The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  Madness. She was no different than any other woman. In a few weeks—days, perhaps, if he were lucky—she would lose her luster, and he would have no problem ignoring her. Once she ceased to surprise him, he would lose interest. And she loathed him, besides—her chattiness this evening could be easily attributed to her consumption of a good deal of fine French brandy.

  Remember she hates you, he thought, even as he slipped his arms beneath her and lifted her from the floor. Her skirts drooped over his arm, sleek and slippery silk, and her hair caught in the stubble burnishing his jaw. She was not an elegant sleeper; her head lolled against his shoulder, her nose tucked up against his coat. She would have flopped about like a ragdoll without his arm at her back, supporting her. But her hair smelled like lily of the valley, and her bare toes peeked out from beneath her skirts, and it was disturbingly charming.

  He nudged her as he started up the stairs. “Which room have they put you in?”

  “Hmm?” Her voice was a velvety murmur. “Oh. End of the hall. Left.”

  The green room. He hadn’t really cared before, but he found himself pleased that Mrs. Hathaway had chosen the second best suite—after the master—to place her in.

  She turned her face against his shoulder and rubbed at her eyes with one hand. “You ruined me,” she accused in that same sleepy murmur, and it sounded like midnight and scandal had coalesced in her voice.

  “Nothing could ruin you, Mouse,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re above such inconsequential things.”

  “But you did.” Her palm came to rest upon his chest, and he imagined that he felt the heat of her fingers even through his coat. “I’m not certain yet whether I ought to hate you or thank you for it. I had a great deal of fun today, if you can imagine that.”

  In the overwhelming darkness, he nearly tripped over his own feet. He compensated for the awkward motion by nudging her door with the toe of his boot, thankful that it had been left ajar.

  “I’m still going to destroy you, of course,” she sighed, slipping once more toward sleep. “I’ve committed to it already.”

  Grey was not a man who smiled easily or often. He was not given over to amusements, or to entertaining anecdotes, or to humor in general. He had neither the time nor the patience for frivolity, for jests or japes or whatever foolishness with which most everyone else seemed to fill their days.

  But there in the darkness, he smiled. It was awkward and crooked and unpracticed, and he found himself grateful that there was no one—no one conscious, at least—to witness it. It contained a sort of lightness, of levity, that he could not recall experiencing in more years than he could remember, and it was not the sort of thing he would have chosen to share with anyone else.

  “I think I might enjoy watching you try,” he whispered, though she was not awake to hear it. She gave a little snuffle as he laid her out on her bed, curling her legs toward her chest and burrowing into the downy counterpane beneath her. Again there was that soft snore, oddly pleasant in its way.

  “Sweet dreams, Mouse,” he murmured, stroking her tangled hair away from her face. Just for a moment—only long enough to memorize the smooth texture of her skin beneath his fingertips. And then he let them fall away, and let her alone before he could be tempted into some other such foolishness. Like pressing a kiss to her forehead, when she would never know it.

  Just foolishness. It didn’t even merit consideration, really.

  But the thought persisted nonetheless.

  Chapter Seven

  Sarah fussed as she flittered between the dressing room and the bathing room, laying out assorted clothing and accessories in the light. Serena thought she was simply too full of annoyance to sit still, and supposed she could not really blame her.

  “Your feet will be stained black for a month or better, mark my words,” Sarah muttered beneath her breath, shaking her head in consternation, her dark curls quivering with indignation.

  Serena rearranged herself in the bathing tub, tucking her feet beneath her—though it hardly mattered, given that the evidence of their existence presented itself through the murky grey tint of the water surrounding her. She had done her best to scrub the ink from the soles of her feet herself, but it had set too deeply into her skin, and she had to acknowledge that Sarah was likely right. Her feet were going to be stained for a month or better.

  Sarah dragged a stool to the edge of the tub, a comb clenched in her fist. “Are all noblewomen as silly as you?” she inquired, plucking the pins from the unruly mass of tangles that she’d hastily piled atop Serena’s head, so that the ink-infused bathwater would not stain her hair as well. Despite her pique, her hands were gentle as she picked at the knots and tangles, carefully prying them free.

  “I suppose not,” Serena said. She doubted her friend—former friend—Lady Alice, would have been anything other than horrified at the prospect of dipping her feet in ink and waltzing a pattern of footprints across a marble floor and an Aubusson rug.

  But it had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Or at least a satisfying one. She wondered if that was the danger of spirits—that a good many things a person would never entertain otherwise might have seemed like perfectly reasonable actions in the moment.

  Just the thought of spirits turned Serena’s stomach, and she sunk into the water, wincing as her hair pulled in Sarah’s grip. “Ugh.”

  “Well, you’ve no one to blame but yourself,” Sarah chided, as if she had known precisely the sort of discomfort that had resulted in Serena’s undignified sound. “Honestly, I’m only surprised you didn’t cast up your accounts all over his lordship’s boots.”

  His lordship? “How should I have managed that?” Serena asked. “He wasn’t even there.”

  Sarah snorted. “Oh, yes, he was. He returned in the early morning. Sent the rest of us to bed.”

  “I—I don’t remember that.” Truly, she did not remember much of anything. It had been a disconcerting sensation to awaken and recall very little of what had passed the previous day. She supposed she’d discovered the spirits arrayed upon a sideboard in the library around half five or so, and perhaps an hour later Simpson had finally managed to locate a hatchet, which she had had to wrestle from his hands, since he had seemed unreasonably loath to surrender it to her.

  She recalled the splintering crash of her escritoire sailing over the landing to the foyer below. She remembered, distantly, the satisfaction of hacking it to pieces, of pouring out each bottle of ink until they made a delightful puddle on the sparkling marble floor. She remembered the cool crystal of the liquor decanter clutched in her fist, the impressions its carved facets had made upon her palm.

  But her memory stuttered out sometime after dusk. There were impressions, she thought—the echoing resonance of music burning in her ears, a brief flash of a ceiling spinning above her which suggested that she had spent some time lying on the floor.

  “He said he’d handle you,” Sarah continued briskly. “And I was grateful for it. It had gone past two in the morning when he arrived, and someone had to ensure you didn’t break your neck.” Another snort. “Not that anyone could have slept through that unearthly racket. I swear, half the staff are hardly on their feet today.”

  “I’m sorry,” Serena mumbled. “How thoughtless of me.” Why couldn’t she remember? It seemed particularly rude to have thrown a whole household into chaos without even recalling it.

  Sarah heaved a sigh, her fingers working swiftly. “No, I’ve spoken out of turn. I suppose most ladies would have sacked me for carrying on as I have. It’s not my place.”

  Serena doubted she carried the authority to sack anyone, regardless of provocation. In any case, the blunt truth had become preferable to the glittering lies to which she had once been accustomed. She supposed she hadn’t realized just how much of the world she inhabited was just artifice, contrived prettiness to gild the ugliness beneath. There were things acknowledged and things ignored, and everyone just pretended away unpleasantness as if, by ref
using to acknowledge it, it might cease to exist altogether.

  Once, she had lived among it and engaged in that very pretense. It had never seemed odd or unusual; it was simply what one did. Why was it that only now that she had become one of those things ignored that she could see the peculiarity with which her social set had behaved?

  “I wouldn’t sack you for telling the truth,” she said. “You’re my friend, Sarah.” The only one in the world. None of the ladies she had once called friends would speak to her, now. She wondered if they would even think of her—or if they would simply exorcise her from their memories, as if she had never existed at all.

  “A fine friend for a lady is a servant,” Sarah said, plunging her hand into the bathing tub to seize the stopper and drain the tub of its grimy water. As the water began to drain out of the tub, she twisted the taps, and fresh, clean water poured in to fill what had been lost.

  “I’m not a lady,” Serena said. “Not really. Not anymore.” It had been so easy to place herself only a few days ago. She had known precisely where she belonged and what her position had been within society. She simply had not realized how precarious that position had been, or that it had never been a firm floor beneath her feet. It had always been a crumbling pedestal, a moment away from collapse.

  Sarah huffed in amusement. “That sort of thing is bred into the bone. You can call yourself whatever you like, but your hands tell the truth.”

  Frowning, Serena uncurled her arms from around her midriff and pulled her hands from the water to examine them. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, flexing her fingers.

  Setting aside the comb, Sarah stretched out her own arm beside Serena’s. Her own fingers were a study for comparison—the nails trimmed short and flat, the fingers not nearly as smooth and white. Calluses roughened her palms.

  “Oh,” said Serena. “I see.”

  “You should see the laundry maid’s,” Sarah said. “She’s got to wear chicken skin gloves at night, lest her knuckles split. The lye, you know.”

  But she hadn’t known. How could she have known? Her own hands had been made for nothing more strenuous than turning the pages of a book or wandering over the keys of a pianoforte. Perhaps a bit of embroidery here and there, but certainly nothing that would have caused anything even approximating a blister.

  An uneasy feeling crept over her. She had been offended by the marquess’ suggestion that she was useless, but—he had been right. What value was there in dancing outside of a ballroom? It wasn’t a skill, it was a—a diversion. Something with which to fill her otherwise idle hours. Like a painting or tapestry, she had been made only to decorate the space she had filled. A living work of art, designed only to change hands from one owner to another.

  Her hands were simply something she’d carried over from one life into another, and they didn’t belong to her any longer. They belonged to someone who didn’t exist.

  “I think I’d like to try my hand at laundering,” she said, and Sarah choked on a laugh.

  “You?” she asked, incredulously.

  “Yes,” Serena said. “Me.” Because she was no longer certain of who, precisely, she was—but she intended to find

  ∞∞∞

  Grey knew that he ought to have left for his office hours ago. It was rare for him to spend so much time within his residence—despite his title, he was first and foremost a man of business, and had no inclination to turn control of his business interests over to another simply because the prevailing opinion of society was that men of power and position did not sully their hands with work.

  It was a stance he doubted he would ever understand, but at least he could appreciate the results of it. The indolence valued so highly by the nobility was precisely what had allowed him to rise to the position he had; those that did not personally attend to their responsibilities often found themselves trapped in his web because they had never known to watch for him, to guard themselves against him. How could they, when they whiled away their hours with balls and garden parties and musicales?

  He was the thief in the night that none of them had seen coming, and now most of them lived in his pockets and danced to his tune, which served him well enough. Those he favored—which were few enough—flourished, and those he did not favor withered. But all feared him, and that was almost as valuable a currency as respect.

  Well. Disregarding Mouse, that was, since she neither feared nor respected him.

  Perhaps an hour or two ago he’d heard he clanging of the pipes in the walls, a telltale sign that she had risen at last and was likely enjoying a leisurely bath. He wondered how she’d found her bathing room, whether she’d been awed by it. It was a feat of modern engineering, to be sure, and he was fairly certain that Andover, as one of the old guard, had strongly resisted that sort of modernization. Which was unfortunate for Andover, for it was by and large Grey’s sound investments, his foresight into what he expected the future to hold that had earned him his fortune. But it mattered only that Andover had resisted such change, because the very attitude he had held toward it was in no small part what had doomed him to insolvency and placed him within Grey’s grasp.

  Neither did it matter whether or not Andover’s daughter was impressed with any aspect of Grey’s household. He didn’t care whether or not she’d been awestruck by his renovations; she was not a woman he was seeking to impress. She was just another possession, bought and paid for, and he would use her to amuse himself at Andover’s expense until the man’s humiliation had ceased to be entertaining.

  “She’s nothing,” he muttered beneath his breath, even as he found himself scratching out a note to his office manager to inform the man that he would be working from his residence for the foreseeable future, because Mouse needed a keeper, and clearly the servants did not know how to handle her wild, destructive streak. “She’s nothing.”

  It had the sound of a lie, and he hated it. His hands clenched against the urge to sweep everything off of his desk and start from a clean slate. To pour out every bottle of ink and make a satisfying ruin of his office, just as Mouse had of his foyer and drawing room. It had been cleaned, of course, earlier this morning, but the stains of the ink remained—scrubbed, but not thoroughly exorcised from the marble tile, the carpet. Like the memory of a night he feared would linger long after she had gone.

  “Sir?”

  Grey glanced up. “Simpson. Good.” He fumbled for the note and folded it. “Have this sent round to my office.”

  Simpson collected the note, tucking it away in his breast pocket. “Certainly,” he said. “My lord, you have…a visitor.” He phrased the words evenly, but they sounded odd and foreign. He held a card in his right hand, which he offered across the desk to Grey.

  A visitor. Grey did not have visitors. He was not the sort of man one visited. People, by and large, granted him wide berth. They did not intrude upon him, and most especially not at his residence.

  Still, the very presence of Simpson in his office, the mere offering of the card suggested that something had changed. William Tyndall, Viscount Lansdowne.

  Mouse’s brother had come calling. Given what he knew of her family, it was surprising. He’d not thought either of her brothers would have had it in them. They were precisely the sort to shrug and continue on with their lives as though nothing had changed, avoiding unpleasantness even when it was thrust upon them.

  “He’s downstairs?” The words were gruff, tinged with incredulity.

  “He was invited to wait in the drawing room while I determined whether or not you were at home,” Simpson said. “Shall I inform him you are unavailable?”

  “No.” If Lansdowne had summoned the courage to pay a call, then he would acknowledge the effort made. Of course, he would not have put it past Andover to send his son to beg for mercy in his stead. It seemed the sort of cowardly move Andover would make. “No, I will see him.”

  “Shall I send for tea?” Simpson asked.

  “No. I’ll see him, but I draw the line a
t feeding him,” Grey retorted. “It’s bad enough that his sister lives off of my largesse.” But really, how could she do otherwise? It was a ridiculous—and unfair—accusation to make, and it made him feel rather petty.

  “Indeed, sir.” Simpson’s bland response grated upon Grey’s nerves, which were already frayed due to the disruption of his routine. It hardly mattered that the disruption was of his own making.

  He gritted out an expletive, rising to his feet. “Send the damned note, Simpson. I’ll handle Lansdowne.”

  ∞∞∞

  Lansdowne had the look of a man who had wagered his entire fortune on a throw of the dice and lost it all. It was a look with which Grey was intimately acquainted, having been the cause of it more often than not. He was immaculately groomed and dressed at least, his dark hair neatly combed and his face freshly shaven, but those details seemed only to highlight his shadowed, haunted face. He was waiting in the drawing room, staring hard at the carpet, and Grey realized Lansdowne was focused upon a blot that had once been one of Mouse’s footprints, though it had been scrubbed into an amorphous grey blot in the hours since.

  “Lansdowne,” Grey said, stepping into the room. “To what do I owe the dubious honor of your presence?”

  “Granbury.” The viscount stood, his jaw taut and tense, his shoulders drawn back with all the pomposity that Grey had come to expect from an aristocrat.

  Briefly, Grey wondered whether Lansdowne had managed to summon up the nerve to challenge him. Though dueling had been illegal for decades, if ever a situation called for a man to issue such a challenge, this would be it. Lansdowne had not been present that day in Andover’s library, though he could hardly have failed to learn what had transpired soon after. And still it had taken the man days to come calling, which was not a mark in his favor.