Scandal of the Year Read Free

before any gossip could begin that coupled their names. Yet, even as that thought passed through his mind, he could not find the will to move. Instead, like a moth drawn to a destructive flame, he returned his attention to the woman in the doorway, and he discovered it was now too late to escape her notice even if he chose to do so, for she’d seen him. She acknowledged him with a nod, then she waited, watching him, a faint smile curving one corner of her rouged lips.
    He could still make his feelings clear to everyone present. All he had to do was give her the cut direct. By turning his back on her without an acknowledging bow, he would put a stop to any ridiculous speculation that they might once again be lovers.
    The wise thing to do, he knew, but he couldn’t do it. He could not compound his lapse of gentlemanly conduct nine months ago by being ungentlemanly now. The fact that her husband had divorced her was his fault as well as hers. He bowed to her, the slightest bow good manners could allow, then he turned away from her and the erotic images that hovered just at the edge of his conscious mind.
    He kept his head high as he made his way amid the crowd to the open French doors leading onto the terrace. He stepped outside and moved to stand at the carved marble railing, where he stared out into the darkness of Kayne’s gardens and breathed deeply of the spring air to cool his blood. With that woman near him again, anything might happen, and Aidan was glad that this time around, he’d chosen to forgo the champagne.
    Julia sighed as she watched Aidan leave the ballroom amid the whispers and stares. He hasn’t changed a bit , she thought in frustration. Still so stiff and so proud, still considering women who were all wrong for him, and still just too damned nice for his own good. He should have cut her a moment ago, for it was obvious why he was at this ball, and acknowledging her did him no favors in that quarter.
    Guilt nudged at her, the same guilt that she’d felt the last time she’d seen him. It was a feeling she was unaccustomed to and one she did not like, and she wondered if perhaps she should have stayed in France. She shrugged her shoulders several times as if to shrug off that niggling guilt and reminded herself that one had to face the music sometime. Besides, she hadn’t gone to all this trouble freeing herself from Yardley so that she could hide away somewhere. She’d done enough hiding in her life already. Unlike Aidan, she didn’t mind being stared at and whispered about. She didn’t mind losing her reputation. She’d never given a damn what society thought. Aidan did, he minded terribly, and that was the difference between them.
    “Julie!”
    The voice of the Marchioness of Kayne broke into her reverie, and she turned her attention to the slender blond in sapphire silk approaching her.
    Julia evaded the other woman’s outstretched hands and took an uneasy glance around. “Are you sure you should welcome me so enthusiastically, Maria? I don’t want you to suffer any guilt by association.”
    “Stuff.” With that scoffing rejoinder, Maria grasped Julia’s gloved hands in her own and pressed a kiss to each of her cheeks. “Showing my support in public is crucial if we’re to rebuild your reputation.”
    “I appreciate your trying to rebuild the walls of Jericho, darling, but I fear it’s a lost cause.” She squeezed her friend’s hands with affection, then released them to take a glass of champagne from the tray held by the footman nearby.
    “If it can be done for Lady Shrewsbury, it can be done for you,” Maria pointed out. “You have powerful friends, you know. I just wish I had known you had arrived in town. Where are you staying? With Danbury?”
    This reference to Julia’s cousin, the Earl of Danbury, caused her to give an affirmative nod. “Aunt Eugenia is beside herself, worrying about how it will look to have the black sheep divorcee of the family staying with them, but