Page 85 of A Scandalous Kind of Duke

“Will you stay in town for the summer?” she asked.

He blinked as if that were a shocking question. Then he gathered himself and said, “Brighton.”

It was her turn to blink. Leo never went to Brighton. He held opinions on theton’s summer revelries there.

“I will accompany Miss Macey and her family,” he added.

She should end this torture. She must stop talking. Release him. Let him go.

“When is the wedding?”

“September.”

“Will your mother and sister have returned from Prussia by then?”

“My mother has indicated her intention to spend another year with her family.”

Such trite nonsense! If only she could speak her true questions:Under that aloof mask, are you roiling and tumbling, like I am? Do you still feel my touch as I feel yours? Do you think of me with pleasure, then rise to come and see me, only to catch yourself with a sharp pain as you realize it can never be? Or did our tryst achieve its aim? Have you made peace with the past? Do you feel nothing from this encounter but the awkwardness of meeting a former lover in a public place?

She despised herself for her weakness, for she had no claim to him, not anymore. She had chosen to tread her own path, and that path had taken her further from him than ever before. She had burned her bridges, rendered herself permanently unsuitable for a respectable gentleman.

Now he was engaged to someone else, and that someone was in this room, and Juno had lost any right to ask for anything anymore.

Summer stretched before them. By the time the air cooled and the leaves turned orange, when children picked hazelnuts and men shot birds under crisp skies, skies the color of Leo’s eyes, the eyes she would never paint, the mouth she would never again kiss, the heart she would never own—

By that time, Leo would be wed.

She must stop this. She must let him go.

Finally, she found the strength and grace to say, “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

But he was already looking elsewhere, saying absently, “I don’t see any reason why not.” Then he inclined his head. “If you’ll excuse me, I must return to my party.”

Beatrice was still there, though Juno had forgotten her, and Beatrice said, “And if I might be so bold, if Miss Macey were to want her portrait done—”

“Beatrice!” Juno stared at her in horror.

“Hush, Juno. It is my duty as your patroness to put you forward. Mrs. Green painted a portrait of the Duchess of Clarence, and you are more than her equal. His Grace doesn’t mind, do you, Your Grace?”

“Not at all, Mrs. Prescott. I bid you both good day.”

Having neatly sidestepped her offer, he moved away through the crowd.

Juno stared at the long, lean lines of his back. She had last seen that back covered by only a shirt, as he sat on the side of the bed, making the confession that upended her world.

But then the crowd had the kindness to close around them, and all Juno could see was his departing hat.

CHAPTER22

When the hackney cab stopped outside Juno’s house late that evening, she scrambled out of it as fast as she could.

The wretched day had dissolved into an even more wretched evening, haunted by Leo’s coldness. Her heart was as crowded with emotions as that art gallery had been with Londoners. Anger, hurt, bewilderment, longing, regret: They were all milling about inside her and treading on each other’s toes.

As the cab trundled away, a figure emerged from the shadows across the street. Her heart thumped. Fear hurried her feet toward the door.

Only to stop: The figure was Leo, looking less than impeccable. Indeed, he looked downright disheveled, as he weaved his way across the street toward her.

The glow of the full moon, peeking out from behind its blanket of rainclouds, lent him an ethereal look, casting eerie shadows over his face and shimmering over the white of his waistcoat and cravat. If this were a painting, she’d title itThe Haunting.

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