"They're both countesses, in case you've forgotten. They're not looking for employment."
"I'm not suggesting you pay them. Your mother told me they're enjoying my sewing parties, and even more significant, they've stopped calling on you to examine them. But I've only three more parties, and then they'll be bored again and back to their tricks. Unless they help you instead." She shoved the fabric, needle, and thread into the other basket. "Don't you see, James? They won't consider helping you to be employment or work; they'll see it as charity, an act of goodwill. And if they're busy helping here, they won't have time to fret about their health. They'll stop asking you to come examine them for one imagined ailment or another."
It was brilliant. In one fell swoop, Juliana might have solved both his problems, giving his aunts something to do and providing him with assistants who wouldn't find their bellies full of baby inside of a week. Or at all, for that matter. He'd never considered hiring women past their childbearing years.
Apparently Juliana's meddling really did help sometimes.
"How do you do it?" he asked. "How do you analyze what people need and put two and two together? Why are you so good at what you do?"
She shrugged. "I'm just attentive to the people around me."
It couldn't be that simple, that easy. "What if my aunts don't want to assist here?"
"They'll be thrilled at the very suggestion," she promised with a confidence that implied she positively knew. Which she very probably did. "Shall I ask them for you?"
"I can ask them. I'll stop by on my way to Parliament." When he reached to touch her arm, she flinched. A frisson of hurt took him by surprise, but then he reminded himself that she wasn't past her childbearing years, and if there was one thing he'd learned in his too-short marriage, it was that younger women were sometimes moody.
Although she'd never been moody with him.
"What's wrong, Juliana?"
"You're right. I'm exhausted. And overwhelmed. And the dratted lemon slices aren't working."
"Pardon?" He looked down to the uneaten slice in his hand and back up, horrified to see tears flooding her eyes. "What do lemon slices have to do with anything?"
"Nothing," she muttered. "I'm sorry." She inched around the counter and headed toward the door. "Eat the lemon slices, will you? All of them. I'll see you at the Teddington ball tomorrow. I must go home and sew."
THIRTY-EIGHT
ON SATURDAY evening, Griffin watched Juliana scan the Teddingtons' ballroom. "Where's Lord Stafford?" she asked.
"Shouldn't you be looking for Castleton?"
"He's in the card room, gambling away his fortune."
Griffin wondered why she sounded so disapproving. "Castleton isn't an inveterate gambler. He plays only to amuse himself."
She shrugged. "He only ever does anything to amuse himself."
"And you find this objectionable?" He narrowed his gaze. "Since when?" She was supposed to be in love with the man. Good God, had she changed her mind? "Do you not want to marry him anymore?"
She looked away. "He needs me."
"I should hope you'd want to marry a man because you need him."
She cocked her head at him. "Rachael says people should marry because they want each other, not need each other."
If men married all the women they wanted, he thought, polygamy would be the norm. "Has Castleton kissed you yet?"
"Would you want to hear about it if he did?"
He supposed he didn't; there was little more uncomfortable than thinking about one's sister in a romantic embrace. However, he knew Juliana well enough to know she wouldn't hesitate to give him the details in all their embarrassing glory, so he had to figure her answering his question with another question meant the prig hadn't kissed her yet.
He'd meant to have a talk with Castleton in his stables the next time the man paid Juliana a call, but he hadn't run into him lately. "I think I'll go play cards," he told his sister.
"Just don't lose thirty guineas."
Wherever had that caustic comment come from? he wondered as he made his way to the card room. He very rarely gambled, and never for ridiculous stakes.
Castleton was playing whist. "Yes?" he asked when Griffin walked up.
"I heard from my stableman yesterday. Velocity has been running well. You still want him, don't you?"
He shifted, tossing a card on the table without meeting Griffin's gaze. "Very much."
"Excellent. You might try kissing my sister."
Griffin turned around to see Rachael standing there, wearing a dress the same sky blue color as her eyes. It was very low-cut. She looked like she had a slight cold—her nose was a little red, her eyes a bit glassy—but that didn't make her any less alluring.
It was a good thing he didn't make a habit of marrying all the women he wanted, because he would have married her seventeen times.
"What are you doing in here?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"My sisters dragged me here tonight. And then I saw you walk into the card room." She glanced around at all the people uneasily. "I have something I'd like to ask you. In private."
"Let's find Lord Teddington's library."
"All right." She walked beside him from the room. "What does Velocity have to do with the Duke of Castleton kissing your sister?"
He hadn't realized she'd overheard that conversation. "I promised him Velocity if he married her."
"You promised him a horse for marrying Juliana?" Her glassy eyes looked incredulous. "How could you do that, Griffin?"
He looked away from her, turning down a corridor he hoped would lead to the library. "She wants to marry him. I want to see her happy."
"How happy do you expect she'll be when she finds out her husband married her for a horse?"
He peeked in an open door to find a music room. "Whyever would she find that out?"
"Maybe
