The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  Her brows drew together. “I don’t—I don’t want that. I don’t wish you dead,” she said, though she sounded somewhat taken aback, as if the realization had surprised her.

  It surprised him. She, more so than anyone else, had that right—she’d been the only person he’d dragged into the gutter who had truly been innocent. “You’ll forgive me if I find that a bit doubtful. Hell, I wouldn’t even hold it against you.” His free hand closed over hers where it lay on his arm. “Breathe, Mouse. You’ve just as much right to be here as anyone. Don’t let small minds take it from you—you’ve done nothing wrong.”

  A flicker of astonishment chased the uncertainty from her features, and as if his words had compelled it, she did indeed draw a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said softly. And then again, in a tone of awe, like a revelation had come upon her: “You’re right.” Her shoulders straightened, her chin lifted resolutely. “What have I to be ashamed of?”

  Though it did little to mitigate the guilt curdling in his gut, Grey found himself reassured that she had rallied once more, rediscovered the inner strength he had known she possessed. He had thought it necessary to remind himself—remind both of them—of her purpose in his life, but the stares she had garnered, the subtle mockery, the whispers…they had sat ill with him. She was supposed to be a tool to use against her father, but the knife cut both ways.

  It had never been Mouse whom he had intended to hurt. He had never expected to care whether or not he had hurt her. Somehow she had crawled beneath his skin, into his brain, and made a wreck of his psyche. Possibly she had left some shred of a conscience in her wake—a devastatingly perfect bit of revenge.

  Mouse’s fingers, tucked into the crook of his arm, turned to talons. She squeaked, “Father.”

  And there was the earl, on horseback, trotting toward them on a magnificent black gelding, his face like a thundercloud. Grey was not surprised to see him, but he did regret the inconvenient timing. Mouse had had perhaps two minutes of peace before her damned father had utterly destroyed it, as he destroyed everything else.

  “Oh, lord,” Mouse whispered. “Father rides on Saturdays. How could I have forgotten?” Her feet seemed to be frozen in place, her rising panic evident in every shallow breath she took. He squeezed her hand in his—too late to tender the sort of apology she deserved now, with the earl bearing down upon them. Too late to do anything more than help her weather the inevitable storm.

  “Deep breaths,” Grey said. “You hold your chin high, Mouse, do you hear me? You look him straight in the eye and dare him to cut you.”

  “I can’t.” It was an unsteady wheeze followed by a fractured breath.

  “You can.” He touched her cheek, slid his fingers along her jaw to angle her face to his. “Look at me,” he said firmly. “You can. You will. He has no hold on you. He can do nothing to you.”

  For a split second her eyes searched his face. A moment later something kindled in her eyes—that spark he’d feared had been smothered once more. He could not know what she saw in his expression, but her eyes widened minutely, and the distress fell away from her face as she released a slow exhale. Her hand loosed its death grip on his arm. At last, she nodded.

  Still his fingers lingered there on her face, and he stroked his thumb across the curve of her jaw, wishing he could feel the texture of her skin—but gloves were hardly made for such things.

  Grey hardly even noticed when the earl arrived before them. It was only the clods of dirt kicked up by the anxious prancing of the earl’s horse as the man yanked the reins to jerk the gelding to a stop that caught his attention.

  “Granbury,” the earl said, his voice guttural with dislike. “Perhaps you were unaware, but a gentleman does not make a public spectacle of himself by parading around his doxy.” His voice had been meant to carry, and it did—several heads turned to witness the spectacle.

  Mouse, to Grey’s relief, paid them no attention. “Father,” she said, just as clearly. “Have you taken leave of your manners?”

  By the earl’s reaction—shock, followed by indignation—Grey suspected it had been the very first time Mouse had ever spoken less than respectfully to him. Probably the man had done his damnedest to form her into a placid little lady with no thoughts or opinions of her own. To have been chastised by her so publically had to be galling, an offense not to be borne.

  Andover made a strangled sound, bristling with offended dignity. His thin mustache twitched as he sought for a response, but he swiftly realized the best response was none at all. Instead he turned his face resolutely away from his daughter and addressed Grey.

  “You’d do well to keep your whore out of my sight,” he snarled. “She’s no daughter of mine.”

  Grey felt Mouse tense as the barb struck true, sinking into her like an arrow and tearing at her tender heart. Though she could not have thought her father had a high opinion of her, probably she had not expected his vitriol to be on such open display. Grey settled his palm at the small of her back, prepared to direct her back to the carriage if her emotions should betray her with tears.

  Instead she stunned him with fury. “I am what you made me, Father,” she said, and her voice snapped with the depths of her ire. “And you—you can make me a whore, but you can’t even look me in the eye. Who, then, between us, is the one who ought to be ashamed?”

  A curious sense of pride swelled in Grey’s chest. Brave little Mouse, so full of justice and honor, and all those noble virtues that he had long since abandoned. Finding her feet upon unsettled ground, even as it threatened to unseat her.

  It was a battle she should never have had to wage, one which wasn’t truly even hers to fight. Grey had forced it upon her; if not for his interference, there would never have been a need for it. So he slipped a hand in his pocket, dug out a handful of coins, and pressed them into Mouse’s palm. “I’ll handle him,” he said, and nodded a ways down the length of the Serpentine, where a few vendors had set up temporary carts from which to sell food. “Why don’t you go find us something to eat? I’d just as soon you were not exposed to your father’s vulgarity.”

  Mouse glanced down at the coins in her hand with an odd expression. It was possible—likely, even—that she had never directly handled money before. Andover had a good many accounts set up at a number of establishments, and since ladies never went anywhere unaccompanied, it stood to reason that, had she needed to purchase something, someone else had handled that aspect of business for her. Though her fingers closed around the handful of coins, she slanted a quick, vengeful glare at her father, as if reluctant to cede the battle.

  But at last her gaze drifted away from Andover, sliding down to where Grey had indicated—still well within shouting distance, but far enough away that it must have felt a daunting distance to travel alone in her current state of mind.

  “Only a few minutes,” Grey said in a whisper. “You’ll never leave my line of sight. I swear it.”

  Brave Mouse was still at the fore, it seemed. She set her shoulders, drew in a steadying breath, and in a smooth motion she glanced at her father, pointedly turned away from him, and without so much as a curtsey or a single word of farewell, she walked away.

  Her chin held high, she deliberately cut the Earl of Andover, and by the scandalized gasps Grey heard go up, at least a dozen people had witnessed it. He could not have planned a more perfect moment himself.

  Though she had not looked back to see what damage she had wrought, Grey at least had the pleasure of seeing Andover’s face go florid with humiliation as he blustered, “Well—well—!”

  “Perhaps, Andover, if you were unprepared to suffer the consequences of your actions, you ought not to have presented yourself,” Grey said. “If you had resisted the temptation to rain vitriol down upon your daughter, you would not now find yourself in such a position.” He let his voice carry, let Andover feel the weight of the judgmental stares of his peers.

  Andover’s hands tightened on the reins, and the stallion danced
his displeasure, releasing a distressed snort. “She was never my daughter,” Andover said, conscious of his audience.

  “Ah, that rubbish. I’d heard you had been trying to salvage your reputation with it.” Grey chuckled. “I wonder what would be said of you if the truth got out—what would become of your son’s engagement, your family’s prestige? What would become of your influence, such as it is?”

  Andover’s face purpled to the point that Grey suspected he might be on the verge of apoplexy. Though Grey’s reputation could hardly be a match for Andover’s—he was, after all, only reluctantly tolerated amongst the aristocracy—the mere suggestion that Andover had not been truthful over the circumstances of his daughter’s ruination would be enough to spur gossip for weeks. His masquerade of pitiable papa would be shattered, and his credibility with it.

  “What the hell do you want from me, Granbury?” It was a tight hiss, filled with loathing, and music to Grey’s ears.

  Although he could have demanded any number of things given the stranglehold he had over Andover, there was just one thing currently at the forefront of his mind. One thing which could make this wretched outing worthwhile—not for himself, but for Mouse.

  “You’ll retract that vicious lie you’ve bandied round about your daughter,” he said. “I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care what you say in its place, so long as it is not to besmirch her. If you should happen to see her in public, you will greet her kindly and play the doting papa. For once, Andover, you will show your daughter the respect she deserves.”

  Andover’s mouth worked as he struggled to formulate a response, making him look rather like a fish gasping for breath. “I could never do such a thing! My reputation—”

  “Perhaps you should have thought of that before you sacrificed your daughter to save yourself,” Grey snapped. “I am not asking, Andover. I am telling you what you will do.” He adjusted the cuffs of his coat, affecting a cool, disinterested mien. “Else I will do it for you, and you will find that significantly less pleasant.”

  There ought to have been a measure of satisfaction in it, in pulling the reins tight and watching Andover squirm against the constriction. But all Grey could think of was Mouse, and the betrayal she had suffered at the hands of the man who was supposed to have protected her, cared for her. For God’s sake, he had been kinder to her than her father. What manner of man threw his only daughter to a villain like Grey merely to stave off impending ruin?

  Between gritted teeth, Andover hissed, “I will not cut her. You cannot expect more of me than that.”

  “I expect you to keep a civil tongue in your head and treat your daughter with the respect she is due,” Grey returned. “Or you may expect a visit from my solicitor. My patience is not without limit, Andover.” It was an oblique reminder of the debts Andover and his sons had accrued, debts that Grey now possessed the right to collect upon—which could be called due at any moment.

  Beneath his mustache, Andover’s lips pursed and whitened. In a flagrant breach of etiquette, he cleared his throat and spat a glob of mucus at Grey’s boot. “I am not without means, Granbury.”

  “No,” Grey said. “Only without honor.”

  With a scathing sniff, Andover yanked the reins and wheeled about, holding his head high as if to suggest to anyone watching that he had been the victor in their verbal skirmish. There had never been a reason for Grey to give a great deal of consideration to what anyone else might think of him, but he did not doubt that enough had been overheard by onlookers to set the rumor mill turning.

  He let his gaze wander up until he found Mouse, waiting patiently in a short queue that had formed before a vendor’s cart some distance away. There were a few people before her, and behind her a young boy of perhaps ten years shifted from foot to foot, his face intent upon a few coins in his palm. Grey knew the seriousness etched upon the lad’s face well. There had been a time in his own life, too, that he had fretted over a few pennies, concerned that his carefully-hoarded coins would not be enough to secure a purchase.

  The women at the front of the queue took their items and left—and Mouse stiffened as they faced her at last. In the slice of her profile that Grey could see, her lips moved soundlessly. Grey began striding toward her, the impulse to rescue her from an awkward, unpleasant encounter spurring him on.

  But not fast enough. The women turned their faces away, expressions screwed up sourly, as if they had caught the scent of something decayed, and they sashayed away, cutting her dead. For a moment Mouse stood frozen, her shoulders slumped in defeat and hurt. The queue moved on without her—and the boy behind her, still more intent upon the coins in his palm than on his surroundings, trod upon the hem of her gown.

  It jerked Mouse from her daze, and Grey slowed his steps as the boy burst into a series of harried apologies. She laid her hand upon the boy’s shoulder, and though Grey could not hear what she had said, the boy straightened and nodded, his fractious expression fading. Mouse bent down, opening her other hand to show the lad the coins within her palm, and as he poked them about and spoke to her, she dutifully nodded along.

  Then, when at last the queue of people before her had dispersed, Mouse let the boy select the correct coinage from her hand and received from the merchant two paper-wrapped packets—roasted almonds, it appeared—one of which she offered to the boy beside her. His mouth rounded into an o of surprise, but he hesitated only a fraction of a moment before he tucked his pennies into his pocket and grabbed for the nuts. Doffing his cap, the lad scampered away in delight, grinning to himself as he chucked a small handful of almonds into his mouth.

  A wistful sort of smile clung to Mouse’s lips, like she had almost—but not quite—cheered herself up. It was a gift, Grey thought. Her own particular brand of magic. Like a fairytale princess, she had spun cruelty into kindness, taking the cut she had received and turning it into compassion for someone else—a little boy who might have lacked the funds to purchase a treat for himself.

  She waited beneath the shelter of a tree, and despite her earlier pronouncement that she did not think she could eat, she popped a sugared almond into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully as he approached.

  He could have said any number of things when he arrived at her side. Made any number of demands. Subjected her to still more humiliation. But instead he found himself asking, in deference to her unreadable mood, “Would you like to leave?”

  For a moment she considered it, her grey eyes sweeping over the people milling about, over the carriages passing by—over the retreating backs of the ladies who had cut her receding into the distance. At last she said, “No. It’s a public park. I have as much right to it as anyone else.” A brief smile flirted with her lips, and behind her eyes glowed a fierce resolve, an obstinacy that promised to face whatever challenges might be thrown into her path head on.

  And there it was again, that pride swelling in his chest. “Good,” he said, snatching an almond from her packet though she slanted him a dark look for his temerity. “Well done, Mouse.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I don’t like you in yellow,” Grey said over dinner several nights later, entirely aware that such a remark would stir up trouble. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  “It’s a pity, then,” Mouse replied sweetly, as she carved up a bit of fish, “that I don’t particularly care what you like.” She followed this with a tight smile, designed to impress upon him how very unaffected she was by his pronouncement.

  Grey smothered a chuckle with his napkin and reached for his wine, surreptitiously surveying Mouse from across the long expanse of the table between them. She had been in a contrary mood all day, rebellious and surly, rather like a child who had just learned the word no.

  He suspected that might have been uncomfortably close to the truth. Andover was not a man who tolerated less than perfect obedience, and if Mouse had been permitted to express an opinion even slightly askew of his own, Grey would have been surprised.

  Absent Andover’s inf
luence, Grey had realized that Mouse seemed to delight in defiance—and not only toward him. Challenging her father had done something to her, changed her in some nebulous way. She had cast off whatever had remained of the polite, civilized creature she had once been and embraced her new status. And that status conferred with it privileges that she had not previously enjoyed—such as the freedom to speak her mind, which she did frequently now, and with great relish.

  It was like watching a flower come into bloom, unfurling its petals and stretching toward the sun. She hid herself away from nothing and no one, casting off the censure of society like a ruined pair of slippers. She went on outings—shopping excursions, rides in the park, evenings at the theatre. Having deemed the opinions of those who had once been her peers now beneath her notice, Mouse seemed to like herself at last. Her confidence had soared, and she would let no one—least of all Grey—tear it from her.

  Still, it was great fun to provoke her, to watch her struggle against the urge to bite back. “You could make an effort to be a touch more accommodating,” he said. “It would make sharing the same house decidedly more pleasant.”

  As he had expected, this did not produce much of an effect. “You’ll have to make allowances,” she returned loftily. “I offered to live elsewhere, if you’ll recall, and you declined, which would make this more your fault than mine.”

  “It’s my fault you’re wearing a yellow gown?”

  “Of course.” She fluttered her eyelashes in a parody of a demure glance. “You did purchase it, after all.”

  “My mistake.” In fact, he had only commissioned her seamstress to produce a new wardrobe in her size, and hadn’t particularly cared what he had received. “I think I’ll have it torn up for dust cloths.”

  “As you like,” she said with an elegant shrug. “Of course, I shall simply have to purchase another to replace it. Carte blanche,” she reminded him, with a snide glance. “Unless your word is without value.”