The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  Grey watched, dispassionately, as the viscount curled his hands into fists, as his throat worked convulsively. He didn’t have Mouse’s odd grey eyes, but the wing of his brows was reminiscent of her more delicate arches. His jaw was squarer, the exact antithesis of Mouse’s elfin chin. But then, Mouse favored her mother, the late countess, while Lansdowne favored his father not just in appearance but in indulgences. Still, he supposed the man might hold some sort of brotherly affection for Mouse, given that he had turned up—eventually.

  “If you’ve come to issue a challenge, Lansdowne, I would advise against it. I’m an excellent shot.” Grey took up a seat, the same space he’d taken last evening when Mouse had been in her cups, and his eyes drifted toward that spot on the floor where she’d lain, his uncanny memory painting up a perfect image of her there.

  Lansdowne hissed, “I had considered it.” But his eyes dropped, an unwilling gesture of submission. He might dream of planting his fist in Grey’s face or a bullet in his chest, but he had already decided against it. “I want to know where you’re keeping her.”

  “Why? What business is it of yours?”

  “Damn you, Granbury. She’s still my sister.” He cast himself onto his seat, a study in noble petulance. Nonetheless, Grey’s estimation of the man rose a fraction. A tiny one, but a fraction nonetheless. Lansdowne might be a man made in the image of his father—he’d gambled away a fortune, after all; a fortune that had, in part, led to the family’s dire financial straits that had allowed Grey to press his advantage—but some part of him, at least, cared for Mouse.

  “So your intention is to what, precisely? Visit her?” The decanters of liquor had not been moved from atop the pianoforte, but there was no glass in easy reach, and so Grey discarded the temptation to pour himself a drink. “That won’t do.”

  “Why the hell not?” It was a sulky rejoinder.

  “Because Mouse’s time—all of it—belongs to me.” Grey found himself gratified by the flash of fury that streaked across Lansdowne’s face. “I don’t share what belongs to me. Even when I’m not currently enjoying it.”

  “Don’t speak of her that way. She’s not—”

  “Your sister is my mistress, Lansdowne. There’s no sense in prettying it up,” Grey said. Provoking Lansdowne was too easy; the man had no control over his emotions. It was the selfsame flaw that had landed him in this predicament. “You’re nearly as much to blame for her situation as your father, you know. You run up debts, Lansdowne, without the means to repay them.”

  Lansdowne winced, and Grey saw that he did know. Good; let it eat at his conscience that he had had a hand in his sister’s destruction. It would do the man well to meet the consequences of his actions face to face. Men of his position so rarely did.

  “I know that,” Lansdowne said, and his voice contained a wealth of self-recrimination. “If I had known then—”

  “William?”

  The hesitant whisper surprised the both of them. Grey turned to see Mouse standing in the entrance of the drawing room, one hand braced upon the door jamb. A blue gown today, a rich sapphire silk that made her pale skin glow. Her hair had been properly pinned in place, a coronet of braids wreathing her head.

  “Serena!” Lansdowne leapt to his feet, striding across the carpet toward her, where he collected her hands in his. “Serena, I’m so sorry. I—” A ripple of anger tightened his shoulders. “Damn you, Granbury—you’re keeping her here?”

  Grey shrugged. “It’s as good a place as any.”

  “William, what are you doing here?” Mouse attempted to tug her hands from his, but he would not release them.

  Lansdowne spoke hurriedly. “I had to see you for myself. Father spun some ridiculous story about you, but I managed to get the true one from the servants.”

  Only Grey noticed the minute wince that flashed across Mouse’s face.

  “I’m curious, Lansdowne,” Grey said. “What is the earl saying, precisely?”

  Lansdowne hesitated. “It’s not…the sort of thing one repeats in a lady’s presence,” he said at last. “And it’s certainly not the sort of thing one says of one’s sister.”

  A long moment of silence drew out, but Mouse was the one to break it. “I want to know,” she said. “I think I’ve earned that much.”

  “It’s nothing,” Lansdowne said in a rush. “He’s only trying to save face. You know how Father is. How he’s always been.”

  “William.”

  The snap in Mouse’s voice surprised even Grey. It was resolute and commanding. Perhaps even he would have quailed beneath it.

  Lansdowne flinched. “He’s saying you’re not his daughter,” he said in a rush. “That Mother conducted an affair and he accepted you only out of obligation, because he’d already gotten his heir and spare. That you were a cuckoo in the nest, and bad blood will out.” His voice dropped to a whisper, as if somehow that would soften the hateful words. “He’s saying he’d washed his hands of you when he discovered you were carrying on with Granbury, that you’d dishonored our family.”

  “It’s not true.” The words were practically a wheeze through her bloodless lips.

  “Of course it’s not true,” Lansdowne said, squeezing his hands in his, which caused her to wince. “But it’s what he’s saying. You know what he’s like—he had to say something to avoid social disgrace. He’s trying to salvage his reputation.”

  “And what of yours?” Mouse inquired.

  Lansdowne shrugged, but his gaze slid away from her. “Arabella’s family is…not pleased,” he admitted. “But so far they’ve accepted Father’s version of events. Most everyone has, really. He’s playing the wounded party well enough.” Lansdowne released a gust of breath, as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus. “Serena, you’re still my sister. Even if it were true, you’d still be my sister.”

  Grey wondered exactly how far that devotion stretched, cynical as it may have been. Benevolently, he decided to throw Lansdowne a rope—either lifeline or noose, at the man’s discretion. “Mouse and I will visit Hyde Park on Saturday next,” he said. “At the fashionable hour. Should you wish to visit with her, you may do so there.”

  As he had expected, Lansdowne cringed. “I thought perhaps somewhere less public. I could call here—”

  Some soft light in Mouse’s eyes died immediately, like a candle snuffed out, as she realized what he was implying. He would not acknowledge her in public. A sister to him only when it was convenient, only in private. Only if no one else would know, and only so long as it would not affect his standing within the Ton.

  “Arabella,” Lansdowne stressed. “Her family would—”

  “I know.” How Mouse maintained that soft, gentle voice, Grey could not guess. “I know,” she said again. “You can’t take such a risk.” She extracted her hands from his, smoothly stepping away. “Goodbye, William.”

  “Serena….”

  But she drifted away, her blue skirts swishing across the floor as she retreated from the drawing room. Lansdowne watched her go, his hands clenched at his sides, helpless to salvage the situation.

  In a toneless voice, he asked, “Was that truly necessary?”

  “She deserved to know,” Grey said. “She sacrificed everything for you, for your brother. She deserved to know exactly who it was she’d done it for. What sort of man you truly are.” He shoved himself up from the sofa. “You’re a better man than your father, Lansdowne, but it’s clear enough that the apple hasn’t fallen all that far from the tree.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the door. “You can show yourself out.”

  Chapter Eight

  Grey found Mouse in the library—though he couldn’t have said why, precisely, he had sought her out—curled up on a window seat, staring listlessly out into the garden. He might have expected tears from a lesser woman, but Mouse, apparently, was made of stronger stuff than that. Still, there was something disconsolate about her, more fragile than he could comprehend—like a hairline crack running through a delicate
vase. Unbroken, but weaker than it once had been.

  It seemed wrong to intrude upon her solitude. She had secreted herself away for a reason, after all.

  But as he turned to leave, her muted voice sliced through the silence.

  “You knew what he would say.”

  There wasn’t even the barest hint of accusation in the tone of it, and yet he felt it as if there had been. But there was nothing to be served in denying it.

  He crammed his hands into his pockets and said, “Yes. I knew.”

  Her temple touched the window, and her eyes fluttered closed. “I was surprised. I suppose I shouldn’t have been, but I was. I had hoped—” She broke off to clear her throat, and repeated at last in a dull voice, devoid of emotion, “I had hoped.”

  That was the problem with being born into a world that was nothing but artifice, he thought. Hopes were invariably disappointed.

  “It’s just a game for you, isn’t it?” she inquired. “Pull the strings, make everyone dance like a marionette to your tune. What did I do, then, to deserve this?”

  Grey shrugged off the stirrings of guilt. “You had the misfortune to be born to the wrong man.”

  A bitter laugh trickled from her throat. “Yes, well. Perhaps not.”

  “That was a lie.”

  “You can’t be certain of that. But…I think I would rather be anyone else’s daughter. Anyone at all.” She heaved a sigh, her shoulders slumping, and for a moment Grey wished it as well. If she had been, then she would never have been brought to this point. He would never have brought her to it.

  “Your mother wasn’t that kind of woman,” he said. “Your father might be a man entirely without honor, but your mother—she was truly a lady in every respect.”

  Her head swiveled toward him, and her fair hair in its crown of braids shimmered in a stray beam of sunlight. “You knew my mother?”

  “A very long time ago, yes.” He stepped forward, properly into the library, since it seemed like the sort of conversation that should not occur twenty paces from one another. “I met you, once, as well. You were just a squalling babe, then, of course. The countess had brought you down from the nursery to show you off to my father. You screamed the entire time, but the countess—anyone could see that she doted on you.”

  A ghost of a smile flickered on her lips for only a moment. As if she’d forgotten how to do it. “What was she like?”

  “Graceful. Elegant.” His boots reached the rug separating them and stopped, as if it were an impenetrable barrier. “Kind. She always came down to chat with my mother when we visited, though there was never the expectation of it, given our common roots. She often slipped me toffee candies when my mother wasn’t looking.”

  “I wish I could remember her.” Mouse folded her arms over her knees and ducked her head to press her forehead to them. “Someone like that—she might have loved me anyway.” There was an alarming huskiness to her voice, but she cleared her throat again and banished it. “You know so much about my family. I don’t know anything about you at all.”

  “It’s my business to know things, Mouse.” He ought to have left it there, but he heard himself offer nonetheless, “Is there something you’d like to know?” She had not yet asked, after all, precisely what had led her to this point, what it was her father had done to earn his enmity. He wasn’t certain he would tell her even if she did ask.

  She was silent for a long moment, but at last she said, “No. Thank you.” Her voice wobbled a touch. “You don’t have to be kind to me. It’s not necessary.” Her lips pursed. “It might be kinder if you were unkind, as I don’t intend to be kind to you, and I shouldn’t like to feel guilty about it.”

  Of course, Mouse would be the sort of woman to feel guilty about such things—even seeking revenge upon a man who had wronged her. “As you wish, then,” he said, and turned to leave lest she see him smile.

  But her voice followed him. “My brother. William. He’s not—he’s not a bad man,” she said. “And neither is Hugh. You don’t know what it was like, to be raised by our father. There are…expectations that they must uphold. I was foolish to think otherwise.”

  Whatever amusement he had felt fled on the heels of that carefully-worded plea—for that was exactly what it had been, despite its deliberate vagueness. A plea for leniency, a plea for mercy, for the family that had all but deserted her.

  “Why would you plead on their behalf?” he asked. “Lansdowne won’t even meet you in public.” What would it be like to possess only a fraction of a loyalty like hers? To hold someone’s affection even when you had disappointed them, hurt them so grievously?

  “They’re my brothers.” She gave a half-hearted shrug. “I love them.”

  “You’re their sister. Lansdowne should have come for my head. He should have defended your honor.” In a queer sort of way, he found himself almost offended on her behalf.

  “He has a fiancée. Lady Arabella Carrington. Her family is very proper, very rigid—her father especially. A duel would be a scandal all its own,” she said. “There’s nothing he could do that would change anything, and it would be cruel to expect him to sacrifice his prospects for me.”

  Grey stoked his thumb across his jaw speculatively. “Why? It’s precisely what your father expected of you.” He let out an annoyed puff of breath. “He surrendered you for next to nothing, Mouse—only the hope that you would please me long enough to give him time to scrape together the blunt to pay down his debts.” Though, of course, it would never happen.

  Her swift, indrawn breath made him feel cruel, callous. Against his better judgment, he heard himself gritting out, “They’re safe, Mouse. I have no quarrel with your brothers.” It had not been something he had planned to inform her of, and to reclaim control the situation, he bit off snidely, “So long as you do as you’re told and stay where I place you.”

  He had expected some cutting retort, some rejoinder designed to put him in his place. Instead, she only gave a sad, muted smile and murmured, “Where else could I possibly go?”

  ∞∞∞

  “Are you certain you wish to do this?” Sarah asked doubtfully, staring down into a copper tub, wherein lurked a murky boiling water that smelled acrid.

  “Yes,” Serena replied, although she wasn’t at all certain any longer. Sarah had told her that the scent was lye soap—that the housemaids laundered all the linens in it. How anyone could bear the scent of the soap was beyond Serena, who felt as though the inside of her nose had been scorched by it. Though she had wanted something to distract herself from William’s visit, given the unsettled state of her stomach from last evening’s misadventure with liquor, she could not help but feel that she had chosen poorly.

  Near the washing tub, collected into a tidy pile, was a set of bed linens. Serena considered them like a puzzle of dizzying complexity, feeling suddenly very stupid. Of course she had known that linens were washed, but the process of it all was a mystery.

  Still, she had proclaimed her desire to complete this task, and as much as she regretted it—the lye truly was horrible—she was nonetheless determined to see it through.

  “How does one go about this?” she inquired. “I mean—how is the washing done?”

  “First, the linens must go into the washing tub,” Sarah said.

  That was easy enough. Serena scooped up the linens and thrust them over the rim of the copper tub. Her forearm connected with the rim, and she jerked back with a little cry, surprised to see a bright red streak decorating the soft, white skin of her inner wrist.

  “Carefully, you ninny.” Sarah clucked her tongue, grabbing for Serena’s wrist. “I didn’t think I’d have to warn you that washing tub would be hot. I’ll see about finding some salve.”

  “Later.” Serena jerked her hand back. “I want to finish first.”

  “I don’t think his lordship—”

  “Sarah, please.”

  With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, Sarah muttered something beneath her breath and plucked
a large wooden tool from the wall. “The linens must be beaten with a bat,” she said. “And do mind that the tub is, indeed, hot.”

  Dutifully, Serena grabbed for the bat, jammed the wide, flat end of the bat into the tub and swirled it around a few times. “What comes next?”

  Sarah let out a laugh. “It’ll want at least a quarter hour of beating.”

  “A quarter hour?” Serena’s shoulders already ached from the effort. Who would ever have thought that something so simple as clean sheets would want so much attention?

  “At least.” Sara gestured to a smaller tub nearby. “After the linens have been beaten, they’ll be removed to that tub, where we will clean them again with washing soda. Then they’ll be rinsed and run through the box mangle.” She gestured again toward a small table fitted with two rollers and a crank.

  “The box mangle?” Serena asked, and realized that she had stopped beating the linens to listen. Her knuckles burned with the strain of keeping a proper grip, and the wooden bat clenched in her hands pressed uncomfortably into her palms.

  “Yes. You feed the linens through the rollers and turn the crank, and the rollers press out most of the water.” At Serena’s dubious expression, Sarah added, “Believe me. It’s preferable to wringing out the linens by hand.”

  “Have I beaten the linens long enough yet?” Serena asked.

  “Not nearly,” Sarah replied, and continued on. “Once the linens have gone through the box mangle, they are hung upon the line to dry.”

  “This sounds terribly tedious,” Serena said.

  “It is,” Sarah replied. “I was a laundry maid once, when I hadn’t the skills for anything better.” She gave a delicate shudder, her eyes going distant for a moment. “It was very nearly the worst period of my life.”

  Serena already loathed the laundry, and she doubted she’d made it even five minutes yet—she hesitated even to imagine what else might have been worse that even being a laundry maid ranked better.

  “What could be worse than this?” Serena muttered.