Juliana Read Free Page A

said. “I’ll keep the admiration of the gentlemen.” To emphasize her point, she brushed on more color before rising. “Yes, I’m ready. Have a spice cake while I deliver Emily home.”
    “You’d best hurry.” Corinna took one. “Aunt Frances is already waiting in the carriage.”
    Much to Corinna’s and Juliana’s delight, their kindly Aunt Frances was acting as their sponsor and chaperone for the season. Not only was she a dear, she was also sensationally oblivious, meaning her young charges could more or less do as they pleased.
    Juliana took Emily by the hand and led her downstairs, Corinna following in their wake.
    It was raining when Juliana led Emily outside—it seemed to rain every day lately—but a quick dash brought them safely next door to the lifeless Neville house. Emily had two older brothers, products of two earlier marriages, but one was married and the other was away at Cambridge most of the year, so she usually shared her home with only her father and a collection of aging servants.
    Their gaunt butler, who must have been eighty if he were a day, swung the door open as they arrived.
    Emily stepped inside. “When shall I see you again, Lady Juliana?”
    Who could deny that precious, pleading face, even if it was framed by a snake? “Monday,” she promised the girl. Rain peppered her parasol and puddled at her feet. “I’m sure your father is looking forward to being with you tomorrow, but on Monday we shall visit the shops and choose fabric for the baby clothes.”
    “Will Lady Corinna come, too?”
    “I believe she’ll prefer to paint.” Corinna always preferred to paint. “I shall see you Monday,” Juliana promised and headed through the drizzle to the carriage.
    Inside, Corinna waited with Aunt Frances, their matching deep-blue eyes impatient. The ladies’ eyes, however, were their only similarity. Aunt Frances’s peered from behind round spectacles in a face surrounded by clouds of soft gray hair, though she was only forty. Sixteen-year-old Corinna’s hair was a swing of wavy brown, her face fresh and blooming. She had no need of rouge.
    Juliana, on the other hand, figured she needed all the help she could get. Due to the untimely deaths of her parents and eldest brother—God rest their souls—she’d been in mourning nearly the whole of her fifteenth and sixteenth years. Thus, at seventeen, she was enjoying her first London season. And with the dratted season already half over, she was no closer to securing a husband than on the day she’d arrived.
    Much to her brother’s vexation.
    Griffin was waiting at the ball when they arrived, surveying the crop of gentlemen in a businesslike manner. After weeks of events, Juliana feared she had already met more or less everyone there was to meet. The ton comprised all the people who mattered in society, but that was a limited social group, after all. Yet her brother had already managed to line up candidates for her first three dances and was keeping an eye out for more.
    He’d become a matchmaking mama of the finest caliber.
    Juliana wasn’t sure she appreciated her brother’s efforts, but she knew his heart was in the right place. And she did enjoy dancing, so she dutifully stood up with all three young men, smiling and chatting agreeably.
    Lord Henderson was far too tall; petite Juliana spent the whole of the dance conversing with his cravat. Lord Barkely didn’t laugh at her witticisms—not a single one!—though she deployed several of her best just to make certain he was truly devoid of humor. And Mr. Farringdon was kind but more than a little dim.
    The spice cakes weren’t going to help her choose wisely, she thought with an internal sigh, if no acceptable men bothered to attend this ball.

THREE

    JAMES TREVOR, the young Earl of Stafford, hadn’t been to a ball in ages. And he hadn’t particularly wanted to attend this one, either.
    However, being a good-natured sort of fellow, he’d chosen to regard tonight as an