Men to whom one did not send flirtatious, inviting notes in the middle of the day, on one’s brother’s stationery.
She closed her eyes as a wave of embarrassment coursed through her.
It had been the worst kind of idea, the kind that arrived on a wave of triumph so acute that it turned every thought into a stroke of brilliance. She’d returned to her bedchamber that morning before the rest of Ralston House had risen, drunk on excitement and power from her encounter with Leighton, thrilled that she had shaken that enormous, immovable man to his core.
He’d kissed her.
And it had been nothing like the meek, simpering kisses of the boys she’d known in Italy, stolen as they teasingly lifted her from her father’s merchant ship onto the cobblestone wharf. No . . . this kiss had been the kiss of a man.
The kiss of a man who knew what he wanted.
A man who had never had to ask for what he wanted.
He had tasted just as he had done all those months ago, of strength and power and something both unbearable and irresistible.
Passion.
She’d dared him to discover the emotion but had been unprepared to discover it herself.
It had taken all her energy to mount her horse and leave him there, alone, in the early-morning light.
She had wanted more.
Just as she always did where he was concerned.
And when she returned home, heady with the success of their first interaction and full with the knowledge that she had shaken him to his core, just as she’d promised, she had not been able to resist flaunting her success. Before Ralston had risen, she had crept into his study and written a message for Leighton, more dare than invitation.
A harsh gust of wind blew through the meadow, sending white-edged ripples across the surface of the lake. Carla protested colorfully as Juliana turned her back to the blunt force of the wind, clutching her cloak tightly together.
She should not have sent the note.
She skipped a stone across the water.
It had been a terrible idea.
And another.
What had made her think he would come? He was no fool.
And another.
Why didn’t he come?
“Enough, idiota. He doesn’t come because he has a brain in his head. Unlike you.” She muttered the words aloud to the lake.
She’d had enough of waiting for him. It was freezing and the light was waning and she was going home. Immediately.
Tomorrow, she would consider her next course of action—she was by no means giving up. And she had one week and five days to do everything she could to bring the arrogant man down.
The fact that he’d ignored her summons would only serve to urge her on.
Her commitment renewed, Juliana turned and made her way toward the tree where her companion sat. “Andiamo. Let’s go home.”
“Ah, finalmente,” said the maid in a happy little burst as she leapt to her feet. “I thought you would never give up.”
Give up.
The words rankled. She was not giving up. She was simply ensuring that she had all her fingers and toes for the next battle.
As though the elements had sensed her conviction, the wind blew again, harsh and angry, and Juliana reached to secure her bonnet just as the silly thing flew off her head. With a little squeak, she turned to watch it fly toward the lake, tumbling across the water like one of the stones that Juliana had skipped earlier. It landed, unbelievably, on the far end of a wide fallen log, the long ribbons floating in the dark cold lake, taunting her.
Carla snickered, and Juliana turned to meet the maid’s twinkling brown eyes. “You are lucky I do not send you to fetch it.”
One of Carla’s dark eyebrows raised. “I am amused at the suggestion that I would do such a thing.”
Juliana ignored the impertinent remark and returned her attention to the bonnet, taunting her from its resting place. She would not allow a piece of millinery to get the better of her. Something would go right this afternoon.
Even if she had to march into the middle of the Serpentine Lake to make it so.
Removing her cloak, Juliana headed for the log, stepping up and throwing her arms wide for balance to make her way to the ill-behaved headwear mocking her from several yards away.
“State attenta,” Carla called out, and Juliana ignored the urging for care, singularly focused on the bonnet. The wind began to pick up, teasing at the blue frills on the hat, and Juliana stilled, waiting to see if the hat would blow away.
The wind slowed.
The hat remained.
Well. As her sister-in-law, Isabel, would say, now it was the principle of the thing.
Juliana continued her journey before the hat was sacrificed to the gods of the Serpentine.
Just a few more feet.
And then she’d have the bonnet in hand and she could go home.
Nearly there.
She crouched slowly, shifting her balance and reaching out. The tips of her fingers touched a curl of blue satin.
And then the hat was gone, blown off the log, and in a moment of frustration Juliana forgot her precarious position and lunged.
The waters of the Serpentine were as cold as they appeared. Colder.
And deeper.
She came up sputtering and swearing like a Veronese dockworker to Carla’s raucous laughter. Instinctively, she rolled her body to face shore, only to find her skirts entangled in her legs, pulling her under.
Confusion flared and she kicked out, breaking the surface again briefly, gasping for air and not entirely understanding what was happening.
Something was wrong.
She was an expert swimmer, why couldn’t she stay afloat?
She kicked once more, her legs caught in a mass of muslin and twill, and she realized that the heavy skirts were weighing her down. She could not reach the surface.
Panic flared.
She extended her arms again, kicking wildly in one last desperate attempt at air.
To no avail.
Her lungs were on fire, straining under the burden of holding in the last of her precious air . . . air she knew she was about to—
She exhaled, the sound of the air bubbles rising to the surface of the lake punctuating her fate.
I am going to drown.
The words drifted through her mind, eerily calm.
And then something strong and warm grasped one of her outstretched hands, jerking her up . . . until she could—
Thank God.
She could breathe.
Juliana took a great, gasping breath, coughing and sputtering and heaving, focusing on nothing but breathing as she was pulled from the deeper water until her feet touched firm, blessed ground.
Not that her legs could hold her upright.
She collapsed into her savior, wrapping her arms around a warm, sturdy neck—a rock in a sea of uncertainty.
It took a few moments for her to come back to place and time—to hear Carla keening like a Sicilian grandmother from the lakeshore, to feel the cold bite of wind on her face and shoulders, to register the movement of her rescuer as he held her, chest deep in the water, as she trembled—either from the cold or the fear or both.
His hands stroked along her back, and he whispered soft, calm words into her hairline. In Italian.
“Just breathe . . . I’ve got you . . . You are safe now . . . Everything is all right.” And somehow, the words convinced her. He did have her. She was safe. Everything would be all right.
She felt his chest rise and fall against her as he took a deep, calming breath. “You’re safe,” he repeated. “You little fool . . .” he whispered, the tone just as soothing as ever, “. . . I have you now.” His hands stroked rhythmically down her arms and up her spine. “What in hell were you doing in the lake? What if I hadn’t been here? Shh . . . I’ve got you now. Sei al sicura. You’re safe.”
It took her a moment to recognize the tenor, and when she did, she snapped her attention to him, looking at him with clear eyes for the first time.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Simon.
Disheveled and soaked to the skin, his blond hair turned dark with the water that dripped down his face, he looked the opposite of the poised, perfect duke she had come to expect him to be. He looked sodden and unkempt and winded . . .
And wonderful.
She said the first thing that came to her mind. “You came.”
And he’d saved her.
“Just in time, it seems,” he replied in Italian, understanding that she was not ready for English.
A fit of coughing overtook her, and she could do nothing but hold on to him for several minutes. When she was once more able to breathe, she met his steady gaze, his eyes the color of fine brandy.
He’d saved her.
A shiver rippled through her at the thought, and the tremor spurred him to action. “You are cold.”
He lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the water to the lake’s edge, where Carla was near hysteria.
The maid released a torrent of Italian. “Madonna! I thought you were gone! Drowned! I screamed and screamed! I was desperate for help!“ To Simon, still in Italian, “I curse the fact I cannot swim! If only I could return to my youth and learn!” Then back to Juliana, clutching her to her chest. “Mi Julianina! Had I known . . . I would never have let you out onto that log! Why, the thing is obviously the devil’s own oak left behind!” Then, back to Simon, “Oh! Thank the heavens that you were here!” The flow of words stopped abruptly. “Late.”
If Juliana had not been so cold, she would have laughed at the disdain that coated the last of the maid’s words. True, he had been late. But he had come. And if he hadn’t—
But he had.
She stole a glance at him. He had not missed Carla’s insinuation that if he had arrived on time, all of this might have been avoided. He stilled, his face firm and unmoving, like that of a Roman statue.
His clothes were plastered to him—he had not removed his coat before entering the lake, and the layers he wore seemed to blend together. Somehow, the sodden clothing made him seem larger, more dangerous, immovable. She watched a droplet of water slither down his forehead, and itched to brush it away.
To kiss it away.
She ignored the thought, certain that it was the product of her close encounter with death and nothing else, and redirected her gaze to his mouth, set in a firm, straight line.
And she instantly wanted to kiss that instead.
A muscle twitched at the corner of his lips, the only sign of his irritation.
More than irritation.
Anger.
Possibly fury.
Juliana shivered and told herself it was from the wind and the water and not the man who towered over her. She wrapped her arms about herself to ward off the cold and thanked Carla softly when the maid rushed to collect the cloak she had cast off prior to her adventure and place it over her shoulders. The garment did nothing to combat the cold air or the cold look with which Leighton had fixed her, and she shivered again, huddling into the thin twill.
Of all the men in all of London, why did he have to be the one to save her?
Turning her attention to a nearby rise, she saw a handful of people clustered together, watching. She could not make out their faces, but she was certain that they knew precisely who she was.
The story would be all over London by tomorrow.
She was flooded with emotion . . . exhaustion and fear and gratitude and embarrassment and something more base that twisted inside her and made her feel like she might be sick all over his once-perfect, now-destroyed boots.
All she wanted was to be alone.
Willing her shivering to subside, she met his gaze once more, and said, “Th-thank you, Your G-grace.” She was rather impressed that this close to having died by drowning, she was able to achieve cool politeness. In English no less. She stood with the help of Carla, and said the words that she desperately wanted not to say. “I am in your debt.”
She turned on one heel and, thinking only of a warm bath and warmer bed, set off for the entrance to the Park.
His words, spoken in perfect Italian, stopped her in her tracks.
“Do not thank me yet. I’ve never in my life been so livid.”
Chapter Six
Water is for boiling and cleansing—never for amusement.
Refined ladies take care not to splash in their bath.
—A Treatise on the Most Exquisite of Ladies
We’re told of exciting discoveries in our very own Serpentine . . .
—The Scandal Sheet, October 1823
Simon ignored the thickness in his tone, the anger that he could barely contain.
The girl had nearly killed herself, and she thought this was over?
She was very likely cold and exhausted and in some kind of shock, but she was more addlepated than he imagined if she thought he would allow her to trot home without a single explanation for her unreasonable, irrational, life-threatening behavior. He saw the combination of fear and desperation in her gaze. Good. Perhaps she would think twice before repeating today’s actions.
“You are not going to tell Ralston, are you?”
“Of course I am going to tell Ralston.”
She took a step toward him, switching to English. She was skilled at pleading in her second language. “But why? It shall only upset him. Needlessly.”
Disbelief took his breath. “Needlessly? On the contrary, Miss Fiori. Your brother most definitely needs to know that you require a chaperone who will prevent you from behaving with reckless abandon.”
She threw up her hands. “I was not behaving recklessly!”
She was mad. “Oh, no? How would you describe it?”
Silence fell, and Juliana considered the question. She nibbled the corner of her lower lip as she thought and, against his will, he was drawn to the movement. He watched the way her lips pursed, the crisp white edge of her teeth as she worried the soft pink flesh. Desire slammed through him hard and fast, and he stiffened at the blinding emotion. He did not want her. She was a madwoman.