He was a bull charging a red cape; she had mere seconds before she was gored.

The carriages were her only hope.

With a low, soothing whisper of Italian, she slipped beneath the massive heads of two great black horses and crept quickly along the line of carriages. She heard the gate screech open and bang shut, and she froze, listening for the telltale sound of predator approaching prey.

It was impossible to hear anything over the pounding of her heart.

Quietly, she opened the door to one of the great hulking vehicles and levered herself up and into the carriage without the aid of a stepping block. She heard a tear as the fabric of her dress caught on a sharp edge and ignored the pang of disappointment as she yanked her skirts into the coach and reached for the door, closing it behind her as quietly as she could.

The willow green satin had been a gift from her brother—a nod to her hatred of the pale, prim frocks worn by the rest of the unmarried ladies of the ton. And now it was ruined.

She sat stiffly on the floor just inside the carriage, knees pulled up to her chest, and let the blackness embrace her. Willing her panicked breath to calm, she strained to hear something, anything through the muffled silence. She resisted the urge to move, afraid to draw attention to her hiding place.

“Tego, tegis, tegit,” she barely whispered, the soothing cadence of the Latin focusing her thoughts. “Tegimus, tegitis, tegunt.”

A faint shadow passed above, hiding the dim light that mottled the wall of the lushly upholstered carriage. Juliana froze briefly before pressing back into the corner of the coach, making herself as small as possible—a challenge considering her uncommon height. She waited, desperate, and when the barely there light returned, she swallowed and closed her eyes tightly, letting out a long, slow breath.

In English, now.

“I hide. You hide. She hides—”

She held her breath as several masculine shouts broke through the silence, praying for them to move past her hiding place and leave her, for once, in peace. When the vehicle rocked under the movement of a coachman scrambling into his seat, she knew her prayers would go unanswered.

So much for hiding.

She swore once, the epithet one of the more colorful of her native tongue, and considered her options. Grabeham could be just outside, but even the daughter of an Italian merchant who had been in London for only a few months knew that she could not arrive at the main entrance of her brother’s home in a carriage belonging to God knew whom without causing a scandal of epic proportions.

Her decision made, she reached for the handle on the door and shifted her weight, building up the courage to escape—to launch herself out of the vehicle, onto the cobblestones and into the nearest patch of darkness.

And then the carriage began to move.

And escape was no longer an option.

For a brief moment, she considered opening the door and leaping from the carriage anyway. But even she was not so reckless. She did not want to die. She just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her, and the carriage, whole. Was that so much to ask?

Taking in the interior of the vehicle, she realized that her best bet was to return to the floor and wait for the carriage to stop. Once it did, she would exit via the door farthest from the house and hope, desperately, that no one was there to see her.

Surely something had to go right for her tonight. Surely she had a few moments to escape before the aristocrats beyond descended.

She took a deep breath as the coach came to a stop. Levering herself up . . . reaching for the handle . . . ready to spring.

Before she could exit, however, the door on the opposite side of the carriage burst open, taking the air inside with it in a violent rush. Her eyes flew to the enormous man standing just beyond the coach door.

Oh, no.

The lights at the front of Ralston House blazed behind him, casting his face into shadow, but it was impossible to miss the way the warm, yellow light illuminated his mass of golden curls, turning him into a dark angel—cast from Paradise, refusing to return his halo.

She felt a subtle shift in him, a quiet, almost imperceptible tensing of his broad shoulders and knew that she had been discovered. Juliana knew that she should be thankful for his discretion when he pulled the door to him, eliminating any space through which others might see her, but when he ascended into the carriage easily, with the aid of neither servant nor step, gratitude was far from what she was feeling.

Panic was a more accurate emotion.

She swallowed, a single thought screaming though her mind.

She should have taken her chances with Grabeham.

For there was certainly no one in the world she would like to face less at this particular moment than the unbearable, immovable Duke of Leighton.

Surely, the universe was conspiring against her.

The door closed behind him with a soft click, and they were alone.

Desperation surged, propelling her into movement, and she scrambled for the near door, eager for escape. Her fingers fumbled for the handle.

“I would not if I were you.”

The calm, cool words rankled as they cut through the darkness.

There had been a time when he had not been at all aloof with her.

Before she had vowed never to speak to him again.

She took a quick, stabilizing breath, refusing to allow him the upper hand. “While I thank you for the suggestion, Your Grace. You will forgive me if I do not follow it.”

She clasped the handle, ignoring the sting in her hand at the pressure of the wood, and shifted her weight to release the latch. He moved like lightning, leaning across the coach and holding the door shut with little effort.

“It was not advice.”

He rapped the ceiling of the carriage twice, firmly and without hesitation. The vehicle moved instantly, as though his will alone steered its course, and Juliana cursed all well-trained coachmen as she fell backward, her foot catching in the skirt of her gown, further tearing the satin. She winced at the sound, all too loud in the heavy quiet, and ran one dirty palm wistfully down the lovely fabric.