Actually, it wasn’t. She couldn’t be any more different than a cherished, valuable gemstone.
Nor, for that matter, had she even been Julia to her mother. She’d been Jewels, because her mother had dreamed of jewels. And there hadn’t been a surname, because the man who’d bedded her mother had left when she’d become with child. The sole reason Julia’s name had evolved into something decent and respectable was because of the woman whose life Julia even now stole.
In fact, perhaps she was more her mother’s daughter, than she’d ever credited.
As he continued to stroke her, she wanted to believe the lie.
Their gazes locked. His fingers ceased moving, and then, ever so slowly, he resumed that back and-forth glide, his thumb toying with her lower lip. The flesh trembled under his ministrations, and her lips parted.
Her breath hitched, or was that his?
Harris dipped his head, then stopped. He came closer once more. But again resisted.
When any man in the Dials would have simply taken, he showed restraint, and the evidence of his self-control unleashed a flurry of butterflies within.
And then, ever so gently, Harris touched his mouth to hers with a tenderness that threatened to shatter her; it sent a delicious wave of heat and longing through Julia.
She sighed softly.
Harris stilled, and then with a low groan that shook his chest, he deepened that kiss. With every exquisite meeting of their lips, the fire grew and spread, so what began with a gentleness dissolved and a greater intensity and ferocity took over.
Never had she felt like this. Never had she known she could…because this sensation of being in his arms was as heady as touching one’s fingertips to a rainbow after the rain. She surrendered herself to him and this moment, and he used that opportunity to slip his tongue inside, touching that flesh against hers.
It ended as quick as it had begun; a delicate dance in passion.
All that glorious sensation came to an agonizing and excruciating stop.
Harris broke the kiss, his chest moving against her also rapidly rising one. He rested the side of his head against hers. His coffee-scented breath fanned her cheek as he brought his breathing under control…and then with an aching tenderness, he dropped a kiss upon her right temple.
She lay against him, the warmth receding, and a new kind of heat taking its place, a mortified, humiliated one spiked by shame. Horror took the place of the wonderful warmth that had come from an embrace unlike any she’d ever known. She scrambled to her feet.
His eyes, hooded by those magnificent tawny lashes, revealed nothing, and she didn’t want to see the mockery or disdain that was surely lurking in those cerulean depths, indicating her wanton response to him had outed her as the impostor she was.
She fled.
And coward that she was, Julia was grateful when he let her go.
Chapter 9
The next day, Harris, his presence having been requested by the duchess, found his way to the conservatory, the one place one might always count on finding the duchess.
“I’ve been begging you to come round for years,” she said upon his arrival. “Who knew all it would require to get you to stay and never leave was for me to bring a young lady into my household?” She snorted. “One would think with your reputation that a respectable lady would be the last thing to keep you around, but here you are.”
Crossing the length of the conservatory, he joined the duchess at the worktable. “Godmother,” he greeted, dropping a kiss upon her smooth cheek. “You summoned.”
“I summon people I don’t like, Harris. I invite those I love and care about to visit.” Pruning shears in hand, she waved off the lady’s maid standing in attendance, and the girl curtsied before taking her leave, vacating the wrought-iron bench for Harris.
He slid onto the seat and waited.
She snipped at a leaf.
The green scrap fell, landing on the small heap made by the work she’d already done on the boxwood.
Leaving a person to sit in silence was her way. As a boy, it had unnerved him. The older he’d grown, however, he’d come to appreciate the time left to sit with his thoughts.
“It is my understanding you took breakfast with the girl yesterday,” his godmother remarked.
Not a girl. Desire fired in his veins as he recalled the feel of her and the taste of her… He shifted on the bench. “I did.”
“It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. I know these things.”
Because her staff was loyal.
“She doesn’t seem to like you,” Her Grace said without inflection.
“Why, thank you.”
At his droll tone, she glanced up. “Oh, hush now. You’re not a stupid boy. You, who charms ladies older than me out of their pantalets, has managed to butt heads with the single young lady I give a damn about.”
“Ah, but, dear duchess, I’m wary of the lady for the sole reason that I worry about you.” And he didn’t trust the motives of a young lady who’d been gone a lifetime only to suddenly materialize out of thin air.
“Come now.” His godmother brought her clippers close enough to his chest that he was almost tempted to move away. “Do you really think this lady needs you to go protecting her from a slender, tiny bit of a thing? She’s no more than a child.”
“There are other kinds of hurt that can be exacted beyond the physical kind,” he murmured. Harris raised his hand to cover her own and guided it and
