Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart (Love By Numbers #3)(12)

She had been warned about him—the Duke of Disdain, keenly aware of his station in society, who held no interest for those whom he considered beneath him. He was known for his aloof presence, for his cool contempt. She had heard that he selected his servants for their discretion, his mistresses for their lack of emotion, and his friends—well, there was no indication that he would stoop to something so common as friendship.

But until that moment, when he discovered her identity, she had not believed the gossip. Not until she had felt the sting of his infamous disdain.

It had hurt. Far more than the judgment of all the others.

And then she had kissed him. Like a fool. And it had been remarkable. Until he had pulled away with a violence that embarrassed her still.

“You are a danger to yourself and others. You should return to Italy. If you stay, your instincts will find you utterly ruined. With extraordinary speed.”

“You enjoyed it,” Juliana said, accusation in her tone keeping the pain at bay.

He leveled her with a cool, calculated look. “Of course I did. But unless you are angling for a position as my mistress—and you’d make a fine mistress—” She gasped, and he drove his point home like a knife to her chest. “You would do well to remember your station.”

That had been the moment that she decided to remain in London. To prove to him and all the others who judged her behind their fluttering lace fans and their cool English glances that she was more than what they saw.

She ran a fingertip over the barely noticeable pink mark at her temple—the last vestige of the night when she’d landed herself in Leighton’s carriage, bringing back all the painful memories of those early weeks in London, when she was young and alone and still hoped that she could become one of them—these aristocrats.

She should have known better, of course.

They would never accept her.

The maid finished Mariana’s hem, and Juliana watched as her friend shook out her skirts before twirling toward her. “Shall we?”

Juliana slouched dramatically. “Must we?”

The duchess laughed, and they moved to reenter the main room of the salon.

“I heard that she was spied in a torrid embrace in the gardens the night of the Ralston autumn ball.”

Juliana froze, immediately recognizing the high, nasal tone of Lady Sparrow, one of the ton’s worst gossips.

“In her brother’s gardens?” The disbelieving gasp made it clear that Juliana was the object of their conversation.

Her gaze flew to a clearly furious Mariana, who appeared ready to storm the room—and its gossiping inhabitants. Which Juliana could not allow her to do. She placed one hand on her friend’s arm, staying her movement, and waited, listening.

“She is only a half sibling.”

“And we all know what that half was like.” A chorus of laughter punctuated the barb, which struck with painful accuracy.

“It’s amazing that so many invite her to events,” one nearly drawled. “Tonight, for example . . . I had thought Lady Weston a better judge of character.”

So had Juliana.

“It is somewhat difficult to invite Lord and Lady Ralston without extending the invitation to Miss Fiori,” a new voice pointed out.

A snort of derision followed. “Not that they are much better . . . with the marquess’s scandalous past and the marchioness—so very uninteresting. I still wonder what she did to win him.”

“And let’s not even discuss Lord Nicholas, marrying a country bumpkin. Can you imagine!”

“Never doubt what poor stock can do to good English blood. It’s clear that the mother has . . . left her mark.”

The last came on a high-pitched cackle, and Juliana’s fury began to rise. It was one thing for the vicious harridans to insult her, but it was an entirely different thing for them to go after her family. Those she loved.

“I do not understand why Ralston doesn’t just give the sister a settlement and send her back to Italy.”

Neither did Juliana.

She’d expected that to happen any number of times since she arrived, unbidden, on the steps of Ralston House. Her brother had never once even suggested it.

But she still had trouble believing that he didn’t want her gone.

“Don’t listen to them,” Mariana whispered. “They’re horrible, hateful women who live to loathe.”

“All it will take is for one person of quality to find her doing something base, and she’ll be exiled from society forever.”

“That shouldn’t take long. Everyone knows Italians have loose morals.”

Juliana had had enough.

She pushed past Mariana and into the ladies’ salon, where the threesome were retouching their maquillage at the large mirror on one wall of the room. Tossing a broad smile in the direction of the women, she took perverse pleasure in their stillness—a combination of shock and chagrin.

Still laughing at her own joke was the coolly beautiful and utterly malicious Lady Sparrow, who had married a viscount, rich as Croesus and twice as old, three months before the man had died, leaving her with a fortune to do with as she wished. The viscountess was joined by Lady Davis, who apparently had not had her fill of the legendary orange extravaganza, as she was wearing an atrocious gown that accentuated her waist in such a way as to turn the woman into a perfect, round gourd.