Chapter 3
“For goodness’s sake, Juliana, do please stop chewing on your lip when we have this delicious beef before us.”
Juliana blinked at her grandmama’s admonishment.
Earlier that day, after she had tossed the package at Kit in the parlor, he had jumped up, eyes wild, as if in great panic.
She had meant to ask him then who this Mr. Anderson was, but he had already rushed out the door, the parcel tucked under his arm.
She was not as easily swayed as her brother was. She had heard the undercurrent of warning in the voice of the man—she absolutely refused to call him a gentleman—from the bathhouse. Whoever this Mr. Anderson was, he certainly was not someone engaged in aboveboard dealings, and if Kit was involved…
Their impending poverty might not be the most pressing problem they would be facing.
“Grandmama?”
Her grandmother did not even lift her gaze in her direction as she continued to enjoy the very same beef she had praised earlier.
Juliana had not the heart, nor the patience, to argue that the meat was tougher than rubber and tasted just as bad, if not worse.
There were far more worrying matters than the poor dinner fare.
“Have you noticed that Kit seems… a little bit on edge?” she pressed.
At the mention of her grandson, the dowager finally raised her eyes.
“What do you mean, Juliana?” she sighed patronizingly, as if she were talking to a child.
“Naturally, your poor brother has a great deal on his mind. It falls to him to uphold the status of the household, as you like to keep reminding him.”
“But these things that he has tasked me to deliver—”
Her grandmother sighed as if Juliana was testing the last dregs of her patience. “My dear child, your brother is a man, and the dealings between gentlemen are not as straightforward as we ladies would like to think. Worry not for him, my dear. He will find his way well enough.”
Was she to wait quietly at home until she heard of men finding Kit in a ditch? Should she, as his older sister, allow him to enter into transactions with unsavory, possibly criminal, persons?
Knowing Kit and how easily he could be beguiled into the next thing promising him quick profits, Juliana had even fewer doubts about the impropriety of whatever business he was involved in and even greater worry for her brother.
“You know what you should be worried about, dear girl?” her grandmama continued.
“What, Grandmama?”
“Yourself,” the older lady told her bluntly. “You have two failed Seasons behind you and no potential suitors. Whatever your brother is doing to restore the family fortunes should be the least of your worries.”
Juliana gripped her fork until her knuckles turned white. “Grandmama,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even. “We can hardly afford staff, let alone the costs of a new Season. The gowns alone—”
“Then you should probably put more effort into it, should you not?” her grandmama shrugged. “As a woman, that is your highest priority.”
“Yes, I can see how marrying the first fool to ask for my hand in marriage will magically solve all of this world’s ailments,” Juliana muttered. “Not to mention that marriage requires a dowry, which almost everyone in the ton is quite aware I do not possess.”
“When your brother has paid off his debts, I shall enjoin him to make it a priority.” Grandmama let out a choked sound around the mouthful of beef she had been chewing. “However, you, my dear, cannot just lie about either. Husbands are not to be found in studies and libraries, you know?”
Oh, she knew very well. She wondered, though, if they could be found in extremely exclusive, private bathhouses…?
In her mind, she could see the steam rising all around her.
Hear the water sloshing as it swirled around his thick thighs.
The soft lamplight glinted off his skin, turning it a burnished gold that seemed to beg for her touch, quietly goading her to see for herself the difference between his physique and her own.
Her hands curled in her lap, crushing the worn fabric of her dowdiest day gown yet. She felt the heat blossoming in her cheeks and thanked whatever saint was still listening to her prayers that there were far fewer candles in the dining room, or Grandmama might have seen her unusual reaction.
It was not just at the most inopportune times, either. No, the insufferable, contemptible man had seen fit to invade her waking thoughts and her dreams, bringing with him that strange, aching throb she dared not mention.
Perhaps madness ran in the family, and Kit’s foolish naivete and recklessness were not even the most devastating of them all.
“Kit, dear boy! There you are!”
Grandmama’s voice cut through her steam-hazed fantasies, wrenching her almost painfully back to reality. Juliana tilted her head to find Kit dressed haphazardly in his evening clothes, reaching for his hat.
“Are you leaving without dinner?” Grandmama asked him, her disappointment evident even in the meager lighting.
Kit nodded. “Why, yes. Yes, I must.”
“Oh?” Juliana remarked, keeping her voice even. “Where are you headed to at this hour, brother?”
“Just a… masquerade.”
It took great effort to keep her brows from knitting into a frown. “A masquerade?”
“Yes, Julie. A masquerade.”
If he had smiled at them, grinned in that devil-may-care way of his, and told them he was heading off to go carousing at some ball or gentlemen’s club, Juliana would have said nothing of it.
However, from the way he hastily jammed his hat onto his head, his eyes wide and shifting in agitation, she knew that something was amiss.
That, and the simple fact that no masquerades were being held in London on that very day.
Quietly, she sawed through her beef, her hands aching from gripping the cutlery too hard. From the corner of her eye, she watched as Kit dashed out the door without the slightest hint of composure.
It was then that she made up her mind.
I have to see what he is up to.
Their grandmother might have chosen to turn a blind eye to his shenanigans, but what kind of sister would she be if she allowed her only brother to stumble into a grave pitfall?
Juliana had done a great many things for which she should have exerted more careful deliberation.
In hindsight, of course. Always in hindsight.
But the moment Kit dashed out the door looking as he did, she did not care to dwell more on the potential repercussions of her actions. She simply donned the most fashionable gown she owned—the one that had seen less exposure—and quickly grabbed a mask.
A masquerade, he had quickly told them. Just because she was rushing headlong into whatever fray her brother was involved in did not mean she would do so without the slightest preparation.
“Miss, we’ve arrived at the destination.”
She blinked and peered out of the window. “Oh.”
They had pulled to a stop before a dimly lit mansion on the outskirts of the city. There were no signs to indicate what sort of establishment it was, and hardly any other buildings around. All of a sudden, wild thoughts began to dance in her mind.
What if she were discovered by whatever ill-intentioned miscreants Kit had somehow involved himself with? What if they—she swallowed past the nervous lump in her throat—decided to dispose of her? Who was going to hear her cries for help in the middle of nowhere?
But if her brother was in there, she could not resign herself to merely accepting whatever unscrupulousness he had managed to get into.
When I find him, she thought angrily, I am going to drag him out and beat some bloody sense into him if I have to!
Juliana reached into her reticule and pulled out the last of the money she had saved, handing it over to the driver, who carefully counted the coins. Satisfied, he tipped his hat at her before leading the horses away.
Now, she truly was on her own.
With a grim resolve, she pushed back her shoulders and straightened her spine. She was the daughter of a baron, now the sister of one, and she would not cower before anything.
She walked up the marble steps, past the stately pillars, up to the door where a masked man in the garb of a butler stood at attention. She had barely stepped through the door when an arm swiftly came down, barring her entrance.
Juliana tamped down the rising frustration in her chest. First, the man in the bathhouse, and now this. All the doormen in London seemed bent on refusing her entrance.
“Your invitation,” the man said coolly.
She gave him her best imitation of a haughty smile. “Do I even need one?”
“Everybody needs an invitation to enter The Arrangement.”
She pursed her lips and hoped it passed for scorn instead of sheer frustration. “The domestics have unfortunately misplaced it, but I am with the baron.”
He raised a supercilious eyebrow. “There are many barons in The Arrangement. You will need to be more specific, or I will have to ask you to leave.”
Leave? She could not leave. Not yet. Not without Kit.
“Let her in, Fairfax. The lady is with me.”
That voice. It cannot be…
Juliana stiffened at the sound. Tendrils of warmth seemed to wrap around her, seeping into her pores, and dulling her senses yet heightening others.
The familiar sensation from the bathhouse surged once more, settling in her lower belly.
Even lower, there was a faint pulsing that felt as if it was attuned to the rapid beating of her own heart.
I must be losing my mind.
Dimly, she was aware of the butler stepping aside to allow them entrance, bowing almost deferentially to the man behind her. Unlike Juliana, he was addressed with an ingratiating tone, as if there were no guest he had been anticipating more.
“Do you really want to see what goes on inside?” the masked stranger asked her, his warm breath fanning over her neck, tickling the sensitive shell of her ear.
Want? No, she needed to be in there.
Juliana nodded her head slightly. She feared that if she spoke, her agitation would be made even more apparent. No, it was much wiser that she shut her mouth.
In response, she heard a low chuckle from the man behind her. When he straightened himself, she nearly cried out keenly from the loss.
What was wrong with her? She was supposed to go in, find out what her wayward brother was up to, and maybe give him an earful when they returned to the townhouse.
She should not be letting a man charm her with the timbre of his voice alone!
She flashed him a dazzling smile. “Many thanks for your assistance, sir. I shall take it from here.”
Without waiting for his response, she dashed inside before either the man or the butler could stop her.
As soon as she stepped through the door, a most unholy din assailed her senses.
Weeks of frugality, where lighting was concerned, had rendered her with exceptional eyesight even in the dark—a talent she would now have willingly foregone if it meant that she could shield herself from the tableau that presented itself before her.
Men and women in various states of undress littered the rooms, their bawdy laughter and lewd sighs rising to the vaulted ceilings.
A woman threw her head back as a man feasted on her bare chest. Another man had shucked off his breeches and begun to chase after his companion, who was laughing giddily in naught but her chemise.
Various articles of clothing littered the floor, haphazardly discarded by their owners in their quest for unbridled hedonism.
The only part of their attire they had not eschewed in their debauchery was their masks.
This… this was where Kit was rushing off to? This was where her brother spent his time, while her every waking thought was consumed with finding every possible way she might still be able to save their family?
“I thought you knew what you were getting yourself into.” She heard a low voice mutter from behind her. “One look from your expression, however, and I can tell that you have never been to such a gathering before.”
Juliana could not even muster a reply. Could not even think beyond the haze of confusion and rage. The first could be attributed to her sheer astonishment that there were people who gathered en masse for such a thing. The second was directed—without reservations—at her scoundrel of a brother.
And then, there was that strange tingling in between her legs. A sudden sensation of restraint in her chest. A heat that suffused her from low within her belly, radiating to her scalp, to the very tips of her fingers and toes.
“Come.”
On any other occasion, she might have willfully disregarded such an authoritarian command. Juliana did not take very well to being ordered about—a trait that Grandmama often bemoaned.
This time, however, she allowed that low, decadent baritone to seep into her consciousness. Allowed those large hands to wrap themselves around her upper arms to steer her away from the maddening sight before her.
Between her and Kit, she had always been the more stoic one. The one with a greater sense of responsibility. Kit had been raised knowing that he would inherit the title, lands, and fortune. Juliana had been taught that her duty was to the family.
But what if she shed off the shackles that had bound her for years? What if she allowed herself to let go of any sense of responsibility, as her brother had done ad nauseam?
Vaguely, she was aware that the room she was now in was unoccupied, save for the masked man who had allowed her to enter with him.
She felt his hands drift from her shoulders to her waist, boldly caressing her curves as if her body were his to explore by some divine right.
When his lips pressed against the juncture of her neck and shoulder, Juliana could not help but let a soft sigh escape her lips.
What if I let go? What if I shed all pretense of decorum and allow… this?
She felt her skirts rising over her shins, her thighs… His demanding fingers sparked heat wherever they met her skin. She had become a molten flame in his arms, eager only for whatever ecstasy his every caress wrought in her. She wanted more. She wanted all of it.
When she felt his fingers hovering just beyond the spot between her thighs, drifting just out of reach, she let out a soft sigh of frustration.
“Scoundrel,” she admonished him.
“A scoundrel I may be, my sweet, but I would never force myself upon an unwilling woman,” he chuckled into her ear. “Tell me now—what do you want to happen tonight?”
His fingers had become a teasing torment, evoking a deep desperation in her. She had never before wanted anything as much as his carnal touch, and if she spoke otherwise, she feared he might withdraw and leave her.
“Everything,” she gasped. “I want everything.”