Yes. Simon.
He was in control.
He was ruining her for all others.
And she did not care.
His tongue brushed against the devastatingly sensitive skin at the tip of her breast, and she bit her lip, arching. Acquiescing.
“Juliana?”
If the barn had gone up in flames, she could not have been more shocked than she was by the sound of her brother calling her name.
Simon went instantly rigid, straightening and immediately restoring the edge of her dress to its proper place as he did so, and she scrambled to push past him, fumbling with her skirts, spinning in a circle to get her bearings as she said, “In—in here, Gabriel.” She finally picked up the hard-bristled brush again, and said, loudly, “And she particularly enjoys it when I brush her flanks firmly.”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you—what are you doing in the stables alone in the middle of the—” Ralston stepped into the stall and froze, taking in first Simon, then Juliana. It did not take him long to read the situation.
Correctly.
When he moved, he was like lightning.
Ignoring Juliana’s gasp, he stormed past her and grasped the lapels of Simon’s topcoat, pulling him away from the wall where he had leaned, attempting to appear casual. Ralston spun the duke around, throwing him out the stall door and into the wall opposite, sending the horses stabled along the corridor into a chorus of nervous whinnies.
“Gabriel!” she cried, following them into the hallway in time to see her brother grasp Simon’s cravat in one hand and deliver a powerful blow to the jaw with the other.
“I’ve wanted to do that for twenty years, you arrogant bastard,” Ralston growled.
Why wasn’t Simon fighting back?
“Gabriel, stop!”
Her brother didn’t listen. “On your feet.”
Simon stood, rubbing his fast-bruising jaw with one hand. “You received the first one for free, Ralston.”
Ralston’s shoulders were tensed, his fists raised and ready for battle. If he was feeling anything like Juliana had been feeling when she left the house, he would not stop until one or both of them were unconscious; considering Leighton’s flashing eyes and tensed muscles, Juliana imagined it would be both of them.
“I shall pay the fee for the rest with pleasure,” Ralston stormed at the duke again, getting in a quick jab before Leighton blocked the next blow and sent Ralston’s head snapping back with a wicked hook.
Juliana winced at the sound of flesh on flesh and, without thinking, intervened.
“No! No one is paying any fee! Not now, not ever!” Juliana pushed between them, both hands up—a referee in a perverse boxing match.
“Juliana, get out of the way.” Leighton’s words were soft and dark.
“Speak to her with such familiarity again, and I’ll see you at dawn,” Ralston said, furious. “In fact, give me one reason not to call you out right now.”
“Because we’ve had enough scandal for one evening, Gabriel,” Juliana answered. “Even I can see that.”
And like that, the fight went out of him.
She did not lower her hands until he lowered his. But when he did, she said, “Nothing happened.”
He gave a little humorless laugh, meeting Leighton’s gaze over her head. She saw the murderous glint in his eyes. “You forget I have not always been an old married man, sister. I know when nothing has happened. Ladies do not look like you do when nothing has happened. Men like Leighton do not happily take punches when nothing has happened.”
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.
She did not knock.
Ralston stood at the enormous windows of his study, one hand playing idly with a glass orb she had bought him several months ago as he stared into the great black abyss beyond. His dark hair was mussed, and he’d removed his coat and waistcoat and cravat.
Juliana winced as she registered the bruise on his jaw from where Simon had hit him.
She had done very little but cause him trouble.
If their positions were reversed, she would have tossed her out on her ear months ago.
He looked over when Juliana entered, but did not scold her for her trespass. She took a seat by his desk and pulled her bare feet up beneath her dressing gown as he turned back to the window.
Neither sibling spoke for a long while, and the silence stretched wide and somehow comfortable between them. Juliana took a deep breath. “I would like to clean the air.”
Ralston smirked. “Clear the air.”
That did make more sense. She narrowed her gaze. “I am about to apologize, and you mock me?”
He half smiled. “Go on.”
“Thank you.” She paused. “I am sorry.”
“For what?” He looked honestly confused.
She gave a little laugh. “There is a great deal, no?” She thought for a moment. “I suppose I am sorry that everything falls to you.”
He did not reply.
“Where is she?”
The glass sphere rolled between his fingers. “Gone.”
Juliana paused, a ripple of emotion shooting through her. She did not pause to inspect it. She was not certain that she wanted to. “Forever?”
He bowed his head, and she thought she heard him laugh. “No. If only it were that easy. I didn’t want her in this house.”
She watched him, her strong, sturdy brother, who seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Where did you send her?”
He turned to face her then, the orb spinning. “She did not know you were here, you know. She did not expect you. That is why she did not look for you in the room. At dinner.”
She nodded. It did not make her mother’s dismissal any easier. “Does she know I am here now?”
“I told her.” The words were soft, laced with something that might have been an apology. She nodded, and silence fell again. He returned to the desk and took the seat across from her. “You are my sister. You take precedence.”
Was he reminding her or himself?
She met his eyes. “What does she want?”
He leaned forward on his elbows. “She says she doesn’t want anything.”
“Except her position as dowager marchioness.” Juliana could not keep the sarcasm from her tone.
“She’ll never have that.”
She couldn’t. The ton would never accept her. The gossipmongers would feed on this scandal for years. When Juliana had arrived in London six months ago, they had swarmed, and the sordid tale of their mother’s desertion had been dredged from the bottom of the great river of drama that nourished society. Even now, with connections to some of the most powerful families in London, Juliana existed on the fringes of polite society—accepted by association rather than on her own merit.
It would all start over again. Worse than before.
“You don’t believe her, do you?” she asked. “That she wants nothing.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He shook his head. “Money, family . . .”
“Forgiveness?”
He thought for a long moment, then lifted one shoulder in the shrug they all used when they did not have an answer. “It is a powerful motivator. Who knows?”
A rush of heat flared, and she leaned forward, shaking her head. “She can’t have it. She can’t . . . what she did to you . . . to Nick . . . to our fathers . . .”
One side of his mouth rose almost imperceptibly. “To you . . .”
To me.
He leaned back in his chair, shifting the glass weight from one hand to the other. “I never thought she would return.”
She shook her head. “One would think the scandal alone would have kept her away.”
He gave a little laugh at that. “You forget that she is our mother—a woman who has always lived as though scandal was for others. And, in fairness, it always has been.”
Our mother.
Juliana was reminded of the conversation in the stables with Simon. How much of this woman was in Juliana? How much of her lack of caring and complete disregard for others lurked deep within her daughter?