Juliet Templeton.
Not Emmeline Templeton, the lady he’d kissed with such passion among the blush pink roses yesterday. Not Emmeline Templeton, who’d admitted at last that she was the Lady in Lavender, she the lady he’d kissed and caressed so intimately in Lady Fosberry’s library.
Not Emmeline Templeton, the lady he’d fallen madly in love with.
“It seems the ton has discovered the identity of the Lady in Lavender,” Cross said slowly, his tone hollow.
Johnathan’s hands curled into fists as his shock gave way to fury. “They haven’t discovered a bloody thing. As usual, they’ve got it all wrong. I’ve never kissed Juliet Templeton in my life.”
“Are you certain, Melrose? Are you absolutely certain Juliet Templeton isn’t the Lady in Lavender?”
Johnathan opened his mouth to say yes, that he knew it without a shadow of doubt because Emmeline had told him that she was the Lady in Lavender, she was the lady who’d stolen his heart with one secret kiss, when all at once it occurred to him that she…
Hadn’t.
He went back over their conversation yesterday, frantically searching for a single moment when a word of confession had fallen from her lips. He’d asked if he’d kissed her before, he’d asked if the violet ribbon belonged to her, and she’d said…
I thought it was lost forever.
That was all. She’d kissed him with an aching, familiar sweetness, but she’d never answered the question, never confessed in so many words that she was the Lady in Lavender.
Johnathan turned to Cross, sudden doubt gnawing at him. “I…no. No, I can’t be absolutely certain.”
At any other time, at any other moment Johnathan would have noticed at once that Cross’s characteristically bland expression had vanished, but it was all happening too quickly now for him to make any sense of anything. He knew only the whispers were growing louder, and that his and Juliet Templeton’s names were on every pair of lips.
At that moment, he would gladly have traded places with Romeo.
After he swallows the poison.
Instinctively he turned his livid gaze toward the Dingley’s box, only to find Lady Christine watching him, a cold, venomous smile curling her lips.
She’d promised revenge, and she’d gotten it.
He and Cross left the theater before the start of the second act, the ton’s stares following them out, their whispers ringing in Johnathan’s ears.
Chapter
Twelve
An oppressive silence followed Emmeline, Lady Fosberry, and Juliet from Covent Garden Theater to her ladyship’s carriage, and from the carriage through the entryway and into the drawing room beyond.
It wasn’t until they were seated in front of the fire that Lady Fosberry ventured to speak, her expression dazed as it moved between Juliet and Emmeline. “Well, my dears. I never imagined when we left for the theater this evening that we’d become the performance.”
Emmeline dropped onto a settee, her ears still burning. They’d left before the end of the first act, scurrying away like thieves in the night, but their departure hadn’t quieted the wagging tongues. By then, the damage was already done.
Dear God, Juliet’s expression when she’d seen Lady Christine’s smug face…
“Juliet, dearest?” Lady Fosberry paused in front of the settee where Juliet sat, her back straight, her gaze on her lap. “If you’ve been keeping any secrets from me, now is the time for you to confess them. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Juliet startled when Lady Fosberry spoke, as if she’d forgotten anyone else was in the room. “I, ah…I hardly know what to say, my lady.”
“It’s all Lady Christine’s doing, of course.” Lady Fosberry began to pace from one end of the drawing room to the other, wringing her hands. “Lady Christine and her spiteful mother, and that ridiculous Lord Cudworth. Chestnut hair, indeed! If he can’t distinguish lavender from periwinkle, or periwinkle from violet, why should anyone think he knows chestnut from sable, or sable from mahogany?”
“I don’t understand it, my lady.” Emmeline gave a helpless shake of her head. “He’s changed his mind a dozen times. Why does anyone listen to him?” For all his smirking tonight, Lord Cudworth had failed to properly identify the color or purpose of the gown, as well as the lady wearing it, yet the ton had seized on Juliet’s name as if every word out of his mouth was sacred truth.
“Why believe the truth when a lie is so much more entertaining?” Juliet was frozen in place, all but her hands, which she was clenching into fists until her knuckles whitened. “The ton must have their amusement, mustn’t they, my lady?”
“Juliet, my dear, I must hear that it is a lie from your own lips.” Lady Fosberry struggled for a moment, as if she’d rather choke on her next words than say them aloud. “Did you…you, and Lord Melrose…are you indeed the Lady in Lavender?”
