When a Marquess Loves a Woman (3 page)

And he would never forgive her for it.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

May 1825

T
he Season Standard—the Daily Chronicle of Consequence

This humble paper fears a messenger's fate as we report the latest news from our illustrious committee. Once more, as one month wanes and another waxes, we are left in want. This Season's
Original
has yet to be named!

Hold fast, dear readers! For we have received the news that we
shall have
our
Original
at month's end. Even more scintillating, we have learned that there remain only two candidates on the list. Two!

We are all eagerness!

Yet even our anticipation must pale in comparison to that of our Marquess of Th— and, resident
goddess,
Lady G—, who, by all accounts, have wagered on the outcome. Scandalous! Though we are not certain what the stakes could be, we do know that our contest promises to be quite the show!

“ ‘Q
uite the show,'
indeed
,” Juliet Granworth grumbled to herself.

Lowering onto one of two silver-striped chairs, she cast a withering glance down at the newspaper that taunted her.

It was bad enough that Cousin Zinnia's butler saw fit to leave the
Standard
on the foyer table so that it had been the first thing she'd read in the morning. But this evening, another copy sat on the low oval table in Marjorie Harwick's blue parlor.

Juliet couldn't escape it. Therefore, arranging her emerald green skirts, she did her best to ignore it.

“
Botheration
. Who left this dreadful paper on the table?” Marjorie asked, bustling into the room. Immediately, she picked up the scandal sheet, pinching it at the corner like a rat by the tail, and scuttled it from the room.

In the meantime, Cousin Zinnia—
Lady Cosgrove
—progressed in slow, refined movements toward the blue damask settee. Seemingly, she took little notice of Marjorie's activity. Her finely lined countenance remained lovely and serene, her focus solely on the art of pedestrianism.

“There now. Much better,” Marjorie said as she returned an instant later, flitting past Zinnia—the proverbial tortoise and the hare. The two friends couldn't have been more different from each other.

For Marjorie, it was common to see tendrils of gray escaping the loose, dark coiffure, and typically, an easy smile lifted her rounded cheeks. Zinnia Cosgrove, on the other hand, never left her chamber with a flaxen or silver hair out of place. Her posture was faultless, her smiles hard won but worth the effort.

At seven and twenty, Juliet was more than twenty years younger than they were, but even so, she found a comfortable companionship with them. She would like to think that her own demeanor was a perfect blend of these two.

The truth was, however, that Juliet was more reserved than approachable. In fact, from what she'd been told, most of the women in her family were the same—elegant, outwardly aloof, and renowned for their beauty. But Juliet often wondered if they all shared something else—an overwhelming desire to go mad.

Some days Juliet wanted to fling open the nearest window sash and scream.

And it was all Max's fault.

“Good evening, Saunders.”
A familiar baritone called from the foyer and drifted in through the open parlor door.
Max
.

Drat it all! He was a veritable devil. Only she didn't have to
speak
his name but simply
think
it for him to appear. She should have known better than to allow her thoughts to roam without a leash to tug them back to heel.

“I did not realize Lord Thayne would be attending dinner this evening,” Zinnia said, her spine rigid as she perched on the edge of her cushion and darted a quick, concerned glance toward Juliet.

Marjorie looked to the open door, her brows knitted. “I did not realize it either. He said that he was attending—”

“Lord Fernwold's,” Max supplied as he strode into the room, his dark blue coat parting to reveal a gray waistcoat and fitted blue trousers. He paused long enough to bow his dark head in greeting—at least to his mother and Zinnia. To Juliet, he offered no more than perfunctory scrutiny before heading to the sideboard, where a collection of crystal decanters waited. “The guests were turned away at the door. His lordship's mother is suffering a fever.”

Juliet felt the flesh of her eyelids pucker slightly, her lashes drawing together. It was as close as she could come to glaring at him while still leaving her countenance unmoved. The last thing she wanted was for him, or anyone, to know how much his slight bothered her.

Marjorie tutted. “Again? Agnes seemed quite hale this afternoon in the park. Suspiciously, this has happened thrice before on the evenings of her daughter-in-law's parties. I tell you, Max, I would never do such a thing to your bride.”

Max turned and ambled toward them, the stems of three sherry glasses in one large hand and a whiskey in the other. He stopped at the settee first, offering one to his mother and another to Zinnia. “Nor would you need to, for I would never marry a woman who would tolerate the manipulation.” Then he moved around the table and extended a glass to Juliet, lowering his voice as he made one final comment. “Nor one whose slippers trod only the easiest path.”

She scoffed. If marriage to Lord Granworth had been easy, then she would hate to know the alternative.

“I would not care for sherry this evening,” Juliet said. And in retaliation against Max's rudeness, she reached out and curled her fingers around his whiskey.

Their fingers collided before she slipped the glass free. If she hadn't taken him off guard, he might have held fast. As it was, he opened his hand instantly as if scalded by her touch. But she knew that wasn't true because the heat of his skin nearly blistered her. The shock of it left the underside of her fingers prickly and somewhat raw.

To soothe it, she swirled the cool, golden liquor in the glass. Then, before lifting it to her lips, she met his gaze. His irises were a mixture of earthy brown and cloud gray. Years ago, those eyes were friendly and welcoming but now had turned cold, like puddles reflecting a winter sky. And because it pleased her to think of his eyes as mud puddles, that was what she thought of when she took a sip. Unfortunately, she didn't particularly care for whiskey and fought to hide a shudder as the sour liquid coated her tongue.

Max mocked her with a salute of his dainty goblet and tossed back the sherry in one swallow. Then the corner of his mouth flicked up in a smirk.

She knew that mouth intimately—the firm warm pressure of those lips, the exciting scrape of his teeth, the mesmeric skill of his tongue . . .

Unbidden warmth simmered beneath her skin as she recalled the kiss that had ruined her life. And for five years, she'd paid a dire price for one single transgression—a regretful and demeaning marriage, the sudden deaths of her parents, and the loss of everyone she held dear.

By comparison, returning to London to reclaim her life as a respected widow should have been simple. And it would have been if Max hadn't interfered.

She'd been set on purchasing the townhouse where she had once lived with her parents on this very street, willing to pay any amount to the current owners in order to do so. To her, it was the ideal place to begin anew. Then, as luck would have it, that very house had been up for sale after having been abandoned. It was as if the Fates were guiding her home. Or at least it had felt that way until Max had bought the property out from under her nose.

Why did he have to hinder her fresh start?

Of course, she knew the answer. She'd wounded his ego years ago, and her return only served as a reminder. He didn't want her living four doors down from his mother—or likely within forty miles of him.

But that decision wasn't his to make, or anyone else's. After the deaths of her parents, she'd asked Lord Granworth to purchase their townhouse for her, but the tyrant had refused, just as he had with any request she made.

And now, Juliet wasn't about to be cowed or manipulated by another man. Not for as long as she lived.

“And speaking of marriage,” Marjorie interjected, her tone a touch gayer than usual, “Wolford's wedding to Miss Pimm was quite beautiful, even for a last-minute affair. Wouldn't you agree, Zinnia?”

“With the pear trees in bloom just beyond the chapel, I daresay I've never attended a prettier ceremony.” Zinnia looked to Juliet, as if in commiseration. “A grove of lilacs would also make a fine setting. They'll be in full bloom by week's end.”

Juliet's thoughts were in a muddle at the moment—all thanks to Max—and she was trying to guess how they'd landed on the topic of the Earl of Wolford's recent marriage to Adeline Pimm.

Though perhaps, she reasoned, they were merely speaking of weddings in general because of an upcoming event. “I don't recall receiving an invitation to a wedding ball or breakfast this week. Have I forgotten one?”

“Perhaps Lady Granworth requires a meadow of forget-me-nots to aid her memory,” Max quipped as he took the chair beside hers, when there were two others open that were a more comfortable distance away. This time, he lifted his own glass of whiskey in a salute but only after a pointed glance down to the one still untouched, for the most part, in her grasp. Then he directed his attention to the others. “Though, to be honest, I do not recall who is to be married this week either.”

“No one that I know of,” Marjorie answered with a careless wave of her hand. “I simply remarked on your friend's wedding. And since you are in search of a bride, perhaps you would give thought to asking Wolford for the use of his chapel.”

Max shifted in his chair, no longer looking quite so smug. “Right. Well, since I have not yet begun to court any debutante, the pear trees will have lost their petals by the time I have decided on one.”

“But you'll want to decide soon,” Marjorie said, setting her glass on the table. “We are surely past mid-Season.”

Unable to resist a chance to needle Max, Juliet chimed in. “Never fear. You have weeks before the peonies bloom. Though you should be warned of the insects—those blossoms are crawling with ants. Hardly the most romantic of flowers.” She shook her head slowly and tsked. “It is a pity, really, that in your haste to be married, you will likely have peonies at your wedding.”

“That would be unfortunate,” Zinnia said with a sage nod. They had both read Charlotte de la Tour's
La Language des Fleurs
, and peonies represented shame.

In truth, they would have been the perfect flowers for Juliet's own wedding.

Max glared at her, his dark brows lowered, the flesh between them furrowing into three distinct vertical lines. “I am more concerned with finding the most
suitable
bride for me than with the frivolity of the foliage in bloom.”

From their sordid history, Juliet knew his statement was meant to be a jab at her. The blasted man loved to argue. Regrettably, he had a knack for knowing the pressure points to incite her ire. “I feel sorry for the
poor dear
already. She will likely be married in winter, with nothing but dead twigs sticking up from the ground on her path to the church.”

“But no,” Marjorie said quickly. “Max wants to be married by summer before settling into his estate in Lancashire.”

This news surprised Juliet. She knew that his search for a bride had intensified since he'd recently inherited a marquessate, but she didn't know that he planned to leave London.

Quite an interesting development, to be sure. “Then you will have no need for a house in town.”

Which posed an opportunity for her to finally buy hers back from him.

“You are mistaken. I will have every need for a house in town when I am here.” Max stood and turned slightly to loom over her. “You had your chance . . . ”

Max paused on a breath, the gray mixture in his irises turning steely. In that instant, Juliet thought he was speaking of his forced-by-circumstance wedding proposal five years ago. And she might have even noticed a sharp twinge of regret beneath her breast too . . . until he continued.

“But you lost the wager.”

Then, before she knew what he was about, he slid his middle finger into her glass and slipped it from her grasp.

She clenched her now-empty fist, fighting to hold on to her composure. “I did not lose—
neither
of us won. There is a difference. You knew that I had intended to purchase that house, but you used your influence to swindle it from me.”

Taking a step back, Max made a point of draining her glass in front of her. “The banker holding the deed liked my price better.”

As a wealthy widow, Juliet could have had the deed to the house in her possession if the old curmudgeon, Mr. Woldsley, hadn't detested discussing business with a woman. He'd pushed aside her offer for weeks, likely waiting for the first man to come along and outbid her. In fact, he probably would have sold to any male who underbid her as well.

“It still was ungentlemanly of you, Maxwell,” Marjorie chided and offered a sympathetic headshake to Juliet.

“Which is why I gave her fair chance of winning the wager.” He lifted the two empty glasses in a helpless gesture. “But now our wager has concluded, and there is nothing to be done. I have already hired laborers to improve the structure. They work several days of the week, earning a wage to feed their families. My conscience would not permit me to sell it.”

Oooh!
Max goaded her terribly. But the only witnesses attesting to this fact were the fingernails cutting into the soft flesh of her palm. He was the reason she'd entered into that foolish wager in the first place.

He'd claimed that anyone could be named the Season's
Original.
All the while, he knew how much that title had once meant to her. Not because she'd wanted to be the most sought-after and admired member of the
ton
but to have her choice of any husband she desired.
And
he knew very well that, years ago, she'd wanted to marry his brother.