Courting Scandal

by Donna Lea Simpson

  Arabella was silent. She could think of nothing to say, for she had her own cherished dream that would take her much farther away before long, and she would not give it up easily. She wanted Marcus to take her to Canada, and she wanted to sail before winter arrived. She had not broached the subject yet, but planned to while they traveled to Cumbria.

  “Mother Swinley, I am only taking her north for a month or so, and then we’ll come back to London and see you.” Marcus’s voice was stern, but he smiled at his new mother-in-law kindly. He had found the only way to deal with her was to tell her how things were going to be and let her squawk about it. There had been many discussions in the past month where he had had to talk long and loud over her protests, and he had won every disagreement simply by dint of being persistent and insistent.

  She gave him a look of dislike, but tempered it quickly. “You may call me Isabella, Marcus.” She put her hand out and he shook it, then glanced at his wife, and kissed it. She sniffled and said, “I wish you well. Be . . . be kind to my darling daughter.” Her voice broke on the last word and she turned away.

  Arabella caught her hand before she moved off. “Mama?”

  Lady Swinley turned back after hastily applying a handkerchief to her eyes.

  “Mama, I love you.” And she did. It was amazing, but after everything, even after finding that Lady Swinley had gambled away a good part of the money that had been left her to run Swinley Manor on, even after the Conroy debacle and the Pelimore episode, she did love her mother.

  Lady Swinley burst into tears and stumbled away to indulge in a private bout of weeping. It was all right. Arabella had left her a letter telling her things she had never been able to say. It had felt good to express some of it, but there was much less anger and much more love in the letter than she would have thought possible a month before. Happiness had made her forgive much that she had thought unforgivable.

  Finally they pulled away from Thorne House as the sun sank below the treetops. They were alone, and Arabella felt a wave of shyness engulf her. She covered her nervousness by opening the package True had given her at the last moment. It contained a golden locket with the words Love Is All engraved on it. She held it for a long while, thinking how lucky she was to have found love when she had pushed it away with both hands.

  They traveled for a time in silence, the interior of the carriage growing dim as night closed in. Marcus purposely let the silence go on, knowing his new bride needed some time to recover from the emotion of the day, and of the parting.

  But finally he pulled her to his side. “I have reserved a room for us at the White Boar on the road into Basingstoke. It’s a lovely little inn I discovered on my way down to Hampshire. They have clean sheets, good food, and a very private room.” He felt her shiver. She was frightened. He was a little nervous too, but it must be much more awkward for her, not knowing exactly what was to come. He needed to lighten the mood.

  “I think I shall require some convincing, my elegant, lovely wife, that you married me for reasons other than my pretty purse and handsome new title.”

  “Marcus,” she said, turning to him with a stricken expression in her glowing green eyes. “Please don’t say that you don’t believe me! Oh, this is what I was afraid of—”

  He silenced her with a kiss and held her close. The repercussions of his ridiculous distrust still rippled. “My love,” he whispered. “I am teasing you. Now, in that spirit, can you contrive to convince me that you love me for me?”

  Swept up in a dizzying tide of passion and desire, fueled by his lips tickling her ear and his teeth nipping at her earlobe, she started to think that perhaps True was right. The physical side of the marriage was the last thing she needed to worry about. “I think tonight I just might be able to convince you, my husband.”

  He was grateful for the dark, for the surge of hunger that swept through him had its physical effects, and he wanted to go slowly, wanted to teach his beautiful wife that there was nothing to be afraid of in his love. Keeping his tone light with a great effort, he nipped at her collarbone and said, “Perhaps I shall require nightly convincing, my heart’s delight.”

  “I think—I think that I can promise you that,” Arabella said breathlessly, threading her fingers through his silky, straight hair. She gasped as his hand wandered over her curves, and began to wonder if they would ever get to the inn. It could not be too soon.

  “Good. I look forward to that,” he said, his voice muffled as his kisses trailed down her neck to her bosom.

  And then no more words were said, as in the velvet-soft dark husband and wife made silent promises they would be delighted to keep.

  Excerpt from Miss Truelove Beckons

  In case you missed it, keep reading

  for an excerpt from the book

  that first introduced Arabella Swinley,

  Miss Truelove Beckons

  When Truelove Becket’s betrothed went missing in a naval battle, she vowed never to marry unless she found someone she loved as much. In the seven years since then, the quiet vicar’s daughter has lived a simple and contented life helping the poor people of her village. But now another man has asked for her hand in marriage and, unsure if she is ready to commit to him, she agrees to accompany her beautiful cousin Arabella on a trip to visit friends so she can take time to think it over.

  Viscount Drake cut a dashing figure when he returned from war to a hero’s welcome, but the Battle of Waterloo left him a shattered and haunted man. As his dreams are invaded by the terrors of war he becomes a sleepless shell of a man, and as his torment grows he begins to wonder if marriage to the lovely Arabella will help restore him again. But as Arabella coquettishly flirts to secure Drake’s hand and his riches, it is the pretty and practical True he turns to for solace.

  With the weight of her marriage proposal bearing down on her, True finds herself irresistibly attracted to Drake’s quiet dignity and genuine distress, just as he finds himself drawn to her honest nature and soothing compassion. When a spark of passion ignites between these two who have both lost so much to war, they will have to confront their biggest fears—and everyone else’s plans for their futures—to discover if love can truly cure all ills.

  Chapter One

  Mud oozed up under the scarlet jacket of Drake’s uniform as he was pushed down by the crushing weight of his horse, Andromeda. The cannonade thundered around him, and the stench of smoke and blood reeked in his nostrils, but that he could handle—that he was used to. It was the feeling of having all breath squeezed out of him that put him into a panic. His back felt as though it would snap, and he thought he could feel someone’s knee in his groin. Andromeda was twisting and grunting, poor old girl, but then was ominously still, laying over him, her warm, heavy body limp.

  He was buried, entombed alive beneath bodies of horses and men. Mother Earth vibrated under him as though she shrieked and writhed in misery at the abominable use men made of her surface, violating a once peaceful, green Belgian field. The air stank of death; the mud was blood red and body parts and dead and dying men lay around him.

  Drake knew he would die. Even now he felt his own blood pumping into the muck and mire from the saber wound in his thigh.

  He would die. If not from loss of blood, then from this gargantuan weight, his poor dead mount, Andromeda, crushing the air from his fatigued lungs. But no, he would not die! He would fight and scream until someone found him and pulled him out of this bloody grave, this battlefield, this Waterloo.

  “Sir! Major!”

  Someone heard him; someone was coming to rescue him.

  “My lord, wake up! You’re all right, sir; you’re home at Lea Park, and alive!”

  Wycliffe Prescott, Viscount Drake, major-general of the renowned Kent Light Dragoons, a cavalry unit of his Majesty’s army, awoke, sweating and screaming, twisted in his bedclothes with the bolster on top of him. It was pitch dark and Horace Cooper leaned over him, candle in hand, his ugly face twisted into a grimace of concern.
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br />   Drake threw aside the bedclothes, then sat on the edge of the bed and swept one long-fingered hand through his wild hair. He was home, or at least at the home of his parents, at Lea Park. The war had been over for months and he was alive, though injured. He buried his face in his hands. When would the horror leave him?

  “Was I loud this time, Horace? Did I awaken anyone?”

  “I don’t think so, Major-General, sir . . . I mean, my lord.” Horace straightened and set the candle on the table beside the large, ornately carved bed that dominated Drake’s room. Flickering shadows of the heavy old furniture danced across the papered walls in ghastly silhouette.

  “Good. I don’t wish to alarm Mother. Ever since I came back from Waterloo with this beastly leg wound and . . . and the nightmares, she worries about me.”

  “I know, sir,” Horace said, his voice a gruff rumble in the quiet darkness. “That be a mother’s chore, seems to me. No matter that you be full-growed and thirty-two years, you still be her child. It’s nature, sir.”

  Drake glanced up at his former batman, now his valet, in the wavering candlelight as the man straightened the bedcovers. Everyone in the household called Horace “the Sergeant,” though it was not a rank the man had attained. It was likely more accurate, though, than calling him by his new position. As a valet he made a very good soldier. “Don’t you ever dream of that day at Mont St. Jean, Horace?” He realized as he spoke that he should have known he was deep in another dream, for he had dreamt of Waterloo—the place name had sung in his ears like a Greek chorus—and it did not become Waterloo until old Nosey sent the dispatch announcing victory from that town. The actual battleground was near Mont St. Jean, some miles away.

  The older man shook his head and bent to pick up the candle once more. “No, sir, I reckon I leave that part up to you. You was there through the worst of it; I just came to pick up the pieces.” He handed his employer breeches that had been draped over a nearby chair.

  Drake grimaced and rose, stripping off his nightshirt and pulling on his breeches, feeling the familiar ache in his thigh. The wound had healed, or at least it was no longer oozing or festering, but the pain was still there, sometimes excruciating in its intensity, slicing through him with every bit of the agony of the first thrust. “You did more than that and you know it, but even if that was the truth, bad enough, old man. Bad enough. You saw it all, the blood, the bodies, the small pieces of humanity hacked to bits on that bloody battlefield. And you saved my life, pulled me out from under poor Andromeda and from beneath young Captain Lewis, or what was left of him.”

  Horace held out a shirt to his master—that simple aid was the height of his valet skills, which were negligible—but would not meet his eyes, abashed as always in the face of praise. He had managed to raise self-deprecation to high art. “Just doin’ my job, sir.”

  Drake smiled grimly and pulled the shirt over his head, then crossed to the bowl of water cradled in his elaborate mahogany and marble washstand. He dashed the cool, lavender-scented water on his brow, wiping away the sweat that filmed it with the soft cloth Horace handed him. There would be no more sleep for him that night. The only remedy for one of his nightmares was a few hours walking or on horseback. “And still are. You’re the only one who understands, Horace, the only one who knows.” He tossed the cloth down and straightened, trying to ignore the pain as he stretched. “I shall be gone for a few hours. Please let Lady Leathorne know that in the morning, will you?”

  “I will, sir.”

  • • •

  But there was no need, really, for that service. As Drake limped from the house, a plump older woman stood at a window up on the third floor and watched her only son—her only child—crossing the grass toward the stables. A worried frown etched deep wrinkles on her forehead. Drake had not slept again, or at least had not slept for longer than a couple of hours, despite the quantity of brandy he had imbibed before retiring. Even through the thick walls of Lea Park she had heard his nightmare screams echoing down the old hallways and knew that once more, his sleep was at an end for that night.

  There was no anguish equal to that in a mother’s heart when her child was so sorely in need of comfort, and she had none adequate to give him. It hurt so very deeply. When he had first come home she had been shocked at how pale and gaunt he was, and how very weak. She had been full of hopeful energy then, able to help him heal his body, not knowing the deeper laceration was to his soul.

  Now he was getting better, physically at least. When would he recover in his mind and heart? And what exactly had happened to him that he could not sleep now, without waking screaming? She turned away from the window and returned to her bed, feeling helpless and old.

  • • •

  Miss True Becket gazed out of the carriage window with pleasure on the prospect of a bright, late-summer Hampshire day as they rolled steadily along good road between hedgerows and wooded copses. For miles now she had been riveted to the window, fascinated by the difference each mile made to the landscape. The landscape undulated around them, the vast beech “hangers,” as the wooded slopes were called, a complete change from her own home, deep in Cornwall. The most exotic places she had been before now was the village of Polperro on the Cornish coast and the occasional visit to her cousins in Devon.

  The dense forests of Hampshire, the clear chalk streams, every pollarded beech and verdant village green were fresh delights to her unjaded eyes. Even if she had to endure the sharp tempers of her cousins, Lady Swinley and her daughter, Arabella, it was worth it. Father would say she should thank God for giving her an opportunity such as this to see the world, or at least more of their own fair, green isle.

  And she was thankful. The Swinleys were often surprisingly kind to her, especially Arabella, beautiful, blonde, willful Arabella. Despite a selfish streak that True was not blind to, she, at least, was usually affectionate toward her older cousin, a reminder of years gone by when True’s humble home, the vicarage that housed her, her father, and her younger sister, Faithful, had been Arabella’s home, too. Arabella had no sisters, and True stood in that light, like an older sibling.

  It did not stop the occasional cutting remark or petulant display of temper, but she thought that Arabella did hold her in genuine affection. If she had not believed that, nothing could have convinced her to be so available to them when they wanted a companion, for she certainly did not do it for Lady Swinley’s convenience. She had never been able to be as fond of her elder cousin as she would have liked. The woman had a coldness about her that chilled any budding feelings of warmth or friendship.

  The coachman turned the ancient, lumbering but well-maintained carriage off the road at a stone gate and onto a long, winding lane, following directions given them at their last stop, the Leaping Stag. The innkeeper had dispensed directions to Lea Park along with tea and marvelous biscuits from his wife. True had almost been tempted to creep down to the kitchen to ask the landlady for the recipe, but knew that would gain her a swift and angry reprisal from Cousin—no, her cousin preferred “Lady Swinley”—if she made them late by even a moment. It was not that she feared her cousin, but life was much more pleasant when everyone got along.

  The lane broadened, from tree-lined into open parkland. They were laboring uphill, the carriage burdened with four adult women—Lady Swinley, Arabella, True and the maid, Annie—as well as the groom and driver, and a multitude of trunks and bandboxes, satchels and valises strapped to the roof. Lady Swinley did not have the resources for a cart or wagon with the second coachman that would have needed. But their slow pace had its reward as True gazed out the window over a gentle slope of verdant beauty, rolling down into a valley where a sparkling river, a tributary of the Itchen, from True’s research, wound through banks lined by overhanging willows, sturdy oaks and shallow inlets of rushes, full-blown in the late summer sunshine.

  True delighted in natural beauty, though she was neither a painter nor a poet. Her enjoyment lay in the soothing rhythms of nature, the
cycle of life and the abundance of creation. God’s gift to man, her father always said.

  “Tolerable park,” Lady Swinley murmured laconically.

  Arabella, her oval face alight with anticipation, glanced at her. “Surely more than tolerable, Mama? It is quite lovely, don’t you think, True?”

  “I do! I have never been to Hampshire, but have seen a book of plates, and it is just as I imagined, rolling hills, wooded copses . . . beautiful.”

  Arabella smiled. “Wait until you see the house! It is quite spectacular. When we were here last year it was a very wet spring, and so we could not get out much, but Lea Park has enough rooms and nooks and crannies to keep one busy through a month of wet Sundays! I am so glad you could come with us this time, True.” She thrust her arm through her cousin’s and hugged it to her slender body. “If I am engaged before we leave, maybe we can find a beau for you! Some dashing buck who has come to Hampshire for the autumnal hunt!”

  True blushed and gazed out the window. “You know I do not look to marry, Bella. I am content to be in your shadow.”

  Arabella patted her blonde ringlets and smirked. “I am speaking of after I am engaged and can no longer be an object of flirtation, silly! I shall be very cold to any gentlemen who visit and say, ‘La, my lord, you must not look at me as your flirt. Rather gaze upon my cousin. Is she not sweet, in a prim, vicar’s-wife kind of way?’ I shall turn them all over to you.”

  True tried to keep herself from rolling her eyes. Arabella was spoilt by all the attention she had had over the last three London Seasons. She had turned from a sweet young girl into a hardened flirt, and it took away some of the attraction of her vivacity, in True’s mind. But apparently the gentlemen found her as irresistible as ever, and that was all that counted in both mother and daughter’s eyes. She decided a change of subject was warranted. “Is all this land Lord Drake’s?”