Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
She had been reading for perhaps an hour when he knocked.
"Get ready," he said from the doorway.
Julia looked up from her book. He was already fully dressed. A dark, perfectly tailored coat, a pristine white cravat, and that contained formality he wore the way other men wore comfort. He stood with his shoulders braced, casting a long shadow across the threshold.
"For what?" she asked.
"There is a ball tonight."
She waited for the rest of it. The explanation, the venue, the host. There was no rest of it. He just looked at her.
"When?" she asked.
"How does tomorrow morning sound?"
She put the book down, her pulse quickening slightly as he turned on his heel and disappeared into the corridor.
The Harcourt house on St. James's Square was lit from top to bottom, the towering windows blazing amber against the dark London sky. The street outside was a slow, agonizing procession of carriages.
Julia sat across from Leander in the plush, dark interior of the coach. She looked out at the grand townhouse and felt something she had not expected. Something that, after a moment, she recognized as the first tentative edge of feeling like she belonged somewhere.
He had not told her why they were here. He had handed her into the carriage at the townhouse, his leather-gloved hand firm around her fingers, and had spoken of nothing but the evening air.
She had decided not to ask, refusing to give him the satisfaction of her curiosity. Now the carriage moved forward by microscopic increments, the light from the Harcourt torches spilling through the glass, catching the sharp line of Leander's jaw.
"Lady Harcourt's ball," she said, breaking the silence.
"Yes."
"Mrs. Hartley mentioned you have not attended Lady Harcourt's ball in three years running.”
"No."
She looked at him through the shadows. He was staring out the window at the arriving guests with the even, impenetrable composure he carried everywhere.
She could not see enough of his face to truly read it, and she had learned by now that asking him directly what he was thinking produced answers that were accurate but entirely incomplete. She looked back at the house instead, smoothing the front of her gown.
The carriage groaned to a final halt. The footman snapped the door open, letting in the roar of the street.
Leander stepped out first, turned, and offered her his hand. She took it, the strength in his grip grounding her as she stepped down onto the cobblestones.
The noise of the city swelled around them.
The shouting of linkboys, the clatter of hooves, and the heavy scent of expensive perfumes.
He tucked her hand firmly into the crook of his arm, his tall frame shielding her from the press of the crowd, and walked her up the sweeping stone steps and through the front door.
The ballroom was suffocatingly full.
It was the particular brand of crowd that happened only when Lady Harcourt sent invitations. A hundred members of the ton moved through candlelight and music with the density of a room that knew it was the only place to be in London tonight.
The orchestra was in excellent form, the violins soaring over the chatter.
Thousands of gardenias filled the air with a heavy, sweet fragrance that caught in Julia's throat.
The massive crystal chandeliers were lit to the last candle, throwing a warm, shifting gold light over the diamonds and silks below.
Julia had a single moment to take it in before the room enveloped them.
It started at the edges of the floor. A turned head here, a conversation paused mid-sentence there, a woman on the far side of the room touching her companion's arm and directing his attention sharply across the threshold.
The news of their quiet, sudden marriage had run through London fast, and the ton had been running faster behind it, speculating about the silence of the past weeks, their total absence from public engagements, and the burning question of what the Duke of Pridewell's private marriage actually looked like.
Now, they had their answer.
Leander moved into the room the way he always moved, unhurried, taking up the space that was actually his without a shred of apology.
Julia matched his stride. Her hand rested lightly but securely on his forearm. She tilted her chin at the exact, defiant angle she had decided on in the carriage. She felt the room recalibrate around them in real time, the whispers parting before them like a wake.
She saw Lady Catherine across the floor.
She was the hostess's eldest daughter, whom Julia had been introduced to briefly at the Bendon dinner in the spring and who had a way of appearing relaxed while cataloging everything in the room simultaneously.
The woman was standing with a select group near the far window, her white silk dress impeccable, her composure very nearly so.
She had been looking at the door—many people had been looking at the door—and when her eyes found Leander, they moved, two seconds later, to Julia.
What crossed Lady Catherine’s face in the space between those two seconds was a flash of raw, ugly shock.
She assembled her features back into a polite mask quickly enough that most people in the room would have missed it.
Julia caught it instantly. She did not let a single thing show on her own face, which was a skill she had been practicing since considerably before Lady Catherine had ever given her a reason to use it.
The music shifted, a new set forming on the floor. Leander stopped at the edge of the polished wood and turned his body fully toward her. "Will you?"
"You want to dance," she said, her voice low.
"I want to dance with you," he said, his gaze locking onto hers, heavy and deliberate. "Yes."
She looked at him, searching his eyes. She looked at the room around them, at the dozens of faces still turned their way, at Lady Catherine in the near distance, carefully arranging her expression back into serene indifference. She looked back at her husband.
"Are you certain about this?" she asked, quietly enough for only him to hear.
"Completely," he said.
He led her onto the floor, his hand moving to her waist. The music had moved into a lively country dance, and Leander took his place opposite her as the lines formed.
He did not look at the room. He looked at her.
They moved through the figures. He was an exceptional dancer, a fact she had not known and found she was not surprised by. He was good at anything requiring precision and spatial awareness, and a country dance was essentially both of those things dressed in better clothes.
She matched him step by step, her own grace a shield, and they moved through the set with a fluency that came from two people who understood instinctively when to give ground and when to hold it.
From across the room, she could feel the burning weight of Lady Catherine watching their every alignment. Julia waited for the music to bring them back together.
"Lady Catherine is staring," she said, in the brief, breathy proximity of a turn.
"I know," he said.
"You planned this. This entire evening."
"I thought it advisable," he said, his hand catching hers, his thumb brushing the bare skin above her glove, "that London sees you as you are."
She almost missed her footing on the next step. She recovered it just in time, her breath hitching. "And how is that?"
"Mine," he said, without inflection, his voice dropping into that low rumble before he turned and moved into the next figure.
Her fingers pressed once, hard against his hand, before she could stop herself from reacting. He did not comment on the small surrender.
They finished the set in a blur of music, and he led her off the floor. She kept her face perfectly composed and her chin at its angle, and she thought, very carefully, about absolutely nothing at all to keep her heart from hammering against her ribs.
They stayed for two hours.
Julia walked through the room, talking to people she had not spoken to since before the fateful house party.
Women who had watched her arrive in London with Lord Bendon's thin, reluctant sponsorship and who were now looking at the Duchess of Pridewell with an entirely revised, eager set of interests.
She received their transparent flattery with the warmth she possessed and the dryness she kept in reserve.
For the first time since the wedding chapel, she felt she was standing on ground that was not about to shift beneath her feet.
Leander was never more than twenty feet away.
He was talking to his own political set, performing his own rigid social obligations, but there was a consistency in his position that was entirely intentional.
He was an anchor.
When a gentleman she did not know approached her near the punch bowl with rather more enthusiasm than the occasion warranted, Leander was at her elbow within sixty seconds, his shadow enveloping them both.
"Lord Ashby," Leander said. It was a greeting that was also a clear, dangerous boundary, delivered without a single raised note.
Lord Ashby took one look at the Duke's eyes, paled, and took his leave immediately.
"Thank you," Julia said, letting out a small breath as the man retreated into the crowd.
"Think nothing of it," Leander said softly.
His eyes lingered on her face for a fraction of a second too long before he turned back to his conversation, leaving her with the lingering heat of his presence.
The carriage home was quiet in a separate way from the carriage there.
She sat across from him in the dark plush interior, looking down at the pale silk of her gloves while the distant streetlamps moved in rhythmic bars of gold light across her lap.