He met Giuliana shortly after he turned five. She was a charming child even then with a pair of innocent brown eyes and a headful of curls. They met when the Earl brought his only child to the Duke’s home for a visit. The Earl and the Duke had been old school friends and kept in contact throughout the years. After the Earl’s wife passed away, he moved back to the Capital to raise Giuliana with the best governesses and tutors money could buy.
Alastair remembered it had been a sunny spring day and jasmine filled the air. The Earl alighted from his carriage with a boisterous shout to the Duke. He grasped a tiny hand in his and helped a little girl from the carriage. She was darker than anyone he’d ever seen before. Her skin a golden shade like when he mixed milk into his tea.
She dropped into a shaky curtsy and greeted them cheerfully. “Good afternoon, my name is Lady Giuliana Crane, daughter of Lord Seabright. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
The Duke clasped a hand to his heart. “What a tiny, little lady!” He crouched next to her and ruffled her head. She shouted out in indignation and ducked from his hand.
“Don’t touch my hair! It took Isolda hours to detangle!”
“Liana,” admonished the Earl. “We talked about this. You can’t just yell at people.” Giuliana stomped her foot on the ground.
“If I can’t yell at people, why are they allowed to touch my hair?”
Alastair stared aghast at the child. Many of the ladies of his acquaintance were hothouse blooms who never raised their voice above a whisper. But here stood a wildflower, scowling at the Great Duke of Etria, tiny fists resting on her hips.
He bowed to the child and said, “Please excuse my father, he is unused to having cute girls around. Especially one with such beautiful hair.”
The Duke and the Earl exchanged surprised looks. Alastair, even then, rarely deigned to speak to the girls that came to call. He definitely never went so far as to compliment them. The Duke arched a brow at the earl who gave a subtle nod in reply. They’d watch this situation.
Giuliana’s scowl did not lessen at his pretty words. “I’m not cute,” she ground out. “But I will forgive the Duke.” She thrust her chin in the air. “Are you his son?”
“Yes, my name is Alastair Drayton.”
“You should teach him better manners.”
The father fought back laughter as Alastair held out his hand to her. “Let me show you around the manor. We have a garden. Do you like flowers?”
“Not particularly.”
“I thought all girls liked flowers?”
“I don’t dislike them, but I get little joy from looking at them.”
“Huh.”
Giuliana took his hand, and he led her through the front doors of the manor. The pair spent the day in the garden with cookies and tea while Giuliana recited folktales from her mother’s homeland. After that first meeting, she often visited the Ducal manor, sometimes with her father and sometimes without him.
By the time they were seven, Alastair approached his father one afternoon after she left.
“Father, I want to marry Giuliana.”
The Duke dropped his fountain pen to the costly rug at his feet. He didn’t move to pick it up. “You want to marry Giuliana?”
He nodded as his bottom lip jutted out. “I told her that and she assumes I’m teasing her, but I have to to marry her.”
“Do you realize what that means?”
“Uh huh. We’ll be engaged until we reach our majority and then we can marry.”
“You will be the Duke, Alastair. Do you think Giuliana wants to give up her freedom to become the Duchess? She must have extra tutors and lessons to learn proper etiquette and how to run a household.”
“And diplomacy!” He added. “She’ll help me too. We’ll be partners.”
The Duke rubbed at his forehead. “I’ll talk to the Earl,” he replied wearily. What else could he do against such certainty?
And so it came to be that a month later, they signed the papers that created an engagement between the heir to the Dukedom of Wytchwood and the daughter of the Earl of Seabright. Giuliana never got over the idea that Alastair teased her. Even through all the lessons about dance, politics and history, she still thought she’d wake up, and it’d be over.
As she learned more about the proper comportment of a duchess, her outbursts lessened and her smiles faded until she became the perfect little duchess candidate.
“C’mon, Giuliana, let’s go play in the garden,” a ten-year-old Alastair pleaded to his fiancee. She sat primly on an iron-wrought chair on the terrace, hands folded in her lap.
“I cannot, my lord. I start my fencing lessons after tea.”
“Fencing? Why do you need fencing?”
“To learn self-defence moves so I won’t be helpless. I will not be a well-liked Duchess.”
“How do you know that?”
A cruel smile appeared on her face. “It is what everyone says.”
Alastair was only ten, so he didn’t know what to say to her. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and slipped from the chair. With a pristine bow, she gave her goodbyes.
At thirteen, he became used to the new Giuliana and her goal of becoming the perfect duchess. He presented her with a crown of jasmine during a rare break from studies. They sat beneath a willow tree on a sweltering summer afternoon. She wore an over large bonnet on her head and gripped a parasol on her hands.
“Here,” he said, holding it to her. “It’s for your hair.”
Giuliana tilted her head to the side. Her lips stayed tucked into a frown, but her eyes twinkled with curiosity. “I cannot take off my bonnet.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll get darker and Duchess’ should have lily-white skin.”
Alastair wrinkled his nose. “What if I don’t want my Duchess to have lily-white skin?”
She stared at him, eyes unblinking. “W-what?”
But, he, at thirteen, still didn’t have the right words. His cheeks burned red, and he thrust it under her nose. “Please wear it.”
Giuliana closed her parasol and leaned it against the trunk of the tree. She untied the bow of her bonnet and cast it aside. Alastair lifted the crown of jasmine and placed it atop her head.
“How does it look?” She asked carefully, eyes darting toward the manor. A warm breeze blew through the garden and the fragrance of the jasmine blossoms enveloped them.
His lips turned up into a grin. “Beautiful.”
It was the first and last time Alastair ever said those words to Giuliana. After that day in the garden, whenever he saw her, she smelled like jasmine.
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