Season for Scandal

by Theresa Romain

  “You want to marry Jane.”

  “Yes,” Edmund confirmed.

  Xavier sat back in his chair, his dark brows knit. “It’s not even my birthday. Or Christmas.”

  “No, not for several more weeks. Do you require a calendar?”

  Xavier grinned. “No, though smelling salts may be in order. I cannot believe you wish to marry Jane, but the chance to shake free from her schemes is most appealing. If you want the responsibility of her, she’s all yours.”

  Simply as that, Edmund’s sordid lamplit proposal was approved. Over the next few days, the marriage settlements were drawn up, and with a shake of hands and a flurry of signatures, the matter was arranged: Jane Tindall was to be converted into the Baroness Kirkpatrick in two weeks’ time.

  The next fortnight passed for Edmund in a soupy haze of plans and preparations. Refitting his house in Berkeley Square to welcome a bride. Accompanying Jane as she chose a modiste and a maid and a mare: the three essentials for any young matron of the ton.

  Edmund welcomed the flurry of elegant industry because it kept him distracted. Almost distracted enough to catch a few hours of sleep at night; almost enough to forget the reason for the wedding.

  Almost. But not quite. Every time he ventured into the heart of the city, he expected to come face-to-face with a nightmare two decades in the making. A nightmare cloaked in a lying smile and a lilting brogue. Edmund, me boyo; to think of finding you here. All but a murderer.

  That letter he’d received the night of Sheringbrook’s ball—the night of his own betrothal, as it turned out—had been hand-delivered. After twenty years in Australia, Turner was back in London, and he demanded a reckoning.

  What form that would take, Edmund had no notion. But it would come, and soon. That certainty spurred him on through exhaustion, through the gnaw of pain in his abdomen. The days before the wedding were falling away, and soon he would take Jane to wife. And then . . . the getting of an heir. That part, at least, held the promise of pleasure; of a brief oblivion in his bride’s arms.

  If only he would feel safe once it was all done. If only Jane would be happy with the life he could give her, however long it lasted.

  Edmund had no idea, truly, if any of these things would ever come to pass, or if he would ever be free.

  The morning of the wedding, Edmund knotted his cravat with extra care and, with the help of his manservant, eased his shoulders into a new black coat.

  “Gilding the lily, my lord,” said Withey. “That young lady would marry you if you were wearing a farmer’s smock.”

  “Silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Edmund countered. He regarded himself in the glass: cheeks a bit hollow; shadows under his eyes almost as dark as his hair. “I look as if I’ve been out all night debauching myself.”

  “Night before your wedding? No one would blame you if you enjoyed yourself, my lord.” The manservant looked Edmund up and down, then removed a bit of fluff from one coat sleeve.

  “I would,” Edmund said. “And Jane would. Or she ought.”

  Edmund was not surprised when Withey ignored this, as he did most of the unaccountable things Edmund said. The valet only pronounced his master acceptably dressed and summoned the carriage.

  Now that the day was here, Edmund was eager to get the wedding over with before some accident could ruin everything. A bite from a rabid dog. A bolt of lightning. Collapsing buildings. A savage with a poisoned dart.

  No one had ever accused Edmund of being unimaginative.

  But the drive to Xavier House was blessedly brief and free from accidents. And as soon as he entered the house, he was greeted by a small group of familiar faces, none of which appeared to be rabid or lightning-struck.

  Jane’s ruddy little mother had trundled in from her country cottage, and in honor of the occasion, had stuffed her round body into a heavily starched gown. Xavier was here, of course, as dark and fashionable as always. His elegant wife, too: a quiet brunette with a mischievous smile. The Countess of Irving, Lady Xavier’s aunt. Edmund had met her the previous year and had found her to be overly blunt and deeply loyal. Not surprisingly, Jane liked Lady Irving a great deal.

  “Where is the bride?” Edmund craned his neck to look past the clergyman and the few other guests in the drawing room.

  “Making herself beautiful,” huffed Lady Irving. “None of us thought it would take so long.”

  “Aunt,” hissed Xavier’s wife.

  Just then a light tread sounded at the doorway to the drawing room, and the guests turned toward it as one. Edmund followed their gaze.

  There was Jane, whom he was accustomed to seeing in heavy, fussy gowns. Jane, who was rarely without a belligerent expression or a wicked gleam in her eye. She stood now in frail white silk and gauze, her light brown hair twisted back from a face as sweetly pale as a blossom.

  She looked very pretty, and very unlike herself. As she accepted greetings in a quiet voice, she seemed fragile. Yet Edmund knew she was not; not this woman who had tried so valiantly to forge her own independence, only to wind up in a leg shackle.

  The ceremony was quick. The ancient vows made Mrs. Tindall sniffle. The ring went onto Jane’s finger without a hitch. So they were married.

  And then into the dining room for a wedding breakfast. Xavier was generous with the champagne and sweetmeats, and it wasn’t long before the event turned rollicking. Lady Irving waved her champagne flute around while she held forth on how Xavier House ought to be redecorated. Mrs. Tindall giggled at everything, then began the slow blink of tipsiness turned drowsy. A suntanned man in early middle age—Edmund had never met him before, so he must have been a guest of Mrs. Tindall or Lord Xavier—began regaling them with tales of life in India.

  “Droit du seigneur is the way of things there,” he said. “When a servant woman is to be married, her master visits her the night before the wedding.”

  Edmund had never heard of such a custom in India, but he was hardly an expert.

  “As though a new bride doesn’t have enough to deal with,” said Jane to the man. Daniel Bellamy, that was his name. “Why must her master add to her list of chores? The timing is too burdensome. Let him visit her some other time.” She took a sip of champagne. Above the glass, her cheeks had gone pink.

  “It won’t be a chore if he does his part well, my lady.”

  Jane blinked at him. “You called me ‘my lady.’ Oh, someone say that again. It sounds so strange.”

  The table erupted in a chorus of my lady-ing, and the salacious subject was left behind. Though the ghost of it stayed in Edmund’s head and drifted through his body—the right of a man to his wife, the duty of a woman to her husband. Could it be more than a duty and a right? Even in a marriage of convenience?

  Jane caught his eye then, and the look she gave him was so Jane, so utterly wicked and laughing, that his foggy thoughts cleared. Every time she smiled and laughed, his relief grew. Something on this day had brought her pleasure. Now he had only to continue it, not create it.

  The guests lingered long over breakfast, and it was early afternoon before they began to disperse. As Edmund shook Xavier’s hand in thanks and farewell, he ignored a quick gnaw of pain in his abdomen.

  “I’ll be good to her,” Edmund assured his old friend.

  The earl smiled. “I’ve no worries on that matter. You’re good to everyone.”

  The compliment made Edmund suddenly impatient. You ought to trust me less and Jane more, he thought. But the words didn’t make their way anywhere near the tip of his tongue. Because Xavier was right: Edmund was good to everyone. He had developed the habit long ago. It was . . . atonement.

  The carriage ride to the house in Berkeley Square was brief, though not silent. Edmund filled Jane’s ears with glib observations about the weather, the house, the guests. Everything in the world came out of his mouth except for what was important: that they were married, and that they would soon get on with the business of becoming husband and wife in truth. Creating a child. An h
eir, he hoped. Quickly, before Turner pounced on him; before Edmund’s dependents were left destitute.

  The chain of thought was hardly conducive to passion. He wished Jane would look at him in that wicked way again, as though their wedding was all a game and they were playing by their own secret, shared rules.

  But her mind seemed elsewhere now. Edmund had no notion whether it was in the bedchamber, or a ballroom, or in Sheringbrook’s card room before the moment of her ruin. When the carriage rolled up before the Berkeley Square house, she bounded from it as soon as the steps were let down. Up the stairs to the front door, and inside. In the entry hall, Edmund caught up to her.

  She bounced on her toes before handing her cloak to a footman. “Kirkpatrick, it’s beautiful. I couldn’t even imagine how the work would look once complete.”

  This had to be an overstatement, because the only change to the entry hall was a coat of leaf-green paint that Jane had chosen to cover a glum lead-gray. Everything else was the same: a ceiling of delicate plasterwork and painted roundels. A dizzy-tiled floor with spiraling black and white diamonds. All had been cleaned and polished to a shine, though; the servants wanted the house to look its best for its new mistress.

  Perhaps this was a sign that Jane would be good for his domestic peace. Or perhaps he was grasping at straws.

  “The house looks well, does it not?” he said. “I’m glad your tastes are satisfied.”

  Satisfy. Would he be able to satisfy her? Would she know the difference?

  “I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much. Choosing colors for a house, I mean. I’ve never done such a thing before because my mother and I never had the money.”

  “Well, now you do,” Edmund said lightly.

  “Now I do,” she echoed. She looked up at him, her expression covetous.

  Holding his gaze with her deep hazel eyes, she began to remove her elbow-length gloves. Edmund watched as she took hold of the delicate kid leather between thumb and forefinger and pulled, releasing her fingers one by one from their sheath of propriety. Tugging the whole glove free, at last, revealing her pale arm in one slow sweep.

  And then she did the same for the other glove, her eyes never leaving his.

  Significance lay heavy in the air, as pungent as myrrh. Edmund watched, his throat dry, as Jane handed off her gloves to a servant. What would be undone next? The clasp of her necklace? Or she might remove the fragile high-heeled slippers on her feet, and he could carry her upstairs.

  The idea was alluring.

  Jane rubbed her hands up her just-bared arms, as if the feel of her own touch was an awakening.

  And winked at him.

  Just like that, it all made sense. She was acting a part again, this time for the ever-observant servants. Surely they had wondered what possessed their master to marry so quickly. Now they would know, for she had shown them the heat of a love match.

  He grinned, then leaned close to her ear. “I know what you’re doing,” he breathed, setting her pearl earbob to dancing. “And I thank you.”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “That bit with the gloves was meant to be enticing, Kirkpatrick. How obstinate you are.”

  “No, it was very enticing,” he reassured her. “I was highly enticed.”

  “I can see that,” she whispered back. “Since we’re still standing in the entry of the house. Clearly you are so enticed that you have no choice but to ravish me with manners. If you thank me again in that seductive way, I may swoon.”

  A bizarre noise caught in Edmund’s throat; a sort of cough and choke and laugh all together. He had no idea how to console a timid maiden, but he knew what to do for cynical, adventuresome Jane. All he need do was be good to her, just as he’d promised. So good that she would never regret marrying him.

  Atonement. It had never seemed so sweet, or so sensual, as Edmund took his bride’s ungloved hand in his. Her fingertips were calloused from needlework, the skin roughened. Her straitened life had formed her, this woman who would rather play cards than sew, who wondered at the miracle wrought by a new coat of paint.

  He rubbed her fingers, and the touch sank deeply within him. She smelled clean like soap, her skin free from perfume.

  He liked it, and suddenly it was not enough to hold her hand anymore. His body acted without orders, bending to sweep her up, catch her behind the knees and hold her lengthwise in his arms.

  “Consider me enticed,” he said. “Enticed, and entirely unmannerly.” When Jane laughed, it felt like a victory.

  “I should show you more of the house now,” he said.

  “You really should,” Jane agreed. “Starting with the bedchamber.”

  And he carried her upstairs.

  Chapter 4

  Concerning an Ill-Timed Confession

  Perhaps the bit with the gloves had been too much. Kirkpatrick had not taken it seriously, and Jane could not recall ever being more serious.

  It had been a great joke for him to carry her up the stairs, but as her new husband set her down gently on the carpeted floor of his—her?—their?—bedchamber, her smile felt ragged. The feel of his arms beneath her knees, wrapped around her chest—there was nothing funny in the slightest about that.

  The room itself was dim, the inevitable fog and rain of late autumn tossing gray clouds across the window. She picked out a bootjack in a corner; a walnut vanity and wardrobe; a connecting door in the west wall. In the fireplace, flames devoured wood rather than coal—a special luxury in honor of their wedding day.

  Blue draperies adorned the windows and curtained the bed. The bed itself seemed very large. Wood-framed and wide, its hangings were swagged back. Ready for two people to climb in.

  Kirkpatrick faced her at the foot of it, his formal attire all stark blacks and whites. With his dark hair and light eyes, his fair Celtic skin, he looked crisp as a new pound note.

  Or ten thousand pounds.

  Jane shut her eyes and pressed at them with the heels of her hands.

  “Jane? Are you fatigued?”

  She kept her eyes covered. No need to look at Kirkpatrick; she could guess the expression on his face. Dark brows slightly lifted, mobile mouth ready to curve with sympathy. So many times, she had seen him direct that solicitous expression at a woman.

  “I’m perfectly all right.” She let her hands fall, her gaze trailing after to regard the toes of her high-heeled slippers. New white satin. Impractical and expensive.

  For Jane Tindall, that is. But they were just the sort of shoe Baroness Kirkpatrick would favor from this point forward.

  Her fingers trembled a bit as they lifted to the clasp of her necklace.

  “Might I help you?” He took a step forward, then halted.

  This careful courtesy would drive her mad. “No, I have it.” She unfastened her pearl choker, then removed the matching earbobs. “I suppose I ought to keep these in some sort of case.”

  “I should think so,” said Kirkpatrick. “Since they’re only the first of many jewels, aren’t they? That was one of the conditions of our marriage.”

  “Right. That’s right.” The smooth orbs felt heavy as a chain in her hand. With a click and a clatter, she let them fall to the top of the walnut vanity. “Now what?”

  “Now would you like me not to help you remove your slippers?”

  “That would be acceptable.” She bent to ease her heels free from the snug satin footwear, then kicked the slippers off. Without them, she stood a few inches shorter, and she seemed to look up at Kirkpatrick from a great distance.

  “What next?” Her mouth felt dry.

  He had to clear his own throat before he spoke. “Most likely you will need assistance with your gown. Shall I help you with that?”

  “It should be my turn, I think. I ought not to help you with one of your own garments.”

  “Do you have a recommendation?”

  “You wouldn’t need any help with your cravat.”

  “Very true. I would not.” His lips quirked. Clever fingers worked at
the intricate knots of linen, and Jane watched, rapt and breathless, as he began to unwrap himself.

  She stepped closer, standing at the foot of the bed facing him. A yard separated them, no more, and she could see dark stubble faintly shadowing his jaw. The cravat fell away and the opening of his shirt pulled wide, revealing the straight line of his throat, the chiseled hollow at his collarbone.

  Jane wanted to put her tongue into that hollow, but she squelched the impulse. If a bit of glove-tugging had been too much for Kirkpatrick’s composure, a sudden licking would doubtless send him into a fit of laughter.

  So she gave him a cool smile. “Now you may remove your coat without my help.”

  “Actually, I’m not sure I can. It’s very snug, and it took the assistance of my manservant to get me into it.”

  “Should we call him in?”

  He tilted his head. Jane dragged her eyes up from the vulnerable line of his throat to see his face. He looked . . . damn it, he looked good. Patient. Kind.

  As he always did.

  “Jane, do you truly want us to call in help? Your maid and my manservant? Or—might we do for each other?”

  Somehow, she managed to sound calm. “We could, if you like.”

  “What would you like?”

  Anything. You. Anything with you. “Doing for one another would be fine.”

  They stared at each other for several seconds before she broke the silence. “Boots or coat first?”

  “How about the coat?” His grin was a revelation, wry and sweet.

  In her stockinged feet, Jane clambered onto the bed. Kirkpatrick turned to face her. “Ease it back from each shoulder first, then we’ll tug at the sleeves.” He shook his head. “Fashion can be a hindrance, can it not? But I couldn’t be unfashionable on our wedding day.”

  Their eyes caught. Held. Her calm resolution vanished like smoke in wind. “I like your coat,” she said. “And now let’s take it off.”

  Kirkpatrick’s own face looked a bit ruddy, if the gray-filtered light was to be trusted. She doubted he was a virgin—somehow, men never were—but he shared at least one characteristic with Jane: neither of them had ever had a wedding night.