Once Upon a Scandal Read online

  “Nothing will go on between us,” she seethed. “Of that, you may rest assured.” But dear God, he was right. Her situation was far worse than she’d allowed herself to believe. And he knew it. He’d discarded all pretenses of gentlemanly behavior.

  “If you choose the streets over me, Jane, your fine manners and lofty pretensions will hardly protect you.” He turned to the door but stopped before opening it, looking back at her. “Then again, it might be exciting to see you brought low and not quite so proud.”

  And with that, he departed, as her horrified gasp echoed in the room.

  • • •

  After the frightening encounter with Rempley, Jane returned to the library, her feet unsteady. Everything in the room was several degrees off center, as if distorted in a poorly crafted looking glass. Or was she the one off center? She’d always been so proud of her place in Society, confident her breeding would protect her. She’d just learned otherwise. None of her etiquette books would offer a way out of this fix.

  She sat behind Father’s desk, withdrawing a piece of parchment and a quill to write out a list of her options. She was very fond of lists, which were so orderly and concise, after all. Once she’d mapped everything out, things would seem far less bleak.

  Option One: Submit to Sir Aldus.

  Which she refused to do. Better to take up holy orders, even though she wasn’t much in charity with the Lord right now. And given her behavior this morning, He’d probably spear her with a lightning bolt if she dared to try.

  Option Two: Throw myself upon the mercy of my few remaining friends.

  When the scope of Father’s misdeeds had become public, Alec and Annabelle, the Earl and Countess of Dorset, had invited her to stay at Arbury Hall in Nuneaton, away from the palpable disaffection that followed her in the City. But, any day now, Annabelle would give birth to their first child. And besides, one could only tolerate so much marital bliss. When she was feeling less than charitable, their love bordered on the nauseating.

  There was also Sophia Middleton, the Countess of Marchmain. An eccentric with a spotted reputation of her own, Lady Marchmain was planning a European tour and had claimed she’d be lonely without Jane’s accompaniment. A bold lie, of course, though an appreciated one. But the countess was in Nuneaton, as well. Annabelle was her niece, and while it was difficult to imagine her bearing witness to the birth, Lady Marchmain would certainly be the first to toast it with a glass of brandy. Not that she would stop at one.

  Option Three:

  She chewed on her lower lip, because that small bite of pain sometimes sparked inspiration. So did drumming her fingertips on the surface of the desk. She also stroked the quill against her cheek and moved the inkwell precisely two inches to the left, because it looked better there.

  Unfortunately, Option Three was not making itself readily apparent. Perhaps answers lay elsewhere? Her eyes swept the room, falling to the sideboard not far from the fireplace. Upon it sat the last bottle of Father’s prized French cognac, a short glass beside it.

  She promptly looked away. She’d never indulged in spirits, and now was no time to start. The very idea!

  Then again, Father had always claimed it made a bad day brighter. She’d need a vat of the stuff to improve this one. Setting aside her list, she walked over and uncorked the bottle, pouring a small measure and lifting it to her mouth. Its wafting smell was enough to make her eyes sting. Best to get it down all at once then. Offering a silent apology to A Lady of Distinction’s Guide—which glowered from the bookshelves in condemnation—she closed her eyes and swallowed. The cognac burned, nearly curdling the contents of her stomach, but she’d not let weakness defeat her. She was far too determined.

  Luckily, the second glass descended more easily.

  And the third? Well, it was very nearly bliss. No wonder Father had liked it so much. Ladies of Distinction did not know what they were missing!

  She’d read that the excessive consumption of spirits led to very bad things … bilious features and fevers, degenerative illness, and atrophied body parts. But none of that seemed consequential at the moment. She was so glad she hadn’t saved the cognac for her cousin, Gerard. He was a bit of a bastard and hardly deserved it.

  Dear Lord, just a few small tipples and she was swearing like a docker. Not that anyone could hear her. And wasn’t that a marvelous thing to realize? She could think all sorts of shocking, scandalous thoughts. She just couldn’t say them aloud. The rule to which she’d always adhered—be ladylike in thoughts as well as deeds—had just been shattered by the lovely haze of her insobriety.

  She wished she’d discovered cognac sooner. She was close to crying because she hadn’t. Why must men keep all the best things for themselves? Like strong spirits, and boxing clubs where one could purge one’s frustrations, and ancestral homes. God save the King and all that, but Britain’s inheritance laws were horribly unfair. And very possibly, they encouraged insanity. After all, old King George had been given any number of titles, estates, and countries upon his birth, and he babbled incessantly now, talking to dead people. Or so Father had said.

  She wished she could talk to dead people. She’d ask Father why he’d mucked up so many things.

  Why she was being forced to leave their home.

  If little Violet, too, would sit in the window seat of Jane’s bedroom, dreaming of a handsome husband and the blessings of children …

  This would not do, this depressing turn in her thoughts. Perhaps another glass—just a tiny one—would return her to the heady state of her initial euphoria. She poured a draught, although the mouth of her glass had shrunk in size, causing some of the cognac to slosh over its sides. Such a loss! But she swallowed its contents nonetheless.

  Really, it was marvelous stuff. Perhaps Thompson and Bess would like some? She reached for the bell pull, but they’d be too shocked by her drunkenness to join in. With whom should she share the pleasures of this sin, now that she’d abandoned all propriety? Because one ought to be generous. She’d not forget that dictate.

  Someone known for enjoying sin. Someone who’d already proven he had little else worth doing today. Someone well acquainted with the intimacies the wretched Sir Aldus had hinted at.

  It took her a moment to find a piece of stationery and yet another to still her hand enough to write the thing. Even if her usually impeccable penmanship had deserted her, she was quite happy with the note when she was done and rang for Thompson. She had an invitation that needed delivering this very instant.

  Chapter 2

  Like everything else of greatest value, sobriety’s worth is best known by its loss.—Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women

  Benjamin read the note in his hands for the third time, as if that might possibly change the wording of it and make him feel less guilty than he already did. When it had arrived, he’d been preparing for an evening out, making the final adjustments to a new cravat design that Withers, his valet, called The Pinstripe. It had been more than an hour in the making—an absurd waste of time—but people expected perfection from the Viscount Marworth. Not to mention effortless charm and wit. How long had he pretended to be someone he was not? A lifetime, it seemed. And now this note, a reminder that his time was not his own and that his actions were less than honorable.

  Lord Marworth,

  Thank you for coming to my father’s graveside. At first, I suspected your motives. But I’ve since decided you are my best and most sincere friend. Therefore, I invite you to join me in a bottle of cognac. Although be warned, it is vanishing quickly.

  Sincerely,

  Jane Fitzsimmons

  He rubbed a hand over his eyes to block his vision of the thing, because the woman hardly deserved the situation in which she found herself or the condemnation that had befallen her. Nor, in all honesty, his visit to her father’s funeral today.

  He was not her best friend. Far from it.

  While there were those who suspected otherwise—people who made it their business to be s
uspicious—he knew her to be an admirable woman. He’d been there, after all, at the occasion of her downfall, the debut of the luminous Annabelle Layton, now married to his friend, Alec Carstairs. Jane’s father had planned an elaborate ruse to destroy them. All because Alec had fallen in love with Annabelle while courting Jane.

  But Miss Fitzsimmons had uncovered his plan and exposed it, causing her own social suicide in the process. Because, in London society, scandal was a contagion, killing off not just the guilty but their family members, too. It had been a singularly courageous act on her part.

  Really, Benjamin had felt like a vulture circling a corpse today. That slight figure, wreathed in mourning, alone in a cemetery in the rain. Her grief had been a palpable thing. Her bitterness, too, well-earned, because Lord Reginald Fitzsimmons had been an ass of the first order. But was he any better? He’d gone to the graveyard not to offer comfort but to sow the first seeds of a connection, to ingratiate himself and gain her trust.

  He just hadn’t expected to accomplish it so quickly. Good God, best friend indeed. No doubt that had been the cognac speaking, though it was hard to imagine her indulging in spirits, let alone to excess. Jane Fitzsimmons had always been as stiff and starched as any dowager duchess. Even his best attempts to charm her had fallen flat—and he could be very charming when he set his mind to it. In his line of work, it was an imperative.

  Still, the deceit of this left a sour taste in his mouth. She was a woman in mourning, vulnerable and possibly drunk in the bargain. Essentially defenseless. This was no time to take advantage. It went against every gentleman’s code of conduct.

  But he would set aside his guilt, because he was a gentleman in name only, and her invitation was too good an opportunity to pass up. Turning to a cheval mirror, he made a final check of his appearance and paused. So many seemed to envy the reflection staring back. Was he the only one who noticed the stiffness of that ready smile? It had etched faint lines near his mouth and at the corners of his eyes, each of them cracks in his façade. Turning away from the image, he called out to a footman for his carriage to be brought round. It was too late for self-reflection and past time to find out if Miss Fitzsimmons knew any of her father’s secrets. Because there was every chance he’d been more than just a man trying to avenge his daughter. There was every chance he’d been a traitor, selling Britain’s secrets to her enemies.

  • • •

  “The Viscount Marworth, to see Miss Fitzsimmons,” he said, handing the butler his card. The older man stepped aside, ushering him into a broad hallway with marble floors and pleasing lines. There was very little furniture in the large space, however, and its walls, covered in a faded cream damask, showed the outlines of paintings no longer there. Fitzsimmons’s gambling losses had not been exaggerated.

  “Right this way, my lord,” the butler said, disapproval steeling his voice. No doubt he’d been the one to see her note sent, and they both knew it was not done—inviting a gentleman to visit an unmarried woman alone. Just a short way down the hall and to the left, they stopped. The butler rapped gently on the door, a female voice mumbling something in response. “My mistress is not herself this evening, so I will be right outside this door.” And though the man was at least thirty years older than Benjamin and about six inches shorter, he’d obviously intended the words as a warning.

  With a faint nod, Benjamin moved into the room, and whatever he’d expected to see, it had not been this. Prim and proper Jane Fitzsimmons sitting in a puff of black skirts on the floor, tossing books into a fireplace with the zealousness of a religious convert, and sighing in satisfaction as they curled to a crisp.

  “I didn’t take you for the sort to burn books, Miss Fitzsimmons.”

  She turned at the sound of his voice, her eyes widening as they settled upon him. “Lord Marworth, you’ve come. I’m so glad! It has been a challenge to save the cognac for you, but that’s what friends do, is it not?”

  And if the whole of her statement had been slurred rather than spoken, he would not mention it. “The books, Miss Fitzsimmons? May I ask what they’ve done to deserve such a tortured end?”

  “These books, you mean?” She gestured haphazardly to the pile beside her.

  “Indeed.” His eyes scanned the shelves behind her. At least she hadn’t pulled all of them down. Socrates and Plato were still safe … for the moment.

  “Well, they’re good for nothing now, you see. They’re books on etiquette and manners, and I’ve decided not to give a damn about them anymore.”

  Had she really just done that? Sworn out loud? Society’s paragon of all things proper?

  “I hadn’t known there were so many on the subject.” At least a dozen remained in the pile, and by the look of things, she’d been at this for quite some time. Her face was flushed from the heat of the fire, and her brown hair had escaped its tight bun to curl in tendrils about her face. She looked … beautiful, actually, if slightly manic. He’d always considered her an attractive woman, with a high forehead, an elegant nose, and striking eyes. They were a rich chocolate in color, flecked with amber. But he’d rarely seen her smile. One always had the sense she had something more important to do than fritter about Society. And his persona was very much that of a fritterer. Right now, though, she was beaming up at him, and it was something to behold, that smile. It seemed to light her from within.

  “Oh, the cognac!” she suddenly cried, rising unsteadily on her feet to toddle over to the desk. “I’m afraid there’s only the one glass, but you can drink out of the bottle if you want to … no, I forget myself. That is an impolite offer for such a good friend. You may have the glass, and I will take the bottle.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Miss Fitzsimmons,” he said, fighting back a wry smile. “I’ll request an additional glass.” As promised, her butler was still at the door. “An extra glass and a pot of strong tea, if you please,” he said in an undertone. “If you can make it resemble cognac, all the better.” When he returned his attention to Jane, she was watching him with soulful eyes, like a puppy. Damnation, he’d always had a weakness for strays, and she seemed more lost than most. It would make his task here all the more difficult.

  Speaking of difficulty, she was experiencing quite a bit of it as she tried to pour cognac into the waiting glass. With great concentration, however, she managed it without a spill and turned to face him, beaming with pride, her slender body swaying slightly.

  In three quick strides, he was taking the glass from her hand and guiding her by the elbow to a wing chair near the fire. He sat down in a matching chair on the opposite side, determined to get this over and done. “Miss Fitzsimmons, you’ve had quite an upset, what with the sudden passing of your father. It must have been a shock.”

  “Oh, yes indeed,” she said, the glow dimming in those remarkable eyes. “He’d been so desperate of late, what with the scandal and being booted from the Lords, and losing the income on his lands. And, of course, no one liked him anymore. I think that was the hardest thing of all … ”

  Intoxicated individuals were often moody, but she’d fallen into sadness so quickly, it was like watching a candle be snuffed out. She was staring into the fire, and he fought the instinct to offer comfort, because she’d share more information this way. Grief usually broke through the strongest wall of reserve.

  “And the manner of his death,” he continued, feeling like a reprobate. “That was most unfortunate, as well.”

  “Beaten to death outside a gambling hall.” She said it without looking up. “A very sad end, indeed.”

  “Sharpe’s ... I was surprised to learn he’d been found there.”

  “He said he was going to restore our fortunes,” she said quietly. “I’d thought he had plans to discuss with Sir Aldus. But he must have gotten waylaid. Damn the man.”

  “You’ve every right to be upset. Your father said and did things he ought not.” Betraying his country most likely among them.

  “I know that,” she huffed, her eyes takin
g on a militant light. “But I’m not damning my father. I’m damning that damned Sir Aldus.”

  She had an inordinate fondness for the word. Four damns in a single conversation. Astounding. “What did Sir Aldus do?” It was because of Rempley, after all, that Benjamin was here. He’d reported the theft of the dispatches, sent from the frontlines by Wellington himself. If they ended up in the wrong hands …

  “He’s the reason I must burn all my books,” she replied, tossing another one into the flames.

  Obviously, Benjamin needed to be more specific. “What did Sir Aldus do to upset you?”

  “He was at the funeral, you know,” she said, sliding back into her sadness. “And he sent a draft to help cover the costs of it. I was certain he meant to propose when he came to the house today. He’s proposed any number of times.”

  Unease crept along his spine. “What happened instead?”

  “He insisted he was doing me quite the honor.”

  “Go on,” he said, as unease flared into something else. Something darker.

  She flushed with color. “He expects me to be his mistress.”

  How repugnant, to take advantage of a woman who’d buried her father this very day. Pushing aside the nagging thought he was doing much the same thing, he focused instead on the man trying to debase a grieving innocent. It went against everything decent.

  “Are you sure that was his intention? It sounds out of character.”

  “I may be drunk, Lord Marworth, but I am not a dullard,” she said haughtily, only to ruin the effect by hiccupping. “He is giving me a week to realize I have no other options.”

  “No matter what he says, you need not submit to him.” The bastard.

  “Oh, I’d never submit to old Rempley. But perhaps you can help me,” she said, brightening briefly. “By reputation, you’re familiar with the ladies of the demimonde, and I’m wondering if that’s something I should aspire to. Because courtesan sounds so much nicer than whore, don’t you think?”