House of Cads (Ladies of Scandal Book 2)

by Elizabeth Kingston

  A better person would tell him this. But she did not want to be better. She much preferred to nurse this little resentment for a bit, because she was petty. And also he was very handsome when he wore a look of concern.

  She smiled at him, and his frown deepened. “You look wonderfully worried.”

  “You like that, do you?” he asked.

  “Oh yes, it is very becoming. This expression draws the eye to the freckles on your forehead. I forget they are there sometimes, but the frown reminds me.”

  It would have been interesting to hear his reply, but alas – the squabbling ladies were making such a nuisance of themselves that a local goose had taken exception to the noise. It ran at them, flapping its wings and hissing. One of the villagers shouted and ran after it while the ladies screamed. As the goose was chased away, priggish Mr. Harner stepped forward. He seemed inclined to comfort the frightened ladies, but his charitable instinct was thwarted when he evidently remembered that the singer did not conform to his idea of respectability and The Poetess was entirely too vulgar for his sensibilities. Thus he reeled towards and recoiled away from each lady in turn, trying express solicitude while hiding his distaste, and Marie-Anne began to regret implying that Mason should not draw this scene. Perhaps it was not worthy of the gossip papers, but she would dearly love to have it memorialized.

  “Oh Marie-Anne, do stop laughing or I shall succumb as well,” implored Amy in a constricted voice. She was valiantly stifling her own laughter.

  “Never. It is bad for the health.” But even as she said it, the humor was draining from her. Mason had picked up a fallen reticule and handed it to The Poetess, who now clung to him as though she could not stand without his support. “It puts pressure on the internal organs if you do not release it,” she said vaguely, as she watched The Poetess take Mason’s arm.

  “That cannot be true, surely you are joking?”

  “It is time to go to the vicarage, non?” She raised her voice and called to Mr. Harner. “You do not want to miss your appointment, you are expected at the vicarage!”

  Gratifyingly, The Poetess let go Mason’s arm and the little party snapped to attention. They gathered together so that they could pay their visit. This was how they would be occupied while Mason met with a business associate whom he had explained was very private but was also – and quite conveniently – a dear, unnamed friend of Marie-Anne’s. So they were free to go to the village pub while the rest of the party was otherwise occupied.

  Marie-Anne took one last look at Amy, who was listening attentively to Mr. Harner. He was probably telling the poor girl that she should not be amused at such spectacles and to please refrain from visibly enjoying herself while at the vicarage. What a disagreeable man.

  “Now you’re the one who looks worried,” observed Mason as they walked away.

  Her frown instantly dissolved. “And does the expression look very good on me too?”

  “Everything looks good on you. You look even better with everything off.”

  Oh, this was how it was going to be, was it?

  “This is a brazen falsehood,” she replied, desperately hoping her cheeks were not as pink as they felt. “You have never seen me with everything off.”

  “You’re right, madame, and I apologize. What will it take to get you to remedy that?”

  She cleared her throat and tried to think of something clever to say. It was exhilarating, to talk with a man like this. She had been feeling a little homesick for her own village today, especially when they passed the bake house and the smell of fresh bread reached out to her like the warm embrace of a friend. But it was very safe and predictable there. Nothing was safe or predictable about Mason. Not even a little chat as they strolled on a summer day.

  “It is very attractive for a man to be so sure of himself,” she informed him. “Except for when it is not attractive.”

  “Right, and it’s up to us to blunder around learning which is which.” He turned to her as they came to the pub, maneuvering so that she had her back to the wall of it. “I wonder if you’ll give me a hint, though.”

  “A hint?”

  “Yes. See, I’m very sure that you want to kiss me again. But I’m not sure why you don’t.”

  She really was no good at hiding it, so she didn’t bother to try. He put his hand to the wall just above her shoulder, leaning in. Her gaze dropped to his mouth and lingered there while she thought of all the wonderful things he had done with it. She was certain he was thinking of kissing her here, in public, even though he knew he shouldn’t. Not that she could blame him for being sorely tempted – it was perilously easy to forget the world around them when they stood close like this. She was breathless. Her skin was hot all over. She wanted to reach for his buttons and invite him to lift her skirt.

  “Perhaps it is a test.” Her voice came out husky and seductive, without even trying.

  “A test?”

  “Mm, yes.” She let her eyes drift down briefly to the fall of his trousers and saw his flesh stirring against his thigh, evidence of his excitement. Involuntarily, she wet her lips and let out a sigh, which only caused his body to react more – to say nothing of what her own body was doing.

  “What exactly am I being tested on?”

  It was hard to remember, when all she really wanted was for him to touch her. Anywhere. But they were in the street, and he was a very poor judge of what he should and should not do. Which was the whole problem. “I wonder if it is possible for you to resist something that tempts you, when it is there for the taking.”

  She watched him as he filtered through the part that pleased him – that she was there for the taking – and gradually grasp the less appealing point of what she’d said. As she waited for him to gather his wits, she attempted to cool her blood by counting the freckles along his hairline. It did little good. Nonetheless, she had reached twenty-two golden flecks and six dark ones, all scattered beneath red hair made brilliant by the afternoon sun, when he dropped his hand, stepped back the tiniest bit, and spoke.

  “Full of surprises,” he muttered. “Now why would you–”

  “Mason, why the devil are you out – oh.”

  A young man, very short in stature and smartly dressed, had appeared. He smiled at Marie-Anne in what she was sure he believed was a very charming way. It was very charming, really, if one did not compare it to Mason’s smile.

  He struck Mason lightly on the arm, never taking his eyes off of Marie-Anne.

  “You’re meant to introduce us, Mason. Don’t tarry, now, get on with it.”

  “Freddy, this is Marie-Anne de Vauteuil. Madame, this is Freddy, a scoundrel with no surname I know of.”

  “I’d think twice before accusing a man of being a scoundrel without name, Mason. Frederick Lowery, madame, there’s a surname for you. A very great pleasure to meet you.”

  He was quite good at pretending to be perfectly content standing here chatting. But Marie-Anne had been trapped in too many awkward social situations herself, and easily recognized his impatience for her to be gone and leave them alone. She spoke so that he would not have to find a polite way to ask her to go away.

  “Not such a great pleasure, I think, when you learn I know about your pamphlets.” It was always great fun to say such things with good cheer. She was rewarded with an expression of frozen panic very like a rabbit that had been spotted by a hunter. “Yes, it is true, I know you are a scoundrel just as Mason has said. And still I speak to you! I am very shocking myself, you see. Shall we go inside?”

  She did not wait, but turned and entered the pub. It was a very neat and welcoming establishment, and she felt another pang for Bartle. Now that Dahlia was set up with her respectable son of a duke, there really was little reason for Marie-Anne to remain here interfering in the affairs of the Shipley sisters. Any embarrassment Phyllida might bring by associating with a libertine poet – or, it seemed now, with a humble hermit – would be mitigated by Dahlia’s forthcoming marriage. In all fairness, Marie-
Anne had done what she had promised to do, or near enough to it.

  And yet she could not feel that there was no need to worry for Amy’s situation. It did make perfect sense for Amy to marry a quiet, reserved man of the church: she was not enamored of London or its society, and she had always said she had no ambitions beyond a modest life caring for a few children in her own small home. Mr. Harner could give her that, so long as his benefactor uncle allowed it, and Marie-Anne had no business objecting. It was only that she could not feel that dear Richard would be content with this match for his sister, if he could see it. And Marie-Anne could not be happy to return to Bartle if she could too easily imagine Amy’s sadness.

  No, she should stay through the summer at least. To be sure everything was settled with the Shipley girls. And to be sure of these two men. Rapscallions, was that the word? What a delightful word. She would practice saying it later, so she could spit it out easily the next time she was inspired. For now, though, she would like to know how little honor this Freddy had. She sat next to Mason, their backs to the wall, and Freddy seated himself across the table from them.

  “I will call you Freddy,” she announced. “As Mason calls you, but not with so much affection. And no, you may not call me by my name, you will say madame until I decide if I like you.”

  Oh, this was very enjoyable. He looked wary of her and a little chastened. No wonder so many members of the peerage went out of their way to look down their noses at others. It was extremely pleasant to feel morally superior.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Mason defended when Freddy turned an accusing glare on him. “She put half the pieces together herself and threatened to shout the house down unless I gave her the other half. And here we are.”

  “Right,” said Freddy, not questioning this rather exaggerated account. He turned his very dark, very brown eyes to Marie-Anne and muttered out the side of his mouth to Mason. “Any special tricks to make her like me?”

  A dark pink flush began to appear on Mason’s neck just above his collar, which meant he had, like her, immediately thought of something lascivious. The dear man. With a fleeting regret that she wore laced boots instead of easily removed slippers, she wound her leg around his below the knee, rubbing her foot lightly up and down his shin.

  She blinked at him as innocently as she knew how. “Go on. I am all anticipation to know what you will say.”

  He seemed to think for a very long time. She had learned that Mason flushed red when slightly embarrassed, and purple when horribly mortified. Since he did not go beyond a deep pink on his throat, she could be reasonably sure this was a pleasant and forgivable torment she inflicted. His neck must be monitored regularly for signs of mortification, of course, because she was not a monster. Alas, attending to that task was a reciprocal torment, considering how very much she wanted to lick his neck again. It tasted as divine as it looked, no matter the color.

  “Cake,” he said finally. “Ply her with cakes. She’s inclined to like anybody who does.”

  “Is that so?” asked Freddy.

  “This is nonsense,” Marie-Anne assured him. “I am not so easily won.”

  “Any particular kind of cake?” Freddy seemed hopeful.

  “Good cake.” Mason looked very steadily into Marie-Anne’s eyes, like it was some kind of dare. She supposed it was. “The kind that makes your mouth water just to think of it. Soft and sweet in your mouth. Give it to her the right way and she just melts, like butter in the sun.”

  Freddy seemed oblivious to the delicious shivers this put up and down Marie-Anne’s spine. “I can ask if they have cakes here, but it won’t be anything near as good as the Huntingdons have been serving you.”

  She hastily withdrew her foot from Mason’s leg. It felt dangerous to be so close, and touching him did nothing but make her aware of the sudden pool of heat between her legs. Like butter in the sun indeed.

  “I will not like you because of cake,” she told Freddy. “I will only like the cake. Now, you will show me the newest pamphlet, please. There has been one printed since last week?”

  “She objects to our methods, Freddy,” Mason explained while the other man reached inside his jacket to remove the pamphlet. When Marie-Anne looked at the drawing that took up a whole page and covered her mouth to hold in her laughter, he smirked. “But she seems to like our material in spite of it.”

  Mason had drawn a simple scene depicting Dahlia’s engagement. Releford was on one knee, clutching her hand as they looked adoringly at one another. Behind them was a gallery of portraits, generations of bewigged Relefords looking on in varying degrees of mortification and disgust – not at Dahlia, but at the Shipley parents. Her mother was pictured swooning comically while her father appeared to be dancing an undignified jig.

  She began to skim through the writing in the pamphlet while Mason opened his folder to give his drawing of Ravenclyffe to Freddy. Most of the stories in the paper were about Dahlia’s engagement, or related to it, from listing all the heartbroken suitors – including Mason – that she left in her wake, to speculation about which of the Releford jewels she might wear at the wedding. Other major items in the paper included more gossip about the marquess (odds this week were against divorce) and rumors of cannibalism among a party that had set out to explore a South American jungle.

  Marie-Anne had just been savoring a small paragraph devoted to a duchess whom she particularly disliked when she could no longer ignore the men’s discussion.

  “Look here, Mason, either we make something up out of whole cloth or we don’t use the drawing. Hang your scruples, there’s no other way if you haven’t made another sketch. And I don’t like the idea of inventing tales about Ravenclyffe. He’s a duke, you know.”

  “There’s the singer, Miss Ainslie,” offered Mason. “I’d be happy to wager he’s propositioned her.”

  “Singers and actresses.” Freddy dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “They exist to be propositioned by dukes. It’s got to be someone respectable.”

  Just as Marie-Anne opened her mouth to announce that no amount of cake could make her like Freddy after that statement, Mason snapped his fingers.

  “Miss Wolcott. She fancies herself a poetess, but she fits your definition of respectable. I think she does, anyhow. Ravenclyffe tried to get her alone in the hedge maze more than once, she told me. Once he caught her in the library and she had to fend him off with a volume of Homer, I think it was. Or I could be confused on the details, she tells a lot of stories.”

  “Wolcott?” Freddy was making notes. “The Wolcotts from Derbyshire, you mean? Brother fought and died in Portugal?”

  Mason shrugged and looked to Marie-Anne as though she might answer it. She blinked at him, amazed, and waited – and blinked and waited some more, until she finally accepted that he truly did not understand.

  “Mon pauvre, you have suffered an injury to your head, perhaps? Or no, I think there is a witch or a goblin who steals your memory, it is the only explanation.”

  “What?” He was perplexed.

  “What! It is not even an hour since you swore you would not use any gossip from the Huntingdon guests.”

  “Yes, but it’s Miss Wolcott,” he said, as though that explained everything. “She tells her stories to anyone who’ll stay in earshot for more than five seconds together. The servants, the other guests – I’d bet she’s told half the village by now. Hell, she’s probably turned it all into a series of godawful poems already.”

  This was all absolutely true and Marie-Anne wouldn’t dream of disputing it. And though in the usual way of things she would be inclined to mock anyone who uttered the phrase “but it’s the principle!” she was forced to concede that, in this case, it was indeed the principle. He had not even stopped to consider his promise before blurting to Freddy.

  She addressed herself to Freddy. “The kind of man Ravenclyffe is, there is no lack of stories like this. You must go and find them. Or only write little hints of what he is like, without naming
any ladies. That will be enough.”

  “It won’t be, I tell you,” objected Freddy.

  “You think there is anyone who will say it is wrong? No, everyone will recognize this man Mason has put on the paper. He will recognize himself.”

  Freddy scowled at her. “And if we don’t do as you say, you’ll have both of us run out of town, is that right?”

  She gave him a brilliant smile. “Yes! I am so glad you understand. Now we can speak of more important things. I wish to know why Mason squanders his very great talent on these silly papers. Can you tell me why?” Freddy just looked at her, apparently overwhelmed. “Come, you must keep up!” she scolded.

  He just looked at her for a long moment, then shifted to look at Mason and slowly shake his head at him in deep disappointment. “It’s a good thing you make us so much money,” he said to Mason, then to Marie-Anne: “It’s hardly squandered, madame. Aside from our profits, every eye in London is on his work.”

  “This is not what I mean. He is a very great artist and you have him making these little pieces of no consequence–”

  “There’s no need for exaggeration, Marie-Anne,” Mason interrupted. “I told you I’m not really an artist.”

  Of everything he’d ever done or said, she’d found nothing as scandalous as this declaration. “Not an artist! Mon dieu, there is a time to be modest, but – no, it is not true. There is no time to be modest when one has such skill.”

  “No, there’s no time to sit here talking,” he countered. “We have to meet the rest of the party and walk back to the manor.”

  It was only because of the purple on his throat and the way his mouth hardened that she abandoned the topic. They parted ways with Freddy and made their way up the village street towards the vicarage in silence. He had seemed a little shy but perfectly comfortable when she had looked through his beautiful drawings last night. She should have asked him then, where he had learned and if he would ever try to paint and use color. Maybe that was why he was so concerned with earning money now, so that he could afford to study. She would ask him sometime, when they were alone and when he was not upset about it.