He had long ago realized how singularly beautiful Julia was.
He’d admired her for at least a year before she attended her first ball, at which she was immediately surrounded by a group of young men eager to make her acquaintance.Young men whom Nicholas had felt jealous of then and still did now.
She was not wearing a bonnet today, allowing Nicholas to clearly see her honey-gold hair swept up and secured at her crown, although several loose tendrils had escaped at her temples and nape, no doubt from her exertion while climbing the wall.
Her skin was as pale and smooth as alabaster.Her nose straight and pert.But it was her eyes, the deepest blue Nicholas had ever seen, indigo, he believed that particular shade was called, that he found so totally arresting.
For all that she made no secret of her dislike of him, there was heat and mischief lurking in the dark depths of those eyes.A heat that was also echoed in the natural uptilt of her luscious lips.The way that her purple gown outlined and clung to her voluptuous breasts was?—
“Why are you not wearing black, as is befitting immediately after the loss of a close relative?”Nicholas broke off his arousing thoughts to admonish.
Honey-gold brows rose.“My late grandmother stated in a letter she left for my mother and aunt to read that she did not wish any of us to wear black either before, during, or after her funeral.Not that it is any of your business what I choose to wear,” she added scathingly.
Ah.There she was.The little wasp.But no amount of her stings against his flesh was going to deter Nicholas from achieving his goals.
Interestingly, the most important of those was to make this little harridan his future countess.
CHAPTERTWO
“Where have you been?”Amanda demanded the moment Julia entered the cavernous entrance hall at Roxburgh Manor.“You will never guess who visited us while you were gone!”She paused for effect, her green eyes glowing with anticipation.
“Lord Nicholas Harding, the Earl of Wolfingham,” Julia stated flatly, having deliberately delayed returning to the house until she had seen Wolfingham ride away.
Nor was she a bit sorry for bursting her cousin’s bubble of excitement.Wolfingham was truly obnoxious, and he did not deserve for Amanda to show any interest in him either.
Her cousin did seem to deflate somewhat.“How could you possibly know that?”She frowned.“You were already out when he arrived and cannot—” Her eyes widened.“You have either seen him before he came here or since,” she surmised shrewdly.
“Before,” Julia admitted.“Which was when he informed me he was on his way here to pay his respects to our parents.Why else do you think I stayed out so long?”Julia grimaced as she bent down to remove her boots rather than be accused of walking the moss and dirt through the entrance hall and up the stairs to her bedchamber.“Am I too late for afternoon tea?”she prompted Hutchings, her grandmother’s butler, as he held out his hand to take the dirty footwear from her.
“Your parents have gone upstairs to rest before dinner, but I will bring fresh tea and cakes for the two of you to the family salon,” he assured smoothly.
Julia gave him a beaming smile.“You are such a darling!”
Hutchings gave her a knowing glance, used to her effusive praise, but extra color had appeared in his cheeks in any case.
“And while we are waiting”—Amanda linked her arm with Julia’s as they walked down the hallway to the family room—“you shall tell me all about your encounter with the exquisitely handsome Earl of Wolfingham.”
Julia winced.“I trust you are not serious in this gushing admiration?”
“But of course I am,” Amanda scoffed.“I do believe he is the handsomest man I have ever seen, and his manners are very pleasing.”
Julia frowned.“He is also a known rake and a womanizer.”
Amanda shrugged.“I believe that just makes him more interesting, not less.Now, do tell me all about your encounter with him,” she encouraged eagerly.
“There is nothing to tell,” Julia avoided, unwilling to reveal all the details of that encounter to her cousin.Because it would showherin a bad light?Possibly.“I saw him on his horse when he was riding over here, we exchanged greetings, and then I continued on my way and he continued on his.”
“That is all?”Amanda looked very disappointed.
“Of course.”Julia stepped away from her cousin as they entered the small salon.“I do not know why you are making such a fuss about him,” she dismissed.“The Dukes of St.Albans and Hellsmere, recently engaged to and then married to our good friends Lily and Chloe, are both far superior male specimens than Wolfingham, in title and also looks and manners.”
“I believe the Earl of Wolfingham to be in the same league, if not to surpass, those two gentlemen in all those things.”Amanda giggled.“Is it not amusing that two, possibly three members, out of the six founder members of the Spinsters Alliance have all met, fallen in love, and are betrothed or have married in the monthssincewe formed the alliance at the start of the Season?”
“Three?”
Amanda gave her a knowing look.“If I have read Georgiana’s praise for the Duke of Moreland in her letters correctly, and I am sure that I have, then I do believe she will shortly be married to him.”
“What of his missing wife?”
