Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (2 page)

As Geoffrey and his mother exited the house and entered the carriage, he ruminated over his selection in Lady Beatrice. Modest, demure, and lovely with flaxen curls, she would make him a lovely wife. He had it upon good authority that the young lady would be in attendance at Lord and Lady Hughes’s ball this evening.

The groom closed the carriage door, and a few moments later, the conveyance rocked to motion. Geoffrey consulted his timepiece. Tonight would mark the perfect time to launch his courtship. If he were to maintain his very rigid timeline and wed, three Sundays past his thirtieth birthday, he couldn’t afford to tarry.

“Have you settled on a young lady?” His mother interrupted his ponderings. “Oh, surely with your rigid expectations and insistence on propriety, you must have.”

He frowned, not particularly caring for that unflattering description from the woman who’d given him life—even if it was a fair assessment of his character.

“Do tell?” his mother pressed.

It mattered not that she’d discover soon enough, his mother was as tenacious as a dog with a bone.

“I do not require any assistance on your part.”

Mother pressed a hand to her breast. “My goodness,” she said, with hurt flashing in her eyes. “Do you imagine I would be unable to assist you?”

“I don’t imagine I’ll need anyone’s help securing the young lady’s hand,” he said, dryly.

She leaned over and patted him on the knee. “Why, every gentleman requires the help of one’s mother, dear boy…” Her words cut off abruptly. A glimmer flicked to life in her eyes. “Ahh, so there is a
particular
young lady.”

Geoffrey bit back a curse. With his mother’s ability to ferret out secrets, she’d be better served working for the Home Office.

The carriage drew to a blessed stop.

Mother sat back in the red velvet squabs with a huff. “Very well,” she groused.

A servant rapped on the door.

“Just a moment, Geoffrey. Won’t you tell…?”

“No.”

Her lips turned down at the corners. “I shouldn’t have to gather it from gossips and newspapers.”

He jumped out of the carriage and made his way up the steps of the townhouse awash in the soft glow of candlelight. As his mother fell into step alongside him, she grumbled under her breath.

They sailed through the doors, into a wall of heat from the crush of bodies that filled Lord and Lady Hughes’s ballroom. From his place in the receiving line, he scanned the room in search of the woman he’d decided to make his wife.

As he sought her out, he contemplated his very deliberate courtship. If he were to secure a waltz and a quadrille this evening, and a waltz and some country reel at the next event they attended, it would send a very clear message that…

He froze.

That…

Geoffrey’s body went taut, and the breath left him. His stare fixed on a tall, lithe young woman, a veritable Spartan warrior princess amidst a room of lesser English ladies. With midnight black locks arranged in an artful design, and elegantly high-cheekbones, she possessed the kind of beauty that made a man do foolish things, like forget to breathe, or what was worse, caused a man to forget responsibility.

Remembrances of past transgressions teased his mind, but the woman, a stranger to him, was like a siren, silently calling, beckoning him. Two loose strands hung down her creamy white shoulders. Another toppled from the butterfly comb that held back those magnificent tresses, ending all such illusion that the flyaway locks were at all deliberate. He ached to capture one between his fingers and ascertain whether the strands were as silken as they appeared in the glow emitted by the chandelier’s gentle flame.

As if being mocked by the gods, Lady Beatrice Dennington’s brother, the Marquess of Westfield, walked up to the young woman, a glass of ratafia in his hands. He held it out to the unfamiliar young lady, and whispered something close to her ear. Even from across the ballroom, the husky quality of her full laugh reached Geoffrey’s ears. Nearby lords and ladies looked on, their lips pulled back in a sneer at her unladylike expression of mirth.

And god help him, for the first time in nearly five years, he wanted to send propriety to the devil with a bow and a parting wave, and forever hear that fulsome sound.

The lady must possess delicate sensibilities, a polite laugh, and not be given to great displays of emotion.

Westfield’s presence, combined with the words Geoffrey had dashed upon his list served as a taunting reminder of his intentions for Lady Beatrice.

“Geoffrey,” his mother murmured, giving him a sharp look. “Are you well?”

“Oh-uh, yes, very well.” Geoffrey stroked his palms along the front of his waistcoat and awaited their introduction.

“The Viscount Redbrooke and the Viscountess Redbrooke,” the servant called.

From his vantage point, Geoffrey sought the tall beauty who’d so captivated him. He frowned. Gone. She’d disappeared from her spot alongside the pillar like an apparition he’d only conjured in his great imaginings.

His chest tightened with inexplicable disappointment.

“I see Lady Tisdale,” his mother said, calling him back to the moment.

Geoffrey managed a faint nod as his mother took her leave, and he returned his search for the temptress. For four years, he’d managed to convince himself that he craved a placid, calm, poised young lady for a wife. Great beauties roused grand passions and wrought all manner of heartache. In the span of a heartbeat, the winsome creature in the crowd made mockery of his efforts at atonement.

Christ, what in hell is wrong with me?

The sole purpose of his being at Lord and Lady Hughes's ball was to partner Lady Beatrice in two sets; a waltz and a quadrille, and indicate his interest in the young lady. It would not do to be observed standing like a foppish gent just out of university with his mouth agape over an altogether different young lady.

Except…his mind was filled with images of too red lips, and a tall, lean frame, and…he gave his head a shake. Standing here, lusting after some unknown lady would not help him accomplish his goal of marriage to Lady Beatrice.

In desperate need of a drink, Geoffrey took a step toward a liveried servant bearing a tray full of champagne when his black Hessian boot suddenly snagged the hem of a young lady’s skirt.

The tear of fabric ripping blended with the din of conversation around them.

The lady gasped, and pitched forward. Even as the glass of ratafia in her hand fell to the floor, her hip collided with the passing servant who teetered on his feet. The young man’s serving tray tilted precariously, and for an infinitesimal moment Geoffrey believed the servant had steadied his burden.

But the servant’s tray slipped from his fingers. Champagne flutes careened to the floor, and sprayed the bubbling liquid onto the gown of several matrons standing nearby, who cried out in shock and scurried off.

“Pardon me,” Geoffrey murmured to the servant, and then returned his attention to the woman he’d inadvertently sent reeling. A mere five or so inches smaller than his six foot frame, she stood taller than most of the ladies present. “Forgive me. Are you all…?”

She smiled up at him.

His question died upon his lips as he gazed down at the woman who’d unwittingly beckoned from across the ballroom mere moments ago. His eyes traveled the high planes of her cheekbones, the gray irises of her eyes, her full, red lips.

…and then her slipper met the moisture upon the marble floor. Like one of the skaters at the Frost Fair on the River Thames, she slid forward, into a nearby pillar. “Ouch.”

Geoffrey’s arm shot out and he sought to steady her.

“Thank you,” she said. She shook out her sea foam green skirts and unlike the horror that wreathed the faces of the surrounding ladies, wry amusement fairly glittered in her gray-blue eyes. “I am uninjured,” she assured him.

His eyes widened and with alacrity, he released her.

She cocked her head to the side. “Are
you
injured?”

Her flat accent did not possess the clipped proper tones of a proper English lady. He blinked. “Injured?”

“You appear unwell, sir.”

By God…

“You are an American,” he blurted.

A mischievous smile played about her lips. “I am.” She looked around and then back to him. “Never tell me you’re scandalized by me being an American?”

He was scandalized by the wicked direction his mind had wandered that
involved
an American woman. If his mother was outraged at the prospect of a Scott assuming the Redbrooke title, what would she say to an American lady having garnered Geoffrey’s attention?

“Ahh, you do smile,” the young woman said.

Geoffrey frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“Alas, it is gone,” she said with a long, exaggerated sigh.

Geoffrey became aware of the appalled stares of Polite Society’s most respectable peers, trained upon him. From across the room, his mother, who stood alongside Lady Tisdale, glared with blatant disapproval. It was the much needed reminder of past failings and inner weaknesses that had wrought much agony upon his family. By standing here engaging this…this…stranger, in the midst of Lord and Lady Hughes’s ballroom, he opened himself up to public censure. His intentions were marriage to Lady Beatrice, and any hint of untoward interest in another would not be countenanced by the Duke of Somerset or his daughter.

Geoffrey folded his arms across his chest. This American upstart might have a face and body to rival Helen of Troy, but possessed the uncouth manners one would expect of an American. “Miss,” he said from the corner of his mouth. “We’ve not been properly introduced, therefore, any discourse between us is highly improper.”

Her lips twitched, with, he suspected, mirth. “I would say toppling over the host’s servant and spraying his guests with champagne and glass is also improper, but you’ve done that, sir.”

Geoffrey felt heat climb up his neck, and resisted the urge to tug at his suddenly tight cravat, shamed by the accuracy of her charge. He did not create scandals. Not anymore. He was proper. And poised. And…

She arched a brow.

Well, in this instance he’d created a small scandal. Still, he needn’t raise further eyebrows by talking to the vexing miss.

Even if he wanted to.

He needed to go. Immediately. Anywhere but within mere inches of the lady who smelled like lilacs and lavender and now champagne. “Again, forgive me for causing you distress.” He bowed deeply and beat a hasty retreat.

Geoffrey had made a fool of himself once over a young lady. He’d not be so foolish again.

A gentleman’s responsibility is first and foremost to his family’s material comforts and well-being.

4
^th
Viscount Redbrooke

~2~

From where she stood near the other partner-less young ladies, Miss Abigail Stone stared after the gentleman who’d gone and thoroughly shredded the delicate lace trim of her satin gown. She ignored the sideways glances directed her way by the row of ladies and slid into an empty seat. For the first time in a month since she’d taken up residence with her uncle, the Duke of Somerset, interest stirred through her.

The serious looking gentleman had fled faster than the God Hermes in his winged sandals, but not before Abigail had detected a flash of discomfit in the greenish-blue irises of his eyes. It hadn’t been mere guilt from someone who’d ruined her gown, but something more, something far deeper. In that, she’d felt a kindred connection to the stranger.

It had taken Abigail’s entire twenty years and a handful of days to learn that guilt drove a person to desperate measures. A sense of guilt could force a person to give up their family, home, and everything they held dear.

It could drive one to brave the perils of turbulent storms and unpredictable sea voyages.

She sighed. Guilt was a rather nasty thing.

Just then, from across the ballroom floor, a young lady raised her fingers to her lips and with a direct look at Abigail, pointedly whispered something to the lady at her side. A case of tittering ensued.

Abigail glanced away. After her brief time in London, she’d come to appreciate that an unknown ocean crossing was far preferable to having to live amidst the cold censure and disdain of people who’d judged her and found her wanting.

Abigail redirected her attention to the commanding, stern-faced man who’d fled her side. He stood, conversing with a young lady and a tall, handsome gentleman—a gentleman who seemed unable to remove his stare from the blonde woman on his arm
.

An odd pang tugged at Abigail’s heart. There had been a time when a gentleman had studied her with that very look. She’d not realized until after his betrayal that eyes could lie.

Her gaze slid away from the trio, out to the sea of twirling dancers and wondered how her life might have been different if she’d come to London as merely the niece of the Duke of Somerset and not a relative fleeing scandal.

Abigail’s mouth tightened. The sooner her mother and father came to accept that she would never again be their sought-after, much respected daughter, the sooner her world could resume a semblance of normalcy.

Her heart twisted with the bitterness of truth. There would never again be anything normal about her life.

***

The young lady whose hemline he’d destroyed sat along the wall, studying him. Geoffrey frowned. Respectable young ladies didn’t stare. It wasn’t proper. Or polite.

Then, there was a boldness to this American woman so different than anything he’d ever witnessed amongst English women. He should be more appalled by such indiscretion. And yet, he couldn’t dredge up the appropriate level of shock.

“Are you looking for someone, Geoffrey?”

Geoffrey stiffened, and turned to face his sister, Sophie, now the Countess of Waxham, and her husband, Christopher, Earl of Waxham. The couple had wed just a few short weeks ago after quite a scandal, which had only fueled Geoffrey’s determination to avoid any hint of impropriety.

Of course his observant sister should have noted his interest. Geoffrey strove for bored indignation. “I don’t know what you’re speaking about.”