Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart (Love By Numbers #3)(10)

“You can imagine how much I loathe the very idea of asking you for assistance, Duke, but think of how much you will enjoy rubbing it in my face for the rest of our days.”

“I confess, I was hoping not to have to suffer you for so very long.”

Ralston laughed then. “You are a cold-hearted bastard.” He came forward to stand behind the chair he had vacated. “Are you ready, then? For when the news gets out?”

Simon did not pretend to misunderstand. Ralston and St. John were the only two men who knew the darkest of Simon’s secrets. The one that would destroy his family and his reputation if it were revealed.

The one that was bound to be revealed sooner or later.

Would he ever be ready?

“Not yet. But soon.”

Ralston watched him with a cool blue gaze that reminded Simon of Juliana. “You know we will stand beside you.”

Simon laughed once, the sound humorless. “Forgive me if I do not place much weight in the support of the House of Ralston.”

One side of Ralston’s mouth lifted in a smile. “We are a motley bunch. But we more than make up for it with tenacity.”

Simon considered the woman in his library. “That I do not doubt.”

“I take it you plan to marry.”

Simon paused in the act of lifting his glass to his lips. “How did you know that?”

The smile turned into a knowing grin then. “Nearly every problem can be solved by a trip to the vicar. Particularly yours. Who is the lucky girl?”

Simon considered lying. Considered pretending that he hadn’t selected her. Everyone would know soon enough, however. “Lady Penelope Marbury.”

Ralston whistled long and low. “Daughter of a double marquess. Impeccable reputation. Generations of pedigree. The Holy Trinity of a desirable match. And a fortune as well. Excellent choice.”

It was nothing that Simon had not thought himself, of course, but it smarted nonetheless for him to hear it spoken aloud. “I do not like to hear you discuss my future duchess’s merits as though she were prize cattle.”

Ralston leaned back. “My apologies. I was under the impression that you had selected your future duchess as though she were prize cattle.”

The whole conversation was making him uncomfortable. It was true. He was not marrying Lady Penelope for anything other than her unimpeachable background.

“After all, it isn’t as if anyone will believe the great Duke of Leighton would marry for love.”

He did not like the tremor of sarcasm in Ralston’s tone. Of course, the marquess had always known how to irritate him. Ever since they were children. Simon rose, eager to move. “I think I shall fetch your sister, Ralston. It’s time for you to take her home. And I would appreciate it if you could keep your family dramatics from my doorstep in the future.”

The words sounded imperious even to his ears.

Ralston straightened, making slow work of coming to his full height, almost as tall as Leighton. “I shall certainly try. After all, you have plenty of your own family dramatics threatening to come crashing down on the doorstep, do you not?”

There was nothing about Ralston that Simon liked.

He would do well to remember that.

He exited the study and headed for the library, opening the door with more force than necessary and coming up short just inside the room.

She was asleep in his chair.

With his dog.

The chair she had selected was one that he had worked long and hard to get to the perfect level of comfort. His butler had suggested it for reupholstering countless times, due in part, Simon imagined, to the fraying, soft fabric that he considered one of the seat’s finest attributes. He took in Juliana’s sleeping form, her scratched cheek against the soft golden threads of the worn fabric.

She had taken off her shoes and curled her feet beneath her, and Simon shook his head at the behavior. Ladies across London would not dare go barefoot in the privacy of their own homes, and yet here she was, making herself comfortable and taking a nap in a duke’s library.

He stole a moment to watch her, to appreciate how she perfectly fit his chair. It was larger than the average seat, built specifically for him fifteen years prior, when, tired of folding himself into minuscule chairs that his mother had declared “the height of fashion,” he had decided that, as duke, he was well within his birthright to spend a fortune on a chair that fit his body. It was wide enough for him to sit comfortably, with just enough extra room for a stack of papers requiring his attention, or, as was the case right now, for a dog in search of a warm body.

The dog, a brown mutt that had found his way into his sister’s country bedchamber one winter’s day, now traveled with Simon and made his home wherever the duke was. The canine was particularly fond of the library in the town house, with its three fireplaces and comfortable furniture, and he had obviously made a friend. Leopold was now curled into a small, tight ball, head on one of Juliana’s long thighs.

Thighs Simon should not be noticing.

That his dog was a traitor was a concern Simon would address later.

Now, however, he had to deal with the lady.

“Leopold.” Simon called the hound, slapping one hand against his thigh in a practiced maneuver that had the dog coming to heel in seconds.

If only the same action would bring the girl to heel.

No, if he had his way, he would not wake her so easily. Instead, he would rouse her slowly, with long, soft strokes along those glorious legs . . . he would crouch beside her and bury his face in that mass of ebony hair, drinking in the smell of her, then run his lips along the lovely angle of her jaw until he reached the curve of one soft ear. He would whisper her name, waking her with breath instead of sound.