Duke Looks Like a Groomsman - Valerie Bowman Page 0,55
fell away from his face and she pulled back. The look of indignation mixed with anger on her face immediately told him he’d made a grave mistake. Her eyes blazed. Her chest rose and fell, her cheeks turning red before she finally spat, “You fool, you utter fool. Do you honestly believe I would do that? Is that what you think of me?”
Julianna pushed herself to her feet again and shook her head, looking down at him with a mixture of pity and disgust in her gaze. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. “You still don’t trust me. After all this time, even the time we’ve spent together here, you still believe I only ever wanted you for your title and your fortune.”
“Julianna, I—”
“Let me speak!” she demanded. “The truth is that I know you’re destitute, and if you’d stop and use your brain for a moment, you’d realize that my trying to seduce you that night makes absolutely no sense. If I had been trying to trap you into marriage, I could have easily told my parents how far we truly did go, and my father would have demanded you do the right thing then and there. If I was after your proposal at all costs, as you say, why didn’t I do that?”
“Julianna,” he cried, “please.”
She swiped tears from her eyes, eyes that were still blazing with outrage. “I’ll tell you why, because I truly thought we were falling in love and that you intended to ask me to marry you because you wanted me, because you loved me. That is why, you complete horse’s arse!”
And with that, she stomped off the blanket, past the willow, and around the hedgerow—and Rhys was left knowing just how wrong he’d always been.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next night at dinner in Lord Clayton’s large dining room, Julianna was seated next to Lord Murdock, who had arrived that afternoon. There were at least two other new guests at the dinner table that evening. Baron Winfield, Frances Wharton’s father, and the Prince Regent himself, who’d come based on Sir Reginald’s invitation.
The rumor was that Sir Reginald intended to announce his engagement to Miss Wharton that evening. Julianna kept glancing over at poor Miss Wharton. The young lady looked positively miserable. Miss Wharton kept exchanging glances with the Earl of Kendall, who everyone was talking about, but still no one noticed was serving the table dressed as a footman. Watching that play out was by far the most interesting part of the meal.
Meanwhile, Julianna could not stop thinking of her afternoon at the lake with Rhys yesterday. She’d thought about it all night last night, even begged off going to dinner because of it. She’d thought about it all day today as well. Mary had tried to talk to her, but Julianna hadn’t been ready to talk.
She wanted to forget the entire discussion. She wanted to forget him. Forget that he was still in the stables, pretending to be a groomsman. Bless it, how she wanted to forget everything. But each time she tried to think of something else, like Lord Murdock’s imminent visit, she found herself drawn back to thoughts of Rhys. He’d nearly died. He’d been blinded. Both things were too awful to contemplate.
He lied to her.
After she’d been faithful and waited for him.
But he didn’t trust her.
No wonder he liked horses so much—he resembled one’s hindquarters.
“Julianna,” her mother whispered from her side at Lord Clayton’s dining table. “You’re not smiling.”
Julianna shook her head and forced a smile back onto her face. She’d tried this evening to concentrate on what Lord Murdock was saying, but each time she leaned toward him, a memory of Rhys with his shirt off, lying on the blanket under the willow tree, flashed through her mind.
Mary’s words came back to haunt her. Julianna had pushed the thought away ever since that night. “I don’t think you should marry someone whom you don’t love,” her sister had said. But what had love to do with their world? No. Julianna needed to do what she always should have done, concentrate on her future. And her future obviously lay with her marriage to Lord Murdock.
She glanced at the marquess and gave him another tentative smile. The truth was, she and Murdock had done little more than exchange smiles so far this evening, and the smiles were beginning to make her cheeks ache. She’d already decided that after dinner, she would ask to speak to him privately to discuss their