Season for Scandal

by Theresa Romain

  “My father wasn’t a strong man,” Edmund said. “He must have thought escape easier than brazening through one’s problems.”

  “Yes,” Jane said faintly. She laced her fingers in his hair; the snow melt had left it gently waving, fine as silk thread. “Yes, it certainly is.”

  He seemed not to notice she had spoken. Silence held the room; not tightly, but in the hollow of its palm. The tale was done, and now the firelight cradled them, and Jane rested her hand on her husband’s head and let the wonder of it all seep through her.

  “So long, you’ve been keeping this a secret. No wonder you can hardly choke down a meal. This must have been eating you up.”

  “A lie of omission is still a lie. I’m very sorry I didn’t tell you before. I didn’t trust that you’d want anything to do with me if you knew the truth.” He gave a hollow laugh. “I’ve demonstrated that I have no loyalty to those to whom I owe the most.”

  She considered this. “That’s one way to think of it. Another way is that your parents put a young boy into a horrible situation. Which, thank God, he could escape. One could also view the matter thus: that that same boy, now grown to a man, has spent years providing security for people who never took the slightest pains to keep him safe.”

  When she finished speaking, he stood up abruptly. Moved away, into the shadowed corner of the room. “You’re wrong.”

  But he didn’t want her to see him. Which meant he couldn’t hide what he felt.

  Which meant she might have cracked through the stone around his heart at last. Just a little . . . but a crack was enough.

  “I understand now,” she said. “Why you wanted to marry so quickly. Why you were willing to take a wife with no dowry. You needed someone to support you so you wouldn’t have to face Turner alone. And your talk of needing an heir—in case anything happened to you, you wanted to be sure the barony was safe.”

  “Yes. No? I don’t know. It’s such a puzzle.”

  “I’ve known all the pieces for some time. Now I understand how they fit together.” She paused. “I’m so sorry.”

  “There is nothing for which you need apologize.”

  “I’m not saying I’m ‘sorry for’; I’m only ‘sorry that.’ I’m sorry that your family was no kind of a family at all. I’m sorry that you felt so much pain in trying to spare others pain.”

  She slid to the floor, taking the spot he had abandoned. “I know our marriage hasn’t gone as you thought. It hasn’t gone as I thought either. I’m sorry for that, too. I don’t blame you any more than I blame myself. So I suppose I blame us both to a moderate degree.”

  Edmund moved back into the golden reach of the lamplight, and she tossed him a smile. He was too polite not to give her one of his own.

  “But I’m something more than sorry,” she added. “I’m angry, too.”

  “I thought you would be,” he said. “I—”

  “Not at you.” She rolled over his explanation. “At your father. He left you alone in the world with a man who had already betrayed his family. He made sure Turner had the chance to come back. That’s a hell of a good-bye to his son and heir.”

  Edmund went perfectly still.

  “Really, Edmund. If your father had your backbone, he would have taken care of the matter then and there. Made Turner suffer his punishment. A life transport, at the very least.”

  A bleak smile curved his lips. “I always knew you were bloodthirsty.”

  “Not as much as your father. He spilled his own blood and made you cover the taint of his sin. Not as much as your mother, either, who mixed her blood with an old lover’s who should never have been part of her life.”

  “You are very critical of people you have never met,” he murmured.

  “Thanks to your father’s own actions, I can’t meet him. As for your mother—well, I’ve met you. I know you. I know you’ve done your best by her. Did she truly do her best by you, though? And don’t,” she cut him off, “give me any rubbish about you being the man of the house after your father died. You were only nine years old at the time.”

  “What’s done is done.” He sounded grim, but not bitter. “I did the best I could, and so did they. For none of us was it as good as it could have been.”

  “Surely you don’t compare your behavior to theirs.”

  “No.” The shadows under his eyes seemed darker, his eyes old and tired. “No, I compare it to what it should be now. The servants—the tenants—my sisters—they were all innocent. But I have nothing to do with Cornwall, and so I have abandoned them.”

  “Says the man who sent his relatives expensive hats and a stack of novels for Christmas.”

  “Ah, well. We’ve agreed that gifts don’t mean anything, do they? They required no sacrifice. Only a bit of time.”

  “No. No. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be bad for ignoring them and bad for sending them gifts. In truth, Edmund, I don’t think it’s bad at all to stay away.”

  He just looked at her with disbelieving eyes. Go ahead and try to explain yourself, his expression said. This should be entertaining.

  “Well,” she began, halting, “there’s some self-interest in what I say. I don’t wish to return to village life, even though I’d see my mother more often. Do you think less of me for that?”

  “Don’t. Don’t try to make an analogy, Jane. Your mother is cared for, and you’ve built a life without her—hmm. I mean, you’re married now, and your first allegiance is to—oh. That is to say. You’ve made a home for yourself in London—ah, damn it.”

  “You see?” She couldn’t help but feel a bit smug as he talked himself into a corner. “Either we’re both bad, or we’re both fine. We’re both selfish, or we’re both still doing the best we can.”

  He turned his head away.

  “I know you’re looking at me from the corner of your eye,” she said. “But turn away if you must. My brilliance can be difficult to gaze on directly.”

  He snorted. “You think you’re very clever.”

  “At the moment, yes.” She paused. “But what do you think? Can you hear what I’m saying, as I heard you?”

  His lips moved.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “I am reminding myself,” he said more loudly, “that it is bad manners to swat grown females upon the bottom.”

  Jane’s face went hot. “I suppose that depends on the circumstances.”

  Edmund choked, and she added swiftly, “But if that’s a way for you to say that you know I’m right and you don’t want to admit it, that’s fine with me. Or not even that. Just—just listen.”

  His profile was so sharp, she wanted to trace it with a fingertip.

  “I’ve listened,” he said. “I have indeed listened. You think of the situation very differently than I do.”

  “I haven’t lived inside it for most of my life, as you have. But maybe because I see it from the outside, I see the shape of things more clearly.”

  “Maybe,” he granted. “But we don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

  “You want to start quoting poetry and scattering compliments about? That’s too bad. I won’t be distracted tonight.” She tried to sound businesslike. “Edmund, Turner’s hold over you comes from the secrets he knows. But if the truth about him and your parents came out, what would be the worst thing that could possibly happen?”

  “Everyone would know the truth.”

  “And?”

  “And? And what? And my mother would be ostracized. My sisters would never be able to marry. I’d be looked on with scorn.”

  “It seems to me that most of those things have already happened. Your mother and sisters essentially live in exile. You are well-liked, though, and I can understand why you’d be reluctant for that to change.”

  “I haven’t kept this secret all these years so I could be liked.”

  “Why, then? It won’t make a difference in the way your mother and sisters live.”

  “It would make a difference to
you.”

  “I wasn’t part of your life before this autumn.” She forced a smile. “So you can’t convince me that you’ve held your tongue for twenty years for my sake.”

  “You think it was selfish?” He looked as though she’d struck him. “This . . . thing . . . that I’ve taken responsibility for. You call that a selfish act?”

  “Not selfish.” She considered. “No, not selfish. But not necessary. The sins weren’t yours.”

  “But the responsibility is. I hold the title.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean you need be responsible for everything your family has done or ever will do. Every family has black sheep. Let the ton baa-baa-baa about them. It needn’t affect you.”

  “But it does,” he murmured. “It does. Because I care what happens to them.”

  She went silent then. There was nothing more to say. He had taken this problem to heart because even after all the pain of his boyhood, his family lived there. He shouldered burdens that weren’t his, hoping they would be lifted from others.

  It would be admirable, if it weren’t so bullheaded.

  Actually, Jane could admire the bullheadedness, too.

  “There’s more to the story,” he said. In a moment, he had sketched out Turner’s thefts and his lust for the Xavier jewels. “He wants me to talk you into revealing where they’re kept. So he can steal them. I’m not fond of the idea.”

  “Nor I.” She thought for a moment. “We shall have to come up with a new one.”

  Chapter 24

  Concerning Tragedie—or Its Opposite

  “We?” Edmund seemed more shocked by this short word than by any part of his long revelation.

  “Yes, we. You and me.”

  “Why?”

  If he hadn’t looked so bleak, Jane would have given him the tongue-lashing of his life. “Because we are married.”

  “What does that matter?”

  Jane raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Fine, then. Because I am ingenious, and it never hurts to have someone so ingenious on your side. Because you think Bellamy—or ought I to call him Turner?—has an eye for me. Which is due to you, and not me at all.”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  “Of course not,” she scoffed. “Though I am disappointed that all his stories about elephants were complete rubbish.”

  “I’ve no doubt that they were. If it helps, deception is a lifelong habit with him. You were certainly not the first nor the only one to be fooled by him.”

  “Sheringbrook a cheat. Turner a liar. Our whole betrothal and marriage has been a series of encounters with shady characters.”

  “We are a bit shady ourselves.” Edmund looked wry. “I’ve long known it of you. Now you know it of me, too.”

  “I once thought I was good at reading people. Now I’m not sure.”

  “Don’t begin to doubt yourself now.”

  “Begin?” A bark of laughter burst from her throat. “I began the night Sheringbrook took ten thousand pounds from me. Everything since then has been a continuation.”

  “Fine. Don’t continue, then.”

  “How simple for you to say.” She shook her head. “But we aren’t talking of me. We’re talking of how we can help you.”

  “I wonder if the two might be the same.” Edmund seated himself on the arm of her chair, legs braced upon the floor. “You did make a remarkably fine noblewoman at Sheringbrook’s house. Aside from your first curtsy in error, you’ve been a pitch-perfect baroness in public. And I’ve never seen a more wenchy serving wench than you played at the masquerade.”

  She looked up at him. “You thought I was wenchy, did you?”

  “Extremely.” For a moment, their eyes met. That dark night in the garden seemed to spin out slowly, a cobweb of memory tying them together. That quick flame of passion; she had finally, briefly, felt they had a true marriage.

  “I’m having an idea,” she said.

  “I am, too.”

  “A wenchy idea?”

  He laughed. “In a way.” He looked at her from the corner of his eye, and his laugh died. She realized that the muscular line of his thigh was almost at the level of her eye. Seated as he was on the arm of the chair, his muscles flexed and tightened. She laid a hand on his leg, feeling the heat of his body through the sleek fabric of his breeches.

  “In a way,” he repeated. His hand covered hers, trapping it atop the long angle of his leg. “Business first.”

  “Very sensible.”

  “I wonder if you would play a part again. For a bit of entrapment.”

  “A . . . wenchy part?” Her voice sounded thick.

  “I was thinking of the sort of wealthy doxy—”

  Jane smothered a snort.

  “That you pretended to be when you played cards with Sheringbrook.” His gaze stroked her up and down. “You were very good at it.”

  “Thank you,” she said primly. “Pure fabrication, since I was neither wealthy nor a doxy.”

  “I know.” He smiled. “You were a lady. You’ve always been a lady.”

  Her jaw went slack.

  “But what was your idea, Jane? I mustn’t volunteer you for something if you’ve no inclination for it.”

  She collected her wits. “As a matter of fact, I was thinking that, too. If Turner thinks I think he’s Bellamy, and if he doesn’t know I know he’s Turner, and if he doesn’t suspect that I suspect him as being—”

  “Please allow me to put a halt to your sentence before my ears break.” Edmund stood, releasing her hand, then began to pace. “You are in agreement that, as the wife of Turner’s enemy, you are uniquely poised to carry out a little scheme?”

  “You could put it like that. Yes.”

  “And you are willing? We shall do our best to make sure there’s no risk to your safety.”

  “Yes, I’m willing.” She hadn’t considered that she might not be safe, but it ought to be no worse than slipping off to a gaming hell on her own. She had probably been less safe at Sheringbrook’s than she would be confronting Turner.

  And what made the difference? Edmund. Edmund, not just there by chance, but by design. Edmund, asking her to trust in him, yet asking nothing she was unwilling to give.

  “We might need the help of a few others, too,” she said.

  He nodded. “There are still many details to work out. But Jane, thank you. Turner and I are locked in a stalemate, and there’s no breaking it without you.”

  “Without whoever happened to be your wife.”

  “No. Without you. Jane.” Slowly, he paced the span of the room. “Jane Tindall, who went to make her fortune by playing a wealthy doxy—and a spectacular game of vingt-et-un. Jane, who dared risk that fortune, and who should have been rewarded. Jane, who is honorable yet devious. Who is bloodthirsty yet pure of heart. Who can be a baroness or a serving wench, but is most of all curious and bright.”

  By the time he was finished speaking, her eyes stung and she had to tuck her legs up so she made a ball. He needed her. Her. Need was love’s cousin. A nearer relation than she had ever expected. “You don’t blame me for leaving you?”

  “No more than I blame myself.” With a sigh, he laid a hand on the crown of her head. “Jane, Jane. What are we going to do?”

  His voice was tired, as though he’d asked himself the same question so many times that he no longer hoped for a reply.

  Until she swallowed the catch in her throat and blinked back the tears in her eyes, she let his hand rest atop her coiled braids. Then she looked up at him; his hand slid to cradle her cheek.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do.” She pulled the chess queen from her pocket and held it up. “We’re going to work out this plan together. I’ll be the wealthiest, wenchi-est helpmate you could possibly imagine. And when we’re done, you need never worry about Turner again.”

  And if—when—that was done, what might the new year hold?

  She had thrown away something that could have been lovely. But that didn’t mean she couldn
’t retrieve it.

  With an ingenious and bloodthirsty plan in place, Edmund almost welcomed the announcement the following evening that “Mr. Bellamy” had called.

  “Show him in to my study,” he told Pye.

  The stage was set. A half-full tumbler of whisky sat atop Edmund’s desk, along with several coffee cups, a plate with sandwich ends, and Edmund’s cravat, quickly yanked off and crushed into a pile. Before Turner entered, Edmund arranged himself in his chair: haggard, slumped, bitter. The picture of sleeplessness, wifelessness, rootlessness.

  In the day since they’d last seen one another, Turner had recovered his oily good cheer. “Well, well, little lordling.” He booted the door shut and dropped into the chair opposite Edmund. “You look as though you’ve had a rough day of it.”

  Edmund rubbed a hand along his jawline; stubble scratched at his fingertips. “A day in the House of Lords, arguing about who ought to be allowed to attend public meetings, and why, and how. All this after spending half of last night cooling my heels in Xavier House.”

  “Ah. You were trying to win an audience with your fair lady.”

  A bitter laugh burst forth. “For a while. But as I waited, and she refused to see me, I realized I’d rather be damned than help you steal again. So home I came.”

  “You’ve chosen the—”

  “It’s not I who’d suffer the most if our family secrets were told,” Edmund cut him off. “My mother and Mary and Catherine would bear the brunt of the scandal. So keep that in mind when you’re thinking up threats.”

  He met Turner’s gaze. Studying the man closely for the first time since he’d entered the room, Edmund realized that he seemed smaller. Older. The ever-present smile hid crow’s-feet and wrinkles, burned into his skin by sunlight and years. The man’s hair was threaded with silver, his end-of-day stubble grizzled. Not even a dressmaker shop’s worth of lace at his throat and the cuffs of his bottle-green coat could hide the spots of age on his skin.

  After all, he was just a man. A man of deep and abiding selfishness, yes, and one who must be stopped. But no longer did Edmund have to do that alone.