Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart (Love By Numbers #3)(9)

She had cocked her head at the same angle as she had this evening while conversing with her brother. “Perhaps.”

“Or, the daughter of a Veronese count, whiling away your spring here, eager to experience the legendary London Season.”

She had laughed then, the sound like sunshine. “How disheartening that you make my father a mere count. Why not a duke? Like you?”

He had smiled. “A duke, then,” adding softly, “that would make things much easier.”

She’d let him believe she was more than a vexing commoner.

Which, of course, she wasn’t.

Yes, he should have fetched Ralston the moment he saw the little fool on the floor of his carriage, squeezed into the corner as though she were a smaller woman, as though she could have hidden from him.

“If I’d come to fetch you, how do you think that would have worked?”

“She’d be asleep in her bed right now. That’s how it would have worked.”

He ignored the vision of her sleeping, her wild raven hair spread across crisp, white linen, her creamy skin rising from the low scoop of her nightgown. If she wore a nightgown.

He cleared his throat. “And if she’d leapt from my carriage in full view of all the Ralston House revelers? What then?”

Ralston paused, considering. “Well, then, I suppose she would have been ruined. And you would be preparing for a life of wedded bliss.”

Simon drank again. “So it is likely better for all of us that I behaved as I did.”

Ralston’s eyes darkened. “That’s not the first time you have so baldly resisted the idea of marrying my sister, Leighton. I find I’m beginning to take it personally.”

“Your sister and I would not suit, Ralston. And you know it.”

“You could not handle her.”

Simon’s lips twisted. There wasn’t a man in London who could handle the chit.

Ralston knew it. “No one will have her. She’s too bold. Too brash. The opposite of good English girls.” He paused, and Simon wondered if the marquess was waiting for him to disagree. He had no intention of doing so. “She says whatever enters her head whenever it happens to arrive, with no consideration of how those around her might respond. She bloodies the noses of unsuspecting men!” The last was said on a disbelieving laugh.

“Well, to be fair, it did sound like this evening’s man had it coming.”

“It did, didn’t it?” Ralston stopped, thinking for a long moment. “It shouldn’t be so hard to find him. There can’t be too many aristocrats with a fat lip going around.”

“Even fewer limping off the other injury,” Simon said wryly.

Ralston shook his head. “Where do you think she learned that tactic?”

From the wolves by whom she had clearly been raised.

“I would not deign to guess.”

Silence fell between them, and after a long moment, Ralston sighed and stood. “I do not like to be indebted to you.”

Simon smirked at the confession. “Consider us even.”

The marquess nodded once and headed for the door. Once there, he turned back. “Lucky, isn’t it, that there is a special session this autumn? To keep us all from our country seats?”

Simon met Ralston’s knowing gaze. The marquess did not speak what they both knew—that Leighton had thrown his considerable power behind an emergency bill that could have waited easily for the spring session of Parliament to begin.

“Military preparedness is a serious issue,” Simon said with deliberate calm.

“Indeed it is.” Ralston crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. “And Parliament is a welcome distraction from sisters, is it not?”

Simon’s gaze narrowed. “You have never pulled punches with me before, Ralston. There is no need to begin now.”

“I do not suppose I could request your assistance with Juliana?”

Simon froze, the request hanging between them.

Simply tell him no.

“What kind of assistance?”

Not precisely “No,” Leighton.

Ralston raised a brow. “I am not asking you to wed the girl, Leighton. Relax. I could use the extra set of eyes on her. I mean, she can’t go into the gardens of our own home without getting herself attacked by unidentified men.”

Simon leveled Ralston with a cool look. “It appears that the universe is punishing you with a sibling who makes as much trouble as you did.”

“I am afraid you might be right.” A heavy silence fell. “You know what could happen to her, Leighton.”

You’ve lived it.

The words remained unspoken, but Simon heard them, nonetheless.

Still, the answer is no.

“Forgive me if I am not entirely interested in doing you a favor, Ralston.”

Much closer.

“It would be a favor for St. John, as well,” Ralston added, invoking the name of his twin brother—the good twin. “I might remind you that my family has spent quite a bit of energy caring for your sister, Leighton.”

There it was.

The heavy weight of scandal, powerful enough to move mountains.

He did not like having such an obvious weakness.

And it would only get worse.

For a long moment, Simon could not bring himself to speak. Finally, he nodded his agreement. “Fair enough.”