Scandal's Daughter

by Christine Wells

  An exploratory ramble was clearly in order.

  Gemma eyed the ragged bell-pull doubtfully and decided she would find her own way to the drawing room, where Sebastian said he would await her. Instructing Dorry to restrain her natural impulse to set the household by the ears, Gemma tidied herself and prepared to brave the corridors beyond.

  SEBASTIAN watched Gemma climb the steps to the first floor, dazed with an emotion he had never experienced before and did not really recognise. He could not believe she was here, inside this grim cavern of a place he avoided calling home. Far from the dark atmosphere dimming her shining presence, it was as if a beacon had entered the house. His own mood had lightened at the first glimpse of her merry smile.

  He shook his head and took a deep breath. An acrid smell filled his nostrils, recalling his mind to the pressing matter of his mother. He waited until Gemma was out of sight, then took the stairs three at a time and strode the short way down the corridor to his mother’s sitting room.

  The damask curtains hung in charred ribbons, fluttering like ghostly fingers in the sharp breeze that gusted through the open window. After a swift survey of the apartment, Sebastian glanced up at the moulded ceiling, and noticed thick swirls of grey curled lovingly around blackened plaster cherubs and doves. He would have to get someone up there to clean the soot when everything settled.

  He cursed under his breath as servants hurried past him, removing Buhl tables and Sheraton chairs. Perhaps a few of the sturdier furnishings away from the seat of the fire could be saved, but the delicate, eggshell-blue-and-grey stripe of the upholstered pieces was singed, smoke damaged, or blurred and disfigured by watermarks.

  The ancient wall hangings depicting a momentous battle fought by one of his ancestors had survived intact.

  “More’s the pity,” Sebastian muttered, stepping aside for a pair of footmen to remove the charred remains of an occasional table that had once been a handsome, burnished walnut.

  Clearly, the room would have to be cleaned and refurbished before his mother could return. He sighed. He had no idea of such matters, and Mama . . . well, he did not want to trouble her with such matters at the moment.

  She had changed since his father’s death. Had she loved him so much, that she would turn into this lost, remote stranger once he was gone? And worse, the mere sight of Sebastian seemed to pain her. He had stayed away because of the stark despair he saw in her eyes when she looked at him too long.

  He sighed. He did not know what to say to her. He never had been able to please her, not since he was a small boy. It was too late to begin again.

  When the servants had finished mopping the water used to douse the flames and swept up the worst of the debris, Sebastian dismissed them and moved to gaze out the window.

  “Gracious, what on earth happened?” Gemma’s clear voice chimed from the doorway. “Was anyone injured? Do you need help, Scovy?”

  His head snapped around. He barely managed to stop himself from snarling at her. Furious that some idiot had left the door open for her to see, Sebastian strode forward to block the way. He whisked her along the gallery and down the steps before she could do much more than stutter a protest.

  By the time they reached the hall, Gemma seemed to have remembered her manners, for she tucked her hand under his arm and said composedly, “Well, now! It is bidding fair to becoming a glorious afternoon. Will you not show me the gardens, Scovy?”

  After a silent few moments, he regained his own composure. “You must be famished after the drive. I’ve ordered a cold collation to be served in the south parlour. This way.”

  He tried to infuse his voice with his customary nonchalance, but knew he failed. Was there anything more unfortunate? That she should arrive when the household was in an uproar over another of his mother’s antics?

  Gemma would not rest until she had ferreted the truth out of him. But she had grown more subtle than she had been in her youth. Now, she bided her time before she pounced.

  “Oh! This is a charming room,” said Gemma when they reached their destination.

  “Is it?” He looked around, mystified at what Gemma could find in the dim parlour to admire.

  Gemma threw a smile at him over her shoulder as she moved to the window and thrust the curtains open. Watery rays of sunlight shafted through the glass and danced patterns on the bare stone floor.

  “Yes, don’t you see? The aspect is particularly lovely and the proportions just right. A few . . . improvements and it will be perfect.”

  This caught his attention. “Improvements? Now, listen, Gemma—”

  She raised her brows. “You are the Earl of Carleton, are you not?”

  “I fail to see—”

  “And forgive the vulgarity, but you are not precisely purse-pinched, are you?”

  “No.” His honoured Papa had made certain of that.

  “Then why,” she demanded, “does this place look as though it is like to fall down around our ears? Have you seen my bedchamber?”

  He shifted. “No, of course not, and I don’t—”

  She counted the items off her meddling little fingers. “One, the ceiling plaster is cracked and likely to fall on my head as I sleep. Two, there are damp patches on the walls and the paper is peeling away. Three, the curtains are moth-eaten and threadbare. Four—”

  Mortified, Sebastian interrupted her. “You must have been shown to the wrong chamber, in the old part of the house. Leave it to me and I will see you bestowed more comfortably.”

  The Lord only knew where. Perhaps he could cozen Fanny into giving up her room.

  She regarded him thoughtfully. “No, that won’t be necessary, thank you. Dorry will do what is required to make it habitable.” She paused. “Is your Mama . . . well, Scovy?”

  “Yes, of course. She is perfectly well. Never been better,” he lied. “Oh, you mean the accident! She burned her hand and the doctor has told her to rest. She will be recovered in no time, I’m sure.”

  Gemma seemed to accept this. “Well, I do hope so.”

  She placed a hand on the back of a chair as she spoke. Grateful for the distraction, he skirted the table to pull it out for her. “Won’t you sit down?”

  “Thank you.”

  He took the place opposite her, wishing Fanny would make good her word and join them and bring the inquisition to a close. But she did not appear, and his wayward servants seemed to have made themselves scarce, so he served both of them himself. They ate in uncomfortable silence.

  Sebastian selected an apple and gave it his undivided attention. He had peeled, cored, and quartered it before he realised he really did not wish to eat the damned thing. What he wished to do was put off his dirt, wallow in his bathtub for the next three months, and pretend that the problem of catching Gemma in parson’s mousetrap by the end of it did not exist.

  He offered her the plate and she took an apple quarter.

  Sebastian watched her bite into the crisp white flesh, then selected his own. Trying for a light note, he said, “Do you know, I’ve never tasted an apple better than the ones we used to steal from old Playstead’s garden?”

  She grinned. “Spoils of war always taste sweetest. Do you remember when he caught little Tommy Burke and you insisted on owning up to the crime so he would not give Tommy a thrashing?”

  “Yes, and then he thrashed Tommy anyway because he could not lay a finger on an earl’s son but he needed a target on whom to vent his spleen.” He snorted. “A most Christian gentleman! The rectory tree was laden with fruit. Year after year those apples lay rotting on the ground before the old curmudgeon would pick them, yet he begrudged the smallest pippin to those village brats.”

  “They often asked after you, you know,” said Gemma, and he sensed her watching him as he sliced his piece of apple into small, precise cubes. “Tommy and Jonas and the others. They were forever wondering when you would be back.”

  That old reproach. He was so tired of feeling guilty, of answering to everyone, most particularly
to Gemma. Knowing the feeling was unreasonable and unjust—she thought she was at Laidley to do him a favour, after all—he wiped his hands on a napkin and pushed away from the table. “If you are finished, I’ll introduce you to Fanny, shall I?”

  Gemma agreed, wondering what on earth had possessed her. First, she had criticised his mama’s housekeeping and then she had nagged him over his prolonged absence from Ware. That was no way to promote amity between them. Why could she not stop needling him, challenging him? Gentlemen abhorred bossy females, wasn’t that what Aunt Matilda always said?

  As they turned into a narrow corridor, Gemma glanced out the windows and saw a green courtyard, colonnaded on three sides and open on the fourth to terraced gardens. Tiers of fountains played lazily, their fine spray glittering like diamond tiaras in the sunlight.

  It was all very formal and grand and imposing, but at least the grounds appeared in better condition than the house. She longed to breathe fresh air. “May we not walk outside, Sebastian?”

  He halted and followed her gaze. “My apologies, I have business to attend to. Fanny will be pleased to walk with you, if you like. I shall send her to your bedchamber directly.”

  SEBASTIAN found his mother sitting ramrod straight in her bed, her back not quite touching the pillows banked behind her. Her bandaged right hand lay limp on the counterpane. A cup of tea and a small glass of cloudy fluid stood on a tray on the bedside table.

  Fanny put her embroidery frame aside when he entered the bedchamber and moved, soft as a wraith, towards him, her dark eyes anxious.

  “How is she?” he murmured.

  “I don’t know.” Fanny flicked a glance at the bed. “I have dressed her hand but the skin will blister badly I am sure. She refuses to see the doctor. Laudanum would dull the pain, but I cannot persuade her to take it.” She searched his face. “The fire has been put out, I assume? Where is our guest?”

  He nodded. “Gemma is in her bedchamber, awaiting you.”

  “I will go to her at once. I do not believe there is more I can do here, and Mama prefers Shelby to attend her anyway.”

  Sebastian frowned. “I still cannot fathom how it happened. What was she thinking of, lighting a fire herself, and in August, of all months?”

  Fanny shook her head, glancing again at the rigid figure in the large, canopied bed. “Not a fire,” she breathed. “A cigarillo.”

  “What?”

  “I am perfectly well, Sebastian. Thank you.” The precise, surprisingly forceful voice stopped him asking Fanny for more detail.

  Sebastian moved to the bed, in which his once formidable mother appeared fragile, even a little lost. He reached to take her good hand in his, but remembered just in time and let his hand fall. She had never liked touching him.

  She watched the futile movement, and a bitter smile flitted over her face as she turned her head away. But after a moment, her chin came up. With a small shake of her shoulders, she seemed to shed her air of frailty like a discarded cloak.

  “I believe I should like to get up now.”

  Was that wise? Sebastian sent a questioning look to Fanny, who still hovered by the door. Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head.

  “No, no!” He tried for a jovial tone but it clanged a false note. “Why, I have only just arrived and you mean to dismiss me, ma’am. Will you not stay awhile and let me keep you company?” He cringed inside at the hypocrisy. When had she ever desired his presence?

  “Company?” Her thin eyebrows buckled. Her good hand plucked at the crisp linen sheet.

  Sebastian swallowed and averted his gaze, searching the room for inspiration. A slim, leather-bound volume lay on a table at his mother’s bedside. He stared, taken aback. His cold, rigidly principled mama, the woman who had never touched any of her children either in love or in anger, kept Byron as bedtime reading?

  An idea occurred to him with such force that he blurted it out. “Would you like me to read to you, ma’am?”

  Instantly, he regretted the offer, knew her answer would annihilate him as her cold dismissals of his overtures always had. Never let down your guard, you fool.

  She tried to answer, but seemed to have difficulty swallowing. Pressing her hand to her breast, she began to cough. Perhaps the smoke had affected her lungs?

  Silently closing the door on his emotions and throwing the bolt, Sebastian picked up the tumbler of diluted laudanum and offered it. “Drink this, Mama. It will make you more comfortable, I assure you.”

  Without speaking, she took the small glass in her good hand and slowly drained it, choking a little as she swallowed. She handed him the empty tumbler, settled back against her pillows, and closed her eyes.

  “Yes, Sebastian. Read to me. That would be pleasant.”

  FANNY’S smile wavered to uncertainty and deepened to horror as her gaze travelled around Gemma’s chamber. She looked as though she had never set eyes on the disreputable room before and rather wished she had remained in blissful ignorance.

  Gemma chuckled. “My thoughts precisely. But it shall all be set to rights in the shake of a lamb’s tail, never fear.”

  Fanny wrenched her stunned gaze from a pair of hideous bronze eagles on the mantel and wrinkled her patrician nose. In a low-pitched, slightly husky voice, she said, “What is that smell?”

  “Damp? Dry rot?” Gemma hazarded. “Oh, you mean the camphor.” She moved to shut the clothes press and the pungent odour receded.

  “Moths,” she explained when Fanny continued to look perplexed. “Camphor does wonders to eradicate the little pests.”

  Gemma surveyed her visitor with interest. She was remarkably like Sebastian, with the same dark, strongly marked features. But her chin was pointed, not square, and her soft lips the antithesis of her brother’s chiselled masculinity. “Thank heavens you are beautiful,” said Gemma with satisfaction. “You will make an exquisite bride.”

  Fanny started and flushed. “Oh, but—”

  “Now, about your wedding.” Gemma waved aside the embarrassed interjection. “Leave everything to me. All you need do is tell me your requirements, and I shall engage to fire you off in grand style.”

  Fanny blinked. She drew her Norwich silk shawl close around her and half turned away. “Good Lord! Er, that is to say . . . Good Lord, what a predicament.”

  Realising the dingy surroundings had appalled her companion into incoherence, Gemma tucked her hand in Fanny’s stiffened arm and tilted her head to scrutinise her face. Her new friend was rather tall for a female. “Should you object to continuing this discussion outside? If we stand about in here much longer I fear one of us will fall into strong convulsions. Do come along,” she coaxed, drawing Fanny towards the door. “I simply pine for fresh air.”

  “Yes, of course. In a moment.” Fanny stepped away from her. She lifted her chin in a gesture that held a deal of defiance and gave her something of the look of Sebastian when he turned mulish. “Miss Maitland, before we go any further, there is something I must tell you.”

  “Yes? Please, call me Gemma.”

  Fanny inhaled deeply through her nose, then let out a short breath. “I am very much afraid my brother has brought you here on a fool’s errand. I . . . Gemma, I must apologise. There is not going to be any wedding.”

  Nine

  “No wedding?” Gemma plumped down on the threadbare counterpane. The ancient bedsprings groaned and wheezed.

  Fanny shook her head.

  Gemma eyed her companion and waited. She did not wish to pry, but she had travelled a long way with the best of intentions and she rather thought she was entitled to some sort of explanation for the sudden abortion of her mission.

  She frowned. “Do you mean Sebastian has brought me here under false pretences?”

  “Not false pretences, no.” Fanny sat beside Gemma and her gaze slid away. “Well, not entirely. You see, I was betrothed.”

  “Oh.”

  “But now I am not.”

  “I see.” Gemma considered this statement. “Do y
ou mean you broke the engagement?”

  Fanny inclined her head, a queenly gesture. “Yes. It was high time.” She straightened, her neck and spine extending until Gemma wondered that anyone could manage such perfect posture without a backboard.

  Staring at the wall opposite, Fanny went on in her cool voice. “Mama entered into my feelings completely, which surprised me. She has always been such a high stickler. But she has finally seen what I have been trying to tell her since the start of this sorry engagement. We simply do not suit.”

  “We?”

  “Lord Romney and I.” Fanny smoothed her cambric skirt over her lap.

  “Romney?” Gemma had heard of his lordship, a notorious libertine and boon companion of Sebastian’s. “Did Sebastian arrange this match?”

  Fanny flicked a piece of fluff from her shawl. “No, Romney and I have been betrothed forever. Our respective parents simply refused to believe the match was unsuitable.” She curled her lip. “I fear I am far too staid a creature for Romney’s taste.”

  Gemma could well believe it. By all accounts, the poet Byron’s famed excesses were nothing to Romney’s, though Romney boasted his affairs were conducted with greater finesse. “If you dislike him so much—”

  “Dislike him? I loathe him. His mode of life disgusts me.” Fanny launched herself from the bed and began to pace, redistributing quite a bit of dust in the process. This animation suited her.

  Overcome by dust, Gemma sneezed. She crossed to the dresser to unearth a handkerchief. “Well, it seems you have extricated yourself from the engagement, so that is what signifies. Though I know it will not be pleasant to be branded a jilt, it is better than living the rest of your life with a man you despise.”

  Fanny paused. “Of course. Of course it is.” She resumed her pacing. “But you don’t understand, Gemma. The battle is just begun.” She whirled about. “Can I count on you to stand by me? I can, can’t I? I know you would not suffer me to marry such a man.”