Juliet shook her head. “No, we locked ourselves in the sitting room next to the princess’s apartments in case we had to rush to her rescue. But no one came near us.”

  “Well, thank God for that, at any rate,” her mother said, pressing her hands. “But oh, Juliet, how could you be so silly as not to know…”

  Juliet blushed. “It was not unusual for Her Highness to have…private guests.”

  “Oh, for the love of… I told your father I did not want you exposed to such matters, but he said you were all but engaged, and then, of course, you were engaged.”

  “And now I’m not,” Juliet said flatly. “I was never more mistaken about anything or anyone than I was in my trust for Jeremy Catesby.”

  “I know. He wrote your father the most insolent letter, kindly enclosing a so-called newspaper I would not use for night-soil.”

  Juliet giggled, though of course, it was not really funny. Daniel Stewart’s irreverent humor seemed to have rubbed off on her.

  Her mother didn’t appear to notice. “As for Maria Alford! When I think about what I have done for that woman in the past and how she has repaid me… How dare she turn you away from the door? Without even troubling to see how you would get home.” The countess frowned. “How did you get home? Please say post.”

  “Stagecoach,” Juliet admitted. “Jeremy tried to give me money, but I threw it in his face.”

  “A mistake,” her mother said mournfully. “Understandable, but definitely a mistake. Your father won’t like this either.”

  “Is he angry?” Juliet asked with a hint of nervousness, for although she was used to twisting him around her little finger, he was a rather formidable man.

  “Furious,” her mother said frankly. “With the Alfords and with you for putting him in such a position. Apart from anything else, you must know we are to have a dinner party here to celebrate Kitty’s engagement and—”

  “Kitty is engaged?” Juliet interrupted, distracted by this startling news about her sister. “Who to?”

  “Lawrence King. It is a decent match, and there is some expectation from an uncle, I believe, so—”

  “Does she love him?” Juliet interrupted. “Because if she isn’t completely sure, she shouldn’t go near him. What’s more—”

  “What is this?” asked the unmistakable and highly sarcastic voice of her father. “Lessons in marriage from the girl who just lost all chance of a husband?”

  Juliet had been so involved with saving her sister that she had not registered the opening of the boudoir door until her father spoke and closed it behind him. She jumped to her feet. “Papa.”

  Her father threw something onto the sofa, “Is that true?”

  She saw at once it was the same scandal sheet she had already seen in the hands of Jeremy and later Oily George.

  “Of course not,” she said indignantly.

  “She was there,” her mother said grimly. “Entirely innocent and physically unhurt, but she was there alone with the other three girls.”

  “God in heaven.” He strode across the room to the window.

  Juliet swallowed. “Mama says Jeremy—Mr. Catesby—wrote to you. So, you know my engagement has ended.”

  “Don’t worry about Catesby,” her father said savagely. “I’ll get the little toad back for you. One way or another.”

  “But I don’t want the little toad,” she exclaimed, before laughter struck her once more, quite unaware. There was an element of hysteria to this, along with Daniel Stewart. She coughed to sober herself. “I would not take him back if he begged me on his knees.”

  Her father turned and glared at her. “You no longer have a say in the matter. You are ruined and will take whatever husband we can get for you. At this stage, all we can hope for is that you have not ruined Kitty’s chances too.”

  Juliet whitened, raising both hands to her cold cheeks. “Oh, no. Kitty…”

  “Which is why you will stay here, out of sight,” her father said grimly. “When we have guests, you will retire to your chamber. You will not even dine with us in such circumstances. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Papa,” she whispered.

  “There will be no morning calls, no riding, or even walking except within the grounds of Hornby Park.”

  “But, Papa…”

  “Is that clear?” he bellowed.

  Her chin came up, though she wanted to weep. “Perfectly.”

  *

  Kitty, otherwise Lady Katherine Lilbourne, had just endured her first London Season. Pretty but shy, she had not truly enjoyed the social whirl, as she confided to Juliet over breakfast.

  “I did not take the way you did, and to be truthful, I was glad to come home. Mama was disappointed, I think, but then we received the offer from Mr. King.”

  “Do you love him?” Juliet asked curiously, for they had known Lawrence King all their lives. His father owned a decent property on the other side of Kidfield, and they frequently met at assemblies and at dinner parties as well as less formal occasions like riding expeditions and al frescoes. Juliet had always liked him, but he had seemed more of an extra brother than a prospective husband.

  Kitty blushed. “I always did. He never minds if I stutter or say foolish things. And he doesn’t think me less beautiful than you.”

  “You aren’t,” Juliet said, startled. “But these aren’t reasons to love someone.”

  “I don’t need a reason. I just do.”

  “Oh, Kitty, I’m sorry if I have made this difficult for you…”

  “Lawrence won’t care. Even if you had done something wrong, which I know you didn’t, he would still stand your friend.”

  “Then he is worth a hundred so-called brilliant matches like Jeremy,” Juliet said fiercely.

  “I’m sorry,” Kitty said anxiously. “Is your heart broken?”

  “At the moment, I think I am too angry. Even Papa called him a toad. And Da—a friend of mine—calls him a weasel. I would hate to marry a weasel, so I am actually grateful I discovered this before our wedding. But I will keep out of the way for your party.”

  “I would rather you were there,” Kitty said ruefully. “Besides, won’t people ask where you are?”

  “They probably won’t dare, but if they do, I imagine Mama and Papa will have an answer ready.”

  Kitty nodded sagely. “They may even change their minds. Papa is too angry at the moment. He feels this broken engagement as a slight to himself.”

  Juliet glanced about the room to be sure there were no servants there. “Did you know Papa had a broken engagement of his own? Which may be one reason he is so angry about mine.”

  Kitty’s eyes widened. “No!”

  “Apparently, he was engaged to Lord Myerly’s daughter, who then ran away with an army officer. Which I suppose must have been quite humiliating for him. At any rate, he quarreled with Myerly, and that’s the real reason we don’t visit.”

  “Well, no one else visits either,” Kitty pointed out. “But I suppose they could be following Papa’s lead. How do you know this?”

  “From the son of the lady in question,” Juliet confided. “I met him on the stagecoach. He’d been summoned to the old gentleman’s death bed, though he doesn’t believe he’s really dying.”

  “Oh, dear… What is he like?” Kitty asked curiously. “The grandson?”

  “Not like anyone you’ve met before,” Juliet said with the glimmer of a laugh. “He’s very casual in his manners, doesn’t give two hoots that he’s poor and had to travel on the roof. But he’s very kind and funny.”

  “You like him.”

  “I do, and I hope he will call here because you will like him, too.”

  “I’m sure I will,” Kitty agreed. “But if Mama won’t let you be with her to receive guests?”

  “Oh, they must make an exception for Dan. He already knows everything.”

  Kitty gazed at her, clearly troubled. “Was that wise, Julie?”

  Away from him, it didn’t feel quite so wise, but Juliet merely shrugged, and they went to find their brother Ferdy, Viscount Albright, and go for a walk in the garden. However, before Ferdy had even come downstairs, their mother swept Kitty away to visit her betrothed’s family.

  Kitty’s pleas for Juliet to come, too, fell on deaf ears.

  Juliet understood. Although she would have liked to see Lawrence again and watch him closely with Kitty, just to be sure he loved her, she appreciated the difficulty. Kitty’s engagement stood on a knife edge because of Juliet.

  But I am not responsible! she raged helplessly. What could I have done differently?

  She asked the same question of her brother Ferdy when he ran her to earth in the formal gardens. Dressed for riding, he hugged her with careless, brotherly affection and asked what the devil she’d been about.

  “Nothing! I simply sat there till they were all unconscious from drink and then left! I ask you, Ferdy, what else could I have done?”

  Ferdy scratched his head. “Hard to see. Even if you’d discovered earlier that Her Highness was gone, the chances are you’d have been seen fleeing the scene. Which might have looked even worse.”

  “Someone has thought this out very carefully,” Juliet said, glaring at a new rose bush. “Made sure we were doomed from the moment we stepped over the threshold.”

  “Don’t see that,” Ferdy protested. “You could have stepped straight back out again. I wish you had, to be honest.”

  Juliet sighed. “So do I. But I had no reason to. None of us did. You’re dressed for riding, Ferdy. Do you want to take a walk up to the river instead?”

  “Can’t today,” he said apologetically. “Hunting with the Haretons. In fact, I’m late.”

  “Hurry, then. I’ll see you at dinner.”

  Clearly grateful not to be pinned down any longer, Ferdy strode off toward the stables, leaving Juliet to her restless pacing and brooding about the garden.

  In the end, she went back inside and found a book to read.

  Luncheon in only her father’s company was not a success either. He barely spoke, and his expression was far too forbidding for her to bring up anything to do with her ruin, or even about his own broken engagement to Daniel’s mother.

  He left abruptly, and the afternoon stretched out endlessly before Juliet. She found her old watercolor things and eventually went outside with her easel to see what she could paint. But her heart was not in it, and she greeted the sound of her mother’s returning carriage with relief. Abandoning her unimpressive picture, she flew to meet them.

  “How is Lawrence?” she demanded of Kitty.

  “Well, of course!”

  “And you are still engaged?”

  Kitty laughed. “Of course I am.”

  “Thank God. Do you suppose they know about me?”

  Kitty met her gaze. “Lawrence does.”

  “But not his parents?”

  “I don’t know what Mama discussed with Mrs. King. It makes no difference, you know. We will be married anyway.”

  “It will make a difference to your comfort, Kitty,” Juliet said anxiously. “Imagine if you were not received by his family.”

  “I will imagine no such thing,” Kitty said firmly, and Juliet bit her lip, realizing that forcing her own guilt-inspired fears on her sister was neither kind nor helpful at this stage.

  Dinner was a livelier meal since Ferdy had an array of hunting stories to share, and the conversation flowed from there. It was good to laugh, and even the countess joined in. Only the earl sat morose and silent at the head of the table.

  After dinner, when the ladies were alone in the drawing room, Juliet said, “You can’t keep my presence a secret. The servants will talk.”

  “Everyone will eventually know you are here,” her mother agreed. “But no one will have seen you, and no one will mention you.”

  “As if I’ve been painted over.”

  “Don’t be fanciful, Juliet,” her mother scolded.

  She sighed. “Sorry. But what if people stop calling?”

  “I don’t believe they will,” her mother replied. “Not when it becomes clear we will not thrust your company upon them.”

  It still came as a shock to realize she was now more of a pariah than the Princess of Wales. She felt herself shriveling from the inside.

  *

  Inevitably, perhaps, an early night and a good sleep revived Juliet’s optimism. Breakfast with both her siblings improved her spirits further, especially when she realized they had no engagements that day. Even the onset of rain didn’t subdue her.

  “We can play hide-and-seek,” she suggested, and her siblings laughed with delight at the childhood memory.

  However, as they were planning it, their mother let out a shriek from the staircase and bolted into the breakfast parlor. “Juliet, go away. The vicar’s wife is here!”

  And Juliet had to trail back up to her bedchamber. She felt the remaining joy in life trickle out of her.

  This is my life as a ruined lady. All I have to look forward to is not ruining the lives of my sister and brother… Which was worthy but undeniably dull.

  Juliet, go away. How often would she have to hear that in the coming days, months, years…?

  I need to get used to humiliation and boredom.

  It certainly gave her fresh insight into the princess’s life and the effects of the insults she had borne from her husband and his family.

  Watching from the window seat of her bedchamber where she sat with the book open in her lap at the same page, she waited for the vicar’s wife to leave. Before she did, the Misses Fairfax from Kidfield arrived in their ancient carriage. The vicar’s wife left, and then Mr. Wharton from Hallow Hall rode up.

  She began to suspect they had all come to find out what they could about Juliet’s scandal. The thought made her face burn.

  At least they had all left by the time luncheon was served, although Juliet’s appetite seemed to have vanished. She barely minded when another knock sounded from the front door.

  “Juliet,” her father began, but she was already on her feet.

  “I know, Go away.” She walked out of the room and up the side stairs to her bedchamber, just in case she was seen from the front door.

  Once more, she took up her position in the window seat, with the unread book in her lap. There was no carriage or horse waiting on the terrace below, so the visitor must have been someone familiar enough to go straight round to the stables. Kitty’s betrothed, perhaps. Juliet prayed he hadn’t come to end the engagement, or at least to persuade Kitty to do so.

  But whoever it was had not been admitted to the house. A man strode impetuously down the front steps. Something about that long-legged stride was instantly familiar, as was the rakish angle of the hat that had seen better days, even the faded shade of his coat.

  With a crow of delight, Juliet tossed aside her book and threw up the window, “Dan!” she hissed, and when he didn’t hear, called again more loudly, “Dan!”

  He paused, turning to scan the windows. She thrust her head out and waved. Grinning, he raised his hand in response. She pointed urgently at the drive, mouthing, Wait for me! It was anyone’s guess whether or not he understood, for he merely tipped his hat and walked away.

  Juliet closed the widow, seized her bonnet and an old cloak, and flew out of the room, along the passage to the west stairs which led, conveniently, to one of the side doors. Emerging into the little-used part of the garden, she hurried off in the direction of the wood that bordered the left-hand side of the drive.

  She found him at last, seated on a tree trunk within sight of the drive. He held a knife and was whittling away at a piece of wood, but he glanced up at her hurried approach and smiled.

  He rose, dropping the knife and the wood into his slightly sagging pocket, and took off his hat to sweep her an elaborate bow. “Lady Juliet.”

  “Mr. Stewart.” She curtsied in the same fashion but spoiled the effect by immediately bursting into a much less formal greeting. “Oh, Dan, I am so pleased to see you! How is your grandfather?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest. He was low yesterday, much lower than I thought he would be. But he seems less…faded today. I think I might be annoying him back to health.”

  “A novel approach.”

  “I’m surprised it works when I consider all his other annoyances. My relations are circling like vultures. I found two aunts and a cousin already taking root, and now I believe another cousin and an uncle are on their way.”

  “Perhaps he summoned them as he did you?”

  “Oh, he did, at least my aunts and Colin. It’s possible he has summoned Cousin Hugh, too, though I know for a fact, the old devil doesn’t like him. And I’m as sure I can be, he never summoned either of my uncles. Still, not my place to throw them out.”

  As he spoke, his eyes had been searching her face, and almost without pause, he asked, “How was your homecoming?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Awful. Shall we walk through the woods? At least the rain has gone off.”

  He fell into step beside her, listening to her tale of her father’s anger with the Alfords as well as with her, Kitty’s engagement, and her banishment from all outside company.

  “Ah,” Dan said, holding an inconveniently trailing branch aside for her. “I wonder if that was why they wouldn’t let me in? I didn’t have a card, so I asked for you and was immediately told you were not at home. I should have asked for your mother.”

  “She still wouldn’t have let me see you. There have been people in and out of the house all day, no doubt ferreting out the scandal. It’s very lowering to think I’ve known these people all my life.”

  “Perhaps they came to offer their support,” Dan suggested.

  “It’s possible,” she allowed, brightening. “I shouldn’t let Jeremy’s behavior sour my view of decent people. It just made me realize I don’t actually know who is decent.” She stopped, frowning suddenly. “Gun! Where is Gun?”

  Dan grinned. “I left him guarding my family. It struck me he might hinder my attempts to get into your house. Wish I’d brought him now.”

  She walked on. “You might as well have done so. This path leads around to the top of the woods, or that way down to the gate.”

  “Or we could carry on to Myerly,” he suggested. “You could see Gun and meet my family. Since they won’t meet anyone else in the neighborhood, you might as well. And I’d bring you back again.”

 

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