May 1824
Her Grace, the Duchess of Leighton, was high on a ladder in the library—too high to hide—when her husband entered the room, calling her name, distracted by a letter he held.
“Yes?”
“We’ve news from—” He trailed off, and she knew that she had been discovered. When he spoke again, the words were low and far—too calm for her husband, who had found that he rather enjoyed the full spectrum of emotion now that he had experienced it. “Juliana?”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing twenty feet in the air?”
She brazened on, pretending not to notice that he had positioned himself beneath her, as though she would not crush him like a beetle should she go hurtling to the ground. “Looking for a book.”
“Would you mind very much returning to the earth?”
Luckily, the book for which she had been searching revealed itself. She pulled it off the shelf and made her way back down the ladder. When she had both feet firmly on the ground, he let loose. “What are you thinking, climbing to the rafters in your condition?”
“I am not an invalid, Simon, I still have use of all my extremes.”
“You do indeed—particularly your extreme ability to try my patience—I believe, however, that you mean extremities.” He paused, remembering why he was irritated. “You could have fallen!”
“But I did not,” she said, simply, turning her face up to his for a kiss.
He gave it to her, his hands coming to caress the place where his child grew. “You must take better care,” he whispered, and a thrill coursed through her at the wonder in his tone.
She lifted her arms, wrapping them around his neck, reveling in the heat and strength of him. “We are well, husband.” She grinned. “Twelve lives, remember?”
He groaned at the words. “I think you’ve used them up, you know. Certainly you’ve used your twelve scandals.”
She wrinkled her nose at that, thinking. “No. I couldn’t have.”
He lifted her in his arms and moved to their favorite chair, evicting Leopold. As the dog resumed his nap on the floor, Simon settled into the chair, arranging his wife on his lap. “The tumble into the Serpentine . . . the time you led me on a not-so-merry chase through Hyde Park . . . lurking outside my club . . .”
“That wasn’t a real scandal,” she protested, cuddling closer to him as his hand stroked across her rounded belly.
“Scandal enough.”
“My mother’s arrival,” Juliana said.
He shook his head. “Not your scandal.”
She smiled. “Nonsense. She’s the scandal that started it all.”
“So she is.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I shall have to thank her someday.” He pressed on. “Toppling Lady Needham’s harvest bounty . . .”
“Well, really, who decorates a staircase in vegetables? And if we’re going to count all my scandals, how about the ones in which you were scandalous as well?” She ticked them off as she listed them. “Kissing me in my brother’s stables . . . ravishing me at your own betrothal ball . . . and let’s not forget—”
He kissed the side of her neck. “Mmm. By all means, let’s not forget.”
She laughed and pushed him away. “Bonfire Night.”
The amber in his eyes darkened. “I assure you, Siren, I would never forget Bonfire Night.”
“How many is that?”
“Eight.”
“There, you see? I told you! I am the very model of propriety!” He barked his laughter and a worried look crossed her face. “Nine,” she said.
“Nine?”
“I insulted your mother at the dressmaker’s.” She lowered her voice. “In front of people.”
His brows shot up. “When?”
“During our wager.”
He grinned. “I would have liked to see that.”
She covered her eyes. “It was awful. I still cannot look her in the eye.”
“That has absolutely nothing to do with cutting her in a modiste’s shop and everything to do with the fact that my mother is terrifying.” She giggled. “There were at least two that first night—at the Ralston ball.”
She thought back. “So there were. Grabeham in the gardens and your carriage.”
He stiffened. “Grabeham, was it?”
Her fingers wandered into the curls at the nape of his neck. “He does not require additional handling, Simon.”
Simon raised a brow. “You may not think so . . . but I shall enjoy paying him a visit.”
“If you are allowed into his home, considering what a scandal you are,” she teased.
“There! That is your twelfth. The Northumberland Ball,” he announced, wrapping her tightly in his arms. “No more climbing of ladders while incinta.”
“Oh, no,” she protested. “Your storming of Northumberland House is entirely your scandal. I had nothing to do with it! Take it back.”
He chuckled against the side of her neck, and she shivered at the sensation. “Fair enough. I claim that one in its entirety.”
She smiled. “That’s the best one of them all.”
He raised a brow in ducal imperiousness. “Haven’t I told you that I find it is not worth doing anything if one does not do it well?”
Her peal of laughter was lost in his kiss, long and expert, until they pulled apart, gasping for air. He pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “My magnificent wife.”
She dipped her head at the worshipful tone, then remembered. “You had news. When you entered.”
He settled back in the chair, removing a letter from his jacket pocket. “I did. We have a nephew. The future Marquess of Ralston.”
Juliana’s eyes went wide with pleasure, snatching the paper from his hand, reading eagerly. “A boy! Henry.” She met Simon’s gaze. “And two becomes three.” Nick’s daughter, Elizabeth, had been born two weeks earlier, and now shared the nursery at Townsend Park with a growing, happy Caroline.
Simon pulled Juliana to him, placing a kiss at the tip of her eyebrow and tucking her against his chest. “Come autumn, we shall do our part and add a fourth to their merry band.”
Pleasure coiled as she thought of their blossoming family—a wild, wonderful family she’d never dared imagine. “You realize that they shall be the worst kind of trouble,” she teased.
He was silent for a long time—long enough for Juliana to lift her head and meet his serious, golden gaze.
When she did, he smiled, broad and beautiful. “They shall be the very best kind of trouble.”
And they were.