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“A jealous or neglected or thwarted woman may be capable of anything, whether to try to win back her beloved, or to punish him. If you think otherwise, you are truly naive.”
Nobody had ever called Sir Douglas Drury naive, and after what he’d seen of human nature in his youth and childhood, during the war and at the bench, he truly didn’t think he was, whether about women or anything else. “None of my lovers would do such a thing.”
“Then you are to be commended for choosing wisely. Or else they didn’t love you enough to be jealous.”
He had to laugh at that. “I know they did not, as I did not love them.”
Juliette’s brows drew together, making a wrinkle between them, as she tilted her head and asked, “Has anybody ever loved you?”
Her question hit him hard, and there was no way in hell he was going to answer it. She was too insolent, too prying, and it made no difference to the situation.
“Have you ever loved anyone?” she persisted, undaunted by his scowling silence. “Have you never been jealous?”
Up until a few days ago, he would have answered unequivocally no to both questions—until he’d been saved by an infuriating, prying, frustrating, arousing, exciting Frenchwoman with a basket of potatoes.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t about to answer her question. “Whether or not my love has been given or received is none of your business, Miss Bergerine.”
“If I had not been attacked because of you, I would agree that your affairs are none of mine,” she agreed. “But I was, and if you are an expert in the courtroom, you are obviously not an expert on love. Nor can you see into a person’s heart.
“I find it easy to believe that whatever you may have thought of your affair or her feelings, at least one of your amours has loved you passionately, certainly enough to be fiercely jealous and wish to do you harm. If she thinks I have taken her place, she would want me dead, too. And a rich woman usually gets what she wants.”
This was ludicrous. He would know if any of his lovers bore him such animosity. “Fortunately, I can see into a person’s heart, Miss Bergerine, or as good as. That’s why I’m so adept at my profession. That’s why I always win. So I am quite confident none of my former lovers is involved in these attacks.”
“If you are so good at reading the human heart, monsieur le barrister, what am I thinking now?”
Damn stupid question.
Except… what was she thinking? And was it about him, or another man? Buggy? Allan Gerrard? Gad, she might be thinking about Millstone for all Drury could tell. He’d never met anyone more obtuse.
Yet there were other times when her emotions were written on her face as plainly as words on a page. Was it any wonder she was the most infuriating, fascinating woman he’d ever met?
“Well, Sir Douglas? What am I thinking?” she repeated.
He guessed. He was good at guessing—making assumptions on the merest shred of evidence and pressing until the full truth was revealed, even if it wasn’t always exactly what he thought it would be. “I think you’re very pleased with yourself, because you think you understand women better than I.”
He remembered the way she’d stroked that leaf and noted the little flush coloring her soft cheeks. And because she seemed to want to tear his secrets from him, he would not hold back. “I think you’re feeling desire, too—a desire you don’t want to acknowledge.”
Juliette laughed. Juliette Bergerine, a Frenchwoman in England with hardly a penny to her name, laughed in Sir Douglas Drury’s face.
“You are only guessing, monsieur le barrister,” she chided, “and you are wrong. While I cannot deny you have a certain appeal, you are not the sort of man who arouses my passion.”
He had felt the sting of rejection before. He knew it well and intimately. When he was a child, and even during her fatal illness, his mother had often sent him away. Although his late father had inherited a considerable fortune, he always claimed to have business to attend to. Drury had suspected that had often been an excuse to avoid both his wife and his son, whom he seemed to consider no more than an additional nuisance. Neither one of his parents had possessed the devotion or temperament for parenthood. Over time, Drury had come to believe he was immune to such barbs, only to discover here and now that he was not.
“So you see, you could be just as wrong about your lovers,” she continued, speaking with decisive confidence, oblivious to the pain she’d caused. “Therefore, Sir Douglas, I believe we must not hide and wait and hope our enemy will show herself. We must force her to take action. I should not remain cloistered here. I must go out and about—and you must tell everyone we are to be married. For if there is one thing that will drive a rejected lover to distraction, it will be the notion that her usurper has achieved the greatest prize of all, a wedding ring.”
Drury could think of a thousand things wrong with that idea—well, two, but they were vital. “People have been told you’re my cousin.”
“So? Do cousins not marry in this country?”
Gad. “And if this does tempt our enemy to act—provided the same person is responsible for both attacks—you will be in danger.”
“These men you hire, this MacDougal person—could they not protect us and capture our enemy if we are attacked again?”
“It’s too risky.”
“But we must do something. The search does not progress, and I do not want to impose upon Lord Bromwell for much longer.”
She was worried about imposing on Buggy? “He can afford it.”
“Then you wish to continue this charade? What if it is weeks, or months?”
Weeks or months of returning to a comfortable house with Juliette waiting, sitting by the hearth with her bright eyes and busy fingers, her vibrant presence like a flame to warm him.
He must be losing his mind. Too many hours alone in that cell, waiting to be killed. Or perhaps he’d caught some tropical disease from one of the plants or specimens Buggy was always showing him. Or that blow to the head had been worse than he’d thought, because the vivacious Juliette, with her outrageous ideas, would never bring him the serenity he sought.
Indeed, life with her would never be placid.
She regarded him steadily, her mind quite clearly made up. “I have no wish to live forever in a gilded cage. I have always had work to occupy my time, even if it was not always pleasant. My room was terrible—that I know. But it was mine. Here, I am like one of Lord Bromwell’s spiders, trapped in a jar. The jar may be clean, it may be safer than the jungle, but the spider soon dies for want of fresh air.”
So she should go. Be free and leave him. “If you wish to go, I’ll arrange for your protection for as long as you feel it necessary.”
“I am not so ungrateful as that!” she exclaimed. At last her steadfast gaze faltered and her voice became a little less assured. “I could not depart thinking you were still in danger when I can help you flush out your enemy.”
Was he supposed to believe she cared about him? After everything she’d said to him? “Proclaiming we are to be married is a foolish, dangerous idea. It’s also useless, because no former lover of mine is out to kill us. However, if you chafe at this life, you are free to go as soon as I’ve arranged protection for you.”
Her expression unmistakably stubborn, Juliette threw herself onto another wrought-iron chair. “Non,” she said, crossing her arms. “I am not your guest. I am Lord Bromwell’s, and he has told me I may stay. So voilà, I stay.”
“The hell you will!” Gad, she was infuriating! “As for saying we’re engaged—”
The sound of a throat being cleared interrupted him. Millstone stood at the door of the conservatory, his face scarlet. “If you please, Sir Douglas, the dressmaker has arrived with the garments for Miss Bergerine. She’s waiting in the morning room.”
“Oh, how delightful!” Juliette cried, jumping up as if everything was wonderful. “And now you will be able to take me to the theater, and Vauxhall, and all the other places in London I have heard about. Is it any wonder I agreed to marry you, my darling, despite your terrible temper?”
Millstone’s eyes looked about to drop right out of his head.
“You weren’t supposed to say anything,” Drury growled through clenched teeth, as furious and frustrated as he’d ever been in his life.
“Oh!” she gasped, her remorse patently false as she covered her mouth her fingertips. “Forgive me! But I am so happy!”
And then she gave him a hearty smack full on the lips before taking his hand and pulling him toward the door.
The little minx!
“Not a word to anyone about this, Millstone,” Drury commanded as she dragged him away.
“Until we give you leave,” Juliette said with a joyous giggle, as if their secret engagement would soon be common knowledge.
She might feel like a spider in a jar, but he was the one caught in her web.
“Oh, Madame de Malanche, how happy I am to see you!” Juliette cried as they entered the morning room, a very pretty chamber used by the Countess of Granshire, Buggy’s mother, when she wished to write her correspondence or entertain her friends. The walls were papered with a bucolic scene, and the furniture was slender and delicate. Even the writing desk in the corner looked as if it would shatter if someone leaned on it.
Right now, there were piles of boxes on the light blue damask sofa, the chairs and every side table.
“Miss Bergerine!” the modiste replied. “You look radiant today.”
“Because I am so happy!” Juliette slid the captive Drury a coy, delighted smile.
He wanted nothing more than to escape, but he didn’t dare leave Juliette alone with this gossipy woman wearing a dress of the most startling, eye-popping shade of yellow he’d ever seen. Looking at her was like staring at the sun, and just as likely to give him a headache.
“My cousin is delighted with her new wardrobe,” he said, cutting off the voluble modiste before she could say a word. “Juliette, ring the bell for your maid while I pay madame.”
“Of course, my love. But first, madame, I would like to ask you to make my wedding dress.”
Madame de Malanche’s hazel eyes grew nearly as bright as her dress. “You’re getting married? You and Sir Douglas?”
“Juliette, ring the bell!” Drury ordered, glowering.
“Oh, he is such a shy fellow!” she cried, clapping her hands as if amused and charmed. “That is why I love him so!”
“Juliette,” he warned.
Instead of going to ring the bell, however, she ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Am I not the luckiest woman in England?”
Damn her! Did she think she could control this situation? Control him? He’d show her how wrong she was.
“As I am the most fortunate of men,” he said in a low, husky whisper reserved for his lovers alone.
Then he took her in his arms and kissed her as if they were already married and this was their wedding night.
Chapter Nine
So now the ton is under the impression I’m engaged to be married. What a mess. Or I suppose Buggy would liken it to a tangled web. And I’m a fly.
—from the journal of Sir Douglas Drury
Drury felt Juliette stiffen in his arms and told himself that was good—until she began to kiss him back with even more fervor.
Did she think she was going to win this duel? Did she believe he was a slave to any of his emotions?
Determined to prove otherwise, he shifted and used his tongue to gently part her lips.
As their kiss deepened, she ran her hands up his back and entwined her fingers in his hair.
Oh, God help him, she was the most arousing—
“Ahem!”
He’d forgotten the damned dressmaker. Just as well she was there and interfering; otherwise…
He was determined not to contemplate otherwise as he drew back.
Juliette looked a little… dazed. As for how he felt… He would ignore that, too.
“Call the maid, my love,” he said huskily, “and go with her to put these things away, or I fear we may upset Madame de Malanche with another unseemly demonstration of our mutual affection.”
He fixed his steadfast, steely gaze on the modiste. “I hope we can count on you to keep this information to yourself, madame, until we’ve made a formal announcement. If you cannot be discreet, Miss Bergerine may have to take her business elsewhere.”
“You may count on my discretion, absolutely!” Madame de Malanche exclaimed. “Although you must allow me to wish you joy.”
“Thank you,” Drury replied. Despite her assurance, he feared the dressmaker would never be able to keep what she had seen and heard a secret. Nevertheless, he had to try.
“Ring for the maid, Juliette,” he repeated, and this time she finally did.
As soon as Drury could get away, he headed for Boodle’s. He needed a drink and he needed to get away from women, as well as his own tumultuous thoughts, for a while.
He should have told Madame de Malanche he was not engaged to Juliette, and he really never should have kissed her.
Especially like that.
What the devil was the matter with him? he wondered as he entered the bastion of country squires come to Town. Unlike White’s or Brooks’s, Boodle’s was favored by men more down-to-earth than most of the aristocrats who frequented the other gentlemen’s clubs. That was why Drury preferred it. He’d also avoided White’s ever since he’d written down the infamous wager between Brix and Fanny in the betting book there. Brix, however, never seemed troubled by the association and claimed Boodle’s appealed to the duller members of the gentry.
Therefore Drury was duly surprised to find his friend lounging on a leather sofa in the main salon, long legs stretched out, drink in hand. Unlike most of the patrons of the club, he wasn’t gambling. Neither was he foxed.
Brix held up a glass nearly full of red wine and gave his friend a wry grin. “Greetings, Cicero! I’ve been hoping you’d appear.”
Mystified by his friend’s presence, Drury feared the worst. “Have you quarreled with Fanny?”
“Good God, no!” he cried, straightening. “We don’t quarrel anymore… well, not often, and usually about completely unimportant matters until we forget why we’re quarreling, and kiss and make up. It’s quite stimulating, actually. You should marry and try it.”
“I am not the domestic sort,” Drury said, wondering how he was going to explain Juliette’s harebrained plan to his friends, and even more disturbed about what the ton would make of it, provided anyone other than Madame de Malanche would believe it.
Likely they wouldn’t, he realized with… relief. Of course relief. What else should he feel?
“Really, why are you here?” he asked his friend again.
“My esteemed father and elder brother are in Town and they requested a convivial meeting to celebrate my happy news,” Brix replied with another grin. “They’re delighted I’ve not only done my duty and married at last—to a damn fine gel, as Father so charmingly puts it—but have already proved capable of carrying on the family name.”
Brix’s relationship with his father and brother had never been the best, so Drury didn’t begrudge his friend the slightly sarcastic tone. Then Brix, being Brix, winked. “I can think of much more onerous duties, I assure you. And since I was here anyway, I thought I’d wait a while and see if you put in an appearance—and here you are!”
“Yes, here I am.”
Brix wasn’t completely insensitive to the subtleties of his friend’s tone and he sobered at once. “More trouble? Not another attack, I hope?”
“No, although I believe Miss Bergerine is of the opinion that another attack would be a beneficial occurrence.”
Brix looked justifiably confused. “Beneficial? How?”
“She’s decided the attacks are the work of a jealous former lover of mine, a jilted amour paying to have us killed. She believes we should attempt to flush out my enemy by claiming to be engaged and going about together in public.”
