The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  A duke standing up for him—it would be a stamp of approval that would confer with it at least a grudging amount of respect. Though much of the Ton would have no issue slighting Grey—or Mouse, through association—he doubted they would wish to offend Davenport.

  “Why?” Grey inquired. “You’re a bloody duke—why the devil would you bother with me?”

  Davenport made an agonized sound and pinched the bridge of his nose, and dropped his head back.

  Darling smothered a chuckle in his hand. “You’re new to the aristocracy, Granbury, but even you ought to be familiar with the concept. Everyone wants something of a duke. Be it marriage or prestige or influence, everyone is seeking some connection, some favor. But you—”

  “I punched him,” Grey said, incredulously. “It’s hardly an auspicious beginning to a friendship.”

  “Saved me from the better part of the Season,” Davenport interjected. “Even Mother can’t nag away a broken nose.”

  At Grey’s incredulous look, Darling said, “I’ve known Davenport since we were children. When we were little more than boys, I pushed him out of a tree during an argument. He broke two bones in his foot, sprained his wrist, and blacked his eye—and the duchess had to postpone his dancing lessons for months.”

  “I’m not daft,” Davenport said peevishly. “I simply don’t see the point in surrounding myself with toadying sycophants. How is a man supposed to trust in anyone if he is besieged by people who tell him only what he wishes to hear?” He leaned forward once again, clasping his hands together in entreaty. “Please, Granbury, have a heart. Save me from becoming the sacrificial lamb on the altar of marriage.”

  “For God’s sake, Alex—have some pride,” Darling chided. But he tilted his glass toward Grey and added, “Things are rarely as complicated as we make them up to be in our heads.”

  Grey weighed the letter in his hand, squinted at Mouse’s tidy, feminine handwriting upon the front as if it might yield some clue as to the contents. “She could refuse me. She’d be wise to refuse me.”

  “No doubt of that,” Darling drawled. “But give her the damned choice, Granbury. I would think she’s seen the worst of you already—and if she would have you regardless, you ought to count yourself blessed. You do the both of you a disservice by quibbling over whether she would or whether she ought, because you will never know if you do not act.”

  The words galvanized him as nothing else had. It was as if they had stripped away the fog he had felt shrouded in the last two weeks, and for the first time he could see clearly. There would always have been the risk that she would refuse him. He was intimately acquainted with risk; he had managed it and balanced it and manipulated it for years upon years. But sometimes a man simply had to take a gamble and hope for the best—and the rewards for this one would be incalculable.

  “I have to go,” he said, and there was a curious grit in his voice. “I must to see Mouse. Now.”

  Davenport lurched forward. “Are you mad? Have you any idea of the hour?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He was already striding for the stairs, to retrieve what he would need for a clandestine visit to Mouse’s home. “I’m not begging an invitation. I will see her. Tonight.” He would give her everything, the good and the bad, lay every card out on the table—and let her decide whether or not he merited the risk.

  “We’ll show ourselves out,” Darling called up the stairs behind him, unruffled. “Do let us know what becomes of it.”

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Serena retired well after ten, having spent the evening conferring with Sarah over the curriculum they would implement for their school. To her satisfaction, Sarah had been quite helpful in that regard—while Serena had been educated by a governess during her formative years, many things she had learned regarding decorum and deportment had simply been drilled into her head through years and years of practice rather than by detailed lessons, and so she had had no idea how to construct a curriculum of them.

  But Sarah, having once worked at a finishing school for young ladies, and had a keen insight on what might be taught and in what manner, and so together they had cobbled together a rough approximation of a lesson plan. Serena had found it a rewarding experience, pitching their combined knowledge together and constructing something new from it.

  Though Sarah had declined the part ownership in the school that Serena had offered to her in the spirit of friendship, her enthusiasm for the project was unmatched. She had expounded upon nearly every aspect of the finishing school she had once worked in, from the lessons to the punishments doled out should a student fail to perform adequately, and it was clear enough that she held no great love for them.

  Thus they would make of their school a different sort of beast entirely—there would be no rapped knuckles, no meals denied as penance, no boarding students constrained to only three gowns apiece. There would be tea and music and dancing; literary salons and lessons constructed around pleasant activities, which they hoped would give their students a sense of security and accomplishment rather than shame and humiliation bound to a classroom setting.

  Cassandra, cradled in her arms, gave a soft snuffle as Serena shifted her long enough to open her bedroom door, and the puppy’s tongue lolled out long enough to swipe at Serena’s cheek.

  “I know,” Serena soothed as she tucked the puppy into bed; a wicker basket stuffed with soft blankets. “It’s long past your bedtime.” As usual, Cassandra occupied her bed for perhaps a minute or two before she scrambled out of it, making for the rug laid out before the fire, where she preferred to doze.

  The bed chamber was pleasantly dim—just the fire glowing in the hearth and a single lamp lit upon the bedside table. Serena plucked pins from her hair and shed her gown and stays, casting them atop the dresser as she made for her vanity and began to brush her hair out. Something felt strange, but she could not place her finger upon it, and with a growing sense of unease she plucked a nightgown from her dresser and cast off her chemise.

  Cassandra’s claws tapped upon the floor, suggesting she had taken herself off the rug before the fire and on a tour of the bed chamber, and she gave at last a soft yip of excitement, her nails clacking as she danced on the wood floor.

  The hair at the nape of Serena’s neck prickled. She stiffened, yanking the nightgown in her hands over her bare breasts. Her gaze scoured the vanity mirror, which revealed Grey lounging behind her on the window seat, half-concealed in the shadows at the edge of the room. He had been so still, so silent, that her eyes had glazed right over him without recognition, without notice. Cassandra bounded about his legs, her tail wagging in delight.

  “Grey,” she whispered, turning. “How—”

  “You’re not the only one who knows how to pick a lock. I developed the skill in my youth, but I admit it’s been some time since I’ve made use of it.” His attention was briefly captured by the puppy pawing at his knees. “Go on, now,” he said to Cassandra, his long fingers generously bestowing a scratch between her ears, which the puppy pushed her whole face into. “Off to bed with you.” A soft nudge, and Cassandra bounded away, crawling obediently into her basket, her chin propped up on the edge, soulful brown eyes closing at last.

  Any other lady would have been angry that a gentleman had invaded her home, her bed chamber, her very privacy—but Serena could only manage gladness that he had come. “You received my letter, then?” she asked, and her fingers pricked nervously at the fabric clutched in her hands. “I thought—well, I sent it this morning, and….” She had spent much of the day awaiting a response, for a call that had not come, and she had begun to understand what distress she might have caused with her refusal to answer his letters. “I thought you…might have reconsidered.”

  “I haven’t read it,” he said, shoving himself up from his seat, and when he stepped from the cover of shadows he appeared disheveled—his hair mussed as if he had been running his fingers through it in agitation, his cravat dangling about his neck, his waistcoat wri
nkled.

  “I suppose that’s fair enough. I sent back so many of yours,” she said, hearing her voice wobble over the words as her heart sank in her chest. He looked cagey, uncomfortable—hardly the look of a man who had come to be reconciled with her. “I am sorry for that.”

  He held up a hand. “I haven’t come for an apology, Mouse.”

  “But you deserve one,” she said in a rush, blinking away a mist of tears. “Please. I shouldn’t have sent you away.” There was such a terrible tension in his face, a remoteness in his eyes. He looked as if he had already travel miles beyond her reach, and any word she spoke would fall upon deaf ears.

  The light of the lamp flickered over his face, throwing shadows into the hollows of his cheeks, lending him a devilish air. But she had so long ago ceased to see him as the demon that the rest of the Ton proclaimed him to be, and for an anguished moment she experienced a stab of grief for him, for the realization that perhaps they were not the only ones to believe it. Perhaps they had made him believe it as well.

  And that she might well have contributed to it. That perhaps she had convinced him she did not want him, or worse—that she did not find him worthy of her.

  Keenly aware that her composure was on the verge of shattering, Serena ducked her head, smothering the sob that emerged from her throat in the heel of her hand. A vivid curse rendered in a guttural voice burned her ears. The rug draped across the floor muffled the sound of his boots, but when she lifted her head at last, Grey was reaching for her, sliding his arms around her.

  “Don’t cry, Mouse,” he said into her hair. “You’ve done nothing that would require forgiveness, but if you would have it anyway, know that it’s given without reservation.” One of his hands cupped the back of her head, pressing her cheek against his chest, and the other flattened at the small of her back. Her arms were wedged uncomfortably between them, hands still clutching her nightgown, and the fabric of his coat was scratchy against her skin—but the relief of being in his arms once more overrode everything else.

  For a moment she simply closed her eyes and savored it.

  “But, Mouse—you must know you could do better than me.” He gave a soft huff of self-deprecating laughter. “I’m likely not far from the worst, in fact.”

  “Grey, that’s not true.” She wriggled in his arms to reclaim enough distance to look up into his face. “You must know that’s not true.”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he swallowed hard, putting her away from him and snatching the nightgown from the clutch of her fingers. “I can’t have this conversation with you while you’re unclothed,” he said, his voice gruff. “Too damned distracting.”

  With deft, efficient motions he shook out the nightgown and pulled it over her head, and a bubble of warmth grew in her stomach as she heard him mumble foul words beneath his breath as he fought to thread her arms through the sleeves and pull it into place.

  “Christ,” he said, with a surfeit of feeling as he drew back at last and took in the sight of her draped in the simple, thin linen gown. “That’s hardly any better. Haven’t you got a dressing gown somewhere?”

  Unwilling to be distracted, Serena tugged at his sleeve before he could go haring off. “Sit,” she said, directing him to the end of the bed. “Talk to me. Please. Tell me how you could think such a thing.” She settled beside him and caught up one of his hands in hers, gratified by the way his fingers curled around her own and clung.

  Grey stared down at their linked hands as if they were a mystery he could not unravel. “You don’t know what you would lose,” he said. “What I would cost you.”

  Serena considered protesting, but his throat worked as if he were trying to summon forth words he desperately wished to speak, and she decided instead to allow him his time to say his piece.

  “I can’t give you respectability, or social position, or—or any of the things that you deserve,” he said roughly. “You would lose everything you have every right to expect.”

  When a few seconds of silence shivered between them, Serena said, softly, “There’s nothing I want more than you.”

  For a moment his hand clutched hers desperately. “Still, there are many things I cannot give you. My title is too recent to command respect, and my wealth was cultivated by my own labors. I’m given to understand that working for one’s wealth is not the done thing.”

  “It hasn’t been,” she allowed. “But times are changing.”

  “Not so swiftly as that,” he said. His breath shuddered out of his chest on a slow exhale, and his fingers gently squeezed hers. “Do you know, when Davenport offered to make an attempt at salvaging your reputation, I was relieved.”

  “Oh?”

  A brisk nod. “I hardly dared to hope that it could be accomplished, but if there was even a prayer of you coming away unscathed….” He trailed off into silence and a muscle flexed in his jaw. “When you told me that one of your former friends had come to call on you, I began making plans for you to leave. If your reputation had been rehabilitated enough to merit social calls, then the sooner you were gone, the better. A clean break, I thought. I’d never see you again, and with time and distance, eventually everything would simply…fade from memory. You would be secure once more, back where you belonged.”

  “Oh, Grey.” Serena sidled closer, her knee touching his. “That isn’t what I wanted.”

  “No,” he said, “nor I. But I knew it would be best for you—and that’s not condescension, Mouse, that is simple fact. How selfish it would have been to keep you, when you could have so much more, so much better.”

  “There isn’t any better than you,” she said softly, and her free hand hovered over his knee for a moment, then settled lightly upon it. To her relief, he remained seated, and though his gaze veered sharply toward it, he did not protest the touch.

  Instead he made a harsh, doubtful sound deep in his throat. “I could name a dozen gentleman objectively superior. Bluebloods, respectable and solid, each with sterling reputations. Good men, Mouse.” A rueful chuckle fell from his lips, but his words were flat and wooden. “I believe I gave you a list.”

  “While I’m certain your list was…let’s say well-reasoned,” she said, deliberately avoiding some of the less flattering adjectives she might have chosen, “there is none better for me than you.” Something odd flickered in his brown eyes, some warmth that he was trying desperately to bank. Serena suspected that he was waging some fierce inner battle, torn between what he wanted and what he considered to be the actions of a good man. But he did not rebuff her when she crept closer still and laid her cheek against his shoulder.

  “I had made up my mind about you,” he said slowly. “The moment I saw you, I decided that you were a mouse. A fearful, tiny creature, skittering about in terror. Nothing more than vermin to be stamped out. Your brothers were scapegraces both, and your father—well, I saw no reason to believe he could produce anything but children in his own image.” His free hand stroked her cheek, tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “But you surprised me. You didn’t flinch or cower. You were interesting, and I respected you. And so I devised set of rules, a code of conduct to abide by, as I held all the cards. It seemed…fairer, I think.”

  “You never told me,” she said.

  “That would have given you the advantage.”

  “I suppose.” She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, and caught the clean scent of his soap, comforting in its familiarity. “What were these rules?”

  He gave a shallow shrug, conscious of her head against his shoulder. “This and that,” he said evasively, as if the mere memory embarrassed him. “By far the most important one was that I swore that you would never bend to anyone. Not even to me.”

  “I see.”

  A dark chuckle forced its way from his throat. “No, you don’t. Not really.” He crammed his free hand into his pocket and retrieved something, holding it up in the muted light—a spoon, its thin neck bent, the bowl touching the stem. “This is what I do,
Mouse. I’ve had the habit since I was a boy, since my mother died. It seemed a fitting metaphor—the silver spoon for the aristocracy, bent to my will. I let my hatred of your father pollute every facet of my life, and I learned to bend people with the same ease. But you—you had spent your life bending to the capricious whims of your father.” His hand closed around the mangled spoon, knuckles going white with strain. “When I came to take you from his house, I had expected him to protest.” He gave a harsh bark of laughter. “I would have taken you anyway—I held all the power. But he was willing to sacrifice you so easily.”

  Because her father had thought his superficial charm could manipulate the situation to his advantage, to play the poor, betrayed papa to the rest of the Ton. “He was always like that to me,” she said, gently prying the spoon from his clenched fingers and shoving it back within his pocket. It was only a reminder of things she thought they both would prefer to forget, and the only power it held was what it was given. “William said he wore a false face when Mother was alive, but all pretenses toward familial devotion dropped when she died. He spared me little of his attention, but William and Hugh were not so lucky.” She shivered in memory, and Grey’s arm came around her, anchoring her to his side.

  “I knew you were frightened when I took you away,” he said. “How could you not be? But even in the carriage, you were…so brave.”

  “I was angry,” she admitted. “More than I was frightened, I was just so angry. With everything.”

  “You had every right to be. I never held it against you.” Grey pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It didn’t take me long to realize you were so much more than I had expected. But, of course, it was far too late—the damage was done, and it was impossible to return to you what I had stolen. So I decided that if I could not restore you to your proper place, at the very least I could let you find your own. That you should determine who you wished to be. That you would never again be put in a position to bow to someone else’s dictates.”