a better fate than this.
“It is not clear,” Nick said.
She stopped again, turning back to Nick. “I beg your pardon. Did you say it is not clear?”