by Christi Caldwell, Eva Devon, Elizabeth Essex, Anthea Lawson
Penelope blushed but made no reply.
Yet, as Lady Melbourne gave a sly smile and waved the note, one thing was very clear, the adventures of The Scandalous Daughters Society had only just begun.
The End
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Teresa and Scott for their hard work and contributions to this tale. Also, a huge thanks to the other ladies who decided to write about scandalous daughters!
More from Eva Devon
Did you love Sleepless in a Scandal?
Try Eva’s Must Love Rogues series where the prince is not always quite so charming!
Book 1
The Rogue and I
Chapter 1
1805
The Trent Estate
Miss Harriet Manning was not pleased at all. Which was quite odd because, in general, Harriet, or Harry to her friends, was the most amused and happy of people. But when one was faced with seeing the man, not gentleman mind you, that one had lost her virginity and stupid, stupid heart to five years ago, displeasure really did seem to be the only appropriate emotion.
At this very moment, bad sport that it made her, she hated her dearest cousin. The blasted girl had to go and marry her virginity stealer’s brother. In no time, the whole confounded wedding party was going to arrive to romp in so called bliss at the coming nuptials.
Oh, and she positively loathed her usually marvelous uncle. How could she not? The cantankerous man had arranged for a week of fete to celebrate the advantageous marriage! A week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight agonizing hours in his presence, or fairly near to it anyway. The daytime interactions would be impossible to avoid, but she had no intention of being within a mile’s distance of his person when they all headed off for bed.
In fact, she very well might lock herself in and convince her cousin to rope her to her massive and immovable mahogany bed. It wasn’t as if Emmaline didn’t already think she was terribly odd.
Yes. Tying her to the bed might be quite necessary, because she didn’t really trust herself not to march down the hall and sever that man’s favorite appendage.
Or even more dangerous, make use of it. She couldn’t quite forget how skilled he’d been, especially considering he’d been in the first flush of manhood. Oh, but the way he had stroked her—
“My, your skin is quite flushed.”
Harriet whipped around, her skirts whisking the perfect white and blue woven rug. Embarrassment burned her already horribly hot cheeks. Her past sins emphatically at the forefront of her thoughts, looking her cousin in the eye was out of the question. Quickly, she cleared her throat, looking about the newly furnished French-style salon, trying to focus on anything other than him. “Yes. Perhaps I should move away from the fire.”
Emmaline bobbed her blonde-curled head towards the ornately carved Carrera marble fireplace and narrowed her perfect, pretty, blue eyes. She tapped the bouquet of gardenias in her hand against her full, pink, India muslin skirts. “Dearest there isn’t any fire.”
A strained laugh rippled from Harry’s throat. “Of course. Of course there isn’t.”
Emmaline set her flowers down on the embroidered chair and eyed Harry dubiously. “Are you certain you’re quite all right? You look. . .” Her sand colored brows scrunched together in contemplation. “Well, I don’t know exactly, but you look like you’ve been caught doing something quite naughty.”
Harry pursed her lips. “When have I ever done anything naughty?”
Emmaline’s eyes widened and she glanced up towards the ceiling, clearly beginning to recall a very long list. “Well, there was the time--”
Harry held up her hand, already knowing that, in truth, Harriet and naughty were synonymous. “Please, if you begin, we shall be here all day and into the night.”
Harriet was not exactly reputed for her pristine behavior. She knew this. If everyone were being truthful, she was more likely to be in trouble than out of it. Emmaline adored this particular fact about her cousin, for she had never once put even the tiniest of her toes into the waters of mischief.
Emmaline giggled. “True, but at least that would pass the time.”
A look of pure delight lit Emmaline’s face. “Can you believe that Edward will actually arrive today?”
Harry threw herself into one of the striped, ivory silk chairs. It was remarkable the thing didn’t collapse on the spot since it looked so like a spun sugar confection. “No. Truly.” She let out a sigh. “It seems just yesterday that they all went off to war.”
“I know. I know.” Emmaline lowered herself daintily in the opposite chair. “I never thought he’d ask for my hand.” She glanced at the massive emerald weighing down her delicate fingers. “Not after such a long separation.”
Harry grumbled inside, really quite irritated that her own Hart brother had not come looking for her. She never expected he would. It had been her heart not her brain that had let her hope she might see his face at her doorstep after his return from war. Her brain had been vindicated in its cynicism and her poor heart had finally been put to rest.
Then again, why should she wish to resume the company of such a disagreeable boob she didn’t know? Shaking her head, Harry tsked. “How could Edward not? You know how he loved you before.”
“He liked me,” Emmaline said firmly, smoothing her already perfectly smooth skirts. “He didn’t love me.”
“Yes, well, liking is something.” Her Hart brother, he who she couldn’t quite yet bring herself to name, had dropped the ball at liking and certainly had never progressed to loving. Even if he had proclaimed the emotion zealously. One who loved could not do what he had done. Or what she had done for that matter. Neither of them had played the field of love with particular grace.
Now, loathing was the only sentiment that seemed to exist between them in the few short encounters they’d had during Emmaline and Edward’s recent and brief London courtship.
Emmaline chewed at her lower lip for a moment then said rapidly, “Promise me you shall be nice to Lord Garret.”
Harry narrowed her eyes. “That was certainly out of the blue.”
Emmaline threw up her hands, the folds of nearly transparent ruffles at her elbows fluttering. “I know how you two behave.”
Blinking innocently, Harry inquired sweetly, “Whatever are you talking about?”
Emmaline rolled her eyes. “The two of you are like two caged beasts snarling at each other. And while it can be very amusing watching you two, blood is not something I ever imagined at my wedding.”
With as much indignation as she could muster, Harry blustered, “I would never--”
Emmaline arched a brow, as if to say now don’t you dare lie to me even if you are my elder.
“Well, perhaps just a trickle.” Harry jumped to her feet and crossed to her cousin. She pouted, a hugely exaggerated version of Emmaline’s own winning ability to bring men to their knees. The truth was she wanted to rip a hunk of flesh from the man’s nefarious hide. Still, she doubted that would quite do. At least not at Emmaline’s wedding. “You wouldn’t deny me that, now would you?”
As she always did when weighing out possibilities, Emmaline nibbled on her lower lip which gave a good display of seriously thinking the matter over. “A trickle couldn’t hurt. And he is such an ass.”
A shocked laugh rippled from Harry’s throat. “Why Emmaline Trent! If only Uncle heard you and he thinks you such an angel.”
A blush stole up Emmaline’s cheeks. “Even angels have their moments do they not?”
Harry nodded. “Of course, or how else could we poor mortals bear to be about them?”
Emmaline lifted her eyes to the ceiling in an overly tortured glance.
The sound of clattering gravel and carriage wheels cut through the air. Emmaline beamed as she vaulted to her feet so fast she nearly knocked Harriet onto her bum. “They’re here! At last!”
/>
“Emmaline!” the voice of their cousin Meredith boomed down the hall and the girl who was all bosom and big, blonde curls bounded into the room. “Haste! Haste! The men are here.”
Harry pulled herself to her feet, a terrible sinking feeling flowing through her. This was it then. The beginning of a week of pure hell.
Meredith fluffed her already quite fluffed, blonde curls and immediately turned to the nearest mirror. Quickly, she reached her hands into her gown and adjusted her bosoms till they were two large swells hovering at the precipice of blue ribbons lining her bodice.
“They’ll fall out,” Harry teased, wondering where, exactly, Meredith had found such a lust for living, parson’s daughter that she was.
“And what a show that would be,” Meredith laughed. She glanced down and eyed her plumped up bosoms. “They shall not though. I am laced particularly tight.”
Harry didn’t doubt that, the girl’s waist was as tiny as the knot in a bow. No wonder men could never quite tear their eyes away from her figure.
“Stop primping,” Emmaline said brightly to Meredith, the two so similar looking what with their blonde hair and blue eyes, they might have been twins. Really all of them could have been sisters. Even Harriet had been painted with the honey blonde brush, though not with quite as much beauty. “I cannot wait to see my Edward.”
With that, the two other girls ran out into the hall, their feet pattering away.
Harry stood for a moment, completely alone in the salon, and wondered exactly how one girded her loins. For hers certainly needed girding.
Really her loins needed a full regiment to support them given what she was about to face.
Harry glanced to the large, gold gilded mirror. Her blonde hair was in a bit of a mess what with all the goings-on. It curled wildly about her face. And her cheeks were definitely still pink, thoughts of horrid, horrid lust cursing her complexion.
She hesitated for a very brief moment, then threw all second thought to the wind. She bent and pulled her bosoms up to their fullest which was nowhere near as full as Meredith’s voluptuous fullness. Flipping back up, she glanced at her suddenly much bigger breasts.
They would do.
Everyone had their weapons, and she’d take a page from Meredith’s book. In this battle, she needed every weapon in her rather minute arsenal. The one thing she would not allow Lord Garret Hart to believe was she had withered away, pining for him.
Head high, and bosoms now perfectly in place, Harry charged down the hall, ready for war. When she was finished with him, Garret Hart was going to be nothing but a mess beneath her very pretty, pink shoes.
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A FINE MADNESS
by Elizabeth Essex
Chapter 1
Twelve Mile Burn Village
Midlothian, Scotland
June, 1792
Spinsterhood.
Such an ugly, unforgiving word. Full of pity and dismissal, and nothing like the life Elspeth Otis had always dreamed for herself. Nothing.
She looked at the birthday present in her hands as if it were a spider, when, in reality, it was only a silly lace cap, delicate, frilly and handmade. But Elspeth felt its uneasy touch settle upon her skin like a stray cobweb stretched across the garden, unseen and unavoidable. And somehow inevitable.
Time had flown with such cruel speed that she had somehow passed straight through the years of great danger, to arrive at a time even more desolate and desperate. Because the present of the cap meant that she had, on what otherwise ought to have been a most pleasant day—her four and twentieth birthday—irrevocably joined her spinster aunts on the shelf.
Only women of a certain age wore caps. And unmarried women who put on caps were all but saying they had given up all hope of ever finding their true love. Given up believing such a man even existed.
Elspeth did not want to give up hope, but the plain truth was that she hadn’t much chance for finding true love, living with her aged aunts—the sisters Murray, as they were known—in a tiny, thatched cottage, at the bitter end of a lane, in a forgotten village at the edge of the world. The idea of finding true love seemed as far-fetched as finding a pot of gold hidden in the garden.
“Put it on,” urged Aunt Isla.
Elspeth held the fine lace creation up to the light and attempted to make appropriately admiring sounds. “So very pretty,” she managed. Really, it was pretty—fine and delicate and exquisite as spun sugar. And yet she could not bring herself to put it on her head.
She racked her brain for a suitable excuse. Anything would do—anything that wouldn’t hurt any finer feelings or seem ungrateful. Anything.
A sound came from without—the jangle of harness and the creak of cartwheels on the rutted track running up to the cottage.
“Someone’s in the lane.” Which was both a mercy and a true diversion—normally no carriages stopped at Dove Cottage. But Elspeth meant to make the most of the distraction, even if it were just a drover who had lost his way.
Anything to put off the inevitable.
She pushed the lace cap deep into the pocket of her practical quilted skirts and bolted for the door. “I’ll just have a wee look, shall I?”
“Elspeth!” Aunt Isla remonstrated. “Have a care!”
This was Elspeth’s task in life—to have a care. To never call attention to herself, nor give up her guard against her tainted blood. To keep vigilant against all manner of mischief or mischance lurking within and without. To keep safe, and quiet, and not—under any circumstances—to be herself.
“Don’t rush,” Aunt Isla continued to instruct. “Why must you always rush?”
Elspeth rushed because a clarty, mud-splattered dray was drawing up beside their gate, and the driver was looking meaningfully at their cottage.
She was down the path in a trice, despite the dreich, dripping June weather. The Aunts came hard behind, hovering in the doorway to listen to every word, so Elspeth was rather more careful of her diction—no scaffy, vulgar Scots cant for the genteel sisters Murray—than her skirts. “May I help you?”
“Deliv’ry fer Miss Otis,” bawled the driver over the chitter of the rain, shooting his thumb over his shoulder at the large tarpaulin-covered mound in the muddy well of his dray.
“There must be a mistake. We’re expecting no deliveries.” Aunt Molly came out of the doorway only far enough to wave her arm to shoo the nuisance of a mon away from the gate, as if he were a nothing more than a large, mud-splattered midge.
But the dray mon was stout of heart as well as of girth, and assessed the situation with one squinted eye. His gaze pegged square on Elspeth. “Ye be Miss Otis?”
“Aye. I am.” Elspeth stepped forward through the rain not caring if she did get soaking drookit—she was as stout-hearted as any other Scots lass, and she was far more curious than she was afraid of catching cold. “What is it you’re delivering?” She went on tiptoe to peer over the side. “From whom is it sent?”
The driver heaved his bulk down onto the lane. “Frae Edinburgh,” was his terse answer. “Sn’ Andrew’s Square.”
His words doused her aunts more effectively than any downpour—they shrank back into the doorway, as if the dray might contain some great calamity instead of what was undoubtedly some commonplace item—for nothing outside of commonplace ever occurred in their village.
“Nay!” Aunt Isla gasped.
The driver barely raised a bushy brow. “A trunk, it be,” he said as he began untying ropes and peeling back the tarpaulin to reveal the most battered, unprepossessing, commonplace old trunk Elspeth had ever seen. “Where d’ye want it?”
“I’m not sure.” Besides the fact that Elspeth could not imagine how or why she should be sent a trunk from Edinburgh, her aunts’ reactions told her they would be loath to allow the thing into the cottage. “D’you kn
ow what it contains?”
“Iniquity!” Aunt Isla’s thin voice was sharp with frantic accusation. “She needs nothing from that huzzy. Nothing, I tell you! Take it back, take it back.”
Elspeth had rarely heard such language from her aunt. “What huzzy?”
The Aunts exchanged one of their long moments of silent communication before it was somehow tacitly decided that Aunt Molly would answer. “That Wastrel’s sister,” she said at last, pursing her thin lips in distaste. “She has a house, so we are told, on St. Andrew Square in Edinburgh.”
That Wastrel being her late, unlamented father. Of whom Elspeth was never to speak.
“Den of vipers,” Isla added in a fervent whisper. “All of a piece.”
A piece of what, Elspeth did not ask. She was too busy overcoming the curious shock of learning she had any other kin in the world besides the two elderly relations in front of her, let alone a woman who lived so close as Edinburgh. The metropolis was a little over twelve miles to the north and east, but for Elspeth, who had never been allowed to venture farther than the next wee village, it might as well have been the farthest reaches of the heathen Americas.
“Why did you never tell me?” She would have reckoned at the advanced age of four and twenty she might finally be judged safe from becoming a huzzy merely by association.
“Because a more scandalous, scarlet woman of Babylon never lived,” was Isla’s fervent opinion.
“We thought it best,” was Molly’s more decorous judgment.
“But she, this scarlet woman”—and if a lass was to have an unknown relation, how intriguing, and somehow inevitable, that she should be a scarlet woman—“has known of me? Well, clearly she has”— Elspeth answered her own question—“for she has sent me a present. On my birthday. But how strange that she should never have written me before.”