Desperately Seeking Scandal

by Theresa Romain

  Boys’ tricks helped them survive for a time, as they eked out a living in the village their father had lately served as clerk. Both bright, the brothers would perform feats of recitation, memory, and mathematics for anyone who would give a coin. Through the new clerk, they sometimes reviewed books and documents from the occasional London publisher. With Samuel’s aid, Colin eventually struck up a correspondence with one—a Botolphus Bright, who published a daily broadsheet—and asked for employment.

  I don’t hire writers. I buy pieces, had replied the editor. What do you have to offer?

  The brothers scrawled a criticism of humorous writing in a tone so dry as to parch his fingers. “I never read anything so ridiculous,” said Bright when offering publication, and that was how the brothers were able to have meat again. They abandoned their village life for London and never looked back.

  That had been ten years before. From the daily broadsheet, Bright had moved up in the world, and he now published the monthly Gentleman’s Periodical of which Lady Ada seemed so fond. It was an upstart publication, aping the established and respected Gentleman’s Magazine in every way except for being established and respected. But it was profitable enough. Bright had never yet hired the Goddard brothers, but Colin was determined that would change. If he played his cards right, the decade of piecework and scrambling for every coin would end in the security of an editorship.

  But there was no way Colin would tell all of that to Lady Ada. “What if I make things up to impress you?”

  “What if you do? I shall probably spot it. I’m not at all bad at telling when someone’s lying.”

  “Really? Let’s test that. At some point before I leave, but only once, I shall tell you a lie.”

  She held up the quill, gave a satisfied nod, and set it and the penknife aside. “That was it right there. You intend to tell me far more than one.”

  “Curses. In that case, there’s at least one more for you to catch.”

  “Lucky me.” She toyed with her spectacles, flipping the stems out, then folding them again. “Very well. So. You work for The Gentleman’s Periodical, a blight on the occupation of writer, a waste of rag for paper, and a shameful end for every bit of ink spilled.”

  “Um.”

  “Instead of on dits, you deal in on-demandes, a spate of posed questions that have nothing to do with reality, but avoid libel because they make no assertions.”

  She was right. It had been one of Colin’s most brilliant ideas about five years before. If one merely asked a question, the answer could be anything. Did the Prince Regent marry a French woman in secret? Does the owner of Tattersalls sell the meat of ill horses to the city’s most expensive butcher shops?

  The questions page was instantly popular. Bright had granted reluctantly it had saved the periodical more than once from financial failure.

  Lady Ada was not an enthusiast, it seemed. Colin could guess why. After the accidental death of her elder brother four years before, the questions page had made a meal of the circumstances of his death. Issue after issue, the public couldn’t get enough of scurrilous suppositions about the death of a duke’s son and heir.

  That was one of the times Colin’s questions had saved the Periodical. Lady Ada’s gray eyes were frosty, as if she were reading this thought right out of his brain. He held himself still, refusing to fidget.

  She leaned forward, holding his gaze. “Were you responsible only for yourself, Mr. Goddard, I should make you eat the most recent issue of The Gentleman’s Periodical, then have you booted out of the house before you finished chewing. But you are not, are you?”

  Colin turned his head, eyeing her aslant. “Where do you get your information?”

  She shrugged, unbending a fraction. “London is only a few hours by mail coach, as you say. Even less time when one sends an express. And when you stay in the White Hare in the village, learning more about you is a matter of giving a half crown to the innkeeper or sending him a haunch of beef.”

  Inwardly, Colin cursed the resourcefulness of the wealthy in general, and Lady Ada Ellis in particular.

  She added, “You are the sole source of care for your younger brother, who is not and never has been well.”

  That was putting it a bit strongly, but it was the way most people thought of Samuel. “Remember how I said you were frightening? That understated the matter.”

  “For the sake of your brother”—she softened—“I will not toss you out on your ear. Family must be cared for.”

  He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Thank you? I think?”

  “Oh, you definitely want to thank me. You are here to catch yourself an editorship, is that right?”

  “I’m here to write,” he said smoothly. Another lie—well, more of a dodge.

  “Tell me, Mr. Goddard, what do you plan to write about? And why must it involve me?”

  “It needn’t, though it’d be better with your help. I have promised my editor half a dozen pieces in a series on how a plain, ordinary sort of person might catch a wealthy spouse.”

  The series was inspired by the recent marriage of a horse master’s daughter to the Duke of Lavelle. Had it happened in London, it would have been the talk of the ton. Instead, their quiet Berkshire nuptials merited only a sniffing mention in the society papers—and a few questions in The Gentleman’s Periodical.

  That was good. Less competition for Colin. He’d intended to stalk the duke and duchess for scandalous tidbits, but when he arrived in Rushworth Green to find Their Graces abroad for a honeymoon journey, it occurred to him that the duke’s sister could work as well for his purposes.

  “Oh dear.” Lady Ada’s lips pressed together, holding back a smile that fought to escape. “And how am I to help with that? Not to be caught, surely.”

  “I would never presume to that degree. Instead, I thought you could tell me about your brother’s courtship of the former Harriet… Tallboys?”

  “You know quite well it was Talbot,” she said serenely. “And you told me yesterday that you weren’t interested in writing about them.”

  “You weren’t keeping track of my lies then,” he said. “That was a good one. I told it well, didn’t I?”

  She fixed him with a silvery glare. “I’m not a humorless woman, but I don’t think your immorality is as funny as you do. Sorry I can’t be more obliging.”

  The lift of her brows niggled at him, and before he could think better of it, he leaned forward. Too far forward, almost in her face. “Lady. Ada. Ellis. Sister to a duke. You can afford anything you like, and so you need never reckon the cost of morals.”

  She snorted in his face as if she were her long-nosed gelding. “Do I not?”

  “Honor. Ethics. Whatever name you want to put to the notion of taking one’s pay where one can, never knowing where the next coin will come from—but knowing that it will never come at all without the work of one’s mind and one’s hands, and sometimes of one’s body.”

  She swept him with a curious gaze, but said nothing. The word body echoed in the air, making him feel naked. And not the good sort of naked that one became with a lover. This was simply bareness.

  He drew back again. “Pretend I never said any of that, if you wish.”

  “No, I don’t think I will.” She continued watching him, her expression unreadable. “You finally said something that was meaningful to you. Not many people are so frank with me.”

  His shoulders were tense within his inexpensive blue coat. “Ah, well. Honesty is the one thing I can afford, I suppose.”

  “There. That was a lie too. Your face went all twitchy.”

  “I…meant that, sincerely. I was merely twitchy at the realization that there’s not much I can afford, especially when up against a foe such as yourself.”

  “Flattery again? You need some new tricks, sir.” She held up a hand. “Please don’t think that I misunderstand you. I know that I am privileged because of the circumstances of my birth. I must do my best to earn the moral right t
o my good fortune.”

  “Morality again,” Colin sighed.

  “Yes. Morality again.” A smile touched her lips. “So. I want to be left alone, and you want to mock my family for coin.”

  “Not exactly,” he hedged.

  “But close enough?”

  “Close enough,” he allowed.

  Frequent missives for two to four weeks, he had promised Botolphus Bright. They could appear in serial form in the magazine for months, at the end of which time the articles could be collected into a small pamphlet and sold for twopence.

  Bright wouldn’t allow him to write under his own name, but that was all right. Colin had already picked a name under which the series would appear. Vir Virilem. A virile man. The outlandishness made him laugh.

  Lady Ada had sharpened a quill. She had blotted a ledger. She had folded and unfolded her spectacles, and now she seemed at a loss what to do next. “I could have you thrown out of town, but I think you’d come back. And I am not unfeeling. I know that you seek betterment.”

  “And you seek?”

  “At this time? With you? A bargain.”

  Innnnnteresting. He shoved at the edge of the desk, tipping the chair onto its back legs. “Let me hear the terms before I agree.”

  “Of course.” She hesitated, then leaned forward. “Beginning this evening, and for the next fortnight, a certain person will be visiting the area. He intends to buy horses of Talbot and Ramsdale, who hold a partnership in the horse farm that adjoins my brother’s lands.”

  “How am I to help with that? Do you wish me to arrange for this visitor’s murder? Skewer him with a quill, or whatnot?”

  She didn’t turn a hair. “He doesn’t deserve such a clean end. Mr. Goddard, this visitor is Lord Wrotham, the heir to the Baddesley earldom. Four years ago, we were betrothed. Scandalous talk related to my eldest brother’s death—in large part, the clever on-demandes from your delightful publication—led his lordship to break the engagement.”

  She looked so calm, so sober—but a muscle twitched in her jaw. She was gritting her teeth on some deep emotion. Anger? Sadness? He couldn’t put a name to it. But the one that washed through him, he recognized as guilt. Or its cousin, shame.

  “He wasn’t worthy,” Colin said. Hoped. Wished.

  “At this point in time, I’m inclined to agree. However, he still holds the opposite view. And as he is newly wed, I will be obliged to host him and his new bride with a smile on my face.”

  Colin sucked in a sharp breath. “My sympathies. That’s going to be difficult.”

  When the smile spread over her features, it was of the sort that would strike fear into any man who wasn’t an ignorant fool. “That’s where you can help. Mr. Goddard, for the next fortnight, you are to be madly in love with me.”

  He blinked.

  “Because you are so deeply infatuated, you will spend the two weeks as I choose,” she went on. “And how convenient! You will be living the life you wish your readers to experience through your work. If you are caught out by Wrotham as a fraud, you lose. If you surrender before the fortnight is up, you lose. But if you survive the two weeks, you win.”

  “What do you mean by surrender?”

  “That you allow a breach in your character. For example, if you attend a formal dinner party in a borrowed set of my brother’s clothes, and you must fawn over me, and instead, you communicate in any way that you would rather not.”

  He had to be missing something. “Fine clothes? Twenty-four dishes served to me by a servant? Goodness, I can’t imagine how I will bear it.”

  Again, that little shrug. “Fine talk. Do you accept?”

  “Do I? Of course. I can’t believe you’re offering me this chance.” He held up a staying hand. “So when I win—”

  She laughed.

  It was more disconcerting than anything she could have said, but he soldiered on. “When I win, you will give me any information I need to complete the series of articles for The Gentleman’s Periodical.”

  Fire sparked in her gray eyes. “If you win, Mr. Goddard, I will help you write them myself.”

  “It’s a bargain,” he said. “When shall we begin?”

  “Why not at once?” She rang for the butler. Behind that wide, long desk, she sat back in her chair and folded her hands.

  “Chalmers,” she said when the butler appeared, “please show Mr. Goddard up to a guest room, where he might change into some of His Grace’s spare clothing.”

  Colin bounced to his feet.

  “From…” Lady Ada eyed Colin, her gaze lingering on his chest, then thighs. “Two seasons ago, I believe. And alert Cook that we will be adding one to the party dining here today.”

  “Very good, my lady,” said the butler.

  Too right, thought Colin. Two weeks to live the high life and to end by cementing his and Samuel’s future at The Gentleman’s Periodical?

  This would be very good indeed.

  Chapter Two

  When one moves out of his or her class to attempt to snare a wealthy mate, awkward situations will inevitably arise. To show one’s awkwardness will make one an object of pity. To hide it, and to act at ease with whatever arises, will make one an object of respect.

  Better yet, it will irk the jealous and insecure.

  Vir Virilem, Ways to Wed for Wealth

  This dinner would be awful, and he was sure Lady Ada had planned it that way. Colin was going to kill her.

  Though not until after he completed his articles.

  The duke’s clothes from two seasons before were made for a tall man of athletic build who delighted in bespoke tailoring. Colin was physically fit enough; one didn’t live in London without pounding the streets half the time. But the duke was several inches taller, Colin guessed, from where the seams hit. The buckskin breeches that ought to have fit like paint were too high at the waist and too baggy at the knee.

  The coat was another matter. Colin suspected this one hadn’t belonged to His Grace since the duke was a youth. The butler, Chalmers, had helped Colin shrug into it, but as a result, his shoulders were drawn together, his arms awkwardly restricted. By drawing in a huge breath, then holding it, he was able to do up one button and somewhat hide the terrible waistcoat the butler had also foisted upon him.

  “Why does the duke still own this clothing?” he grumbled, tugging at the bottom of the too-short coat.

  “Her ladyship encouraged him to, as she thought it might serve some purpose,” said the butler. “Which it now has.” He packed Colin a trunk of similar clothing to take back to the inn with him.

  Colin would be damned before he’d wear clothes of Lady Ada’s choosing again, but he had to admire the lady’s style. So, he was forbidden to display the smallest amount of displeasure? Fine. Good. He’d show her just how delightful he could be despite wearing the coat of a boy and the breeches of a Goliath.

  Because there was one thing for which she hadn’t accounted: He couldn’t afford to give up.

  * * *

  Ada watched Colin Goddard closely as the other guests arrived. Would he be boorish and vulgar to try to embarrass her? She almost wished he would, so she could have him tossed out of her house.

  Her brother’s house, that is. Ada was in charge only by chance, and her borrowed power wasn’t real.

  But it must have been good enough for Goddard and the story he hoped to sniff out, because he wasn’t boorish at all. He wasn’t exactly polite either, not in a deferential way. But he was charming. He was charming in the way that only people who are utterly at ease can be charming, unconscious of themselves, their whole attention given up to the interest and comfort of others. In the too-tight coat and not-quite-fashionable accent, he chatted and laughed with all of the neighbors.

  “I’m a writer,” he explained, “staying in the area. As Lady Ada and I have been acquainted through her brother”—oh, he was a slippery one!—“she invited me to dine tonight. Unfortunately, I’m not an elegant fellow, so she offered to help me out.�
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  “Wouldn’t say she’d done you any favors!” bellowed Squire Martin, a ruddy man with a luxuriant mustache and almost no hair on his head. “Should’ve let you wear your own kit. No need to stand on ceremony with friends.”

  And just like that, Martin was in Goddard’s pocket.

  Curses. She hadn’t accounted for the common masculine dislike of elegant clothing.

  Perhaps the female guests would be more skeptical of this unknown writer. Besides the Martins, there were the Ponsonbys, the vicar and his wife; the local schoolmaster, a Mr. Johnson; and the headmistress of the girls’ school, a widow named Mrs. Semple.

  Just as she had invited Lord and Lady Wrotham upon learning of their stay in the area, she had added Colin Goddard today. The timing was fortunate; with Goddard, the number of men and women would match. Ada would not be superfluous.

  Old Mr. Talbot had been invited, as usual, but he was frail and crotchety and missing his daughter—Harriet, the new duchess—too much to attend. Ada would have a basket packed for the old gentleman later.

  She hosted these dinner parties every month, a tradition she’d carried on from the time of her parents. As the heart of the Berkshire economy, the old duke and his duchess had thought it important to maintain connections with the appendages: church, schooling, horse-training. Farmers and tenants were welcomed during open days and the annual harvest ball. Would Harriet and Philippe keep up these traditions?

  It wasn’t Ada’s business to know or care, but she cared nonetheless.

  While the locals trickled in at whatever early time their feet or horses carried them over, Lord Wrotham and his lady wife arrived precisely at the appointed hour.

  When Samuel Johnson created his dictionary in the previous century, he surely foresaw the existence of his lordship in the definitions of punctilious. Scrupulous. Meticulous. No attention was overlooked by his lordship—and no trespass either. He was a handsome man of about thirty years, with brown hair and a long, narrow nose. His clothing was expensive but not flashy, beautifully tailored.