Six Degrees of Scandal

by Caroline Linden

  “Why do you have this?” She shook the pages. “Where did you get it? It’s a draft of the next issue, isn’t it?”

  He swallowed. “Perhaps.”

  “But—Jamie!” She laughed incredulously. “You must know who Lady Constance is!”

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

  “Who?” Olivia demanded, agog with amazement. “Who is she? You do realize all of London is wild to know.”

  “All of London? Hardly.” He made a face, but avoided her fascinated gaze.

  “Well, much of London, and nearly every woman.” Every woman of Olivia’s acquaintance, at least, especially including Jamie’s own two sisters. It was Penelope who had introduced the notorious story to her and Abigail. Penelope had overheard her mother discussing it with some friends, in terms titillating enough for her to spend a fortnight searching surreptitiously for it. From then on both Weston sisters were devoted readers, along with their friend Joan Bennet. Olivia didn’t know, or want to know, how they had procured it. She did hear that Penelope had once been caught reading it and was punished severely by her mother, but also that Abigail blushed and said reading it hadn’t impeded her romance or marriage—rather the contrary, in fact.

  She looked at the pages again. From what she’d read, this looked to be another deliciously shocking issue where Constance indulged in a cooling swim in a secluded pond, only to be discovered—and surely pleasured—by a passing local gentleman. Olivia could only imagine how heated it would become, for those pages were missing. This draft had no number, but she knew they must be nearing an end. Of the fifty ways to sin the title promised, nearly forty had been published.

  And now it turned out Jamie, of all people, knew the identity of the mysterious Lady Constance. How astonished Penelope and Abigail would be! And Jamie—what a sly one, to keep such news secret all this time. He must know it was hotly debated around London. Some gentlemen had even offered bounties to anyone who could discover her true name. “Who is she?” she asked again. “And how do you know her?”

  Jamie took his time replying. “I know the fellow who publishes them,” he finally admitted.

  Her brows went up. That was nearly as interesting, and just as unknown. “Who?”

  “A mate of mine from university. He was wounded in the war and struggled for a good while when he returned home. These have provided him a tidy income.”

  “I don’t doubt it. I heard they sell five thousand copies of each issue.”

  “More like eight, actually,” he murmured.

  Incredible. She shook her head in admiration. “I don’t begrudge him the success. I applaud him for taking the risk, in fact—I’ve never read anything where a woman’s pleasure was so boldly celebrated and pursued.” With a faint groan, Jamie sank into a chair and hung his head. “Is something wrong?” she asked with a flicker of concern, taking a few steps toward him. “Are you unwell?”

  He shook his head.

  “If you fear I’ll reveal Constance’s true identity, I swear I won’t.”

  His shoulders hunched. “It’s not that. I trust you.”

  She was perplexed, but still desperately curious. “Then who is Constance?”

  Jamie scrubbed his hands over his head. When he tilted his head to look up at her, his dark hair stuck up in ruffled waves, as it used to do when he was a boy. But his expression was that of a man bracing for a blow, and his eyes were wary. “I am.”

  Part Three

  But true love is a durable fire,

  In the mind ever burning,

  Never sick, never dead, never cold,

  From itself never turning.

  —Attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh

  Chapter 22

  For a moment she didn’t react, and Jamie allowed himself to imagine that he hadn’t said it. It was his most closely guarded secret, and the one he’d sworn he would absolutely deny to the death if anyone ever suspected. That had been his bargain with Daniel: No one must ever know.

  But Olivia had him dead to rights. She was trusting and loyal enough that she wouldn’t push him if he denied it, even though she held the damning proof, written by his own hand. After all the promises he had wrung from Daniel and Bathsheba not to tell a single person, he was the one who gave himself away. So much for all that; he’d left his half-written issue lying out on the desk. How could he have been so stupid, to leave the draft where she might find it?

  The only solace was that it was Olivia. Of all the people in the world, he did trust her the most. He couldn’t fathom that she would unmask him in public, not even for the rather large bounties a few idiots had placed on learning Constance’s real identity. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be appalled or horrified to discover it was he who had written those erotic stories in a woman’s voice, and the longer she stared at him blankly, still clutching the pages, the more he feared she was.

  “You,” she said faintly. “You? Jamie . . .”

  Damn it. He lunged to take the papers from her, but she leapt backward. “Forget I said it, Livie. It’s over anyway.”

  “Over?” She put the pages behind her back as he made another halfhearted attempt to reclaim his draft. “It’s not over until there are fifty. Everyone is expecting fifty!”

  “No,” he said in a low voice. “It’s over.”

  Still looking dumbfounded, she came and sat in the opposite chair. For a moment she studied him, her head tilted slightly to one side as it always was when she was thinking. “You’ve truly written them all?”

  Resigned, he nodded.

  “How . . . ?” She shook her head in amazement. “This isn’t even your handwriting.”

  He sighed and held up his left hand. His right hand, the one Clary had slammed in the door the other day, was still swollen and sore. Writing with his right hand was easier, but strangely his left-handed writing was neater.

  Olivia knew he could write with either hand. She accepted it without argument. “Why?”

  “It was a lark,” he said, knowing how awful it sounded. “My friend and I got into an argument about whether women were capable of the same . . . desires as men. He insisted not, I thought yes.” He dared a glance at her, to see if that struck a chord with her. If so, he couldn’t tell. Her blue eyes were still wide and stunned, and a thin, puzzled line divided her brows. “There, ah, there might have been a wager of sorts on the answer. Wanting to win, and a little bit the worse for drink . . .” He cleared his throat, remembering the bottle of fine Douro port that had helped inspire the first issue. “Much the worse for drink, I wrote one to prove my point. I slid it under his door, thinking we would share a good laugh over it, he would acknowledge his loss, and that would be the end.”

  “Obviously it went further than that,” she said.

  He sighed. “I didn’t expect that his sister would find it first. She read it and . . . er . . . enjoyed it. She took it to her brother and demanded to know where he got it and if there were more. He recognized my handwriting, of course, and came to pound down my door. I explained it wasn’t meant seriously but by then he’d come to agree with his sister. They wanted to publish it; they both thought many ladies, and even gentlemen, would find it . . . stimulating.”

  Pink washed up her cheeks. “Surely you didn’t doubt that.”

  “I didn’t think much about it at all! It was a joke, Livie.” He ran one hand over his face. “But the truth was, Daniel—my friend—needed money. He lost his arm in the war and thus his rank in the navy. His father left him a newspaper press, although the circulation had fallen off after the war and it was barely allowing them to survive. He persuaded me to let him try publishing it.”

  That, Jamie knew, had been his downfall. Daniel was scraping by financially, yet offered to print it entirely at his own risk. To keep his friend from throwing away his last shilling, Jamie had bought the paper for the first edition, fully expecting it would prove a terrific waste and put the whole mad idea out of Daniel’s head. More fool him. “It sold well, and
soon he was back at my door wanting another story.”

  Another understatement. Daniel had laid out a strong argument that they would be good partners, but Bathsheba had begged. Not only did she see an opportunity, she wanted to read more about Constance. “I wanted to help him get back on his feet so I agreed to write a few more.” He raised one hand and let it fall. “I never suspected it would get out of hand.”

  “Out of hand!”

  “Popular,” he amended. “In demand. I never thought many people would read it, let alone clamor for more. But once I started, it became impossible to stop. It gave my friend a purpose, after months of struggle and melancholy. It put food on his table and warm clothing on his back. I couldn’t say no.”

  She just stared at him in amazement. He held out one hand. “May I have it back?”

  As if she knew what he meant to do, Olivia drew back, holding the pages protectively. “Why?”

  “So I can burn it,” he answered honestly. “It’s rubbish.”

  “No it’s not.” She looked down at the papers. “It’s wonderful.”

  His face felt hot. God, he was blushing like a girl, partly in humiliation at being discovered and partly, secretly, in a bit of white-hot arousal that Olivia liked it. She’d been reading his words all along. She called the stories free and bold and found them erotic and engaging. If he’d ever wanted any sort of encouragement or approval, that was it.

  “How did you think of them?” she asked, head still lowered. “How did you decide what would happen?”

  He imagined a widowed woman, free of any guilt or fear or anxiety. He thought of a woman who deserved pleasure, but who kept love at bay. Then he thought of all the ways a man might tempt such a woman into forbidden ecstasies and help her embrace the sensual creature who lived inside her. In his imagination, he was every mystery lover, given one night of wicked abandon with a woman who would never allow him more.

  He thought of her, the one woman he’d always loved but thought he would never hold again.

  “Bathsheba,” he said instead. “My friend’s sister. She suggested modeling the gentlemen on members of the ton. It amused me to skewer men who often took themselves too seriously, and when I ran short on ideas, Bathsheba was all too happy to venture out into society to gather some new piece of gossip or tawdry rumor to fuel another story. I embellished very liberally, not wanting to stray too close to any man in truth.”

  “Bathsheba,” she repeated slowly.

  “And her brother, Daniel Crawford.”

  Olivia started. “The name you used in Kent!”

  James gave a limp smile. “He gave me leave, I swear it.”

  “Then he knew where you were?”

  He heard the subtle note of alarm enter her voice. “He was the only one. Even Bathsheba didn’t know. I needed someone who could ask questions in London and carry out any other useful tasks for me.”

  She swallowed. “Does he know why you went?”

  “Yes,” Jamie said evenly. “It was his network of reporters and informants who helped me locate you and discover what Clary might be up to.”

  A faint shudder ran through her. “Then he knows everything?”

  “No, he knows only what I asked him to learn, which was mostly about Clary.”

  “And Henry.” Her head was still bowed.

  “Yes.”

  Olivia still clutched his handwritten pages in both hands. Jamie closed his eyes to avoid seeing them. He’d had a thought, a mad, momentary idea, that he could use 50 Ways to Sin to help put away Clary. Now that his secret was out, though, there was no choice but to end it. Later tonight he would burn everything and make it official. Daniel would be unhappy, and Bathsheba would probably rail at him for days, but Jamie meant to keep his word. He wasn’t precisely ashamed of what he’d done, but he was very well aware that he would be ridiculed and mocked forever if he were ever exposed as the author. He didn’t want to do that to his family, but especially not to Olivia—Olivia, whom he still wanted desperately to marry.

  On the other hand . . . This was his chance. If he put an end to Constance here and now, it would leave him in the clear to propose marriage to Olivia at long last, and this time see it through . . .

  “Why did you say it’s over?”

  Olivia’s quiet question startled him. He felt a flush creep up his neck. “That was my only condition,” he muttered. “If anyone ever discovered my part, I would never write another word.”

  “So it’s my fault.”

  “No.” He sighed. “Yes. But don’t blame yourself. I’m not sorry.”

  “I am!” She smoothed the pages. “I don’t want it to end. What were you planning for this story?”

  Saying it out loud might make it seem even more foolish. Use a fictional strumpet to catch a very real villain? Jamie flexed his fingers and studied his knuckles. “I had an idea that Constance could help sway public opinion against Clary.”

  Olivia started. “How?”

  He was blushing now, he knew it. The only person who ever commented on the stories, to his face, was Bathsheba, and her comments were far more often critical. “The gentlemen Constance has affairs with are based on real men, disguised but recognizable. There’s no reason I couldn’t make Clary one of those men, but make him cruel and indecent to her.” Olivia nodded expectantly, neither laughing nor gaping in shock. “I hear a lot of gossip. It won’t take much to turn people against Clary. He’s not widely admired or liked, and if he assaults Constance . . .” He shrugged.

  She sat in silence for a long time. Twice he saw her read the page in her hand again. One moment Jamie would wonder desperately what she was thinking, and then the next he would think he didn’t want to know. She read his stories—and enjoyed them—but that was when she thought a woman wrote them.

  Nothing had surprised him more than the evident fact that no one suspected a man wrote them. Jamie liked women too much to let his lead character seem weak or insipid, and of course he made her the most uninhibited, licentious woman in England, so she had to be strong-willed and capable as well. What would Olivia think of him now? It was an odd feeling to have the dark corners of his imagination exposed, and Jamie felt a real fear that she would be so appalled or shocked that she would never see him in the same light.

  “I think it will work,” she said in a very low voice. “It’s a good idea. You should keep writing.”

  His head jerked up. “What?”

  “Everyone reads this. If Clary is a villain in the piece, people will think of him so. We need everything we can marshal against him, don’t we?”

  “Yes, but—” He rolled out of his chair, onto his knees beside her. “Are you disgusted that I did it?”

  She smiled, a little nervously. “No. You wrote a woman unafraid to pursue what she wants, unashamed of her own desires. How could I be disgusted? I already told you I like the stories for—for a number of reasons.”

  He thought about telling her that most stories had come out of his fantasies about her, then discarded the thought. For now. “You’re a rare woman, Olivia Townsend.”

  “I also have something to confess,” she said. “Since we’re telling secrets. I was going to tell you anyway—I came here as soon as I returned home—but I didn’t go shopping with Penelope today.”

  Oh Lord. Jamie tensed. “What did you do?”

  She got up and went to the desk. “I went to see Mr. Brewster. He was our London solicitor, and he handled all Henry’s money. Every bill we ever had was sent to Mr. Brewster. He told me weeks ago that he had no idea what that diary from Mr. Armand meant, but I knew even then he lied to me. So today I told him that I knew, and that I wanted the diary he kept for Henry.” She turned around and held out a leather book.

  His eyes riveted on it. Great God. He had been absolutely certain Brewster would have destroyed that, after Olivia had put him on guard with her first visit. But she had it, the record that could prove everything about Henry’s smuggling ring and close the shackles on Clary’s
wrists. “How did you get that?” he asked stupidly.

  “Penelope and I went to Bethnal Green and demanded it.” A guilty blush stained her face but she didn’t lower her gaze. “The footmen were armed,” she added. “Liars deserve to be confronted and made to admit their lies. For two years Mr. Brewster lied to me and told me not to worry about anything regarding Henry’s estate, when he knew all along there was trouble lurking.”

  “Does it show—?” he began, but Olivia was already nodding.

  “Hundreds of pounds paid to Lord Clary for smuggled art.” She smiled, less nervous and more hopeful. “And thousands more paid to Henry by members of the ton. It turns out Mr. Brewster kept very good records.”

  Jamie came to his feet and swept her into his arms with one motion. She opened the book and showed him a few pages, pointing out entries indicating payment to Lord Clary, right next to payments received for paintings of Diana at the hunt and sculptures of Nike. Jamie let out a whoop and swung her in the air. Olivia threw her arms around his neck and laughed.

  “What a pair we make,” she said as he set her down, still laughing. “Sneaks, the both of us!”

  He grinned and kissed her. “A perfect match.”

  Her face glowed. “How are we going to catch this villain?”

  Jamie looked at the desk, where his notes and drafts were scattered. He knew what he wanted to do with the story, and if Olivia agreed with him, he felt lucky enough to take the gamble—and win. “I have to tell Daniel. And I think you should meet him, too.”

  Chapter 23

  It looked like any other house, narrow and a little run-down, in Totman Street on the outskirts of respectable London. Jamie rapped the knocker twice and stepped back down beside Olivia. “This is going to give Daniel quite a start,” he predicted.

  “Your plan?” Her blue eyes shone. “I think it’s brilliant. Although I wish there was more I could do.”

  “As if you haven’t endured enough. Allow me to turn this foolish lark of mine into something worthwhile.” He grinned, and was rewarded with a smile. It warmed his heart to see Olivia’s confidence returning. For that alone, everything had been worth it.