The Scandal of the Season

by Annie Burrows

  Cassy frowned. ‘What?’

  He took a breath. That explanation had come out all tangled up. He had to focus on the nub of the matter.

  ‘You are so loyal, Cassy. So honourable that you would rather let people believe a lie, than to reveal someone else’s secrets.’

  Something flared in her eyes at that. Something that looked a lot like a decrease in hostilities.

  ‘What,’ she said, in a voice that sounded curious, rather than furious, ‘makes you think that?’

  ‘Because I have spent countless hours going over everything I thought I knew, and comparing it with what I felt, in my heart, about you. I had been at war with myself over you from the moment I came to seek you out, because I reacted with such...longing...for a woman my head told me was unworthy. Because the only women I knew really well, my own female relatives, are so...duplicitous they will stop at nothing to get their own way. But it turned out my heart had been right all along. You are nothing like them. Or what I feared you might be. You are...’ he took the risk of reaching out and taking her by the shoulders ‘...perfect.’

  Her glower returned. But she didn’t try to shake him off and she didn’t immediately launch into a counterattack.

  ‘I took a risk, I know, by ambushing you, just now, but I thought it was worth it. What did I have to lose, anyway? I hadn’t been able to break down your defences by attempting a traditional courtship.’

  She leaned back and peered up into his face, as though searching for some reassurance.

  ‘I know you find it hard to trust men, too. So many of us have let you down. Your stepfather, Lieutenant Gilbey, your uncle, even your brother for all I know. And then me. Though I, at least, intend to make it up to you if it takes me the rest of my life. And also prove to you that not all men are selfish, short-sighted, untrustworthy...’

  ‘Judgemental, greedy, parsimonious and stupid,’ she supplied when he faltered for want of the right words and because she wasn’t trying to pull out of his hold any longer. There was a softening to her features that was making his heart pound and, because they were standing so close, with every breath he took, he filled his lungs with her soft, sweet scent.

  ‘I am guilty of being all of those things,’ he said ruefully. ‘And ruthless, as well. But in your case that is only because I cannot help but do whatever I need to do to keep you in my life. Because I cannot live...that is, I do not want to live without you. I... I need you, Cassy. I love you,’ he finished, he felt, rather lamely.

  ‘You love me?’ She looked at him with those suspicious, wounded eyes again, but there was also something of hope faintly flickering to life.

  ‘Yes,’ he assured her. ‘I love you. Do you think I could have admitted all that about the horses to just anyone? Or how hard I’ve struggled to keep it all in check, all these years? I’m far too proud.’

  ‘No,’ she said consideringly, then reached up to lay her palm against his cheek. ‘I didn’t think you could have told anyone unless you trusted them, deeply. At first, I thought that was what you meant, when you said you needed me. It was only afterwards that I...’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I thought I’d got it wrong. That you didn’t love me. You only wanted me. That was what you’d said, after all...’

  ‘I’m not good with words, Cassy. They come out all wrong at the most crucial moments. As you have learned to your cost. I need to show you what I feel. Which I intend to do by living it.’

  And then, because he’d just promised to show her what he felt, he drew her closer, slid one arm right round her waist and lowered his head. Very slowly, so that, had she truly objected, she could have said so. Or slapped him.

  She did neither. She simply sighed and gazed up at him with a longing that mirrored his own.

  So he kissed her. Pouring all the love and respect he felt for her into it. And then, because she responded so sweetly, the passion.

  * * *

  Had the Duchess not burst into the room shortly after, that kiss would have ended up on the daybed she’d so recently vacated.

  ‘Colonel Fairfax, you naughty man,’ chided the Duchess, although she didn’t sound the least bit shocked or angry. ‘It is just as well I returned when I did to ask about who Cassy wants to add to the guest list, or you would have had to go and apply for a special licence,’ she said on a girlish giggle. ‘We cannot have your firstborn making his appearance until at least nine months and one day after the ceremony, can we? Or everyone will say I have been presiding over a scandalous household.’

  Cassy went pale. Her eyes widened. Her hand flew to her stomach, then she peered up at him suspiciously again.

  ‘Why didn’t you use that very argument?’ she hissed through clenched teeth as the Duchess turned to say something to the footman he’d been wrestling earlier, who was hovering at her elbow.

  ‘Because I didn’t want you to feel you had no choice,’ he admitted. ‘You might have ended up resenting me.’

  ‘But you didn’t scruple to use Godmama’s trouble against me.’

  ‘Not against you, sweetheart. For us. And that was different. You made a choice. And in offering you that choice, I showed you that I knew what kind of woman you really are. A fiercely loyal, compassionate one.’

  Her face cleared. ‘You did. You really did.’ She smiled at him. And then turned to the Duchess. ‘Actually, Godmama, I think a special licence is a very good idea.’

  ‘What?’ The Duchess looked from one to the other in disappointment. ‘But I wanted to throw a grand ball...’

  ‘I think a small, select gathering will serve our purposes better,’ said Cassy firmly. ‘You will be able to exclude far more people. And only people who are your true friends and family, of course,’ she added as though it was an afterthought, ‘will receive an invitation.’

  The Duchess smiled. A mischievous smile. Her eyes flickered from side to side as though considering all the people she would be able to slight by not inviting them. Then she looked at the pair of them.

  ‘In that case,’ she said, her smile growing even more wicked, ‘there is no need for me to stay in this room one second longer.’

  And with another of her girlish giggles, she slipped out through the door.

  ‘Honestly!’ Cassy stared at the door in annoyance. ‘That woman has the morals of a—’ She broke off, flushing.

  ‘But a very generous nature to make up for it,’ put in Nathaniel. ‘That’s why you cannot help loving her.’

  She looked up at him with a wry smile. ‘You really do know me, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m starting to,’ he said, pulling her to his side. ‘But I mean,’ he said, kissing her jaw, ‘to get to know you,’ he added, lowering his mouth to the side of her neck, ‘much, much better.’

  ‘Oh,’ she breathed, as he steered her to the daybed, proceeding to demonstrate what he hadn’t been able to tell her with words and, to his intense satisfaction, she didn’t raise one single, solitary objection.

  The only word she said some time later, and it was really more of a sigh, was, ‘Nathaniel...’

  * * *

  If you enjoyed this book, why not

  check out these other great reads by

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  The Marquess Tames His Bride

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from Lilian and the Irresistible Duke by Virginia Heath.

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  Lilian and the Irresist
ible Duke

  by Virginia Heath

  Chapter One

  April 1843

  Lilian huddled beneath her fancy new shawl, enjoying the bracing sea breeze almost as much as the soft heat of the early morning sunrise. Some things were simply too special to miss and her first sighting of Italy was one of them.

  What a painting it would make! The wispy clouds peppering the orange-tinged sky, the shadows they cast on the green hills on the horizon, both framing the clusters of pale stone buildings as they trickled down into the town and the imposing high walls of the ancient port, standing tall and proud in the turquoise ocean.

  She had seen Turner’s beautiful depictions of Italy years ago, at an exhibition in Somerset House, and had fallen in love with his romantic landscapes, but now she realised even his talented brush had not done this magnificent vista justice. It was more beautiful than she could have ever imagined...not that she had imagined she would ever get to see it.

  Hers had been a life of great responsibility and great purpose. Three children to bring up. A devoted wife to a wonderful and philanthropic man. Helping him to build his dream—the Fairclough Foundation—from the ground up so together they could help hundreds of unfortunate women forge better lives for themselves with new skills and a clean slate. Then continuing that dream and raising their family all alone after her beloved husband had been taken from her much too young. Life had been hard. At times, downright impossible. Only a few months ago it had all seemed likely to fall crashing about her ears.

  Yet here she was.

  Still standing and a little lost, truth be told, because the world seemed to be moving rapidly around her and she no longer knew her place in it. Her purpose had been diminished and she had allowed it to happen. And happily. It was only right that her children should forge ahead with their own lives. The natural order of things was for parents to step aside as they did so.

  Yet it didn’t make it any easier. Especially as in her mind she felt no different from the way she had two decades ago. At five and forty she was a long way off old, yet equally well past young. Neither ready to retire to a life of knitting or embroidery nor sure what she might do next. She felt as if she was standing at a crossroads and this unexpected trip to Rome a temporary reprieve from the indecision of which path to tread. An adventure.

  A new adventure pursuing a lifelong passion. An adventure entirely for herself for a change. Finally going to see the great masterpieces she had always dreamed of and most particularly Michelangelo’s spectacular ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. A painting she had wanted to see since she had viewed a tiny example of his work briefly on loan to the National Gallery. Art had always been her solace—not that she had any talent for drawing—but it had been a way for her to relax when life got too much. When the world got on top of her, stealing an hour looking at the beauty which others created with a simple brush and palette always rejuvenated her. Something about the Italian painters and landscapes always called to her, but she had never dreamed she would ever visit Italy to actually see it. After a quarter of a century devoting her life to others, she still couldn’t quite believe it. Or get used to the new freedom she had not been ready to experience.

  ‘I’ll wager you are glad we all talked you into coming now, aren’t you?’ Beside her, Alexandra was grinning. She had seen this panorama many times before and had a whole host of friends here. ‘We shall have a leisurely breakfast, drinking cappuccinos in Civitavecchia and be in Rome with Carlotta in time for dinner. Palazzo delle Santafano is just outside the city. Close enough to see it all and far enough away to escape when the city gets too much.’

  Civitavecchia... Palazzo delle Santafano... Cappuccino... Every word in Italian was music to her ears, sounding sinfully mysterious and romantic. She had always been a romantic soul at heart. ‘I cannot imagine it ever getting too much.’ Lilian watched the walls of the port loom ever closer like an excited girl at her first assembly. ‘It is so lovely.’ And so unlike London she might as well be in a different world. But then she had practically crossed the world to get here. Trains, carriages, ships...so many days of travel she no longer knew which day of the week it was and really couldn’t bring herself to care. Not when every day had suddenly seemed like a bold new adventure. She had never seen France, or even the white cliffs of Dover for that matter until she started this trip. Thanks to the Foundation and more than two decades of motherhood in her spartan home at the back of the institute, her life had been rooted in London on the dubious streets close to the Irish Rookery in the shadow of Westminster Abbey.

  ‘Trust me—it will. The pace of life, the heat, the customs, the people... The Italians are very different from what you are used to. They are a passionate race.’

  Lilian knew that. Or rather she suspected as much thanks to her lone encounter with her first and only Italian at Christmas. Pietro Venturi—Duca della Torizia... Another jumble of seductive Italian words.

  He had been nothing like any man she had ever met. Dark, much too tall and exotic, he was more confident and considerably less reserved than the typical English male. He had looked boldly into her eyes, lingered over kissing her hand, flirted outrageously and his deep voice and seductive accent had quite taken her by surprise. She blamed that and, of course, the three glasses of wine she had consumed at Lady Fentree’s soirée last Christmas for agreeing to travel back to Alexandra’s house alone with just him in the carriage. And she blamed the alcohol, the shameless flirting, the accent, those intense sultry dark eyes and the intimacy of the carriage for allowing the Duca della Torizia to steal that kiss. And for kissing him so enthusiastically back.

  Her first kiss in a decade. Although she still hadn’t made her mind up if it was the unexpected surprise of a single kiss after so long without which made it so scandalously memorable, or the fact that he did it so well and so thoroughly. For its entire duration she quite forgot she was a middle-aged widow who had never shown any desire to be kissed again before he had stolen one.

  ‘Mrs Fairclough...you have such beautiful eyes...’

  He had stared deeply into them, tracing the pad of one finger gently down her cheek and making her skin tingle for the first time in a decade.

  ‘For some reason they call to me...’

  Then his lips had whispered over hers and everything—the carriage, the snow, all her myriad responsibilities, all her problems—everything but him disappeared as she lost herself in his kiss.

  And as much as the incident was regrettable in the extreme and completely unlike her, against all her better judgements her mind had frequently wandered back to it since, reminding her body that, although it was older, it still had the capacity to crave a man’s touch just as it always had.

  But that brief, chance meeting had signalled the start of something and was perhaps one of the reasons she had agreed to this exciting holiday abroad. While she disagreed she had earned a break from her life as her children had insisted—because she was too selfless by half and they wanted to repay her for everything she had done—Lilian did agree she was due an adventure. She also needed to do something to get away from her children, not because she didn’t love them all to distraction, because she did, but because they were all newly married and ready to start their own adventures. Since her daughter Lottie had taken over the running of the Foundation with her husband, Jasper, Lilian had felt redundant and a little in the way.

  She had once been a besotted newlywed herself and knew how all-encompassing and thrilling that heady time was. Love, lust, longing...the sheer joy of one another’s company. She had had that once. Except she had got to enjoy Henry on her own, without a well-meaning parent in the wings, and she wanted the same for them. Millie and Cassius were at Falconmore Hall. Silas and Mary, freshly returned from America, had rented a house close to the Foundation so they could spend some time in England. And Lottie and Jasper had moved in with Lilian. It was they who most needed their privacy.
Even with the very best intentions, she had walked in on them too many times in the midst of an embrace and felt awful when they had guiltily pulled apart when they should be basking in the first flush of love. Just as Lilian had shamelessly and greedily basked in it with Henry all those years ago. She had always been a passionate romantic at heart, too.

  Not one of her children needed her now. They would, when grandchildren inevitably came along, but for the time being she had no real purpose and didn’t want to be underfoot as they all enjoyed those first precious months with their new spouses. As much as her children loved her in return, they had also been unsubtly keen to reward her for her years of selfless service by acting together to send her on this extended trip abroad. She was both grateful and philosophical about their generosity, but she certainly didn’t intend to squander the opportunity and hoped two months of distance from her old life and purpose might give her some clarity on what to do with it next.

  ‘What is Carlotta like?’ Their hostess, the Contessa di Bagnoregio, was a great friend of Alexandra from her youth. As a duke’s daughter, and the wife of a viscount who had loved to travel, she was used to mixing with the aristocracy of Europe.

  ‘A great deal like us. A similar age. Children all grown and flown the nest. Widowed like you. She has a wicked sense of humour, too, and hates being idle. Since her husband died, she has thrown herself into the art world. Her brother deals in it and makes an absolute fortune selling Old Masters to new money. He charms them into buying and she enforces the prices once the remorse of agreeing to them inevitably sets in—believe me, some of them are eye-watering. But if anyone can squeeze blood out of a stone it is she. I would hate to have to do business with her, as she has the reputation of being terrifying. Only a brave few dared argue money with her, but it is always futile as they inevitably end up paying through the nose regardless. She is also hideously philanthropic. The pair of you will get on famously.’