Page 17 of A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Heirs

Her blond hair brushed the back of her jacket as she shook her head. “It was the day the truth came out about Drake. Honoria stormed out of the house, and Drake raced after her. I didn’t want to add to his burden.”

Although Victor admired Juliana’s kind heart and concern for others, she needed to be protected from vultures like Middlebury. Courting her might serve that purpose as well.

As other people passed, they received a mixture of cordial greetings, shocked stares, and occasional snickers. The scoundrel, Felix Davies, trotted his horse next to a carriage where Lydia Whyte sat with her parents, her damnable fan fluttering furiously as she apparently carried on a conversation with Davies. Both turned their gazes toward Victor and his friends. Davies leaned in toward Lydia.

As Victor recalled the accusations Davies had leveled at him at the musicale, Lydia held the fan up to her face, no doubt hiding her smirk.

Victor tipped his hat, vowing to be the bigger man. “Miss Whyte, Lord and Lady Whyte. Davies.”

Davies shot a glance toward Burwood, whose attention was completely on his wife.

Lucky man.

Realizing the duke was preoccupied, Davies trotted his horse over. “Miss Merrick. Pratt. Out for a family excursion?” He smirked at Victor, his eyes accusing and condemning.

“I could say the same for you, Davies.” Victor nodded toward Lydia’s carriage. “You’re becoming a regular fixture with the Whytes.”

Davies waved it off. “Not at all. I’m simply out for a pleasant ride and happened upon them, just as I have you two.”

Victor didn’t appreciate the lascivious way Davies raked his gaze up and down Juliana.

“Interesting riding habit, Miss Merrick. Quite daring to be riding astride among good society.”

“Are you now the judge of what is appropriate for good society, Davies?” Victor asked, the words delivered with more snap than he originally intended.

“Gentlemen, please.” Juliana’s calm voice cut through Victor’s growing irritation with Davies. “Lord Felix, although my method of riding may be unusual here among London’ston,where I’m from it is considered sensible.”

“Of course,” Davies said, his tone countering his agreement.

“Now, if you will excuse us, my brother—the duke—will be wondering what’s kept us.”

Victor almost cheered at the shocked expression on Davies’s face at Juliana’s couched reminder of whom Davies was insulting. With a jerk of her chin and the jaunty blue bonnet perched on the head she held high, Juliana nudged her horse forward without so much as a by-your-leave.

A grin tugged at Victor’s lips. Davies could have Lydia. Juliana exhibited the courage of grace wrapped in steel.

CHAPTER 6

Juliana tamped down the hurt that had risen at Felix Davies’s thinly veiled censure. Why had his words stung her? She’d tried to learn to ride sidesaddle, but it felt too unnatural and foreign. But it would seem, even the modiste’s elegant riding habit, the design guided by Mama and Honoria, wasn’t enough to keep the wagging tongues at bay.

Try as she might to make her family proud, or at least not embarrass them, she failed miserably. How did she ever think she would fit in with society and all their silly rules and judgmental attitudes? People like Lord Felix made it clear she would never be accepted as one of them, not that she needed him to point it out. Like her attempts at riding sidesaddle, pretending she belonged among thetonfelt alien, as if she were wearing someone else’s skin.

Victor had been a dear to come to her aide. But she worried that, like Honoria and Drake, he would also be an innocent casualty of any repercussions. Sounds of his horse rejoining her drew her attention to him.

He leaned toward her and whispered, “That was bloody brilliant.”

Both the grin on his face and his words lifted her spirits. “Such language, Victor!” She laughed, hoping he knew she didn’t mind at all.

“Forgive me.” His own tone implied he wasn’t the least bit sorry.

They followed Drake and Honoria, riding in companionable silence for a while when Dr. and Mrs. Somersby approached, accompanied by three children, all of them also on horseback.

Juliana tilted her head in their direction. “Is that the boy called Pockets Lady Montgomery spoke of?” Blond hair poked out from beneath the boy’s cap, and one hand gestured animatedly as he spoke to the younger girl on his left.

“I believe it is,” Victor answered.

An older girl of about ten-and-four rode on Pockets’s right, her dark curls bouncing in rhythm with the horse’s gait.

As the family stopped to exchange pleasantries with Drake and Honoria, the girls nudged their horses forward toward Juliana.

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