Season for Scandal

by Theresa Romain

  “Your gown is cut well,” he ventured.

  It was more of a compliment to her modiste than herself, and perhaps that was why she accepted it. She lit up. “I know. I’m so glad to be free of those gowns my mother always chose for me. Wools in summer, and horrid glazed cotton. Enough ruffles to smother a horse.”

  When he smiled, she looked disgruntled and turned to gaze out the window. “I could almost spy into the drawing room of the house next door. Your neighbors in London are very close, aren’t they?”

  “Our neighbors,” Edmund corrected.

  “That’s right. Our neighbors.”

  Thus the topics of clothing, compliments, and the neighbors were dispensed with. He had already inquired after her night’s rest. And so a silence fell, broken by nothing but the busy clink of silverware on dishes. Edmund devoted intense attention to cutting his beef into small pieces. First cubes, an inch square. Then he halved them, then halved them again. This jolly family breakfast could take as long as one wished.

  Why, they hadn’t talked about the weather yet. They could do that next. November weather always offered Londoners plenty of opportunity for abuse. If it wasn’t raining or sleeting, it was fog-choked. On dry days, coal smoke rose from the city like thunderclouds turned on their heads.

  He opened his mouth, ready to say something about the chilly weather. The possibility of taking a drive later in his closed carriage.

  When he looked at Jane, though, he had the sense that she’d just averted her eyes from him. And she continued Not Looking At Him so intently that the words took on capital letters; that the lack of attention became an intentional act.

  It had to be. No one could devote so much time to cutting ham into little bites. Was she playing the shy bride? Was her silence meant to punish him for that thing he’d said about her gown? He had gotten the color right. Unaccountable woman.

  Since Edmund’s mouth was still hanging uselessly open, he put a bite into it, not caring what it might be.

  Beef. Damn it. Who could bear to eat meat in the mornings? His stomach grumbled, threatening a rebellion.

  Wonderful. He could not even spend his time at the breakfast table actually, oh, eating breakfast. And as Jane continued Not Looking At Him, the silence didn’t feel mellow and friendly after all. This meal wasn’t like sitting down at table with a relative or enjoying a postcoital repast with a lover. In the former, love might be taken for granted on both sides; in the latter, lust usurped the role of love, and most welcome it was.

  This breakfast was both, yet neither. A strange, boiled-up amalgam of feeling. And the silence grew all out of proportion to the small breakfast parlor, until it seemed heavy and pressing.

  A lump the size of a fist blocked his throat, and he felt that he could not have spoken even if Lord Sheringbrook offered to return his ill-gotten ten thousand pounds in exchange for a syllable.

  After a tiny eternity, Jane broke the silence. “Kirkpatrick. Some couples travel after their marriage.” She was still Not Looking At Him. With a spoon handle, she tapped at the shell of her boiled egg.

  He gulped coffee until the lump in his throat dissolved. “That is correct.”

  When she didn’t speak again, he realized that more was expected than an acknowledgment of a declarative sentence. “Some couples do,” he added cautiously. “And some don’t.”

  Tap tap tap. Jane frowned at the egg in its little silver cup. “Some couples go to Italy. Or France. France isn’t far.”

  “You have pulverized that eggshell,” Edmund pointed out.

  “Well, you’ve shaved that beef to a powder.”

  Edmund looked at his plate. She was right; somehow, he had reduced his breakfast to a heap of stringy fibers.

  He laid down his utensils. “Jane, might I assume you would like to travel, since you have introduced the subject?”

  “I wouldn’t hate it.” At last, she met his eye.

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t either. But . . .” Edmund traced the crests on his blunt-handled utensils. The barony of Kirkpatrick, stamped on every piece. “I have responsibilities that keep me in London right now.”

  In truth, the idea of fleeing for the Continent right now was very appealing. Just to grab Jane’s hand and run for Italy or France, leaving behind all the letters and threats and responsibilities that lurked in the city.

  But someday he would have to return to them—and the burden, once laid down, would be unbearable to pick up again. Or worse yet, it would come rolling and crashing after him, and yet another part of the world would be despoiled. Cornwall and London had already been ruined for him; he could not bear to blight the loveliness of a summer in southern France, or the sunlit warmth of Italian vineyards.

  “Perhaps next year,” he said. “Next year, it might be different.”

  “Why should it be?” Jane picked up a knife and sliced the egg in half vertically as it sat within its cup. Then again, quartering it. “If a man won’t turn his responsibilities over to his steward when he’s newly married, why should he do so later?”

  Edmund reminded himself that he wasn’t the sort of man who poked his wife with a fork, no matter how annoying her questions.

  “It’s not that I’m unwilling, Jane.” His voice came out too harsh; he paused, took a deep breath, and added more quietly, “I am unable. This is a matter none can handle but myself.”

  She blinked at him. Waiting for more. He should have known she would not be put off by vagueness.

  “It’s family business,” he added. “Some long-standing arrangements are maturing, and I must oversee the process.”

  “Of course. You’re very busy. Indispensable.” She continued cutting, reducing the egg to a mass of crumbled yolk and shell before she spoke again. “But now I’m your family, too. The only member of it in London, unless I am mistaken.”

  He took another sip of coffee, hoping a brilliant reply would occur to him. Alas, no. “You are correct. But—”

  “Could I help you, then? If this matter of business requires”—she paused—“ingenuity, I might be able to move the process along.”

  So we can have a honeymoon.

  The unspoken words fit neatly into the silence that followed. But the suggestion? No, impossible. There was no room for Jane in this ancient tangle of betrayal. Especially not if she loved him—or thought she did. Which for now came to the same thing.

  As his silence stretched out, Jane turned to look out the window again. Her profile was as neat as a coin, her jaw set. Her eyes, though; her eyes betrayed her. She was blinking far too often. Tears? Surely not. Jane Tindall—no, Jane Ware, Lady Kirkpatrick—was far too strong to cry.

  “Jane,” he said softly.

  Her jaw became still more set. “If you don’t want me involved, just say so, Kirkpatrick. I’m strong enough to bear such a small revelation.”

  “I know you are.”

  As always, his agreement seemed to surprise her. She turned to regard him. “You . . . What?”

  “I don’t doubt your strength, Jane. Nor your ingenuity. This is simply . . .” He considered. “A confidential matter. I must respect the interests of others.”

  Perfect. He’d just made his family’s sordid affairs sound like a treasure hunt for gold bullion. He must think of a way to describe this in the most boring fashion possible.

  “You see,” he began, “certain people have entrusted their . . . er . . . trust to me. And I must fulfill that trust. And now is the time that the trust which they have entrusted—”

  “Oh, stop,” Jane cut him off. “You’ll do yourself an injury if you try to end that sentence.”

  Edmund blinked. “Ah. Well.”

  “So you’re telling me it’s a secret and I can’t help you and we can’t travel anywhere until it’s all settled.”

  “To put it briefly, yes.” She looked a little mutinous, so he added, “It’s not much of a secret. Business, you know. Family . . . things. Why, you’ve got a few secrets of your own, don’t you?”
r />   She looked at him as though he’d served her a plate of horse droppings. “Not anymore.”

  Edmund, I love you.

  They both turned scarlet at once.

  “Maybe,” he said in a rush, “we can do other things. Instead of traveling, I mean. Though this isn’t a good time to leave England, surely we can find amusements in London. A ball. Would you like to attend a ball? Or—or visit the Tower of London.”

  Jane’s hot color ebbed. “The Tower of London? Weren’t people executed there?”

  Edmund coughed. “Yes. Well. It was just a suggestion. I know it’s not very romantic.”

  “It’s bloodthirsty. I like it.” She nodded. “But you’re right. Maybe not during our honeymoon.”

  “I’m sorry about this. I’ll do my best to wrap up the . . . family matter . . . quickly. As soon as there’s a chance of travel”—of escape—“I will inform you, and you shall pick our destination.”

  “Will it be done before Christmas?”

  Christmas. Seven weeks away. Could he stand seven weeks of this cat-and-mouse game with Turner?

  If it meant seven weeks of respectability, yes. Seven weeks of safety for Jane, yes. Seven weeks in which to beget a child, innocent of all wrongdoing . . . God, how he hoped. “I’m not certain.”

  With a clatter, she shoved aside her egg cup. “But you are certain that it’s not something your man of business could attend to? After all, he settled your last debt.”

  Sheringbrook’s payment, she meant. “Unfortunately, no. The timing is inopportune, but—”

  “—you didn’t expect to get married this autumn. I understand.” A smile clicked into place, and Edmund had the odd feeling that she was humoring him.

  “Just because it was unexpected does not mean I am not delighted.”

  “No,” Jane said. “But it also doesn’t mean you are.”

  She shoved her chair back from the table, almost smacking into the footman who rushed forward to aid her. As she and the servant dodged one another, startled, she caught a foot in the hem of her gown and stumbled.

  Edmund rose, striding the length of the table and catching Jane’s arm. With a nod to the footman, he allowed the servant—still mumbling his apologies—to retreat. The man had only been doing his job; it was not his fault Jane didn’t react as expected.

  Come to think of it, Edmund could say the same for himself.

  She struggled to shake him off, but his fingertips cradled her elbow gently. “As you are now a baroness,” he murmured, “please do not cast aspersions on our marriage in front of the servants.”

  “Why? Because it will cause a scandal?” She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t care about that.”

  “No, it probably wouldn’t cause a scandal. But our servants work hard for us, and they will enjoy that work more if they think the household is harmonious.”

  Her struggling ceased. “You ask for their sake, then. Out of kindness. How am I supposed to argue with that?”

  “I rather hoped you wouldn’t.” His stomach twisted, and he added, “I’ve promised that I will do my utmost to make you happy. Won’t you allow me to try?”

  Close enough to sense her every flicker of movement, to breathe in her clean scent, he waited for his wife’s reply. For the battle or truce to begin.

  Her gaze found his. Those hazel depths held such disappointment, such sorrow, that he drew back from her. She knows. She knew the truth somehow: that he would betray her, just as he had everyone else.

  He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thought. When he looked at Jane again, her eyes were clear; no trace of that deep, dark emotion shadowed them.

  “Yes,” Jane said, soft and low. “I trust you. And I’ll do my best to be the wife you deserve.”

  Now, what sort of wife might that be?

  “Thank you,” he replied, and her expression turned wry.

  “Always so polite,” she said. “Well, then, husband. How shall you make me happy?”

  He thought about this. Not the Tower of London, she had said. And she was no child, to be plied instead with sweets or a trip to the Royal Menagerie. She was a baroness. And she was ingenious.

  Dumbly, he rooted about for ideas before seizing upon something that would please most young women. “Shall we attend a ball? Introduce Lady Kirkpatrick to polite society?”

  Her smile was the brightest thing in the sunlit breakfast parlor. “Why, certainly. I’d love it above all things.”

  Chapter 6

  Concerning Preliminary Attempts at Happiness

  It was an excellent plan, this truce of theirs. But not even Kirkpatrick could conjure a ball for Jane at a moment’s notice during the quiet of early November. London’s elite was only just beginning to trickle back into the city for a special session of Parliament, and the first ball to which they had received an invitation—hosted by that determined matron of the ton, the Countess of Alleyneham—wasn’t for another two weeks.

  Two weeks for Jane to do—what? There was nothing but unaccustomed leisure. Kirkpatrick had kept every one of his promises to her.

  She had a lady’s maid, Hill, who arranged Jane’s fine, sandy hair into elegant twists and somehow encouraged it to curl.

  She had a set of emeralds, as well as beautiful gowns for every occasion. And when the weather turned cold and glum, there were fur-lined cloaks and warm capes and pelisses, as well as a carriage to shield her from the weather.

  She had a mare, too; a bay with a white snip on the nose, kept in the mews stables behind Kirkpatrick’s house. Since Jane didn’t know how to ride, she visited the horse daily, but had a groom exercise Florence.

  “One day,” she murmured to the mare, who huffed warm breath over Jane’s fingers. “One day we’ll ride together. And one day I’ll visit the city you’re named for.”

  Florence bobbed her head, then took up a mouthful of hay. Jane smiled; the animal’s contentment was refreshing.

  She could have told Kirkpatrick that she needed someone to teach her to ride a horse. But she wanted him to realize it on his own.

  He had kept all the promises she’d tugged from him in the forgotten little side parlor at Lord Sheringbrook’s house. Jane realized now: Kirkpatrick would give her everything she asked for, and the best of it. But he would give her not an iota more.

  When he’d made his proposal, she had not asked for time with him. She had not insisted that love be a condition of their marriage. And so these intangibles never came to pass. He had promised to try to make her happy—but what, after all, was trying? He hadn’t promised to succeed. And she hadn’t asked him to.

  Perhaps she was not as ingenious as she had once thought.

  After breakfast each day, Kirkpatrick disappeared into his study, a small room she had never yet entered. He had not said she couldn’t, but she didn’t try to cross the threshold. It would be too humiliating to be booted back.

  So Jane spent the first days of her marriage without her husband. Instead of learning the corners of his heart or creating pet names for him, she acquainted herself with every corner of the house and every servant’s name. She created menus for course after course.

  No one had much appetite. But the food looked impressive.

  Day by day, she felt Lady Kirkpatrick enclosing her, molding her into something quieter and sleeker than she’d ever imagined being. It was not unwelcome; it was simply unfamiliar. As little like her unmarried self as lilac was like hay. This was part of the bargain she had struck with her husband, and if he fulfilled his end so punctiliously, she could do no less.

  So passed her days.

  But when the sun slid beneath the horizon, the silence of the house softened. Not a brittle thing, but peaceful and gauzy. The servants vanished into their rooms, and the careful mask of propriety could vanish for a time, too, if Kirkpatrick would allow it.

  Every night, a tap came at the door between their bedchambers, and he entered the room. There was never much talking. Clothes were shed, skin was stroked.
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  Each time, Jane tried to undo the harm she’d caused on their wedding day. She wanted to be rough and bawdy, to prove that she didn’t mind that he couldn’t love her back, that this clashing of bodies was enough for her. She wanted to press him to the bed and use him hard, until blessed oblivion could claim them both.

  But Kirkpatrick didn’t allow it. Night after night, he treated her with a politeness so complete that it became impersonal.

  “Allow me,” he said, pressing her hands aside with gentle force. Not allowing her to grab at him, pull him close. It was like a script: first he brought her to orgasm with his hands. Then he held himself high above her body as he stroked in and out. When he shuddered his completion, he pulled away at once.

  The sensations were delicious, yet Jane felt soiled afterward. As though she’d breached their marriage contract when she’d admitted her love for him, and now he could hardly bear to do business with someone so untrustworthy.

  She almost wished she had never agreed to marry him; that she had never gambled and lost her independence at Lord Sheringbrook’s house.

  Almost. For how could she lose an independence she’d never had, except as a dream? And how else was she to have Kirkpatrick—the deepest and sweetest and most painful of every dream she’d had?

  Fool that she was, she still wanted him on any terms. Even these, which left her alone every night and every endless day.

  Even these.

  When the date of the ball arrived, Jane entered Alleyneham House on her husband’s arm. As they queued in the receiving line, she watched the women before her and did as they did. Resting her fingertips on Kirkpatrick’s sleeve with the correct featherlight pressure. Maintaining the perfect, proper distance between them so their expensive clothing would not be rumpled.

  When it came their turn to greet their dithering hostess and stern-jawed host, she gave a careful nod to each. “Earl. Countess. How do you do?” To the angle and inch, it was a perfect copy of the greeting performed by the woman before her.