“It does.”
“Let me see it,” he insisted.
“No. Release me before we’re discovered. Don’t you have a glass of brandy to drink?”
He ignored her question. “I cannot allow you to do this.”
“It is not your place to allow or disallow. Just as I cannot make you behave better. I don’tallowyou to trifle with women and then discard them. You simply do it.”
She bit her tongue, having started along the path of a vitriolic diatribe which she didn’t truly wish to traverse. It showed him far too much of her vulnerability.
“You have always known how people view me and how I conduct myself.”
“Yes,” she agreed, feeling defeated. He wasn’t denying his awful behavior, nor had he any intention of reform. That much was certain.
“Release me,” she repeated.
Instead, he snatched her reticule off the arm he was holding. Gasping, she tried to take it back, but before she could stop him, he undid the drawstring and upended the contents onto his palm.
“Ah-ha!”he said when the ruby ring fell out.
“It’s mine,” she hissed.
Julia saw the moment he realized the truth, for he frowned, realizing he’d seen it before upon her hand. Without waiting, she grabbed it from his palm.
“What is going on here?” Lady Stridewell’s outraged voice came from behind Jasper, and Julia flinched, peering around his shoulder to see their hostess standing outside the drawing room. Seconds later, the other ladies streamed out to witness the evening’s latest entertainment.
Thinking quickly, while he still shielded her, she tucked the ring between her breasts, hoping her stays would hold it against her skin. And then Jasper turned to greet their audience.
At the same moment, Lord Stridewell came from the other direction, having apparently just vacated the dining room with the other male guests following behind him.
Julia swallowed. It dawned on her that instead of being her savior, perhaps Jasper was the most infernal bad luck she’d ever had. For when he wasn’t around, she never got caught and definitely never ended up surrounded by onlookers.
Even Lady Violet’s eyes had grown large, staring at the man who was supposed to beherescort for the night.
“Miss Sudbury has just come from using the facilities,” Jasper intoned. “And I was waiting to escort her to the drawing room.”
Lady Stridewell stared pointedly toward her husband and the hallway behind him, from which Julia would have had to come if the Earl of Marshfield spoke the truth.
“Is that so?” the baroness asked, her tone dripping disapproval, obviously believing she’d caught them in a moment’s inappropriate behavior, sullying her stairwell and staining the honor of her dinner party.
Julia wrenched her reticule from his grasp and took the last step off the stairs, thinking if they weren’t practically touching, they would look slightly less guilty.
Then she felt it. The ring slipped past the satin cord that cinched the high-waist of her gown, down through the space between the front of her bodice and her stays. With nothing to catch the ring, it slid between her petticoat and her gown before hitting the tiled floor at her feet.
In the absolute silence that followed, her ring rolled in a slow arc toward Lady Stridewell’s kid-leather slippers.
