The Reddington Scandal

by Renee Rose

  “Thank you, my lord,” she’d said, dropping a curtsy and stepping backward.

  “I think you’ve turned out even more beautiful than Maud.” His voice had been a dangerous velvet as he advanced slowly toward where she stood.

  “Oh, I should think not!”

  He reached her and his hands shot out and grasped her arms. He made a clucking sound with his tongue. “Don’t contradict. You are lovely. I should like to see all of you.”

  “Well, you cannot!” she’d snapped in a panic.

  “Can’t I?” he said, sounding unruffled. “I will not take your virtue, I just want a peek.” One of his large hands had plunged into her dress and pulled out her breast.

  “No! No, my lord. Please!” she’d cried, but quickly realized she’d had no options. It was Reddington’s home and he was her guardian. If she angered him, he could turn her out, and with her parents both dead, she had nowhere else to go.

  So she’d let him. He hadn’t taken her virtue, but he’d pawed her breasts and had put his fingers into her drawers, and though she’d wriggled about too much to allow him to access to her sex, he had jabbed and poked at it whilst they’d struggled. It had been terrible. And she’d known he would try again unless she removed herself from his home.

  Teddy’s touch was gentle—expert, she was sure—but it reminded her too much of Reddington, just the same. She just could not trust—could not allow her body to be used in that way by a man. It was too revolting to her. No, it was best to return to the arrangement they’d had before. Besides, despite his promise of fidelity, it was clear no one expected it of him. So even if she had been able to give herself to him, he only would have broken her heart. He could not be trusted.

  But she would not tell him tonight. For just one night she would sleep in his bed and know what it was like to be a wife.

  She slept lightly, not used to the feel of another body beside her, but enjoying the feel of his heavy hand on her waist, the sound of his breath deepening in slumber. When he woke, she scampered out of bed, only to find his two hands around her waist, hauling her back. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To the privy?”

  He released her. “All right, then. But I don’t want you to burrow back in your hole like a scared rabbit.”

  “Scared rabbit?” she exclaimed with indignation, tapping his shoulder with the back of her hand. He slapped her bottom as she slipped away and she could not help but giggle. His taunt did make it impossible for her to deliver the speech she’d silently rehearsed about returning to their previous agreement. She would have to tell him later, after he’d gone to Parliament and returned. It would give her the chance to put some distance between them.

  But when he returned, he was in a fine mood, greeting her with a kiss on the lips, his hand at the nape of her neck drawing her close. Her entire body turned to pudding and her resolve fell away.

  * * *

  “I’ve brought you something, little dove,” Teddy said, tapping his jacket pocket. “But you’ll have to wait until after dinner.”

  “Oh, he’s a terrible tease, isn’t he?” Wynn exclaimed, looking at them with interest. Phoebe’s face grew warm. She had planned to speak with Teddy before anyone else in the household thought they were living as man and wife.

  Her stomach fluttered all through dinner as she stole glances at her handsome husband, already sick with longing for what she knew she could not have. When the meal ended, Teddy beamed at her. “Are you ready for your gift?”

  Feeling stifled in her long-sleeved dress despite the autumn chill, she pulled at her fingers. “Yes. No—I mean, could we have a word in private?”

  Teddy lifted an eyebrow suggestively. “My bedroom or yours?”

  “Teddy!” Wynn admonished.

  “How about your study?”

  “As you wish,” he said jauntily, holding out his arm to escort her.

  She took it, and he beamed a smile down at her, sparking a fresh flush of heat, this time in her center core. He shut the door and led her to the settee, sitting upon it and pulling her into his lap.

  “Must I sit on your knee?”

  “Would you prefer to lie over it again?”

  The suggestion made her bottom tingle and incited a curious clenching between her legs. “Teddy, please! I have something serious to discuss with you and I cannot—I’d just rather not sit upon you.”

  He laughed easily, and helped her to stand, patting the velvet cushion beside him. She sank into it and pressed her knees together.

  “Presents first,” Teddy insisted, reaching in his pocket and pulling out a long rectangular box tied up with a yellow ribbon.

  “What is it?”

  “Open it,” he said, his boyish enthusiasm even more charming than his usual flirtatiousness.

  She pulled the end of the satin ribbon and opened the box, expecting to see a necklace or bracelet. Instead, it contained a beautiful tortoise-shell quill pen, much like his own.

  “I noticed you broke the quill of mine and when I took it to be mended I thought, as the writer in the family, you deserved your own.”

  “Oh, Teddy!” she exclaimed, overcome. “That was so thoughtful. Thank you!” Her chest felt as if it would explode. It was infinitely better than a piece of jewelry. It was exactly the thing she had most coveted in Teddy’s entire, well-appointed house. To think he knew her well enough to have picked the perfect gift… well, it was overwhelming.

  Teddy must truly see her, truly understand her for who she was. No one, in her entire life, had ever noticed anything about her. Her parents had been like Maud—primarily self-interested. She had made a few friends at finishing school, but the girls were only focused on finding husbands, or talking about fashion, and she’d always felt like a fish out of water, preferring to be reading or daydreaming or writing poetry.

  Not only did Teddy really see her, but he must appreciate her as well, else he would not support her so. “I love it,” she whispered, her lips trembling, her vision growing wavy. “I absolutely love it.”

  He ran a finger over her lips, then bent to brush his own across them. She should not let him, but she simply could not make herself move out of his reach, wanting to experience more of the floating feeling he created in her. But no. She shook herself and drew sharply back, blinking. It took all her resolve. Forcing herself to relive a moment of Reddington’s horrid hands pawing her body, she steeled herself.

  “Teddy, listen. I have changed my mind. Again. And I’m sorry.”

  He crossed one elegant leg over the other and rested his arm on the back of the settee behind her shoulders. “What is it, love?”

  “I mean for us to go back to our original arrangement—where you see other women and we sleep in separate beds.”

  The legs uncrossed and he sat up straighter. “What?” he asked sharply. “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter why, it’s what I wish.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not what I wish.”

  She frowned and took a breath, not having expected a quarrel. “Well, you promised you’d do your best to make me happy, didn’t you? This will make me happy.”

  His brows drew together. “How will this make you happy?”

  “It’s what I want, all right?” she snapped.

  “No.”

  As when he’d spanked her, she experienced the curious reconciling of the easy-mannered, affable gentleman with the lord and master who was still very much in charge. Suddenly she felt as powerless as she had living with Maud and Reddington. “Do you mean to take away my choice?” she asked, her voice cracking.

  * * *

  “No, of course I don’t!” he said irritably, standing up and pacing the room. “I would never take a woman against her will. I just want to understand why. Are you afraid I will not be faithful?”

  “It doesn’t matter why!” Phoebe stood as well, drawing her hands into fists at her navel.

  He felt a crushing sensation in his chest, alerting him to just
how much her surrender the night before had meant to him. What was she hiding behind her bravado now? He could see her distress, but he wasn’t sure how to ease it. He crossed the room to her and grasped her two shoulders. “Are you afraid it will hurt?” he asked gently.

  She swayed on her feet, her chest heaving unnaturally, as if her corset was constricting her breath too much. He held her firmly, lest she swoon.

  “I promise I will not hurt you. We’ll go very slowly, and I will not push if you’re not ready.”

  She shivered under his hands. “Please let me go,” she whispered, her eyes bright with tears.

  He released her. “Phoebe,” he entreated, but she had already whirled to make her escape, slipping through the door and closing it before he could speak again.

  The crushing in his chest grew even heavier, like an enormous stone lay upon it, and he cast his eyes about the room, as if the answer to this mystery might lie in one of his books or papers. The little box with her pen lay on the settee where she left it. He picked it up and twirled it in his fingers.

  Did she not love him? Or was she afraid of making love? Or was it the deeper issue of fidelity?

  Hell, who was he to promise her faithfulness, when the longest he’d ever been with the same woman was five-and-a-half months? And yet, he’d never felt this way about a woman before. He was utterly captivated by her. She was all he could think about—not a moment of his day passed when he wasn’t remembering something she’d said, the way she looked when she was at ease, or a line of her poetry. For once in his life, the attraction was not purely physical. In fact, though he’d spent many years swearing an opposition to virgins, he cared not at all about her acrobatics in bed—not that he wasn’t burning with dark desire for her.

  Though he could not be sure, he thought with Phoebe, it might be different. He might not be fated to re-create the same miserable marriage his father had. And yet… what if he was wrong? What if he broke the heart of the one woman he’d ever… loved? It was true—he did love her. He loved her all her incongruences—the sweetness and the fury, the passion and the temperance. He loved the intelligence, the depth of her personality. He loved having her in his home, having her at his side. He wanted to possess her fully—mind, body, and soul.

  Yet, what did it matter? She was not willing to share any of them, anyway. It seemed he could not win her trust. Perhaps because he was not trustworthy.

  Miserable, he took the pen with him to his room and asked his valet to pass it to Phoebe’s maid as soon as possible. The sensation of a stone on his chest did not leave. He spent the next few weeks in a fog, as his sister and Phoebe prepared for the reception ball, and he hid in the gambling hall.

  But the arrival of his mother forced him to put on a good face. He found her in the sitting room with Wynn and Phoebe when he arrived home and he spread his arms wide, a broad grin on his face. “Mother, my mama!”

  She stood up, laughing. “Listen to you—‘Mama’—you ridiculous boy!”

  He kissed both her cheeks after sweeping her into a grand embrace. “Yes, of course I’m still your ridiculous boy. Sit back down, you must be exhausted.” He settled her back into her chair and crouched beside her, holding her hand in his. “Did Crandall take good care of you on the drive?”

  “Yes, yes, you know he did. Pull up a chair, Teddy.”

  He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, then stood and planted a kiss on both Wynn and Phoebe’s cheeks as well. “I see you have met my charming wife?”

  His mother was peering at him intently. “I did,” she said. “And she is quite charming.”

  He hesitated, wondering whether the ladies had told her the truth yet. Better now than later, he supposed. “Have they told you how I tricked her into becoming my wife?” he asked lightly.

  “No, I haven’t heard the story yet. Do sit down and tell me.”

  He glanced at Wynn, who gave a tiny shrug. He drew a chair closer to his mother’s and settled in it, taking her hand into his lap. “Well, as it turns out, when she’s not being a lady of considerable accomplishments, she takes on the duties of knight in shining armor.”

  He saw Phoebe roll her eyes and grin and he gave her a wink.

  “And so it happens I was cuckolding her sister’s husband, when said husband arrived home, and the lovely Phoebe claimed me as her own lover. So you see, having ruined her reputation to save me from the pistol pointed in my face, she had no choice but to take the title of Lady Fenton and make the best of it.”

  “Oh, Teddy,” his mother said. He could hear the disappointment in her voice and it hurt as much as he’d known it would.

  “I know, Mama. I know.” He looked across the room and caught Phoebe’s eyes, the beautiful cornflower blue set off by the deep blue dress she wore. For a moment, a message ran between them, his regret, and perhaps on her part, forgiveness. She gave a faint smile and he lost all track of his thoughts, caught only in desire to hold her in his arms again, to claim her as his wife—his real wife. Except she didn’t want that.

  “Phoebe has requested a marriage in name only. In which we’re each afforded certain… freedoms.”

  The sadness on his mother’s face was more than he could bear. He stood up abruptly and paced the room. When no one spoke, he turned back to the ladies. “I’ll just go freshen up before dinner. I’ll see you at the table,” he said with a bow.

  * * *

  Maud and Reddington would be at the reception. She didn’t care a bit about the rest of the guests, but seeing her former family had her stomach in knots. Maud had not called on her once since the day she wed. Not once. She had sent a few notes with the suggestion that Phoebe come to call on her, but Phoebe could not bear to return to that house. She had replied politely, ignoring Maud’s suggestions and making it plain she was welcome to call upon her. Of course, she never had.

  Now, as she peered into the looking glass while her maid pinned her hair into the seed-pearl tiara the dowager countess had brought, it was all she could think about. She wore a dress of lavender silk. The neckline was open all the way to the shoulders, with huge poufy sleeves that narrowed just below her elbow where they met her gloves. Teddy had bought her new white gloves, and she wore white calfskin boots beneath the full gown. Ribbons in the same lavender adorned the dress in bows at the sleeves and at her low back. The center of the gown dipped into a low ‘V,’ showing off her corseted waist.

  Living in the easy comfort of Lord Fenton’s house made the life she’d left stand out in sharp contrast. Here, her every wish was granted—she was the lady of the house, after all, not that she’d truly stepped into the role. Still, she did not have to defend her desire to have a bath brought up, or ask permission to drink chocolate. She and Wynn had the use of their very own carriage to make calls or go shopping, and Fenton had opened accounts for her at the stores on Bond Street. But it was not the wealth that stood out. Reddington had money too; it was just that he was loath to share it. Or perhaps it was that he relished the control he wielded over her life by not allowing her any.

  She didn’t want to see him again. How would he act? What would he say to her? Would he be polite and pretend nothing had happened? Would he leer at her as he used to?

  Teddy waited for her on the landing, looking dapper as always in a finely tailored black suit with a white cravat. He’d looked troubled since she had told him she wished to return to their first arrangement, and since the arrival of his mother, he had looked positively haunted. The dowager countess’s disappointment in the marriage had been palpable, though it was not directed toward Phoebe, but rather, Teddy.

  His devotion to his mother was heartwarming—the way he knelt beside her chair and held her hand, his attention to her every need. It was the same affection that had moved her when she’d seen him comforting his sister at the Reddingtons’. Again, such a capacity for tender relationships seemed at odds with his philandering. Clearly there was much love in their family, but there was a sense of shared tragedy as
well. It had been as if Teddy and Wynn wished to protect their mother from his marriage, yet she had not seemed scandalized by it in the least. If anything, she seemed to have expected this sort of outcome for Teddy. She wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “For you,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a strand of seed pearls that matched the hairpiece she wore. She rather liked that he’d not presented them in a box as a grand gesture, because it made the quill pen he’d given her all the more special. “Will you allow me?” he asked, his manners perfect and formal. She turned around and offered her neck, feeling the brush of his sleeve as he deftly fastened the clasp. She froze when she felt his lips at the nape of her neck delivering a light kiss. It produced a shiver of pleasure and heat pooled between her legs as she straightened her back to hide her reaction. She exhaled, turning to take his arm.

  “You look lovely,” he said, his voice rich and low, reverberating in the very center of her being. “That dress brings out the violet in your eyes.”

  She lowered her lashes, feeling suddenly shy. His appreciation should not mean so much to her, but it did. For a moment, she pretended he was a suitor coming to call on her, and allowed herself to experience the giddy pleasure of his attention, breathing in his masculine scent, stealing glances at the handsome angles of his face. For just a moment she pretended they were courting, rather than a married couple who kept separate beds.

  They went downstairs and she took her place beside him, meeting their guests, doing her best to remember names with faces and to put all her finishing school manners to use. Maud and Reddington arrived, and she stiffened, but Teddy handled it with the same aplomb he managed everything, welcoming and effectively dismissing them all in one breath.

  “Ah, my new sister and brother-in-law,” he said, bowing. “Welcome. We’re so glad you could join us. The band is about to begin if you’d care to dance.”

  When the majority of the guests had arrived, Teddy led her out for a waltz, holding her close as he gracefully led her in the three-step dance. His body felt powerful against hers, the heat of his hand on her back nearly melting her. She was sorry when it was over, because it was the first time that evening she left his side and she felt momentarily lost.