A Most Scandalous Engagement

by Gayle Callen

  After a quick knock, Susanna opened the door and leaned in, gesturing with her hand. Elizabeth gladly tossed away her brush and let Susanna take her arm, pulling her along the corridor to Rebecca’s bedroom. It amused her that Susanna, usually so reserved and studious, a bluestocking in every sense of the word, had decided to plot their strategy—and that Rebecca, adventurous and daring since her childhood illnesses had abated, was willing to listen to her sister!

  Once inside, Elizabeth sank down on the four-poster, getting comfortable among the pillows.

  Susanna put her hands on her hips. “You’ll both hear my plan now.”

  “Of course,” Rebecca said, brushing her hair. “Tell us everything.”

  “We cannot stay in London and let those three men pick us apart one by one, looking for weaknesses, combining their information.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “But they’re trying to best each other.”

  “And us. And I’m beginning to think that defeating us is more appealing than defeating each other.”

  Rebecca smiled at Elizabeth. “She assumes that because she knows what’s beneath a man’s skin, she knows how he thinks.”

  Susanna was an artist, and she boldly helped her anatomist father by sketching his dissections. This debate between sisters had gone on forever, and Elizabeth impatiently waved her hand.

  It was Susanna’s turn to smile. “I didn’t say that. But I think the best way we can protect this secret is to go our separate ways, not make it so easy for them to question us one by one.”

  Elizabeth tensed with uncertainty.

  “Separate ways?” Rebecca frowned.

  “Eventually one of us will make a mistake,” Susanna continued. “I think we reduce the risk of that if we don’t give them access to all of us.”

  “But it’s like . . . leaving the game.” Rebecca’s shoulders slumped.

  Elizabeth saw her cousin’s disappointment, and didn’t understand it. Winning the game was what mattered, the only way to retrieve the painting and protect themselves.

  “No, it’s like taking the game elsewhere,” Susanna said, her smile growing. “If they choose not to follow, then we win, don’t you see?”

  “I can’t leave,” Elizabeth said. “My mother has not been feeling well, and I need to be with her.” She left out the fact that William was here, too.

  Susanna nodded. “That’s fine. We mustn’t go together anyway. I’ve been invited to a house party. I’ll attend.”

  “Mother mentioned it.” Rebecca sounded uncertain. “She’ll insist I attend, too.”

  “Not if you’re going to visit Great Aunt Rianette.”

  Rebecca froze with her brush still in her hair. “I beg your pardon?”

  “She’s been asking for one of us to visit,” Susanna continued, “and Mama has been feeling guilty that we’ve been too busy. Now she won’t have to feel guilty anymore.”

  Elizabeth hugged a pillow to her mouth to hide her laughter as the two sisters continued to bicker even as they made plans for Rebecca’s train trip.

  Satisfied at last, Rebecca looked at her sister and Elizabeth with confidence. “Should I wish us all good luck, even though we won’t need it?”

  Elizabeth took both their hands, and they shared a smile. But inside, worry curdled her amusement. She didn’t want them to see it. They had their strategy, and they were determined to win. Rebecca was ready for an adventure; Susanna was ready to prove her superiority over a simple male. Elizabeth wouldn’t bring them down with her petty concerns.

  Chapter 3

  Peter tried to leave his family town house early the next morning. He had plans to begin tracking down the artist who’d painted Elizabeth. But just as he reached the front door, he heard his mother call his name. Sighing, he looked over his shoulder and saw her leaning over the balustrade from the first floor.

  “Peter, may I speak with you for a moment?”

  “Of course, Mother,” he said, then went back up the stairs.

  Though she smiled, worry was evident in the lines on her forehead. She was still a handsome woman, her figure softer, her hair peppered with gray she didn’t bother to conceal. He had always wondered why she didn’t remarry after the death of his rather tyrannical father, but she always said that her children kept her too busy. That was code for trying to persuade her eldest to marry and provide an heir. James hadn’t cooperated yet.

  She drew Peter into the drawing room, looked both ways down the corridor, then shut the door. “I don’t want your sister overhearing.”

  He sighed, wondering what mischief Mary Anne had gotten into now. “Shouldn’t James be here?”

  “He’s too impatient with her,” Mrs. Derby replied. “I think she would do best if it came from you.”

  He sat down on the sofa beside his mother and took her hand. “Tell me everything.”

  With a sigh, she said, “I thought when Mary Anne came out into Society, things would be better for her.”

  “She’s more mature, as far as I can tell.” He felt a twinge of guilt as he said it, knowing he’d seldom been with Mary Anne this past year.

  “Oh, yes, she’s much more of a conversationalist, and she no longer speaks without thinking.”

  “There, now, that sounds better.” He grinned. “Too often I used to be able to hear her screeching several floors away.”

  His mother didn’t smile back. “She has developed an obsession. It couldn’t be with reading or painting or needlework, something appropriate. No, she has become—a sharp.”

  He stared at her, trying hard not to laugh. “Do you know what that is?”

  “She plays billiards for money and misleads men about her expertise!” She twisted a handkerchief in her fingers, distraught.

  “Misleads men?”

  “Oh, it is too easy to do. Who would expect such skill from a young lady?”

  “I know she enjoyed playing a game or two. I thought she caught on quite well.”

  “Did you encourage her?”

  “I don’t think so. But we played together when she was younger. I didn’t think she cared all that much.”

  “And now it’s all she wants to do.”

  Peter’s smile faded at his mother’s obvious distress. He knew she was not the sort of woman to exaggerate. She had accepted his father’s airs, his attempts to seem more than a squire in their little village, which was hard to do when one lived next door to the Duke of Madingley. The old duke had never done anything to offend his father—the duke’s very existence was enough. And when the duke had taken an interest in Peter’s education—since his father could only afford to send the heir to school—it made everything worse. It was his mother who’d convinced Mr. Derby to allow Peter the access to the Cabot tutors, since it would help him find a good wife some day. His father had grudgingly acquiesced.

  “Have you asked Mary Anne why she enjoys the game above all others?” Peter asked.

  “She’s . . . evasive. I would let it go, Peter—I thought, what harm?—but then at a dinner party she and I attended three days ago, I heard a commotion when I was passing by the billiard room. I saw her at the center of a group of men—she was not the only lady present,” his mother quickly added. “But she’d asked to play and they’d allowed her, simply assuming . . .” She trailed off with a sigh.

  “That they were humoring her,” he finished.

  “Later, I heard tell that she played simplistically at first, then took their money with her win. Can you imagine, Peter? Thank heavens those men are friends of ours and talk will go no further. But what will happen if she does this again? Am I supposed to keep her locked in the house? She’ll be on the shelf in no time. I think it might very well be what she has planned. She shows no interest in securing the attention of a man—unless he’d like to play against her.”

  He nodded his understanding. Every mother wanted a good marriage for her daughter, and feared she would end up a poor relation otherwise. He would never allow his sister to feel unloved, even if she
had to live with him until the end of her days, but that wasn’t what his mother wanted to hear. And he couldn’t imagine proud Mary Anne beholden to him, either.

  “I’ll talk to her,” he said, rising to his feet.

  His mother sank back against a cushion, the strain in her face already easing. “She loves you, Peter. She’ll listen.”

  Mary Anne was also headstrong. He wasn’t certain she’d listen at all, but he could listen to her. He’d certainly learned his lesson about taking time to discover the truth. “Do you know where she is?”

  With a heavy sigh, Mrs. Derby answered, “Where do you think?”

  As predicted, he found his sister in the billiard room, bent over the slate table, lining up a shot. He said nothing for a moment, not wanting to disturb her concentration.

  Leather benches and small tables lined the wall. Overhead, an oil lamp gave illumination, with a tray hung beneath it to keep from ruining the green baize of the billiard table.

  He tried to look at her objectively. She was a pretty girl, with hair the same color as his, a light cross between brown and blond. They shared their father’s blue eyes, but thankfully not his temperament. She was overly tall for a woman, which she’d once confessed caused her much concern.

  For the first time, he noticed the darkness of her gown, a green so deep it could have been gray. Now that he thought of it, she was never one to wear bright colors or frills and ribbons like Elizabeth did. Even her hair was sedately drawn back into a knot at the base of her neck.

  After a crack of ivory balls smacking, Mary Anne straightened and grinned with satisfaction. Peter clapped, and with a start she turned to see him leaning in the doorway.

  She smiled. “Good, aren’t I?”

  “So Mother informs me.”

  With a loud sigh, she slumped one hip against the table, cradling the cue in front of her chest as she lifted her pert nose in the air. “So she complained about me to you.”

  “Not complained. She is simply worried, and says that billiards has become an obsession with you.”

  Rolling her eyes, she groaned.

  “Quite dramatic,” he said mildly.

  “Women played through history,” she said. “It’s only recently that men pushed us away. Mary, Queen of Scots, played.”

  “And you know how she ended, parted from her head.”

  Mary Anne made a face. “Mother simply disapproves because she doesn’t understand the game.”

  He watched her, saying nothing.

  Her sigh was milder. “Oh, I’m not demeaning her intelligence. It’s just that she’s never bothered to allow herself to enjoy the challenge of it. She doesn’t understand my skills.”

  “Apparently several gentlemen didn’t, either.”

  She bit her lip, and he knew she was trying to hold back a smile.

  “They assumed that because I am a woman,” she said, “I was incapable of mastering the game.”

  “And their ignorance made you play for money.”

  “It was their suggestion.”

  “And you innocently went along with it.”

  At last her triumphant grin emerged. “It was enjoyable to see their dumbfounded expressions.”

  “I’m sure it was. Only a fool would underestimate you.” Before she could preen too much with his compliment, he added, “Would it be enjoyable if they discussed among the ton your new penchant to play for money?”

  Her smile faded. “I don’t care.”

  “Mother does. She’s worried you’ll end up alone like Great Aunt Clementine.”

  “I don’t like cats,” she said with a sniff.

  “Regardless, Mary Anne, playing for money with men is just not done.”

  “If this were a card game—”

  “It’s not, and you know the difference.”

  She leaned over the table and began to roll one of the balls repeatedly against the rubber-padded cushion. She didn’t look at him as she softly said, “I know.”

  “Promise me you won’t do that again.”

  He saw her jaw clench.

  “But I can still play?” she asked, looking up at him.

  As always, those blue eyes melted him. “Of course. It is a game you’re skilled at. I only ask that you play with close friends and family—and not for money. You do not want a reputation.”

  “Will it bother you on your great wife hunt?” she asked, her lips twisting in a smirk.

  “I am in no rush. I’ll leave James to that pressure.”

  Her smile faded. “And me. You’re leaving me to it.”

  “But you’re a woman, Mary Anne. It is part of what you are.”

  “Yes, we’re only complete if we’re wives,” she murmured.

  She didn’t meet his eyes, and for a moment he thought there was something unsaid. He wanted to dismiss the thought but found he couldn’t. She went back to practicing, ignoring him. The balls clicked against each other or thumped along the edge.

  For the first time, he wondered if he knew his sister as well as he’d once thought. He needed to find a way to help her.

  At a dinner party given by Lady Fogge the next evening, Peter watched as Elizabeth was escorted into the dining room much earlier than he was, due to her rank, and they sat too distant among the twenty guests to speak. On her left was a pale, red-haired young man he’d met once or twice by the name of Mr. Tilden. It was to him she directed most of her conversation, since the man to her right, Lord Radcliffe, seemed to enjoy looking down her bodice rather than at her face.

  After dinner, when the men rejoined the ladies, Peter made a point of escorting a reluctant Elizabeth, walking her about the room slowly, watching the candlelight glow on her smooth skin. Several women smiled at her as they passed, but she didn’t stop to speak with them. When they neared a deserted corner, still within view of every guest, he stopped and faced her.

  She gave him a cool look and waited.

  “You didn’t seem pleased with your dinner partner,” he said, gesturing subtly toward Lord Radcliffe.

  She sighed. “With his curly black hair, he reminds me of a spiteful cupid. But I don’t want to talk about him, Peter. You need to know something that will affect how you attempt to win the wager. Rebecca and Susanna have left London. You won’t be able to use them against me in your quest for the truth.”

  “Use your cousins against you?” he said quietly, with faint sarcasm. “Why would I do that?”

  “You might think one of them will crack beneath the strain of your questions; you might compare our stories.” She lifted her chin with defiance. “Now you won’t be able to, and neither will your friends.”

  “You aren’t worried that my friends will now join me in questioning you?”

  She shot him a sly smile. “Have you seen them today? I do believe they were invited this evening, were they not?”

  “I see,” he said slowly, letting his admiring gaze roam her face. “Your cousins led them away.”

  “Like puppies on a leash.”

  He laughed, and more than one head turned toward them, but his merriment took a while to fade. “Well done, Elizabeth. Whose idea was it?”

  “Susanna’s, of course.”

  “Of course. Where did they all go?”

  She only shrugged mischievously. And although she was besting him, he enjoyed the sight, for she seemed to be recovering from whatever had caused her tears. But he wouldn’t forget them.

  He decided it was time to counter her cleverness. “Do you know where I was today, while everyone was fleeing London? I went to the Royal Academy.”

  “Whatever for?” she asked too innocently.

  Her smile hardened, but didn’t disappear. The game was still on.

  “Several of Roger Eastfield’s paintings are on display there. You remember him, don’t you?”

  “The artist who painted me. Did they tell you where to find him?”

  “I imagine I could have asked you, but didn’t think you’d answer. And yes, they did tell me where hi
s studio was.”

  She hesitated briefly, then said, “I hope you said hello for me.”

  “He wasn’t there. A neighbor said he journeyed north, and was uncertain when he’d return.”

  Her relief was subtle, but it was there.

  “What a shame,” she said, reaching to pat his forearm.

  He put his hand over hers, and her eyes darted to the other guests. But Peter’s body blocked their touch from sight.

  “It was not a very good section of London, Elizabeth.”

  “I know. I was careful.”

  “So he painted you at his studio?”

  “Would you rather he painted me in the Madingley drawing room?” she asked, blinking at him.

  He watched her intently. “And you were alone with him?”

  “My cousins were with me.”

  His shoulders and neck were so stiff with tension, it was hard to relax them, but her words helped.

  “You think I would allow myself to be alone with him, Peter?” she asked in a soft, affronted voice.

  He barely controlled his astonishment, then whispered between smiling lips, “You posed nude, Elizabeth. Can you blame me for wondering if you did so because you were enthralled with the artist?”

  She blinked. “By enthralled, you mean . . . you think I would let him . . .” Then she sputtered, as if she didn’t know how to say it.

  “Then I’ll be blunt.” He leaned a bit closer than propriety allowed, and in the same room as their host and her guests, he asked, “Did you lie with him, Elizabeth?”

  She inhaled sharply, straightening away from him. She looked about, seeing that they were still being ignored, and hissed, “I would never do such a thing. I think less of you, Peter, for even suggesting it.”

  There were two hot patches of color in her cheeks, and she seemed to have trouble meeting his gaze—but not because she was lying about her relationship with Eastfield. He knew that with certainty. And he felt relieved.