Page 38 of A Scandalous Kind of Duke

Leo watched Renshaw toddle back along the bower, his coat coming and going in the dappled light. Then he pivoted and continued his walk in the other direction.

It was a pleasant garden, especially on an early summer’s day, with the occasional cry of birds and the buzzing of bees. Music and voices floated through the air, distant like a dream, and he relaxed into the feeling of being apart.

So, he desired Juno: no matter. Desire burned hot and urgent, but it always passed. Desire alone did not mean he was doomed to fall in love with her again, and have his heart smashed to smithereens again, and find himself moping and pining and lurking on the street outside her window again.

This lust for Juno—surely it was no more than a hangover from the past. He was no longer a callow boy in the first throes of affection for a charming, pretty girl. No longer the foolish virgin who had exploded his life by spinning a web of fantasies from one brief adolescent kiss.

What was it Juno had said, about whether one’s younger selves still lurked within? That was all this was, his younger self, that naive, broken-hearted fool, wailing in his mind like a ghost on the castle walls.

Indeed, Leo was feeling almost content as he strolled into a small garden, fragrant with the jasmine growing exuberantly over the walls.

Until Juno herself stepped through the shrubbery and planted herself on the grass before him.

Her complexion was both pale and pink. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth trembled.

“Leo,” she said, her voice tremulous with accusation and hurt.

His first thought was to pull her into his arms and demand who had hurt her, that he might mete out punishment.

In the silence came the sound of violins and voices riding on the breeze.

Which led to his second thought: She had overheard his conversation, and this time the person who had hurt her was Leo himself.

“Is that true, what I heard you say to the earl?” Juno demanded. “That our friendship means nothing?”

Leo could not tell the truth. He was not ready to lie. Shame at his own behavior transformed into annoyance at her ambush.

He inspected his cuffs coolly. “You know what they say about eavesdroppers.”

“Yes, eavesdroppers hear their friends deny their friendships. I was looking for Livia, who has disappeared, and I was thinking how happy I was that you are here today, and I was thinking—” She bit her lip. “But you do not care what I was thinking, do you? Not if we are not friends.”

Her distress tugged at his heart. He could heal this rift. He could find a way to explain so they might part as friends.

It was so tempting.

And if he was tempted now, he would be tempted again. Some day he would be tired, restless, bored, and he would seek her out, as he always did. And she would welcome him, as she always did.

And he would jeopardize the new, orderly life he was trying to build.

He wished to safeguard her happiness; he wished to safeguard his future marriage. He could not do both. He had made his choice. Now he must enforce it.

The only safe measure was to burn the bridge of what lay between them and ensure he could never go back.

Whatever it takes.

He fingered the hard stone of the ruby pin nestled in the folds of his cravat. “You forget, perhaps, that I am a duke and not at your beck and call,” he said coldly. “I have more pressing concerns than your passing sentiments.”

She looked baffled. “What nonsense is that? Not half an hour ago we were laughing together, and now you are spouting this rubbish.”

Leo said nothing.

“Why are you putting this distance between us?” she went on, seeing too clearly, too deeply, yet not clearly or deeply enough. “It is as though in the past half hour something has caused you to despise me, and I cannot fathom what I have done.”

He was hurting her; he hated hurting her. Yet her bewilderment needled him, as if she could not fathom that he too could be hurt. How careless she was, bandying around words like friendship and love, as if she were the only one who ever felt them.

None of it would matter in the end. Juno may weep now, but she would forget him. She embraced all of life’s delights and sorrows, and never dwelled in the shadow of the past or the glare of the future. Such was her nature. It would never change.

In that moment, he did despise her. It erupted from nowhere, the searing, raw bitterness and hurt that had consumed him in Vienna. He found that years-old thread of hurt and longing, and he spun it out and wove it into a broader tapestry of resentment. He wrapped himself in it like a blanket.

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