Scandal of the Year

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “I expect so, sir.”

  Aidan might be forever shunned in royal circles and never again received at court, and perhaps there were fewer invitations from the higher echelons and more from the lower ones among the stack on his desk, but the quantity of invitations confirmed that he was still an eligible parti, despite the blot on his copybook.

  Lady Yardley had been right that many women would desire him for things that had nothing to do with his mind and character and everything to do with his position and money. And possibly, he acknowledged with a hint of distaste, with his appearance. He’d always known that. Such women might very well lie or maneuver their way into his affections, without caring two straws about him.

  He’d never been a cynical man, and he didn’t want to make a cynical match. He didn’t expect overwhelming passion, which inevitably died once it was sated, but neither did he want the sort of marriage most peers had—mutual distaste, discreet love affairs, and separate lives. And he refused to be like his own father. The previous Duke of Trathen had made love to nearly every woman he knew, and though Aidan believed in tradition, that was a tradition he had no intention of carrying on.

  He hoped to do better, to make a contented match with a compatible partner, but though he had launched this boost in his social life with that hope in view, he was now finding it hard to be enthusiastic about the process.

  Staring at the stack of invitations his secretary had just brought him, he was suddenly tempted to change his mind, forgo marriage altogether, and let his cousin Reggie inherit the whole blinking show. That would make Aunt Caroline happy, no doubt, but Aidan knew he couldn’t do it. His cousin would do his best to bankrupt the estates left in his care. No, Aidan had a duty to find a wife and he could not shirk it.

  Promise me you’ll marry for love and no other reason.

  Aidan made a sound of aggravation. He had to put that woman back in the past where she belonged.

  “Sir?”

  “Hmm? What?” He looked up to find his secretary watching him with a puzzled expression, waiting to carry on with the matter at hand. “Sorry, Mr. Lambert,” he said with a shake of his head. “Where were we?”

  “Today’s correspondence, sir.”

  “Ah, yes, thank you.” He gestured to the chair opposite his desk, and the secretary sat down, placing his clipboard on his lap and opening Aidan’s appointment book before reaching for the first invitation.

  “Lord Danbury wishes to know if you are free for tennis on Thursday morning.”

  The invitation surprised him. Given his ill-fated entanglements with both of Paul Danbury’s female cousins, he and the other man had the tendency to avoid each other these days, but perhaps this invitation to play tennis was an attempt by Paul to heal the breach. “Am I free Thursday morning?” he asked his secretary.

  Lambert nodded, scanning that day’s page of appointments. “You have no commitments that morning, so I believe you would have time for tennis.” He glanced at the note again. “His Lordship warns you that he’s been honing his serve, so if you accept his invitation, be prepared to lose.”

  Aidan grinned, liking the challenge. “Tell him I accept, and that I’m impressed he’s improved his serve because it certainly needed improvement. Also tell him all the practice in the world won’t help him because my backhand shall dispatch any serve he sends my way as it always does.”

  The secretary, who was not in the least athletic, did not quite understand this sort of bragging and insulting badinage between men about their superior skill at sport, but he scribbled the dictation on his clipboard, noted the engagement in Aidan’s appointment book, and lifted the next letter from the stack. “Lord Marlowe wishes to confirm your receipt of his latest proposal, and if so, he suggests Thursday afternoon in his offices for the final negotiations, if that would be convenient.” The secretary looked up. “You are free from half past two until five o’clock.”

  “Confirm with the viscount’s secretary that we are in receipt of the proposal and that his time for an appointment would be acceptable, Mr. Lambert.”

  After another notation, the secretary moved on to the next item. “Lord Vale wishes to know if you would honor him by sharing his box with him and his family at Covent Garden Thursday night.”

  He hesitated, for although Lady Yardley might be a provocative minx, she was also a very accomplished judge of character. And he, too, had suspected Vale’s youngest daughter to be somewhat lacking in brain matter. On the other hand, it wasn’t fair to judge the girl so precipitously, and Lady Yardley could be having him on for mischievous reasons of her own. “Tell Vale I’d be delighted to call upon him and his family in their box during intermission.”

  “Yes, sir. First or second?”

  Aidan blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I believe it’s a Wagnerian opera on Thursday, sir. That means two intermissions. You might prefer the second one, since you also have an invitation to dinner for Thursday evening.” He pulled the next invitation from the pile. “The Duke of Scarborough has asked you to dine with him; his ward, Miss Annabel Wheaton; and her mother, Mrs. Henrietta Chumley, at the Savoy. Half past seven. You could accept if you called at Lord Vale’s box for the second intermission rather than the first.”

  Aidan shook his head. “No. I shall have to return to Grosvenor Square at some point and change into evening clothes before the opera, and I hate rushing back and forth across town. Express my regrets to Scarborough and tell him I should be delighted to dine with him another night.”

  Lambert nodded in confirmation as he made notes. “It’s probably for the best anyway, sir,” the secretary added, running his finger along the page of Aidan’s appointment book. “Your schedule is now quite full for Thursday. Tennis in the morning, an appointment with your boot maker at eleven and your tailor at half past, then lunch at the Clarendon with Lord and Lady Malvers, the meeting with Lord Marlowe, and tea at the Savoy with Lord and Lady Worthing, and then the opera. You’ll be exhausted, sir, by the time the day’s done. Why do you always commit yourself to so many engagements during the season?”

  Unfortunately, this sort of frenetic social activity was going to be his life for the next three months because it was the most efficient means of finding a wife, something he wouldn’t have to be doing now if he’d been able to resist a certain dark-haired beauty nine months ago.

  “I have my duty, Mr. Lambert,” he said with a sigh.

  Chapter Four

  Julia was in England to rebuild her life after razing it to the ground, and that meant facing the consequences of her past. One of those consequences was a pile of debt and no way to pay it. With his wealthy American wife’s return to the States, Paul’s only source of income was Danbury Downs, and covering Julia’s enormous debts would cause him and his family a great deal of hardship. She’d given them so much grief already; she didn’t want to cause any more.

  One morning a week after the May Day Ball, Paul took her aside and inquired as to her finances. She couldn’t bear to tell him just how far in debt she was, for it would enrage her cousin to learn Yardley hadn’t paid her a shilling of support during the last six years of her marriage, and there was no point in doing that. Besides, he’d be so disappointed in her if he knew she hadn’t altered her spending habits one iota in consequence of Yardley’s parsimony. He would feel compelled to lecture her about her extravagance, and rightly so, and it would all become such a tiresome conversation.

  Upon Paul’s inquiry, she’d only hinted at her dire need for funds, and her cousin had responded at once, assuring her of an allowance of fifty pounds per month, the same amount Beatrix had received before her marriage. In terms of pin money, it was quite a generous allowance, but Julia didn’t have the heart to tell Paul it wouldn’t pay even the monthly interest on what she already owed. Still, she accepted her cousin’s offer without a murmur, and knew she had to find another way to pay her debts.

  After breakfast, she gathered all her overdue bills and sat down a
t the secretaire in her room with quill, ink, and paper, determined to find a solution to her financial woes, but she was well aware that she had very few options.

  Her dowry had been handed over to Yardley on their wedding day. Only seventeen at that time, she hadn’t had the wits to insist upon prenuptial settlements for herself, and her parents had seen marriage to a peer, any peer, as their rebellious daughter’s only chance to make good. The modest amount she’d inherited upon the deaths of her parents had gone to payment of the death duties, and her entailed family home was passed to a cousin of her father’s, leaving her little in the way of property.

  Her cottage in Cornwall, an inheritance from her grandmother, was one of the few possessions she had left, but it was entailed within the family, so she couldn’t sell it even if she wanted to. And she didn’t want to. Dovecotes was her haven, her refuge, and the closest thing she had to a home of her own.

  She could sell the Mercedes, which was the only other thing of real value that she owned, but at the thought of parting with her beloved motorcar, Julia’s very soul rebelled. She’d originally acquired it as a means of escape, using it to flee as quickly as possible whenever her husband had been inclined to arrive on the scene and make trouble. She didn’t need it for that purpose any longer, of course, but it meant more to her than just a means of escape. It was a symbol of her liberty, and whenever she drove it, with the wind in her hair and the sound of the engine in her ears, she felt free. No, she decided, not the Mercedes.

  She supposed she could take up a profession. Julia considered the women she knew who had at some point earned their living. Lady Marlowe and Lady Avermore, longtime friends of their family, were both writers, and writing was certainly a respectable occupation, one many in the aristocracy embarked upon. Still, Julia knew she couldn’t write to save herself. Amusing, rambling, grammatically hopeless letters to friends, she could manage, but stories or poetry? Mess about with plots and themes and rhyme and meter? No. She hadn’t the talent or discipline for such an occupation.

  Art? Her cousin Beatrix had explored that possibility shortly after breaking her engagement to Aidan, and oh, the to-do that had ensued from the family! Julia would prefer not to cause her relations any further anxiety, but it hardly mattered anyway, for unlike her cousin, Julia had no artistic talent. She was accomplished at the piano, but taking up a post as the piano player in a music hall would hardly be the sort of respectable occupation she was looking for.

  She tapped her quill thoughtfully against her desk. Lucy, she supposed, might have some ideas. Her friend Lucy, now Lady Weston, owned an employment agency. But, even so, what sort of position could Lucy obtain for her? She couldn’t operate a typewriting machine. She was too chatty to be a telephone operator. She could see herself intervening in the conversations she heard, offering opinions and advice and being sacked for her trouble. Governess? God, no. Who’d hire a notorious divorcee for that?

  Trade? She paused, considering. Maria, before becoming the Marchioness of Kayne, had owned a bakery. Vivian Marlowe was the famous dressmaker Vivienne, with a very posh shop in New Bond Street. But opening a shop required money, the lack of which was Julia’s exact problem. And truthfully, would she be able to go to a shop and open for business every day? Mess about with tradesmen’s books and hire shopgirls and make them work and sack them if they didn’t? It sounded terribly tedious. Julia knew her own character well, and she feared she had far too frivolous a nature to be an accomplished woman of business.

  She sighed, tossing down her quill, feeling hopelessly inadequate. She longed for a cigarette, but she hadn’t smoked since the May Day Ball, and giving in to that temptation after only a week of abstinence would not help either her self-esteem or her pocketbook. Instead, she plunked her elbows on the desk, cupped her chin in her hands, and stared at the mountain of bills before her, trying to think of a solution. Just what was a gregarious social butterfly with a ruined reputation qualified to do?

  Only one thing, really. Julia found that realization terribly depressing. The last thing she wanted was to become some man’s mistress, which to her way of thinking wasn’t much different from being married. Though not as absolute as marriage, it was still a form of enslavement. Even more important, she didn’t have the stomach for it. She’d deliberately cultivated a scandalous reputation, but it was a sham. Since marrying Yardley, there had been only one man she’d ever considered as a lover. Only one.

  Whenever she thought of how she’d been that day with Aidan, when she thought of the wanton things she’d done, she was still rather shocked by how she’d managed to be so seductive on the surface, so bold and so sensual, when underneath, she’d felt such desperation and panic.

  The door opened, and Julia came out of her reverie with a start. She looked up as her maid, Giselle, entered the room, bringing Spike, Julia’s beloved pet bulldog, with her on a leather leash. The moment the animal caught sight of his mistress, he bounded across the room, pulling the leash out of Giselle’s hand in his enthusiastic efforts. Too fat now to jump all the way into Julia’s lap, he contented himself with laying his forepaws on her thigh and wriggling his tailless backside in an ecstatic greeting.

  “Hullo, boy,” she said, rubbing his broad, wrinkled head with affection. “Been walking, have you?”

  “Non,” Giselle’s dry voice answered on the dog’s behalf. “He has not been for a walk, madame. The hall boy, he tried, but . . .”

  Giselle shrugged her substantial shoulders and Julia gave another sigh, this one a sigh of disappointment at the fact that her beloved pet was terrorizing the men of Paul’s household. Again.

  “Did he bite Smithison, Giselle?”

  Lips pressed grimly together, Giselle shook her head. “Non, the boy, he is quick. But it was very close. One day, madame . . .”

  She let her voice trail ominously away, and Julia nodded. “I know, I know. I simply must do something about it. But what? I cannot discipline Spike for being a watchdog with an aversion to men when that is the reason I bought him in the first place.”

  Giselle, a middle-aged, hardheaded, practical Frenchwoman, waved one hand in the air, dismissing that objection. “Yardley is gone, madame. And the dog, he is intelligent. He will learn to behave, but you must train him to be with the gentlemen, discipline him when he growls at them.”

  Julia, who found disciplining Spike for his fear of men almost as depressing as the stack of bills on her desk, decided both she and her dog needed a diversion from discipline altogether. “Poor boy didn’t get a walk today,” she murmured, rubbing Spike behind the ears. “Shall we go then, hmm? Up to New Bond Street? We’ll pay a call on Vivian at her shop. No evil men to bother you there, sweetums, I promise.”

  Giselle sighed, and Julia was well aware that this expression of disappointment was over her mistress’s terrible tendency to procrastinate, but she ignored it. “Giselle, fetch my hat.”

  An hour later Julia was leading Spike into Vivienne, London’s most fashionable dressmaking establishment, an utterly feminine conclave of white, black, and pale pink. Julia had been friends with Vivian Marlowe since childhood, and after she’d given her name and handed over the bulldog to a dressmaker’s assistant, she’d waited only two minutes in the black-and-white tiled foyer of the showroom before a delighted voice called down to her from the mezzanine above. “Julie!”

  She looked up, laughing as her friend, a tall, slender, exuberant redhead, came tripping down the curving staircase of marble and wrought iron to greet her.

  “Hullo, Viv,” she said as her friend reached the bottom of the stairs, evaded an assistant who was crossing the room with an armload of fabrics, and came running to sweep her up in a hug.

  “I had no idea you were back! What do you need? An evening gown? An afternoon dress? Lingerie?”

  “I’d love all of those, but I can’t buy anything today.”

  Vivian pulled back, frowning at Julia’s walking suit, a periwinkle-blue tailor-made that was over a year out of fas
hion. “Look at this jacket!” she groaned, fingering the enormous leg-o’-mutton sleeves. “These scream of last spring! I haven’t a single one in my new collection. It’s all fitted sleeves and flared cuffs this year.”

  Julia gave a sigh, painfully aware that she was quite out of date, but also aware that her desperate straits made buying anything new impossible. “Oh, Viv, don’t tempt me! I just can’t afford any new clothes nowadays. I’m stone broke, darling. Paul’s giving me an allowance, but I have to pay debts with it. Tragic, I know.”

  Vivian made a sound of impatience. “You think I care if you pay me? We’ve known each other since birth! Besides, I adore having you arrive anywhere in London wearing one of my models. I always obtain more business as a result.”

  Julia made a face. “Only because I’m so notorious.”

  “Well, you do have a talent for creating sensation wherever you go,” Vivian conceded. “But sensation wouldn’t help me a bit if you didn’t have the panache to carry off my designs. What about a new afternoon ensemble? You can parade around the Row every day telling everyone how wonderful my spring collection is, and I shall gain at least half a dozen new clients.”

  Julia laughed and relented. “All right, all right. You’ve twisted my arm.”

  Vivian cast another glance over her. “I like that you’ve gained a bit of weight,” she said, hooking her arm through Julia’s and guiding her to a nearby settee of black-and-white striped velvet. “When I last saw you at Pixy Cove, you were so terribly thin, dearest.”

  Vivian gestured for her to sit, then glanced around and beckoned to one of the tall, sylphlike assistants standing about the room. “Miss Wellesley,” she said as the girl approached, “I want you to display the spring afternoon toilettes for Lady Yardley, if you please. Ask Miss Lovell to assist you.”

  The girl strutted off with the rather insolent, catlike stride all living mannequins seemed to possess, and Vivian settled herself beside Julia on the settee. “So, I’m dying to know how it was to relax at the spas of Biarritz over the winter, now that you’ve cut the chains of matrimony and are a free woman.”