Simply Scandalous (34 page)

Alas, it was not to be. There were no flames. The
white rind covering the coals burned reluctantly at
first and then not at all, filling the room with thick,
acrid smoke. Coughing, he opened the window and
stuck his head out into the sweet-smelling ivy.

Covering his nose and mouth with his arm, he
plunged back through the smoke to the door. For a
few minutes, he stood in the hall, fanning the door
back and forth and dispersing most of the smoke.

With longing, he thought of Runnymede just three
doors down. True, there was unlikely to be a fire lit, but
the bed was large and comfortable, and the servants'
bell might actually be connected. Sir Benedict's casual
inquiry at dinner had more or less granted him the
right to that chamber, but he could not escape the fact
that his hostess had, for whatever reason, placed him
in Hastings. In Hastings, he would have to stay.

He found his dressing gown, wrapped himself in it,
and laid down on the bed only to discover that it was
fully as uncomfortable as it appeared. More of an iron
maiden than a bed, really. The pillow had a hard
lump in it, and the sheets were so cold that he thought
at first they were wet.

He pulled the thin covers up over his head but felt
no warmer, and a strange smell seemed to be emanating from the pillow. "What in hell's name . . . " he
muttered, sitting up to investigate.

The next moment, he jumped out of bed, accompanied by an earsplitting shriek. Almost immediately, as he used the bedwarmer to make sure the rat
was quite dead, there began a persistent rhythmic
banging from the direction of the ceiling. Recalling
that Juliet had told him that the chamber immediately above Hastings was occupied by servants, Swale
guessed they were footmen who had achieved their
present positions in the household by virtue of their
ability to stomp their feet with undreamt of ferocity.
He grasped the ancient bedwarmer in his hand and,
leaping atop the bed, began striking at the ceiling with
it with all his might, shouting, "Quiet, you buggers!"

The stomping ceased as suddenly as it had begun;
the copper pan of the bedwarmer parted from its
pole; and the door to Hastings swung open almost simultaneously. A branch of candles was thrust into the
room, and the copper pan rolled across the floor
and spun at Juliet's feet before falling with a clatter
to the parquet floor.

Behind her appeared the worried face of Fenwick
the butler. Behind Fenwick, young Billy jumped up
and down, trying to see into the room.

`Julie!" Swale cried, jumping down from the bed
and still holding the pole, which he used to surreptitiously flip his pillow back over the dead rat. "The
noise!"

"Yes, Ginger, the noise," she replied, coming into
the room. Her hair was loose, and she was wearing a
rich purple dressing gown that made her look even
more Minerva-like than usual. "I have come to ask you
to stop it. The servants are trying to sleep."

"Oh-ho! The servants are trying to sleep, are they?"

"Please, my lord," the butler interjected nervously,
"if your lordship would not mind putting down the
stick ... ?"

Swale ignored him and addressed Juliet. "For
your information, madam, your servants have been
dancing a bloody jig on my head for the past twenty
minutes! Or perhaps ... perhaps, it was the ghost
of the caribou?"

"You have broken my bedwarmer," she accused
him.

"Believe me, dear madam, it had ceased to function
as a bedwarmer long before I came upon the scene,"
he told her angrily.

"What is that smell?" she then demanded. "Have
you been smoking in this room?"

"I was cold," he informed her haughtily. "I made a
small fire." He was finding it difficult to maintain his
hauteur, however, as he was in his nightshirt with his
dressing-gown flapping around his bare legs. "I usually have my hair to keep me warm, but as I have been
scalped ..

Juliet coolly noted the miserable little coals in the
grate. "Where did you get the coals?"

"I am not without resources," he told her. "I found
them in the bedwarmer."

"That bedwarmer should have been emptied long
ago," she muttered. "But then, I daresay you would
have broken up the furniture for fuel! I had no idea
you were one of those thin-skinned aristocrats who
must be bundled up like an old woman to guard
against trifling little drafts! Poor Ginger! Would you
like Fenwick to fetch you a shawl?"

He glared at her. `Julie, I daresay when I am an old
married man surrounded by my affectionate children, it will amuse me to relate all I suffered the
time I went to Surrey to win the hand of their beautiful mamma, but at the moment, for me, the joke has
worn pretty thin!"

In her view, this was really too much. For him to
boast of his conquest in her very presence-and in
front of Fenwick too-!

"Kindly do not stick your chin out at me, sir," she
said with gritted teeth. "Since you have made Hastings quite uninhabitable, I suppose I am forced to move
you to Runnymede. I suppose you think you're very
clever. But if you think setting fire to Runnymede will
gain you Agincourt, you quite mistake the matter!"

"Thank you, Miss Wayborn. I should be delighted
to move to Runnymede."

"Good night, Ginger," she said with queenly hauteur.

Fenwick was swept away in her wake, but Swale enticed Billy to remain by showing him a gold coin. "I'm
going to need newts, Billy," he said solemnly. "And lots
of them!"

Never before had the written word affected Lady
Maria Fitzwilliam so violently as when she broke the
seal of her brother's note and read the fatal words:
"If you want to see your only brother alive, I am currently lodged at Wayborn Hall. Your affectionate
Geoffrey." She could not have been more shocked if
she had received a ransom note demanding huge
sums of money for her brother's return. She cried out
in distress and sank into a chair in her dressing room.

"She has him!" she cried in a choked voice when
her husband came to inquire what was wrong.

"Who has him, my love?"

"Miss Wayborn! She has taken him prisoner."

"Of whom are you speaking?" he asked patiently.
"Who has been taken prisoner by Miss Wayborn?"

"Geoffrey! My brother! She has him at Wayborn
Hall!" Maria cried theatrically. "I must go, Henry,
and rescue him from her clutches."

"Nonsense," he replied. "Remember what Mr.
Devize told us. Your brother is intent on making Miss
Wayborn fall in love with him. He means to break her
heart. Rather wrong of him, of course, but I don't see any danger of a marriage. I daresay your brother has
a greater disgust for the young woman than even
you do."

"Depend on it," his lady said fiercely, "she will
make him fall in love with her if she can. The scheming little minx! She will use all her arts and allurements to inveigle him. Wouldn't she fancy herself as
Marchioness of Swale! Henry, you must order the carriage at once."

Colonel Fitzwilliam, however, was not as biddable
as the average Henry. "My dear, it is dinnertime. We
can hardly call on Sir Benedict now, particularly
when you have been so rude to his family these past
weeks. It will have to wait until the morrow."

Lady Maria acceded to her husband's good sense,
but she ate very little dinner, slept very ill, and could
scarcely be prevailed upon to eat two bites of a gooseberry tart at breakfast before she was on her way to
Wayborn Hall. Lady Serena was enlisted to accompany
her friend, who felt in need of an ally on this trying
occasion, and Colonel Fitzwilliam said he would call
on Sir Benedict.

Lady Elkins was alone at breakfast when the Silvercombe ladies arrived. Never an early riser, her
mornings of late had been devoted to long bouts of
self-pity and headache. She stayed very long in the
breakfast room and while eating very little, reflected
very long on how badly her friends were treating
her over this nonsense about Juliet. The arrival of visitors, and such unexpected and desirable visitors,
struck her with the force of a lightning bolt. Forgetting entirely the weakness in the legs that had plagued
her all week, she scrambled for the better of the two
drawing rooms and received the two ladies with something like composure.

Lady Serena, looking very dashing in a new hat
decorated with ostrich plumes, apologized effusively
for neglecting poor Lady Elkins, and Lady Elkins effusively forgave her. Serena then made the baronet's
widow known to her friend Lady Maria Fitzwilliam,
and the duke's daughter inquired immediately into
the whereabouts of Lord Swale.

"Oh!" Lady Elkins was confused and flustered by the
cold abruptness of Lady Maria. She began to make her
excuses rather incoherently. She had been ill-she was
always the last of the household to rise-she was utterly alone. Sir Benedict would be in his estate office,
if he had not gone to inspect the new cottages. Mr.
Cary Wayborn had gone to a neighboring village to
view a horse. Perhaps Lord Swale went with him?

"I expect," said Lady Maria dryly, "that Miss Wayborn went along to view this horse? What an exceptional animal it must be."

"I do not know, my lady," stuttered Lady Elkins, feeling all at once that it was wrong of her not to know
where her niece was, though it had never entered her
head before. "All these comings and goings! I am too
old and infirm to keep up with these energetic young
people."

Lady Serena seemed almost ready to give up and
go away again, but Lady Maria was prepared to endure
more. "Which farm?" she wanted to know. "When did
they go?"

Lady Elkins grew more confused. "Perhaps it was
yesterday they went to view the horse," she murmured. The arrival of a servant with refreshments
spared her any further embarrassment. "Peter, where
did the young people go? Did they go to view the
horse, or was that yesterday?"

The servant, whose name was Robert, answered cheerfully, "Mr. Cary has gone to Wexton to see Mr.
Martin's mare, your ladyship. Miss Julie is just back
now from her ride."

"Ah," said Lady Elkins, as pleased as though she had
remembered this herself.

"Is my Lord Swale with her?" Lady Maria demanded.

Juliet herself answered this by entering the drawing room with absolutely nothing Swale-shaped at her
elbow. Her tousled brown hair was pulled back by a
wide ribbon of black silk, indifferently tied in a bow,
and her scarlet, military-style habit was stained with
grass. The fierce light in her eye matched the style of
her habit. She had found out the identity of the
morning callers and had come directly from the stables to defend her aunt.

Lady Maria experienced something of a shock.
She had previously viewed Miss Wayborn from a distance at church and had found her tall and slim,
though unremarkably pretty and too sun-browned to
be fashionable. But she could see now how an impressionable, foolish young man like Geoffrey might
be intrigued by her flashing gray eyes and queenly
bearing. Artful, presumptuous strumpet, she thought.

"I beg your pardon," said Juliet coldly. "My aunt has
not been well. Perhaps your ladyships would be good
enough to visit us another time?"

"Nonsense, my dear," cried Lady Elkins. "I am so
much better today, I would delight in company.
Indeed, I am quite recovered. It is so excessively good
of Lady Serena and Lady Maria to return our call."

"My dear Miss Wayborn," Serena called to Juliet,
"may I present you to my friend, Lady Maria
Fitzwilliam? Her brother, Lord Swale, is your guest,
I believe."

"Ma'am." Juliet made only the barest sketch of a
curtsey.

Lady Maria, exerting the privilege of her rank to the
utmost, remained seated and inclined her head in
slight acknowledgment of the tall, athletic young
lady standing before her in a scarlet habit. Her dark
eyes, however, betrayed a vociferous contempt. This
treatment was usually enough to send impudent girls
crying to their matchmaking mammas, but evidently,
Miss Wayborn was made of sterner stuff. She merely
looked back at Lady Maria like an equal.

"I am a little acquainted with Earl Wayborn," Maria
said in her coldest, haughtiest voice, which really
did not go with her pert, pug nose. "His lordship is
a relative, I collect?"

"I am also a little acquainted with the Earl," Juliet
replied carelessly, pulling off her gloves. "The day I
was presented to Her Majesty at court, he gave me two
fingers to shake and made me free to use my own surname, which I thought pretty well of him since I already had my father's permission. But you won't
meet his lordship here. He never comes here, and we
never go there, to Westlands."

"I have been to Westlands," said Lady Maria smugly.
"Rarely have I ever seen a house so happily situated.
Why, it is twice as large as Wayborn Hall!"

"No doubt you wish you were there now," said Miss
Wayborn. "How pleasant it would be, indeed, if your
ladyship were there now."