Oh, holy day!
Every righteous thought flew from her brain as she caught sight of a most compelling man hesitating in the doorway. Why did he wait? Why did this one persist in stalling? In not coming closer where she could secure a better look?
Why did her heart jump in her chest and the air in her lungs evaporate to nothing—at nothing more than her first hazy glimpse of him?
Juliet caught herself listing forward and hastily scooted back upon the chair (falling face-first into the screen would certainly not aid her cause!). Once firmly situated, she again stared toward the newcomer. Yet he still hadn’t moved. Why—
But then he did and she could breathe again, her chest expanding and eyes flaring wide as he passed through the doorway. His former dithering aside, he now stalked purposefully into her sitting room, inspecting his surroundings as if he already owned the space—and everything, everyone in it.
An unruly shock of dark blond hair fell forward over his forehead, nearly to his jaw. He raked it back, giving her a view of strong, harsh features and brooding eyes, their color indistinguishable from this distance.
Though his size was akin to Jacks’, this man moved with an innate, confident grace, his strides long, his Hessians clipping brusquely upon the floor until he gained the rug and stopped, tilting his fair head in deference to Wivy. “Madam.”
He flashed a grin and something dormant inside Juliet flared to life, leaving her feeling bold and anxious and giddy all at once. Is he the one?
Regardless of how very serious the entire undertaking was to her future, Juliet couldn’t refrain from gawking at his…um…masculine form. His impressive, muscular thighs specifically.
An audible gasp wound its way up her throat. Juliet clamped one hand over her lips.
A lady wasn’t supposed to acknowledge, even mentally, that a man’s limbs existed, much less name them. Thighs, she thought again because she could, smiling behind her fingers. Because never again would she let any man rule over her mind or her tongue.
Thighs. Legs.
Simply acknowledging how his drew her made her blood flow hot and thick.
Legs! She wanted to shout it out the open window. This stranger possesses the most magnificent legs. Oh, she was brazen indeed!
Lady or not, there was no denying she admired everything outwardly about him—his shaggy hair and craggy face, his legs, hips, waist…thighs, they all fascinated and beckoned.
She swallowed back another gasp, one of pure unadulterated relief. For here was a man worth gasping over, a man worth abandoning maidenly scruples drummed into one from infanthood. A man to inspire all manner of explicit, illicit dreams.
The cumbersome screen now had a new purpose, Juliet realized, lowering her hand and wiping surprisingly damp palms on the layers of skirt and petticoat gathered in her lap: that of allowing her to look her fill, to stare at and ogle this manly specimen in a way no maiden would ever be permitted.
To hope…
Maybe, just maybe, applicant twenty-four would prove to be the one.
The condition of the room appalled Zeus; it matched that of the whole abysmal house, at least the few ghastly portions he’d been privy to. Two blinks away from decrepitude, it somehow seemed wrong to be meeting the infamous Lady Scandal in such a desolate atmosphere. Agonizingly wrong, given how he’d anticipated their meeting occurring at Amherst and not this rachitic ruin.
And after what he’d just seen her footman do, the prior candidate’s shouts of outrage at being manhandled by a manservant sufficient inducement to lure both Zeus and the lone remaining applicant into the hallway for the show, Zeus wasn’t so sure he wanted his turn in these unsavory surroundings. Wasn’t so sure his relinquished hat would be spared mangling from the beefy hands he’d just witnessed trouncing the foul-mouthed sod who’d gone directly before him—and who’d just been swiftly evicted from the premises.
Zeus glanced again into the room he was expected to enter, so dingy and pathetic he suspected even moths and mice would pass it by.
Remember why you’re here. What she can give you.
Prompted, as always, by the overwhelming goal that continued to guide his every action, even now, years and lifetimes later, Zeus nodded his thanks toward the burly fellow who, after wiping blood and “bad spirits” off his hands and person, had deferentially escorted Zeus through the gloomy maze.
A fortifying breath and Zeus stepped over the threshold. For good or ill, he was committed to his course.
And ill it just might be, given the way his nose prickled at the sour hint of stale smoke that hung in the air. But unlike the crypt of a study he’d been stashed in all day, along with other expectant contenders, where he’d forbore puffing tobacco or drumming fingertips—and outwardly expressing his anxiety—this particular room, upon closer inspection he was delighted to note, exhibited several rays of sunshine to brighten its dreary reality.
Rays of sunshine that proved a balm to his weary soul. A number of them streamed in from the unboarded windows facing west, several splashed about in the form of wild-cut flowers bunched in disreputable vases, and one presided regally before him, her dress every bit as yellow and sunny as the sporadic unfaded rectangles on the walls, bright patches of paper and plaster, loudly proclaiming the paintings she’d been forced to sell off.
She. Lady Scandal, sitting patiently behind her desk, a look of wary resignation on her face.
One glance put him in mind of a fetchingly plump and eminently beddable tavern wench. The kind he’d feasted on in his youth, the kind he’d avoided of late. The anti-lady.
Over the last weeks, he’d built Lady Scandal up in his mind as a genteel, dainty creature, desperate enough for funds to overlook his disreputable birth. Though his blighted beginnings certainly matched the state of her home, the regal daffodil looked anything but desperate.
Although appealing in an earthy, buxom way, she was not what Zeus
