Theresa Romain - Season for Temptation

James laughed at her recital. “When you put it that way, it is rather a lot to think about all at once. Fair enough.”

Julia smiled back at him, relieved. “We’ll talk about this again later?” she asked, sliding off the bed to retrieve her clothes from the corner of the room.

He slid after her and began to help her sort out her clothing. “Yes, of course we will. You’ll never be able to get rid of me. I’ll propose over and over again. I’ll harass you about it every time I see you.”

He handed Julia a stocking. “By the way, when will that be next? I assume I’m no longer invited over to dine with you and your family tonight.”

“Oh. Yes, probably it would be best if you didn’t come, for Louisa’s sake. She’d find it very awkward.” Julia considered. “What if I send you a note when I know of our next plans? I don’t know what Louisa will want to do, or what my aunt will consider proper under the circumstances.”

“Well, don’t wait too long,” James said, a twinkle in his eye as he helped her roll her second stocking back onto her leg. “Otherwise I’ll come after your aunt myself and tell her about how very improper we’ve been, to force your hand so you’ll have to marry me.”

“Ha.” Julia acknowledged his joke with an affectionate roll of her eyes, standing up and shaking her rumpled garments into place. “Don’t worry; I’ll write as soon as possible. I want that as much as you do.”

She twisted to look over her shoulder. “Is it completely obvious just what I’ve been doing?”

“Not at all,” James assured her. “That is, not if you wear that big cloak again.”

She wrinkled her nose at him and gave a wry smile, comfortable again now that she was dressed and had earned some time to think.

Well, she wasn’t entirely comfortable; he was still disconcertingly, unabashedly nude. It was quite distracting.

She averted her eyes and kissed him on the cheek. “I’d better go.”

He found a dressing robe in his wardrobe and wrapped it around his lean form. “I’ll see you out.”

Strolling thoughtfully downstairs, with James wrapping his arms around her from behind, Julia tried to enjoy the present moment. In the back of her mind, though, uncertainty about the next step niggled at her. What was she going to tell her aunt, and how, and when? Or her parents? Or Louisa, for that matter? Each confession seemed more daunting than the last.

At the door, she raised her lips to James’s, and the viscount dropped a gentle kiss onto them.

“Be careful as you go home,” he warned. “After everything you’ve gone through, I wouldn’t want you to come to any harm. In fact, if you’ll wait a moment, I’ll make myself decent and see you home myself. I think that would be best.”

“Not necessary,” she scoffed. “How would I explain you to my aunt? She would never believe that we just happened to cross paths while I was out walking alone, or that I had a good reason for filching Simone’s cloak.”

He shrugged. “Why shouldn’t she?”

She smiled. He was so dear; she loved how protective he had become, even if it was foolish. “No, it’ll be fine. I’ll see you soon.” She kissed him again. “I do love you.”

He held her tight for a moment. “I love you, too.”

He drew back out of the entryway, and Julia opened the door and stepped out of the house.

And bumped straight into Lord Xavier, who was standing on the stoop, about to knock on James’s door.

The force of the blow caused the breath to whoosh out of Julia’s body, and she stumbled backward.

“Steady, lass,” the tall nobleman admonished her as if she were a servant, taking hold of her cloak-clad shoulders to keep her balance from being overset. Then he saw her face, and his cool gray eyes widened with recognition. He instantly took in her startled expression, her swollen lips, her rumpled clothing.

“Well, well, well,” he mused, inclining his head in greeting. “Miss Herington. This is a surprise. But how enchanting you look! It is truly delightful to see you.”

She bobbed a quick curtsy, her cheeks flaming. “Lord Xavier. It is delightful to see you as well.”

“I imagine not, actually,” he replied, then noticed the half-open door and James’s dressing robe — clad form still standing in the home’s entryway. His mouth quirked.

“Interesting,” he said, and pushed the door open all the way. “Very interesting. Greetings to you, Matheson.”

James gaped at him for a second. “Xavier. How — What — Did you—” He cleared his throat, but was unable to finish his sentence.

“I was stopping by to see if you wanted to go to White’s for a bit,” Xavier replied smoothly, eyes glinting with unreadable emotion. “But I seem to be too late with my invitation. It appears you have already found other. . entertainment, shall we say?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” James said hastily, with a quick glance at Julia. If anything, this only made her feel worse, as if she was complicit in something shameful and secret.

Which, she supposed, she was.

“Really? I imagine it is exactly what it looks like,” the younger man drawled, his eyebrows raised in skepticism. “But I am dreadfully thick-witted sometimes and do not always know what I am looking at. Perhaps I shall have to have it explained to me.”

“Come in, come in,” James said hastily. “For God’s sake, man, we can’t stand out here in the street talking like this.”

“Indeed not,” Xavier replied, stepping into James’s house.

“Good afternoon, Lord Xavier,” Julia interjected quickly, preparing to make her escape.

A slow, lovely, dangerous smile spread over his face. “Indeed it is, Miss Herington. Indeed it is.”

By pleading a sick headache, Julia managed to keep to her bedchamber for the remainder of the day. She couldn’t face her relatives until she had figured out what to do. Whatever that might be.

It wasn’t that she thought she had done wrong, precisely, and it certainly wasn’t that she regretted being with James. But she knew Louisa would be crushed if the truth were known, and her aunt would be disappointed, and that—the embarrassment and sorrow brought to two people who had given her so much — was what she couldn’t figure out how to avoid, though she would have given the world to do so.

She knew that word would get around, and she was only postponing the inevitable. She remembered James’s cautionary words from the Twelfth Night masquerade: If anyone caused a scandal at that event, Xavier would spread it all over town. Now she feared the truth of those words. What on earth had James said to Xavier after she’d left? What would Xavier do?

As it turned out, the storm, when it came, was even worse than she had imagined.

She knew she was in for a reckoning when Simone came to summon her to her aunt’s presence the following morning. The maid’s customarily serene countenance was worried, and Julia felt a sense of foreboding that was justified as soon as she stepped into her aunt’s bedchamber. Lady Irving was still in the bed, an untouched cup and pot of chocolate on a tray in front of her, a copy of the Ton Bon-bons scandal sheet in her hands. Her stare, when Julia dared meet her eyes, was nothing less than livid.

“Do you know what I had awaiting me with my morning chocolate today?” she barked, shooing Simone out of the room with a sharp gesture.

“No,” Julia replied warily, drawing a chair up to her aunt’s bed and seating herself. She didn’t trust her trembling legs to hold her up. Good Lord, how bad must it be?

“This.” Lady Irving slapped Julia on the head with her rolled-up newspaper.

“Stupid girl,” she said, her voice like ice. “Stupid, stupid, girl. Most of the ton hops from bed to bed, but no one speaks about it. No one looks, no one asks, no one tells. And now you go and throw this type of behavior in everyone’s face. I’ve obviously taught you nothing.”

She thrust the paper at Julia in disgust, averting her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to look at either the newspaper or the girl at her side.

“Read the column of crim cons. The first item, naturally.” Her voice was thick with scorn, laying heavy stress on the last word.

Julia’s eyes blurred with anxiety, but she forced herself to focus, drawing a deep breath and finding the item in question on the periodical’s front page.

The peace of Lady I—’s household must certainly be disturbed this morning, as it has come to the attention of the editor that young Viscount M—, recently engaged, was encountered in a state of déshabille with the lovely Miss H—. One wonders if this has any bearing on the contemporaneous end of the viscount’s engagement to the Honorable Miss O—, sister by marriage of the young lady (?) in question.

It was bad. Very bad. As bad as she had feared, and then some.

Julia gulped. “They could be referring to anyone,” she said lamely.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Lady Irving replied witheringly. “I know exactly who they mean, as does everyone in London. So what I want to know is, what did you do, and how did you get caught?”

Julia raised her eyes to meet her aunt’s. “It’s not as bad as they made it sound.”

“It usually isn’t, but that doesn’t matter since this is the account people will read and believe. I repeat, what did you do?”

Julia had never truly been afraid of her aunt before, but the anger in the older woman’s eyes made her feel like cowering in a corner. Or better yet, running back to Stonemeadows Hall, and never even thinking of London again.

She forced herself to straighten her back and maintain eye contact with her aunt. “Yesterday morning, Louisa let me know that she wished to break her engagement with James. She asked for my help.”

“Whaaaaaat?” Lady Irving’s eyes fairly goggled out of her head.

Gaining a small amount of courage from her aunt’s surprise, she continued. “Yes, she let me know that she’s been very unhappy, and she wished to end her engagement. She had written a letter to James explaining everything, and she asked me to deliver it since she knows James and I are friends.”

Her face grew hot with self-conscious shame, and her voice quavered on the last word. Lady Irving was still gaping at her, so she plunged on despite her burning face.

“I decided instead to send it to James by messenger with a covering note, since I thought it would be unwise to go to his home or summon him here. Er. . so that’s the story of the broken engagement.”

Lady Irving shook her head, her eyes turned heavenward. “I can’t believe it. I literally cannot believe it. Why did you both put yourselves in my hands and come to London? Wasn’t it to trust me to help you get suitably married, or am I losing my mind? Rich, titled, fills out his breeches well. That is all you need. My mind simply cannot comprehend the fact that Louisa would break an engagement with a viscount.” Her voice rose to a high, shrill pitch on the final words.

“It’s true,” Julia said, relieved to have the focus of her aunt’s anger removed from herself. “She was afraid to tell you. Though I certainly can’t imagine why.”

Lady Irving darted her a quick, sharp glance from the corner of her eye. “This is no time for jokes, miss. Is that the whole story? This isn’t so bad; I think we can fix things with a word or two in the right quarter. I can speak to Lady Matheson, perhaps. This may yet be undone.”

“Well, actually, there’s a bit more.” Julia steeled herself. “As you know, Sir Stephen came by yesterday afternoon, and. . well, he made me an offer.”

“Aha!” Her ladyship barked in triumph. “I thought he might. Better and better. Excellent.”

“I declined his proposal,” Julia admitted. “But he asked if he might still hope, and I couldn’t bear to tell him no again, so I let him leave with that understanding, but then I was confused and wanted someone to talk to. So I did go to James’s house after all,” she finished miserably.

“What.” It wasn’t a question. It was a cold, flat statement of angry disbelief.

“You see, James is my closest friend — besides Louisa, of course,” Julia tried to explain. “And I wanted to talk to him. I. .” Her voice trailed off.

“Speak up, girl,” Lady Irving commanded.

“I love him,” Julia whispered, eyes downcast. “That’s why I said no to Sir Stephen.”

She looked up warily, in time to see her aunt throw herself violently back onto the pillows of her bed. The chocolate pot teetered, and Julia hastily removed the tray from Lady Irving’s bed lest the hot liquid spill and ruin the bed coverings. Her aunt didn’t need anything to make her even angrier this morning.