Chapter 24

Julian entered the fashionable Mayfair residence of Mrs. Eloise Fairfax and felt the immediate urge to lie through his teeth and politely inform the manservant he'd gotten the wrong address, pivot on his heel, and exit before anyone noticed his presence.

One glance into the drawing room circulating with a handful of guests comprised of family and close friends of Mr. Lancaster and Mrs. Fairfax communicated a single fact—he'd dived into the sort of perilous waters that were placid on the surface but roiling with dangerous currents unseen until it was too late.

Which left him with but one option.

Carefully swim parallel to the shore and remove himself from the rip current.

He was on the verge of coaxing his hat back from the manservant who was regarding him with a mostly impassive face when two happenings occurred simultaneously: His gaze landed on the one figure he sought—an elegant Tessa at her ease while conversing with Mr. Lancaster—and a delighted feminine voice rang out, "How lovely of you to join our little soirée, Lord Ormonde."

He understood as his hostess closed the distance between them with a warm smile on her face that there was no turning his back on Mrs. Eloise Fairfax—or this evening.

Its inexorable pull had the feel of Fate about it—a feeling that fizzed through one's veins, sparking nerve endings alight as it effervesced through.

Even as he returned his hostess's greeting with a smile of his own—the charming one that got him into everyone's good graces whether they liked it or not—Tessa's gaze shifted and met his. A hint of amusement glimmered therein, as if she'd correctly intuited his thoughts.

By now, Mrs. Fairfax had expertly twined her arm through his—as if she were all too well versed in wrangling nervous bachelors—and led him into her stylish drawing room that was all pleasing hues of coral, amber, and walnut, a natural combination of the masculine and feminine mixed with a light scent of honeysuckle that invited one to feel at home.

Of course, Mrs. Fairfax's home would make one feel thusly. It was simply an

extension of the woman herself.

"I believe you're acquainted with my cousin, the Duchess of Acaster?"

Julian supposed it would've been too much to hope she would lead him directly to Tessa.

The duchess standing before him was precisely what he'd meant by perilous waters. The last time he'd conversed with the Duchess of Acaster, it had been to inform her that Rake had eloped with Gemma. But the duchess and Mrs. Fairfax were close as sisters. Of course, she would be included in any intimate supper parties. When he'd received the invitation this morning, he'd been too blinded by the possibility of being in the same room with Tessa to consider the other potential guests.

His general amiability slipped not a notch as he offered a polite bow to the duchess. "Your Grace."

"Considering the informality of the party," she said, a joyful lift to her voice, "I believe you can call me Celia for tonight."

When she'd been the Sixth Duchess of Acaster, Julian had always viewed her as aloof—cold, even. A calculating sort of woman who, in all honesty, possessed the necessary ingredients to make a perfect wife for Rake.

But, as it turned out, that hadn't been the case at all.

In fact, now that she was the Seventh Duchess of Acaster, he suspected her to be a much different woman from the one he'd assumed her to be.

He gave another bow. "Celia."

Immediately, he was flummoxed as to what his next words should be to this woman. Across the room, Tessa was now deeply engaged in conversation with both Lancaster and Mrs. Fairfax.

Actually, come to think of it, he did know what he should say to the duchess. "Perhaps I owe you an apology."

Her brow lifted with surprise. "For?"

"For, erm, Rake."

It only took half a beat of time for her mouth to curl into a smile that reached her eyes. "There is certainly no need for that. Rakesley did me a most kind service by begging off our potential engagement."

Julian wasn't sure Rake had been motivated by kindness—in fact, he knew his friend very definitely hadn't been—but he was content to let that observation pass unspoken.

"If Rakesley hadn't," continued Celia, "I would have missed out on…" Her hot gaze cut across the room and landed on her husband, Gabriel Calthorp, Seventh Duke of Acaster, a man several years younger than her. A man with whom she was clearly besotted. "Him."

Acaster met his wife's gaze, and Julian had to glance away. It was the only gentlemanly course when witness to such naked intimacy between a man and a woman.

Of course, given a moment's freedom, Julian's eyes wandered the room and found the only person they wanted to behold. Now, Tessa was engaged in conversation with Mrs. Fairfax and Lady Viveca.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled to a stand, and when he turned, he found that Acaster's gaze had shifted and the duke was now silently watching him…

Silently watching him watch his sister.

Right.

Acaster was an intelligent man. A fact well-known in society. Further, he was a man who hadn't made up his mind about Julian in relation to his sister.

Fair play.

A throat pointedly cleared behind Julian.

He turned, and there stood Lady Saskia, patiently regarding him as if she'd been doing so for some time. "Lady Saskia," he said with a shallow bow. "Are you finding the evening to your satisfaction?"

Her head canted subtly to the side. Julian tried not to brace himself—tried to tell himself this was merely an evening of socializing, not a running of the gauntlet. But the suspicion had begun to form that this evening was most definitely the latter in the guise of the former.

"I have a question for you," said Lady Saskia in the firm, factual tone she employed to great effect.

"Yes?" he asked, slowly.

"Are you here to court my sister?"

Julian's mouth began to open before he immediately clamped it shut. These Calthorp sisters…Nothing could prepare one for them.

Before an answer could occur to him, a feminine voice piped up, "Oh, no, Saskia, Lord Ormonde wouldn't be courting me. We've hardly strung together five sentences of conversation between us." To his left, the wide, disingenuous eyes of Lady Viveca stared up at him. "Isn't that correct?"

Lady Saskia to the right and Lady Viveca to the left, he felt like an animal stalked in the wild, neatly caught. Such happenings occurred on the wide savannahs of Africa.

Lady Viveca's head canted to the exact angle of her sister's. "Unless…" She tapped a considering finger to her mouth.

"Unless?" asked Julian, dread creeping through him.

"Unless, of course, you're here to court Saskia?"

"I can assure you that is not?—"

"Or," interrupted Lady Saskia, her eyes gone bright with sudden realization.

In the twin feline glints of the sisters' eyes, he couldn't see how they differed much from their African big cat counterparts, as they teased and toyed with rather expert finesse.

"Or," said Lady Viveca, as if completing her sister's thought, "you're here for…"

As one, the sisters' gazes shifted and moved across the drawing room before landing squarely on Tessa, who was now engaged in conversation with Celia.

A hot flush burned through Julian, and the Ladies Saskia and Viveca exchanged a quick, secret smile.

Their work here was done.

"Everyone," came Mrs. Fairfax's voice from the far end of the room, "I've been informed supper is ready."

Julian was the last guest to cross the foyer into the dining room where Mrs. Fairfax was ushering everyone toward their assigned places. "Oh, no, Celia," she was saying to her cousin with a laugh, "I cannot have you and Gabriel sitting beside or even across from each other, or we'll have no conversation from the two of you for the rest of the evening."

So, it was that Julian found himself seated between Celia to his left and Lady Saskia to his right, Acaster directly across, Lady Viveca diagonal right, and Tessa diagonal left. As hosts, Lancaster and Mrs. Fairfax took their seats at opposite ends of the table.

Like the drawing room, the dining room conveyed utter elegance with its half-lit crystal chandelier sending golden light across the gleaming mahogany table, imbuing every surface it touched with a warm glow.

"You might be wondering why we invited you here on such short notice," said Lancaster, speaking to the room at large, but his eyes fixed on Mrs. Fairfax.

The air sparkled with anticipation. An announcement was about to be made, and everyone could guess its content.

"We couldn't wait a single day to share the news," said Mrs. Fairfax, her eyes radiant with both joy and a rush of unshed tears.

"I've asked Eloise to be my wife," said Lancaster in his rich barrister's voice, "and she's done me the great honor of saying yes."

At Julian's side, Celia gasped and took her cousin's hand. "I'm so happy for you, my dear."

Through the round of cheers and hearty congratulations around the table—Julian's included—he caught Tessa's gaze. For an instant, happiness of the purest variety shone out at him. Then she blinked, and an emotion that he couldn't interpret complicated it.

Mrs. Fairfax whispered something in her direction and Tessa responded, and the moment was gone.

Champagne and supper were served, and the conversation centered around the happy couple's plans for the future. As course after course passed by, Julian had to reconcile himself with the scantest flickers of Tessa's attention.

It was sometime during the fourth course that Mrs. Fairfax said, "And who at this table shall be next to marry?"

Mid-chew on a bite of roast lamb, every muscle in Julian's body locked into place. Only by reaching deep into his well of self-control did he not attempt to catch Tessa's eye.

That would be a bad idea…A very bad idea for a multitude of reasons—some crystal clear in his mind and others hazy and indistinct and the sort he preferred to leave be for the moment.

"Lady Saskia? Lady Viveca?" continued Mrs. Farifax. "Any fine prospects amid the mountain of flowers and invitations that arrive daily at your doorstep?"

The sisters exchanged a look of mutual understanding, and pure reflex had Julian bracing himself yet again. The Ladies Saskia and Viveca were on the precipice of saying something the room hadn't yet prepared itself for.

He knew, from recent experience.

"We've been thinking for a while," began Lady Saskia.

"And dreaming," added Lady Viveca.

Now, it wasn't only Julian holding his breath, but the entire room.

"That we would like to open a circulating library."

As the statement settled into the air, the collective breath released. As potential scenarios went, this wasn't a bad one at all. Julian's money would've been on big game hunting in Africa.

"And we'll serve your tea blends, Tessa," said Lady Viveca. Another exchange of glances between the sisters. "There's more, too."

Of course.

"We've been inspired by Vauxhall Gardens, as a matter of fact," said Lady Saskia.

"You wish to put on musical entertainments in your circulating library?" Acaster's mouth twitched with humor. "Perhaps do them one better and show Lysistrata in the tradition of the Ancient Greeks?"

Julian snorted.

Lady Saskia's eyes rolled toward the ceiling. Brothers, that roll of the eyes said. "In the way Vauxhall offers patronage to musicians and artists, we shall champion writers selected by us."

Acaster nodded, not quite approving, but assessing. He was known as a man who would have to evaluate a business plan before he gave it his full approval.

"Then we shall publish and offer their works for circulation and purchase." Lady Viveca's eyes shone bright with fervor.

"Exclusively, at first." Lady Saskia's fervency matched her sister's. "To build anticipation."

"Then, after the shops and other libraries come begging, we will offer our publications to them for distribution."

"Ambitious," said Acaster, approval in every syllable.

Mrs. Fairfax clasped her hands together. "How delightful!"

"What sorts of publications?" asked Tessa. Like Acaster, she was taking her sisters seriously.

Again, it occurred to Julian what a unique sort of person Tessa was. To the world at large, she presented as a sharp, hard woman with her slightly mannish manner of dress and keen intelligence that wasn't afraid of appearing unfeminine—a forbidding exterior that put people off the true scent of her.

For at her core, this woman was a nurturer.

Inside the circle of her care was a special place to be.

That the outside world couldn't see her for who she truly was due to their prejudices—and it was their loss.

"Oh, we will offer the usual sorts, of course," said Lady Saskia.

"Periodicals and philosophical treatises and such," said Lady Viveca.

Skepticism yet hung about Tessa. "But those publications won't build excitement of the sort you speak of."

Twin secret smiles curled about the mouths of the Ladies Saskia and Viveca. They possessed the furtive air of conspirators who had been found out. "Novels," they said in unison.

"What sort of novels?" asked Acaster. He'd picked up the scent alongside Tessa. They knew their sisters.

Another exchange of glances—of secrets about to be revealed. Again, they spoke in unison. "Romances."

While that settled into the air, Julian's gaze slid toward Tessa, who was wholly concentrated on her sisters, her mind at work.

A mulish set to her jaw, Lady Saskia continued, "Jane Austen and Walter Scott have proven two things. Novel writing is a respectable art, and there is a public appetite for it. King George, when he was still the Prince Regent, even left Miss Austen with no choice but to dedicate her novel Emma to him."

"But what we're actually after satisfying is the appetite of the female public for books," said Lady Viveca. "Women comprise half the world's occupants, yet any art created for us is deemed second-rate and therefore inferior."

"Viveca and I have decided that we can have a hand in changing that opinion."

"You will need investors, of course," said Acaster.

"Of course," said Lady Viveca, her gaze steely and unflinching.

The sisters had come into this conversation prepared for Acaster and Tessa.

Julian took in Tessa, as her mind worked through all the angles of her sisters' budding enterprise. They were placing their hopes and dreams into her hands—and better hands Julian couldn't think of.

Those hopes and dreams were safe with Tessa.

A thought struck him from an unexpected angle.

What a wonderful mother Tessa would make someday.

Reflexively, he tamped the idea down. It was too complex a thought. And yet…

It lit a warming ember in a dark, cold corner of his soul.

A place of possibility he'd thought wasn't for him.