Scandal

by Heather Cullman

  "Gideon-" she began.

  He cut her off. "No, Julia. I have heard quite enough for one evening. Now go to bed. We are finished." When she merely looked at him, he waved his hands in a shooing motion. "You have won. I have agreed to a truce, so go."

  "No. Not until you listen to what I have to say."

  One look at the stubborn set of her jaw and Gideon knew that he had no choice but to hear her out. Resigning himself to the fact that he would find no peace that night until she had had her say, he growled, "Then say what you must, and be done with it."

  "About what happened on our wedding night, when I said-"

  "I believe that our wedding night is a subject best discussed in the privacy of my study," he cut in, unwilling to think about, much less discuss, that disastrous night without a glass of port to fortify him.

  She nodded. "Of course. Whatever you wish, Gideon."

  What he wished was for her to go away and leave him alone. Since that clearly was not going to happen, he motioned her toward his study door, indicating that she was to enter.

  Nodding again, she did as directed. Gideon followed at her heels, closing the door behind them. When she paused in the center of the cozy, book-lined room, awaiting his further instruction, he took her arm and guided her to one of the two simple rosewood armchairs that stood before his imposing desk.

  Relieving her of the candle she carried, he commanded, "Sit," then wasted no time in lighting the mirrored wall sconces. That done, he stalked over to the sideboard and poured himself his much-needed snifter of port. He was about to return to the business at hand when his gaze fell upon the cut-glass brandy decanter. After a moment's consideration, he poured a snifter of it as well.

  Now carrying a glass in each hand, he covered the short distance to Julia in several long strides. "Here. I thought you might need this," he said, extending the brandy to her.

  She glanced first at the glass, then at him, her expression questioning.

  "Brandy," he replied to her unspoken query. "Is it not your drink of choice when faced with the task of dealing with me?"

  "You-you knew I had been drinking on our wedding night?" she sputtered, her cheeks infusing with color.

  "Of course I knew. I could taste it on your lips," he said, his suspicion about her brandy-flavored kisses now confirmed. "As I recall, it was rather fine brandy."

  Her blush deepened to a most becoming shade of dusky pink. "I-I suppose that I should explain about that too."

  "Oh, I think I understand well enough," he replied, lifting her hand from her lap to place the glass in it. "I daresay that you felt the need to numb your senses from the degradation of being bedded by a primitive commoner."

  She bit her lower lip and shifted her gaze to her glass. "I admit that I needed something to numb my senses. However, I can assure you that the need had nothing whatsoever to do with feelings of degradation at the thought of sharing the bridal bed with you." She jerked her head once in what was no doubt intended to be a head shake. "I needed it to alleviate my fear of what happens there. Helene told me that her mother said that the marriage act is not so very dreadful if one drinks brandy beforehand."

  "Helene?" Gideon quizzed, seating himself behind his desk.

  "Lady Helene Dunville. Her father is the Duke of Hunsderry." She paused to sip from her glass, grimacing at the taste. Her voice now husky from the liquor, she added, "You met them on several occasions. Surely you remember?" She peered at him in query.

  He nodded and took a drink from his own glass, a deep one. "Yes, I remember them." How could he forget? They were everything he loathed about the ton: superior, self-involved, boring, and perpetually discontented with everyone and everything around them.

  She nodded back. "Yes, well, after Helene told me of the horrors her mother said awaited a woman in the marriage bed, I thought it best to heed her advice and filch a bit of brandy from Papa's sideboard."

  Gideon's eyes narrowed at her words, sudden suspicion flickering through his mind. "And what exactly did Her Grace say about the marriage bed to fill you with such dread?"

  She averted her gaze to again stare into her glass. "I-I-er-surely I need not explain such things to a worldly man like you?"

  "Yes, you do, since I know nothing of the bridal-bed horrors against which Her Grace warned her daughter."

  Her face was a dull red now. "She says that men thrust their-their-well, you know"-she made a helpless hand gesture-"their male p-parts into the place between a woman's legs."

  Gideon waited for her to continue, certain that there had to be more. When she remained silent, he drew back slightly, frowning his incredulity. "That is the horror then, being entered by a man?"

  Julia nodded, her gaze still glued to her glass. "Her Grace says that a man thrusts his p-part inside a woman over and over again until she is torn and bleeding, and that a woman must do everything in her power to avoid the barbaric act."

  "I see," Gideon murmured, taking another drink. And he did. If what Julia said was true, and he was certain that it was since he doubted if she had either the imagination or sophistication to make up such a tale, then Her Grace apparently felt a perverse need to poison her daughter against the pleasures of the flesh. Either that, or she was one of those pathetic women who truly did not enjoy the sexual act.

  "Her Grace also says that the act is worse with a commoner," Julia continued in a stammering rush. "She says that commoners' m-male parts grow to be much larger than those of noblemen, and that they wield them with far more brutality. It is their common blood, you see; it makes them unable to bridle their primitive urges, so they revert to being savages between the sheets."

  Primitive . . . common, she had cried out as she had shrunk from his amorous advances on their wedding night. Gideon's lips compressed into a taut line, his insides coiling in anger at the Duchess of Hunsderry for setting about such vicious and damaging lies. What had happened that night made sense now, all of it. Julia had not been shrinking from him, but from his passion. It had terrified her out of her wits.

  Now wishing to get to the bottom of the matter so he could fully understand her fears, he gently probed, "Is that all you have heard about the marriage act, Julia?"

  "Amy says"-she glanced up quickly to clarify-"Amy found books on the subject hidden in her father's drawer, you see." At his nod, she continued. "Well, they say that the marriage act brings pleasure to both the man and the woman. Helene, however, says that since the books were written by men, and that men want to do the act all the time since it feels good to them, that what the books say cannot be believed."

  "Anything else?" he prodded, growing more appalled by the second. Good heavens! What sort of women was the ton breeding to believe such rot?

  "Only that men can be led by their lust. According to Helene's mother, a woman can persuade a man to do anything she wishes by being cooperative during the marriage act and doing everything in her power to ensure that it is pleasurable for him. She also says that since a woman cannot always escape submitting to her husband, that she might as well use his lust to her advantage." She looked up then, her face a study of remorse. "That is what I tried to do to you on our wedding night, Gideon. I asked Amy to tell me what

  her father's books said on the subject of pleasuring men, so I could do those things to you and pleasure you into doing my will. But-but-" Her splintering voice broke then, leaving her to gaze helplessly at him, mutely pleading for his understanding.

  "But you lost your courage," Gideon gently supplied.

  She nodded several times, then regained her voice enough to hoarsely reply, "Yes, and I am sorry. Not about losing my courage, but for trying to use you in such a wicked way. In my desperation to win you over, I could not see how very wrong it was. But I can see it now, and I shall not blame you if you choose to hate me."

  "I do not hate you, Julia," he reassured her with a smile, and it was true. Now that he understood what had driven her to reject his advances on their wedding night, his anger had all
but dissipated. As for her trying to lead him with his lust . . .

  "Then you forgive me?" she asked, her woeful tone spiked by hope.

  "Only if you tell me what you wished to gain by pleasuring me to your will. Whatever it is, you must want it very badly indeed to perform an act that terrifies you so in an attempt to win it."

  She returned his querying gaze in silence for several moments, then dropped it to stare into her glass, which she did as if suddenly fascinated by its amber contents. At length she sighed and confessed, "I had hoped to persuade you to permit my siblings to come stay with us."

  Gideon frowned, taken aback by her response. "That is all? You wished your siblings to come to Critchley?"

  She nodded without looking up.

  "Why did you not just ask me to allow them to visit?" he said, not certain whether to be furious with her for not trusting him enough to simply ask, or with himself for making her feel that she could not. "Surely you cannot think me such an ogre as to deny you your siblings' company?"

  "But you mistake my meaning. I was not trying to persuade you to let them merely visit; I wanted you to consent to allow them to take up residence with us. I sought to remove my sisters from Aurelia's control." She looked up, shaking her head over and over again. "Oh, I know that you admire Aurelia, and I do not expect you to believe me when I say that she makes my sisters' lives a misery, but it is true. She is awful to them, a terror, constantly criticizing and reproving them, and denying them even the smallest measure of kindness and affection. You once commented that my sisters are like wooden dolls. Well, that is Aurelia's doing. The poor darlings are afraid to do or say anything for fear of suffering her

  scorn and disapproval." By her fierce expression and impassioned tone, it was clear that she spoke the truth.

  Again Gideon was caught off guard. "But what of your parents? Your mother?" he quickly amended, for he knew for a fact that Lord Stanwell did not give a fig about his daughters. "If matters in the nursery are so very dreadful, how can she not see it and do something to remedy the situation?"

  "Because she does not care to see it." Julia sighed, a sad, defeated sound, and again shook her head. "The truth of the matter is that neither she nor my father bothers to notice my sisters at all, unless it suits their purposes to do so. They do not care how my aunt treats them, just as long as they behave properly on those occasions when they are required to be presented to society. Bertie, being the heir, merits more of their attention, but it is still far less than a child requires to feel truly loved, and I fear that he, too, will

  grow up starving for affection. If they lived here, I could see that they were raised with the love and joy they are denied at home."

  "And what of yourself, Julia? Was it the same when you were a child?" Gideon gently quizzed, shocked by what he was hearing. He had naturally assumed that the Barham children, being of the aristocracy, led a privileged life, filled with indulgence and pleasure. But he now saw that matters were much different, that his own childhood had been far richer than theirs, in spite of his parents' relative poverty.

  "Aurelia did not come to live with us until I was almost out of the schoolroom, so I was raised by an entourage of nursery maids and governesses. While I cannot claim that they loved me, they were at least kind. Then again, nursery work was their chosen profession, where Aurelia"-yet another sigh, again paired with a head shake-"my father thrust the post upon her as a punishment."

  Gideon choked on the port he had just swallowed, stunned by her revelation. "What?" he managed to splutter. "Why?"

  "For being stubborn and headstrong and eloping with a scoundrel her parents had forbidden her to wed," Julia replied. "She was very young at the time, of course, just eighteen, and exceedingly lovely. Being both beautiful and the daughter of a marquess, she was naturally expected to make a brilliant match. Well, to make a long story short, her family's reservations about the man's character proved correct, and she eventually ended up on my father's doorstep, destitute and widowed."

  "And he took it upon himself to punish her folly by forcing her to take a post she detests," Gideon concluded, his opinion of her father dropping yet lower, if such a thing were possible at that point. Not only had the bastard deliberately demeaned his wounded and disgraced sister, he had injured his daughters by forcing them to be the recipients of the woman's resulting bitterness. No wonder Julia was so desperate to remove her siblings from her parents household. It was a most harrowing place to live.

  "So do you forgive me yet?" she murmured, slanting him a hopeful look.

  Wondering how a bastard like Lord Stanwell could have sired such a brave and caring daughter, he smiled and truthfully replied, "With all my heart."

  "And you understand that I was not calling you common and primitive on our wedding night? That I was-"

  "Merely referring to my sexual urges, yes," Gideon dryly interposed. For a moment he was tempted to reopen the subject, to address and attempt to dispel her misconceptions about the marriage act. Then he decided against it. There would be time enough to do so later, now that they had struck a truce.

  "I spoke the truth when I said that I admire and respect you, Gideon," she continued with a nod. "And I truly do wish to be friends again, if you will have me for yours."

  He broadened his smile and nodded back. "I would be honored."

  They were friends again, which renewed his hope for their marriage. For like desire, friendship, too, could lead to love.

  Chapter 17

  Julia gasped, too stunned to do anything else as she watched the standing needlework frame she had received from London just that morning sink slowly into the shallow Critchley Park lake. She had ordered the ornately carved rosewood frame specifically for Bliss, hoping that it would not only aid the girl in improving her stitchery, but that it would also provide a frame for her sampler that would prove too cumbersome to throw, should she decide to use it as a projectile during one of her frequent fits of bad temper.

  But it appeared that she had greatly underestimated the delicate-looking child's strength. Now in the midst of a tantrum, this one over Julia's gentle attempt to correct the tangled mess the brat was trying to pass off as bullion stitches, Bliss had heaved the frame into the lake as effortlessly as if it were her usual embroidery hoop.

  Her mind still too boggled to fully comprehend what had happened, Julia continued to gape at the partially submerged frame, her mouth flapping open and closed in speechless shock. Finally she managed to squawk, "Bliss! How could you do such a wicked thing?"

  But Bliss had already darted off across the spacious lawn, having used Julia's momentary lapse in wits to make her escape. Torn between her wish to rescue the expensive frame and her desire to bring Bliss to justice, Julia glanced indecisively between Bliss's retreating back and the frame's curving cabriole legs, which poked out of the water at a drunken angle, weighing her priorities. Then her simmering outrage abruptly exploded through the lingering haze of her shock, snapping her to a decision.

  Unruly brat! If anyone was going to wade into the water and rescue the frame, it was going to be Bliss. Yes, and she would also wash and iron the sampler it held, after which she would be sent to bed without her supper to contemplate her abominable deed.

  Her priorities now firmly in place, Julia dashed after Bliss. Holding her yellow-and-gold striped muslin skirts high above her knees as she ran, she shouted at the top of her lungs, "You come back here this very instant, Bliss!" Not, of course, that she actually expected the wretched child to heed her command. Oh, no. She called out simply to vent her mounting anger, which at that moment made her hands itch to throttle the brat.

  Though Bliss was inordinately fleet-footed, a boon that when coupled with her head start gave her a distinct advantage over Julia, Julia was fueled by determination, which made her fly over the grass with unprecedented speed. Ignoring the startled glances she drew from the gardeners, who worked at raking up the waste left by the park's small flock of grazing sheep, Julia kept her
eyes resolutely focused on Bliss's blue-muslin-clad back, willing herself to sprint yet faster.

  The Critchley Park, while nowhere near as expansive as the gardens, was a pleasant place, lushly landscaped with ornamental shrubbery, shade trees, and a lake, the latter of which Bliss had begged to sit by this afternoon, complaining that the drawing room heat was far too oppressive to suffer. Dividing the park from the gardens was the stately manor house.

  Renovated to reflect the popular neoclassical style, the dun-colored brick mansion boasted an impressive facade with Roman triumphal arches, garland swag friezes, medallions depicting classical scenes, and six Corinthian columns, each of which was topped by a statue carved to resemble a mythical deity. Twin flights of curving steps, both railed in elaborate black ironwork, swept up and then together, to meet in a crescent-shaped veranda, a graceful contour that was echoed by the lines of the iron and glass dome that rose from behind the pedimented portico above.

  By now Bliss neared the wide drive, and Julia knew that she had only to cross it and slip through the bushes flanking the house in order to escape into the garden beyond. And then that would be that. Bliss would have again won.

  Though Julia was winded and her leg muscles screamed from the unaccustomed exercise, the very thought of the brat again evading justice gave her the strength to accelerate yet faster. She was almost close enough to grab the girl, who was now at the edge of the drive, when her single-minded concentration was shattered by the thundering sound of hoof beats-rapidly approaching ones.

  She glanced up to see Gideon and Christian tearing up the circular drive on horseback, clearly engaged in a race. Judging from their speed, they would never be able to stop in time to keep from running down Bliss, should she try to escape by crossing in front of them.