Page 59 of The Lady is Trouble
“Give it a couple of good whacks,” Julian coaxed, pointing to a spot on the barrel where a tap hung loosely. A sluggish but steady flow of ale dribbled to the ground, releasing the sweet scent of yeast. “To seat the tap, you see.”
Simon pressed his lips together and dropped to a squat, his behind dusting the ground. He looked quite stylish tonight, in summer woolen trousers and jacket Julian must have had fitted for him. Twigs and dirt covered his clothing as if he’d rolled on the ground like Henry, but they were a vast improvement over the filthy rags he’d arrived in.
“Like this?” the boy asked and gave a mock jab with the mallet, soft enough to smash a butterfly.
Julian’s teeth dug into his bottom lip to hold back a laugh. “Imagine someone trying to steal your last halfpenny. Right out of your pocket. Give it as hard a blow as that.”
Simon nodded in all seriousness, adjusting his slim fingers around the mallet. “You wanna move yur hand, sir? I would meself.”
Julian shook his head. “No, I trust you.”
The astonished look on Simon’s face rocked her where she stood. What would have happened if Julian had not found the boy? An example of the League’s work, itspurpose, sat perched on his grubby knees before her.
“Hey-ho, then,” Simon said and swung with all his might, missing Julian’s fingers by the merest measure. The tap jammed in the hole, slowing the drip to a modest trickle.
“Another strike to the halfpenny thief,” Julian instructed and this time, withdrew his hand before the blow came. “The barrel can take it.”
The group was turning the barrel upright, the tap in excellent placement, when Julian saw her. He rose to a stand, towering over the men surrounding him and stepped through a circle of torchlight, shadows striking his cheek and diving in the neck of the shirt held together by an impossibly loose cravat. Amber highlights streaked his hair, much like the ones shooting from the firepit to the stars.
She marveled at the wonderous contrast of him. Rough-hewn in one light, wholly elegant in another, like his divergent past. Part boy of the streets, part titled gentleman. An honorable man with an extraordinary gift he loathed but accepted. How he managed the varied facets of his life with such care, she couldn’t fathom. She’d never been able to blend her conflicting halves into a capable whole, not once in her entire life.
When he reached her, eyes the color of a dawn mist swept her from head to toe, and she confessed to complete and utter fascination.
“You flaunt the saddest chignons I’ve ever seen,” he said and brushed a loose tendril from her cheek. She must have flinched, because he pulled back, then moved in again to tuck the stray piece behind her ear. “The wonderful news is, we’re surrounded by farmers and craftsmen, a tailor, a butcher, a cobbler.” His gaze was warm, intimate, delighted. “You can be who you want here, that’s the magic. The lord and lady disappear in the fog. Julian and Piper step out of it.”
All that stood between them was shimmering, implicit awareness. His aura shifted, pale to dazzling as he watched her watch him.
Her heart squeezed. The examination aroused him as much as it aroused her.
He nodded to her guards, an unspoken command to stay behind. “Come,” he said huskily and offered his arm as if they were set to stroll through Hyde Park. She slipped her hand through the crook between warm body and bent elbow, never once considering anything but agreement.
Brushing his finger along her kidskin glove, he paused when he met bare skin. Halting, he raised her hands and with efficient jerks, tugged the gloves off and tossed them over his shoulder as he led her away from the circle of light, music, people. “Julian,” she whispered, unsure of his mood, watching her gloves land in a neat twist at the gnarled base of a tree.
He drew her along a pebbled path leading away from the chapel, through a thicket of nettle-leaved bellflower so dense it obscured the night, and into a clearing surrounded by dogwoods and azaleas. The music of the festivities lingered, but to her, they had entered another world entirely.
One Julian had created.
Until her last breath, she would remember this night as the most romantic of her life. Although it was a simple setting, a simple picture, one he could have easily sketched. A blanket spread over the grass, his coat lying to one side. A broad band of moonlight coloring the ground an ethereal, misty silver.
She turned to him, words taken by the gesture.
He shrugged, looking away as if embarrassed. Julianembarrassed. “I want to be, Piper. With you. Us. I don’t care where, I don’t care what. Just this night, let there be anus.”
Feelings piled in on one another like carriages on Bond Street during the height of the season.Us. Julian thought of her, of them, asus. A fount of affection welled, shooting from her fingertips and the ends of her hair. She imagined her aura, a brilliant burst the exact shade of a sapphire.
Going to his knee on the blanket, he gazed up at her, his expression so transparent, so open, she marveled he had ever hidden anything from her. The dimple she loved so well dinted his cheek with his smile. “You’re pleased?”
Nodding, she made a vague motion toward his horse, tied to a tree just outside the clearing. Silence would have to do. Her heart had not released her to speak just yet.
“When you’re ready, we can be at the lodge in ten minutes.” He made a graceful loop with his hand, indicating something in the near distance. “There’s a back trail. Rarely used, faster than going through the village.”
“My…my bay?”
He shook his head, his gaze catching hers then skipping away. His hand flexed on air at his side. “Though I may lose my mind, for this ride, I think you’ll fit quite nicely on my lap.”
“Ready?” She laughed, imagining another ride she would like to take. “Julian, I’m readynow.”
“Of course, you are,” he whispered, the words so soft they were almost beyond her hearing. Grasping her hand, he tugged her down beside him. She went to her knees, then her bottom in an inelegant tumble. Her shawl landed in a puddle beside her. “But maybe I’m not, my love,” he added and helped her arrange her skirts in a modest circle about her.