The Worthington Wife. Sharon Page

She was right at the new earl’s side, smiling into his eyes, running her strings of glittering jet beads through her fingers. Flirting for all she was worth.

      “What’s wrong, Julia?”

      Zoe, looking lovely in a beaded dress of deep green with an emerald-and-diamond choker around her slim neck, came to her side.

      She couldn’t talk about Diana’s secret, not even to Zoe. She smoothed her face into a look of ladylike placidity. “It’s nothing.”

      “Do you really think Cal is the vengeful monster the countess paints him to be?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “It’s not stopping the countess from pushing her daughters at him,” Zoe observed.

      Julia watched Diana move so close to Cal her bosom pressed to his bicep. Cassia, tall and blonde like Diana, but only twenty-one, had approached him, too. She smiled demurely at him—Cassia was always gentle and sweet. The youngest daughter was Thalia: eighteen and bookish. And when Thalia looked as if she wanted to escape, her mother propelled her to talk to Cal.

      Then Julia realized Cal was watching Lady Worthington. Just for a moment, then Diana ran her finger along his sleeve and got his attention again.

      But Julia had seen the cold, hard rage that seethed in that one fast look.

      “I think the countess might be right,” Julia said softly.

      Zoe looked at her surprised.

      Wiggins stepped in the drawing room and cleared his throat. “May I announce His Grace, the Duke of Bradstock. His lordship, the Earl of Summerhay. His lordship, Viscount Yorkville.”

      Nigel immediately moved to greet his good friend Summerhay.

      “Oh no.” Julia swallowed hard. At least it would be easy to keep track of the three of them—Bradstock had black hair, Summerhay was blond, Yorkville had auburn waves. Other people arrived also—members of the local gentry, and an older gentleman to make appropriate numbers.

      “Don’t worry. I’m on your side,” Zoe promised. “I don’t think you should marry a man you don’t love for his title.”

      It wasn’t the right time to speak of it, but Julia suddenly felt she needed to take charge of something. “Zoe, I want to ask if you would consider lending me money.”

      Her sister-in-law stared in surprise. “Whatever for, Julia?”

      “For war widows who have been left destitute. I would like to loan money to the women. They will pay me back over time. All they need is a few pounds to start them on the direction of a new and better life. I asked Nigel for a loan against my dowry, but he refused.”

      “Did he?”

      “He thinks my work is too scandalous and it will ruin my marriage prospects.” She couldn’t help it—she glanced at Nigel, who was talking to the three peers who’d just arrived. For all she knew, he was pleading with them to propose to her.

      “I would be happy to loan you the money, depending on the amount and the terms,” Zoe said. “Is there a great chance these women will default?”

      Zoe was never foolish. She was smart and shrewd. “I don’t think so,” Julia said honestly. “But I will start with modest amounts. If a woman defaults, I will be able to repay out of my pin money and my dress allowance.”

      “Your dress allowance.” Zoe shook her head, obviously amused.

      “Do you agree with Nigel?”

      “I love my husband, but when it comes to what should be considered scandalous for a woman, we never agree. I am happy you are helping these women.”

      “You don’t fear for my marriage prospects?”

      “I already know who you should marry. Noble Dr. Dougal Campbell.”

      “Zoe...” Julia swallowed hard, aware of the sharp jolt of pain in her heart. “He just wrote to tell me he is engaged to someone else. I have lost him forever.”

      “Then it was not a great loss, Julia, my dear,” the dowager duchess declared.

      Julia jumped at the firm, autocratic tones of her grandmother. She turned to find the dowager duchess had walked up beside her and looked ready to deliver advice. Julia dearly loved her grandmother, but as Grandmama looked pointedly at the Duke of Bradstock, she swallowed hard.

      “It is if Julia and Dr. Campbell were perfect for each other,” Zoe pointed out, sipping her drink and toying with her long string of beads.

      Her grandmother linked arms and swept her away from Zoe. “Bradstock keeps watching you,” Grandmama said bluntly. “Why do you think he has never married? He is waiting for you. You could be a duchess with one simple word. And that word is yes. Julia, you must be settled. Where shall you live, if you end up a spinster?”

      “Grandmama, I won’t say yes to a man just to have his house. There’s absolutely no reason I couldn’t have a flat in London and have a job—”

      She had to stop. Grandmama staggered back with her hand on her heart. “If I find you behind the counter at Selfridges, my dear, it would be the end of me. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”

      “No, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want my unhappy marriage on yours,” Julia said.

      The dowager’s brows rose. “Touché.”

      * * *

      Cal was seated between the Duchess of Langford and Lady Julia at the long, wide, polished dinner table. His cousin Diana sat near him, talking flirtatiously to the man beside her—another earl—but glancing at him. The dining table would have stuck out both sides of the narrow tenement building he’d grown up in. The walls and floor of the dining room were covered in Italian marble shot with streaks of pink. On the table there was enough silverware and cut-glass crystal to pay a king’s ransom, and half the room was covered in gold leaf.

      So damned opulent it made anger boil inside him.

      Lady Julia turned to him, a lovely smile on her face, and asked, “What do you think of Worthington Park?”

      Up close, Lady Julia—sister to the tall, black-haired Duke of Langford—was even more stunning.

      Smooth, alabaster skin. Thick, shining black hair. Huge blue eyes. Her cool, controlled expression fascinated him. Like nothing could ever upset her. Though once he saw her looking at Diana and she’d looked real worried. Maybe because Diana was flirting with him.

      Once or twice, he’d seen a look of terror on Lady Worthington’s face. That hadn’t stopped her pushing her three daughters at him. His cousins, damn it. English royalty married their cousins, but it seemed like a strange thing to him.

      The countess obviously hoped the backwater hick from America would be so bowled over by her pretty English daughters and their jewels and their manners and their titles—each one was “Lady” something—that he’d kiss the ground they walked on and jump down on one knee to propose marriage to one of them.

      As if that would happen. He would never marry one of them—one of the aristocracy.

      “Looking at this place,” he said to Julia, “I can’t believe no one ever chopped the heads off the English aristocracy.”

      He figured that would stop her trying to converse with him.

      But it didn’t. “I can assure you that many members of the aristocracy have been afraid of that very thing for quite a long time,” she said smoothly. “But it is that fear that can lead to more justice for people, for better conditions and more decency—if it is pushed in the right direction.”

      That answer he hadn’t expected. “You almost sound like a socialist.”

      “Are you one, Worthington?” At his look of surprise, she added, “That is how you are