The Birthday Scandal (2 page)

Emily put the letter down, biting her lip. “He sounds so very low. It’s quite unlike him.” Her gaze sought the calendar on her desk. “His birthday is just a week away—no wonder he’s sending for me tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Mrs. Dalrymple’s hands fluttered to her face. “But how shall we get all your packing done in so short a time?”

“I’m certain we’ll manage. But you were telling me about the village flower show and the squire.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter now, my lady! Shall I go and tell Sally to start packing your things? Or shall you want to check every garment beforehand? Oh, dear—I never know what to do. But in any case, you need me now more than ever, and Sir Cedric will simply have to wait.”

Mrs. Dalrymple flitted out of the room, leaving Emily shaking her head and wondering if she should call the woman back and set her to some other task. Mrs. Dalrymple was a great deal more likely to get in Sally’s way than to assist—assuming, of course, that she didn’t mangle the message altogether.

But what was all this about Sir Cedric having to wait? Some detail about the village flower show, no doubt. Which reminded Emily that she must arrange for someone to step into her shoes to do the judging next Saturday.

She picked up her second letter and cracked the wafer. Even if her father had issued his usual blast of orders, she found herself feeling a bit more sanguine about the situation.

I have it in mind to make a gift to you…

Of course, Uncle Josiah could simply mean he planned to present her with his late wife’s pearl earbobs, since he had no daughter to inherit them. Still, Emily couldn’t help but feel better. Even distracted by his own illness, Uncle Josiah—wise man that he was—understood that her inheritance from her mother would stretch only so far. The Duke of Weybridge was well known to be plump in the pockets, and not just in landed estates; she had heard him expound many times on the benefits of investing in the Funds.

If only he were to settle some money on her, Emily could safely continue to ignore her father—and everything would be all right.

The company was lighthearted and gay, the accommodations sinfully comfortable, the entertainments truly amusing, and the hunting reasonably enjoyable. Despite all of that, Lady Isabel Maxwell was miserable. Simply keeping a smile fixed on her face was the most difficult thing she had done in months, because it was all too clear that the rest of the company would have preferred it if her husband had been the guest at the Beckhams’ hunting lodge instead.

“Too bad Maxwell couldn’t join us,” one of the gentlemen had said just that morning as they’d finished the hunt and called the hounds to heel for the ride back to the lodge. “He’s a bruising rider—we wouldn’t have seen
him
going around by the fields.”

“I do wonder, Lady Isabel,” one of the ladies had said slyly yesterday, “that you can bear to be away from your husband for so long. He’s such a
masculine
man. But perhaps that’s why you need a little time away from his…demands?” And then she had held her breath as if seriously expecting Isabel to answer.

And last night as Isabel passed a half-open bedroom door, she had overheard a fellow guest speaking to her maid. “I do so admire Lady Isabel for not feeling the need to bow to the demands of fashion,” the woman had said. “She dresses instead in what is comfortable even if it is not in the first stare. Though I find it no wonder her husband has strayed.”

Isabel had gritted her teeth and gone on down to dinner, where she smiled and flirted and silently dared anyone to comment to her face that her dress was at least two years old.

If only her early departure wouldn’t cause so much comment, she would call for her carriage and go home right now. But that was impossible. For one thing, she didn’t
have
a carriage, for she had come up from London with a fellow guest. Too short of funds to afford a post-chaise, she was equally dependent on her friend for transport back to the city when the hunting party broke up.

And secondly, of course, there were only two places she could go—Maxton Abbey, or the London house—and her husband might be at either one. Unless, with her safely stashed at the Beckhams’, he had accepted yet another of the many invitations he received.

But she couldn’t take the chance. After little more than a year of marriage, the pattern was ingrained—wherever one of the Maxwells went, the other took pains not to go. She could not burst in on her husband; what if he were entertaining his mistress?

Better not to know.

She might go to the village of Barton Bristow, descending on her sister. But Emily’s tiny cottage was scarcely large enough for her and her companion, with no room for a guest—and Mrs. Dalrymple’s constant chatter and menial deference was enough to set Isabel’s teeth on edge. In fact, the only nice thing Isabel could say about being married was that at least she wasn’t required to drag a spinster companion around the countryside with her to preserve her reputation, as Emily had to do.

Isabel turned her borrowed mount over to the stable boys and strode across to the house, where the butler intercepted her in the front hall. “A letter has just been delivered for you, Lady Isabel, by a special messenger. He said a post-chaise will call for you tomorrow.”

She took the folded sheet with trepidation. Who could be summoning her? Not her husband, that was certain. Her father, possibly, for yet another lecture on the duties of a young wife?

She broke the seal and unfolded the page.

Uncle Josiah. But her moment of relief soon passed as she read on. The Duke of Weybridge
dying
?—Impossible. True, he had looked old to her from the day she first remembered him—but through all the years since, he had seemed to stay exactly the same.

Her eyes skipped down the page.

She couldn’t help but feel relieved at such a marvelous excuse to leave the house party early—even while she scolded herself for thinking such a thing. It wasn’t as though she
wanted
Uncle Josiah to be ill.

Well, that was clear enough—and very welcome, too. If Uncle Josiah were to offer her a bit of cash, Isabel would swallow what pride she still possessed and accept. Some extra pocket money would come in handy indeed—since it seemed she had no option but to continue to play her role as the Earl of Maxwell’s inconvenient wife.

Lucien Arden had started the evening at one of the few theaters that remained open despite the fact that London was thin of company in early autumn. He went not as a fan of the art but because there was a new face in the chorus, and rumor—in the person of his friend Aubrey—said she was a promising possibility as a mistress. And indeed she was, Lucien had to admit—atleast, she would be for Aubrey, who had come into his title and had full control of his fortune. But not for someone like Lucien—a young man on a strict allowance and whose title of Viscount Hartford was only a courtesy one, borrowed from his father. Being
my lord
was, he had found, one of the few benefits of being the only son of the Earl of Chiswick.

“She’s quite attractive, as game pullets go,” he told Aubrey carelessly after the play, as they cracked the first bottle of wine at their club. “Have her with my blessing.”

Aubrey snorted. “You know, Lucien, it’s just as well you’re not looking for a high-flyer, for you damned well couldn’t afford her.”

Lucien forced a smile. “She’s not my sort, as it happens.”

“Balderdash—she’s any man’s sort.”

Not mine,
Lucien thought absently. He might have said it aloud if the sentiment hadn’t been so startlingly true. How odd—for the chorus girl had been a prime piece, buxom and long-limbed and flashy, as well as incredibly flexible as she moved around the stage. How could he not be interested?

Aubrey was looking at him strangely, so Lucien said, “If she’s so much to your taste, I’m surprised you didn’t go around to the stage door after the performance and make yourself known.”

“Strategy, my friend. Never let a woman guess exactly how interested you are.” Aubrey waved a hand at a waiter to bring another bottle, and as they drank it, he detailed his plan for winning the chorus girl. “It’s too bad you can’t join the fun, for I’m certain she has a friend,” Aubrey fin-ished. “The gossips have it that your father is never without a lightskirt, so why should he object to you having one?”

“Oh, not a lightskirt. Only the finest of the demimonde will do for the Earl of Chiswick.” Lucien drained his glass. “I’m meant to be on the road to Weybridge at first light—for the duke’s birthday, you know. A few hours’ sleep before I climb into a jolting carriage will not come amiss.”

“Too late.” Aubrey tilted his head toward the nearest window. “Dawn’s breaking now, if I’m not mistaken. You won’t mind if I don’t come to see you off? Deadly dull it is, waving good-bye—and I’ve a mind for a hand or two of piquet before I go home.”

Lucien walked from the club to his rooms in Mount Street, hoping a fresh breeze might help clear his head. The post-chaise Uncle Josiah had ordered for him was already waiting. The horses stamped impatiently, snorting in the cool morning air, and the postboys looked bored.

Nearby, Lucien’s valet paced—but he brightened at the sight of his master. “The trunks are already strapped in place, my lord. The moment you take your seat, we can be off.”

Lucien rubbed his jaw and thought longingly of his bed—or failing that, at least a hot towel and a close shave. But in good conscience, he couldn’t keep the team and the boys—or Uncle Josiah—waiting any longer, so he climbed into the post-chaise and settled into the corner.

Sleep eluded him, and the sway and bounce of the springs made him feel like casting up his accounts.
I must change clubs. The wine there is frightfully bad, to leave me with a head like this.

As they left London behind to bowl along the Great North Road, he looked across at his valet, who was sitting primly upright on the opposite seat with his back to the horses. “I assume you brought the letter?”

“Of course, my lord.” The valet drew it from a small hand valise.

Lucien had read the duke’s message so often in the last two days that the words felt engraved on his brain, so he skipped to the most interesting parts.

Uncle Josiah, Lucien thought sleepily, was the best of sports. Too bad that his only son had died in infancy. Then the rest of the family had succumbed one after another, and now the dukedom would fall to the most unlikely of fellows, a cousin from a branch so distant that Lucien hadn’t even known they existed. Some blighter from the former colonies would be the next Duke of Weybridge, he had heard—and a bloody great time it had taken the solicitors to find him there, too, with yet another war dragging on. It was over now, finally—but what was wrong with those American fellows, anyway? Did they like fighting so much they simply couldn’t walk away from a tussle?