“I daresay, madam, my first order of business is to see your daughter safely home,” he drawled. To the devil with the lot of them. They obviously cared more for propriety than for the health of the poor girl lying limp in his arms. “She is quite apparently in no condition to enjoy the rest of the ball. Shall I send a footman for your carriage? Or perhaps you’d rather we did this up right, and I’ll see her home myself.”
Both Mrs. St. Claire and Mariah inhaled sharply at that statement. Feathers, ruffles, chins, all trembled. The air around them expanded with the heat of their indignation. Ludlowe’s companion let out another high-pitched twitter.
Rufus shifted his burden, drawing that delicious body more closely against him, and held up his hand. “I will, of course, call on Miss St. Claire tomorrow at the earliest possible convenience.”
CHAPTER THREE
“OH, JULIA, it was perfectly dreadful.” The bed ropes creaked as Sophia sank to the mattress to sit next to her sister. Julia had returned from the ball to find a red-nosed Sophia already in her night rail, blond curls straggling, dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.
Julia shifted sideways and pulled Sophia into a warm hug. “There, there.”
How many times over the last five years had she repeated those very words, in this very room, still decorated in the pastels more appropriate for schoolgirls than grown ladies? Certainly enough to convince her of their uselessness. But her heart ached for Sophia, and the simple words, like an oft-repeated litany, seemed to lend comfort.
Sophia sniffed against the pale silk of Julia’s ball gown. “I haven’t told you the worst. Mama claims I’ve been compromised.”
Julia’s hand froze, halfway to her sister’s hair. “What?”
“I fainted, you see.” Sophia’s cheeks reddened, and she kept her gaze pinned on her handkerchief. “That … that awful woman was more than I could stand, and … Surely you must have heard something.”
“Not a word.”
“Really?” Sophia raised her head and dabbed at her swollen nose. “Perhaps it will not be as bad as Mama thinks. If it’s kept quiet, there cannot be a scandal, and everything will be fine.”
Julia tamped down the urge to sigh. Her sister was ever constructing castles in the air, the largest a monument to William Ludlowe that rivaled Windsor in size. “I must admit I wasn’t in much of a position to hear any gossip.”
Sophia lowered her handkerchief and arched a pale blond brow. “Where were you then?”
“On the terrace.” The second brow joined the first, and Julia hastened to add, “With Benedict.”
Sophia threw herself back into the pile of goose-feather pillows. “Only Benedict. Still, the terrace.” She rolled to her side and propped her head on her elbow. “You must’ve been out there for quite a while.”
“He had a good deal on his mind,” Julia hedged.
“Like what?”
Blast her sister’s curiosity. At least Julia had distracted her from her tears, but the truth would only release a new flood. She must dissemble, if only to spare her sister more pain. “Oh, the usual. He went on awhile about some horse he’d seen at Tattersall’s.”
“How utterly boring.” Sophia’s look sharpened. “Are you sure that’s the truth?”
“Of course,” Julia replied. Too fast.
Sophia’s lips stretched into a grin. “If you ask me, there’s more to it than that. Come now. I tell you everything. Can’t you confide in me this once?”
“I confide in you all the time.”
“Not when it comes to matters of the heart.”
Julia released a breath. She had good reason to keep such things to herself. The subject inevitably led to Ludlowe, which, in turn, often led to upset. Most evenings, Julia preferred not to encourage her sister’s tendre. Tonight, that went double. “Lord Chuddleigh made an utter nuisance of himself.”
“Lord Chuddleigh indeed.” Sophia ran her finger along the lace edging of the coverlet. “You know, Julia, the more you dance around the topic, the more I think you’ve got something to hide.”
She did, but not anything she wished to confess to her sister. “Nothing where Benedict is concerned.”
Her smile widening, Sophia pushed herself upright until she sat eye to eye with Julia. “I do not believe you. Benedict is in love with you.”
“Oh, pish-posh.” There Sophia went, building another of her fancies.
“He is.”
Benedict? In love with her? Then Julia caught the glint in her sister’s eye. “Stop. Why do you insist on teasing?”
“What makes you think I’m teasing?”
Julia stood and began loosening her gown. “Because I know Benedict, and if he is in love with anybody, it is most likely his horse.”
“Haven’t you ever imagined what you’d say if he proposed?”
Julia’s gown pooled at her feet. “Of course I haven’t.”
The last thing she wanted was to set aside the suit of an old friend, but if what Sophia said were true, she’d have to do exactly that. If she married at all, she refused to do so based on the brittle frailty of sentiment.
She presented her back so Sophia could help unlace her stays. “At any rate, I shall never have to concern myself with a reply.”
Because he’d never ask. Growing up on neighboring estates, they’d played together. Lord only knew they’d landed each other in enough trouble over the years. As a child, she could dare him to do anything, even jump from the high hayloft in his father’s stables. He took her up on the challenges without question and to devil with the consequences. Later, after he’d left school and joined the cavalry, his occasional letters had recounted all manner of amusing anecdotes about the other members of his regiment. Hardly the stuff of passion, that.
“What a pity.” Tone light, Sophia finished loosening Julia’s stays and stepped back. “I happen to think he’s perfect for you.”
“MISS, you have a caller.”
Julia studied Billings’s stiff posture, compensating, no doubt, for yet another overenthusiastic bout of tasting the St. Claires’ dwindling wine stores. From across the morning room, it was impossible to tell whether the old butler had addressed her or Sophia.
Next to her, Sophia shrank down in her seat. “Already?”
Her curiosity aroused, Julia sat straighter. Sophia? Dreading a caller? Whoever it was must have something to do with her mysterious claim she’d been compromised. Sophia, drat her, had been all too successful in her attempt to divert Julia’s attention from the subject last night. “Who is it?”
Billings marched forward and presented a calling card on a tarnished salver. Red, spiderlike veins stood out on his overly prominent nose. Julia took the stiff vellum in hand. “Sophia, it’s Ludlowe.”
Sophia inched to the edge of the brocade chair, her hands fluttering about her face. “Oh my.” She pinched at her cheeks. “Do I look all right?”
“Stop. You’re already bright red. Do not make it worse.” Julia hopped to her feet. “Show him in, Billings. I’ve suddenly recalled I left my embroidery in the library. I simply must get at it.”
Billings paused mid-bow, wavering slightly as he straightened once more. “But miss, Mr. Ludlowe has requested to see you.”
There was no denying it this time. Billings fixed watery blue eyes directly on her. From this distance, even his wire-rimmed spectacles couldn’t hide the direction of his gaze.
Julia slanted a glance at her sister. In an instant, Sophia’s complexion went from glowing to ashen.
“I’ve no idea what he could possibly want with me,” Julia murmured for her sister’s benefit. If there was anything to what Benedict had told her last night, she knew exactly what he wanted.
Marriage. With her.
The reason why he’d chosen her out of all the eligible young ladies of the ton remained a mystery—Benedict hadn’t been exactly forthcoming on that score. Nor, for that matter, had he mentioned how he’d come by the information.
She sank back into her seat. “Very well. Show him in. And you stay right where you are,” she added to Sophia. With any luck, she could contrive things to her sister’s advantage yet.
A moment later, the butler ushered Ludlowe into the morning room. Julia straightened her back in an approximation of Billings’s usual stance—officious and distant. She set her face in rigid, unwelcoming lines that she refused to soften, not even when Ludlowe favored her with a smile so dazzling, it drew a breathy sigh from Sophia.
“Miss Julia, how radiant you look this morning.”
Ludlowe’s blue eyes fixed solidly on her. She thought of the time she’d decided to eat a lemon and pursed her lips accordingly, a simple inclination of her head her only response.
His smile did not fade. If anything, it broadened into a grin, or perhaps a leer. Challenge accepted. Hang it all, that was the last thing she wanted.
“And Miss St. Claire.” He nodded to Sophia. “I must say you look equally lovely.”
Sophia positively glowed beneath the compliment. More than that, she blossomed. “How kind of you, my lord.”
With a chuckle, he lowered himself into a mahogany chair, one hand braced on the silver knob of his ebony walking stick. “Now, now, none of that yet.”
A rosy blush staining her cheeks, Sophia leaned toward him. “Shall I ring for tea?”
“Do not bother, my dear.” Her lips parted on a gasp at the endearment. “I shall be but a moment.”
“Then why have you come?” The coldness of Julia’s tone bordered on rudeness, but she didn’t care. How could he? How could he miss Sophia’s obvious affection for him? She took no pains to hide it. She might as well lay her beating heart in his lap, and yet …
And yet, according to Benedict, he’d set his sights on Julia.
Ludlowe caught her eye. Objectively, Julia could point to his even, golden features, his clear blue eyes, his easy charm and state he was handsome. But his looks left her completely indifferent.
He smiled, and her heart continued its steady, even pulse. “I’ve come with a proposition for you.”
Julia caught her breath. He couldn’t possibly. Not so soon. Not in front of Sophia. The Bath buns she’d consumed at breakfast shifted uneasily in her stomach.
“Yes?” she grated. Experience had made her adept at putting off suitors who displayed overly large quantities of sentiment.
“I was wondering if you’d do me the honor …”
“The honor?” A welcoming smile brightening her features, Mama sailed into the room.
Julia twisted her ice-cold hands into the pale green muslin of her morning gown. The last thing she needed was her mother’s interference.
Ludlowe cleared his throat and rose to his feet. “Good day, Mrs. St. Claire. I was just asking your daughter if she’d care to come riding with me in the park. With your permission and a proper chaperone, of course.”
Sophia let out a tiny whimper. Blast the man, couldn’t he show a little tact?
“My goodness, I couldn’t possibly,” Julia blurted before her mother could intervene.
His eyes widened, and his nostrils flared. Julia bit back a smile. He hadn’t counted on her turning him down. She was possibly the first woman in England ever to do so. “Tomorrow then,” he said smoothly, “if you have an engagement?”
Mama pinned Julia with a pointed gaze. “She has no engagement that I’m aware of.”
“But Mama.” She cast a telling glance in Sophia’s direction before turning to Ludlowe. “I’m dreadfully sorry, but horses make me sneeze.”
He raised a tawny eyebrow. “They make you sneeze?”
She wanted to kick herself. Surely she could have come up with something more convincing. “Indeed. I’m sure Sophia would be delighted to accompany you on such an outing, but I fear I cannot.”
“Perhaps a simple walk then?”
Julia pushed herself to her feet. Naturally, he wouldn’t give up so easily.
“I trust I do not make you sneeze,” he added.
She made a show of coughing. “I fear I may have caught a cold.”
Mama glared at her. “What utter nonsense. You were perfectly healthy until this moment.”
Ludlowe’s smile indicated he knew just what she was up to. “I shall be honored to escort you on any other occasion of your choosing.”
She looked him in the eye and firmed her chin. “I regret that I must decline.”
Before he could utter a word of protest, her mother’s hand clamped itself about her upper arm. “If you’ll excuse us for but a moment, I require a word with my daughter.”
Ludlowe bowed his head. “By all means.”
Julia made no reply as Mama frog-marched her toward the door.
SOPHIA exhaled at the sight of her sister’s retreating back. The sourness of acrimony burned through her veins. Of all women, why did Ludlowe have to choose Julia? And Mama’s encouragement was another betrayal. Now he’d decided to seek a wife, it was unfair of him to overlook her. Dash it all, she’d been waiting for him ever since her first season. Her own experience had proven him an inveterate flirt. How could he overlook her open response?
He cleared his throat and shifted his weight forward. No. She would not let him take his leave. Julia had made her lack of interest clear. Now he could deuced well consider the girl sitting directly under his flawless, straight nose.
She pasted a smile on her face. “Shall I ring for tea?”
“No, thank you.”
Drat, she’d already offered tea, hadn’t she? And he’d turned it down the first time.
But then, after five long years, God smiled on Sophia and produced a miracle. Rather than rising to take his leave, Ludlowe rested his back against the carved flourishes of his chair and cast her an assessing look. “It occurs to me, now that I’m here, there’s a matter we ought to discuss.”
She straightened and folded her hands in her lap, the epitome of a demure, marriageable miss. Mama would be proud, if only she weren’t currently occupied with Julia in the doorway. Suddenly coated in perspiration, her palms slid against each other. “Yes?”
“You’ll pardon me if this is none of my affair, but I cannot stand by and allow such a lovely young lady to throw herself away on the likes of Highgate.”
At lovely, her cheeks heated, but then the remainder of his comment sank in. “But—I’ve done no such thing.”
How dare he question her actions when the entire situation was his fault? He’d left them alone so he could run off and answer the siren call of that strumpet.
“That isn’t how things looked last night.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up his hand. “You were in a swoon for a good deal of the conversation, so you cannot know what was said. Your mother has all but sealed your marriage contract.”
She clutched at the simple pendant that hung from a gold chain about her neck, while her breakfast threatened to put in a reappearance. With difficulty, she swallowed the obstruction in her throat and fought to maintain her composure.
“Fortunately, such are things of the past.” To her own ears, her voice sounded thin, but at least she’d managed to quell its shaking.
“You may have no choice in the matter, should Highgate make an offer.”
Her backbone went rigid. “His would not be the first proposal I’ve refused.”
“You’d have done well not to put yourself into that position in the first place.”
The hand on her pendant trembled, and she tightened her fist. “I’ve put myself in no position, as you are quite aware. You were there. You know nothing untoward happened.”
“Indeed I do.” His voice rolled over her, smooth as honey, just as sweet and slightly sticky. “But it is very difficult to stem the tide of gossip and scandal once it begins.”
“Yet it can be stopped with the truth.”
He regarded her for a long moment, his expression inscrutable. “I shall endeavor to do what I can. You may count on that.”
; She dropped her hands into her lap and folded them. “Thank you.”
“Be that as it may, I’d tread carefully, if I were you.”
She twisted her fingers together. “Pray, what is that supposed to mean?”
“I suppose you’re too young to have heard the rumors.” His gaze raked over her, but his eyes remained steady and cold. “Yes, you’d still have been in the schoolroom.”
She forced herself to meet his gaze, even though it chilled her. Why couldn’t those vivid blue eyes soften a bit and twinkle with warmth? “What rumors?”
“You certainly can’t have missed the scar on the man’s face.”
“What of it?”
“He claims to have come by it in the accident that killed his first wife.”
“So all of society says.” She waved a hand. “But you do not believe that?”
He leaned forward, and his walking stick hit the floor with a crack as he repositioned it. “I’ve heard more than one rumor where Highgate is concerned.”
She blinked. “The ton is full of rumors and gossip.”
“Indeed. Only some hold more than a grain of truth.” He pressed to his feet. “His wife is dead under horrific circumstances, and he’s holed himself away at his country estate, long past the accepted mourning period. Whatever his involvement in the affair, I daresay it cannot be anything good.”
CLUTCHING Julia’s upper arm in a death grip, Mama halted at the very limit of propriety—just inside the door to the morning room—and grated, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Julia cast a glance in Ludlowe’s direction. “Discouraging some unwanted attention.”
Mama raised her chin, and the sunlight filtering in through the windows glinted off her carefully curled silver-blond hair. “You’re hardly in a position to discourage attention at your age. Between you and your sister, I do not know which of you is worse, refusing perfectly good matches. And now there’s to be a scandal. Do you realize Sophia was caught alone with a man last night?”
A Most Scandalous Proposal Page 4