The Scandal of the Season

by Annie Burrows

  Not when your partner is Miss Furnival, a wicked little voice reminded him. You enjoyed it then, right enough. So much that you did it twice.

  ‘I fully intend to do my duty by the estate and the family, and marry and produce heirs,’ he said. ‘At a time of my choosing. Not at the bidding of you, or my aunts, or anyone else.’

  She gave him a scornful look. ‘And just when will that time be?’

  ‘Once the army is on a better footing...’

  ‘Oh, pish! The army is never going to be anything other than an immense muddle.’

  ‘And just how have you deduced that?’

  ‘You’ve written to me about your campaigns and I read the newspaper.’

  He raised one eyebrow. Her cheeks flushed.

  ‘Oh, very well. Fritwell reads the newspapers and tells me all about whatever he thinks I ought to know,’ she amended. ‘Which is always anything to do with your old regiment, or any campaign he thinks you have dealings with, or any speeches in Parliament about the horrid war,’ she said with a moue of disgust. ‘And we all think that until Napoleon is utterly trounced, you will always be able to claim you are too busy with army affairs to see to the equally important task of finding a wife.’

  He considered her statement. ‘You are correct. I shan’t. After that...’

  ‘And what happens if nobody ever defeats him? Are you going to continue to pour all your effort into equipping the army to resist him until you are so old and gouty you have to have half-a-dozen footmen carting you about in a chair? How do you hope to attract a wife then? Or get heirs by her?’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ he said irritably. ‘Besides, what has this got to do with your campaign against Miss Furnival?’

  ‘I have just been telling you. It isn’t about Miss Furnival at all. It’s about you. About making you get into the ballrooms while London is full of eligible young ladies.’

  ‘By telling all those lies about a poor defenceless female? Have you no compassion?’

  ‘Not when it comes to your happiness and the future of Cranbourne, no,’ she said defiantly. ‘Besides, we had to come up with something that would shock you out of your hermitry.’

  ‘Hermitry? That is not even a real word!’

  ‘It’s real enough to describe the state you’ve been living in,’ she said with a sniff. ‘And because you are so obsessed with the army, and your fellow officers, and the men, and all that, we thought it would be the thing most likely to do it. An appeal to your duty to a fallen officer. We asked Agatha, naturally, if we could make use of her poor brother’s name, in case she had any objections...’

  ‘So it wasn’t her idea? The family weren’t baying for Miss Furnival’s blood?’

  ‘Oh, no, on the contrary, they all feel a bit...responsible for the way Guy sort of ruined her...’

  ‘Sort of ruined her?’ She’d lost her home and her good name. She’d had to work as a seamstress for six years. ‘No,’ he said, shutting his eyes for a moment as Issy took a breath to explain. ‘Never mind that, for now. What I want to know is why did Lady Agatha leave Town, if not for the reason you stated?’

  ‘Because she is increasing and has been rather unwell, and her doctor thought she might do better in the country than racketing about to balls and parties and the like.’

  He got a strange, spinning sensation in his head as he considered the lengths to which Issy had gone to further her cause. And it occurred to him that this was precisely why he’d been able to give credence to her accusations regarding Miss Furnival. All his life, he’d watched the women in his family getting their own way by adopting stratagems of this sort so sneakily that his male relatives rarely realised what they’d been about. So it had seemed perfectly feasible for Miss Furnival to behave that way. Even without the benefit of a single, solitary scrap of hard evidence.

  But it had been just another one of Issy’s ploys to get him to behave the way she thought he should. Why hadn’t he been more cautious? How on earth could he, knowing exactly what Issy was like, have fallen for her trap? Because she’d baited it so cleverly, he answered himself on a flash of insight. She’d not only tweaked at his sense of duty to his former comrades, but had also appealed to a part of him upon which she’d always been able to rely. When she’d been a girl, he’d never turned her away when she’d come to him with a problem, be it a broken doll, or a spoiled piece of schoolwork. And those few weeks ago she’d treated him the same—as though she considered him her all-powerful big brother who could do anything he set his mind to. Even unto making inconvenient females give up their ambitions and flee from London. So that he’d not just fallen into her trap, he’d positively leapt into it, pursuing Miss Furnival like a hound who’d caught the scent of a fox.

  Though he couldn’t recall the face of any of the young ladies that might have been present on any of those occasions whom Issy would consider eligible. He’d been too focused on Miss Furnival. Miss Furnival laughing. Miss Furnival defying him.

  Miss Furnival staring at his mouth after he’d threatened to kiss her, as though it wasn’t a threat at all, but a promise. He gave a silent groan. He had never wanted any woman the way he wanted Miss Furnival. Was that another reason Issy had used her to bait the trap? Had she somehow known?

  He supposed it made no difference. Not now that he’d treated her so unfairly. She must despise him for a fool, if not a bully. Though she couldn’t despise him any more than he despised himself right now, for falling for Issy’s ploy.

  ‘You admit,’ he said, ‘that you don’t care what becomes of her? That, in effect, you deliberately sacrificed her to your cause? That you trailed her in my path the way a huntsman would drag a dead fox behind his horse, to get the hounds slavering for blood?’

  ‘It’s not as bad as that. It isn’t as if she’s defenceless. She is with the Duchess of Theakstone. Besides...’

  ‘Besides what?’

  ‘Well, it worked, didn’t it?’ She smiled. A triumphant sort of smile. ‘Look at you. So...angry...’

  ‘You think making me angry is some kind of victory?’ That anger had caused him to humiliate himself, time and time again, in Miss Furnival’s eyes.

  ‘Yes. Because it shows you still have feelings. That you are not dead inside. That you can come back to us. Be like you were before.’

  He could never be the same as he’d been before. For one thing, he never used to feel so angry that he wished for stools to kick. Or so disgusted by the behaviour of his female relatives that he was ashamed to be related to them. Ashamed of the ease with which they’d deceived him and the way he’d subsequently behaved.

  ‘You sicken me,’ he grated, before turning and storming out of the room. Out of the house and into the street.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nathaniel couldn’t decide who he was angriest with—Issy, or himself.

  Issy, at least, had the excuse that she was acting from concern for him and what she perceived as his dereliction of duty to the family name.

  But what excuse did he have? He knew what Issy was like. He’d had a feeling that there was something decidedly smoky about the tale she’d spun about Miss Furnival. Yet what had he done? Instead of discreetly investigating the matter, to find out how much truth there was in it, he’d gone storming into that ballroom and accosted Miss Furnival as though she was guilty of committing every single sin of which Issy had accused her.

  And to think, he groaned, she’d smiled so warmly when she’d first seen him, as though she was really pleased to see him again.

  It could have been the start of...

  No! No, it couldn’t have been the start of anything. He’d ruined her chances of happiness with Gilbey, or his chances of happiness with her, whichever way you cared to look at it. He didn’t deserve a chance with her, not under any circumstances.

  It served him right, the way it had all turned out. He’d wip
ed the welcoming smile from her face and turned her into an adversary with a couple of blistering insults.

  She’d never smiled at him that way again. Whenever he’d approached her after that she’d braced herself, expecting the worst. And regarded him with defiance, or mockery, or scorn.

  Which he deserved. Completely.

  Yet he couldn’t help noticing that every time they’d met she’d looked more beautiful than the last. It wasn’t his imagination. She’d definitely started wearing clothing that suited her better, in some mysterious way he couldn’t have accurately described. That first night, she’d looked as though she’d been hiding behind dull, modest clothing as if she didn’t want anyone to notice her much. Then she’d gradually begun wearing the kind of gowns that made a man’s mouth water. As though she was no longer cowering behind some sort of camouflage, but standing out in the open, with pride as well as defiance.

  So his influence on her hadn’t been all bad.

  She was no longer hiding. She was more...herself. Even if it was a self that played down to his assumptions about her.

  By God, she was a plucky little thing. She’d taken everything he’d flung at her and turned it to her own advantage. Which was impressive. Not many people had the courage to stand up to him.

  At least there was some consolation in knowing that he hadn’t been able to drive her from Town, no matter how badly he’d treated her. He would never have been able to forgive himself if he’d succeeded in destroying her chance at happiness for the second time. He could only hope that she could forgive him for attempting to do so. She might, if he went cap in hand and... His hand went to his head. Where the deuce was his hat?

  He’d left it behind. Along with his coat.

  Well, that explained the way people had been looking at him since he’d left his sister’s house. He must resemble a madman, roaming the streets without hat or coat, probably muttering to himself, as well.

  Had he? Been muttering? Please God he hadn’t sunk that low.

  Though he’d sunk low enough to abandon just about every moral code in which he believed. It was his duty, as an officer, to defend women, not attack them. So why had he abandoned that creed with such alacrity? The moment Issy had mentioned Miss Furnival? Why had he been so eager to believe the worst of her?

  Or was the truth that, the moment Issy had told him she was in Town, and where he might find her that night, he hadn’t thought about anything but...but just seeing her again.

  Though that was no excuse. And even if his sister’s accusations had been true and the family were distraught at the prospect of her coming to Town and doing whatever it was they claimed they suspected her of planning to do, he’d had no business attacking her in such a public place. What had she called him, that night? He couldn’t recall her exact words. Something to the effect of him bullying defenceless women...

  Though she wasn’t. Defenceless, that was. Which had nothing to do with the Duchess, as Issy had claimed. Miss Furnival herself was perfectly capable of defending herself. She hadn’t burst into tears, or gone off into a swoon, or created some kind of scene which would have made him look like a villain out of a badly written play. Because she was made of sterner stuff than the average society female. Had Lieutenant Gilbey seen that toughness in her, even all those years ago? Is that why he’d thought it would be perfectly reasonable to marry her and carry her off into the thick of the fighting? But then—He broke off, discovering he was halfway up the front steps of his house. His feet had carried him home without him having to think about it.

  Though he had plenty of other things to think about. Such as, how was he ever going to obtain Miss Furnival’s forgiveness? Telling her he’d made a mistake wasn’t going to be good enough. He’d accused her of being the kind of woman who preyed on men, when she’d actually spent the past few years earning her living doing menial work rather than taking such a course.

  Oh, Lord, he was going to have to grovel.

  Just as that unpalatable truth bore down on him, his butler opened the front door and recoiled at the snarl emanating from Nathaniel’s lips.

  Nathaniel spun on his heel and went right back down the steps. There was no point in going inside and coming up with a plan. There could be no plan. And the longer he put off the apology...or the grovelling for forgiveness...the harder it was going to be to make.

  He dimly heard the butler shouting something about an umbrella as he set off in the direction of Grosvenor Square, but he wasn’t going to stop for such fripperies now. He could not delay setting this matter right, or at least attempting to put it right, and it wasn’t going to get any easier no matter how many umbrellas he was carrying when he did so.

  * * *

  It might have made it easier to knock on the glossy paintwork of the front door to the most imposing of the mansions that graced Grosvenor Square, though, he decided a few minutes later. And it would have spared him the raised eyebrow of a butler who was so superior to his own that, had he been in Nate’s employ, he would never have dared exit his house without an umbrella. Let alone a hat.

  ‘Her Grace is not receiving at this hour,’ said the butler, as though Nathaniel really ought to have known it. ‘But...’ He stepped back and motioned as though inviting him to step inside. ‘Perhaps you might care to come to the kitchen. I am sure Mrs Forbes could find you a towel.’

  ‘Towel?’ Oh, yes. It was raining. Quite hard. And his hair was wet. And so was his jacket. He’d scarcely noticed the rain, his mind had been so full of Miss Furnival, and how he’d wronged her.

  ‘No, I had better... And it wasn’t Her Grace I came to see.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ From halfway up the stairs came the voice of the woman he’d wronged. ‘Colonel Fairfax!’

  Miss Furnival came running down the rest of the stairs, her forehead creased with what looked like concern. Concern. For a wretch like him. ‘Whatever has happened to you? You are soaked.’

  ‘I...’ Where to begin?

  ‘Come inside out of the rain,’ she said, taking his hand and dragging him over the threshold. How could she bear to touch him? She ought to be sneering at him and thrusting him back out into the rain, or ordering the servants to throw him down the front steps. ‘Dawes, go and fetch the Colonel a towel,’ she said, instead of taking her justifiable revenge. ‘And some tea. Or perhaps brandy? He looks as if he’s had a shock. Tea and brandy,’ she said with a decisive nod.

  He looked down at where their hands linked. She wouldn’t be holding his hand and acting like a mother hen once she knew what he’d believed. Which knowledge made him, for some reason, grip it a bit harder.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘I have a confession to make. Can we...is there somewhere we could go and be...private? I know it is a lot to expect, given—’

  ‘Of course we can talk in private,’ she said at once, cutting off the rest of what he would have said. She frowned. ‘Not the...but...well...’ She looked at him as though weighing up her options, then her face cleared. ‘Our sitting room should do. The one I share with Rosalind. Dawes, will you bring the towel, the tea and the brandy up there?’

  ‘I don’t think, Miss Furnival, that Her Grace would approve...’

  ‘Well, you may tell her what I’ve been up to the moment she returns,’ she said frostily. ‘But in the meantime, anyone can see this man is in need of a warm room, and hot tea, and a bit of privacy. I have known him for...for ever. I have nothing to fear from him,’ she declared.

  Which made everything ten times worse.

  ‘Miss Furnival, you are being too generous,’ he said as she began to lead him up the stairs she’d only just come down.

  ‘Nonsense. The state of you! Anyone can see you’ve...suffered some kind of shock, or something.’

  ‘A shock. Yes, it was a shock,’ he said with a shiver, as he followed her along a landing on the walls of which were portraits of se
veral people looking down their aristocratic noses, the way ancestors had a habit of doing. He stopped looking after the third sour face had sent another shiver down his spine. Instead he kept his gaze on Miss Furnival’s profile. And wondered why he’d never seen just how compassionate she was. No wonder Gilbey had fallen headlong in love with her and hadn’t been able to bear the thought of leaving her behind. Even if he had been getting cold feet by the time they’d reached Portsmouth.

  She led him into a highly feminine sitting room. The kind of room in which his sister would not have looked out of place, with all its little tables and mounds of material, and half-finished sewing projects all over the place.

  At the thought of his sister, he shuddered.

  ‘Take off your jacket,’ she said, pushing him in the direction of the fireplace, in which a mound of logs was blazing. ‘You are soaked right through and shivering with cold.’

  Was he? Or was it shame and the fear of what he had to speak about that was making him quake?

  ‘That’s the main reason I brought you up here,’ she said, as he shrugged his arms out of his sleeves. ‘The fact that I knew there was a fire going already. It would have taken an age to get any other room as warm and you need...’ She trailed off, reaching out her hands as he looked about for somewhere to hang his sodden jacket. ‘Here, let me,’ she said, taking it and going over to an elegant and rather spindly chair, which she hooked up with her free hand, before carrying it to the fire. Once she’d set it down at a reasonable distance, she draped his jacket over the back.

  She was so practical, seeing exactly what was needed and hang the consequences. She was the sort of woman who could turn the veriest hovel into a warm and homely place for a soldier on campaign.

  ‘Do sit down,’ she said, indicating an armchair set beside the hearth. ‘Oh, I’d better just...’ She bent and swept away the clutter of journals and lengths of material that had been hanging over the arms, so that he wouldn’t crush, or soak, anything important.