“Not always,” he said grudgingly.
She pressed a hand to her throat. “Such... high praise. I fear I may faint. The emotion... it’s overwhelming.”
“If you swoon, I’ll catch you,” he promised. “I have studied the precise angles and proper stance for maximum efficiency when rescuing overset young ladies.”
“I’ll bet you have,” she said with a laugh. “Go on, show me the rest. Which of my other ideas were slightly less terrible than the ones you came up with?”
But as he led her about the ballroom, pointing out this slight modification and that subtle difference, Unity’s eyes were not on the improvements she’d brought about, but rather gazing at Julian’s animated countenance.
He was pleased. He was delighted with her. Withthem. No one else understood his obsessions. Not only didn’t she think him mad, she matched his meticulousness with her own. She matchedhim.
Her heart filled to bursting. Not out of pride for being useful, but because it was she who had brought these smiles to his infamously hard, intractable face.
She loved him.
It was as simple and as awful as that. He hadn’t even ravished her in his sin alcoves upstairs, and she was ruined beyond measure all the same. She wanted to put those smiles on his face forever. She wanted—
“Unity?” blurted a disbelieving voice.
She could feel the frost hardening over his good spirits.
“Out,” he said in the softest, most terrifying tone she had ever heard.
“It’s all right,” she said quickly, and took the mortified actress’s trembling hand. “Lady X, your instincts are correct, but this is not the moment for this discussion.”
“I’m so sorry,” the theatre’s lead soprano babbled, blanching at whatever she saw on the duke’s face. “I didn’t mean—I just—I—”
“Banned,” Julian said coldly. “For life. As are whichever guests brought you. The rules—”
“Stop it,” Unity hissed. “It was an accident. Of course she was surprised to discover someone like me as your guest. I don’t belong here and we both know it.”
“Guest?” he repeated, his tone laced with warning.
She lifted a palm. “Employee? Charity case?”
He dragged her away from the actress, leaving the dumbfounded soprano openmouthed and pale.
Unity’s feet could barely keep up as he parted the crowd and hauled her up the grand marble staircase to the first landing.
“Lords and Ladies X,” he called out over the railing. “Are you enjoying the ball?”
Deafening whoops filled the air as champagne glasses shot skyward, clinking and spilling over.
Julian laced his fingers with Unity’s and lifted their linked hands high. “You have Lady X to thank for all of the recent improvements.”
“Lady X! Lady X!” The crowd was in raptures.
“Leave it to Lambley to poach the prettiest maiden,” called a male voice in the back. “I never even got my dance.”
The Robin Redbreast. Her cheeks burned.
Julian grinned at her.
“Prettiest and cleverest. I’ve an entire journal filled with her ideas.” He slipped his free hand beneath his lapel and pulled out the second journal Unity had given him. The one where she wrote down all of her ideas for improving his parties.
The revelers cheered as though their duke had produced the holy grail.
Julian held the book aloft. “I have rigorously tested each suggestion and empirically proven them to be sound.”
