Scandal of the Year

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  She didn’t want to run anymore. She just wanted to come home. Once Yardley had her imprisoned at Yardley Grange, it wasn’t likely she’d ever be able to return here. Wasn’t that why she’d come? Wasn’t that why she really hadn’t bothered to cover her tracks this time? Because she knew it was over, and she’d wanted to see her beloved home one last time before the end.

  She didn’t know what the end was, precisely, but she felt it coming. She could sense it, like a change in the air just before a thunderstorm. On the one hand, she didn’t think she could bear what she knew Yardley had in store, and yet, on the other, she was so tired of trying to stop the inevitable. So, so tired.

  She walked to the window and looked out at the rocky cliffs that jutted out into the sea. She could escape that way. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and she turned away from the window. Maybe tomorrow, she thought, not without a touch of humor. She was such a terrible procrastinator.

  Leaving Spike at the house, she once again jumped into the Mercedes, but she drove only the few miles around St. Ives Bay, where she stopped at the grocer and bought tea, sugar, a pot of jam, and a pot of fish paste. She would stop by the dairy at Gwithian for milk, butter, and eggs, she decided as she placed her purchases in the boot of the Mercedes. She then circled to the front of the vehicle and cranked the engine, but before she could drive away, she spied a tall, wide-shouldered, and very familiar figure coming out of Grammercy’s Bookshop across the street.

  One hand on the steering wheel, one foot on the running board, Julia froze, giving a gasp of surprise. Was it really him? She stared, watching as he caught sight of her and stopped, seeming as astonished to see her as she was to see him.

  The last time they’d met had been last year at Pixy Cove, when they’d both seen Sunderland haul Trix into his arms and lay an absolutely ripping kiss on her. As Trix’s fiancé, Aidan probably wouldn’t have deemed it ripping, but Julia wondered if he’d really been all that surprised by it. She herself had been able to perceive within a day of her arrival at Pixy Cove that Trix’s feelings for Will were anything but gone, even though her wedding to Aidan had been a mere six weeks away.

  Julia studied his face across the street that separated them. He didn’t look happy to see her, but she couldn’t really blame him. She’d been rather awful to him at Marlowe’s house party, playing ragtime when she knew he hated it, teasing him mercilessly, and wondering how long his manners would hold out before he told her to sod off. She had no excuse, except that she’d been aggravated to know her selfless sacrifice at the St. Ives Ball seemed to have gone utterly to waste. Of course, there was also the fact that she’d always found chaffing Aidan deuced good sport.

  But no matter how she’d teased him during that house party, he hadn’t ever been anything but polite to her, and perhaps it was time she made amends. Odd, she reflected, how when one’s day of judgment loomed, one began to feel contrite about one’s past sins.

  Still, a girl couldn’t change her entire character because of one newfound resolution to be good, and when he glanced away, clearly uncomfortable, she couldn’t resist being a bit—just a bit—of a tease. When he looked at her again, she flashed him a grin and waved. “How now, my prince has come!” she called across the street. “Hail, sweet prince.”

  He smiled, trying not to by pressing his lips together. He looked away again, and she thought perhaps he was seeking a means of escape. But then she realized he was only looking away to verify there was no traffic coming up the street before he crossed to her side.

  “Baroness,” he said with a bow as she hopped off the Mercedes’ running board to land in front of him on the sidewalk. “Have you come to St. Ives for the summer?”

  “No, winter,” she answered at once.

  Her unerring tendency to tease him over obvious statements made his pressed smile widen a little. “You’re early,” he pointed out.

  She laughed. “So I am. Are you staying at Trathen Leagh?”

  He nodded at the mention of his Cornish estate twelve miles down the coast, but then he tilted his head to one side, studying her. “You look tired, Baroness,” he said unexpectedly. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course,” she said at once. “I’m right as rain.”

  “Why are you not at Torquay for August? I thought you would be.”

  “You did? Why, Aidan, I’m touched to know you’ve been thinking of me.”

  He shifted his weight a bit, embarrassed at having been caught doing such a thing, and she relented. “I was at Torquay, actually,” she said, “but I decided to come home for a bit.”

  “Home?” His brows drew together quizzically. “I didn’t know Yardley had property here.”

  “He doesn’t. I mean my home. I own a cottage above Gwithian.”

  “Ah. I didn’t know that. By the lighthouse?”

  She shook her head. “The other side. It’s called Dovecotes.”

  He frowned as if trying to place it. “I can’t seem to recall an estate of that name.”

  “Estate?” She laughed at such a grand description. “Heavens, Dovecotes isn’t an estate, by any means! It’s just a little farmhouse, quite isolated, very spartan, but I do adore it. It’s at the end of the Churchdown Road, although you can’t see it from there. You have to turn down the lane to the sea at the point the road ends in order to find it. It’s on the promontory there.”

  “So it has a sea view?”

  “One of the best on the coast. And,” she added proudly, “there’s a pretty little cove below it, with a nice scrap of beach and some caves. But since you’re a duke, it wouldn’t seem like much to you. You’re used to much grander places, I daresay.”

  “Not at all. It sounds lovely. I believe I know which cove you mean, for I’ve sailed around that promontory many times. There’s a stone farmhouse up above it. Is that yours?” When she nodded, he went on, “It looks a very fine cove for bathing. Do you swim there, then?” His gaze slid downward, and with that look, Julia saw her second chance, and hope flared to life.

  “I do swim there,” she answered his question, her brain working feverishly. “Nearly every day. In fact, I was going tomorrow afternoon. Yes,” she added, improvising, fleshing out details even as she spoke, “with a picnic. But I wanted it to be a . . . umm . . . nice picnic. I fancied something very stylish and upper crust, you know, with linen and silver. And caviar,” she added, knowing he loved the stuff, striving to remember Marlowe’s house party the previous year and what other foods they both might like. “Ham, chicken, cucumber sandwiches, various cheeses. Blackberries.”

  Did he like blackberries? she wondered a little wildly. She couldn’t remember.

  He was looking at her, frowning a bit, looking dubious as she listed off the foods for this supposed picnic. “All that food for yourself?” he asked, and she felt a stab of fear that she’d overdone it and he would guess what she was up to.

  “I always buy too much, I know, but they are particular favorites of mine.”

  “Indeed?” He sounded surprised, but not suspicious, bless the man. “I’m very fond of those things, as well.”

  “Really?” Wide-eyed, she looked at him, thanking God she was such a damned good liar. “What a coincidence.”

  It was now or never, she decided. “Would you like to come along?” she asked, tossing all her chips onto the table with that careless question.

  It took him aback. He glanced away, then back at her. “On your picnic?”

  “Why not? You can come see the view at Dovecotes, which is a splendid one, truly. I’m not merely boasting. If you come to call around eleven, we could have a walk down to the beach, have a picnic, perhaps play some chess. Do say you’ll come. I’ll bring the Victrola, and we’ll play music while we eat. Mozart,” she assured, “not ragtime. And we could have a bathe,” she added, throwing that out there as casually as possible. “You would be back in St. Ives by six o’clock, with plenty of time to change into evening clothes and go off to whatever din
ner party you’re no doubt invited to.”

  He paused, and she could tell he was tempted. She waited, striving to look as if she didn’t give a damn either way, as if her life didn’t depend on this one thing. She could almost hear the click of the wheel of fortune spinning around. Red or black, yes or no, whichever came up, she was—as the gamblers were wont to say—all in.

  He looked at her, and she saw in his eyes what she’d seen that day on the footbridge when he’d looked at her legs. She saw his desire, she knew what he was imagining, and her heart gave a leap of exhilaration with a hint of panic in it. How queer, she thought, to feel so exhilarated when one’s entire future hung by a thread.

  “I’m engaged,” he said. “To be married.”

  That brief flash of exhilaration died, snuffed out like a candle, and Julia felt herself falling back into despair. Down, she went, down, down, down, straight into the pit of hell. If Aidan was engaged, his damnable sense of morality would never allow him to be seduced. Unless . . .

  Champagne. She’d need champagne. That was the ticket. But first, she had to get him to change his mind. Already the refusal was on his lips. She spoke first.

  “It’s just a picnic, darling,” she drawled, laughing. “I hadn’t intended to seduce you.” With that, she hopped into the Mercedes and gave him her naughtiest smile over one shoulder. “Not unless you want me to.”

  She blew him a kiss, released the brake lever, and drove away, knowing he wanted to come, hoping he would, vowing that if he did, she would put aside the distaste for lovemaking she’d acquired at Yardley’s hand and make it the most wondrous fuck he’d ever had, and a long one, too, long enough for Yardley to arrive from the train station.

  So much for feeling contrite about past sins.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Julia didn’t know how far she ran. She just put one leg in front of the other and kept moving, guided only by her instincts, which at this moment were telling her to get as far away from Aidan as possible. Yet no matter how far she ran, she couldn’t escape the lush taste of his kiss.

  How could this happen? Why him? Why now? She’d kissed him that afternoon at Dovecotes and it hadn’t been like this. She’d kissed him and touched him and lain naked with him asleep beside her, and there had been none of this sweet, hot passion inside her.

  She’d taken up his challenge tonight to prove to him what she already thought she knew about herself—that she was dead to feelings like this. She’d gone to meet him knowing he would kiss her, believing the press of his lips to hers would evoke nothing, sure that it would all be like that day at Dovecotes. But tonight hadn’t been like that at all, and she did not understand why. Where was the difference?

  Her heart began to thump hard in her chest and her lungs began to burn, but she didn’t stop. Impelled by panic and fear, though she didn’t really know what she was afraid of, she kept running. But at last, the tightness of her corset and the burning rasp of her lungs and the hard pounding of her heart forced her to a stumbling halt.

  She sank to her knees in the grass, sucking in deep, shuddering gasps of air, everything in her still rebelling against what had just happened, her mind still denying what was undeniable.

  “No!” she panted, shaking her head back and forth with violent force, sending the spray of lilacs flying and bringing her loosened hair tumbling down around her face. “I don’t want this!”

  She might not want it, but it was there, all the sweet tenderness only a lover could evoke. Try as she might, she could not deny reality. Her lips still tingled from Aidan’s kiss, her skin burned from his touch, and every cell and nerve ending in her body seemed charged with sensation. Suddenly she understood why this kiss was different from the ones at Dovecotes.

  Because she was different. She was no longer the driven, desperate creature who wanted to trap one man to free herself from another.

  All this time, all these years, she’d thought she was dead to feelings like this. But she hadn’t been dead, she realized; she’d only been sleeping. Now she was awake from that long, cold, frigid sleep, and she was a woman again, vibrant and alive. She could feel lust again, rich and carnal and overpowering. She could feel joy and she could feel pain.

  It scared the hell out of her.

  Something tickled her face. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, and then stared at the tears on her fingertips, disbelieving and horrified.

  She didn’t cry anymore.

  She’d learned to shut off tears a long time ago. Crying meant one could still feel, and she’d wanted to be numb. Crying meant one was vulnerable, and she’d needed to be invincible. Crying meant one felt pain, and she was crying because what Aidan made her feel also made her hurt. It burned her chest in racking sobs and smothering gasps for air. This was the pain of being happy, something she hadn’t felt since she was a girl, when the future had been full of hope and the world had been wonderful and all life’s possibilities lay ahead.

  This was the pain of light and beauty and a man’s tender kiss. It was the burn in your eyes when you looked into the bright, shining sun, and the pinch in your chest when you saw the first green shoots of springtime, and the lump in your throat when you heard the sound of a newborn baby’s cry. It was life, life, life.

  She didn’t want it. She didn’t want to feel like this, raw and open and laid bare. Not because of a man. Not because of his kiss. Not because of anything.

  Julia put her face in her hands and sobbed like a child, sure she must be broken beyond repair, because only someone broken could feel pain over something as beautiful as that kiss.

  During the next few days, Julia did whatever she could to avoid Aidan. In the mornings, she breakfasted in her room. In the afternoons, she took the Mercedes for long drives or went with Spike for long walks, and being that she was so independent and her actions were often quite incomprehensible to her family, they didn’t think her long absences from the house the least bit odd. In the evenings, she glued herself to Eileen like a limpet on a rock to keep Aidan at bay, but it didn’t seem to matter, for much to her relief, he didn’t seem any more inclined than she for a discussion of that kiss or a repetition of it.

  But three mornings after that extraordinary kiss, Julia witnessed something so insufferable, so intolerable, that avoiding Aidan went to the wall.

  She had just finished dressing, and the maids had brought her breakfast on a tray as usual. While sipping her morning tea, she walked to the window to discern what the weather might be. It had rained the day before, and if it rained again today, the roads might become too muddy for an afternoon drive in the Mercedes.

  The day, however, seemed to be shaping up as quite fine, and Julia was relieved, but her relief was short-lived, for when she looked down over the south lawn, she caught sight of the very man she was trying to avoid, and with him was her beloved Spike.

  Aidan was tossing a ball for the dog, and Spike was actually fetching it. Julia blinked, not quite able to believe what she was seeing, for despite his excellent guarding capabilities, Spike was probably the laziest dog in England. Yet he didn’t look the least bit unhappy about fetching the ball for Aidan. Even more surprising, he didn’t seem unhappy about being in the company of a male human being. Quite the opposite, Julia noted with growing alarm as the animal brought the ball to Aidan, laid it at his feet, and sat down in front of him, looking thoroughly pleased with himself as he waited for the requisite praise.

  When Julia saw Aidan pat the dog, she couldn’t stand it. She set down her tea with a clatter and flung up the window sash to stick her head out. “What in blazes are you doing with my dog?” she shouted down to him.

  Aidan, in the act of throwing the ball again, stopped and glanced up. “Good morning,” he called without answering her question, and tossed the ball. “Fetch,” he commanded, sending poor Spike bounding across the grass again before turning to her. “I’m exercising your dog. God knows, he needs it.”

  “He does not! And I never said you could—” She broke
off, too angry to continue as Spike once again trotted slavishly over to Aidan and deposited the ball at his feet. “Don’t you dare move, either of you!” she commanded. “I’m coming down there at once!”

  She slammed down the window. What gave him the right to do anything with her dog? She marched downstairs and out to the south lawn, glad it was too early for most of the other guests to be up and about as she strode across the grass toward Aidan, who had just thrown the ball again.

  “Leave my dog alone,” she ordered as she approached. “He hates you.”

  Spike, in seeming defiance of this assertion, walked right up to Aidan and deposited the ball at his feet.

  “He doesn’t hate me. In fact, we’ve become fast friends.” He opened his left hand to reveal a handful of sliced bangers. “It’s amazing what can be accomplished with a few sausages,” he added as he gave one to the dog. “Good boy.”

  “You’ve been training my dog.”

  He laughed. “You say that as if I’ve been torturing him.”

  His laughter only fueled Julia’s anger. “You have no right.”

  “Well, someone has to do it.” He picked up the ball with his free hand and tossed it. “Fetch,” he ordered, and as the dog ran after it, he turned to her. “Spike wouldn’t be a menace to men if you didn’t allow it.”

  “That doesn’t justify your interference. Isn’t this sort of thing too presumptuous for a gentleman?”

  He shrugged, not seeming to care overmuch. “I’m tired of being growled at. I’m doing something about it.”

  She didn’t want him to do something about it. Spike was her guardian, her knight at arms. “You’re ruining everything, damn you,” she said as Spike traded the ball for another sausage. “I bought him because he doesn’t like men!”