The Bachelor Bargain (Secrets, Scandals, and Spies)

by Michaels, Maddison

  “We can ensure he finds out.”

  “Once we confirm he is the scoundrel, then yes, I think Bremmley should know his future son-in-law’s financial position,” Livie said. “I think I shall have a chat with Daverell myself tonight at the Countess of Milbury’s ball.”

  “Oh good, you are going,” Etta said. “Last night was such a bore without you, though it was highly gratifying to hear everyone wildly speculating about who are going to be the first lot of bachelors to be critiqued in the gazette. Daverell seemed rather peeved that such conversation was overshadowing his engagement announcement.”

  “Excuse me, my ladies,” Livie’s butler, Dalton, spoke from the doorway. “A very distressed Lady Chilton is at the door requesting to speak with you, Lady Olivia. I didn’t wish to turn her away given her upset, even though it is certainly not the time of day to be calling upon anyone. In fact, it is particularly uncouth to do so.” He stared pointedly at Etta, still annoyed with her for daring to attend the residence so early for breakfast, even though it was a regular occurrence.

  Livie herself glanced up at the grandfather clock standing beside the side table in the breakfast room, noting it was ten o’clock in the morning, and that, yes, such a visit at this hour was wholly unexpected from anyone. However, Livie imagined Lady Chilton must be desperate to find out what had happened last night with the blackmail attempt. “Thank you, Dalton. Please show her into the sitting room and tell her I shall be there shortly.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the ever-efficient Dalton said with a bow, before turning on his heel and striding from the room.

  “Well, I shall take my leave then and see what else I can uncover about Daverell before tonight.” Etta pushed back from the chair and stood. “Particularly as I imagine he will be one of the three bachelors we’ll be critiquing in the first edition.”

  “If we can confirm he was the scoundrel to seduce and ruin Alice,” Livie agreed. “Are the other two critiques, on Lord Stanford and Sir Percival, ready to be printed?”

  “Yes,” Etta confirmed. “I have both articles written and edited, and each are delightfully scandalous, filled with the confirmed secrets our informants have managed to uncover.”

  “And what has been uncovered?”

  “Well, it seems that Lord Stanford, who is on the hunt for a wealthy bride, is already married.”

  “Married? Surely not,” Livie exclaimed. Such a thing was not only immoral but illegal too.

  “Indeed, he is,” Etta verified. “It took a great deal of effort, but our informants tracked down an entry in the marriage registry at Bethnal Green, confirming the man married over ten years ago. Turns out, he ran off with a maid, then married her in secret and has kept her hidden in the country ever since, with their two children. His family isn’t even aware of the union, as his father would have cut him off.”

  “And he’s now trying to commit bigamy by seeking to wed another? What a scoundrel!” Such willful deceit was just the thing that made Livie’s blood boil. “Publishing such news in the gazette will certainly save some unsuspecting lady from becoming unlawfully wed to such a man.”

  “The very purpose of our mission,” Etta agreed.

  “What of Sir Percival?” Livie asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe it but Sir Percival has an addiction to keeping mistresses…”

  “How does one have an addiction to keeping mistresses?” Livie was particularly curious, especially as Sir Percival himself was a rather weedy looking man, with a pinched mouth, stuck in a perpetual frown.

  “I think having seven mistresses, at the same time, qualifies one as having an addiction,” Etta replied.

  “Seven mistresses?” The number was staggering. “How does a man keep that many mistresses? How does he even have time to visit them all?”

  “He allocates one day each week, for each woman, and sticks to his schedule like clockwork.”

  “Good Lord… I wouldn’t have thought he had the stamina to keep that many women…” Livie shook her head.

  Etta laughed. “Apparently he does. And it seems he’s running out of funds rather quickly, with so many households under his protection, hence why he is also looking for a wealthy bride.”

  “The secrets people try to keep always amaze me,” Livie said. “If everyone is excited by the teaser pamphlet, they will be in ecstasy after they devour the first edition with all of that information inside. Especially if Daverell is included.”

  “It’s going to be the most popular publication in England,” Etta said. “My father will be furious that his gossip column will be overtaken as the leader of news relating to Society’s scandals. And hopefully, I can find out all of the dirt on Daverell, so he can be included too.”

  “Take care when investigating him, Etta. The man may well have pushed Alice from the ledge, and he has even more to lose now if the truth comes to light.” She would have to heed her own words when speaking with him.

  “I shall,” Etta promised as she took her leave, while Livie pushed back her chair and made her way to the sitting room.

  Inside, seated on the lounge and appearing unusually nervous, was Lady Chilton. She was dressed in an exquisitely tailored midnight black velvet dress, with a matching black bonnet and kid leather gloves. But rather than the usual confidence radiating from the woman, her posture was slightly hunched and her hands were twisting nervously in her lap.

  She caught sight of Livie leaning upon her cane in the doorway and stood straightaway. “Oh my goodness, I was not able to sleep a wink last night. Please tell me you retrieved the journal and that Alice’s legacy will not be tarnished further than it already has?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Walking over, Livie sat down beside Lady Chilton and told her some of what had occurred last night at the cemetery.

  Shock replaced the fear on the woman’s face, and she grabbed Livie’s hands tightly with her own. “You were shot at? Oh my goodness! I never would have allowed you to go in my place if I had known you would be in such grave danger.” The woman looked completely distraught.

  “Neither of us was to know that was going to happen. But I fear it may have been you who was the target…”

  The woman’s jaw dropped. “Me? Good Lord, but you may be right. After all, I was the one expected to go, not you… But who would wish to harm me? I have no enemies that I know of.”

  “What about Lord Daverell?” Livie was taking a stab in the dark naming him, but she wanted to see the woman’s reaction. “Does he know you are aware he is the father?”

  Absolute silence greeted her question, and Livie could see her assumption was correct. There was guilt and shock in Lady Chilton’s eyes.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was the one responsible for Alice’s ruin?” Livie asked.

  Lady Chilton pressed her lips together. “I did not want you to think badly of me, or my husband, for not doing more to force his hand. My husband did try to get him to marry Alice, but the man refused, having already entered into a much more lucrative and socially beneficial agreement to marry the Duke of Bremmley’s daughter, rather than merely a stepsister to an earl with very little dowry.”

  “I intend to see him ruined,” Livie said.

  “One thing you are forgetting is that Alice was just as responsible for her actions as he was. She allowed him to seduce her.”

  “She thought she was in love,” Livie replied. “He told her he loved her and promised to marry her.”

  “Alice was foolish to believe him, and now she is dead because of it.” Tears began to slide down the lady’s cheeks. “Do you know we argued on the day of her death?”

  “Mary did mention that.”

  “There’s not a day that will go by that I won’t remember how my last words to her in this life were said in harsh accusation.” Lady Chilton’s voice sounded far away as the tears continued to flow in silent surrender. “Th
ere hasn’t been a day since her death that I haven’t felt guilty or blamed myself. Perhaps if I’d been more understanding and given her money myself to start her new life, she might still be alive.

  “Yet, instead, I blamed her. I blamed her for succumbing to a scoundrel and falling pregnant with his child. For bringing scandal and disgrace when the rumors began circulating that she had been compromised. But it’s my fault she’s dead. After our argument, she was so distraught, for I was horribly cruel to her about what I considered her pipe dream of starting a new life, alone and with a child.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Livie lifted her free hand and placed it around the woman’s shoulders as Lady Chilton gently sobbed, weeks of grief seeming to release then and there. She’d never seen the lady so distressed, and Livie was at a loss as to how to comfort her.

  But a moment later, almost as if Lady Chilton suddenly realized she was creating a scene, she took in a shuddering breath and sat straight, carefully drying her tears with a handkerchief that she pulled from her reticule. “My apologies, Lady Olivia. It was rude of me to lose my composure like that.”

  “You have no need to apologize, Lady Chilton. I, too, feel terrible guilt over Alice’s death.” There hadn’t been a day since Alice died that Livie hadn’t thought about what she might have done to change what happened. “All we can do now is see that justice is served and that Lord Daverell pays for what he did to her.”

  Lady Chilton glanced up at Livie, her eyes stricken. “We cannot. He will simply deny it and ruin my husband in the process.”

  “But the man may well have murdered Alice!” Livie implored, trying to make the woman realize the gravity of the situation. “We cannot let him get away with such a thing, if he did push her from the roof that night.”

  “Why do you keep insisting she was murdered?” Lady Chilton yelled. “You have no idea what she was like after we argued. She was irrational and depressed. Just because she sent you a letter talking of this new life in America she was going to create for herself, you think she didn’t have the motivation to kill herself?”

  Suddenly, Lady Chilton stood and stalked over to the window. “You weren’t there in the month before that, to hear the whispers about her virtue being compromised. You weren’t there to see the once happy sister I knew lock herself in her room and cry herself to sleep each night.

  “And yes, once she discovered she was with child, for some reason it seemed to make her happy for a bit, and she made these ridiculous plans of hers. But after we argued, she saw how fanciful they were, and then despondency overtook her again. I knew I shouldn’t have gone to the opera that night and left her alone. But I never thought she’d take her life…”

  “But what if she didn’t?” Livie insisted. “What if Lord Daverell visited her, and rather than give her money as he’d promised, he eliminated her to prevent any future scandal?”

  Lady Chilton sighed. “You won’t rest, will you, until you find her killer? Even if it means dredging up the scandal again and further tarnishing Alice’s memory.”

  “I cannot imagine the friend I loved would want her killer to get away with her murder or that of her unborn child.”

  “No. I don’t suppose she would.” Lady Chilton strode back over to Livie and crouched down in front of her. “But she also wouldn’t want you harmed trying to unmask her killer, which is what I fear will happen if you continue on your quest. Alice loved you and she would never have wanted you to risk your own life trying to avenge her. Please remember that, going forward.”

  And then in a flurry of perfume, Lady Chilton stood and swept from the room.

  Livie let out a long sigh. She couldn’t acquiesce to the woman’s wish and let Lord Daverell get away with murder. If she did, not only would she be failing Alice, but she would also be failing all of the other ladies the man was certain to compromise and ruin in the future.

  No. She had to make him pay.

  Having him critiqued in the gazette would ruin him and save his future bride from marrying a scoundrel and murderer. And finding Mary, and Alice’s journal, would be the key to the man’s downfall.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sebastian rapped his knuckles on the front door of number twelve Cummins Lane and found himself unaccountably unsettled. He hadn’t seen his half sister Charlotte for about six months, and the prospect of seeing her again filled him with happiness and trepidation.

  His sister was the spitting image of their mother, and every time he saw her, it brought back sharp and painful memories of how Sebastian had been too late to save her.

  That had been over eleven years ago now. But Seb would never allow himself to forget that it was his fault Charlotte had been without a mother since she was a girl of seven. His fault that his mother had been kidnapped and then killed in the most horrid of ways, all because of a rival gang seeking to take over his territory and teach Sebastian a lesson.

  In the end, though, it was Sebastian who had taught Edward Flintock a lesson the man had had to live with ever since. If one could even call what the man did living. More like merely existing and serving as a warning to others to never touch what belonged to Sebastian Colver.

  The door swung open and Charlotte stood there, her jaw dropping open in shock. “Sebastian!” she squealed, launching herself into his arms. “What are you doing here? Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to see you, but such a visit is completely unexpected! Everything is all right, isn’t it? You are well, aren’t you? Oh goodness, here I am talking my head off when I should be showing you in. Please, do come in.”

  “Why isn’t the butler answering the door?”

  “Because he is having a rest out the back. The poor thing is suffering with terrible arthritis of late, and I was eager to see who was visiting,” she exclaimed. “And I’m so glad I did, for what a wonderful surprise!”

  Charlotte dragged him into the entrance foyer, her constant chatter something he hadn’t realized he’d desperately missed. She looked as lovely as ever, with her chestnut brown hair pulled back from her face in a bun, and her steel gray eyes, identical to his own, flashing in excitement. And, as usual, her blue gown—and if he wasn’t mistaken, the side of her nose too—had splatters of ink on it, after a morning obviously spent studying and taking notes in her journals.

  “You’re not still studying all those medical textbooks, are you?” He was referring to the pile of medical journals and anatomy tomes her father had in his study that she’d been obsessed with since she was a young girl.

  “Can you tell?” She laughed, wiping at some of the smudges of ink on her cheek as she led him into the sitting room. “You know I’m determined to be accepted into the London School of Medicine for Women and follow in the footsteps of my idol Elizabeth Garett Anderson and become a female doctor.”

  It was a pipe dream, he was certain. Once his sister experienced the luxuries of Society, she would change her mind. “We shall see.”

  “I’m determined to, Sebastian. There are so many people I wish to help in this world.”

  “You’re a dreamer, Lottie.” He leaned over and ruffled her hair, like he used to do when she was six. “And you believe the best about everyone.” It was a fact he sometimes worried over, but was mostly proud of, because he’d made damn certain that the horrors he’d experienced in childhood never visited her.

  He’d gone so far as to set up her father in this house and pay for a surgery just down the road, to get them both out of the Rookeries. And though his stepfather had at first been reluctant to accept any of Seb’s charity, his fear of losing his daughter after having already lost his wife because of Seb was enough to eventually convince the man to accept Seb’s money and move Charlotte away from any of the darkness that surrounded Seb’s life.

  Seb had wanted to set them up in Mayfair, but his stepfather was a stubborn old man and would agree to move only as far as Cheapside, determined to live
and work in an area where there were still those he could treat, who could not afford care. At least Cheapside was not the Rookeries, and Charlotte hadn’t grown up where Seb had.

  Yes, he was proud to have made sure Charlotte’s childhood had been so different from his own. A childhood filled with love and security, which had helped turn her into the confident and caring young woman she was today.

  Though Seb did worry she was too trusting of others and would one day get her heart broken. But perhaps it was a lesson one could learn only through experience. A lesson that hopefully Charlotte need never go through, as her positive outlook on life and her enthusiasm for everything was slightly contagious. Even Seb, who was rarely enthusiastic about anything, always felt happy in her presence.

  “Father’s at his surgery.” Charlotte continued chattering away as she dragged him over to the settee. “He shall be so disappointed to have missed you though! But I’m eager to find out what brings you here. It must be something rather urgent for you to visit during the day.”

  Generally, Seb visited Charlotte and her father twice per year in the cover of night, much to his sister’s disappointment. But over the years she’d gotten used to Seb’s edict that no one must find out they were related, or else she could be used as a weapon against him. He knew Charlotte thought he was being overly dramatic in doing so, but she’d been too young when their mother died to realize that is exactly what happened, and something Seb would never allow to happen again.

  “Well, actually, I have a bit of a surprise for you…” On his way here, to ensure he hadn’t been followed, he’d gone a long route, using a combination of different hansom cabs, so he’d had ample time on the journey to think about exactly what it was he was going to tell Charlotte.

  He hadn’t broached the subject of marriage with her before, and he certainly hadn’t discussed his wish she be presented to Society. But he couldn’t imagine her having any issues with that. After all, what girl didn’t want to be given a whole new wardrobe and be launched into Society? Even if this one did want to become a doctor, and having a female as a doctor was a concept that Society was only just barely accepting.