Chapter 8
It was a nightmare.
One that unfolded before her with startling, horrific clarity.
Her Grandmama, a handkerchief pressed to her lips, her eyes wide with horror. Lady Hampton, who managed to affect a scandalized look despite the ill-concealed glee in her sharp gray eyes. And Kit, wild with rage.
Not even the Duke of Stonevale’s broad shoulders could shield her from her imminent ruination.
“Saints above, Juliana!” Her grandmother’s mournful voice carried over the tense pause in the atmosphere. From beyond Stonevale’s arm, she could make out Grandmama wringing her hands despondently. “How could you do this? Is there a way that we can leave without notice?”
Juliana hung her head, biting her lower lip. A part of her coiffure now sagged over her left shoulder, her maid’s handiwork effectively ruined by Stonevale’s questing fingers.
My hair is not the only thing that is ruined.
Tears started to prick at her eyes when she heard Lady Hampton delicately clear her throat.
“There is a passage through the gardens that leads to a gate at the back,” she offered, flinging Juliana a pitying look. “If you take that route, none of the guests will ever notice, I assure you.”
“Oh, thank heavens!” Grandmama fretted. “Lady Hampton, I sincerely apologize for my granddaughter’s conduct tonight—”
“Oh, think nothing of it, Lady Hawthorne.” The Countess patted her grandmama’s hands in a reassuring manner. She cast a sideways glance at Stonevale and smiled slightly. “As long as His Grace promises to make amends to Miss Hawthorne, then you can all rest assured that this never happened at all.”
A tidy explanation, that one, but one that hinged on the Duke. A scandal had the potential to end everything for Juliana and her family, but for Stonevale? It was as easy as brushing off the lint from his jacket.
One man’s ruin is but another man’s inconvenience, Juliana thought bitterly to herself.
“The hell he will!” Kit roared, drawing stunned and horrified looks from the ladies. “I would never let that bastard marry my sister!”
“Lord Hawthorne! Do compose yourself. There are ladies present!” Lady Hampton admonished him, the frivolity in her gaze replaced with a censorious glare.
“I shall not countenance this blackguard’s efforts to ruin my family!” Kit spat, his eyes blazing with unadulterated hatred. “You seduced my sister, and for that, I demand the satisfaction of running you through, you bastard!”
“Kit!”
But Stonevale merely turned around with impeccable sangfroid, a dark eyebrow raised mockingly.
“I assure you, Hawthorne, that there is no doubt as to my parentage. Although,” he said with a cold smile. “If you want to finish what you started five years ago, I shall indulge you. This time, however, you might not be so fortunate. This time, I will not let you walk away alive.”
Juliana frowned at his words. He looked so utterly calm, but there was a deadly glint in his eyes. She had no doubt that if he was given even the slightest opportunity, the Duke of Stonevale would not hesitate to kill her brother.
For him to harbor such loathing for Kit… What could possibly have happened between them?
What had Kit done to incur such hatred?
“You are despicable!” her brother bit out. “Your feud is with me. Keep my sister out of your need for revenge.”
“On the contrary, I fully intend to marry Miss Hawthorne.” Stonevale sneered at him. “Some of us do know how to take responsibility for our actions.”
He turned toward the two ladies who stood in silence behind her brother. “I trust that this meets the approval of the ladies in attendance?”
Juliana’s gaze flew to Stonevale, whose countenance had shifted from the fierce hunger earlier to one of impassive boredom. It was as if the entire scene merited as much concern as a speck of dust on his boots.
“I suppose there is nothing else that can be done.” Grandmama relented with a sigh.
“There, there, Lady Hawthorne. If His Grace has given his word that he shall take responsibility for Miss Hawthorne, then there should not be much of a problem,” Lady Hampton reassured her.
She eyed the two warring men before her and smiled politely.
“If that is all, then Lady Hawthorne and I shall see to it that the carriage is brought out to the back gate.”
With an elegant flick of her skirts, Lady Hampton ushered her overwrought Grandmama away from the scene.
But even Lady Hampton’s acceptance of Stonevale did nothing to appease Kit.
“I shall not have Juliana shoulder your miserable need for revenge, Stonevale!” Kit growled, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Grandmama might accept your proposal, but you forget that I alone am responsible for my sister’s wellbeing!”
“And a fine job you have done of that,” Stonevale retorted icily. “Sending her to a bathhouse, of all places, to deliver parcels for dubious entities.”
Kit flinched at the accusation.
“It was a perfectly safe errand,” he defended. “No harm would have come to her if you had not monopolized the entire establishment to yourself.”
Stonevale smirked. “Need I also remind you that I have already paid a rather handsome sum for Miss Hawthorne’s hand? How quickly some of us do forget.”
Juliana froze at his words.
“Paid?” Her gaze swiveled to Kit, who had gone white as a sheet. “Paid what?”
Her voice rose in pitch as alarm coursed through her. Stonevale could not be accusing her brother of what she believed he was. Kit might be a gambler—and a horrid one, at that—but he could not possibly have gone so far.
Could he?
Stonevale reached for her, but she angrily shook his hand away from her—a marvelous feat, since she was shaking all over.
“Unhand me, Your Grace!” she told him, her glare fixed on her brother, who now shrank from the fury in her gaze. “You will explain yourself, and I shall not countenance any more falsehood from you.” Her gaze slid briefly to the stoic Duke. “The both of you.”
“Juliana, it is not what you think it is—”
Wrong answer.
“No, it is precisely what you think it is, my sweet.” Stonevale stepped between them, his features impassive, as if that dreadfully handsome face had been cast in stone and not flesh and blood. “On the night of the… masquerade, your brother offered a night in your company to pay off his debts.”
Juliana reeled as the truth of his words slammed into her. She felt as if she was going to be sick.
“The price was for one night,” the Duke continued, his voice barely piercing through the fog of anguish that surrounded her.
“But I intend to make you my Duchess, my sweet. Your brother has underestimated your value rather abysmally.” He smirked and added, “I would pay more if it meant his presence would never offend my sight again.”
“How very generous of you!” Juliana could barely contain her contempt for their appalling arrangement. Her eyes flicked to her brother. “This is true, then? You accepted money in exchange for…” Her breath caught in her throat. “In exchange for your sister.”
Kit threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “He is a liar, Juliana! Gods above, how can you even begin to believe such a ridiculous fabrication?”
She laughed bitterly, causing both men to look at her in concern.
“You did accept his money, did you not?” she accused him with a scornful smile. “You agreed to this transaction. You sold me.”
“Of course not!” Kit raged, but the guilt in his eyes was damning.
Her brother had truly sunk so low as to accept funds from wherever he could get his hands on them, without a care as to how he acquired them.
“I would never let anyone lay a finger on you. I would have paid that amount back as soon as—”
“As soon as what, brother?” she tilted her head, a mocking smile on her face. “As soon as you have recovered your wealth through some fortuitous windfall at the tables?”
Kit blanched at the viciousness in her words.
In the past, Juliana had never spoken to him so harshly.
She had always regarded him with as much patience as she could muster, even as he failed over and over again at whatever enterprise he turned his eye to.
And even in their dire straits, she had begrudgingly allowed him to send her on errands which risked her reputation and dignity as a well-bred young lady.
And for what? He had sold her to his creditors.
“You disgust me, Christopher Hawthorne,” she spat out. She picked up her skirts and turned toward the dimly lit garden path, the same one that Lady Hampton had pointed out to them earlier.
She heard Stonevale call out her name, followed by a muttered curse at her brother. She did not bother to even pause and glance over her shoulder.
Both of them had played a hand in ruining her life.
They could keep each other company, then, for she wanted no part in their ridiculous feud.
“You really enjoy destroying every single thing you touch, do you not, Stonevale?”
Cassian turned toward the enraged young Baron with a raised eyebrow.
“I should think that is more your specialty than mine, Hawthorne. Need I remind you that it is not my fortune I have frittered away in a mere handful of years?”
He watched with satisfaction as Hawthorne turned visibly apoplectic with rage.
“You just could not shut your mouth, could you, Stonevale?” the Baron raged. “Instead, you would rather waste your time scheming so you can blow my family apart.”
He could not care less what Hawthorne thought of him. In fact, he rather enjoyed watching the bastard’s carefully fabricated fantasy come crashing down on his duplicitous head.
He drew the line, however, at Hawthorne selling his own sister to pay off his debts. Juliana Hawthorne might be impolite, reckless, and all sorts of aggravating, but she did not deserve the treatment that her brother—her own flesh and blood—was willing to subject her to.
“You do not deserve half the devotion your family has shown you,” Cassian growled at him. “The sooner your sister’s eyes are opened to the truth, the better.”
“So this is your ploy, then?” Hawthorne demanded. “You wish to strip me of everything I have left.”
Cassian smiled coldly at him. “You think too highly of me if you think I have the time and effort to spare in meddling with your affairs. Not when you are already doing a fine enough job of ruining your own life.”
“You bastard!”
“Your sister was far better and more creative in hurling insults at my head,” he smirked. “Perhaps, if she had been born male, then the entire Hawthorne line would not have sunk to such depths.”
Hawthorne looked at him in mild shock. “You actually like her.”
Cassian stiffened. Did he really like the vexing minx? Almost as much as one would appreciate a hangnail, perhaps, if hangnails were possessed of such lush curves and a mouth that was made for kissing and other such sinful pleasures.
Damn it.
He had only meant to kiss her when he heard her brother idiotically calling her name and inviting scandal upon them all before Cassian could even taste those succulent lips.
He had not meant to crush her lips to his, to delve and taste the sweetness that lay in their depths.
He had not meant to press his hardness against those delectable curves and delight in how well she seemed to fit into him.
And he most certainly had not meant to find it so enjoyable to the point of clouding his judgment.
“I will be calling upon you and your sister tomorrow,” Cassian told him. “Do take care to make certain that you are in the proper frame of mind to accept my proposal.”
“Ha! That is, if she will have you.”
Cassian smirked at him.
“I have my own ways of persuading the young lady, so you need not concern yourself on that account.”
Without waiting for Hawthorne to sputter more expletives his way, he walked back to the ballroom.
For once, the pain in his leg did not seem as awful as it usually was.