Lady Julia was being watched.
She knew that she was being watched because—most unusually—Julia was doing a little watching of her own.
Men often stared at Julia; it was a fact of life which she had become accustomed to and learned to ignore, but it was rare that Julia ever returned the favour.
In fact, it was unheard of.
But this man—Julia frowned, no, this knave—was irresistibly eye-catching.
In the moments when his eyes were averted, Julia would dart a glance his way, and her heart would flutter, her stomach twist pleasurably, before she would catch herself and crossly look away.
A well bred young lady did not eye up strange men across the crowded room of Almack's, she chastised herself sternly. And, more importantly, a Cavendish lady should never watch a Montague man with a feeling that could only be described as longing in her stomach.
It was absurd, and, as Julia was the most practical of people, she detested absurdity and wished she could stop.
But she could not.
Even as Lord Pariseau stood before her, droning on about his new Arab hot-blood, Julia found that she was not looking at the earl, but rather over his shoulder, where Lord Montague could be sighted, chattering away with his friends. Not that the earl appeared to notice, for he still continued talking, unaware that he was talking to himself.
"Are you quite alright, dear?" Lady Cavendish hissed in her daughter's ear, once Lord Pariseau had taken his leave, "You've gone rather pale, and I don't think you listened to a word Lord Pariseau said."
"Hmm?" Julia, forced to take her attention off Lord Montague for a moment, gave her mother a sleepy glance.
"I said, you do not seem well," Lady Cavendish repeated, her annoyance now turned into worry.
Julia, who knew her mother's moods as well as her own, hastily shook herself from her stupor to offer her mama a bright smile.
"No, I am well, Mother ," she insisted, quick to quell her mother's anxiety. For, if it was left unchecked it might quickly spiral into a call for their carriage, so that Julia might be brought straight home for a nostrum. "I was simply thinking on Lord Pariseau."
"Oh, he is handsome, is he not?" Lady Cavendish beamed. "I had thought you uninterested, given how dazed you seemed, but perhaps you have finally been struck by Cupid's arrow."
"Mmm," Julia agreed, a tad distracted as she tried to spot where it was that Lord Montague had gotten to.
"Your Papa will be pleased," Lady Cavendish continued, quite oblivious to the fact that she was delivering a soliloquy, so distracted was her daughter. "Lord Pariseau is quite the keen hunter, and I know that your father would enjoy taking him out on the estate. There will be plenty of game for him to shoot, since Thomas did not visit us last summer. Oh, where has he gotten to? I must tell him the good news."
"He is with the ambassador by the French windows, Mama," Julia advised, nodding to where her father and Count Lieven stood. "Perhaps they are thinking to go out for a cheroot?"
Her words had the exact effect that Julia had hoped for, and Lady Cavendish took herself away to intercept Lord Cavendish before he partook in a cigar. The marquess had been afflicted by a terrible cold over winter, and Lady Cavendish's nerves could not suffer watching him smoke.
Left alone, Julia gave a sigh of relief, though she was instantly assailed by a wave of guilt for feeling so. Her parents loved her, she knew they did, it was just that their way of showing how much they loved her was suffocating, to say the least.
Left to her own devices, Julia began to tread her way through the mass of guests who thronged the assembly rooms, in search of a glass of lemonade. Perhaps the drink—which would be bitter to the point of unpalatable, for Almack's was famed for its poor fare—would wake her from the heady daze that Lord Montague had inspired within her.
Julia was not in the least bit romantic, nor had she ever struck a fancy to any of the men who had sought to woo her, so to find herself on edge—merely at the sight of a man—was unnerving. Her body hummed and thrummed as she pushed her way through the crowd, and though she told herself that she was not looking for Lord Montague, her every nerve was alert to him.
Thankfully, a distraction from her inner confusion was offered, when the room began to whisper as one, and heads began to turn in the direction of the dancefloor. Julia, who by now had reached the refreshment table, craned her head so that she might see over the crowds, and gave a delighted laugh when she found what it was that everyone was looking at—two wallflowers, dancing with a pair of dukes.
Julia's two closest friends, Violet Havisham and Charlotte Drew, were each partnered with a towering duke for a country set. Neither of Julia's fellow wallflowers looked particularly pleased with this arrangement, but then—Julia smiled—she could not say that she would be too pleased either to be partnered with the ferocious Orsino, or the snooty Penrith.
Still, at least Charlotte had taken the first step in her plan to help her sister. Charlotte's father had recently issued an edict that Bianca Drew, the younger of the two Drew sisters, would not be allowed make her come-out unless Charlotte secured the attentions of a duke. The task had seemed impossible only that morning, but, Julia smiled, when the tenacious Charlotte was involved, anything was possible.
A footman handed Julia a glass of bitter lemonade and, as the music started, Julia took herself away to a quiet corner, content to have a moment to herself while the masses were distracted by the sight of two wallflowers dancing with two famously elusive dukes.
Julia stepped behind the heavy, velvet curtains, which led to a quiet alcove—usually reserved for ladies who wished to mend a ripped hem in private—her mind distracted from Lord Montague with thoughts of her friends.
The alcove was the very place that the three girls had first met, midway through their first season, three years ago.
Julia, who since birth had been raised with one purpose in life—to come out and find a husband—had found herself a little underwhelmed by her first season, and had been plagued by a gnawing feeling that something was not right.
