“You . . . asino.” His lips pressed into a thin line at the insult, and she dropped into a deep, mocking curtsy. “I apologize, Your Grace, for the use of such base language.” She looked up at him through dark lashes. “You will permit me to repeat it in your superior English. You are an ass.”
He spoke to her through his teeth. “Rise.”
She did, swallowing back her anger as he reached for her, his strong fingers digging into her elbow, turning her back to the ballroom. When he continued, his voice was low and graveled at her ear. “You think your precious passion shows that you are better than us, when all it shows is your selfishness. You have a family who is endeavoring to garner society’s acceptance for you, and still nothing matters to you but your own excitement.”
She hated him then. “It is not true. I care deeply for them. I would never do anything to—” She stopped. I would never do anything to damage them.
The words were not precisely true. Here she was, after all, on a darkened terrace with him.
He seemed to understand her thoughts. “Your recklessness will ruin you . . . and likely them. If you cared even a little, you would attempt to behave in the manner of a lady and not a common—”
He stopped before the insult was spoken.
She heard it anyway.
A calm settled deep within her.
She wanted this perfect, arrogant man brought to his knees.
If he imagined her reckless, that’s what she would be.
Slowly, she removed her arm from his grasp. “You think you are above passion? You think your perfect world needs nothing more than rigid rules and emotionless experience?”
He stepped back at the challenge in her soft words. “I do not think it. I know it.”
She nodded once. “Prove it.” His brows drew together, but he did not speak. “Let me show you that not even a frigid duke can live without heat.”
He did not move. “No.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Disinterested.”
“I doubt that.”
“You really give no thought to reputations, do you?”
“If you are concerned for your reputation, Your Grace, by all means, bring a chaperone.”
“And if I resist your tempestuous life?”
“Then you marry the grape and all is well.”
He blinked. “The grape?”
“Lady Penelope.” There was a long pause. “But . . . if you cannot resist . . .” She stepped close, his warmth a temptation in the crisp October air.
“Then what?” he asked, his voice low and dark.
She had him now. She would bring him down.
And his perfect world with him.
She smiled. “Then your reputation is in serious danger.”
He was silent, the only movement the slow twitch of a muscle in his jaw. After several moments, she thought he might leave her there, her threat hovering in the cold air.
And then he spoke.
“I shall give you two weeks.” She did not have time to revel in her victory. “But it shall be you who learns the lesson, Miss Fiori.”
Suspicion flared. “What lesson?”
“Reputation always triumphs.”
Chapter Four
The walk or trot will do.
Delicate ladies never gallop.
—A Treatise on the Most Exquisite of Ladies
The Fashionable Hour comes earlier and earlier . . .
—The Scandal Sheet, October 1823
The next morning, the Duke of Leighton rose with the sun.
He washed, dressed in crisp linen and smooth buckskin, pulled on his riding boots, tied his cravat, and called for his mount.
In less than a quarter of an hour, he crossed the great foyer of his town house, accepting a pair of riding gloves and a crop from Boggs, his ever-prepared butler, and exited the house.
Breathing in the morning air, crisp with the scent of autumn, the duke lifted himself into the saddle, just as he had every morning since the day he assumed the dukedom, fifteen years earlier.
In town or in the country, rain or shine, cold or heat, the ritual was sacrosanct.
Hyde Park was virtually empty in the hour just after dawn—few were interested in riding without the chance of being seen, and even fewer were interested in leaving their homes at such an early hour. This was precisely why Leighton so enjoyed his morning rides—the quiet punctuated only by hoofbeats, by the sound of his horse’s breath mingled with his own as they cantered through the long, deserted paths that only hours later would be packed with those still in town, eager to feed on the latest gossip.
The ton traded on information, and Hyde Park on a beautiful day was the ideal place for the exchange of such a commodity.
It was only a matter of time until his family was made the commodity of the day.
Leighton leaned into his horse, driving the animal forward, faster, as though he could outrun the tattle.
When they heard about his sister, the gossips would swarm, and his family would be left with little to protect their name and reputation. The Dukes of Leighton went back eleven generations. They had fought alongside William the Conqueror. And those who held the title and the venerable position so far above the rest of society were raised with one unimpeachable rule: Let nothing besmirch the name.
For eleven generations, that rule had gone unchallenged.
Until now.
Over the last several months, Leighton had done all he could to ensure that his character was untainted. He had dismissed his mistress, thrown himself into his work in Parliament, and attended scores of functions hosted by those who held sway over the ton’s perception of character. He had danced reels. Taken tea. Shown himself at Almack’s. Called on the most respected families of the aristocracy.
Spread a reasonable and accepted rumor that his sister was in the country, for the summer. And then for autumn. And, soon enough, for the winter.
But it was not enough. Nothing would be.
And that knowledge—the keen understanding that he could never entirely protect his family from the natural course of events—threatened his serenity.
There was only one thing left.
An unimpeachable, proper wife. A future darling of the ton.
He was scheduled to meet with Lady Penelope’s father that day. The Marquess of Needham and Dolby had approached Leighton the prior evening and suggested they meet “to discuss the future.” Leighton had seen no reason to wait, as the faster he had the marquess’s agreement that a match would be suitable, the faster he would be prepared to face the tongues that could begin wagging at any moment.
A half smile played across his lips. The meeting was mere formality. The marquess had come barely short of proposing to Leighton himself.
It would not have been the first proposal he received that evening.
Nor the most tempting.
He sat up straight in his saddle, reining in the horse, regaining control once more. A vision flashed, Juliana facing him like a warrior on the balcony of Weston House—tossing out her challenge as though it was nothing more than a game. Let me show you that not even a frigid duke can live without heat.
The words echoed around him in her lilting Italian accent, as though she were there, whispering in his ear once more. Heat.
He closed his eyes against the thought, giving the horse rein again, as though the biting wind at his cheeks would combat the word and its effect upon him.
She’d baited him. And he’d been so irate at the arrogance in her tone—at her certainty that every tenet upon which his life was built was laughable—that he’d wanted nothing more in that moment than to prove her wrong. He’d wanted to prove her insistence that his world contained nothing of value was as ridiculous as her silly dare.
So he’d given her two weeks.
It had not been an arbitrary length of time. He would give her two weeks to try her best with him, and he would show her at the end of the time, that reputation ruled the day. He would send the announcement of his impending nuptials to the Times, and Juliana would learn that passion was a tempting . . . and ultimately unfulfilling path.
If he hadn’t accepted her ridiculous challenge, she would have no doubt found someone else to needle into her plans—someone with less of a debt to Ralston and less of an interest in keeping her from ruin.
He’d done her a favor, really.
Let her do her worst.
Please.
The wicked word flashed, and with it a vision of Juliana as temptress. Her long, na**d limbs tangled in his linen sheets, her hair spread like satin across his pillow, her eyes, the color of Ceylon sapphires, promising him the world as her full lips curved, and she whispered his name, reaching for him.
For a moment, he allowed himself the fantasy—all it would ever be—imagining what it would be like to ease her down, to lie across her long, lush body and bury himself in her hair, in her skin, in the hot, welcome core of her and give himself up to the passion she held so dear.
It would be paradise.
He’d wanted her from the first moment he’d seen her, young and fresh and so very different than the porcelain dolls who were paraded before him by mothers who reeked of desperation.
And for a fleeting moment, he’d thought he might be able to have her. He’d thought she was an exotic, foreign jewel, precisely the kind of wife that would so well match the Duke of Leighton.
Until he’d realized her true identity and the fact that she was entirely lacking in the pedigree required of his duchess.
Even then, he’d considered making her his. But he did not think that Ralston would take well to his sister’s becoming mistress to any duke, much less a duke he took particular pleasure in disliking.
The path of his thoughts was interrupted—blessedly—by the thunder of another set of hoofbeats. Leighton eased back in his saddle, slowing once more and looking across the meadow to see a horse and rider in full gallop, coming toward him at a reckless pace, even for a rider with such obvious skill. He paused, impressed by the synchronized movement of master and beast. His eyes tracked the long, graceful legs and pistoning muscles of the black, then turned to the form of the rider, at one with his horse, leaning low over the creature’s neck, whispering his encouragement.
Simon made to meet the rider’s gaze, to nod his appreciation, one master horseman to another. And froze.
The eyes he met were a brilliant blue, sparkling with a mix of defiance and satisfaction.
Surely he had conjured her up.
For there was absolutely no possible way that Juliana Fiori was here, in Hyde Park, at dawn, dressed in men’s clothing, riding a horse at breakneck speed, as though she were on the track at Ascot.
Without thinking, he brought his mount to a stop, unable to do anything but watch as she charged toward him, either unaware of or uninterested in the disbelief and fury surging within him, the emotions waging powerful, unsettling war for primary position in his mind.
She was upon him then, stopping so quickly that he knew immediately that this was not the first time she had ridden her mount so hard or so fast or so well. He watched, speechless, as she peeled off one black glove and stroked the long column of the horse’s neck, whispering words of encouragement in soft, breathless Italian to the massive animal as it leaned into her touch. She curved her long fingers into the beast’s pelt, rewarding it with a deep scratch.
Only then, once the horse had been properly praised, did she turn to him, as though this was a perfectly normal, entirely appropriate meeting. “Your Grace. Good morning.”
“Are you a madwoman?” The words were harsh and graveled, their sound foreign to his own ears.
“I’ve decided that if London . . . and you . . . are so convinced of my questionable character, there is no reason to worry so much about it, is there?” She waved a hand in the air as though she were discussing the possibility of being caught in the rain. “Lucrezia has not had such a run since we arrived. And she adored it . . . did you not, carina?” She leaned low again, murmuring to the horse, which preened at the loving words of her mistress and snorted her pleasure at being so well praised.
Not that he could blame the beast.
He shook off the thought. “What are you doing here? Do you have any idea what might happen if you were caught? What are you wearing? What would possess you to . . .”
“Which of those questions would you like me to answer first?”
“Do not test me.”
She was not intimidated. “I already told you. We are out for a ride. You know as well as I that there is little risk of our being seen at this hour. The sun is barely awake itself. And as for how I am dressed . . . don’t you think it better that I dress as a gentleman? That way, if someone were to see me, they would think nothing of it. Far less than they would if I were out in a riding habit. That, and it’s much less fun to ride sidesaddle, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
She slid the hand she had bared down the long length of her thigh, underscoring her attire, and he could not help but track the movement, taking in the shapely curve of her leg, tucked tightly against the flank of the horse. Tempting him.
“Can’t you, Your Grace?”
He snapped his gaze up to meet hers, recognizing the smug amusement there. He did not like it. “Can’t I what?”
“Can’t you imagine that it’s less fun to ride sidesaddle? So proper. So . . . traditional.”
Familiar irritation flared and with it, sanity. He took a long look around them, checking the wide-open expanse of meadow for other riders. It was empty. Thank God. “What would possess you to take such a risk?”
She smiled then, slowly, with the triumph of a cat whiskers-first in a bowl of cream. “Because it feels wonderful. Why else?”
The words were a blow to the head, soft and sensual and utterly confident.
And entirely unexpected.