Midnight Mistress by Ruth Owen Page B

leaving the still befuddled Jolly and the other guests in his wake. The Feathergills stared. Lady Marchmont murmured something about winter weather having ill effects on one’s nerves. Only Lord Renquistseemed perfectly satisfied with her actions. “Oh, well done my deawr,” he commented in a low voice only she could hear. “Nothing wong with tweating them as equals, but it never hurts to put them in their place.”
    He might have said more, but Meg stormed up to her and gripped her arm, making a perfunctory apology to the guests as she herded Juliana out of the room. She pulled her friend into the empty dining room and glared at her. “How could you be so monstrously uncivil?”
    Juliana stiffened at the censure. “Meg, you do not understand. This man—”
    “—was a guest in this house. The commodore invited the captain here as a kindness to you. You should have at least been civil to the man for Jolly’s sake, if nothing else. Yet when you arrive, you treat him as if you were an ill-mannered termagant.”
    “Well, what if I did?” Juliana shot back. “He deserved it. You don’t know what he did to me, how he treated me—”
    “I saw how you treated
him
. Julie, I saw the look in his eyes. You wounded him—deeply. No human being deserves such treatment, no matter what he has done. You owe the captain an apology.”
    “Never!” Juliana lifted her chin stubbornly. “The sea will turn to freshwater before I apologize to that scoundrel.”
    “Then you had best pray for a deluge, because I believe you need to apologize to him, for your own sake, if nothing else. You know that a sister could be no dearer to me than you are. But since you started running with Lord Renquist and his smart set you have become more cynical and cutting. It has made you fashionable and popular, but it is at the expense of your natural kindness. And if you do not change your path, I fear you will become no better than those empty-headed dunderheads at Morrow’s party.”
    Without waiting for an answer, Meg returned to the guests. Juliana joined them a few minutes later, slipping easily into Meg’s explanation of momentary fatigue. For therest of the evening she was the picture of elegance, acting as the perfect hostess to all the commodore’s guests. But while the ever-cheerful commodore and his vapid officers droned on about several completely insignificant events at the Admiralty, Juliana thought on what Meg had said.
    The butler, Roberts, arrived, announcing that dinner was served. During the soup course, Juliana dismissed the girl’s observations as pure fancy. But by the time the fish arrived, Juliana realized that if her friend had seen changes in her, then she must have changed. By the time the mutton chop was served, Juliana had to own that Meg’s observations were at least partially correct.
    The veneer of arch sophistication had made her one of the most celebrated ladies of the
ton
. She had dozens of friends, scores of admirers, and more marriage proposals than she could turn down in a lifetime. Though still young, she had achieved a position that put her in the same circles as the incomparable Lady Jersey and the revered Mrs. Drummond-Burrell. She had earned her father’s pride.
    Lady Juliana Dare was a complete success, but she knew full well that such acclaim would never have come to a gangly, eager girl who had spent her early years climbing through a ship’s rigging, trading ribald jokes with sailors three times her age, and seeing far more of life than a modest, well-bred lady was supposed to. If the full truth of her upbringing was known, she had no doubt that both her popularity and her devoted suitors would disappear like silver minnows snapped up by a hungry barracuda.
    In truth, she was as mortified by her past as Connor was by his.
    It seemed an interminably long evening, but eventually the guests left. Meg retired immediately to her bedchamber, barely saying good night. After the commodore settled in his