But even before he glanced down at the lady in his arms, he knew he’d findherface—the firm, dimpled chin and the full, red lips that seemed always on the verge of a teasing smile.
No. God in heaven,no.
Juliet Templeton, one of the few ladies who’d ever dared to teasehim. But her lips were silent now, her eyelids fluttering over closed eyes, her skin pale and colder than ice.
“By Gad, Cross, that was well done, but we’ve no time to crown you with laurels just yet. These ladies are half drowned as it is.” Barnaby didn’t wait for an answer, but leapt from his horse’s back and assisted Lady Fosberry into the saddle before remounting, and winding his way through the trees to what was left of the road.
The sky was completely dark now, the last feeble glow extinguished by the storm, but Miles knew every inch of his property, down to each stone and rut in the road. He took the lead, and it wasn’t long before Steeple Cross emerged from the darkness. The entire ground floor was ablaze with light, and several elegant equipages were stopped at the top of the drive, a flurry of activity surrounding them.
Another crowd of guests had just arrived, despite the foul weather, but instead of meeting them with the dignity that befitted a host, he’d be doing so with a Juliet-Templeton-shaped mud print smeared across the front of his best riding coat.
But short of stashing her in the stables, there was nothing to be done.
Every head turned toward them as he led the pitiful little parade of four into the entryway, trailing an ocean of mud and wet behind them. His housekeeper, Mrs. Poole let out a quiet gasp at the sight of them, and one of Lady Cecil’s nieces tittered, then slapped a hand over her mouth.
Any other lady would have been mortified to appear in his entryway looking like a nightmarish amalgamation of a street urchin, a chimney sweep, and a drowned cat.
But not Juliet Templeton.
She was in a shocking state, her hair hanging in a sopping, tangled mess down her back. Her hat was gone, only a bit of straw and limp ribbon left to attest to its ever having been there at all, and the hems of her skirts were so encrusted with muck she left a dark streak on the immaculate, black-and-white checkered marble floor behind her.
Yet still, somehow, she managed to look as if she were right where she belonged, as if she’d intended from the start to be caught in a torrential downpour, narrowly avoid a carriage accident, and appear before the company with mud streaking her face and wet leaves caught in her hair.
By now, he shouldn’t even be surprised at it.
Nothing—not youth, inexperience, nor a scandal the likes of which London hadn’t seen in decades seemed able to shake Juliet Templeton. Somehow, she contrived to always land on her feet.
Or, failing that, in his arms.
What in God’s name was shedoinghere? Was she not satisfied with the havoc she’d wreaked in London, and now must have Oxfordshire, as well? Would that she’d kept far away from Steeple Cross.
Far away from him—
“Andwhom, Lord Cross, have we here?”
Lady Cecil, who’d just arrived with her two nieces and was following a housemaid up the staircase to their rooms, had paused on the first landing to stare down at Juliet, her long, thin nose twitching like an outraged rodent’s.
She knew who Juliet was. After this season, everyone in London did. “I’m certain you must know Lady Fosberry, Lady Cecil, and this young lady is Miss Juliet Templeton.”
Lady Cecil let out a theatrical gasp, and pressed a shaking hand to her breast. “My goodness, Lord Cross! You invitedMiss Juliet Templetonto your house party?”
He summoned the cool expression that had sent more than one lady scurrying across a ballroom to avoid him. “I should think that was obvious, Lady Cecil, given she’s standing right in front of you.”
That he’d just been lamenting Juliet’s presence at Steeple Cross only moments before didn’t matter. He could be as contrary as he wished in his own house.
Lady Cecil seized each of her nieces by their wrists and jerked them behind her, as if they might be contaminated by breathing the same air as the notorious Miss Templeton. “You astonish me, Lord Cross.”
“Not for the first time, I trust, or the last, but you needn’t concern yourself with my guest list, my lady.” He nodded at Sarah, one of his housemaids, who was hovering over Lady Cecil’s shoulder. “I’m afraid you’re overset with fatigue, Lady Cecil. Do feel at liberty to retire. Sarah will show you and your nieces to your rooms.”
He watched Lady Cecil flounce up the stairs, calling a pox down on her head for forcing him into such a fit of gallantry. He hadn’t done it for Juliet Templeton’s sake, of course—God knew he had no desire to justify her presence here.
No, it was the poor sportsmanship of the thing that irritated him. Juliet had no other defenders, as Barnaby had hurried Lady Fosberry down the hallway to Miles’s study, and she couldn’t properly defend herself, with her teeth chattering as they were.
Lady Cecil was like a cobra, sinking her poisonous fangs into an injured rabbit.
Then again, there was nothing feeble about Juliet. Somehow, she even managed todripcharmingly, the widening puddle surrounding her lapping gently at the toes of her half-boots, like a devoted dog begging for any errant crumbs of her attention.
The sooner he whisked her out of sight, the less of an uproar her presence would cause. If any of Barnaby’s roguish friends happened by, they’d be groveling at her feet soon enough as well, and no end of trouble would follow. Men tended to lose their wits around Juliet Templeton, and Barnaby’s companions had few enough wits to spare as it was.
