Far Beyond Scandalous (28 page)

His heart broke for her, knowing
that at the tender age of thirteen, Amy had seen her dreams of a husband and
family stripped away.
 
It was no wonder
she had worked so hard to be perfect, not to mention why she hated the label of
"paragon."
 
It was a slap in
the face to all that she truly was beneath the mask she wore for the world to
see.

As he sat there rubbing her back,
once more Gibson cursed his worthless sire.
 
If he still had the title of viscount, then he could ease Amy's pain.
 
He could love her and cherish her and
protect her, a man like Mark Overton - were he even still alive - and his
twisted plan of revenge be damned.
 
Gibson could marry Amy and her secret would be safe forever.
 
No one would ever hurt her again.

But he could not do any of those
things.
 
He had no title.
 
No estate.
 
Nothing.
 
And for the first time
since his sister had died, Gibson gave in to the crushing pain and blackness
that he had kept at bay for so long.
 
He
allowed it to wash over him, filling him with gut-twisting anger and bitter
rage.
 
Then, he felt Amy move in his
arms and the dark feelings washed away in an instant as if they had never been,
only to be replaced by complete despair.

He could do nothing for her.
 
Gibson was powerless to help her.
 
Well, that was not precisely true.
 
He could protect her until her father
returned, for surely, the man had to be on his way back to London by now.
 
It wasn't much, but it was the best the son
of a traitor could offer.
 
Unfortunately, he wasn't certain that it would be enough.

By the time they arrived at the
Devonmont's musicale, both Amy and Gibson had regained their composure and had
once more pasted on their polite, formal smiles.
 
They had also decided not to inform Lady Evanston of what they
had learned, mostly because Gibson suspected that the stress from keeping the
secret might have had something to do with the countess' attack.
 
Amy's mother was only now just recovered to
the point where she could perform limited tasks, and he did not want to hinder
her recovery.

He also had suggested that they not
openly discuss the situation for fear of being overheard by the servants.
 
It was likely that if Gibson's man had
discovered the truth of the Overton brothers, Lord Drake probably already had
as well.
 
How he would use the
information remained to be seen, but Gibson once more silently damned the men
of the Evanston earldom for leaving their women to fend for themselves for so
long.
 
Even Marcus could no longer be
forgiven at this point.
 
While it was
true that he was convalescing, his sister and his mother also needed him.
 
At some point, one needed to step up and be
a man.

Gibson's worthless father may not
have taught his son much of value, but he had taught Gibson how to be a
man.
 
It was one of the few lessons of
real value that his sire had passed on to him.
 
Certainly he'd learned nothing of honor from the man.
 
That was all self-taught, really, and, Gibson
reasoned, if he could learn those lessons on his own, Marcus would have certainly
learned them from the earl.

"In case I didn't mention it
earlier, you look extremely handsome tonight.
 
That new hunter green waistcoat looks wonderful on you, as I knew it
would."

Gibson was pulled from his black
mood by Amy's compliments.
 
It was a
marvel how she could chase away his black thoughts with just a few simple
words.
 
"Thank you.
 
And in case
I
did not mention it, you
look exquisite, my lady.
 
Garnet suits
you."

The dress was entirely the wrong
color for an unmarried lady, but, as Amy was rapidly approaching spinsterhood,
when she had visited Madame LaVallier's shop earlier in the week to request a
new gown she had been fresh off her passionate encounter with Gibson.
 
Amy had thrown caution to the wind and
picked the jewel-toned silk over a more sedate powder blue that would probably
have been more appropriate.
 
If there
was one thing Amy was tired of, it was doing precisely as she was expected.

She had asked that the bodice of
the gown be encrusted with crystals and pearls, the more the better, so that
they would sparkle and catch the light, making her appear as if she was dusted
with starlight.
 
She had also asked that
gold thread, along with the signature bit of golden lace decorate the bodice as
well to create something of a woven, leafy design, both eye catching and
verging on scandalous, but not so much that she would be denied entrance to a
party.
 
And, of course, the neckline
needed to be almost indecently low, just enough to entice a man's attention.

When the frothy creation had been
delivered that afternoon, along with Gibson's new evening attire, there was no
question that Amy would wear the new frock that very evening.
 
She wanted to blame the lack of caution on
Gibson and the way he made her feel but the truth was, this change in her had
been well over a year in coming.
 
He had
only spurred the change a little faster than it might have occurred otherwise.

Amy could no longer stand idly by
while her life passed by without so much as one word of input from her.
 
The realization that there was, in all
probability, a man out there who meant to do her harm in some way had only
emboldened her.
 
She did not have to
scandalize herself, necessarily, but she also could no longer live her life as
The Paragon.
 
She was human and flawed
and it was time that the
ton
saw her as such.

Inaction - both on the part of her
as well as her parents - had put her in this position.
 
And she would not live her life frozen in
place any longer.
 
It felt wonderful to
finally be free of those old constraints.

After her confession to Gibson, Amy
had retreated to her room for a bit while he attended to his medical practice,
something he had let fall by the wayside the past fortnight.
 
Alone with her thoughts, she had searched
the depths of her soul and come to several conclusions, even if all of the
thinking had put her on the verge of a megrim.

The first was that in many ways,
she and her friend Julia were not so different.
 
Both of them had allowed their lives to be ruled by outside
factors.
 
While Julia's scars were
visible and public knowledge, Amy wounds were secret and buried deep.
 
However in both cases, the injuries were
still there, years after the original incidents occurred, and, in many ways,
still controlled their lives.
 
Julia,
however, had found the strength and courage to break free.
 
Amy knew she needed to be as brave if she
had any hope of changing her life for the better.

She needed more than to simply live
outside of her glass cage.
 
She needed
to chart her own course in life, at least as much as society would allow
without her scandalizing her family completely.

The second realization she had made
was that if the Runner that Gibson had hired could so easily discover the truth
of her past, others could as well.
 
It
was not the carefully guarded secret that she had always believed it to
be.
 
That meant that it was likely that
Lord Drake now knew the truth as well, and, unlike Gibson, he would use that
knowledge to hurt her.
 
Therefore, she
needed to take away that power before he could use it to his advantage.
 
On that point, she was stuck.

If she admitted to the long-ago
attack, she would lose her good standing in the
ton
.
 
Like Gibson, she would fall into disgrace
and her family would be tarnished as well.
 
There would be no forgiveness for her after all this time, no matter
that she had been little better than a child.
 
Or no matter how much royal blood flowed in her veins.

However, if she kept silent, Drake,
Overton, and possibly others, held power over her, once more rendering her a
pawn on a chessboard to be moved about at their whim.
 
That did not sit well with her either.
 
There had to be a way to free herself while still maintaining her
grace and dignity, as well as keeping her reputation, intact.
 
She simply did not know what it was.

Well, there was one option.
 
Gibson could marry her.
 
That would set off a fresh round of scandal
and gossip, certainly, but her reputation would not be irreparably harmed.
 
With the help of the scandal sheets, most
notably Lady X, who seemed to support a union between Amy and Gibson for some
mysterious reason, any claims that Amy had been ruined could be brushed aside
as jealousy from men who did not get the prize they were dangling after.

That included Mark Overton, who
only had the word of his social-climbing, fortune-grasping brother.
 
If the younger Overton was still alive, and
she wasn't even certain of that much.

Unfortunately, Gibson would not do
the very thing Amy longed for.
 
By now,
she knew the man well enough to realize that he would view an offer of marriage
from him as dishonoring her and bringing shame to her family.
 
That she loved him was irrelevant, or would
be in his eyes.
 
Though Gibson had yet
to say the words, she truly believed that he loved her as well.
 
Yet his honor and morality dictated that they
remain apart.
 
They could be together
now, for a short while, but in the end, he honestly believed that they were
fated to part.
 
That there could be no
compromise.

Another option was for Amy to enter
into some loveless, cold marriage with a man she probably didn't even
like.
 
Well, she hadn't done so thus far
in her life, and she wasn't about to do so now just to salvage Gibson's
pride.
 
Or her reputation.
 
She would have him, or she would remain a
spinster.
 
For her, there was no other
acceptable option.

"We are becoming an obstacle,
my lady.
 
May I suggest we move
elsewhere?"
 
Gibson nudged Amy
forward a bit and out of her thoughts so that others could pass.
 
The entertainment would not begin for
another hour and the guests were all still busy mingling and conversing with
one another.
 
In that moment, Amy saw
not a musicale, but rather a farce dressed up as a social event, every bit as
disingenuous as her perfect reputation.

It was unfair, really, to call the
event a musicale.
 
There was some music
certainly, roughly about twenty minutes worth of pianoforte playing, provided
by the Devonmont's eldest daughter, Jane, who had made her debut three seasons
previous.
 
The real reason for the
gathering was a blatant attempt to snare a husband for poor Jane, who, unlike
Amy, was far from a diamond of the first water.
 
Everyone knew it, but everyone also came to the musicale just the
same, mostly to see and be seen.
 
Jane
and her marital prospects were merely an afterthought for everyone, including
the eligible men in attendance.

In the corner of the room, the
gray-clad Lady Isabelle sat quietly with the other dragons, spinsters and
chaperones, on guard as she always was when Amy was out with Gibson.
 
She had a serene smile on her face, but her
clenched teeth indicated that she was not nearly as relaxed as she pretended to
be.
 
Though tonight she had no reason to
fear.
 
Both Amy and Gibson were on their
best and most proper behavior.

Around Amy, guests chattered and
moved, discussing the latest
on-dit
and what widow was secretly bedding
what rake.
 
Vicious, gossipy barbs were
flung with the sweetest of smiles and the matronly dragons had unsheathed their
claws, ready to attack if anyone said a single word against their precious
daughters.
  
Rakes tried to seduce young,
innocent girls, while widows vied with each other in repeated attempts to
become mistresses of unhappily married men.
 
Men bragged quietly of affairs and stared longingly at women's breasts,
clearly eager to sample the wares on display.
 
It was all just a play and the guests merely the actors in it.

At Amy's side, Gibson stood stiff
and proud next to her, so much better of a man than anyone here could ever hope
to be.
 
Unlike the others, he held
himself apart, not because he thought he was better than the others, but
because he thought himself unworthy.
 
And yet he was the only man in the room, apart from Radcliffe if he were
present, who was truly a gentleman at heart.

Anger bubbled up inside of Amy and
she wanted to scream.
 
For once, she
wanted to throw off the well-worn mask of The Paragon, and for just one night
allow them all to see Amy Cheltenham, daughter of an earl, who happened to be
in love with a man she could not have.
 
She wanted them to see Gibson as she did - a man every bit their equal and
possibly better.
 
She wanted them to
recognize him for the viscount that he truly was and still should be, if not
for his bastard of a father.

He was so handsome tonight, his
dark brown hair a gorgeous contrast to the green of his waistcoat.
 
His eyes, so troubled tonight, had taken on
a dark golden hue, almost amber she decided, and appeared lit from within by a
passion that he was finding it more difficult to tame as the days passed.
 
Yet he stood on alert, almost daring someone
to approach and make trouble for her.
 
This was Gibson Blackwell, the Viscount of Ardenton, a man who should be
a true part of this world and not separate from it.
 
In an instant, Amy felt all of her old anger over his situation
come roaring back with a vengeance.
 
Yet
she controlled it, not wanting to embarrass him with her actions.

These thoughts and feelings were
not like her.
 
She was always composed
and controlled.
 
Cool and
emotionless.
 
It was how she had earned
her reputation.
 
She was always a lady,
never a hoyden or a lightskirt.
 
Was
this what being in love did to a person?
 
She did not know, but in that moment, she was frightened of what she
might do or say if she remained where she was for much longer.

What in the world was wrong with
her?

Love, she realized suddenly.
 
Love
was what was wrong with her and
had been since that day in August.
 
On
that humid, sticky afternoon as she had been busy baring her body to Gibson,
she had been baring her heart to him as well - even though she hadn't realized
it at the time.
 
And that silly, foolish
heart of hers had gone and fallen in love without informing her of its
decision.
 
Instead, it had allowed her
to go on thinking that she did not need Gibson in her life to be happy, that
she could be perfectly fine without him.