Page 21 of The Last Duke She'd Marry
“Or perhaps you reveal your true self when you’re acting.”
To his regret, her expression hardened. For a moment, she’d shown signs of warming up. “I don’t think that’s how it works. After all, you’re earnest and romantic when you play Romeo, and we all know that has no relation to reality.”
“Ouch.” He gave an exaggerated wince. The atmosphere at Afton Park must be getting to him. Everything he did seemed exaggerated here, including how exciting he found his leading lady. “For a moment there, you treated me as a human being. I rather liked it.”
A plate of Dover sole in butter sauce appeared before him. Lord Portdown kept a good table. This week in the country was replete with unexpected pleasures. The greatest and most unexpected of which turned out to be the woman sitting beside him.
Another of those direct looks warned him not to underestimate her. “I suspect you’re all too human, Your Grace.”
He accepted the silent message that he wasn’t to trifle with her. Accepted the message but had no intention of heeding it.
Before Evesham could come up with an adequate response to her remark, Portdown stopped browbeating poor Portia and asked him about theater that he’d attended on the Continent. He bit back the urge to say that he mostly went to a performance to trawl for his next mistress. Juliet was so determined to cling to her composure that it was a pleasure to see her bristle and fume when he refused to succumb to her disapproval.
His accounts of Paris led to a general discussion on international styles of production that continued for the rest of dinner. There were no more thorny, thrilling, electric exchanges with Juliet.
But as Evesham lay awake in his luxurious chamber upstairs, it was his conversation with Juliet that lingered in his mind. Much had been said, but more had remained unspoken.
Even if she wasn’t aware of it, she laid down a challenge. A challenge that he meant to meet.
Chapter 6
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”
A frustrated roar rose from her father. “No, for the last time, no! You’re not talking to the housekeeper about the next coal delivery. You’re confessing your forbidden love to an ardent admirer. Can we have just a touch of emotion, for pity’s sake?”
Juliet gritted her teeth – not for the first time. Her jaw was aching.
She turned on her minuscule balcony to observe her father where he stood in front of the stage. Very deliberately, she didn’t catch Evesham’s eye.
The duke stood below, staring up at her as if he’d never seen anything as superb in his entire life, the lying toad. He had no trouble entering into the spirit of the play. But of course, he’d been born a deceiver.
“I’m trying, Papa.”
“No, you’re not. Do it again and inject a bit of passion this time.”
Passion? That was just what she was worried about, heaven help her.
Despite all the urgings of good sense, she couldn’t control her traitorous senses. And her traitorous senses were convinced that the Duke of Evesham was the most attractive man she’d ever met. Three days of him wooing her in the person of Romeo undermined every scrap of her customary composure.
In her head, she knew that he was playing a part. So was she – however inadequate she might be. But when he focused all that heated attention on her, her body reacted as if the poetry promoted a genuine seduction. Of Juliet Frain. Not Juliet Capulet.
Even worse, Juliet Frain, despite all society’s rules, couldn’t help thinking that giving in to Evesham’s blandishments might be heavenly. What the devil was wrong with her? Since the wayward duke had crashed into her measured existence, she didn’t recognize herself.
It didn’t help that she had an unpleasant suspicion that His Dis-Grace was well aware of his unfortunate effect on her. How could he not be? He knew women, and he knew women had a soft spot for him. That roguish glint in his eyes must have turned sensible females silly since his first nursemaid.
At rehearsals, he, unlike her temperamental Papa, was endlessly patient with her. She wished to glory that this patience didn’t convey his belief that resistance would soon melt and she’d tumble into his arms.
She wished to glory that she could say he was mistaken.
But half a week into his visit, and she wasn’t sleeping, and she wasn’t eating, and her nerves were stretched so taut that she jumped at the slightest sound. Even Portia had started avoiding her company because Juliet, always ready with a dry response, had become positively waspish.
Juliet straightened her backbone and told herself that she could withstand this tawdry temptation. She spoke her lines again, but faltered as Evesham, instead of keeping to a safe distance, began to climb the makeshift balcony.
“What on earth is this?” she hissed, as the wooden frame lurched under his weight.
“I’m doing what any halfway decent Romeo would.”
His laughing response made her itch to push him off the balcony. She’d immediately noted and condemned his habit of treating life as a game.
