Page 8 of A Scandalous Kind of Duke

“Then why is he here?”

“I do not wish to upset you, but I must inform you that a man can call on a woman without intending to bed her,” she said.

“Can he?” St. Blaise sounded genuinely curious. “Can he, really?”

“He came to give me a gift.”

“Actually,” Leo corrected lazily. “I came to fetch you.”

“Fetch me where?”

He raised one eyebrow and said nothing. He raised the other eyebrow and still said nothing.

“Oh, good heavens—Hadrian’s dinner!” she remembered, slapping her cheek. “I completely lost track of time.” She glared at the window with its deceptive daylight: The days were so long this time of year. “Thank you. I should hate to be late.”

“Dinner?” St. Blaise said. “Who’s going to dinner?”

“It’s a family dinner, to celebrate my cousin Hadrian’s return to England,” Juno explained, as she gathered up the finished mermaid drawing and her other sketches. She locked them in the heavy armoire, where she hid most of her secret things. “It will be the first time we are all in the same room in years.”

And how she was looking forward to it, all of them together: her aunt Hester and uncle Gordon; her cousins Phoebe and Livia, one married and living apart from her husband, the other resolutely unmarried and living at home; young Daniel, now studying at Oxford; and Hadrian, finally come home from Vienna.

“If it’s a family dinner, why is Polly invited?”

“Because he is Hadrian’s oldest friend.” She grabbed St. Blaise’s coat and snapped it at him like a toreador at a bull. “I must dress for dinner, and you must leave.”

“I could help you dress.”

“You will help by leaving,” she insisted firmly. “Out. Now.”

* * *

“I supposeyou’ve not seen Hadrian since we were all in Vienna,” Juno said to Leo, once she had shooed St. Blaise out the door and was washing her hands with lavender-scented soap. “That must be… How many years ago now?”

“Eight,” Leo said shortly.

“I’ll always remember Vienna with such fondness. I had such a wonderful time there. Do you remember—”

“I prefer not to remember Vienna,” he said with startling chilliness.

Without looking at her, he dropped onto the window seat beside the cats. Artemisia stoutly ignored him, but Angelica, the darling little flirt, launched herself at his ribs. There followed some negotiations between duke and cat, as Leo explained that his outfit was already perfect and would not be improved by cat hair. “My valet will skin you and turn you into a hat,” he warned, so Angelica flopped against his thigh and grinned at him upside down. Her efforts were rewarded when Leo’s slender fingers raked through the gray fluff on her belly.

Juno tore her gaze off his hand and turned back to the washbasin to attack her grubby fingernails with a boar-bristle brush. How careless she was. Of course Leo did not wish to speak of Vienna, for it was in Vienna that he had met his former wife, the youngest daughter of a minor Hungarian prince, whom he had married after a whirlwind romance.

When Hadrian told Juno that Leo was coming to Vienna, she had been eager to see him again. By that time, she had been studying in Vienna for two years, while devouring the manifold delights of that city’s bohemian world. It would be her first meeting with Leo after that embarrassing display in the meadow, and she had hoped to repair their friendship, which she had surely ruined with that foolish kiss.

They had walked together in the gardens, where Vienna’s autumn foliage had dazzled with its display of orange, ochre, and red. Even after more than two years apart, chatting with Leo had felt soright. Juno happily kicked up the leaves and listened to Leo’s news, and when Hadrian left them alone to greet a colleague, she seized the opportunity to apologize for her behavior in the meadow. He need not fear any more unwanted declarations of love or kisses, she had assured him, for she thought of him now as only a friend!

Alas for her: Leo had shown no further interest in her company. Instead, he ran wild with his German cousins, their reckless behavior shocking even Viennese society. Juno traveled south to Florence soon afterward, seeking a new tutor and a milder winter. She did not learn of Leo’s sudden marriage until some months after it was done. The news had surprised her; she could only assume he had been very much in love.

With a sigh, she dried her hands on a clean linen, her eyes wandering back to him.

Once more, he had managed to arrange himself like a painting, his head framed by the window, with the sunlight gilding his eyelashes and caressing his smooth-shaven cheek. The light shimmered over the vibrant flowers embroidered on his waistcoat.Unknown Gentleman with Cat, Juno would title it.

He was so carefully curated, so artfully presented, as if to ensure that if he was subject to the world’s stares, it would be on his own terms. He had turned himself into a piece of art, and nothing touched art.

It vexed her sometimes, the way he used his manner and dress to hold the world at a distance. Or perhaps she was merely piqued he held her at a distance too.

The invisible lines between them had been drawn during Leo’s first visit, just over four years ago, barely days after Juno moved into this house. She had been turning in circles in her empty studio, deciding what to put where, and between one turn and the next, Leo had appeared, glossy and untouchable: older, still married, so newly a duke he still wore a black armband for his late father. Hadrian had sent him to check on her, he had explained, and Juno hadn’t minded, for she’d never expected to see much of Leo again at all.

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