It Started with a Scandal (5 page)

But no. Still gray. He frowned faintly, puzzled.

Odd that the sensation should arrive along with Mrs. Fountain.

He reached into the pocket of his coat and, with a one-shouldered shrug, handed a pound note to the earl, who accepted it with alacrity.

Mrs. Fountain’s eyes followed the transaction, her face inscrutable.

“Will you be so kind as to bring tea for the earl and countess, Mrs. Fountain.”

“Of course. It should be my honor.”

She curtsied as if she were meeting the king, a low, graceful affair that seemed to go on forever. They all watched her go down, and then up. Rather soothing, all in all, like a leaf losing its grip on a tree, he thought, amused.

“Would you care for a light repast?” He turned to Violet and the earl.

Mrs. Fountain froze.

Knowing there was likely nothing worth serving in the house, let alone to an earl and a countess, Lavay was quite wickedly curious to see what she’d decide to bring up on a tray.

“Nothing for me, thank you. We cannot stay long,” Violet told him.

“Very well, I’ll return promptly.”

Mrs. Fountain offered another curtsy, a mercifully quick one, and slipped out as quickly as she’d arrived.

“It looked for a moment there as if she was praying,” Violet mused.

“For my demise, no doubt,” Lavay said. “Care to wager on whether she returns?”

The earl grinned. “I could use another quid. I’ll wager she does.”

They waited a few moments for the click of Mrs. Fountain’s slippers on the hallway marble to fade off into the distance.

“There are worse fates than marriage, Philippe,” Violet said lightly.

Philippe shot her a filthy look. “Next time, I’m going to instruct those motley footmen not to let you in the door.”

“And thank you, my dear,” the earl said dryly. “Nothing like being damned with faint praise.”

Violet just laughed. She sent her husband a smile that would have curled any man’s toes and made him long for a dark room and a soft bed, then she gave his thigh a companionable pat. Neither of these men intimidated the infamous former Violet Redmond in the least. She’d once shot a pirate to save her husband’s life. Hence they were less circumspect than they might have been when they talked business about her.

Their business was usually violence and money.

Philippe had fisted his hand; he forced it open into a straight palm now. It had been stitched quickly, like the other wounds, and the scar pulled like the very devil had its claws in, setting off a cascade of cramping muscles that had led Philippe to invent new curse words for the sole purpose of getting through the pain.

“Seven of them and you would have been dead, Lavay. And you’re the only one who could have survived six of them,” Ardmay said. “Apart from me.”

Philippe nodded. False humility bored both of them. They’d experienced too much, together and apart.

The two of them together had earned significant fortunes as privateers, and even more when sent on assignment at the caprices of the king, investigating conspiracies against the Crown and hunting pirates who’d threatened the safety and profits of England’s merchants, and therefore the comfort and safety of her citizenry.

They had been so successful as privateers that the Crown now took advantage of their unique abilities in other secret circumstances requiring strategy, charm, brute strength, a willingness to stride into hideously dangerous places, and uncommon skills with weapons. It had been lucrative for each of them, together and apart.

It had also been nearly fatal for Philippe.

But there had been great satisfaction in the work. For Philippe, every capture, every sword that clashed with his, every thug they thwarted, every death or loss prevented was a way to offset the ones that had nearly destroyed his family and way of life.

And it
had
been profitable.

But they had failed to bring the pirate Le Chat to justice.

Truthfully, they hadn’t so much failed to capture him as allowed him to walk away.

The true reason for that was quite complicated. Each person sitting in the room possessed a piece of the true Le Chat’s secret, and none of them had shared it with the others.

Philippe had a particularly ironic, somewhat galling reason to be grateful the real man lived still and ran free. In his pocket now, on a torn strip of foolscap, was a direction that no one else in the world knew, written by a man known in merchant circles as Mr. Hardesty but who was, in truth, someone else altogether.

If you think you know how to repay me for your life, Lavay, you can find me here . . .

Oh, but the reward money for bringing in Le Chat.

It would have solved . . . nearly everything.

If he thought about it too long and hard, the impulse to hurl the nearest smallest object would overtake him.

To think he’d once been renowned for his charm.

His stack of correspondence was growing higher by the day, it seemed. And several letters virtually throbbed with urgency.

“Is this how you want to restore your fortune, Philippe?” Violet persisted. “You’ll be dead before you do.”

Philippe snorted. “Thank you for your faith in me, Violet.”

But he’d become more and more certain that she was right.

She smiled at the use of her given name.

“Think of the pleasures you’d miss on earth if you were dead. Please allow us to hold a ball, or at least an assembly, in your honor,” she pressed.

“Perhaps,” he said shortly. “I should like that. Not just yet, however.” He could not now imagine being able to dance, since his injuries made him stiff, and he wasn’t about to confess it. How ironic it was that waltzing seemed as important a skill as fencing. Navigating society often seemed akin to fencing in fine society all over the world.

There was an odd little silence, during which Violet exchanged another glance with her husband. She cleared her throat.

“Lady Prideux wrote to me. She was most recently here at Miss Endicott’s academy to see about a bit of a business regarding her youngest sister. She will be in London again soon if there is incentive enough.”

He vaguely recalled that Lady Prideux’s sister had been installed in Miss Endicott’s esteemed academy, a school locally known as the School for Recalcitrant Girls. But Violet’s tone was a bit too casual, which meant her motive was ulterior.

He smiled wryly. “I’ve a letter from her, too.”

But then, it was difficult not to smile when he thought of Alexandra; she was inextricable from memories of happier times. Their families had been much thrown together when they were younger, and there had always been unspoken assumption among them that she and Philippe would one day marry. She’d grown into a vivacious and beautiful and preternaturally confident woman, and she amused Philippe. Her family was not quite as elevated as the Bourbons; their fortune not quite as intimidating; their reach not quite so vast; their power not quite so threatening.

Which was why more of them had kept their heads and money during the revolution.

The Bourbons were back in power in France, and even as a little girl Alexandra had always loved the notion of influence and power. And though Philippe was far away from the throne, he still bore the name.

Hers was yet another missive he didn’t know how to answer, though he was growing more certain by the day.

He flexed his painful hand just as Mrs. Fountain appeared in the doorway, a tray bearing a teapot and cups in her hands. They all fell silent.

Walking as though balancing on a tightrope, her back straight as a mizzenmast, she crossed the distance between the doorway and the table around which they were all arrayed.

In the silence they could all hear the cups rattling ever so slightly on the tray.

Her hands were shaking.

A peculiar impulse surged through him to reach out and take the tray gently from her.
I’m not as fearsome as all that
.

And yet, he suspected that wasn’t entirely true. He had somehow, over the years, become precisely that fearsome.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fountain,” he said gravely when the tray was at last safely arranged on the table.

She ducked a curtsy, turned herself around as carefully as if she’d still been balancing a tray, and elegantly carried herself out.

He found himself standing motionless, wondering if she would take that little extra step in the doorway again, unable to resist the beginnings of a frolic celebrating the fact that she’d managed to get the tray into the room without dropping it.

But she removed herself in a dignified manner.

He was so completely absorbed in watching her go that he almost gave a start when the earl cleared his throat.

Philippe swiveled to see Violet and the earl watching him. The earl’s palm was extended.

Philippe fished about in his coat pocket and came up with another pound note. He was bemused to realize he was faintly pleased he’d lost the wager.

Chapter 5

J
U
ST AS TWILIGHT BEGAN
to paint the remaining clouds in broad swaths of mauve, Elise burst out of the house through the kitchen and aimed herself at a run toward the vicarage—if she half walked, half ran, she could do it in ten minutes, she’d calculated. Her life had become all about minute calculations just like that. The cold air felt wonderful on her much-abused cheeks, which had flushed and blushed with every gradation of temper and emotion more times today than cheeks were likely designed to do.

She wondered what Lavay would say if he saw her running like a madwoman, probably losing more pins than she could afford to lose from her hair. But she hadn’t a choice about running, either. She’d taken her opportunity to bolt when the footmen had admitted a dark, slim, cold-eyed, granite-jawed gentleman who had not wanted tea or anything else besides, who had been greeted by Lavay himself at the door. With a single, characteristically charming “I do not want to be troubled,” Lavay had shut the door to his study behind him. Hard.

Too late for that
, she’d thought cheekily.
I suspect you already are troubled, Lord Lavay.

She’d run past a big black horse tethered loosely to the shrubbery, as though the rider had leaped off and flung the reins in. Her head almost whipped right off her neck when she thought she saw the king’s coat of arms on the saddlebags: she glimpsed a rampant lion and an azure field as she raced by.

But there wasn’t time to investigate that. Who knew what Lord Lavay got up to.

Her
concerns were more mundane.

Thank God Thank God Thank God Thank God
the Earl and Countess of Ardmay hadn’t wanted anything to eat. She could not recall ever feeling so awkward and terrified and gauche, so at sea, not even on her first day teaching at Miss Marietta Endicott’s Academy. All day long she’d felt like an actor who hadn’t been handed a script before opening night and who’d been thrust onstage before a critical, drunken crowd armed with things to throw. Fortunately, she’d had worse days. The day she’d informed Miss Marietta Endicott she’d been with child, for instance.
That
had certainly been without precedent.

She’d get through it the way she’d gotten through everything, by relying on nerve, pride, brio, and breeding, all of which, ironically, could conspire to get her sacked. Especially the pride part.

The
nerve
of him betting against her.

Which, she suspected, was exactly what he’d been doing when he’d exchanged a pound note with the Earl of Ardmay, another large man, more rough-hewn and more exotic, somehow, than Lavay. Who was not so much rough-hewn as sleek and hard as a rock polished over and over by wave after wave of time and experience. Her father had attended to the ills and injuries of all the local Northumberland gentry, but never before had she seen the likes of the Earl of Ardmay or Lord Lavay.

Before she’d bolted, she’d left Dolly with instructions to put together a meat pie for him out of the ingredients in the pantry.

The vicarage was a relief after the Dour House of Lavay: noisy, bright, warm, and full to bursting with children—redheaded ones, mostly, belonging to Mrs. Sylvaine’s sister, some of them destined for Miss Marietta Endicott’s Academy, Elise was nearly certain. Somewhat incongruously, what appeared to be flower arrangements far too spectacular for a vicar to afford were scattered about, stuffed in vases and jars. Every color was represented.

This was new.

“A rather exuberant approach to decorating, Reverend Sylvaine.”

His laugh tapered into a sigh. “I was just remarking on its resemblance to a jungle. I think those are of tropical origin.” The towering and handsome Reverend Adam Sylvaine gingerly poked at a spiky affair the livid color of a sunset. “My cousin Olivia sent them over, with instructions to distribute them over graves in the churchyard. It seems some of her suitors haven’t yet heard the news that she’s engaged—and even if they have, they will persist in sending hothouse flowers. Landsdowne may be forced to call them out eventually.”

Elise laughed. Lord Landsdowne was Olivia Eversea’s fiancé. The one all of London never dreamed she’d have, ever since Lyon Redmond— Violet Redmond’s brother, the oldest Redmond and heir—had disappeared, taking, it was said, her heart with him forever. No one had truly believed she’d consider another man.

No one had counted on how determined Landsdowne was.

“I brought apple tarts, Reverend!” She proffered her cloth-wrapped bundle. “I will exchange them for one child.”

The reverend’s wife, Evie, laughed, then raised her voice. “Jack, where have you gotten to?”

Whereas Elise had done
it
for the pleasure of the thing, the reverend’s wife, the former infamous Evie Duggan, had done it for money. She’d been a professional courtesan; surely this ranked higher on the scale for Fallen Women, if such a thing existed? The difference, however, was that Evie had never truly been respectable and had disappointed nobody, whereas Elise had been and had disappointed everybody.

But now Evie was happily married to the vicar Adam Sylvaine, who had single-handedly restored church attendance in Pennyroyal Green and Greater Sussex through charm, selflessness, sheer pigheadedness, and devastating good looks. Together, they were kindness and acceptance personified. They were among the few who knew the truth about Elise’s . . . circumstances.

Evie craned her head. “Jaaack—oh! He’s right . . . here!”

A blur shot into the room and flung his arms around Elise’s waist.

“Mama!”

She seized Jack and lifted him up in a squeeze. He was almost too heavy for that now.

“Good evening, my love. We must fly. Thank you, Reverend, for everything. May I ask you a question? I fear it’s more in the way of another favor . . .”

“Anything we can do for you, Mrs. Fountain, as you know.”

“My new position . . . well, it seems I won’t be able to come fetch Jack home in the evenings from now on. I’m taking a bit of a risk now. I shall have half a day away on Sunday. Do you know of anyone who would be kind enough to escort him home? In exchange for . . . apple tarts?”

Her entire life was stitched together by an intricate network of barters and favors of time and skill and knowledge, of baked goods and canned goods, unused bolts of cloths and hand-me-downs, and herbs and cheeses and books and advice and tutoring.

“I’m a big boy, Mama! I can walk home on my own!”

“I’ll do it.”

Standing in the doorway was Evie’s brother, Seamus, who whisked Elise with a surreptitious but adroit look that implied he wouldn’t mind throwing his arms around her waist, too.

The refreshing thing about Seamus Duggan was that he never pretended to be anything other than what he was, which was a Charming Rogue who would do anything to avoid an honest day’s work if a bit of fun could be had instead.

The dangerous thing about Seamus was that he was handsome in a way that caused female heads to whip around violently to get another look, and he was, in truth, a delight: quick to laugh, a bit too ready to fall in love, a bit too ready to forget that he was allegedly already in love when someone new caught his eye, always up for a lark or a prurient joke or a fight.

Hence his nickname locally: Shameless Duggan.

The vicar had taken him in hand and kept him too busy to get into too much trouble. It remained, however, a slippery and delicate challenge, akin to being careful not to hold a bar of soap too tightly.

Children loved him. Ever since he’d arrived in Pennyroyal Green, nearly all the older boys had doubled their profanity vocabularies and knew where babies came from, and he was kind to shy little girls.

He leaned against the door frame of the kitchen, green eyes sparkling, mouth curved in a teasing smile. Elise couldn’t help but smile back at him now. All the ready smiles in this house were balm right now.

She’d seen Seamus with his sister’s children. She was absolutely certain Jack would be safe with him, and that he wouldn’t learn anything
too
untoward.

“Kind of you, Mr. Duggan, thank you.”

“I’ll escort ye back even now, if ye wish, Mrs. Fountain.”

“That won’t be necessary, Seamus,” all the adults said simultaneously.

His smile broadened. “But it’s truth. I’d be pleased to walk him home of nights, Mrs. Fountain. ’Tis no trouble at all.”

“Thank you, Mr. Duggan. We must fly . . . and one more favor, Reverend Sylvaine. Would you . . . would you mind terribly if I took away a few of these bouquets?”

“You would be doing a favor for
me
, Mrs. Fountain.”

P
HILIPPE AWOKE THE
next morning wearing a faint smile. He’d had such a pleasant, if homely, dream: he’d lifted his head at the sound of a coal hod clanking, seen the back of a woman wearing a soft white cap, heard the rustle of a fire being lit, and had felt all was right with the world.

An hour or so later he woke again because he was actually a little
too
warm. And he normally slept shirtless, so this was seldom the case.

He lifted his head off the pillow and peered.

The fire
was
blazing.

So it hadn’t been a dream. In the air he drew an invisible point with his index finger. One point to Mrs. Fountain for getting the servants to do their jobs. For at least today.

He got himself upright and froze, his hand automatically reaching for the pistol he kept on the night table. He hovered. He thought he’d heard whispering outside his door.

Since The Attack, mornings were the hardest—every appendage he possessed was reluctant to bend, and everything else was stiff, and not necessarily in an exciting way—but his survival instincts managed to overcome pain, and he crept to the door and put his ear against it.

“Now remember, Mary, he’s just a man. He puts his legs in his trousers one at a time. In all likelihood he won’t bite.”

“Perhaps he hasn’t all of his teeth, anyway. He’s not young, Mrs. Fountain.”

Was that stifled
giggling
?

He couldn’t hear what Mrs. Fountain said to that.

“But he’ll be awake when I go in this time. He was asleep when I built up the fire.” This was Mary the maid.
Coward!
he thought, half amused.

“Very well. I’ll do it. But you will do it from now on.”

An instant later there was a smart rap on the door.

He managed to fling himself back into the bed and pull the covers up to one armpit.

“What is it?” he demanded. His voice was a hoarse rasp. Everything that ought not have been jostled was singing with pain from the sudden brisk motion.

The door swung open, and in bustled Mrs. Fountain. “
Good
morning, my lord. I’ll just leave this tray here and pull the . . . pull the . . .”

He squinted up at Mrs. Fountain, who looked fresher than anyone ought to at this hour of the day, at least in the filtered morning light.

She seemed to have frozen.

She looked down at him longer than she ought, too.

She seemed too young for apoplexy, but one never knew.

“What the devil is that?” he rasped.

“That?” she parroted. Almost literally parroted, as her voice was a bit of a dry squawk.

“Come now, we’ve established you’re not deaf, Mrs. Fountain. On the tray.”

He began to sit up, and the sheet slid from his torso like avalanching snow.

“Coffeeandantwoappletarts.” The words rushed out as if they’d merely been briefly dammed by something else.

“Apple—”

“I’ll just leave it here, shall I?” she said brightly and pivoted, turning her back to him.

He could hear the tray rattling in her hands as she walked over to settle it on the nearby writing table.

And then she flung the curtains aside.

“Arrgh!” A torrent of sunlight struck him square in the face.

At least it wasn’t raining.

She departed so quickly that she was nearly a blur, the door clicking shut adamantly behind her.

E
LISE PAUSED WITH
her back to the door, one hand clutching the knob, as if to prevent him from getting out.

Or perhaps to prevent herself from getting back in.

She stared unseeing for a moment at Mary, who hovered anxiously in the hallway.

Or not necessarily
unseeing
. Elise didn’t expect to forget what she’d seen in there any time soon.

“Did he take it from you, Mrs. Fountain?” Mary whispered, as if they’d been holding out a beefsteak to a finicky captured wolf. “Shall I do it tomorrow?”

Elise thought quickly.

“He’s definitely a bit surly in the morning,” she said slowly, with a great show of martyred magnanimity. “Perhaps I ought to do it instead.”

I
T SEEMED TO
take an inordinately long time to dress in the mornings, given that nothing on his body really wanted to bend the way it ought. Hastening the process caused him to pause, tense, and turn the air blue with swearing until he was ready to try again. Getting his coat on was the most difficult. Shaving with his left hand was another matter altogether. He had never anticipated needing to stay in Sussex longer than a fortnight, so he hadn’t anticipated the need for a valet. He’d once heard Hercules, the temperamental cook on their ship, wistfully describe a wife as someone who would “help you get yer boots off.”

He imagined describing it just that way to Alexandra, Lady Prideux, his potential bride, and hearing her peals of laughter. Alexandra was accustomed to having an army of servants to do her slightest bidding.

He flexed his right hand, which really was the cause of most of his irritation and frustration.

Philippe halted on the threshold of the study. Something was definitely different.

He entered cautiously. Just two steps.

And then he moved through it slowly, as if in a dream. Little reflected fragments of himself caught at the corners of his eyes.

Everything—every inch of the surface of his desk, the frames on the walls, the intricate turns on the chair and settee legs, the crevices of the buttocks of the hearth cherubs—had been dusted and polished. The room almost
pulsed
, it was so brilliantly clean.