She felt a blush rising on her cheeks, but stood her ground. “You are wrong. Nothing happened.”
Except something did happen, a little voice whispered teasing in a dark corner of her mind. Something wonderful.
She ignored it. “Tell him, Your Grace.”
Simon did not speak, and she looked over her shoulder at him. “Tell him,” she repeated.
It was as though she were not there. He was looking directly over her head, right into Ralston’s eyes.
“What if it were your sister, Leighton,” Ralston said softly from behind her. “Would it be nothing then?”
Something flashed in Simon’s gaze. Anger. No. Frustration. No, something else. Something more complicated.
And she saw what he was about to do a moment before he did it.
She had to stop him.
“No! Don’t—”
She was too late.
“I’ll marry her.”
She saw the words more than heard them—watched as his perfect lips formed the syllables even as their sound was masked by the roar in her ears.
She turned immediately to her brother. “No. He won’t marry me.”
Silence stretched long and tense, filling the barn to the rafters. Uncertainty flared, and she looked to Simon again. His face was cold and unmoving, his eyes fixed on Ralston as though he were waiting for a pronouncement of death.
And he was.
He did not want to marry her. She was not his pretty English bride, who was likely fast asleep and far from scandal. But he would, because that was what was done. Because he was the kind of man who did what was expected without argument. Without fight.
He would marry her not because he wanted her . . . but because he should.
Not that she wanted him to want her.
Liar.
She would be damned if she would suffer for his misplaced nobility.
Ralston did not meet her gaze, did not turn his attention from the duke.
She looked to Leighton, amber eyes guarded. He nodded once.
Oh for—
She turned back to Gabriel. “Hear me, brother. I won’t marry him. Nothing happened.”
“No, you won’t marry him.”
Shock coursed through her. “I won’t?”
“No. The duke appears to have forgotten that he is already affianced.”
Her jaw dropped. It couldn’t be true. “What?”
“Go on, Leighton. Tell her it’s true,” Ralston said, fury in his words. “Tell her that you are not so perfect after all.”
Anger flared in Simon’s eyes. “I have not asked the lady.”
“Only her father,” Ralston said, all smugness.
She wanted Simon to refute the point, but she saw the truth in his eyes.
He was engaged.
He was engaged, and he had been kissing her. In the stables. As though she were worth nothing more than a tumble.
As though she were her mother.
Even as he had told her she was nothing like her mother.
She turned to him, not hiding the accusation in her eyes, and to give him credit, he did try to speak. “Juliana—”
She simply did not want to hear him. “No. There is nothing to say.”
She watched the long column of his throat work, thinking that perhaps he was looking for the right thing to say before she remembered that this was Leighton, who always had the right thing to say.
Except for when there clearly was no right thing.
Ralston stepped in, then, ending the moment. “If you come within three feet of my sister again, Leighton, you’d best have your seconds chosen.”
There was a long, tense moment before Leighton said, “It will not be a problem to stay away from her. It would not have been if you kept a tighter leash on those under your care.”
And with those cold, unfeeling words, the Duke of Disdain left the stables.
Her mother had returned.
“Redeo, Redis, Redit . . .”
Her mother had returned for God knew what reason.
“Redimus, Reditis, Redeunt . . .”
Her mother had returned for God knew what reason and Juliana had nearly gotten herself ruined in the stables.
“I return, you return, she returns . . .”
Her mother had returned for God knew what reason and Juliana had nearly gotten herself ruined in the stables by the Duke of Leighton.
And she’d enjoyed it.
Not the mother returning part, but the other.
That part had been quite . . . magnificent.
Until he’d been engaged. And had happily turned his back and exited her life.
Leaving her to deal with her mother.
Who had returned.
She sighed, slapping the palms of her hands against the cool brocade coverlet on her bed.
Was it any wonder that she could not sleep?
It was not exactly as though she had had the easiest of evenings.
He’d left.
Well, first he’d proposed marriage.
After making her feel wonderful.
After proposing marriage to another woman.
Something twisted deep inside her. Something easily identified.
Longing. She did not even understand it. He was an awful man, arrogant and proud, cold and unfeeling. Except for when he was not those things. Except for when he was teasing and charming and filled with fire. With passion.
She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the ache in her chest.
He’d made her want him. And then he’d left.
“I leave, you leave . . .”
Verb conjugations were not helping.
Frustrated, she leapt from the bed, yanking open the door and heading down the wide, dark hallway of Ralston House, running the tips of her fingers along the wall, counting doors until she reached the center staircase of the town house. Padding down the steps, she registered a dim light coming from her brother’s study.