Page 43

Lesson One:

Do Not Offer a Rake Shelter

(Even If He’s Expiring on Your Lawn)

T hey were singing as they carried him up the gravel drive—loudly, off-key, and with far too much enthusiasm over a soul who might be deceased.

Juliet had seen the collision between the rowboats on the duke’s lake, a capsizing, followed by a great deal of shouting.

Had she known this day would involve a drenched contingent of the ton , she would have stayed in Town for another fortnight.

She’d planned for a quiet summer filled with books and solitude.

Away from a demanding marquess who’d asked for her hand and a demanding brother who expected her to give it.

Now, ruining everything, a sodden scoundrel was being carted across her lawn.

He was breathing, she could see, releasing a relieved sigh. She didn’t dislike anyone that much.

Nonetheless, Lord Byron’s latest book slipped from Juliet’s fingers when they moved into view, her arms wrapping around herself in a feeble attempt at fortification.

Despite his ashen pallor and the dank, dark as coal hair obscuring part of his face, she recognized the drowned rat they carried even at ten paces.

Dorian Montrose, come back to haunt her.

Unfortunately, some men were simply too aggravating—and too bloody gorgeous —to forget.

A pity she was not feeling charitable.

“Hold up there,” Juliet said in her best governess’s voice.

She should know, she’d had ten of them growing up.

One after another, until her family was blacklisted by every employment agency in London.

Now, she was simply deemed an unmanageable—and until the marquess’s desperate proposal— unmarriable hoyden.

“Take him back to the duke’s house, will you?

This cottage isn’t stocked for guests. I mainly use it as a library. ”

The group halted at the edge of the drive, dejected, looking to each other with hushed entreaties. “ Library ?” she heard one whisper as if the word was an oath.

Finally, a woman stepped forward, her crimson gown dragging along sadly behind her. “The carriage left us hours ago, and we can’t possibly carry him back to Everleigh house. He’s twelve stone if he’s a day. Plus another stone of lake water.”

Another chimed in, a slight bloke struggling to hold up Dorian’s lower half, “If you must be burdened, at least it’s by a handsome one, miss.”

“Dare’s the most handsome man in England,” a woman in the back said, her tone a thousand shades of possession.

So, this is the latest flavor, Juliet thought with her own covetous jolt.

As if she sensed the reaction—the way women could—his mistress, playmate, or whatever Dorian called his conquests these days trailed a hand across his brow, her immense bosom heaving.

She was stunning even while soaked to the skin, looking like something out of one of the Gothic novels stacked atop Juliet’s bedside table.

A damsel in lusty distress.

Reacting in an absolutely absurd manner and going against every lesson she’d taught herself in the years since she’d seen him, Juliet turned on her heel and started for the cottage, expecting the crowd of miscreants holding up the Duke of Everleigh’s scandalous younger brother to follow.

She led them up a set of marble steps and across the veranda of the modest home, the only residence of the five her family owned that she treasured.

Because it was hers . It was a simple Georgian affair, its solid stone construction built to keep out the worst of the Derbyshire winters.

The narrow hallway smelled faintly of damp wool and old books, reassuring scents, the wooden floorboards creaking as the group trailed down the corridor.

They wrestled him into the nearest parlor, where subdued sunlight cast shadows over well-worn furnishings. A gentle fire burned in the hearth; a fresh pot of tea waited on the table. It was her chosen spot in the house, and she hesitated over giving it up to him.

The men eased Dorian onto the settee, though he was too long for it—one arm dangling to the floor, his booted feet jutting off the other end. Juliet smothered a curse, wondering what the hell she was going to do with him when he woke up.

Yet, she couldn’t stop herself from stepping close, searching for signs of injury.

His face was unharmed, flawless except for a hard, stubble-lined jaw.

His lips as perfect as ever with nary a scratch.

His broad shoulders clad in cream cotton, the fabric plastered to his skin by his sudden swim.

His lean hips and mile-long legs much the same in lightweight nankeen trousers, the pale fabric clinging indecently to every contour.

Dear God , she thought, her cheeks heating. His body was a work of art.

He was no longer the lanky young man she’d known, someone more intrigued by the mechanics of gas lighting than the frivolities of London society.

An outcast, an outsider, a thinker, like her.

He was Dare Montrose. Reprobate. Entrepreneur. Gambler.

Things changed, didn’t they? Life changed. Although Juliet wondered if, when he opened his eyes, they would strike her as being as blue as a crushed forget-me-not, deep and unruly with passion and secrets like they had before.

“Did he hit his head?” she asked, turning to the bedraggled cluster—two men and three women, even odds—huddled cautiously in the doorway. As if they attended a wake.

The woman who seemed to know Dorian intimately stepped forward. “He coughed and tapped his chest, and it was like he swooned. Fainted dead away, toppled our boat, and the one next to us. Heavens, I’m glad we can swim!”

“And that the water is only knee-deep in that pond,” Juliet whispered under her breath.

“I’ve never seen the like, except with my grandmother,” the slight man added, rolling his shoulders wearily as if hauling his friend into the cottage had drained him. “We carried smelling salts for her just about everywhere until the day she died. From cholera, if you’re wondering.”

“He has asthma,” Juliet said, crossing to the chest of blankets she stored by the hearth. “Sounds like one of his episodes.”

“How do you—”

“Ah, yes, you’re the, um…”

She turned to the group, her favorite woolen blanket clutched in her hand. They couldn’t say a thing to her that hadn’t been said before. Raising a brow, she waited. Patience usually afforded the unintelligent time to make a sizable misstep.

Well, get on with it.

“The Fairchild chit,” the slight man answered. “The neighbor. The baron’s daughter.”

Bookish. Odd. Spinster. Juliet heard the words they didn’t utter, read the knowing looks they did.

The fact that she was an heiress, and attractive, baffled society.

If Juliet had been born with the face of a horse, no one would wonder why she never wished to marry.

Why she liked books more than she liked people .

Why she was content wearing gowns three years out of fashion. Why, why, why , a hundred things.

As it was, she mystified them, and they repulsed her.

“I’ll notify His Grace when Lord Dorian wakes up.

” She shook out the blanket and covered Dorian’s long body as best she could, stopping herself from tucking it around him to keep out the chill.

“Then you can have one of the carriages sent around to retrieve him. I don’t keep one in residence. Those are at the main house.”

“But you , alone with him ,” one of the men murmured.

“Hasn’t society already established”—Juliet glanced around the parlor, then back at the group—“that I’m beyond hope or reproach? And, from what I hear, so is Dorian Montrose.”

That said, she ushered the astonished flock down the corridor, closing the front door behind them before taking her first full breath in minutes, and slumping against it.

On weak knees, a result she prayed she’d hidden from his friends, Juliet stumbled back to the parlor.

And because she could now that they were alone, she felt Dorian’s brow—cool—and tucked the blanket in around him.

Removed his boots—Hoby—and his sodden cravat.

His jacket was nowhere to be seen, nor was the Bainbridge timepiece he treasured, which she hoped was not resting on the murky bottom of his brother’s pond.

After delaying a full five minutes, she pressed her ear to his chest as she had when he was a lad. His lungs sounded clear, his breathing deep, steady. From experience, she suspected he’d wake within the hour, maybe two.

Ravenously hungry, impatient, his indigo eyes full of the world.

And this time, for the very first time, he’d be unhappy to be here.

In the cozy cottage where they used to sneak away to make love.