My Fair Marchioness (Scandalous Affairs Book 3) by Christi Caldwell (best short books to read txt) 📗

Harris, who to his credit didn’t voice that lie aloud just to please his godmother. He just continued to study her with that cynical gaze that she found herself unable to meet.

“As if anyone could doubt it,” the duchess said, and Julia’s gaze slid involuntarily over to the greatest of her doubters. “Your new trousseau aside, that is not why I’ve summoned you. It is because of my godson.”

Lord Ruthven.

“Yes, I see he is here.” Julia paused. “Still.”

He dropped a bow. “Indeed.” he murmured, his stare so intense as to rip right through her and her lies. “Is there somewhere else I should be?”

Tension crackled and sizzled, hanging in the air, an electric heat to it that came from the kiss that lingered still on her lips, when she should feel only fear at what his presence meant. Words failed. Julia felt the duchess’ eyes on her exchange with Harris, but God forgive her for her red-haired temper her mum had insisted she’d inherited from her da, she couldn’t put on the proper show where this gentleman was concerned. Julia made herself glance away first. “No, my lord. It is a great honor to have your presence here again… and again.”

The duchess laughed, and releasing her shears, she caught one of Julia’s hands in hers and reached for her godson with her other. “You two are of like temperaments.”

It was on the tip of Julia’s tongue to point out she wasn’t like Harris in any way, but she managed to bite back that curt pronouncement.

“It is my hope with Harris now remaining with us for an indefinite time that you two might strike up a friendship.”

Julia whipped her gaze up to the marquess’, but his expression was veiled, revealing none of the smugness he no doubt felt.

Oh, bloody hell. He’d absolutely no intention of leaving. But then, should she expect anything different? “I… how… wonderful,” she brought herself to say. Just as she’d suspected, the truce he’d tried to strike up the other day had been nothing more than an attempt to grease her up.

“Well, it is not wonderful yet. Not with you both fighting as you are. In the hope of you getting to know one another, I thought it would be a good idea if you spent some time together.”

As one, Julia and Harris stiffened.

“Your Grace—”

“I don’t think—”

She thumped the hilt of her shears. “Silence, the both of you. As we will all be living together, I’ll not have you at each other’s throats.”

“Are you trying to have me thrown out?” Harris demanded.

“I’m merely suggesting that if there is some other place that you might go—and you being a marquess, there undoubtedly is—that you go there.”

“The hell I will,” he barked.

Her Grace clapped her hands. “Children,” she said, breaking across their bickering. “Now, though I do not disagree with Julia that it is altogether ridiculous that you wish to remain here, I also see benefits to the two of you getting to know one another. Now, off you go. A curricle ride in Hyde Park.”

As one, Harris and Julia snapped their heads to look at the duchess, and then, once more at one another. A slow-building horror filled him; that emotion mirrored in the young woman’s wide eyes.

Well, it seemed they’d agree on one thing, after all.

Bloody hell.

Chapter 10

All number of conveyances, from a casual hackney on to enormous barouches and elegant phaetons, had rattled along the streets of Covent Garden. Julia, however, had always been endlessly fascinated by the curricles.

Whenever they’d gone whipping past, she’d taken a moment away from selling flowers to glance at those quick-moving vehicles and wonder what it was like to ride within them. Because of the way the riders’ hair had been wind-tossed, she’d often suspected it felt like flying.

It had been one of the pleasures she’d secretly wondered after and envied those powerful peers the privilege of knowing.

Only to now find herself moving at a brisk clip in one of those very conveyances and dreaming herself anyplace but where she was.

Because she also found herself with perhaps the most dangerous person she could—a man who doubted she was who she professed to be, and also one who’d kissed her senseless earlier and whose kiss she’d been unable to shake from her thoughts.

She sat stiffly at his side, hugging the edge of the bench in a bid to put some space between them.

Her efforts, however, proved futile. From the corner of her eye, Julia couldn’t keep her gaze from wandering to the leg that brushed her skirt and nearly touched her own. Her mouth went dry.

She felt his stare on her and swiftly averted her attention out at the passing landscape. Think about the rumble of the carriage wheels. Or the crunch of gravel. Think about anything beyond the fact of just how much Harris, Lord Ruthven unnerves you.

As he guided the mount down the heavily traveled gravel path, strangers were stealing glances their way.

Her palms moistened.

This was a terrible idea.

Not just the curricle ride with the marquess, but putting herself on display before all the most powerful people in England. All of whom would happily line up at the very gibbet she’d lived in fear of. There was no doubt they’d cheer her on to her death for daring to infiltrate their lofty ranks.

After a thirty-minute, or perhaps forty-minute, journey from the duchess’ to Hyde Park, Harris was the first to speak. “You don’t much like me, do you?” he remarked casually.

Of anything he might have said, that was decidedly more welcome and easier than being called out for her wanton response to him. Some of the tension left her shoulders. “I daresay I can put the same question to you.”

He scoffed. “Come, I was perfectly charming the other morning.”