“Lady Penelope’s father has dissolved the agreement.” His hands grasped her ankles, and Juliana was not sure if it was the feel of his warm hands stroking up her legs beneath her skirts or the fact that he was no longer engaged that made her light-headed. He met her gaze, serious. “I would have ended it if he hadn’t, Juliana. I couldn’t have gone through with it. I love you too much.”
A thread of pleasure coiled through her at the words. “He called it off because of Georgiana’s scandal?”
“Yes,” he said, and the way the word rolled from his tongue gave her the distinct impression that he was not replying to her question. He folded back her skirts with reverence and cursed, dark and wicked in the carriage, and pressed a kiss to the inside of one knee.
She clamped her legs together, resisting his movements. “Simon . . .”
He stilled, meeting her eyes in the flickering light from outside before he kissed her again, long and thorough before he pulled back abruptly. “My sister announced her own scandal. Actually sent a letter to the Gazette! It was her wedding present. To us.”
Juliana smiled. “A broken engagement?”
“In exchange for a quick one,” he replied, taking her lips again, his urgency sending a wave of fire through her.
She reveled in the caress, in the feel of him, for a long minute before pushing him away once more. “Simon, your mother!”
“She is not at all a topic I care to discuss right now, love.”
“But . . . she will be furious!”
“I don’t care.” He returned his attention to the inside of her knee, swirling his tongue there until the silk was wet. “And if she is, it shan’t be because of you. You are her best hope for a respectable grandchild. I’m the one with the terrible reputation.”
She laughed. “An abductor of innocents. A seducer of virgins.”
He parted her legs slowly, pressing lovely, languorous kisses up the inside of her thigh. “Only one innocent. One virgin.” She sighed and let her eyes close against the pleasure as he licked at the place where garter held stocking, a promise of what was to come.
“Lucky me.” She leaned forward, taking his unbearably handsome face between her hands. “Simon . . .” she whispered, “I have loved you from the beginning. And I will love you . . . I will love you for as long as you’ll have me.”
His gaze darkened, and he grew very serious. “I hope you plan to love me for a very long time.”
She kissed him again, pouring herself and her love into the caress, because words suddenly seemed lacking. When they stopped, both gasping for breath and desperate for more of each other, Juliana smiled. “So how does it feel to have thoroughly ruined your reputation?”
He laughed. “I shall never live it down.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Never.” He pulled her to him for another kiss.
Simon’s scandal was one for the ages. It would be fodder for whispers in ballrooms, and chatter on Bond Street and in the halls of Parliament, and years from now, he and Juliana would tell their grandchildren the story of how the Duke of Leighton had been laid low by love.
Epilogue
May 1824
Her Grace, the Duchess of Leighton, was high on a ladder in the library—too high to hide—when her husband entered the room, calling her name, distracted by a letter he held.
“Yes?”
“We’ve news from—” He trailed off, and she knew that she had been discovered. When he spoke again, the words were low and far—too calm for her husband, who had found that he rather enjoyed the full spectrum of emotion now that he had experienced it. “Juliana?”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing twenty feet in the air?”
She brazened on, pretending not to notice that he had positioned himself beneath her, as though she would not crush him like a beetle should she go hurtling to the ground. “Looking for a book.”
“Would you mind very much returning to the earth?”
Luckily, the book for which she had been searching revealed itself. She pulled it off the shelf and made her way back down the ladder. When she had both feet firmly on the ground, he let loose. “What are you thinking, climbing to the rafters in your condition?”
“I am not an invalid, Simon, I still have use of all my extremes.”
“You do indeed—particularly your extreme ability to try my patience—I believe, however, that you mean extremities.” He paused, remembering why he was irritated. “You could have fallen!”
“But I did not,” she said, simply, turning her face up to his for a kiss.
He gave it to her, his hands coming to caress the place where his child grew. “You must take better care,” he whispered, and a thrill coursed through her at the wonder in his tone.
She lifted her arms, wrapping them around his neck, reveling in the heat and strength of him. “We are well, husband.” She grinned. “Twelve lives, remember?”
He groaned at the words. “I think you’ve used them up, you know. Certainly you’ve used your twelve scandals.”
She wrinkled her nose at that, thinking. “No. I couldn’t have.”
He lifted her in his arms and moved to their favorite chair, evicting Leopold. As the dog resumed his nap on the floor, Simon settled into the chair, arranging his wife on his lap. “The tumble into the Serpentine . . . the time you led me on a not-so-merry chase through Hyde Park . . . lurking outside my club . . .”
“That wasn’t a real scandal,” she protested, cuddling closer to him as his hand stroked across her rounded belly.