Every word she’d planned to utter flew out of her head.
“I beg your pardon?” The woman winged up a perfectly formed black eyebrow. “Are you speaking to me?”
Regal as a queen, resplendent in the finest gold silk, the woman before her no doubt was a lady unaccustomed to fielding questions from anyone. Of course, there wasn’t a hint of recognition on the part of the lady. People like Julia—as she’d been, like this peddler girl gawking openly at their exchange—were invisible to her.
“You knocked this young woman’s items from her arms.” In fact, there’d been a deliberateness to her actions.
“And what exactly is it you are expecting?” the woman rejoined, peering down a small, pert nose at Julia.
Julia drew back. “An apology at the very least.”
“To her?”
“Yes, to her.” Sweeping over, she put her face closer to the lady’s. “You may be her social superior, but that does not mean she deserves to be treated so unkindly.”
The woman’s mouth moved, opening and closing several times before she managed to give voice to her indignation. “Who do you think you are?”
She should have expected that the lady wouldn’t recognize her. Attired as she was, in silks and jewels, Julia bore little resemblance to a street waif. A woman as pitiable as she’d been hadn’t merited so much as a second look, and she’d felt more than a little annoyance that Julia’s struggles had stalled her pleasures. “I daresay I might say the same of you,” Julia shot back.
The dark-haired beauty cast a stunned glance to the handsome gentleman at her side.
He lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug.
Then the lady’s gaze lit on a figure behind her, and a mix of surprise and shock brought those dark slashes of her eyebrows shooting up. “Ruthven?”
Julia whipped her gaze over. At some point, Harris had taken up a place near her shoulder.
It didn’t escape her notice the breathless quality of the lady’s already sultry tones, or the way her features softened all too briefly before she looked once more to Julia. And then back to Harris. And those ice-blue eyes narrowed, all warmth that had come when she’d spied Harris instantly gone.
“Is everything all right?” he asked in cool tones, and it occurred to Julia he was offended on her behalf, and she went warm all over, from the inside and out. His features were drawn and tense, his eyes hard, as they’d been upon their first formal meeting in the duchess’ parlor.
“A friend of yours?” the other gentleman drawled, and she glanced behind her.
He also knew the handsome gentleman, then.
“Indeed.” Harris inclined his head. “Allow me to present Her Grace, the Duchess of Arlington’s niece, Lady Julia. Lady Julia, Lady Sarah Windermere, and of course, His Grace, the Duke of Rothesby, whom you met at Hyde Park.”
Julia immediately found herself the subject of intense scrutiny from that pair.
Her stomach and heart all fell as one. “Your Grace,” she said weakly and remembered to curtsy.
This was the same gentleman who the duchess had been hopeful—and insistent—would take part in Julia’s debut.
“A pleasure to see you again,” he drawled. “We have heard”—the hard gaze he pinned upon her was pointed—“much about you over the years.”
He assessed her with the same cynical suspicion as Harris had, and yet, it was not this most powerful of peers who stirred the greater sense of dread.
Rather, it was the woman at his side, who leveled a shrewd glance on Julia, peering so closely at her that she’d the sudden urge to hide. Of course, it hadn’t been her intervention that had merited such a study, but rather, Julia’s presence here with Harris and his show of support.
Ice traipsed along Julia’s spine.
She’d not find friends in these two. Just the opposite.
“Come along, Rothesby,” Lady Sarah said, and lifting her chin, she swept off.
The duke dropped a bow for Julia. “Ruthven.”
Harris lifted his chin in acknowledgment.
The moment they’d gone, Julia dropped to a knee and proceeded to help the young woman gather up her things.
“Thank you, miss,” the girl said in a rough Cockney.
Julia waved off the child’s gratitude and made to speak when Harris joined them.
Both Julia and the flower peddler stopped as he oversaw that task.
“He a prince, my lady?” the girl whispered.
Yes, Julia rather suspected he was.
Before she could answer, however, Harris glanced up. “Hardly. I’ve no crown. I’m just an ordinary man.” With a little wink, he resumed cleaning up the mess made by Lady Sarah.
Just an ordinary man? Nay, there was nothing ordinary about Harris, the Marquess of Ruthven. He was the gentleman who, when she’d been a mere stranger in the street, had not only come to Julia’s aid, but had also offered up a crate of flowers to peddle, along with a purse. Now, he’d help this young girl, who reminded her so very much of herself and Adairia when they’d been nine or ten or so.
And God help her, she fell in love with Harris, the Marquess of Ruthven. In this moment, his head bent and the sun toying with his tawny strands while he helped a common woman, she lost her heart so very completely to him.
“There you are,” he said as he finished up, and she gave thanks for his focus being directed on the task at hand as she tried to get herself back down to earth. “What is your name?” he asked with such gentleness that Julia only further continued her fall for him.
The girl directed her gaze at her tattered boots. “Rose,” she whispered.
“Rose. If you go to 1400 Grosvenor Square, hand the head butler this.” Fishing an
