“My dress is ruined.” She took pleasure in implying that he’d had something to do with it. He need not know the gown had been ruined long before she’d landed herself in his carriage.
“Yes. Well, I can think of any number of ways you could have avoided such a tragedy this evening.” The words were void of contrition.
“I had little choice, you know.” She immediately hated herself for saying it aloud.
Especially to him.
He snapped his head toward her just as a lamppost in the street beyond cast a shaft of silver light through the carriage window, throwing him into stark relief. She tried not to notice him. Tried not to notice how every inch of him bore the mark of his excellent breeding, of his aristocratic history—the long, straight patrician nose, the perfect square of his jaw, the high cheekbones that should have made him look feminine but seemed only to make him more handsome.
She gave a little huff of indignation.
The man had ridiculous cheekbones.
She’d never known anyone so handsome.
“Yes,” he fairly drawled, “I can imagine it is difficult attempting to live up to a reputation such as yours.”
The light disappeared, replaced by the sting of his words.
She’d also never known anyone who was such a proper ass.
Juliana was thankful for her shadowy corner of the coach as she recoiled from his insinuation. She was used to the insults, to the ignorant speculation that came with her being the daughter of an Italian merchant and a fallen English marchioness who had deserted her husband and sons . . . and dismissed London’s elite.
The last was the only one of her mother’s actions for which Juliana had even a hint of admiration.
She’d like to tell the entire lot of them where they could put their aristocratic rules.
Beginning with the Duke of Leighton. Who was the worst of the lot.
But he hadn’t been at the start.
She pushed the thought aside. “I should like you to stop this carriage and let me out.”
“I suppose this is not going the way that you had planned?”
She paused. “The way I had . . . planned?”
“Come now, Miss Fiori. You think I do not know how your little game was to have been played out? You, discovered in my empty carriage—the perfect location for a clandestine assignation—on the steps of your brother’s ancestral home, during one of the best attended events in recent weeks?”
Her eyes went wide. “You think I am—”
“No. I know that you are attempting to trap me in marriage. And your little scheme, about which I assume your brother has no knowledge considering how asinine it is, might have worked on a lesser man with a lesser title. But I assure you it will not work on me. I am a duke. In a battle of reputation with you, I would most certainly win. In fact, I would have let you ruin yourself quite handily back at Ralston House if I were not unfortunately indebted to your brother at the moment. You would have deserved it for this little farce.”
His voice was calm and unwavering, as though he’d had this particular conversation countless times before, and she was nothing but a minor inconvenience—a fly in his tepid, poorly seasoned bisque, or whatever it was that aristocratic British snobs consumed with soup spoons.
Of all the arrogant, pompous . . .
Fury flared, and Juliana gritted her teeth. “Had I known this was your vehicle, I would have avoided it at all costs.”
“Amazing, then, that you somehow missed the large ducal seal on the outside of the door.”
The man was infuriating. “It is amazing, indeed, because I’m sure the seal on the outside of your carriage rivals your conceit in size! I assure you, Your Grace”—she spit the honorific as if it were an epithet—“if I were after a husband, I would look for one who had more to recommend him than a fancy title and a false sense of importance.” She heard the tremor in her voice but could not stop the flood of words pouring from her. “You are so impressed with your title and station, it is a miracle you do not have the word ‘Duke’ embroidered in silver thread on all of your topcoats. The way you behave, one would think you’d actually done something to earn the respect these English fools afford you instead of having been sired, entirely by chance, at the right time and by the right man, who I imagine performed the deed in exactly the same manner of all other men. Without finesse.”
She stopped, the pounding of her heart loud in her ears as the words hung between them, their echo heavy in the darkness. Senza finezza. It was only then that she realized that, at some point during her tirade, she had switched to Italian.
She could only hope that he had not understood.
There was a long stretch of silence, a great, yawning void that threatened her sanity. And then the carriage stopped. They sat there for an interminable moment, he still as stone, she wondering if they might remain there in the vehicle for the rest of time, before she heard the shifting of fabric. He opened the door, swinging it wide.
She started at the sound of his voice, low and dark and much much closer than she was expecting.
“Get out of the carriage.”
He spoke Italian.
Perfectly.
She swallowed. Well. She was not about to apologize. Not after all the terrible things that he’d said. If he was going to throw her from the carriage, so be it. She would walk home. Proudly.
Perhaps someone would be able to point her in the proper direction.
She scooted across the floor of the coach and outside, turning back and fully expecting to see the door swing shut behind her. Instead, he followed her out, ignoring her presence as he moved up the steps of the nearest town house. The door opened before he reached the top step.