Before the Scandal

by Suzanne Enoch

“Well, this could be an opportunity for you, then, Cousin,” Richard murmured. “After all, if he hasn’t come up in your conversation, perhaps you haven’t featured in his.”

  Her face heated; she couldn’t help it. After five years she should have been used to the insults, direct or implied, but obviously they still had the power to cut her. “Thank you, Richard,” she said softly, “but I prefer to make his acquaintance first.” To renew it, rather, since she doubted he still accepted pond-jumping challenges or dumped frogs in unsuspecting young ladies’ laps.

  “I suggest you speak to your cousin with less sarcasm, Alyse,” her aunt cooed. “You are not who you once were.”

  And no one in her family ever let her forget that fact. “I remember, Aunt Ernesta.”

  “Then have someone fetch me a blanket. My legs are cold.”

  Carefully hiding her annoyance, Alyse motioned to the nearest of the footmen and passed on her aunt’s request. Things in the Bromley household might have taken a turn for the unexpected, but her life progressed with the predictability of a clock. An endlessly ticking clock. And to think that once, before the scandal, she used to look forward to the future.

  The dining room door opened again. Lord Quence entered first, being wheeled in on his chair and a somber look on his face. Beth followed a heartbeat later, her expression tense. The door closed again, but Alyse kept her gaze on it.

  Phineas Bromley. Phin. The last person she ever would have imagined joining the army. Clearly neither of their lives had turned out as they’d intended. She didn’t know what the insignia on his shoulder meant, but he was clearly an officer.

  A moment later he walked into the room, his gaze touching on the rest of the occupants, and then finding her. Alyse blushed again at those clear hazel eyes, wondering what she looked like to him. Other than his eyes, she wasn’t certain she would have recognized him. His dark brown hair was a little long, as though he’d been too busy to seek a barber, and his face leaner than she remembered. A narrow scar dissected his right eyebrow and touched his cheek, giving his appearance the rakish bent that he’d always seemed to have inside. He’d been pretty as a boy, and he’d become a strikingly handsome man.

  “Alyse,” he said, and took the newly placed seat across from her. “Miss Donnelly. William told me that your parents passed away. I am truly sorry.”

  “Thank you. It was…unexpected.”

  Richard leaned sideways to cover her hand with his. “I’m only glad that we’ve been able to give Alyse a place in our household.”

  Phineas glanced at her cousin as he would an annoying fly, and then returned his attention to her. “Do you still like to ride?” he asked.

  It felt odd, these days, to have someone pay attention to her, and especially at the expense of her titled cousin. “I haven’t had much opportunity,” she hedged. “My aunt is unwell, and I sit with her a great deal.”

  “If I stay long enough, we should go riding,” he pursued.

  Alyse smiled. “I would like that.”

  “How long will you be staying?” Richard cut in again.

  This time Phin glanced at his brother. “As long as I’m needed. I have several months of leave coming, if I require it.”

  “Where are you serving?” Alyse asked, disliking when that gaze left her.

  “The north of Spain, at the moment. I’m with the First Royal Dragoons.”

  “A…lieutenant, is it?” Richard asked, eyeing the crimson and blue uniform.

  “Lieutenant Colonel,” Elizabeth corrected, pride in her tone. “Phin’s received five field promotions.”

  “That’s extraordinary.” Richard lifted a glass not in Phin’s direction, but in his brother’s. “You must be very proud of him.”

  “Yes,” Lord Quence said, returning to his meal. “Very proud.”

  Clearly all was not well at Quence Park, though Alyse had known that before. But for Richard to poke a stick into the tension—it was so unlike him in public, though in private he did little else. “When we were all children together,” she said into the air, “we had the most hair-raising adventures.”

  Phineas sent her a short smile. “I can face cannons fearlessly after surviving the infamous pond-jump dares.”

  Alyse snorted, then quickly covered her mouth with one hand and made the sound into a cough. “You were fearless well before then.”

  “The First Royal Dragoons,” her cousin said slowly. “You’re the ones who rode on Maguilla several years ago.”

  Phin winced. Alyse opened her mouth to change the subject, but before she could do so, he nodded. “That was an ill day,” he said calmly.

  “I would have to agree with that. You lost, what, a quarter of your company?”

  “Phin didn’t lead that charge, Richard,” Beth contributed stoutly. “And his dearest friend was wounded, saving his life.”

  “Good heavens,” Alyse breathed, not even aware that she’d spoken aloud until Phin looked at her again.

  “No worries,” he drawled. “Sullivan and I both survived.” He returned his gaze to her cousin. “I’m not likely to forget the loss of one hundred and ninety-seven men, but thank you for reminding me.”

  Now that was the Phin she remembered, always ready for a confrontation, willing to spit right in the devil’s eye just for the sake of annoying him. The hothead. The bit of him she’d missed the most and the least.

  Richard pushed to his feet. “Clearly this is a night for family,” he said to William. “We shan’t intrude further.”

  “You are always welcome here, Richard. My brother has been at war for ten years; his manners are a bit blunted.”

  “I didn’t begin the conversation,” Phin muttered, shoveling a thick slice of roast pig onto his plate.

  “I do understand, William, and I take no offense. Beth, may I take you driving into Lewes tomorrow?”

  Elizabeth blushed. “That would be delightful, Richard.”

  Muttering her own apologies at their early departure, Alyse rose and hurried out to the foyer to collect her wrap and her aunt’s from Digby the butler. Keeping the frown from her face, she placed the shawl around Aunt Ernesta’s shoulder and then took the place of her aunt’s walking stick as they left the house and descended the shallow front steps.

  Once the claws dug into her upper arm had left and she’d helped her aunt into the coach, Alyse rolled her shoulders. Beth and Phin stood in the doorway, and she sent them a smile that she hoped didn’t look too disappointed. She wanted to stay. Phineas looked utterly…magnificent, tall and lean and brave. That wild boy with whom she’d played, and about whom she’d dreamed and then hadn’t spared a thought in years, had returned. And he’d spoken with her as though they had been the dear companions that she recalled.

  She climbed into the coach herself, and they rumbled down the long drive and onto the main road toward Donnelly House, perched on a hill a mile away. In the long-distant past she’d enjoyed the ride, the return home after an evening of charades or whist or hide-and-seek. Now, though, it only meant that the cage doors were swinging shut again.

  “You didn’t waste much time, did you?” Aunt Ernesta commented, scowling at her.

  “What?”

  “Don’t presume to think you were fooling anyone, Alyse,” her cousin took up. “You were practically drooling on him.”

  “I was not,” she exclaimed. “He’s an old friend whom I haven’t seen in a very long time.”

  “And it didn’t look as though he was any more welcome in that home than you are in ours,” Richard said coolly. “If you are looking for an escape, dear cousin, you should be looking to the viscount.”

  “That is mean, Richard.”

  He shook his head. “It is logic. You know the way of the world by now, Alyse. And to be perfectly blunt, you’d fare much better wed to a titled cripple than to his estranged younger brother.”

  Alyse closed her lips over her retort. However much she valued her friendship with the Bromley family, Lord Donnelly directed the affa
irs of her family. And Lord Donnelly was no longer her fond, warm-hearted father. It was now in her own best interest to be agreeable—to their faces, at least. The money she’d been slowly and painstakingly saving wasn’t yet enough for her escape. While she couldn’t be grateful that Richard and Aunt Ernesta had taken her in, she did have a roof over her head, and food to eat—and a shilling or two to hold back whenever they sent her out on errands.

  “I thought that might clear your vision,” Richard murmured. “Now. Tell me what you know of Lieutenant Colonel Phineas Bromley.”

  She drew a breath. “As I said, I haven’t seen him since I was fifteen years old. The siblings were very close, but Phin…”

  “Phin what?” he prompted.

  “He had a wild streak,” she said reluctantly. It had been very public knowledge at the time, though. Nothing Richard couldn’t discover elsewhere. “Women, wagering, drinking, anything he could do, he did. And then there was an accident, and he left. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “‘An accident’?” Richard repeated, sitting forward. “William’s accident?”

  She nodded. “It was some sort of horse race. Everything became very chaotic once William was injured, and I don’t know the details.”

  “That explains some things,” her cousin mused. “If I’m to marry into that family, I would like to know the identity of all the skeletons. The last thing I want is a scandal.”

  “Then ask Beth about him. I’m certain she’ll tell you.” Alyse sank back into the corner of the coach. The night might be early, but she still had a great many duties to attend to. Seeing her aunt put to bed would take another hour, and then she had mending and tomorrow’s breakfast, luncheon, and dinner to plan out.

  And then she could, with luck, find some sleep in the small room they’d granted her, a floor above where her old bedchamber had used to be. And if she slept, she knew of whom she would be dreaming. Phin Bromley was back.

  As soon as the Donnellys left the house, William vanished into his office. He claimed to have some ledgers to go over, but he needn’t have bothered making excuses. Phineas hadn’t expected much of a homecoming, but neither did he deny that a tearful embrace wouldn’t have been unwelcome. Elizabeth had asked him to return, after all.

  “I’m so pleased you’re here,” Elizabeth said again, hugging his arm in both hands as they walked to one of the upstairs sitting rooms.

  William had another wheeled chair placed at the head of the stairs, and it looked like a third one rested on the floor above that, each one ready and awaiting the viscount’s use. Phineas shut his eyes against a new surge of guilt. “You told me he was on his damned deathbed,” he said in a low voice.

  She hauled him down beside her as she sat on the couch. “Would you have come if I’d written that I miss you? Because I’ve done that before.”

  He eyed her. “So this is merely your way of arranging a social visit?”

  “No.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, at least. I think.” Sinking back into the soft cushions, he stretched his booted feet out toward the fireplace. “I can’t believe how…grown up you look, Elizabeth. You’re the very image of our mother.”

  “My friends call me Beth now. And it has been ten years, Phin. I was seven when you left.”

  “I remember quite well, thank you.”

  She looked toward the fire, then cleared her throat. “I saw your friends a few months ago,” she said abruptly, clapping her hands together. “Lord Bramwell and Sullivan Waring. You heard that Sullivan’s just gotten married, haven’t you?”

  Phineas nodded. “I received his letter the week before yours arrived.” The letter had spoken of a great deal, but nothing that seemed relevant to his present location or circumstance—except where it had noted that William had recently suffered a fever and looked more frail than previously. If anything, it had made his sister’s letter even more plausible. “If you weren’t tricking me into a visit, then why am I here? Obviously William doesn’t want me about.”

  “That’s not true, Phin. He was surprised. And so was I. I wasn’t certain you would come, whatever I wrote to you.”

  Rather than explaining the panic that had touched his heart when he’d read her letter, or the speed with which he’d arranged to take an extended leave and then galloped across half of Europe, Phineas unbuttoned the stiff top button of his jacket. “You still haven’t answered my question, Beth. Why am I here?”

  The sitting room door opened. “Because of a young girl’s silliness,” William said, releasing the door handle as Andrews rolled him into the room. “You couldn’t even wait until you had time for a chat with us before you were back to it, could you?”

  Phineas scowled. “Back to what?”

  “Fighting with a guest, and flirting. With poor Alyse, this time. You can’t be content unless you’re ruining yourself or someone else.”

  “That is not tr—”

  “I was informed you actually arrived on a hay cart. How did you manage that?”

  “I begged a ride from Dover with Malcolm Pepper, a solicitor from Uckfield. Once I arrived there, the hay cart was the only transportation available until tomorrow. I thought speed to be of the essence, if you’ll recall.”

  “How long do you intend to stay?” William cut in again.

  “I have no bloody idea.” He sent a glare at Beth. “I didn’t expect a warm welcome, but I was asked. I’ll leave in the morning.” Standing, he made his way around the wheeled chair to the doorway. “Sully has a house in Sussex now. I’ll pay him a call and then head back to the Peninsula.”

  “William,” Beth grated, then pushed by the viscount to grab Phineas around the wrist. “We will all go to bed,” she continued more loudly. “And in the morning we will sit down for breakfast at eight o’clock, and we will all be very civil and cordial to one another. Is that clear?”

  William’s expression softened as he gazed at their sister. “While I dislike your methods, I suppose I can’t fault your motives,” he finally said. “Andrews.”

  The chair wheeled past Phineas and back through the door again.

  “I will see you both in the morning,” the viscount continued over his shoulder. “Beth, a word with you?”

  “Of course.” With an apologetic smile at Phineas, she left the room as well.

  Abandoned, Phin returned to his seat. Whatever he’d been tossed into, Beth wanted him about, and she wanted to tell him something. Something that William clearly preferred he not know. Considering his brother’s opinion of him, it could be nothing, but he’d learned to pay attention to the tickle along the back of his skull. It had saved his life on several occasions.

  At least William still knew how to cut into him. Women, fighting, drink—the recipe had always sounded the same, whichever vice his brother chose to rail at. If William thought that nothing had changed over ten years, Phin might as well leave. Because in his own soul, he knew that from the moment William had fallen from that horse, everything had changed. Himself the most of all.

  Aside from all that, damn it all, he hadn’t been flirting with Alyse Donnelly. They’d always gotten along well, and for God’s sake she seemed to be the one person of his acquaintance in the house who wasn’t trying to bite his head off or didn’t have some sort of secret agenda behind his return. Of course he’d spoken with her.

  Alyse. Dark-eyed Alyse. They were only two years apart in age, and just about the time he’d left he was beginning to realize that his very good friend was becoming a very lovely young lady. The other lads in Lewes had realized it first, and he had no idea how she could be five-and-twenty and still a miss. As he recalled, her plan had been to marry either a duke or a prince. He smiled. Back then he’d grown just enough wit to be disappointed that he was neither.

  The sitting room door swung open again, and Beth slipped back inside. “Apologies,” she whispered, her cheeks pale.

  “I assume he told you not to discuss anything with me,” Phineas commented, lowering his voice
out of deference for her rather than because he didn’t want William to overhear him.

  “He’s only surprised,” she pointed out for the second or third time. “I should have informed him that you might be returning home.”

  Phineas shook his head. “None of this is your fault, Beth. All of the ‘should haves’ belong to me.”

  “Even so, you are part of this family. A very big part. And I don’t like secrets.”

  Neither did he, though he’d long ago seen their necessity in both war and peace. “I shall take your advice and go to bed, and then be civil in the morning. If William wants me included in family business, I imagine he’ll tell me so.”

  As he climbed to his feet, his younger sister flung her arms around him again. “I’m so glad you’ve come back, Phin,” she said, her voice muffled against the front of his coat.

  He would have been more glad if he knew why she’d summoned him home. William might not want him to know, but that had never stopped him before. He had every reason now to behave, he supposed, except for one: Things were amiss, and he owed his brother a debt that could never be repaid. If William wished to continue railing at him, then so be it. In the meantime, though, he had some information to discover, and he didn’t intend to be patient about it. “I’m glad to be back,” he returned belatedly, knowing she expected some sort of response. He patted her on the shoulder.

  “I had your trunk brought up to your old bedchamber. It’s been kept exactly as it was when you left.”

  He refrained from asking if it had at least been dusted in the interim. “I shall see you in the morning, then, Beth.”

  Elizabeth kissed him on the cheek, then released him. “Good night, Phin.”

  Once she’d left, Phineas walked the house. Knowing the surrounding terrain had saved his life on more than one occasion, but this had at least as much to do with trying to grasp hold of his past—and Quence Park’s present—as it did with survival. Nothing much had changed since he’d last lived there—other than a few new rugs and a vase here and there, he might have been transported back in time.

  When he finally pushed open the door to his old bedchamber in the middle of the house’s east wing, the fire had been lit and his trunk lay open at the foot of the large bed. “I took the liberty of unpacking for you,” Andrews said as he walked out of the attached dressing room.