Page 68 of The Lion Duke's Proposal
The news of their quiet, sudden marriage had run through London fast, and thetonhad been running faster behind it, speculating about the silence of the past weeks, their total absence from public engagements, and the burning question of what the Duke of Pridewell's private marriage actually looked like.
Now, they had their answer.
Leander moved into the room the way he always moved, unhurried, taking up the space that was actually his without a shred of apology.
Julia matched his stride. Her hand rested lightly but securely on his forearm. She tilted her chin at the exact, defiant angle she had decided on in the carriage. She felt the room recalibrate around them in real time, the whispers parting before them like a wake.
She saw Lady Catherine across the floor.
She was the hostess's eldest daughter, whom Julia had been introduced to briefly at the Bendon dinner in the spring and who had a way of appearing relaxed while cataloging everything in the room simultaneously. The woman was standing with a select group near the far window, her white silk dress impeccable, her composure very nearly so.
She had been looking at the door—many people had been looking at the door—and when her eyes found Leander, they moved, two seconds later, to Julia. What crossed Lady Catherine’s face in the space between those two seconds was a flash of raw, ugly shock. She assembled her features back into a polite mask quickly enough that most people in the room would have missed it.
Julia caught it instantly. She did not let a single thing show on her own face, which was a skill she had been practicing since considerably before Lady Catherine had ever given her a reason to use it.
The music shifted, a new set forming on the floor. Leander stopped at the edge of the polished wood and turned his body fully toward her. "Will you?"
"You want to dance," she said, her voice low.
"I want to dance with you," he said, his gaze locking onto hers, heavy and deliberate. "Yes."
She looked at him, searching his eyes. She looked at the room around them, at the dozens of faces still turned their way, at Lady Catherine in the near distance, carefully arranging her expression back into serene indifference. She looked back at her husband.
"Are you certain about this?" she asked, quietly enough for only him to hear.
"Completely," he said.
He led her onto the floor, his hand moving to her waist. The music had moved into a lively country dance, and Leander took his place opposite her as the lines formed.
He did not look at the room. He looked at her.
They moved through the figures. He was an exceptional dancer, a fact she had not known and found she was not surprised by. He was good at anything requiring precision and spatial awareness,and a country dance was essentially both of those things dressed in better clothes.
She matched him step by step, her own grace a shield, and they moved through the set with a fluency that came from two people who understood instinctively when to give ground and when to hold it.
From across the room, she could feel the burning weight of Lady Catherine watching their every alignment. Julia waited for the music to bring them back together.
"Lady Catherine is staring," she said, in the brief, breathy proximity of a turn.
"I know," he said.
"You planned this. This entire evening."
"I thought it advisable," he said, his hand catching hers, his thumb brushing the bare skin above her glove, "that London sees you as you are."
She almost missed her footing on the next step. She recovered it just in time, her breath hitching. "And how is that?"
"Mine," he said, without inflection, his voice dropping into that low rumble before he turned and moved into the next figure.
Her fingers pressed once, hard against his hand, before she could stop herself from reacting. He did not comment on the small surrender.
They finished the set in a blur of music, and he led her off the floor. She kept her face perfectly composed and her chin at its angle, and she thought, very carefully, about absolutely nothing at all to keep her heart from hammering against her ribs.
They stayed for two hours.
Julia walked through the room, talking to people she had not spoken to since before the fateful house party. Women who had watched her arrive in London with Lord Bendon's thin, reluctant sponsorship and who were now looking at the Duchess of Pridewell with an entirely revised, eager set of interests. She received their transparent flattery with the warmth she possessed and the dryness she kept in reserve.
For the first time since the wedding chapel, she felt she was standing on ground that was not about to shift beneath her feet.
