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“Oh, my,” Phoebe said, also sitting down with a plop. “I cannot imagine how you pulled that off. I was terrified when he walked into the room.”
“Do you think he knew me?” Julia asked anxiously. “I couldn’t see him. Did any expression of recognition cross his face?”
“No. He seemed only—well, appalled—whenever he looked at you. Oh, Julia!” Hysterical laughter bubbled up from Phoebe’s throat. “Julia, you cannot imagine how you looked! Your eyes so huge and blurred, like a frog’s.”
“Well, thank you very much,” Julia tried for an indignant tone, but laughter broke through.
“And that cap!” Phoebe let out a peal of laughter. “How did you ever think of it so quickly? I am sure he didn’t know whether you were a housemaid or a—a—”
“Giant frog in a dress?” Julia suggested.
They both laughed, unable to restrain themselves, relief from the last few minutes’ strain making them giddy. Phoebe described each expression that had chased across Lord Stonehaven’s face at Julia’s words, her imitations making Julia howl with laughter. It took some time before their hysteria died down into chuckles and then into sighs and, finally, silence.
“Well…” Julia said at last, rising. “I suppose I had better return these to Mrs. Willett and try to make amends with her.”
“I am sure the poor woman thinks you have gone quite mad.”
“No doubt. Ah, well, hopefully I will be able to think up an adequate story.” She stood up and started toward the door, but then stopped as a new thought hit her. “Oh, no! I daren’t see him tonight, as I had planned. Not so soon after this.”
“No. You’d best give him a few days to forget Miss Armiger’s features,” Phoebe agreed.
Julia sighed, a little surprised at how disappointed she felt. But then, she reminded herself, it was only natural—merely an indication of how eager she was to bring Lord Stonehaven to justice.
Julia let three days pass before she went again to Madame Beauclaire’s, but she found it difficult to wait. By the time the evening came around, she was fairly champing at the bit, eager to go.
She was wearing another one of Phoebe’s dresses tonight, again with a let-out hem and the modest fichu of lace at the neckline ripped out. It was a gauzy dress in a color the modiste had termed “sea foam green.” Though it did not have the tighter-fitting skirt of the dress she had worn the last time, its flowing lines clung to Julia’s slender form, and the low neckline was enough, she thought, to spark any man’s interest. Besides, it was a color that looked perfect with her auburn hair.
Tonight she returned to Madame Beauclaire’s without her cousin’s company. Geoffrey would balk, she knew, at escorting her a second time and would probably ask all sorts of awkward questions. Besides, having been there before, she did not need him now. As few women as she had seen there, she felt relatively sure that the doorman would recognize her as a customer.
Nor did she take her own carriage. It would have been handy, of course, to have Nunnelly waiting outside to take her home, but it might also interfere with her plans. Last week it had turned out very well when Lord Stonehaven had walked her out to find her a hackney. And there was always the danger that Nunnelly might balk at her going into a gaming house. Loyal as he was, he had known her since she was a toddler and had no hesitation about speaking his mind to her. He was also much too likely to give her orders, having grown accustomed to it, she thought, when he taught her to ride when she was a child. He was quite willing to break the law for her sake—he had never quailed at the thought of abducting Stonehaven—but she felt sure that he would refuse to let her put herself into a situation that might damage her reputation.
So she went to Madame Beauclaire’s in a hackney, the nerves in her stomach tying themselves into an ever-expanding knot. As she had expected, the footman at the door let her in after one quick glance, bowing deeply. She suspected that he could have said with whom she had left the other night, as well. Plying her fan to hide her nerves, she strolled along the hall, glancing into the rooms on either side.
Lord Stonehaven was not there.
Disappointed, she strolled desultorily through the tables, stopping to observe a game now and then. At one of the tables, the name Stonehaven caught her ear, and she stopped short, every nerve alert.
“What?” one of the men at the table was saying, glancing toward one of his companions. “Oh, Stonehaven, yes—no, I haven’t seen him tonight. Odd, he’s been here every night this week, it seems.”
“Yes. I’ve never known him to be so gambling mad.”
Julia turned away, smiling to herself. Gambling mad, was he? She, too, knew that it was not his custom to attend Madame Beauclaire’s or any other establishment that frequently. If he had been coming in every night, she could not help but believe that it had been because he was hoping to find her there. She had, after all, hinted that he could find her there when she had refused to give him her address.
Buoyed by this knowledge, she was able to sit down at one of the gaming tables with a suitably casual air and enter into play. He would come, she knew. Lord Stonehaven was not the sort of man to give up.
It was thirty minutes later that a masculine voice said behind her, “I see you have switched your allegiance. Not dipping too deeply, I hope.”
Julia turned, a smile blazing across her face. He had come!
“Lord Stonehaven.” She realized that she had probably looked too eager to see him. It never did to let a man realize that one was interested in him, and of course he would be bound to think that her broad smile was from pleasure at seeing him, not triumph that he had walked into her web. She schooled her voice to something slightly warmer than indifference. “So you are here again. I had wondered if I would see you tonight.”
“I came in the hopes of finding you here, Miss Nunnelly.”
He flashed his charming smile at her, and Julia’s eyes were drawn to his lips, full and wide against strong white teeth. She had forgotten exactly how handsome he was up close. She moved toward him.
“I hope I am not taking you away from a lucky streak,” he said. “Would you like to stay?”
“What? Oh.” She glanced back at the table, a little surprised to find that she had stepped away from it. “No. I was about to leave. My luck has been uniformly bad this evening.”
“I hope it was not bad luck to run into me again.”
She cast him a sparkling look. “No. I would not say it was bad.”
He looked down at her, and his eyes narrowed briefly. Fear slammed through Julia. His look was…almost suspicious.
“What?” she asked in a falsely light tone. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Oh.” He looked abashed. “I don’t know. I had the oddest sensation for an instant—as if I had seen you before.”
Julia forced herself to smile impishly, although her mouth had gone suddenly dry. “Indeed, sir, I do believe you have seen me before. We met here five nights ago, if I remember correctly.”
He chuckled. “Believe me, I am quite aware of that. No, I meant that you reminded me of someone else. A certain look, the way you tilted your head—but that, of course, is absurd. There is no other woman as beautiful as you.”
His words made her feel as if a tight band were encircling her chest, squeezing hard, but she managed to say, “A pretty compliment, my lord.”
“But heartfelt.” He seemed to dismiss the matter as they strolled out into the hallway. There he stopped and glanced around, then looked back at her. “I find I do not wish to stay here. Would you care to—go somewhere else?”
“I—what do you mean, my lord?” Was he suggesting that they go to his house?
Julia felt suddenly panicky. She realized that in all her thinking about how to lead him on, what to do or say in order to get him to confess, she had not really given any thought as to where it would be accomplished. She had hazily imagined them sitting in a garden or strolling along the street or something of the sort. Where did one go on assignations? She could see that her education was woefully lacking in this area. Going to a gentleman’s house would be unthinkable for a lady, but, of course, it would be entirely different for a woman of loose morals, such as she was pretending to be. That was exactly the sort of compromising position a woman such as that would get into. Still, it seemed to her that things were moving much too fast. She really did not want to be alone with Lord Stonehaven in his home.
“I thought we had agreed to cease all this ‘my lord’ing,” he told her. “My name is Deverel.”
“Yes, of course…Deverel.”
“I hadn’t really thought of where we would go. I simply realized that I would like very much not to play cards tonight. I would much rather spend the evening talking with you.”
“I have no objection to that,” Julia replied a little breathlessly.
“I have a friend whose house is always open to visitors. Actually, it is the house of a…woman of his acquaintance.”
“His mistress,” Julia replied knowledgeably. There were few ladies who did not know that gentlemen frequently made such arrangements.
Stonehaven’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “You are dangerously blunt. Yes. It is the house of his mistress, but he is nearly always there, and many of his friends, as well as her friends, of course.”
“I see.” It was not exactly a bawdy house where women of the night plied their trade, Julia thought, but it must be just a step above that—the house where a man kept his light-o’-love, and he and his friends went to drink and talk and flirt with other women who were equally free with their favors. Julia supposed she ought to be appalled at the thought of going to such a place, but instead she found herself filled with curiosity. She had never actually met a kept woman, let alone been in one’s house.
“Yes,” she continued, flashing him what she hoped was a beckoning look. “That sounds much better than staying here.”
“I am glad you agree.” He was already steering her toward the front door.
The footman fetched her cloak, and Lord Stonehaven draped it around her shoulders, his fingers brushing lightly across her skin. Julia swallowed, trying to ignore the shivery sensation his touch created in her.
They walked out into the quiet night air, and Stonehaven turned to the left. “Shall we walk? It isn’t far.”
“Yes, of course.”
They strolled along, her hand hooked in the bend of his arm. Julia struggled to think of something to say. She had spent all day, it seemed, thinking of things to say and questions to ask to lead him where she wanted to go, but now, none of those carefully planned remarks seemed to fit.
“I had hoped to find you here one of the past few nights,” Stonehaven commented, interrupting her jumbled thoughts.
“I am not quite that eager a gambler.”
“Neither am I. I came each night in the hopes of finding you.”
“Flatterer.” Julia flashed him an arch glance.
“No. ’Tis true. I am quite shameless.”
“A shocking flirt is more like it.”
“You wound me.” He put on an air of mock hurt.
“As if you did not know…”
“’Tis no flirtation to say I have been searching for you every night since we met. Ask any of my friends. They will tell you that I have shirked my social obligations dreadfully. I cried off from going to the opera two nights ago, and yesterday I stayed only fifteen minutes at Lady Abersham’s soiree.”
“All because of me?” She arched a brow. “I suppose it had nothing to do with boredom.”
He chuckled. “Perhaps that did motivate my departure somewhat.”
“Deceiver. I am, in short, a handy excuse.”
“Never that, I assure you. Rather, I think, your absence is the cause of my boredom.”
Julia laughed. “You are a clever man with words, Lord Sto—I mean, Deverel.”
“No cleverer than you,” he returned.
“Oh, dear.” Julia made a face. “No fate worse than being termed a ‘clever’ woman.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. I find there is little that cools a man’s ardor faster than discovering that a woman has a mind.”
“Perhaps some men.” He looked down into her face with a light in his eyes that sent tendrils of heat curling through Julia. He stopped, pulling her to a halt, with him. Lifting his hand, he stroked his knuckles lightly down her cheek. “Personally, I find that wit makes a beautiful face twice as alluring.”
“Indeed,” Julia answered breathlessly. She discovered that her vaunted wits had deserted her. She could only stare up into his dark eyes, every nerve in her body alive.
Softly, with his forefinger, he traced the curve of her bottom lip. “I would like to kiss you right here on the street, but I am afraid that, if I do, I will not be able to stop.”
The sound of his husky voice, the touch of his finger, faintly rough against her tender flesh, were enough to make Julia weak in the knees. She tried to pull her thoughts back together, but for a moment the best she could manage, it seemed, was to keep breathing.
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said honestly, then stopped, appalled, as she realized what had slipped out of her mouth. She shook her head, stepping back.
To her surprise, Stonehaven chuckled. “Good gad, my girl, a little more of that sort of response and we shall find ourselves in a hell of a predicament.”
Julia was sure that she was blushing up to her hairline, and she was grateful for the dark. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“I sincerely hope that you did,” he replied, his eyes gleaming. “Unfortunately, however, I cannot act upon it now. Shall we continue on our way?”
He held out his arm, and Julia took it self-consciously. She could not believe that she had said something so bold. It had apparently pleased him, which was good for her campaign, of course, but she found it most upsetting, because it was not anything she had planned. Why had she said that? Surely she could not really have meant it! There was something about this man that brought out the most outrageous things in her.
They continued to a brick cottage, small but attractive, where Stonehaven’s knock was immediately answered by a maid. She greeted Stonehaven with a curtsy and a friendly smile. “The master’s in the music room,” she told them, somewhat unnecessarily, as the laughter and the sound of a piano flowing from that room betrayed the location of the occupants of the house.
Stonehaven handed the maid their outer things and led Julia toward the sound of merriment. Julia stepped into the room, staring with some astonishment and awe at the scene in front of her. A man clad in a hussar’s uniform was sitting before the piano, his fingers nimbly running over the keys. A woman stood beside the piano, holding, to Julia’s amazement, a long, thin cigar in one hand. As Julia stared, she took a puff from it and let the smoke trail lazily out her mouth. There were several other men and women in the room, some standing, some sitting, and on one side of the room, in a small area cleared of furniture, there was even a couple doing some sort of jig. The room buzzed with noise; people were talking in at least two or three different conversations, and one man was trying to sing along with the music. Cigar smoke made the room hazy, and glasses with varying amounts of brown liquid were scattered across every available table.
But what attracted Julia’s attention the most, after her first hasty glance, was the fact that in a chair close to the window sat a man with a woman perched on his lap. The woman’s dress was sheer enough that one could see through it, and when she turned toward the new arrivals, Julia could plainly see the dark brown circles of her nipples. After a brief, disinterested glance, the woman turned back to her companion, and they resumed the long kiss in which they had been engaged when Julia and Stonehaven entered. Julia was sure that her own cheeks were flame red. She glanced hastily away, only to see that in another part of the room another woman sat on another man’s lap. These two were not kissing, as they were both engaged in a boisterous conversation with a man standing beside their chair. However, the man on whose lap the woman sat had one arm looped around her waist, and as Julia watched, he casually slid his hand up the woman’s body and inside the bodice of her low-cut dress, cupping her breast.
Julia swallowed, feeling acutely embarrassed. Was this how she was supposed to act? Her own dress seemed almost prim compared to the attire of the other ladies, whose bosoms seemed ready to pop out of the low necks of their dresses. All of the women were rouged and powdered, and Julia was relatively sure that the guinea gold ringlets of one of them were definitely not her own. Julia realized that her own vision of what a bird of paradise wore was far more conservative than the actuality. She could not look away from the scene, which held a certain bizarre fascination.
One of the women was running her fingers up and down the arm of her companion, who had removed his jacket and was clad only in a shirt. Now and then her fingers strayed to the front of his shirt and even inside the opening at the top to his chest underneath. He seemed to have no objection to this action at all, only paused every now and then to give her a lingering pat on her derriere. The woman whose male companion had cupped her breast showed no inclination to move his hand. Rather, she wiggled on his lap, giggling.
“Stoney!” A man hopped up from a seat near the piano, his face wreathed in smiles. “I say, old man, didn’t expect to see you here tonight. Callie, look! Here’s Stonehaven, come to pay us a call.”
His last words were directed toward the cigar-smoking woman beside the piano, who turned at his words, smiling. When she saw Julia, her eyebrows went up a trifle, and she gave her a quick, assessing look up and down. “Hallo, Dev,” she called across the room and the noise. “It’s about time you thought of your friends. And who is your guest?”
“Allow me to introduce you.” Stonehaven guided Julia across the room to the man and woman. “Miss Nunnelly, I’d like you to meet my good friends. This is the Honorable Alfred Brooks. And Miss Callandra Cooper.” He turned toward Julia. “Miss Jessica Nunnelly.”
The honorable Alfred bowed to Julia, murmuring, “Ravishing. How do you always manage to find the most beautiful females in the city, Dev?”
“Not all the most beautiful ones.” Stonehaven made a polite demurral, bowing toward Alfred’s companion. “You have captured one of the loveliest yourself.”
Callandra simpered at the compliment. Stonehaven chatted for a moment with his friend, then moved with Julia toward the edge of the room. Julia’s gaze kept returning to the woman and man on the chair by the window. They were still kissing, and now his hand was sliding up her leg, shoving aside the flimsy skirt. She looked hastily away, her heart hammering inside her chest. Was this what Stonehaven would expect of her? Doubts assailed her. She looked down at her hands, unable to meet Stonehaven’s eyes.
“Gad, it’s noisy in here,” Stonehaven said. He bent down to Julia’s ear and said softly, “Shall we go outside? There is a nice garden in the rear, and a bench where we can sit and talk.”
“Oh, yes,” Julia agreed quickly, smiling up at him. “That sounds most agreeable.”
Stonehaven took her by the hand and led her down the hallway and out a door. They entered a small side garden that smelled richly of herbs and followed a path around the house to where the garden widened out into a large array of flowers. A tinkling fountain stood in the center of the small yard, and in front of it was a stone bench.
Julia strolled with Lord Stonehaven along the path to the bench. The soft summer breeze caressed her skin, and the scent of roses hung thickly in the air. It was blessedly quiet. They sat down on the bench, and Julia noticed that Stonehaven had not let go of her hand. She tried to pull her scattered thoughts together, to recall herself to her duty and to the plans she had made. She could not let her brother down, she reminded herself, just because her sensibilities had been shocked by the scene inside. It might not be easy, but she had dedicated herself to worming the truth out of Lord Stonehaven, and she could not hesitate now. She had to go forward with her plan.
“Your friend seemed most happy to see you,” she began tentatively.
Stonehaven smiled faintly. “Alfred is a good fellow. Openhanded to a fault. It sometimes gets him in trouble, I’m afraid.”
“Oh?” she asked encouragingly, thinking that friends in trouble was a good path to be following.
