Scandalous Brides

by Annette Blair

  As much as she worried about Claudia, Alex had to laugh at Bea’s requests to use, and examine, the necessary at every posting inn between Devil’s Dyke and St. James’s Square, though it gave them all more than enough opportunity to stretch their legs.

  “I miss Uncle Giff,” Beatrix said mournfully as she climbed into Hawk’s lap for what Alex hoped might be a nice long nap.

  Saying goodbye to Aunt Hildegarde and Uncle Gifford had been difficult for all of them. The older couple opted to remain behind and skip the pleasures of London. Hawk said he was glad that a male member of the family would remain at Huntington Lodge to oversee the estate. And Alex was glad, because some of London’s pleasures could be too much for certain people.

  “You know,” Claudia said, prompted by Bea’s comment, “if I did not know better, I would think that Uncle Giff and Aunt Hildy were pleased to be getting the house to themselves.”

  Alex recalled the gatehouse incident with speculation, and by the look of him, so did Hawk. It occurred to Alex, then, that she might have consulted her Aunt Hildegarde about seduction. Though since the woman had never married, she might very well have fallen into an apoplexy of embarrassment, if Alex tried. Hildy and Giff could have visited the gatehouse for a perfectly innocent reason, after all.

  “They are probably looking forward to peace and quiet,” Hawk said, “what with our mischievous eavesdropper safe away. What do you think, Pup?” He tickled Bea until she giggled helplessly and screamed for him to be careful of Nanny.

  Everyone groaned. “Where is she?” Hawk asked, stilling, on the instant.

  Bea took her ball of a spiny pet from her pocket. “Here she is, see?”

  “Did I not tell you to leave Nanny home?”

  Beatrix shook her head adamantly. “No you did not, Uncle Bryce. You said that Damon and Rafferty would like to see her. Will you take the twins with us to Astley’s Royal Amphitheater? Tell me again what we will see there?”

  Alex knew there would be no rest for any of them this trip, no peace either, not today or in the weeks to come.

  As they approached St. James’s Square, Hawk thought that Basingstoke House stood out like a diamond in a tasteful cluster of lesser gems.

  The dowager duchess herself appeared an exquisite in every respect, petite as a sprite, disciplined as a general, and generous to a fault. Her home seemed to run like a finely geared French clock, and one hour in her company made him imagine that the twice-widowed duchess might have been a great help to Wellington on the peninsular.

  She appeared as if nothing could ruffle her, until Nanny scampered under her dress and over her slippered feet.

  Upon being presented to the duchess, Claudia curtsied prettily, making the older woman beam. “Enchanting.” She kissed Claudia’s cheek. “I vow that you shall be wed by spring, if not sooner.” And Claudia glowed.

  “I made an appointment for us at Madame Suzette’s this afternoon to have Claudia fitted for her new wardrobe, if that is convenient for you both?” the duchess said to Alex.

  Claudia looked as if she might dance on air at the prospect, and Alex accepted with thanks for them both.

  After tea, Hawk and Alex followed a maid up to their apartment. “The duchess told me that we are invited to Gideon and Sabrina’s townhouse at Grosvenor Square for luncheon,” Alex told Hawk. “Afterward, Bea can remain there with Damon and Rafferty for the afternoon, while the duchess and I take Claudia for her fittings, and you and Gideon can do… whatever it is that London gentlemen do of an afternoon.”

  Hawk appeared amused by her words, until they entered their apartment, which consisted of two dressing rooms, a huge sitting room, and one bedchamber. The bed itself was smaller, if that were possible, than the one they had shared at Huntington Lodge.

  Hawk stood thunderstruck as he regarded it.

  Alex stood grinning beside him. “I love it.”

  All the way to Grosvenor Square, Alex was in a state of excitement over seeing Sabrina again, for they had not seen each other in more than a year, not since they shared Hawk’s townhouse right after Hawk went to war.

  Months before Alex and Hawk’s marriage, Sabrina had escaped the villain her first husband sold her to, and sought refuge with Hawk and his family.

  After Hawk left for the war, Alex and Sabrina, along with their families, had continued to live together for nearly five months. Then Hawk was killed at Waterloo, and Bree received his deathbed letter saying he had arranged her marriage to Gideon.

  When Baxter Wakefield inherited Hawk’s fortune and estates, and tossed them all out, Alex moved her family to Huntington Lodge, and Bree moved hers to Grosvenor Square to await her mystery groom’s arrival.

  Damon and Rafferty, Sabrina’s twins, became best of friends with Bea when they lived together, the boys adopting Claudia as their big sister, too. And Hawk and Gideon had served in the Guards under Wellington, so Alex knew that the entire family was as eager for the visit as she.

  The Dowager Duchess of Basingstoke was Gideon’s grandmother, by blood, though Sabrina told Alex in a letter that the duchess treated her children—from her marriage to Hawk’s half-brother—as beloved great-grandchildren.

  Sabrina’s youngest, Juliana, born shortly after her marriage to Gideon, had been named after the duchess, a fact for which the older woman was inordinately proud.

  Hawk thought that their arrival at Grosvenor Square was like to rival the Vienna Congress in the rise and fervor of their voices—even after the children dashed up to the nursery. He shook Gideon’s hand, pleased to see his fellow rogue again.

  “Ladies, Gentlemen,” the duchess said to quiet the raucous company milling about the foyer. “Let us have some decorum, if you please, and if we cannot, let us at least remove to the drawing room.”

  Sabrina giggled and hooked her arm in the formidable dowager’s. “Yes, Grandmama.” Together the two women led the group up the stairs.

  Alex exclaimed in wonder upon entering an exquisite drawing room, complete with twin fireplaces of topaz marble.

  “This is just the beginning,” Sabrina said. “Wait until you see the rest of the house.”

  “I am in awe.”

  Gideon turned to Alex. “As well you should be. Hawk, present me to your beautiful bride, if you please.”

  Hawk took Alex’s arm. “Alex, another member of the Rogues Club, Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe.”

  “Since Hawk and Sabrina are all but brother and sister,” Sabrina’s charming husband said, totally lacking the aristocratic air Alex expected, “and Hawk became my brother under Wellington, I shall consider you my sister.”

  “Thank you, your grace.”

  “Oh. Ouch. Please, may I call you Alexandra? And you must call me Gideon.”

  “Or Uncle Stanthorpe,” Rafferty said joining them.

  “Or Uncle Papa,” Damon added with a giggle.

  Gideon scooped the twins off the floor, to dangle them one under each arm. “Ignore the scamps Alexandra. My name has become something of a family joke with them. And what do you call me now, you rascals?” he demanded, shaking them until they laughed.

  “Papa, Papa,” they chorused.

  Beatrix had entered behind them carrying the ugliest cat Alex had ever seen.

  “What is that?”

  “That’s Mincemeat,” Rafe said, as Gideon set him down. “Isn’t she beautiful? She keeps my feet warm at night and licks my fingers, and purrs soft and happy. And she is the best mama to her kittens I ever saw.”

  “Then she is, indeed, beautiful,” Alex said as she petted the purring cat.

  “Bea’s Nanny is something ripping, too,” Damon said. “But her quills hurt.”

  “I told you to pet her in the direction they grow, not away from it,” Bea said. “She doesn’t know you yet, so she will curl in a ball and set her quills straight up to protect herself. When she knows you, she will let you tickle her silky belly.”

  “Drizzle likes that, too,” Damon said, petting the short-le
gged beagle happily trailing behind.

  The Dowager shook her head as she regarded her grandson. “Keep this up and we will have to open our own menagerie.”

  Gideon raised his hands in complete guilelessness.

  “Do not act the innocent with me,” his grandmother continued. “If Juliana becomes enamored of an India tiger, you will find a way to get her one.”

  Gideon grinned and Hawk chuckled deep in his throat.

  “Alex, you should see the baby,” Beatrix said. “She looks ever so darling standing in her crib, with only one tooth, and a little blue dress and bonnet, and dark curls, and she giggles when she sees the twins, and calls everybody Papa.”

  “Julie is a brilliant child,” Gideon said. “Papa is her favorite word.”

  “Papa is her only word,” his grandmother said, bursting her grandson’s bubble.

  Hawksworth barked a near-laugh, the first Alex had heard from him, since he had come home. How relaxed he looked. How at ease of a sudden.

  The change would be good for him—for the two of them.

  SEVENTEEN

  THEY ATE en famille, with everyone present but the baby. “I fed Juliana earlier, so she should be settling down for her nap, about now,” Sabrina said. “How pleased we are that you have come to town for the little season. I can hardly wait for a comfortable coze, Alex. Can you spend the afternoon?”

  “Oh, no, I am sorry, but I cannot. We have an appointment for Claude’s fittings.”

  “Nonsense,” the duchess said. “Claudia, what say you to letting me take you for your fittings?”

  Claudia beamed and the duchess nodded regally. “It is settled then.”

  Sabrina shook her head at her seventeen-year-old niece. “Claudia, I can hardly believe you are old enough to be entering the marriage mart.”

  “Providing we can obtain entry into all the best balls and routs,” Alex said. “That is always a worry, is it not?”

  The duchess waved her comment aside. “Your entry has been assured everywhere, my dears. I told you I would take care of everything. Sally Jersey is an old school chum.”

  After luncheon, Hawk and Gideon decided they would go to Weston’s for a fitting of their own then to see if any news had surfaced on Hawk’s father’s solicitor.

  “We might stop by Stephen’s Hotel as well,” Hawk said. “I would like to inquire as to some possible military men who need work and a place to settle. We have room at Huntington for six more tenant families.”

  “London is teeming with out-of-work soldiers,” Gideon said. “Spitalfields has thousands who are half-starved and unemployed, never mind the number in workhouses and debtors’ prisons.”

  “God’s teeth, I had not realized the situation had grown so dire.”

  Gideon nodded. “It is an abomination for England’s defenders to suffer so. Between the war’s end and the poorest farming weather in years, I fear we are looking at bad times ahead.”

  “Let us take a drive through the East End, then. Perhaps we can find a few soldiers we know. By having them as my tenants, we can help each other.”

  “Excellent,” Gideon said as they donned their many-caped greatcoats and accepted top hats and canes. “I could use a few good men on my estates as well.”

  They kissed their respective wives with an awkwardness, at first, for the public displays of affection, then with devilish gleams in their eyes for realizing it.

  “Wickedly handsome rogues, are they not?” Alex asked from the open front door beside Sabrina as they watched the carriage depart.

  “They certainly are.”

  Alex chuckled. “My goodness, you amaze me. You, the original man-hater—not without the best of reasons, mind. But still, it is such a turnabout.”

  “I am so very happy and… contented.” Sabrina shut the door. “Though I never expected to be.”

  “I envy you.”

  “You will have your turn. Tell me what has been happening with you and Hawksworth.”

  “Before I can, you must answer a question that has been plaguing me.”

  “Gladly. Please, sit. Would you like me to ring for tea?”

  Alex shook her head in response to both. “Hawk said you told him I was marrying, but why did you never write to tell me he was alive and living in London?”

  Sabrina paled and lowered herself to the settee. “Oh, Alex, it is so complicated.”

  “I thought we were friends, Bree. I know Hawksworth is more your brother than your brother-in-law and thinks of you as his sister. I have made peace with that, even with the fact that you received a last letter and I did not. But why did you not tell me that I was not free to marry? Would you have let me commit bigamy?”

  “Of course not, which is the only reason Gideon allowed me to go that morning and tell Hawksworth—so Hawk could stop you.”

  “Allowed you?”

  “Gideon was adamant that I not interfere, and I agreed about Hawksworth, for the most part. Oh, Alex, you should have seen Hawk when he showed himself to us, which was not until we were all nearly killed.”

  “Killed?”

  Sabrina waved Alex’s worried question away. “That is a story we will save for another time, but worry not, for the danger has passed. As for Hawk, he was in a dark place, Alex, wounded, deeply, and not simply of body. He was lost, almost of soul, as well. I might fancifully say he appeared as if he had died—and gone to hell—but in returning, brought his demons with him, because they clung tenaciously to his inner spirit.”

  “Oh, Bree.” Alex sat as well. “Sometimes I have glimpsed such darkness in him.”

  “It was frightening. He was frightening. We worried about him, feared for his sanity, that he might do something rash.”

  Alex rose, hands fisted. She wanted more than anything to lash out in anger at her old friend. “And you did not think I could help him?”

  “Hawk is better now, which must be because of you, so I wonder if we might have been wrong to wait, but we did what we thought was best, Alex. Gideon fought beside Hawk. He held Hawk as he died, and he warned me that a man home from war must make his own way through his demons, or be lost to them.”

  Sabrina twisted a violet grosgrain bodice-ribbon as she spoke. “I wrote twice to tell you, but I never sent either letter for fear of betraying my promise to Hawk, for fear of hurting him. After we knew he was back in London, Gideon made discreet inquiries, to be certain he was taking care of himself. We invited him here several times, but other than the day he rescued us, Hawk never came.”

  Bree shook her head. “On that day, I advised him to contact you, and he promised he would. We owe him our lives, Alex, and we wanted to respect his wishes and give him the time he begged us to give him.”

  Despite herself, Alex wept over the things Bree revealed. She could not help herself. Hawk had suffered so much more than she imagined.

  Bree handed her a handkerchief, and Alex wiped her eyes and her nose, and smiled, finally, before stepping into Sabrina’s waiting arms. “Thank you for being such a good friend,” Alex said, “that you went against your instincts to be mine, rather than hurt him.”

  “You love him still, even though you were about to marry Chesterfield?”

  “Still, and more; am I not the fool?”

  “Hawksworth is a lovable man.”

  “You know that because you love him, too. I thought at one time you and he…”

  Bree giggled. “So did Gideon. Jealousy can be a very potent apprentice in getting a man to pay attention.”

  “I have tried that, but now I am afraid Hawk is staying away from me, because he thinks I love Chesterfield.”

  “Men can be so pigheadedly noble.”

  Alex smiled as did Sabrina.

  “Now tell me why your frantic note said that you and Hawk should be given one bedchamber only at Grandmama’s, no matter what.” Sabrina raised a questioning brow. “I must confess it has had me imagining all sorts of intrigues.”

  “You did not say anything to your husband,
did you, about the single bedchamber?”

  “Lord, no. Besides, he would tell me not to meddle there, either, and I do so love helping others, especially when it comes to romance, now that I have a romance of my own—which is certainly what your request for one bedroom seemed.”

  Alex sat and covered her friend’s hand. “Do you, honestly, Bree? A romance? Hawk said so, and oh, I am so happy for you. I am happy, too, that you want to meddle, because I honestly need your help. Our family’s happiness—Bea’s especially, but Claude’s, Aunt Hildy’s, even Uncle Giff’s—is at stake.”

  “What about your happiness, and Hawksworth’s?”

  Unable to sit still, Alex rose to wander the room. Buttercream damask covered the walls, with pale yellow, robin’s egg blue, and soft fern green in the upholstered furniture. The scent of beeswax and citrus freshened the air and calmed the spirit.

  “My happiness must be Hawk’s happiness.” Alex turned to her friend. “But would it not be wonderful if they were one and the same?”

  “Is that not your goal?”

  Alex could only nod for the lump in her throat. She found herself having to swallow before speaking. “I… yes, but for that to happen… please, Bree, you must tell me how to seduce my husband.”

  Sabrina rose to go to her. “Good Lord, you are having Chesterfield’s baby!”

  Before Alex could answer, a hedgehog scurried across the drawing room.

  Having had a great deal of practice, Alex caught the scampering critter and slipped it into her pocket. “Beatrix Jamieson, you little eavesdropper, show yourself this instant.” Muffled giggles and scurrying feet, on the opposite side of a second door, told them Bea would not be showing herself anytime soon.

  Shaking her head, Alex turned back to Sabrina “Chesterfield’s baby? What are you talking about?”

  “Why else would it be imperative to seduce your husband, unless it was to make it appear as if he fathered another man’s child—”

  Alex burst into laughter and threw her arms about her friend. “Gad, Bree, I have missed you. Of course I am not carrying Judson’s child. I am not carrying anyone’s child. How the devil could I be?”