Scandalous (2 page)

Not for the first time, Gabby wondered if her father, upon dying, had found himself in hell.

Terrible as it was for a daughter to entertain such a thought, she could not help but feel that, if so, it was a reward well earned by the misery he had caused, and continued to cause, those whom he should have most cherished in life.

Perhaps Thomas would allow them to continue to live at Hawthorne Hall, Gabby speculated without much hope. It might please his wife to have
Matthew's miscellany,
as she disparagingly called Gabby and her sisters because each was the offspring of a different, subsequent countess of Wickham, as dependent poor relations.

But then Gabby thought again of Claire, and knew even that faint hope was misplaced. Maud would not want Claire within a mile of her own whey-faced daughters.

"Miss Gabby, His Lordship writ you a letter."

At Jem's words, Gabby's attention focused on him again.

"A letter?" Her voice, she was surprised to discover, revealed no hint of her distress.

"The night before he— before he was took. He was on the trail after that tiger I told you about when I caught up with him, away off in the wilds with just those heathen native servants of his. He called me into his tent and gave me this to give to you." Jem fumbled in the leather pouch that hung at his side, and extracted a slightly crumpled and stained letter, which he passed to her.

Gabby took it, broke the seal, and spread it out. It was a single sheet containing just a few lines scrawled in a firm black hand. Another sealed sheet, wrapped inside the first, was revealed as she unfolded the missive. This she set aside.

My dear Gabby,
the letter began,

My own knowledge and the tales I have heard of our father lead me to believe that you have, if anything, understated the case in which you have been left. I beg your forgiveness for not attending to the matter earlier. Indeed, I freely confess that I have been remiss in not seeing to the welfare of my sisters, and hereby give you permission to take our sister Claire to
London
for the Season. You do the thing up in high style, and draw on my funds as needed and at your discretion. A letter to that effect is enclosed, which I suggest you present to Messrs. Challow, Mather and Yadon, attorneys at law, with my compliments. As it happens, my circumstances are such that I find myself viewing a trip to England with favor, and may join you in London myself before many weeks have passed. I look forward to furthering our acquaintance, and to reacquainting myself with Claire and baby Beth, at that time.

Yours most sincerely, Wickham.

Unexpectedly, Gabby felt a lump form in her throat as she stared down at the bold script. Her brother sounded both likable and as if he were disposed to have a care for them, and this sheet of paper, along with his scarce-remembered visit to Hawthorne Hall when she had been no more than eleven, was all she was ever to know of him.

It seemed hard. But then, she had learned, such was life.

The other sealed letter was indeed addressed to Messrs. Challow, Mather, and Yadon, she saw as she picked it up, then glanced again at Jem.

"Gabby, Gabby, is that
Jem
you're talking to?" The library door flew open without warning. Lady Elizabeth Banning, an exuberant red-haired fifteen-year-old still faintly round with puppy fat, burst into the room. Like Gabby, she was dressed in the unrelieved black of mourning for their father although the obligatory period of time for such had passed, for the simple reason that they were the newest gowns any of the sisters possessed. The dispersal of funds for the purchase of mourning garments had been reluctantly allowed by Mr. Challow after the death of their father, although by rights, he said, he should not be approving any expenditures at all without the sanction of the new earl, whose funds they now were. Even continuing the minimal allowance that had in the past permitted Gabby to run the house had been the subject of some debate within the law firm, he told her, with the consensus being that, without notice from the new earl, the best course of action was to let things go on as they had been until they received instructions to the contrary.

"Oh, Jem, it
is
you! What did our brother
say?"
Beth's spaniel-brown eyes had fixed on Jem at once, sparing Gabby the need to answer her original inquiry. She bore down on the pair of them, firing questions as she came. "Did you find him? Did you give him Gabby's letter? What did he say? Can we go? Can we go?"

"I'm sorry, Gabby, I tried to stop her, but you know how she is," Lady Claire Banning said with a sigh as she followed her younger sister into the room. Not even her sober black gown could detract from Claire's dazzling combination of silky raven curls that spilled in charming profusion over slender shoulders, huge, thick-lashed golden-brown eyes, porcelain-pale skin, and perfect features. In addition, her figure was round where it should be round, slim where it needed to be slim, and altogether delectable. "She just could not contain herself one moment longer."

If Claire could just have her season, Gabby thought, looking at her sister almost achingly, she would be overrun with eligible gentlemen wanting to marry her. The sad thing was that here, right under her own hand, was the very instrument that would have given Claire the future she needed, that she was entitled to by right of birth, that she deserved.

Marcus had granted permission for Claire to have her season. He had practically given Gabby
carte blanche
to fund it, too.

But Marcus was dead. The letters he had sent were now no more than worthless scraps of paper. As soon as Cousin Thomas was apprised that he had become the earl of Wickham, they would be very fortunate indeed not to be cast out of Hawthorne Hall forthwith.

A growing despair knotted Gabby's stomach. What she had to tell her sisters was too, too cruel. If only, she thought, throat aching, Marcus had survived just a scant three more months, just until Claire had had her season….

"For goodness' sake, Jem, can't you talk? Did you or did you not find our brother?" Beth demanded, bouncing like an excited puppy around the man who had taught her and her sisters to ride and hunt and fish and enjoy almost every imaginable outdoor pursuit. Over the years the sisters had come to regard him as coconspirator and friend rather than servant, and were on terms of disgraceful intimacy with one who was in actuality no more than a groom.

Jem looked even unhappier than before. "That I did, Miss Beth, but…."

He glanced helplessly at Gabby, who looked down at the letter in her hand and took a deep breath, willing herself to sound composed as she broke the dreadful news.

At that moment Beth spied the letter, and with a quick movement and a gleeful cry snatched it from her sister's hand.

"Beth, wait…." Gabby groaned, grabbing for the letter, but speech was more of an effort than she had imagined and her protest was too strangled to deter her sister, who danced out of reach with a tantalizing grin. To learn how close all their hopes had been to being realized could only make the truth harder to bear….

"Oh, Beth, try for a little decorum, do," Claire put in crossly, throwing herself down in a chair near the fire and trying to pretend that she, too, was not vitally interested in the contents of the sheet that Beth now eagerly perused. "I declare, I've never in my life seen such a hoyden as you're turning into."

"At least I don't break my neck craning it to look into every mirror I pass." Beth retorted, glancing up for a moment to glare at her sister. Then as she returned her attention to the letter her face broke into a beatific smile and she looked at Claire again. "Oh, Claire, you're to have your season! Our brother says we're to go."

Claire's eyes widened, and soft color rushed into her cheeks as she sat up straight in the chair. "Beth, truly?" Her gaze flew to her older sister. "Gabby?"

She sounded almost afraid to believe that so wondrous a fate could be hers.

As indeed, Gabby thought, looking at Claire with a sudden sharp sensation that she could only conclude was heartbreak, she was right to be. What she would not give to be able to provide this one thing for Claire….

At that moment the fire popped as loudly as a sharp clapping of hands and flared again, higher and hotter than before, momentarily drawing everyone's startled attention to it. The color of the flames tinted the pale skin of Gabby's hands an eerie shade of red, she saw, glancing down at the letter to the barristers that still rested beneath them. She had no doubt that her face was turned the same, suddenly most appropriate, hellish hue.

Because the most dreadfully sinful notion had just occurred to her….

"Read it for yourself." Beth thrust the letter at Claire, then perched on the arm of her sister's chair, watching the older girl's face with an air of jubilant expectancy. When Claire reached the end, she gave a little squeal of excitement. The two younger girls put their heads, one bright red and one raven black, together and began reciting the words aloud with increasing glee.

As her sisters read, and the fire died back down, Gabby made a decision. She was, she discovered with some surprise, a true Banning after all. Gaming ran strong in their blood, and now it was her turn to wager all on a daring throw of the dice. She stood, a too-thin woman of no more than medium height clad in head-to-toe black bombazine, her untamable chestnut hair dragged into a reasonably neat chignon at her nape, her pale, squarish face with its small, straight nose and decided mouth and chin brought to sudden vivid life by the fierce resolve that glowed from her usually calm gray eyes, and walked with the deliberate care she had learned to take to conceal her limp around the desk until she reached Jem's side.

"Have you told anyone else of this? Talked to anyone on the ship, perhaps, or since you landed in England?" Gabby asked for his ears alone as they watched her sisters poring over the letter once again. Jem looked wretched as, finishing the missive for what must have been the dozenth time, both girls looked at each other and began to chatter excitedly. Gabby's whisper turned urgent. "What I am asking you is, who else knows of my brother's death?"

Servant and mistress were of much the same height, and their eyes were nearly on a level. Jem glanced at her, his brow deeply furrowed.

"No one in England, Miss Gabby, save you and me. I wouldn't be talking to strangers about family business, on the ship or anywheres else, now would I? A few know in Ceylon, I reckon, but mostly natives and such."

"Then I am going to ask you to do me a very big service." Gabby spoke rapidly, before her nerve could fail her. "I am going to ask you to pretend that you left my brother's side immediately after you received these letters, and never witnessed his death at all. I am going to ask you to pretend that, as far as you know, the earl is still alive and in Ceylon and will be home in his own good time."

Jem's eyes widened. As he met her determined gaze, his lips pursed in a soundless whistle.

"Miss Gabby, I can do that, and for you I will willingly, as you knows, but the truth of it is bound to come out sooner or later. Such like that always does, and then where will we be?" Jem's low voice was both alarmed and cautionary.

"In no worse case than we are right now, and perhaps a great deal better off," Gabby said firmly. "All we need is just a little time, and a little luck."

"Gabby, aren't you excited? We're going to
London,"
Beth exclaimed rapturously, springing up from the arm of the chair and dancing forward to envelop her oldest sister in a suffocating hug. "Claire will have her season, and we'll get to see the sights. Oh, Gabby, I've never been beyond Yorkshire in my life."

"None of us have," Claire chimed in. Her eyes were glowing with anticipation and her step was light as she joined them, although, conscious of her status as a mature young lady, she refrained from jumping up and down with the heedless abandon shown by Beth.

"London will be a treat for all of us." Gabby, returning Beth's hug, managed a credible smile. A sideways glance showed her that Jem was looking at her with as much alarm as if she'd suddenly grown horns and a tail.

"Does this mean we can have some new gowns?" Claire sounded almost wistful. Claire loved pretty clothes, and had upon many occasions spent hours poring over the fashionable sketches in such publications as the Ladies' Magazine that, banned from the house by their father, still had chanced to come her way. Without being overly vain, Claire was very aware of her own beauty, and such matters as the latest hairstyles, or the design of a gown, were important to her. She had longed for a season in the worst way, but given their circumstances had known that her chances of ever having one were remote. To her credit, she had been very good about the prospect that it was never to be. But now— now she could have one after all. Despite the risks, Gabby was suddenly fiercely glad to be able to provide Claire with such a chance.

"Certainly we may," Gabby said, refusing to look at Jem again as she well and truly threw caution to the wind. "An entire new wardrobe, in fact, for each of us."

The fire in the hearth popped loudly and flared again just then, causing Gabby to jump. As her sisters exclaimed more over their unprecedented good fortune, Gabby could not forbear casting the hearth a sideways, slightly nervous glance.

Why could she not escape the feeling that, no matter how pure her motives, some sort of hellish bargain had just been made?

2

A little more than two weeks later, the earl of Wickham's ancient coach lumbered clumsily over rain-pitted roads, bound for London. Stivers and Mrs. Bucknell, the housekeeper, along with a footman and a maid, had been sent on ahead a few days before to open the family townhouse on Grosvenor Square, which had been closed for more than a decade, and engage such additional staff as was deemed necessary to run it. Still muttering dire warnings whenever Gabby came within earshot, Jem rode on the box beside John-Coachman, his hat brim pulled low over his eyes to shield against the drizzle. Inside, Claire and Beth chattered excitedly, watched over by Twindle, the now elderly governess who had joined the family with the advent of Claire's mother and stayed on in the face of that lady's demise. Sitting beside Claire on the worn plush seat that, despite all their efforts to freshen it, still smelled faintly musty, Gabby smiled when necessary and looked out the window at the boggy moor they were leaving behind. The soaked heath, gray sky, and unceasing rain were as familiar to her as the confines of Hawthorne Hall, she realized, and as surprisingly dear. She had known no other home, and it cost her a pang to realize that, however this game played out, her future, and that of her sisters, in all likelihood lay elsewhere.