She was alive.
And he wanted her.
Thankfully, she shivered again before he could act on the unacceptable desire.
He had to get her home before she caught pneumonia.
Or before he went entirely mad.
He turned to her maid. “Did you come by carriage?” he asked in quick Italian.
“No, Your Grace.”
“It will be faster if I take your mistress home in my curricle. Meet us at Ralston House.” He clasped Juliana’s elbow and began to steer her toward a nearby rise.
“You j-just assume that she will follow your orders?” Juliana asked, her tone suggesting the very idea was ridiculous. He ignored her, instead meeting the maid’s gaze.
“Yes, Your Grace.” She dropped into a quick curtsy and hurried away.
He returned his attention to Juliana, who scowled.
Her irritation returned some of his sense. And some of his anger. Last night and this morning, her impulsive behavior had risked her reputation. This afternoon, it had risked her life.
And he would not have it.
They walked several yards in silence before he spoke, “You could have died.”
She gave the briefest of hesitations, and he thought perhaps she would apologize again. It would not be entirely unwarranted.
He sensed the tensing of her shoulders, the straightening of her spine. “But I did not.” She tried for a smirk. Failed. “Twelve lives, remember?”
The words were rife with defiance—of him, of nature, of fate itself. And if they had not made him so irate, he might have found room to admire her tenacity of spirit.
Instead, he wanted to shake her.
He resisted the impulse. Barely.
They reached his curricle, and he lifted her, shivering, into the vehicle, then climbed in beside her.
“I shall ruin your seat.”
Her words, so ridiculous in light of everything that had happened in the past few minutes, set him off. He paused in the act of lifting the reins and turned an incredulous gaze toward her. “It is a wonder that you are able to find concern for my upholstery when you seem to care so little for things of much more import.”
Her dark brows arched perfectly. “Such as?”
“Such as your person.”
She sneezed, and he cursed, “And now you’re going to fall ill if you don’t keep warm, you daft female.”
He reached behind them for a traveling rug, and thrust it at her.
She took it and covered herself. “Thank you,” she said firmly, before looking away and staring straight ahead.
He set the curricle in motion after a long moment, wishing he’d been less forceful. More courteous.
He did not feel at all courteous. Did not think he could muster courtesy.
They exited Hyde Park before she spoke, and he barely heard her over the sound of hoofbeats against the cobblestones. “You needn’t speak to me as though I am half-witty.”
He could not resist. “I believe you mean half-witted.”
She turned away, and he heard an irritated Italian curse over the wind. After a long moment, she said, “I did not plan to drown myself.”
There was sulking in her tone, and he felt a slight twinge of sympathy for her. Perhaps he should not be so hard on her. But, damned if he could stop. “Plan or no, if I hadn’t come along, you would have drowned.”
“You came,” she said simply, and he recalled that as she had coughed up water and trembled with relief in the moments after he’d rescued her, she’d whispered the same words. You came.
He’d tried not to.
He’d thrown away her reckless note—the cleverly disguised missive that had fooled everyone into thinking that the Marquess of Ralston had sent the correspondence—tossed it into a wastepaper basket in his study.
He’d pretended it wasn’t there as he read the rest of his correspondence.
And still as he discussed a handful of outstanding issues with his man of business.
And even as he had opened the package that arrived from his mother less than an hour after she had left him—the package that had contained the Leighton sapphire, the betrothal ring that had been worn by generations of Duchesses of Leighton.
Even then, as he’d placed the ring on his desk, in full view, that crumpled piece of paper taunted him, spreading Juliana throughout his orderly, disciplined house. Everywhere he looked, he saw her missive, and he’d wondered what she would do if he did not respond.
He’d imagined that she would not think twice about assuming a more scandalous course of action—and then her bold, black scrawl had been replaced with her bold, black curls and her flashing blue eyes. And they’d been in his bedchamber . . .
He had called for his curricle and driven entirely too fast for a man who was determined to avoid her.
And he’d almost been too late.
His hands tightened on the reins, and the horses shifted uneasily under the tension. He forced himself to relax.
“And aren’t you lucky that I came? I nearly didn’t. Sending me such a message was both immodest and infantile.” He did not give her an opportunity to reply, his next words exploding on a wave of irritation. “What would possess you to dive into a frigid lake?”
“I didn’t dive,” she pointed out. “I fell. It was a mistake. Although I suppose you never make those.”
“Not life-threatening ones, usually, no.”
“Well. We cannot all be as perfect as you are.”
She was changing the topic, and he was in no mood to allow it. “You did not answer my question.”
“Was there an inquiry hidden in all of that judgment? I did not notice.”