The Secret Life of Lady Julia by Lecia Cornwall Page B

convince her to offer to help them.
    He met her eyes, hoping to see understanding in their hazel depths, but she was studying her fingertips.
    “I do understand your concern, my lord, and as I have said, I will be certain to knock before entering a room from now on, but you may be assured of my discretion.”
    His stomach fell to the cinder path. He hadn’t been clear at all.
    “Our letters will be intercepted and read,” he said.
    She smiled tentatively. “I have no one to write to, and I do not keep a diary.”
    “Our conversations will be monitored, reported—”
    She looked around the garden in alarm, but the paths were empty, except for the nurse and baby some way off. As she turned, he noticed the way the sunlight played on her dark hair, lighting strands of gold and copper, and the delicate bones of her jaw, the muscles of her neck. She was so slender, so delicate, a lady, not a hardened spy, no matter what stories her grandmother had raised her on or what deeds Charles Stewart thought her capable of. Moreover, as his own employee, she was under his protection.
    “There wouldn’t be any danger.” She turned to look at him, her brows flying toward her hairline like frightened birds, and he realized he’d spoken aloud, though he hadn’t meant to. He was a diplomat, a man of words, yet Julia Leighton, this whole situation, made him feel tongue-tied.
    “Danger?” she gasped.
    “I—We’d—like you to help, as a kind of listener,” he said. “If others are listening to us, then we must also have eyes and ears, and since you speak so many languages—”
    “Me?” she said. “But I’m not . . .” She paused, shut her eyes. “I am merely a servant. There must be better people to assist with such things, people who are trained, or better suited to—”
    He held up a hand to stop her. “We need you to be more than a servant—which you are, of course. You were—are—an earl’s daughter . . .”
    She shook her head, her expression closing. “What if someone recognized me, knew ? I cannot—”
    “Every diplomat in Vienna has a hostess. Tsar Alexander has Countess Sagan, for instance. She holds salons and parties, charms Austria’s foreign minister, Lord Metternich, flirts with him, and she offers an ear to anyone who might wish to confide in her. Lord Talleyrand has his niece here for the same purpose. She is young, pretty, charming—”
    “And we have Lady Castlereagh.”
    He made a face, and immediately smoothed his expression. “Yes, of course, but she is as taciturn as her husband, and slightly deaf. Her salons promise to be dull affairs, all whist and small glasses of sherry, with only the most superficial and banal conversation—not the kind of event likely to embolden people to make the sort of indiscreet comments we can use. You wouldn’t be a hostess, of course. Lady Castlereagh would never—”
    She turned as scarlet as the autumn leaves. “She’s quite correct. My . . . notoriety . . . would not serve you well. It may work against you, if the truth was discovered,” she said carefully. “There are people here who know me, know my father.”
    It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to look at Julia Leighton and see a ruined woman. “His lordship thought you might say that. Yet Countess Sagan is a married woman, and is known to have any number of lovers. Quite scandalous, but her salon is one of the most widely attended.”
    She looked at him fiercely. “I am not interested in taking ‘any number of lovers,’ my lord. If I have given that impression, then I can only say you are grievously mistaken.”
    He felt himself blush, and ran a finger around the collar of his tunic. “I am not explaining myself very well at all.” He caught her hands, held them in his. “We—I—would never ask you to compromise yourself in such a way. You are my sister’s companion, and as such, you are under my protection. Every maid, every coachman, every waiter, and footman in