Scandal of the Year (7 page)

She perceived his embarrassment, though he hoped not the reason for it. “La, la,” she said, laughing, “see how the boy blushes!”

“You, miss,” he said stiffly, “are a flirt and a tease.”

She didn’t seem in the least offended by his reproof. But after a moment of silence, her amusement faded and she said in all seriousness, “You don’t like to be teased, do you?”

“No. Nor do I like to be flirted with by a girl about to marry someone else.”

“Flirtation is harmless. You should try it sometime. Although,” she amended, “perhaps that wouldn’t be wise. A handsome prince shouldn’t flirt, I suppose. Too much risk to the hearts of girls in the kingdom.”

He didn’t know how to respond to such nonsense. “Thank you for the compliment,” he said, taking refuge in good manners, “but I’m not a prince. Merely a duke.” He bowed. “Aidan Carr, Duke of Trathen, at your service.”

“A duke?” She laughed merrily, not seeming the least bit impressed by his rank. “Well, I was right then, for a duke’s very close to a prince, isn’t it? I’m so glad we met. Sleeping Beauty does need a prince, although you seem to have woken me without even giving me a kiss.” She sighed. “I feel thoroughly let down.”

He had no talent for flirtation, and he decided it was wise not to try. “You hardly need me for that role. Your fiancé,” he added as she gave him a puzzled stare. “Isn’t he your prince?”

Something he couldn’t quite fathom came into her face, something that was like a shadow. It made him uneasy. “Oh yes,” she agreed, an odd inflection in her voice, “he’s my prince.”

“You say that as if he isn’t.”

She shook her head and laughed again, dispelling his uneasiness. “He isn’t a prince, not really, nor even a duke. Merely a baron.”

“A baron?” He eyed the urchin before him with doubt. “Your fiancé is a baron?”

She drew herself up as if affronted, but she was smiling. “What, do you think I’m not good enough to marry a peer?”

“I didn’t mean it that way—” He stopped and gave a sigh. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right. You’re quite right about me, you know,” she added softly, her smile twisting a little. “I may be the niece of an earl and the daughter of a squire, but despite what my parents want for me, I’m not the sort of girl who ought to marry an aristocrat. I’m more pixy than peeress, I fear.”

As if to prove the truth of that, she proceeded to shock him yet again. Turning on the bridge, she hitched her heavy skirt a bit higher, crossed her legs beneath her, and pulled a rolled cigarette and a match from the pocket of her gown.

He stared at her, surprised, though he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by anything at this point. “You smoke,” he said flatly.

“He disapproves!” she said, her dark brows drawing together in what he suspected was an imitation of his own expression at this moment. “The girl is so uncivilized! She swears. She smokes. She goes about barefoot. Deuce take it, she even whistles!”

Pursing her lips, she gave him a few bars of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,” then her impudent manner once again fell away and she assumed a crestfallen air. “You do disapprove of me. I’m hurt,” she added with a sniff. “Brokenhearted. I shall go off now and pine for you until the end of my days.”

She looked so comically tragic, he almost smiled, but then she put the cigarette between her lips and struck the match on the weathered wood of the bridge, and any inclination he had to smile vanished. “Why do you engage in such a vile habit?” he asked, suddenly angry.

It was her turn to stare. Over the lit match in her hand, her vivid eyes widened in surprise at his sudden outburst. He was rather surprised himself, for he was angry with her for smoking, and he didn’t even know why he felt that way, or why he’d been so forthright in expressing it. Whatever behavior this girl chose to engage in, it wasn’t his affair.

“Heaven bless the man, we’re not in someone’s drawing room,” she muttered around the cigarette between her lips. She lit it, then tossed the match into the water and exhaled a stream of smoke overhead. “No velvet draperies that the overworked maids shall have to shake out later,” she added, took another pull on the cigarette, and blew a perfect smoke ring in his direction. “Why shouldn’t I smoke?”

He moved aside and the wispy ring sailed past him, disintegrating on the summer breeze. “It leaves an unpleasant odor on clothes as well as drapes and cushions,” he pointed out.

“Well, yes, I suppose it does, but it’s not as if one cigarette makes much difference there. Simply everyone smokes nowadays.” She made an up-and-down gesture at him with the lit cigarette. “Present company excepted, obviously. But unless you live like a hermit, you’re bound to smell like tobacco most of the time anyway, so what does my little cigarette matter to the scent of your clothes?”

“Women should not smoke. It isn’t decorous.”

“Decorous?” She burst out laughing. “I’ve never been decorous in my life.”

“It’s vile,” he repeated stubbornly. “And some doctors fear it has an adverse effect upon the lungs. Bad enough that men engage in it, but for women to do so is even worse.”

“How puritanical you are! You don’t smoke, you don’t drink, and you’re filled with moral rectitude and propriety.” She frowned. “I don’t think the handsome prince ought to be like that.”

“And I don’t think a baron would want his wife to smoke.”

Her violet eyes met his, and there was a cool, metallic flash of defiance in their depths as she took another pull on the cigarette and exhaled the smoke. “I already told you, I’ve been defying authority all my life. I’m about to make a respectable marriage and atone for all my sins, but I shall have my petty rebellions all the same. No other way to keep my sanity.”

“Your fiancé might cry off if he found out.”

“He already knows.” There was such hardness in her piquant face that he was startled, but when she spoke, her voice was quite cheerful. “But he’s determined to have me despite all my flaws.”

“But that’s a good thing.” He paused. “Isn’t it?”

“Of course!” She tossed her cigarette into the stream and reached for the velvet slippers beside her. “Well, handsome prince, I’d best be off,” she said as she put them on. “It’s almost curtain time, and if I’m late, they’ll be thinking I’ve done a funk. If you want to come and watch me ruin the show, we’ve set up the stage on the village green. Admission one shilling.” With that, she stood up, lifted her spinning wheel into her arms, and turned away, whistling as she started down the other side of the bridge.

“Wait!” he called after her. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Julie.” She laughed, turning around to look at him even as she kept walking away. “At least that’s what my friends call me.”

“Friends? But we aren’t friends. We’re barely acquainted.”

“We shall be friends though. I’m quite determined.”

“Why should you be?”

“Because you don’t like me, that’s why.”

He shook his head, bemused. “Even if that were true, it makes no sense.”

“Yes, it does. I hate not being liked. Besides . . .” She paused to glance over her shoulder to see where her backward steps were taking her, then she returned her intense gaze to him and went on, “I like you, despite your snooty manner and your morality and your hopelessly old-fashioned ideas. We shall be friends one day. You might as well resign yourself to it now,” she added before he could protest that he was not snooty, “for you haven’t a hope of resisting me. Cheerio.”

She shifted the spinning wheel to one arm, pressed the palm of her free hand to her lips and blew him a smacking kiss, then turned her back and walked away.

Aidan watched her go, telling himself he ought to be relieved by her departure. She did things no young lady ought to do. She said things that caught him off-guard, nonsensical things to which he could think of no intelligent response and shrewd things that made him uncomfortable. She was flippant and brazen and rebellious, and even though she was engaged to be married, she had no scruples about flirting with men.

Still, despite all that, as she vanished from sight amid the trees, he felt something that wasn’t relief at all, but regret. He’d never before encountered a storybook heroine, and he knew he’d probably never see this one again.

It would be ten years before circumstances proved him wrong.

Chapter Six

Y
ou again!” Startled, he jumped to his feet, staring in dismay at the woman in his study, a woman he couldn’t seem to avoid no matter how he tried. “What the devil are you doing here?”

She eased back the ermine wrap that was slung round her shoulders, revealing a disconcerting amount of décolleté to his view. “I might ask you the same question.”

Aidan was in no mood for riddles. He folded his arms and glared down at her. “How did you enter my home without my butler knowing about it?”

“Well, I didn’t break in, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She gestured to her evening gown. “Climb through a first floor window in this ensemble? Heavens, no! I opened the door and walked in. No one seemed to notice. Really, Aidan,” she added, shaking her head as if in amazement, “it doesn’t seem like you to have such an inferior butler. He must be a new man.”

Covington was new, but he had no intention of admitting that fact to her. She might have a talent for observation and deduction, but he didn’t have to encourage it. “You walked in?” he said with some skepticism. “Just like that?”

“I rang the bell.” She shrugged. “No one answered. A domestic crisis involving one of the maids, it seems. At least that’s the conclusion I drew from all the shouting your butler was doing. You should give him the sack,” she went on as she opened the small gold evening bag on her lap and rummaged inside. “He doesn’t ensure that your doors are latched at night. That’s madness here in London. Why, anyone could just walk in, abscond with some of that lovely Tass silver you’ve got displayed in your foyer, and be back out the door in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

She paused long enough to pull out a slim, enameled case and extract a cigarette and a match, but before he could raise an objection to her smoking, she went on, “He abuses the lower servants, Aidan. He was berating that poor maid of yours loudly enough that I could hear his insults before I’d even reached your front door! Evidently, she missed a bit of soot when she was polishing the fireplace fender or some such nonsense, and he had the poor girl in tears over it.” She paused, and a queer, frozen brittleness came into her face. “She’s terrified of him.”

Aidan frowned, not liking her implications about his butler, liking even less what he saw in her face. But then she looked up at him and smiled again, and the brittleness dissolved into her usual cheerful impudence. “Mind if I smoke?”

“I do mind, as a matter of fact. You know how I feel about it. And I thought you said you were trying to stop this particular vice.”

“I am trying, but it isn’t going very well.” She sighed and shot him an apologetic look. “I’ve no willpower at all, I’m afraid.”

“Try harder,” he said, unfolding his arms and leaning down to yank the cigarette and the match out of her hands. He tossed the offending items into the fireplace. “Women should not smoke. It’s—”

“Not decorous, yes, I know,” she interrupted. “You said that the first time we ever met.”

It surprised him that she still remembered their very first conversation, but then every time he saw her, she seemed able to surprise him, shock him, and keep him off-balance. It was very trying.

“You haven’t changed since then, by the way,” she told him. “Your notions about what women should do are as antiquated now as they were when we were seventeen. But really, Aidan, when have I ever done what I should?”

“Never,” he acknowledged with a sigh.

“Besides, I don’t think my smoking habit, shameless as it is, ought to be your greatest concern at this moment. You’ve something far more important to worry about, I fear.”

“And what is that?”

“The time, darling! It’s after ten.” She sighed, looking at him and shaking her head. “And you’re not even dressed for the opera.”

“Opera?” Realization dawned, followed by dismay. “Lady Felicia. Damn and blast, I completely forgot.”

She laughed. “Lady Felicia does have that effect on men.”

He cast her an impatient glance as he pulled out his pocket watch, not nearly as amused as she seemed to be. He confirmed the time, his dismay growing. “I’ve already missed the first intermission.”

“Don’t worry, petal. You shall arrive in plenty of time to make the second one. That is,” she added, rising to follow him as he put his watch away and started for the door, “if your valet is more efficient than your butler. If so, you’ll be able to change clothes and be at Covent Garden just in time. Still, if I were you, I wouldn’t rush it, not to be in Lady Felicia’s company. You already have a ticket, I hope?”

He stopped and turned to find her so close that she almost cannoned into him. Instinctively, he put his hands on her arms to steady them both. The moment he did, he felt her silky skin against his palms and jerked his hands down, but it was already too late. With just that brief contact, arousal began flooding his body.

He took a deep breath, trying to think. “I don’t need a ticket. I have a box, something I’m surprised you don’t know, since you seem to know everything else about me. And since we’re on the subject, how do you know I’m supposed to be attending the opera and meeting Lady Felicia? Never mind,” he added as she opened her mouth to explain. “I don’t want to know.”

He turned and started for the stairs, but then he remembered what she’d said about Covington, and he paused to give the bellpull at the foot of the stairs a hard yank. As he waited for his summons to be answered, Julia did not depart. Instead, she paused by the front door as the parlor maid, Ellis, came running from the back of the house.

The moment Aidan saw the servant’s face, Julia’s concern was confirmed. The maid’s lip was cut and her cheek was swollen, and it was clear she’d been backhanded, hard. When she looked at him, he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed from weeping, and there was a painful resignation in her expression that told him she fully expected to be dismissed from her post as the one to blame. Rage began seeping into Aidan’s bones, and he wondered if Scotland Yard would do anything to punish a duke if he beat his soon-to-be former butler to a bloody pulp.

The maid ducked her head and dipped a curtsy, lowering her gaze to the floor. “You rang the bell, sir?”

“I did, Miss Ellis. Tell Mrs. Bowles to cancel the supper I requested, and have my carriage brought around. And have a footman inform Covington that I wish to see him in my rooms at once.”

Her shoulders drooped, her resignation deepening into despair. “Yes, sir,” she whispered, and started to depart, but he stopped her.

“Ellis?” When she paused, he said gently, “Tell Bowles I said to make an ice poultice for you. And don’t be uneasy, my girl. You won’t be sacked, and he won’t strike you again. He’ll be gone before I leave this evening. I promise you.”

The poor girl’s knees almost caved beneath her and she gave a sob of relief.

“I will inform Mrs. Ward of this situation before I depart,” he went on. “As housekeeper, she will be in charge until a new butler is engaged. You may go.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” She curtsied again and departed, practically stumbling over her own feet in her haste to carry out his instructions.

When she was gone, he glanced at Julia and found her watching him. She started to speak, then stopped and swallowed hard. It was several moments before she tried again. “You’re a good man, Aidan,” she said at last.

He looked away, embarrassed yet strangely pleased, though he didn’t feel he deserved praise for his action. No true gentleman would continue to employ a butler who abused the lower servants, or any other woman for that matter. “Why the devil are you still here?” he said in a gruff voice as he started up the stairs. “I thought you said you had plans this evening?”

“I’m going, I’m going,” she assured him as she opened the front door. “I don’t want to miss the Ride of the Valkyries. It’s my favorite part.”

“You’re going to Covent Garden, too?” He stopped again and turned on the landing to look at her. “Of course you are,” he muttered, answering his own question. “Why should my luck change now?”

She smiled that dazzling smile of hers. “Want to share a cab?”

Despite everything, he could feel an answering smile tugging at the corners of his own mouth. He turned away before she could see it, for he didn’t want to encourage her.

“I saw that,” she called after him as he continued up the stairs.

He grinned. He couldn’t help it. She really was the most outrageous woman. She always had been.

The second intermission had just begun when Julia returned to Covent Garden. Paul and Eugenia were attending the opera with her, but only Paul was in the Danbury box when she entered it.

Paul, fair-haired and brown-eyed like their mutual cousin Beatrix, stood by the rail, staring down at the crowd below and drinking a glass of champagne. “All alone?” she asked as she crossed to his side.

He turned to her as she joined him at the rail, visibly relieved. “Mum saw that the Marlowe family is here, and she went to have a visit with them during intermission. Where on earth have you been? I thought you were only slipping out for some fresh air, but you’ve been gone over an hour.”

“I encountered some people I knew, and we started talking, and the minutes just flew by. I didn’t realize how much time had passed until other people began streaming outside and I realized it was the second intermission.”

Julia was able to utter this slew of lies without a blush. A lifetime of being rebellious and twelve years of marriage to Yardley had given her a perfectly honed ability to lie whenever she deemed it necessary.

Paul accepted the story without even asking whom she’d encountered outside. “Well, thank heaven you’re back. Mother insisted upon whispering to me all during the second act because she didn’t have you to talk to instead.”

“Driving you a bit batty, was she?” Julia asked with sympathy as she set her evening bag on her seat and draped her stole over the crimson velvet back.

“Rather. Why you women insist upon watching people through your opera glasses and gossiping, instead of watching the performance, is beyond my understanding.”

“Darling Paul, no one—except you, perhaps—goes to the opera for what’s on stage. The audience is the interesting part.” She chuckled as she glanced across the way and located Vale’s box. Squinting, she could make out a feminine figure in pale green standing by the railing, but she was too far away to see who it was, and in any case, there seemed to be no one else in Vale’s box at present. Aidan, who’d had to change into evening clothes, hadn’t yet arrived.

Julia bent down to retrieve her opera glasses from the pocket attached to the short wall in front of her seat, for when he did appear, she wanted to be ready. She adored comedy, and watching Aidan, so polite and proper, attempt to escape Lady Felicia was sure to be deuced amusing. She’d been looking forward to it ever since visiting Vivienne the day before, and she’d been so disappointed when the first intermission had come and gone with no sign of him, so disappointed in fact that she’d had to go looking for him.

“Anyway,” Paul went on, “I forbid you to leave your seat again until this is over, Julie. That way, Mum will resume chatting with you about who’s here and with whom, and who’s wearing which jewels, and I can enjoy the music.”

“I shall be happy to be your buffer, Paul. It’s the least I can do, after the way you’ve so staunchly stood by me.”

“Of course I’ll stand by you. We all will. Family, you know. I just wish I’d been able to rid you of that blackguard years ago.”

“I know.” She squeezed his arm affectionately. “But there was nothing you could have done, and it’s over now. I’m just sorry the family has to endure the humiliation of it all.”

“No need to be sorry. I suppose any woman married to Yardley would eventually be driven into the arms of another man.”

That made her almost want to smile. Paul was such a pet. He actually believed it had all been accidental and romantic.

“Who’d have dreamed Yardley would kick up such a fuss over you having an affair? But still, Julie . . . Aidan?” He paused and shook his head, looking at her, bemused. “You could have knocked me down with a feather—all of us, really—when the story came out. We didn’t think the two of you even liked each other, and with Trix having been engaged to him, and all that—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I’m babbling. Point is, having you home again has been a godsend. You’ve been back less than a week, and already my life is so much more pleasant.”

“I’m glad.” She hesitated, then said, “Is there no chance you and Susanna could—”

“No,” he cut her off before she could finish asking about his wife’s possible return to England from America. “She has informed me she intends to stay in Newport indefinitely.”

Julia sighed and sank down onto her chair. “I do wish you two would work things out.”

“We can’t.” His face was frozen, his body stiff as he sat down beside her. “It’s not possible.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well, love’s rotten.” He tried to smile. “When it’s over.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but it’s wonderful while it lasts.”

She looked down over the rail, but in her mind’s eye, she didn’t see the boxes across the way with their crimson velvet seats and their gilded moldings and lavishly dressed patrons. Instead, she saw the lodge on her father’s estate and the man who had leased it, a dozen years older than she, a man with long hair and Dangerous Ideas. “I was in love once.”