He resisted the impulse to look at the expanse of skin above the rich green edge of her gown instead taking a step back.
The girl was entirely lacking a sense of propriety.
“I may admit defeat in the battle, Your Grace. But never in the war.”
He watched her cross the foyer and enter the library, closing the door behind her, and he shook his head.
Juliana Fiori was a disaster waiting to happen.
It was a miracle that she had survived half a year with the ton.
It was a miracle they had survived half a year with her.
“She took him out with a knee to the . . .” Ralston said, when Simon returned to the study.
“It would seem so,” he replied, closing the door firmly, as though he could block out the troublesome female beyond.
“What the hell am I going to do with her?”
Simon blinked once. Ralston and he barely tolerated one another. If it were not for the marquess’s twin being a friend, neither of them would choose to speak to the other. Ralston had always been an ass. He was not actually asking for Simon’s opinion, was he?
“Oh, for Chrissakes, Leighton, it was rhetorical. I know better than to ask you for advice. Particularly about sisters.”
The barb struck true, and Simon suggested precisely where Ralston might go to get some advice.
The marquess laughed. “Much better. I was growing concerned by how gracious a host you had become.” He stalked to the sideboard and poured three fingers of amber liquid into a glass. Turning back he said, “Scotch?”
Simon resumed his seat, realizing that he might be in for a long evening. “What a generous offer,” he said dryly.
Ralston walked the tumbler over and sat. “Now. Let’s talk about how you happen to have my sister in your house in the middle of the night.”
Simon took a long drink, enjoying the burn of the liquor down his throat. “I told you. She was in my carriage when I left your ball.”
“And why didn’t you apprise me of the situation immediately?”
As questions went, it was a fairly good one. Simon swirled the tumbler of whiskey in his hand, thinking. Why hadn’t he closed the carriage door and fetched Ralston?
The girl was common and impossible and everything he could not stomach in a female.
But she was fascinating.
She had been since the first moment he’d met her, in the damned bookshop, buying a book for her brother. And then they’d met again at the Royal Art Exhibition. And she’d let him believe . . .
“Perhaps you would tell me your name?” he had asked, eager not to lose her again. The weeks since the bookshop had been interminable. She had pursed her lips, a perfect moue, and he had sensed victory. “I shall go first. My name is Simon.”
“Simon.” He had loved the sound of it on her tongue, that name he had not used publicly in decades.
“And yours, my lady?”
“Oh, I think that would ruin the fun,” she had paused, her brilliant smile lighting the room. “Don’t you agree, Your Grace?”
She had known he was a duke. He should have recognized then that something was wrong. But instead, he had been transfixed. Shaking his head, he had advanced upon her slowly, sending her scurrying backward to keep her distance, and the chase had enthralled him. “Now, that is unfair.”
“It seems more than fair. I am merely a better detective than you.”
He paused, considering her words. “It does appear that way. Perhaps I should simply guess your identity?”
She grinned. “You may feel free.”
“You are an Italian princess, here with your brother on some diplomatic visit to the King.”
She had cocked her head at the same angle as she had this evening while conversing with her brother. “Perhaps.”
“Or, the daughter of a Veronese count, whiling away your spring here, eager to experience the legendary London Season.”
She had laughed then, the sound like sunshine. “How disheartening that you make my father a mere count. Why not a duke? Like you?”
He had smiled. “A duke, then,” adding softly, “that would make things much easier.”
She’d let him believe she was more than a vexing commoner.
Which, of course, she wasn’t.
Yes, he should have fetched Ralston the moment he saw the little fool on the floor of his carriage, squeezed into the corner as though she were a smaller woman, as though she could have hidden from him.
“If I’d come to fetch you, how do you think that would have worked?”
“She’d be asleep in her bed right now. That’s how it would have worked.”
He ignored the vision of her sleeping, her wild raven hair spread across crisp, white linen, her creamy skin rising from the low scoop of her nightgown. If she wore a nightgown.
He cleared his throat. “And if she’d leapt from my carriage in full view of all the Ralston House revelers? What then?”
Ralston paused, considering. “Well, then, I suppose she would have been ruined. And you would be preparing for a life of wedded bliss.”
Simon drank again. “So it is likely better for all of us that I behaved as I did.”
Ralston’s eyes darkened. “That’s not the first time you have so baldly resisted the idea of marrying my sister, Leighton. I find I’m beginning to take it personally.”
“Your sister and I would not suit, Ralston. And you know it.”
“You could not handle her.”
Simon’s lips twisted. There wasn’t a man in London who could handle the chit.
Ralston knew it. “No one will have her. She’s too bold. Too brash. The opposite of good English girls.” He paused, and Simon wondered if the marquess was waiting for him to disagree. He had no intention of doing so. “She says whatever enters her head whenever it happens to arrive, with no consideration of how those around her might respond. She bloodies the noses of unsuspecting men!” The last was said on a disbelieving laugh.