The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  “Now,” the woman said, plunking her hands on her hips and setting her shoulders in determination. “I’m Sarah, your lady’s maid.”

  “My—my lady’s maid?” Serena spoke the words as if she’d never heard them before.

  “Of course, my lady. Haven’t you need of one?” Sarah tilted her head to the side, a frown settling between her delicately arched brows.

  “I—I—” Did she have need of one? It was just one of perhaps a thousand things she had never had to consider before now. Of course a lady would have need of a lady’s maid, but did men regularly provide such things for their mistresses?

  “I suppose,” she settled on, if for no other reason than she could not imagine how she would get out of her gown on her own, since the buttons were done up at her back.

  Sarah gave a firm nod. “Well, then. Would you like to bathe before dinner, my lady?”

  A bath. That sounded lovely—to cleanse away the filth of the hateful words that had been slung around her today. But she feared it would be a futile effort, that every awful thing she had heard had soaked through her skin and branded her bone-deep. It was the sort of dirtiness that stained a person all the way to their soul.

  But the skin, at least, could be scrubbed.

  “Yes,” she said, and if her voice sounded hollow, it was also resolute. “Thank you, Sarah.”

  “The bathing room is just through there,” Sarah said, gesturing to the door that Serena had assumed to be the dressing room.

  “The—the bathing room?” She’d heard of them, in abstract sort of way. Newer homes were more likely to have them, since an older home would have to be renovated to install one. To have an entire room devoted to bathing seemed somehow ostentatious, an extravagance beyond imagining. And it was attached to her room?

  A chilling thought barreled into her head. “Does—does the marquess bathe there, too?”

  Startled by the question, Sarah laid her hand on her chest and gave a little laugh. “No, my lady. He’s got one of his own.”

  One of his own? She’d never heard of such a thing. Even in homes where bathing rooms had been installed, they weren’t private. Such things were costly and labor-intensive. It was simply not a thing that most families—even the landed, financially secure ones—would devote the time, space, or funds to constructing more than one of.

  Sarah busied herself with lighting a lamp, which she took through the door to the bathing room. There was the sound of cabinets being opened, the rustling of cloth, and then Sarah’s voice carried through the door. “His lordship elected to modernize much of this house when he purchased it, or so I’m given to understand,” she said. “It’s a wonder, really. Are you ready, my lady? I’ve laid out some towels.”

  Serena shoved herself to her feet and crossed the floor, peeking into the room. “But the water—”

  “That’s the best part,” Sarah said, her voice echoing around the tile of the bathing room. She was bent over the countertop, parceling out tiny cakes of soap from a drawer that sat upon the marble countertop. “His lordship had the house renovated for plumbing.”

  She set the tray of soaps on an elegant little table situated beside the tub, which was the largest Serena had ever seen. It dwarfed the copper tub that she had always used by a wide margin—she doubted it would have taken fewer than four men to deliver the monstrosity of a bathing tub to this room when it had first been installed. Partially obscured behind a privacy screen, it dominated the room with its ostentatious splendor.

  A person could drown in a tub like that. Or at the very least sink up to their neck; a feat she had never before managed.

  “You see, you turn these taps here,” Sarah explained, gesturing to the bronze dials situated above a large pipe that hung over the lip of the bathing tub, “and the water comes out on its own, piped up through the kitchen. And when you’re done bathing, the stopper at the bottom can be removed, and the water flows out through another pipe.”

  “My word,” Serena said, fascinated. Experimentally, she reached out to twist a tap, and then started at the strange rumbling sound that echoed around the room.

  “That’s for cold,” Sarah said, and she reached around to twist the other tap. “This one’s hot. It takes a few minutes to heat, and I’ll warn you that it won’t last long, but it’s enough to fill at least two tubs of this size. There are some pitchers around here somewhere….” Her voice trailed off into silence as she dug through the cabinets beneath the countertop once again, eventually resurfacing with two ornately painted pitchers. “For rinsing,” she said. “Best to fill them first, once the hot water comes through, or else you’ll find yourself waiting for more water to heat. Shall I unbutton your gown for you, my lady?”

  “Oh. Oh, yes, please.” She stood to give Sarah her back, but couldn’t stop herself from watching the water pour into the tub. What a marvel of an innovation—to erase the need for footmen to run about lugging heavy cans of steaming water, and all with piping laid within the walls. She couldn’t begin to imagine the expense of it—her father would have had a fit of apoplexy if someone had even suggested tearing out the walls to lay pipes within them.

  As Sarah plucked buttons from their loops, steam began to billow gently from the pipe, suggesting that the hot water had at last arrived. Amazing.

  “Shall I take down your hair, my lady?” Sarah inquired.

  Serena shook her head. “No, thank you—it dries far too slowly,” she said. And then she hesitated. “Please call me Serena,” she said at last.

  Sarah’s hands froze on the last of the buttons. “But you’re a lady,” she said. “I couldn’t.”

  Serena closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and willed the sharp ache in her chest to subside. “Not anymore,” she said. And she was thinking of her father, striding from the library as if she had ceased to exist in his eyes. Of the marquess’ cold brown eyes as he had said, “You’re a means to an end, Mouse.”

  The lady she had been had died, and a mouse had taken her place. An insignificant creature—just vermin, reviled for immutable things she could neither help nor change. Everything had fallen apart so swiftly, and she wondered if she would lose herself the same way. If one day she would wake up unaware of who she was, remade into a creature with no past and no future, no identity of her own beyond what the marquess chose to give her. If even her name could be lost to the ether.

  “Just Serena,” she said. “Please. It would make me happy.” And sad. And a hundred other emotions for which she had no name. There was no one left to call her by name anymore—even the ladies who had once been her social equals would spurn her.

  Sarah hesitated still, but she glanced up and started as she caught Serena’s gaze in the oval mirror that hung above the countertop. Whatever she had seen in Serena’s face had Sarah’s blue eyes softening with something like sympathy.

  “All right,” she said at last, and finished after an awkward, expectant pause with, “Serena.”

  In silence she shed the simple white day gown and stripped down to her chemise. But when Sarah attempted to collect the discarded gown, Serena stretched out her hand. “Oh—please leave it. I’ll need it when I’m done bathing.”

  Sarah’s brow crinkled. “Whatever for?”

  “I can’t go to down to dinner in my chemise,” she said. And then for a brief moment a burst of anger flared in her chest. “Does he expect that? Because I won’t do it—I won’t.”

  “But why would you go in your chemise? You have other gowns.” A mystified frown deepened between Sarah’s dark brows.

  “I don’t,” Serena said. Resignation warred with fury, and she tugged loose the string of her chemise as she retreated behind the privacy screen, pulled the garment over her head, and slung it over. “I have nothing at all,” she said, stepping into the tub and sliding down until the water slipped over her shoulders. “I have nothing at all,” she repeated dully, leaning forward to loop her arms about her knees.

  “But the dressing room,” Sarah sai
d, and through the gap in the slats of the screen, Serena saw her gesturing to the other side of the room. “It’s full of gowns.”

  “What?” Serena popped her head up, baffled. “What gowns?”

  “All sorts,” Sarah said. “More than a body could wear in a lifetime. I thought they were yours. His lordship said they were when he hired me on a week ago. There’s so many I swear it took me that long simply to get them all in order.”

  A week ago. He’d hired on Sarah a week ago. And a wardrobe—that took time. If there were as many gowns as Sarah had implied, it would have taken a great deal of time indeed. It spoke of determination, premeditation, elaborate planning. This was no ordinary, spur-of-the-moment cruelty; this was a meticulously planned scheme. When the marquess had stared at her last evening across that crowded ballroom, he had known then exactly what had been waiting for her today.

  For weeks—months, more likely—he had been preparing for today. And she had known nothing of it, secure in her sheltered little world like a princess in a tower, without the slightest suspicion that somewhere in London there existed a man who had already contrived to ruin her. That seemed somehow crueler than anything else—that she had gone about her life in complete ignorance of what had awaited her.

  She wasn’t going to cry. There was no use in it. It wouldn’t even make her feel better. Some things were too difficult to stop once started, and crying was most definitely one of them. But she did tilt her head back until her eyes ceased to sting and water.

  Sarah made a soft sound in her throat, half-pitying, and then somehow that was the worst—that in the space of an afternoon she had become so pitiable a creature.

  “I’ll fetch you some tea,” Sarah said, pitching her voice low and soothing. “Tea makes everything just a little bit brighter. You’ll see.” She quit the room quietly, her footsteps receding into the distance.

  “When you find the tea that can turn back time, please do let me know,” Serena whispered to no one in particular.

  Chapter Five

  Grey had thought it a kindness, given the circumstances, to take himself out of the house for a number of hours, the better to give Mouse the opportunity to acclimate herself to her new environment. He had no doubt but that she would stay within the confines of the house, perhaps venturing as far as the garden—there was, after all, nowhere else for her to go.

  He had, however, expected that she would hole herself up within her rooms and send for a dinner tray rather than dine below, which was why it was so unpleasant a surprise to find her seated at the dinner table when he arrived home late in the evening. Prim and proper and respectably attired in an emerald-hued gown, Mouse stared in abject horror, her spine rigid with horror and shock.

  And he—well, he looked like a villain. He’d shucked off his waistcoat and shirt in the carriage, and his braces hung at his sides. His hair was a mess of tangles and knots. There was a bruise forming on his right shoulder, and another on his left side, near the middle of his ribs. He was covered in sweat and worse, and he suspected there might still be a bit of blood streaking his chest.

  Not his, of course. A bruise or two was generally the worst that he took at Gentleman Jackson’s pugilistic club. Half the patrons were nobility, and few of them attended for anything other than bragging rights. There were always some, though, as there had been tonight, whom he’d ruined in one manner or another, and who sought a bit of their honor back by challenging him to a match. But they were by and large a callow and hot-headed lot, without the wherewithal to do more than sling a few wild punches his way, and Grey easily put them down. Always.

  Mouse let her eyes fall to her empty plate, regarding it with some reticence, as though even if it had been filled, she might have lost the desire to eat—like his very presence had sent her appetite fleeing. She took a bracing sip of wine, setting her shoulders and collecting herself once more, slinging a cloak of icy disdain about her shoulders. Galling, that attitude of hers.

  Instead of proceeding up the stairs and to his room to redress, he strode into the dining room proper, hooked his ankle around the legs of a chair, yanked it out from beneath the table, and flung himself into it. Mouse could go to the devil if she thought her contempt would send him meekly away, tail tucked between his legs.

  His servants were too well-trained to react to his state of undress. A glass of wine appeared next to his own empty plate, soundlessly delivered by a footman who then signaled the dinner service to begin.

  Mouse cleared her throat, her gaze hovering somewhere around the centerpiece placed on the table cloth. Her mouth opened, but no words emerged, and after a tense moment she seemed to think better of whatever she had been about to say and contented herself with silence. She really did look like a mouse, he thought—wary, suspicious. He could imagine her little nose twitching, her whiskers aquiver as if sensing a threat, her blond fur ruffled with indignation.

  “If you’ve got something to say, Mouse, you might as well out with it,” he said, relishing her obvious discomfort. And then, as the nearest footman ladled a serving onto his plate, he said, “Ah, duck. My favorite.”

  “Duck?” Mouse repeated, very nearly incredulously, as a serving appeared on her plate as well. She stared down at it, her lips compressed into a firm, disbelieving line.

  “In a tarragon cream sauce,” he said. “No, don’t tell me. You expected something else—what was that sordid little rumor? Something about babies?”

  She jerked as if he’d lashed out at her, a wild flush creeping over her face. The bloom color served at least the purpose of chasing the pallor from her face, made her look less the miserable waif.

  “Sorry to disappoint, Mouse. I don’t much like children—not even roasted, with a good gravy.” There was something incredibly satisfying about provoking her. He knew she was more than embarrassed—she was angry. It translated into the whiteness of her knuckles as she clenched her hands around her silverware, the tense line of her jaw as she chewed.

  He timed his next remark perfectly, just as she took her next mechanical bite. “I do enjoy a nice, tender kitten from time to time.”

  She choked, trembling fingers seizing her napkin and patting at her mouth, her movements stilted and stiff. Out of step with herself, her whole being at odds with who she had been all her life. That effortless grace she’d displayed only last evening vanquished as if it had never existed at all.

  What remained when all goodness, all softness had been crushed out of something? What remained of a lady stripped of every manner of civility or virtue? His analytical mind had already made one spurious assessment of her character and had been soundly proved incorrect. Now he found himself weighing each breath that slipped between her lips, every twitch of her muscles and flex of her fingers, determined to find a place for her in his mind—a neat little box in which he could tuck her away and forget about her.

  He watched her set her shoulders anew, straighten her back, and gather up the scattered bits of herself, and though he knew that an object broken—even mended over again—would always be weaker than it had been, he did not think he could apply this same principle to her. Twice in just a few moments he’d knocked her composure askew, and still she collected herself as if it had never happened. Somehow she was stronger than he had guessed. Stronger than he would ever have believed.

  But still she would bend. Out of habit, his fingers traced the neck of his soup spoon, hunting out the weakest point. In all things, he searched for weakness. The perfect point at which to apply pressure, the single spot that caved to stress.

  “Is it your intention to starve me, then?”

  Her clipped words surprised him. She had managed to wrestle the indignation that had been scrawled across her face into submission, but had not exorcised it from her voice; her placid face told the lie that nothing of note was amiss, but her voice lashed him with a fury that could have flayed his flesh from his bones.

  He took his time, carving off a morsel of duck and popping it into his mouth
before replying. “You’re eating, are you not?” It was a coarse mumble around a mouthful of food, an action he knew would disturb her.

  She disturbed him. It seemed a fair enough trade.

  “Apparently your meals are held for you,” she said, and there was a snide tone there, a subtle mockery that didn’t suit at all the mouse he had named her. “None may eat but by the master’s command.” An absurd little flip of her wrist accompanied this sweeping declaration. “You’ll forgive me for being a touch testy to have been kept waiting.”

  It hadn’t been an order he’d given. It was not one he would have given, but he found it didn’t surprise him. No one much wanted to earn his enmity by displeasing him. “It was not my intention. How long?”

  “Since seven.” Her knife rasped across her plate, producing a high, shrill note that hung in the air, and he wondered if she had done it deliberately, or if she had become a victim of her own emotions.

  “That’s over two hours.”

  “Oh, good,” she said dryly. “You can tell time. I had wondered.”

  Mouse might be more fox than vermin. Sly and wily. Tricky and cunning. Dangerous when cornered.

  He leaned back in his chair, the silver spoon clutched in his hand, his gaze flitting to the nearest footman. “She eats when she pleases,” he said. “You don’t hold meals for me while she’s in residence.”

  The footman nodded, and Grey knew that he would communicate the clarification to the rest of the staff. He had expected some sort of acknowledgment from Mouse, but she simply continued carving up her food, meticulously rearranging it on her plate. A parody of a meal, merely the illusion of conforming to the rules of etiquette.

  Despite her position, she held herself like a queen. Her dignity was a façade, a hand of losing cards that she held close to her chest as if they were a bounty instead of a burden, but it took a special kind of courage to play out a losing hand. Any other lady in her position would simply fold. He could admire the mettle of it, if nothing else.