The Secret Life of Lady Julia (24 page)

Chapter 39

“T
here’s a letter for you,” Stephen said when she arrived back at the embassy, her cheeks still pink with more than the cold. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Thomas Merritt’s “condition.” It was impossible.

And yet, he was risking his life, and she had agreed. There was no choice but to fulfill her part of the bargain.

She took the letter from Stephen’s hand. “It’s from Diana Talleyrand,” she told him, and opened it. “It’s an invitation to attend her salon tomorrow night,” she said breathlessly, and grinned at him. “It’s perfect, a way in—”

He took her hand, kissed it. “Perhaps this will be easier than we thought.”

“Yes,” she said. “Or perhaps not. Will Prince de Talleyrand expect me to deliver some kind of message from Lord Castlereagh?”

“If Merritt is successful, that will be message enough.”

She paced the room, measuring the rug. “Yes, I suppose so. What will happen if we fail?”

He looked away uneasily, hiding something. “We can’t. It’s too important.”

He came to stand in front of her, to stop her from pacing, and put his hand under her chin, raising her face to his. He kissed her gently on the lips.

“You’re a remarkable woman, Julia. When this is over—”

She pressed her hand to his chest, gently. “Wait until then,” she whispered.

“Knowing about Merritt hasn’t changed my mind about what I said, Julia.” He stepped back. “I can’t go with you tomorrow night. I’ve been ordered not to.”

“By Castlereagh?” she asked.

He nodded. “I am a recognized member of the British delegation. If Merritt fails and I am there, it will be impossible to deny our involvement.”

She felt her heart sink. “Then what will happen to him?”

He frowned. “That won’t be our concern.”

“But he agreed to help us!”

“For a price,” he said fiercely. “For jewels and money, not for any love of king or country or—” He stopped before he said it, but she understood.
You.
As if Thomas Merritt might care about her beyond the pleasure he’d already had.

“And what of me? I’m to go with him, show him where the documents are,” she said, breathless. He looked pained, came and touched her cheek, his own skin flushing, his eyes bright.

“Don’t fail, Julia. You can’t. Get out if things go badly.”

“Or what?” she asked, but she already knew. She was as disposable, as expendable, to Castlereagh as Thomas Merritt was. Her heart climbed into her throat.

There was a knock at the door, and he sprang away from her and took a seat on the other side of the room, as if she had already failed, was already tainted.

“Another letter for Miss Leighton,” the footman said, entering.

She took it and saw Diana’s neat script. What now? Had Talleyrand heard somehow?

“Another invitation?” Stephen asked, returning to her side once the servant left the room.

“No,” she said. “News. A mutual friend is ill, the old Prince de Ligne.”

“Sorry to hear it. The old fellow has been a fixture at the courts of Europe for half a century.”

She folded the letter. “If Dorothea doesn’t need me, I think I will go to see him.”

“You are very kind,” he said. “It will take your mind off—things. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Chapter 40

T
he Prince de Ligne had lodgings near the old city walls. He cheerfully referred to his modest home as his “birdcage” since it was so small his bedroom doubled as his salon.

“And how very convenient that is, when one is confined to one’s bed,” he said, greeting Julia as she arrived in the crowded room, which was already filled with visitors. “How wonderful that you’ve come today, my dear. There is someone I’ve wanted to introduce you to for a very long time. Viscount, here is the lovely English rose I told you about.”

Julia turned to find Thomas Merritt standing near the window where the light shone on him, illuminated him like a dark angel. The lady next to him assessed Julia with a narrow-eyed glare.

“Miss Leighton and I have met, Your Highness,” Thomas said, regarding her with sardonic amusement.

“
Miss Leighton?
Oh no, among friends she is Lady Julia. Especially now,” de Ligne said. He held out his hands. “Come and stand here by the bed, both of you. There now, didn’t I say they would make a dazzling couple?” he asked his guests.

“Not at all, in my opinion,” the beauty by the window said in accented English, to ensure Julia understood.

Julia took in the emerald green military spencer the lady wore, cut to show her lush figure to perfection. Her eyes matched the hard glint of the emeralds in her ears and adorning her saucy little cap. She came to stand next to Thomas, his dark handsomeness the perfect foil for her blond beauty.

De Ligne chuckled and blew her a kiss. “No, you would not see it, my dear Princess Kostova. But Vienna deserves to be a city of love as much as Paris does. Forgive me, my dear, but a little matchmaking now and then keeps me young, especially now that I am past the age of participating in love affairs in any other way.”

The princess’s face softened to a smile as she straightened the shawl around de Ligne’s shoulders. “You old roué, you will always be my first love.”

“I had no idea you knew de Ligne,” Thomas said to Julia in a low voice, drawing her into a quiet corner. “But then I had no idea you knew Talleyrand, or Castlereagh, or Stephen Ives, for that matter.”

He sounded almost peevish. Julia looked again at the lovely Russian princess. “Is she your lover?” she asked boldly.

He raised his eyebrows. “How surprising. I doubt the demure Julia Leighton I met in London would ever have asked such a bold question. She was a lady to her fingertips.”

“And innocent,” she said, meeting his eyes. He colored slightly. No, she was no longer the pampered earl’s daughter, no longer a virginal English lady. That had all changed the moment she set her hand in his and let him waltz her out the French doors of her father’s ballroom, and straight into scandal. Truth be told, it irked her—just a little—to imagine him with the vivid blonde.

“Since we are sharing our deepest secrets, is Stephen Ives
your
lover?” he asked, though he hadn’t answered her question about Kostova.

Anger flared, and she scanned the room to see if anyone was listening, but the prince was spinning one of his fascinating tales, holding his guests in thrall. “Do you imagine I would ever have agreed to your—” She tripped over the word, a prim earl’s daughter after all, perhaps. “—‘condition’ if he was?”

“Ah yes, my condition,” he drawled.

“Surely you didn’t mean it,” she said in a breathless rush. He filled their quiet corner of the room, and by necessity she was standing so close that her skirts brushed his trousers and his face was mere inches from her own. She could feel his breath on her cheek, see the flare of his pupils at the question. She held her breath. Could he still make her see stars if he kissed her now? Her body tingled.

“Didn’t I?” he asked, yet another question to avoid answering her. “Do you ever think about that night at your betrothal ball?”

She glanced at his cravat, inexpertly tied. Her hands itched to straighten it. “Of course not,” she said, her voice a husky murmur. She met his eyes, her gaze locked with his.

“I remember every detail. Your dress was blue, and you wore diamonds in your hair—” He reached up to coil a lock of her hair around his finger, indicating the place on her head the diamonds had been. “Here, and here. You wore violet perfume.” He leaned in and sniffed, then smiled to see she still wore it. “I remember the exact feel of your waist under my hand as we waltzed, the taste of champagne on your lips, the sound of your sighs when I—” He stopped and let his eyes drop to her lips. Her mouth watered.

“Surely you’ve had dozens—hundreds—of other, um, encounters, since then,” she said, the pounding of her heart making her breathless.

“As have you, no doubt,” he said.

She looked away. “Of course.”

“My God, you haven’t, have you?”

She stared at him ferociously. “Just because I do not make a habit of going about seduci—” She choked on the word.

He looked contrite for a moment. “I didn’t realize until after that I was the first. I would not have—”

“That’s why you came to see me, on Bond Street. It wasn’t to return my earring, was it, which I assume you—took—on purpose?” She couldn’t say “stole.”

His lips tightened. “I wanted to be sure you were—unhurt. I feared I might have been too rough.” Was he
blushing
? She should be the one to blush!

Did his bedmates usually announce such facts? She had no idea of the etiquette for illicit seductions.

He looked at her as he had that night, his eyes gentle, lit by an internal fire that set her own blood alight.

He caught her hand in his. “Forgive me, Julia. I am not usually so—”

“What are you two discussing over there?” The prince’s voice rang out. “Come and sit here on the bed beside me, Lady Julia. There are some people here even more sheltered than I. They haven’t heard the tale of your heroic actions in the park. I daresay there are a lot of rumors and half-truths surrounding the encounter, so you must tell us the true tale—or embellish it further, if you prefer—so long as it is a good story.”

T
homas watched Julia blush, felt his heart turn over in his chest. How long had it been since he’d seen a genuine blush? She was still as innocent as she’d been that night. Almost. He felt frustration that their conversation had been interrupted, and yet he was intrigued that she had yet another adventure to recount. Did she make a habit of daring escapades?

Escapades like him. He felt a surge of desire.

“There’s not much to tell, Your Highness,” she said, smiling at the prince. “Just some robbers in the park.”

De Ligne gaped at her. “
Some
robbers? I heard there were twenty men, armed to the teeth. They shot four bystanders and swarmed over the coach carrying the imperial jewels of Austria—the empress had ordered them fetched from the vault buried deep under the Hofburg Palace so she could wear them at a ball at Schonbrunn. Lady Julia disarmed one of the thieves, and used his own pistol to shoot him and four more of his fellows.”

“Doesn’t a pistol hold just one single shot?” Kostova asked blandly.

A robbery in the park? Thomas felt his stomach clench.
Donovan’s
robbery? He stared at Julia in stunned silence—and he’d been afraid she was too fragile to withstand his rough seduction.

He assessed the delicate lines of her body, the slim fingers, soft skin, demure blush.

The woman was an Amazon.

He watched as she gently corrected the story. She had shot one man, not four, and only in the leg. The coach had contained the wife of the Bavarian ambassador, not the Austrian crown jewels. She told her tale modestly, hoped she hadn’t killed the man, even if he was a criminal. He noticed she carefully avoided using the word thief, and did not look at him as she told the story.

By the end of the tale it was perfectly clear that Lady Julia Leighton had shot his valet. He stood and stared at her, numb.

She was not the woman he’d thought she was—she was more. More complex, more intriguing, more womanly—and he wanted her more than ever.

Chapter 41

D
orothea waited until Mrs. Hawes stepped out of the nursery to go down to the kitchens. She slipped into the nursery and stared down at the baby asleep in the cot.

How beautiful he was, how much like her son, William. Will, Matthew had called him, saying he was far too small for such a long and princely name as yet. He was only a few months older than Jamie when he died.

Children were so fragile. Life itself was fragile. She touched the baby’s plump pink cheek, checking for signs of fever, but he was perfect, and healthy, and beautiful.

She smiled at him with tears in her eyes and reached into the cot to pick him up.

He stirred, cooed, as she rocked him, humming the familiar lullaby.