A Lady’s First Scandal

by Farmer, Merry

  Furious, he took a step back. “Now you’ve decided to be amorous?” he demanded in a quiet voice, acutely aware of the players and May Flowers scattered around the field. Fergus was giving Lady Tavistock a few pointers about bowling at the other end of the wicket and most of the rest of the ladies had joined up with a fielder to learn how to throw and catch balls, but there were enough people close by that Rupert kept his voice down.

  Cece’s playful smile vanished as she straightened and turned to him, holding the cricket bat like a cudgel. “Sport is an ideal time for flirtation,” she said with stark seriousness. “Death is not. You would do well to learn the difference.”

  “The difference appears to be whatever you decide it is,” he hissed in return.

  “And what if it is?” she snapped back, eyes burning with indignation.

  Rupert held up his hands and shook his head. “I do not understand the rules of your game, madam, therefore I refuse to play it.” He marched off down the wicket to where Fergus was lining up to bowl.

  “Rupert,” Cece called after him. She was clearly aggravated with him, but as far as Rupert was concerned, it served her right. “Heaven help us,” she followed with an irritated sigh.

  “You’re treading thin ice, mate,” Fergus warned him when Rupert reached his side.

  “Just bowl,” he growled, veering to the side to take up a position where he’d be most likely to catch the ball if Cece managed to hit it.

  “Ready?” Fergus asked Cece, with far too much magnanimity, as far as Rupert was concerned.

  Cece resumed her awful batting stance, thumped the bat in the dirt a couple times, then said, “I’m ready, my lord.”

  Fergus turned to Lady Tavistock and said, “The run-up is important, but so is the bowling action. Observe.”

  Lady Tavistock watched Fergus with obvious admiration as he charged a few steps forward, then released the ball with what Rupert thought was a pathetic ease. The ball sailed leisurely down the wicket, bounced once, and reached Cece at the perfect height and speed for her to smack it all the way to the border.

  Except that she didn’t smack it. She missed and missed handily. Her over-exuberant action swung her off balance, and she stumbled inelegantly to the side. Rupert grinned in rude satisfaction and crossed his arms. So his fiendish lady love wasn’t an expert in all things after all.

  His smirk faltered a moment later when she straightened and looked his way. The raw vulnerability that shone from her at her fumble struck straight at Rupert’s heart. It killed him to see her so flummoxed.

  “Keep your shoulders square,” he called to her. “Remember to follow through. Keep your eye on the ball.”

  She nodded, her jaw stiff, and resumed her stance in front of the stumps as Freddy threw the ball back to Fergus.

  Fergus walked back to Lady Tavistock, said something to her that Rupert couldn’t hear, then resumed his spot, ran up, then delivered another ball as though it were floating on a cloud. This time, Rupert held his breath and prayed that Cece would hit it. She managed to make feeble contact with the edge of the bat, sending the ball careening lazily off into the slips.

  “Oh,” Cece exclaimed, clamped a hand on her hat, and started running toward the opposite stumps. Her smile returned, and by the time she made it inside the crease, she was laughing. “There,” she told Rupert as though she’d hit a six. “There’s nothing to it.”

  “You think so?” he asked, sauntering over to her and snatching the bat from her hands. The gesture was curt and he held himself with a cocky air, but the mood had changed between them. They were on the same side again, in spite of the way the air between them bristled with challenge. “We’ll see.”

  He took his time walking to the stumps, grinning to himself at the oddly swift change in dynamic. He loved Cece. She didn’t make the least amount of sense to him. She was proud and shrewish one moment, soft and vulnerable the next, but always brilliant. And if he were honest with himself, he loved her when she was weak, but he adored her when she was strong. He wanted to wrap her in cotton wool and make the world a better place for her when she was helpless, but he wanted to worship at her feet when she set out to boldly conquer the world. That or fuck her until they were both too spent and sated to move.

  He reached the far end of the wicket and turned to set up only to find Lady Tavistock holding the ball and practicing her arm swing as Fergus gave her instructions. Sudden dread filled Rupert’s gut. Chances were that if Lady Tavistock managed to get the ball across the wicket to begin with, he could hit it so hard it would startle the horses pulling their carriages along Wellington Road. But if he purposely bungled his strike to spare Lady Tavistock’s feelings, it was likely she and Cece and every other May Flower there would know and be furious at him for coddling them.

  He resigned himself to losing either way and settled into batting stance, eyes narrowed and trained on the ball in Lady Tavistock’s hands as she got ready to make her run-up. But a faint commotion near the boundary scattered his focus, and a moment later, Lady Tavistock stepped out of her preparations and raised a hand to her forehead to see what was going on.

  Rupert straightened and turned to find a cluster of about eight men in street clothes charging onto the field. At first, he thought they held cricket bats and that they were Denbigh’s players, arrived at last but not in uniform. He stepped to the side, prepared to greet the lads and to tell them where they could change, but once the men made it onto the field, they let out what sounded like a battle cry and burst into a run.

  “Death to the Irish,” one of them shouted, raising his bat above his head.

  Except, it wasn’t a bat at all. It was nothing more than a fat stick. The other men were armed with similar sticks and boards that looked as though they’d been snatched from a construction site. They stormed the field, charging directly toward Fergus.

  “Look out,” Rupert called to his friend, eyes wide as he realized what was about to happen.

  He lunged forward, ready to defend his friend with his life if he had to, but he was too late. The crowd of toughs slammed into Fergus, wielding their clubs and their fists. Rupert’s heart sank to his stomach at the sickening thuds and crunches that followed. He grabbed the first man he could reach and struggled to pull him away from Fergus.

  Screams and shouts of terror arose from the women on the field. Lady Tavistock cried out in rage and threw her cricket ball at the swarm of men attacking Fergus, then dashed to the side, pulled one of the stumps from the ground, and began beating the closest of them across his back with it. Cece instantly did the same, attacking the attackers with a stump. Rupert managed to pull one of the toughs away and to smash his fist across the man’s face just before the man Cece was hitting twisted and pushed her so hard she sprawled to the ground on her back.

  “Cece!” Rupert jumped toward her, scooping her under her arms and pulling her to safety seconds before one of the men attacking Fergus would have stepped back and trod on her.

  Another of the attackers shoved Lady Tavistock away. She cried out as she hit the ground, but instantly tried to get back up again. Before she could, Freddy and Jack and Reese and all of the rest of Rupert’s friends charged in from the edges of the field to clash with the attackers. The crack of blows being landed led to the sharp scent of blood in the air. Cricket whites were splashed with red as the attackers were pried away from Fergus’s now prone body.

  A split-second later, as if lightning had struck, the eight attackers bolted. Those in the middle of combat peeled away from the men they were fighting with and sprinted for the edge of the pitch. Not one of them looked back, and several dropped their weapons so that they could run faster. The sudden retreat was so disorienting that Rupert’s head spun with amazement at it all.

  “Oh my God,” Lady Tavistock screamed a moment later, ending Rupert’s bafflement.

  He twisted to find her scrambling toward Fergus’s sprawled and broken body lying in the grass. Blood oozed from Fergus’s obviously broke
n nose and the corner of his mouth. It dripped from one ear as well, which turned Rupert’s stomach with dread. He dashed to Fergus’s side, kneeling in the grass and grasping his arm.

  Fergus groaned in agony at the simple gesture, but at least he wasn’t dead.

  “What happened?” Lady Diana asked hysterically.

  “Get back,” Reese said in a commanding yet calm voice, holding out his arms to shield the ladies from the sight of Fergus writhing weakly and moaning in pain. “If you could all please gather at the edge of the pavilion,” he went on, gesturing for some of the other men to help him comfort the ladies.

  Cece and Lady Tavistock ignored Reese and everyone else.

  “We’re here for you, Lord O’Shea,” Lady Tavistock gasped, taking his hand gently in hers. “We’re here for you.”

  “Somebody fetch a physician,” Cece shouted, standing above them all. “Immediately. Mr. Craig.”

  “He’s not going for a doctor,” Harrison called from somewhere far away. “He’s chasing after the bastards.”

  It was a sign of just how much distress they were all in that Harrison would use harsh language with ladies present.

  “Jack will catch them,” Rupert told Fergus as reassuringly as he could. “Don’t worry.”

  The fact was that Rupert was worried far beyond anything he’d experienced before. He’d seen men shot and bloody on the field of battle in South Africa. He’d survived an ambush that had killed over half of his regiment in the Transvaal. But he had never seen the kind of brutality that Fergus had been subjected to. His friend could barely move, and any effort he made to try resulted in wrenching cries of agony. A quick assessment on Rupert’s part told him Fergus had more broken bones than unbroken ones, and there was no telling what sort of internal injuries he might have. Rupert’s mouth went dry at the very real possibility that his friend might die on a cricket pitch in London after surviving the battlefields of Africa, and all because of one man’s bitterness and hatred.

  Rupert had no doubt at all that Denbigh was behind the attack. He was conspicuously absent, as if already shoring up his alibi for when Rupert inevitably accused him. No wonder the odious Lady Claudia hadn’t shown up for the event either.

  “Make way, make way. I’m a doctor,” an unfamiliar voice called from a short distance away.

  Moments later, a middle-aged man in tweed dropped to a crouch beside Rupert. He surveyed Fergus with a quick professional frown.

  “They attacked him deliberately,” Rupert said, rocking back to give the doctor room to do his work. “Eight men with clubs.”

  The doctor grunted as two other men jogged up, carrying an empty stretcher between them. “He’s been brutalized,” the doctor said. “There’s an infirmary one street over. We need to get him there fast. He might not make it.”

  Lady Tavistock gasped in horror. Cece bent over to help her stand and back away so that the men with the stretcher could help Fergus. Rupert stood and moved to Cece’s side, wanting to hug her until he was certain she was safe but knowing there was no time. All he could do was watch helplessly as Fergus was loaded onto the stretcher. He cried out in agony, then passed out as the men lifted the stretcher.

  “Is he dead?” Lady Tavistock asked shakily.

  “Not yet,” the doctor said, gesturing for the men to carry the stretcher off the pitch toward the infirmary. “Not on my watch.”

  Chapter 18

  Cece’s heart beat like a fury against her ribs as she jogged off of the cricket pitch, following the doctor and the men who carried Lord O’Shea on the stretcher. Henrietta hurried along at her side, pale and weeping openly, but silent. As much as Cece hated the drivel about women being too constitutionally weak to bear the sight of violence, she had to admit that she’d never seen anything as brutal as the eight men with clubs beating Lord O’Shea, and she never wanted to see anything like it again.

  “He’ll be all right,” Rupert attempted to reassure her as they crossed through the barrier from Lord’s to the street. He reached for her hand, squeezing it as they hurried along. “Fergus is strong. He’s survived worse.” There was little confidence in his voice.

  People on the street, from low to high, leapt out of the way of their macabre procession. A few shouted that they’d seen which way the attackers went, but Cece barely heard them. Her thoughts were only for Lord O’Shea, who had stopped writhing on the stretcher and now jostled with every move the bearers made, pale as death.

  Blessedly, the infirmary was even closer than the doctor had made it out to be. A man held the door open so that the doctor and stretcher-bearers could race through and into the dim, heavy atmosphere of the building. Cece and Rupert squeezed in behind them, Henrietta bringing up the rear. Lord O’Shea was carried straight through to what must have been an examination room. Rupert tried to follow, but the doctor stopped him.

  “He’s in critical condition and I cannot have distractions as I work to save his life,” the doctor said.

  “Understood.” Rupert took a grudging step back, deep worry etched in the lines of his face.

  The doctor disappeared into the examination room, shutting the door behind him. The thump of the door closing had a morbid finality about it. Rupert stood where he was, staring at the door, his face a mask of fear and uncertainty. Cece had never seen him so distressed in her life.

  “If you please,” a young woman who looked as though she could be the doctor’s daughter said, stepping forward. “You can wait in this room, if you’d like.”

  Cece blinked and glanced around at their surroundings. The large waiting room where they stood was filled with humble-looking men and women in various states of illness or distress. They watched her, Rupert, and Henrietta with wide, wondering eyes. Several were coughing, and a young child began to cry in the wake of the sudden burst of trauma. The room that the doctor’s daughter gestured to appeared to be a second examination room. It had the advantage of being empty and private.

  “Thank you,” Cece said, sending the young woman the kindest smile she could manage under the circumstances. “We are grateful.”

  She took Rupert’s hand, steering him away from the closed door and into the private room. Henrietta came silently with them, her gaze unfocused as though she were lost in her thoughts.

  “Could I bring you some tea?” the doctor’s daughter asked in a hushed voice as she saw them into the room.

  “No, but thank you for the offer,” Cece said.

  The woman nodded, then backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her and closing them all in with their thoughts.

  A long, anxious silence followed. Rupert paced the room, walking in circles around the long examination table in the middle. Henrietta sank into a chair beside a curtained window, clenching her fists in the fabric of her skirts. It was then that Cece noticed dark flecks of blood standing out against the white of Henrietta’s dress and gloves. She had blood and grass stains on her own skirts, but she didn’t care.

  “He’s in the best possible hands,” she said, glancing from Rupert to Henrietta and back again. “We did everything we could.”

  Henrietta nodded and retreated back into her thoughts, wiping away stray tears with the back of her hand.

  Rupert continued pacing, though he, too, nodded in acknowledgement and agreement.

  Cece followed him around to the far side of the room from where Henrietta sat, standing in front of him to block his way. “You did everything you could,” she repeated.

  Rupert stopped and let out a long breath, pushing a hand through his hair. His knuckles were rough with scrapes and bruises from the fighting he’d done. “I just pray it’s enough,” he said.

  Cece leaned toward him, relieved that he accepted her advance and closed his arms around her in a hug. She needed it, and she was certain he needed it as well. They stood in each other’s arms for a moment, listening to the dull drone of activity and low voices in the room beside them. They couldn’t hear much, but it was enough to know the doctor was d
oing everything he could to save Lord O’Shea’s life.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to him,” Rupert said at last in a hollow voice. Cece rocked back, stepping out of his arms to better listen to him. “Fergus saved my life and the lives of so many other men in the war. He thought nothing of himself, only of helping others. He is everything good and noble about this nation, and it enrages me that men like Denbigh denigrate him for his heritage when not one of them has lifted a finger to protect the interests of queen and country.”

  Cece could only nod, reaching for his hand and holding it as the emotions bubbling inside of him rose into words.

  Rupert gazed intently at her. “That is why I joined the military,” he said, taking her other hand so that he held both of them. “I know my decision hurt you, and for that I am eternally sorry.”

  Old pain and wasted anger squeezed Cece’s throat closed. Her heartache and resentment felt so far away in that moment that it was almost trivial.

  “I didn’t know how to explain it to you then,” Rupert went on, “and I still don’t know how to explain it now. I didn’t leave because you weren’t important or because I didn’t love you. I had to go and serve my country because you are important and because I love you with all my heart. I believe in this nation and this life we are so lucky to live, and I would do anything and everything within my power to protect and preserve it for you.”

  “I know,” Cece said, the comfort of realization filling her like a strong, fresh breeze blowing away the fog of confusion. “And I love you for it, more than you can know.”

  His mouth twitched slightly and a wry grin brought a hint of teasing to his eyes. “But?” he asked.

  The simple question made Cece’s heart flutter. “But fighting to protect me and to make a better world for me is not the same thing as valuing and cherishing me as a woman with opinions and emotions in my own right.” Before he could reply, she rushed on to say, “Both are necessary.”