Page 45

Lesson Three:

Avoid Prolonged Eye Contact As It’s a Rake’s Most DangerousWeapon

J uliet refused to let herself be lulled into a false sense of—

She frowned, dabbing at the crumbs on her plate.

Comfort. Companionship. Shared history .

Dorian’s family and hers had been neighbors since the turn of the century. They hadn’t seen each other every summer, nor were they close. Dukes didn’t typically mingle with barons. A title granted to Juliet’s father for services rendered by the Crown after his success with the East India Company.

A most lowly path to a barony, society agreed.

Though she and Dorian had turned this distant acquaintance on its head the summer of her twenty-first year.

He was home from Cambridge, two years younger, a brilliant future laid before him as the second son of a duke.

While she was mournfully, anxiously , contemplating a proposal from a degenerate viscount with a noticeable appetite for her dowry.

They met in the village—stumbled into each other in the apothecary, actually. Then again, another chance encounter the following week while strolling the moorlands that made the Peak District the most gorgeous terrain in England.

Soon, their encounters were as emotionally charged as the windswept vistas.

Dorian had been in turmoil as the younger son of a duke, chafing under his father’s expectations that he follow a distinguished path when he had outrageous ideas of involving himself in, of all things, trade.

They’d both been under pressure to make choices, to change their lives, with no one but each other to confide in.

Passionate conversations leading to passionate kisses leading to disaster.

But she’d loved every moment with him, right up to the ruinous end.

Clever, fascinating Dorian Montrose.

Sipping her tea, Julie laughed softly as she watched him polish off a second slice of seed cake. She’d brought enough food from London to last only a few days, hardly enough for a man who’d devoured most of it in one sitting.

Sensing her gaze, Dorian looked up, wearing the cheeky smile that had gotten them into so much trouble. That continued to get him into trouble, if one believed the chatter. “What?”

“I’ll be forced to pilfer fruit from the orangery if this goes on much longer, which will no doubt alert my father’s staff to my presence. Though I did receive word that the Seville trees I planted last summer are thriving, after extensive research on soil and sunlight, of course.”

Dorian chewed, his smile slipping into an outright grin. Very skillful lips, she recalled, as a hot spiral curled through her. “How many books did you read to gain that information?”

Juliet tightened her grip on her teacup, wishing she didn’t enjoy his teasing quite so much. “Three.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, reaching for another slice. “Your brilliant mind.”

She traced a chip in the plate, her cheeks warming. “Only as brilliant as yours.”

Leaning back in his chair, he stretched out his legs, brushing hers—whether by accident or design.

His shirt, already open at the neck, parted further to reveal a smattering of hair dusting the golden skin beneath.

“Once I was released into the wild to make my own way— thrust is perhaps the more precise term—I discovered I have a knack for reviving failing enterprises once given the capital. Unlike most of the aristocracy, I’ve a keen head for managing money.

Regrettably, I lack your ability to read a text and spin the facts from it like silk from a spool, which may have contributed to my downfall at Cambridge.

The asthma attacks were severe the term I returned. After we—”

He paused, scowling into his teacup, perhaps contemplating the forbidden subject that lingered in the air like the scent of cinnamon.

Not yet , she thought, a flicker of panic rising.

Fiddling with her fork, Juliet turned over a thousand questions but settled on the one furthest from the topic she didn’t dare touch.

“So, you’re a business associate of Jackson Dorsey’s.

” She tapped the tines against her plate in an idle rhythm, hoping to conceal her staggering curiosity.

“What’s that band of misfits he manages? ”

Dorian glanced up, his gaze sharpening to an icy blue. “The Rookery Rebels.”

Ah . So his association with the infamous group of scoundrels was a tender subject.

Perhaps it explained why he hadn’t set foot in his family home in Derbyshire for years or attended any more society events than she had, which was next to none.

Incredibly, rumor had it he spent most of his time in the East End, far from the grasping reach of the ton .

In an office in Limehouse, on the docks .

The birth of Dare Montrose, once known as Dorian.

At her continued, silent press for information, he growled and bit into an apple, one of only two pieces of fruit left in the cottage. “I’m disappointed that you, of all people, read those inane gossip sheets.”

Starting to enjoy herself, Juliet seized the last apple and took a fast bite. She licked her lips—and for the first time in forever—remembered the power of being a woman as his gaze darkened. Her body sizzled in remembrance. “I don’t write them. I’m only waiting to be entertained, like the rest.”

“I’m thrilled my life is entertaining to the rest ,” he whispered, his scowl drawing attention to a nick on his chin she’d nearly forgotten. A scar from a tumble off the stable roof when he was a boy.

She’d once delighted in tracing it with her tongue while they were otherwise engaged.

Ignoring the rush of unwelcome imagery, she pointed the apple at him with an idle sweep of her hand. “You’re not saying it’s a falsehood, that you’re one of them.”

Tilting his head in deliberation, the golden glow from the sconce washing over his fine features, Juliet remembered, too late, what a fierce competitor he’d been. “The novel? Did you ever finish it?”

“Good move,” she whispered, her temper sparking. Flipping the conversation from him right back to her. How Dorian Montrose.

Laughing, he reached for the bottle of brandy he’d abandoned for chamomile tea.

“You want my secrets? Well, Jules, darling, I want yours . Finish that,” he said, nodding to her cup.

“It’s a magnificent, rainy Derbyshire night.

We’re tucked away in this charming spot, with not a soul—except that daft bunch at my brother’s—knowing where we are.

And they don’t, no matter what you might assume, care a bloody bit about either of us.

They have food, drink, and twenty bedchambers to choose from.

Us? Slightly foxed might be the way to go as we tromp through consideration of the present. ”

And the past , she envisaged, her stomach knotting.

He poured a dram into his cup, then a slightly lesser one into hers. “Anthony’s not in residence to judge me. Or you. To orchestrate this.” He swore softly, his shoulders tensing. “Years too late, for which I humbly apologize, but I’d never let that happen again.”

“The Rookery Rebels?” she asked, taking a cautious sip of truly horrid brandy.

“Your novel?” he returned, grimacing over his own sample.

Juliet rotated her teacup in a measured circle on the saucer. “It’s finished. Published, in fact.”

Dorian braced his elbow on the table, leaning closer, his penetrating sapphire eyes widening in delight. “How? When?”

She fiddled with her fork, delaying. Aside from her editor and a solicitor she’d engaged that even her father wasn’t aware of, no one in England knew about this.

Much like her tangle with Dorian years ago, a select few were privy to the monumental shifts in her life.

“I submitted the manuscript to three publishers who release gothic works. Two rejected it immediately, likely because they don’t want to associate with female writers.

The third agreed to work with me if I used a pseudonym. ”

“What’s the pseudonym?” he asked—because, of course, anyone would.

“William Blackwood & Sons,” she said, utterly ignoring his question.

“They’re a Scottish enterprise with a strong literary reputation and a keen interest in gothics.

At last count, three hundred and forty copies sold, making the book a modest success.

We’re hoping for over five hundred with the next, due out in two months.

I’d hoped to work on a third novel here this summer. ”

Calm settled over the cozy room, making Juliet believe the tick of the longcase clock, Dorian’s faint breaths, and the rain pelting the windowpanes was answer enough.

But it wasn’t.

“You tell me the name you publish under, I’ll tell you about the Rookery Rebels.”

Juliet took a bracing gulp of brandy, knowing this would crack the conversation open like an egg dropped to stone. Here goes . “Thaddeus Meredith,” she whispered, liquor burning its way down her throat.

Dorian’s head lifted, his cheeks leaching color. He looked as stunned as she felt. “The name we pledged for our first son.”

Juliet suddenly found the situation amusing, when it wasn’t amusing in the least. “I planned to send you a copy when you married, so you couldn’t use it. With whatever daughter of an earl or viscount Anthony coerced you into marrying. Then…the name would remain ours.”

Dorian dropped his brow to his closed fist, exhaling sharply.

“Don’t be upset.” She paused, frowning, struck by the senselessness of the plea.

“I’m not. I’m furious .” With an oath, he grasped her wrist and drew her closer—though thankfully, a table still rested between them.

His fingertips were hot, resting against her raging pulse.

“You told me my going back to Cambridge and ending things was what you wanted, when I told you I didn’t care about the class shite my family was so concerned about.

A dowry your father was going to withhold because my brother ordered him to, or risk losing what little standing he had left in London. I never cared about anything but you.”

“Dorian, in our world, their concerns made sense. I was the eldest daughter of a barely titled baron, found by a maid tangled up rather indiscreetly with a duke’s son.”

“Our world? Is the two years separating us in age also part of your rationale?” He released her abruptly, pushing away from the table as if the air between them burned.

“We could have figured out a way to make it work, even if Anthony cut me off. And do you know what? I ended up cutting him off. So I’ve made a life—but without you.

What the hell do you think membership in the Rookery Rebels has meant to me?

Freedom . Glorious, occasionally larcenous freedom. ”

Juliet braced her palms on the table and rose, watching Dorian pace—his fingers burrowing into his hair, disordering strands longer than she’d ever seen them. An inky spill past his jaw. A style more East End than West. He could have almost tied it back with a length of leather.

She could believe he was part of this group of rogues. He’d always had a temper, a young man so easily goaded into fisticuffs, she used to worry how he’d handle disagreements as a man. Although his heart, always , was in the right place.

However, she had a temper, too. “I see how well you’ve managed that freedom.”

He halted, turning in an elegantly lethal rotation on the ball of his foot.

“I’m not the one with a marquess sending me books with poetic inscriptions.

‘Your gaze is the dawn and I, the humble field, await it.’ ” He jabbed his arm toward the parlor, the one his friends had dragged him into after his asthmatic swim in his brother’s pond.

“Sorry to intrude, but I found it on the side table and couldn’t stop myself. ”

“You hypocrite . Who was the last? The widowed Countess Davenport? Wasn’t there something about a demi-monde masquerade ball and a gallery of broken windows?

” Juliet brought two fingers to her temple in a kind of misbegotten salute.

“No, no, it was the Italian opera singer! How remiss of me to confuse your legions of admirers.”

“Are you going to marry him? The poet?” He smiled without humor, a muscle in his jaw ticking in time to her heartbeat.

A crimson haze lit her vision when he didn’t deny a thing she’d accused him of, though his fury seemed even greater.

“I asked once and was soundly rejected, so I could give him tips on winning over a bookish hellion. Ask on bended knee amidst scattered rose petals, not in a darkened servant’s stairwell amidst tears. ”

“I wanted to say yes,” she whispered, similar tears stinging her eyes. “But I couldn’t bring myself to ruin you to save myself .”

Seconds passed as her words sank in.

Decided, Dorian straightened to his full, intimidating height, crossed the kitchen, and flung open the domestics’ door, stalking out into the storm-soaked night.

And just like five years ago, Juliet let him go.