She sat, leaning on the sill and looking out over the rooftops of London. Candlelight flickered in the windows of the buildings below, and she could just make out a young woman sewing several floors down. Juliana wondered, fleetingly, whether the girl had ever been to the theatre . . . whether she’d ever even dreamed of the theatre.
Juliana certainly hadn’t . . . not like this, with a family of aristocrats that she’d never known existed. Not with jewels and silks and satins and marquesses and earls and . . . dukes.
Dukes who infuriated her and consumed her thoughts and kissed her like she was the last woman on earth.
She sighed, watching as the light from the waxing moon reflected on the tile roofs, still wet from a brief rain that afternoon.
She had started something that she could not finish.
She’d wanted to tempt him with passion—to punish his arrogance by bringing him to his knees—but after the embarrassing episode at the lake, when he’d all but told her that she was the very last thing he would ever find tempting . . .
There were ten days left in their agreement, and he was courting Lady Penelope, planning a lifetime of proper, perfect marriage with a woman who had been reared to be a duchess.
The wager was supposed to end in Leighton’s triumphant set down; so why did it feel like it was Juliana who would be the losing party?
“Why aren’t you in your seat?”
She gave a little start at the words, laced with irritation.
He had followed her.
She should not care that he had sought her out.
Of course, she did.
She turned, attempting to appear calm. “Why aren’t you in your seat?”
He scowled at that. “I saw you leave the box without escort.”
“My brother knows where I am.”
“Your brother has never in his life accepted an ounce of responsibility.” He came closer. “Anything could happen to you out here.”
Juliana made a show of looking down the long, quiet hallway. “Yes. It’s very threatening.”
“Someone should be looking out for your reputation. You could be accosted.”
“By whom?”
He paused at that. “By anyone! By an actor! Or a footman!”
“Or a duke?”
His brows knitted together, and there was a pause. “I suppose I deserve that.”
He did not deserve it. Not really. She turned back to the window. “I did not ask you to come after me.”
There was a long moment of silence, and she was expecting him to leave when he said, softly, “No. You didn’t.”
She snapped her head around at the admission. “Then why are you here?”
He ran a hand through his golden curls and Juliana’s eyes widened at the movement, so uncontrolled and unlike him, a mark of his disquiet.
“It was a mistake.”
Disappointment flared, and she did her best to hide it, instead making a wide sweep of the corridor with one hand. “One easily corrected, Your Grace. I believe your box is on the opposite side of the theatre. Shall I ask a footman to escort you back? Or are you afraid of being accosted?”
His lips pressed into a straight line, the only indication that he had registered the sarcasm in her words. “I don’t mean coming after you, although Lord knows that was likely a mistake as well, albeit an unavoidable one.” He stopped, considering his next words. “I mean all of it. The wager, the two weeks, the morning in Hyde Park . . .”
“The afternoon in Hyde Park,” she added softly, and his gaze flew to hers.
“I would have preferred not to have given the gossipmongers something to discuss, but of course I do not regret saving you.” There was something in the words, irritation mixed with an emotion that Juliana could not quite identify, but it was gone when he continued, coolly, “The rest, though, it cannot continue. I should never have agreed to it to begin with. That was the mistake. I’m beginning to see that you are virtually incapable of behaving with decorum. I should never have humored you.”
Humored her.
The meaning of the words echoed even as he danced around what he was really trying to say.
She was not good enough for him.
She never had been.
And she would never be good enough for the world in which he lived.
As much as she had sworn that she would change his view of her, that she would prove him wrong and make him beg for her forgiveness . . . for her attention . . . the resolve in his tone gave her pause.
She refused to be hurt by him; it would give him too much power over her. Would give them all too much power over her. There were others who did not think her somehow less because she had been born in Italy, because she had been born common, because she struggled with the rules and restrictions of this new world.
She would not be hurt.
She would be angry.
Anger, at least, was an emotion she could master.
And as long as she was angry, he would not win.
“Humored me?” she asked, standing and turning so that they were face-to-face. “You may be accustomed to others simply accepting your view of a situation, Your Grace, but I am not one of your adoring minions.”
His jaw steeled at the words, and she pressed on. “You did not appear to be merely humoring me when you agreed to two weeks; and you most definitely were not merely humoring me in Hyde Park several mornings ago.” Her chin lifted, light and firm with a mix of anger and conviction. “You gave me two weeks. By my count, I still have ten days.”
She stepped closer to him, until they were nearly touching, and heard the shift in his breathing—the tension that would have been imperceptible were she not so close.