Scenting Scandal (Scandalous Siblings Series Book 2)

by Suzi Love

  “Let me set your mind at rest.”

  Cold fingers, a sign of impending doom, sent shivers running up his spine. Her fingers tapping on his arm, though light, reminded him of a cat stalking a mouse and toying with it.

  “Dispel any pressing concerns. The Earl hasn’t connected us in any romantic way. You’re not about to become a father.”

  She gave her version of a girlish giggle, a high-pitched whine that also grated.

  “That thought never crossed my mind. The extreme precautions I take ensure it will never eventuate.”

  “Besides which, I’d never ruin my figure that way.” She waggled a finger near his nose. “No, no, no, my love. We’ve much more important issues to discuss.”

  Here it came. The cat readying to pounce. Moving in for the kill.

  “You and I, Richard, are alike. Two of a kind.” She purred.

  “We’re nothing alike. Nothing. You’re a greedy manipulative bitch. I’m not.”

  Her sucked-in breaths hissed and sizzled between them. “I suggest you play nicely with me, my lord, as I have something you’ll definitely want.” She smiled, a-mouser-anticipating-its-next-meal sort-of smug smile. “It concerns your newest lady-love, the overly-talkative one who sniffs at your skin like a bitch on heat.”

  “As I already explained, the only bitch I’ve spoken to recently is you. And I’m about to end this conversation, and any lamentable association we may have had in the past, right now.”

  He opened the carriage door and bent to leap out, anxious to be on the footpath where he could draw his first breath of clean air. Away from her suffocatingly sweet French perfume. Away from her clawing clutches. Away from her.

  What he’d enjoyed about her—apart from the glaringly obvious thing of a willing female body thrust into his hands—he couldn’t now fathom. Even on the occasions when she’d enticed him between her silken sheets and between her satiny thighs, he’d known. Deep down, he’d recognized the obsessive way she’d kept him there, clutched him, tethered him with guilt and tears and embroidered stories of her unhappy marriage. So why?

  Because he’d understood that a woman so shallow, so false, could never affect him emotionally, never touch his heart, so giving in to her erotic demands was an easy option. Far easy than giving in to the deeper, more sensuous entanglement he faced with Laura.

  If he surrendered. If he gave in to her. Or rather, to himself, and his own ever-growing desire for her. If he committed himself to Laura–

  If. If. If.

  If he did, it would be a body-and-soul, unswerving, faithful-to-the-day-he-died type of devotion. The idea scared the living hell out of him.

  Trying to calm himself, he drew in another lungful of air. Ironic that the City’s heavy, coal-dust ridden air seemed to him far more pure than the choking atmosphere in the carriage he’d left. He opened his eyes and directly in front of him stood Brian, an anxious expression on his face as he peered over Richard’s shoulder at the carriage.

  Damnation! He realized the cause of Brian’s distress. The carriage lingered, an enlarged version of the dangerous feline seated inside. A jungle panther, sleek, slate black and stationary on the steel rutted roadway behind him. He eased in an edifying breath, before turning to face the still-open door of her elaborate equipage. The satisfied smile on the Countess’s countenance, as she leaned out the window, warned him in advance. She beckoned to him with a crooked finger.

  Without shifting, he said to Brian, “I fear the Countess failed to comprehend my last message.”

  “What did she want?” Brian murmured the question close to his ear.

  “Me!”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “Exactly.”

  Steeling himself to not cause a disturbance in this busy area where many of his peers came and went on a constant basis from their own bouts of exercise, he took one step closer to the window. Dodging the rolled fabric blind, he pushed his head into her space and forced her to shift backwards on her seat, sliding a little more into the interior of the carriage.

  Better! Much safer. No need for onlookers to glimpse her appearance, perhaps recognize her, nor, he hoped, for them to attach any importance to a conversation the Earl of Winchester held in the street with an anonymous figure in a coach.

  “Was there something delaying your departure?”

  “Oh, yes, my elusive love. You may think you can best me in this, but I hold the upper hand. A full house in this case.”

  She giggled again.

  Out of the blue, he recalled why the noise ground on his nerves. It reminded him of the young girl who’d drowned on his estate two years previously, while running away from a group of lads who’d inadvertently frightened her. Poor demented child. After a dreadful birthing, her mother had died and the babe barely survived, and then, as the years passed, it became obvious that the child would never lead a normal life.

  Still, her father and brothers doted on her for seven years and ignored her high-pitched giggles, screeches and other inappropriate noises, as did the entire village. Nobody held a forever-child responsible for her frequent outbursts or sometimes outrageous behavior. She was incapable of controlling her emotions in situations that overexcited her. Incapable of knowing right from wrong and good from bad.

  How peculiar that the giggle from the Countess sounded much the same, an uncontainable outburst of inappropriate sentiment. Those blasted cold finger tickled his spine again. Blessed enhanced intuition, something that ran in his family, was fast becoming a nuisance.

  “I love gamblers’ vocabulary, don’t you? But of course you do. As a constant speculator on the Stock Exchange, you gamble every day. So you understand that holding a full house puts me in the position of power.”

  “Is there a point to this diatribe?”

  “As you’ve been so reticent to discuss this civilly here, this morning, I’ve changed my mind. If you wish to acquire the information I hold about your precious little flirt, you now need to visit me at my home.”

  “Out of the question!”

  “Your choice, though possibly a dangerous one for the lady involved.”

  “How do I know you’re not bluffing, to use another of your gambling terms?”

  “To call my bluff and see my hands spread out, in all their naked glory–”

  He frowned at her. “Are we still discussing information, or something else?”

  Another of those irritating sniggers. She snapped her fan hard on his arm and he jerked backwards. “Naughty, naughty man. You’ll need to call at my house at three sharp to unravel that little mystery.”

  She reached across and rapped hard on the open doorway of the coach, and the liveried footman standing at attention on the footpath sprang forward to fasten the door. The nasty-looking footman called to the coachman, who readied his horses with coarse shouts and slaps of leather reins. Left with no alternative, Richard and Brian moved quickly away, before the large coach lumbered into a swaying motion as he maneuvered into the stream of traffic on the crowded street. The surly sounding coachman continued to hurl abusive comments at anyone brave enough to cross his path.

  “The immoral employer seems to keep equally nasty servants around her,” Brian remarked, that pondering frown telling Richard that his cousin dwelt on something of importance. “One wonders why she carries so much force on her town coach.”

  Brian pointed to the back of the departing coach where another brute of a footman balanced on the back board, his scowling gaze riveted on them.

  “Hum, now you mention it, an interesting situation. I’m certain she never carried such a show of brute strength with her before.”

  “So what did she want this second time?”

  “Me.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  Richard snorted. “You’re repeating yourself. But once again, I agree with your summation of the situation.”

  “You’d not be idiotic enough to take her up on her proposition a second time.” He looked him in the eye. “My brother
s would never forgive me if I let you consider something so mindless without issuing you a severe warning.”

  “Don’t fret, my friend. Mixing with the Countess may possibly have been the most foolish thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’d never dive into that cesspool again. Though I do wonder about those protectors of hers. Was it to impress me? To call me to heel?”

  “More likely she is frightened of something. Or someone. Perhaps one of her other past lovers is threatening to reveal all to her husband. Though hard to imagine what he’d gain.”

  “In my opinion, nothing. The Earl is only too happy to have his wife taken off his hands. Leaves him in the clear to pursue his own rather peculiar little foibles.”

  “Oh, not another high-titled peer with strange bedroom habits.”

  “From what I understand, yes. The Earl frequents those bawdy houses that cater to a specific type of patron. Probably the reason he’s never sired children with the Countess.”

  Brian sighed. “Seriously, I start to believe they should extend the number of padded rooms in Bedlam. Lock away the entire upper ten thousand.”

  Richard laughed. “It’s all the inbreeding from previous centuries. Never works well with horse-breeding for many generations either. Can’t see why it would prove any better with humans.”

  “Perhaps we should all refrain from siring any children.”

  A sudden picture of a brood of red-cheeked and dark-haired children playing around his feet flashed before his eyes. Another babe sucking from the breast of their mother. The woman looked up at him, her dark eyes glowing and giving a loving smile to him.

  Laura’s eyes, Laura’s smile.

  Of course it would be. He couldn’t escape it, no matter how far he ran. He heaved in a deep breath. No other woman could fill the role of mother to his heir and his other children. Why not accept it and start making it a reality, instead of producing one feeble reason after another to avoid it?

  “…Nevertheless,” Brain was saying, “you must avoid the Countess entirely.”

  “I wish that were possible. The conniving woman dangled Laura’s safety as bait in front of my nose, knowing I’d do anything to secure it.”

  “What are you talking about? What did she say about Lady Laura?”

  “If I’m to discover something she knows, something concerning Laura, I must visit the Countess one last time. Today. At her home.”

  Brian shook his head. “Oh, no, no, no. Not a good idea. You have no idea what her plan is for you once she has you there.”

  “I must go. She knows that. Anything that involves Laura, involves me.”

  “Oh, hell. You’re in deep, aren’t you? You’re in love with Laura.”

  Richard glared at him. “We’ve had this discussion. At present, I’m her friend. But I want to be her lover, her only lover. And I’ve decided to become her husband. And soon. As for love, I’ll leave sentiments of that sort to those of a more poetic bent.”

  “Utter rot!” Brian grinned. “Deny it all you want. But you’re already up to your ears in love with our Lovely Laura.” His smile was replaced by a serious frown. He shook his head, his detested cowlick flopping across his forehead. “This visit this afternoon, it truly doesn’t bode well. I should accompany you.”

  Richard laid his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “I appreciate your concern, but it’s better I confront the Countess alone. If you’re with me, she may not speak freely. Although, I do have a way you can assist me without actually entering the house.”

  He grinned at his cousin. “Are you and Tony any good at sweeping streets?”

  As they walked away from Gentleman Jackson’s, Richard outlined his new plan to Brian.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Laura rose from her chair beside Lottie’s bed and collected three plates and teacups, the remains of their shared and rather early luncheon, a light repast they’d taken in the bed chamber to save Lottie and Aunt Aggie from another painful trip to the dining room. After placing the crockery on a tray for the maid, she turned to look at her recuperating family members.

  “I’m worried about both of you.” She looked towards her aunt, whose bruises on her arms had turned from black and blue to yellow and purple. Lottie’s foot, wrapped in the doctor’s tight bandage, was propped high on a mound of pillows. “Perhaps I should dispatch a messenger to Winchester and send my regrets. We can visit the Society another time.”

  “No need for that, my dear,” her aunt reassured her. ”We’re both recovering perfectly well.”

  “One more day off my feet and the doctor says my ankle should be strong enough to start some light walking.” Her sister grinned at her. “One might start to wonder if these delaying tactics are because you cannot face the Winchester at the moment. Did you two have another spat? If so, I’m sorry I missed it. I do adore seeing the sparks fly between you two.”

  “That is because they’re both too stubborn-minded for their own good,” Aunt Aggie said, nodding her head in an all knowing fashion. “Neither of them is willing to concede defeat in any of their squabbles.”

  “Ah, ha! Another reason for me not to go. If I stay here, I cannot fight with the supercilious man.”

  Lottie looked at her, her brows raised. “He may appear arrogant on occasion, but the man is invariably correct in all his statements.”

  “I know. That’s what makes him so hard to work alongside. When I go with him to the Society this afternoon, he’ll be all willing, available, affable, smiling, harmonious and–”

  The other two had burst into gales of laughter. She flashed them an irritated look, willing them to understand her predicament.

  “Not towards me. Oh, no. The man is never that pleasant to me. He’s that way towards all the women who beg his assistance with their accounts. As so many of them do. Frequently.”

  “Laura, I think it is time you readied yourself. The Earl be there ahead of you otherwise, and who knows what mischief all those doting women may get into without your strong hand to guide them.”

  Laura rolled her eyes. “I do know when you are funning me. Fine. I’m leaving now. After the Society, I have several other calls to make. And if I finish early enough, I wish to call at Mr. Roberts, the bookseller. So do not expect me before four or five. And I shall leave instructions about opening the door to callers. We need to take precautions while there are so many criminals–”

  “Laura,” Lottie said.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re rambling again.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go, go. And when you get home, we’ll have more time to discuss the advice Madame Faberge gave to you this morning. I can’t wait to learn more ways to tempt a suitor.”

  “Or in your case, to dissuade an over-eager one,” Auntie said, with a fond smile at her youngest niece.

  With a little laugh and a wave, Laura ran down stairs to issue strict instructions to their butler and footmen as to whom would be admitted to the house while she was out.

  “On second thoughts, perhaps tell everyone that we’re not receiving at all. That way no one will be allowed enter, and we’ll not have to worry who they are, or what they may want, or who may have sent them to spy on us.”

  It took her several minutes, but at last she felt she’d covered all eventualities. At least, as best she could. So why, oh why, did she feel this irrational fear? One that prevented her from taking that step outside their front door. Winchester and all the women awaited her. They needed her help. She must go.

  Yet, she lingered, certain something was wrong. For the third time, she instructed their butler, until accompanied by their footman, Warren, the one Winchester considered a criminal and not a house servant, she placed a firm step on the stairs. In a quick rush, she descended to the carriage, and settled back to spend the journey to the house where the Women’s Society met in deep contemplation.

  Though she loved her family desperately, on occasion she wished for a few moments’ peace and quiet. A chance to catch her breath and consider her fut
ure. She sighed. As always when alone, her thoughts leapt to one person. She took her notebook from her reticule and turned to the well-thumbed page near the back: the one man she longed to be able to write about in her research, to describe his smell as a perfect counterpart to her own; one that drew her immediately and set her senses reeling.

  Botheration! Why could it not be him?

  Winchester’s titles and names were generations old. His family’s veins ran with blood at least as blue as her own. He possessed the high level of intelligence that intrigued her in a man. His body…oh, yes, the manly physique that she regularly admired in secret, made every unmarried woman in a room turn her head when he entered. To her annoyance, several married women also turned their eyes to make a survey of his attributes. Even more frustrating were the blatant advances that followed their visual appreciations.

  For Laura, Richard’s wealth attracted her the least. He drew her to him with his wit, his uncompromising support and his vulnerabilities. And, though she hated to admit it, she craved security. Her greatest fear remained that she’d remain a spinster after never finding a man through her research; left with no husband and therefore no precious children of her own. Michael and Jonathon would eventually marry and she’d have the unenviable choice of residing with one of them and becoming a fond aunt to their children, or wandering archaeological digging sites with her father.

  Her carriage pulled up before the Society’s premises and the door opened to show her Winchester’s smiling face.

  “I’m pleased you’ve arrived.”

  She looked towards the walkway to the neat terraced house, and at the windows where anxious faces pressed against the glass. “You could have gone inside without me. You’re the one they’re waiting to speak with.”

  He turned to the row of chattering women who had moved outside to rim the doorway and, in a graceful gesture, tipped his hat to them and smiled. “Oh, no. Far too terrifying to face a room of these women by myself.” He raised his elegantly gloved hand and treated the women to a little wave. The chattering rose to a crescendo, like a flock of excited birds.