Juliana (4 page)

Juliana’s threw a sour glance to the book on her bedside table,
The Mirror of the Graces
by A Lady of Distinction. Their brother had given each of his sisters a copy, hoping that learning fashionable manners would help them secure husbands.

“A Lady of Distinction can keep her sallow cheeks,” Juliana said. “I’ll keep the admiration of the gentlemen.” To emphasize her point, she brushed on more color before rising. “Yes, I’m ready. Have a spice cake while I deliver Emily home.”

“You’d best hurry.” Corinna took one. “Aunt Frances is already waiting in the carriage.”

Much to Corinna’s and Juliana’s delight, their kindly Aunt Frances was acting as their sponsor and chaperone for the season. Not only was she a dear, she was also sensationally oblivious, meaning her young charges could more or less do as they pleased.

Juliana took Emily by the hand and led her downstairs, Corinna following in their wake.

It was raining when Juliana led Emily outside—it seemed to rain every day lately—but a quick dash brought them safely next door to the lifeless Neville house. Emily had two older brothers, products of two earlier marriages, but one was married and the other was away at Cambridge most of the year, so she usually shared her home with only her father and a collection of aging servants.

Their gaunt butler, who must have been eighty if he were a day, swung the door open as they arrived.

Emily stepped inside. “When shall I see you again, Lady Juliana?”

Who could deny that precious, pleading face, even if it
was
framed by a snake? “Monday,” she promised the girl. Rain peppered her parasol and puddled at her feet. “I’m sure your father is looking forward to being with you tomorrow, but on Monday we shall visit the shops and choose fabric for the baby clothes.”

“Will Lady Corinna come, too?”

“I believe she’ll prefer to paint.” Corinna always preferred to paint. “I shall see you Monday,” Juliana promised and headed through the drizzle to the carriage.

Inside, Corinna waited with Aunt Frances, their matching deep-blue eyes impatient. The ladies’ eyes, however, were their only similarity. Aunt Frances’s peered from behind round spectacles in a face surrounded by clouds of soft gray hair, though she was only forty. Sixteen-year-old Corinna’s hair was a swing of wavy brown, her face fresh and blooming. She had no need of rouge.

Juliana, on the other hand, figured she needed all the help she could get. Due to the untimely deaths of her parents and eldest brother—God rest their souls—she’d been in mourning nearly the whole of her fifteenth and sixteenth years. Thus, at seventeen, she was enjoying her
first
London season. And with the dratted season already half over, she was no closer to securing a husband than on the day she’d arrived.

Much to her brother’s vexation.

Griffin was waiting at the ball when they arrived, surveying the crop of gentlemen in a businesslike manner. After weeks of events, Juliana feared she had already met more or less everyone there was to meet. The
ton
comprised all the people who mattered in society, but that was a limited social group, after all. Yet her brother had already managed to line up candidates for her first three dances and was keeping an eye out for more.

He’d become a matchmaking mama of the finest caliber.

Juliana wasn’t sure she appreciated her brother’s efforts, but she knew his heart was in the right place. And she did enjoy dancing, so she dutifully stood up with all three young men, smiling and chatting agreeably.

Lord Henderson was far too tall; petite Juliana spent the whole of the dance conversing with his cravat. Lord Barkely didn’t laugh at her witticisms—not a single one!—though she deployed several of her best just to make certain he was truly devoid of humor. And Mr. Farringdon was kind but more than a little dim.

The spice cakes weren’t going to help her choose wisely, she thought with an internal sigh, if no acceptable men bothered to attend this ball.

JAMES TREVOR,
the young Earl of Stafford, hadn’t been to a ball in ages. And he hadn’t particularly wanted to attend this one, either.

However, being a good-natured sort of fellow, he’d chosen to regard tonight as an opportunity for renewing a number of neglected acquaintances. Among these was Griffin Chase, now the Marquess of Cainewood.

But his old schoolmate was looking rather sullen. James approached with caution.

“At whom are you glaring, Cainewood?”

“My sister.” Cainewood’s frown deepened. “She’s not dancing.”

James’s gaze followed his across the ballroom. He lifted his quizzing glass and squinted through it. “The little blond one?”

“The girl in yellow, yes. That would be Juliana, wasting precious time.”

“She appears to be agreeably engaged.”

“With our sister. But Juliana is
supposed
to be meeting gentlemen. I despair of ever finding her a husband.”

James chuckled at that. Lowering the quizzing glass to dangle on its long silver chain, he refocused on Cainewood. He hadn’t seen his old friend since their time at Oxford, and he’d never met his family, but still he sensed an easy familiarity between them. He felt well within his rights to laugh at the fellow’s consternation.

“Juliana is seventeen,” Cainewood added as though that explained everything.

“That doesn’t sound particularly old.”

“No, but I’ll still have Corinna to settle after her.” He gestured toward his other sister, a pretty brown-haired girl. “I’d hoped to get them both married off this season, but Juliana is overparticular. And unfortunately, I believe she’s already met everyone here…” His green gaze narrowed on James. “Except, perhaps, you.”

“Me?”

“You. Won’t you at least suffer an introduction? You’re an earl now, are you not?” He flashed a crooked grin. “An earl in need of a wife.”

An earl in need of a wife—the exact same words James’s mother had used to describe him earlier this evening as she’d all but dragged him from the carriage into this house.

But although James had inherited the title more than two years ago, he still had a hard time thinking of himself as an earl, let alone
an earl in need of a wife
.

His older brother was supposed to have been the Earl of Stafford.

Straight out of Oxford, James had been perfectly content with his parents’ plan for him to be a captain in the cavalry. Good-natured as he was, contentment was his natural state, and, in fact, he’d been pleased when his father bought him the commission. Unfortunately, less than a week into active duty, a wound ended his laughably short stint in the army.

He shifted and flexed his left knee, which always ached in this type of cold, wet weather. On days of this sort he still walked with a slight limp, which made him feel conspicuous and much older than twenty-five. But he was profoundly grateful the army surgeons had managed to save his leg rather than amputating it. So grateful that, needing a new occupation after his recovery, he’d decided to become a physician.

He hadn’t been long in medical school before he’d realized he’d found his calling. For the first time in his memory, James had been more than just content with his life—he’d been truly happy. Especially after he fell in love.

Then everything fell apart.

His brother had died first, leaving James shaken by grief and the realization that he’d someday inherit. He didn’t
want
to be an earl—he
liked
being a physician. He liked helping people, and he liked feeling that he made a difference. Every day was surprising and challenging, and there were always successes to balance the disappointments. Managing an earldom seemed tedious and superficial in comparison.

Then, while he was still reeling from the loss of his brother, his father’s heart had stopped, and suddenly James
was
the earl.

After that came a dark, miserable blur. It was some time—he knew not how long—before the cloud began to dissipate. He simply found himself awakened one morning, not by the paralysis of grief or the weight of obligation, but by the sun. Gradually he began to feel that his despair was subsiding—by, say, a thimbleful per day—and he was growing used to his new role. His work
could
make a difference in the lives of his tenants and in the stodgy House of Lords. And his lovely new bride, whose resilience had kept him afloat, showed him that he didn’t have to do as society expected—he could be an earl
and
a physician.

Harnessing the vast Stafford fortune, James had opened a facility in London where those who were too poor to afford doctors could get smallpox vaccinations, an endeavor dear to his heart. At last, he saw true happiness peeking over the horizon. Life was looking good again.

Then Anne died in childbirth, and their baby, born too early, died along with her.

No physician, himself included, had been able to make a shred of difference. And James was certain he’d never be truly happy again.

A year later, he’d regained some measure of his old contentment. But his mother was pressuring him to take a new wife, and, while the idea pained him, he knew it was an earl’s duty to sire heirs. Though he couldn’t love another girl, he might as well at least consider making his mother happy. So he’d allowed her to drag him to this ball, and, by the same token, he would allow Cainewood to introduce him to his sister.

“Yes, I’d be delighted to meet Lady Juliana.”

Cainewood wasted no time marching him across the ballroom and introducing him to both of his sisters. It had been so long since any girl made an impression on James that he was surprised to find his gaze locked on Juliana’s as he bowed over her hand. Her eyes were so full of life. He felt drawn to her energy.

And that felt incredibly wrong.

But Cainewood’s sister was a pretty thing, and he couldn’t seem to wrench his gaze from those eyes. Green eyes. No, blue. He couldn’t decide. They seemed to change as he watched.

“Will you honor me with a dance?”

He wasn’t sure whether he’d asked out of impulse or obligation, but he was glad when she responded with, “It would be my pleasure.”

She let him lead her out onto the floor. He hadn’t danced since Anne died. He felt a wave of panic—what if he didn’t remember how? But there was a waltz playing, and Juliana fairly melted into his arms.

He remembered.

“What color are your eyes?” he asked.

She gave a merry, tinkling laugh, a laugh that matched her eyes. “Hazel. Why?”

“I couldn’t tell. They looked green at first, but now they look blue.”

“Well, they’re hazel,” Juliana repeated, wishing he would stop staring into them. It seemed almost as though he saw right through them into her head, as though he could guess exactly what she was thinking and feeling. And that was unnerving, no matter that she had nothing to hide.

She glanced away, her gaze landing on her older sister. Alexandra had come to town for the season while her new husband claimed his seat in the House of Lords. How happy they looked dancing together, Alexandra’s dark eyes locked on Tristan’s steady gray ones. Their road to wedded bliss had been a rocky one, but they’d been fated to be together from the first—as Juliana had known, of course.

Where was
her
great love? Was fate taking a protracted holiday?

Still feeling Lord Stafford’s gaze on her, she met his stare dead on, daring him to look away. He didn’t. His eyes were a warm brown, reminding her of chocolate. She loved chocolate. But she had to look up to see those eyes. Way up.

She could get a crick in her neck dancing with such a gentleman.

“I haven’t seen you at any other balls,” she observed. “You must take your duty to Parliament seriously.”

The corners of those warm eyes crinkled when he smiled. “That and my profession.”

“Your profession?”

“I’m a physician.”

“I thought you were an earl,” she said.

One of his dark brows went up. “Can I not be both?”

“Of course you can,” she said quickly, although she’d never heard of an earl-physician. “What do you do, exactly? Have you many patients?”

“Some, although I’m not taking on any new ones. Most of my time is spent at my facility, the New Hope Institute.”

“New Hope,” she mused. “I’ve heard of that. Something to do with smallpox?”

“I provide vaccinations, yes. Mostly to London’s poor.”

“That sounds like very important work,” she allowed. He was a most unusual young man. And an excellent dancer. Having noticed a slight limp as he’d initially approached her, she wouldn’t have thought he’d move so nimbly.

Still, much as she loved dancing, finding a gentleman who excelled at it wasn’t her priority. After all, it wasn’t as though she had a shortage of dance partners—she danced her feet off at every ball, with or without Griffin flinging every eligible bachelor her way. She had no problem meeting young men; the problem was finding one she considered husband material. And Lord Stafford was definitely not what she had in mind.

When the music came to an end, he led her by the hand off the dance floor. “It was a pleasure, Lady Juliana.”