A little scandal

by Patricia Cabot

  “Four,” Isabel said, in the same dreamy voice.

  “Well,” Kate said again. “Then he had plenty of opportunity. Sometimes I can’t help thinking young Mr. Saunders is a bit lacking in intellect.”

  Isabel took not the slightest offense at this slander against her love. “I suppose,” she said, “he didn’t ask me tonight at the ball because he wanted a more romantic atmosphere. Lady Tetmiller’s was sadly lacking in that, don’t you think, Miss Mayhew?”

  Kate did not reply right away. The atmosphere of romance—or lack thereof—at Lady Tetmiller’s was hardly foremost in her mind. No, it was what had happened directly before they’d left the ball that Kate could not get out of her head: the memory of Daniel Craven, who’d left her alone for the whole of the evening after Lord Wingate’s warning, suddenly stealing up and seizing her hand, then dragging her behind a pillar and asking, worriedly, “Katie? Is everything all right? I got the feeling from Lord Wingate that perhaps ...’.”

  She’d been more prepared this time than she’d been an hour before, when he’d come toward her from out of nowhere and begun chatting amiably about their mutual acquaintances. This time she did not even pale, but said, calmly tugging on her shawl, which she’d collected already from the cloakroom, “Everything is fine, Mr. Craven. Only I wish—”

  “Mr. Craven?” He had looked crestfallen, and had plucked up one of her hands to squeeze. “I remember a time when it used to be Daniel.”

  Looking down at their joined hands, Kate had said, “I remember that time, too, Mr. Craven. But that was some time ago. Before the fire, remember ...”

  “Blast the fire,” Daniel had burst out vehemently. “Can a bloody fire have changed things so much, Kate, that you don’t have time anymore for your old friends?”

  She’d blinked up at him in astonishment. “But of course it can, Mr. Craven,” she’d said. “The fire changed everything. You ought to know that. You were there, after all.”

  Daniel had dropped her hand as if it, like her past, had suddenly burst into flames.

  “What do you mean?” he’d asked too quickly, his pale eyes fixed to her face. “What do you mean by that? I wasn’t there, Kate. I wasn’t anywhere near—”

  Kate hadn’t heard the rest of what he’d said, because Isabel had begun calling for her, frantic over the apparent misplacement of a glove. But now, jolting along in the carriage home, Kate could only wonder at herself. Why on earth had she said that about his having been there that night? What could she have been thinking? He hadn’t been there. He hadn’t.

  “Well,” Isabel said, bringing her back round to the present. “Well, Miss Mayhew? Don’t you agree with me? About Lady Tetmiller’s being so lacking in romantic atmosphere?”

  Kate, recovering herself, said with a laugh, “Romance? I’m hardly qualified to answer that question, being, according to you, far too old to entertain any hope a man might ever want me.”

  “Oh,” Isabel said, waving a hand airily. “I know of at least one man who wants you very much, Miss Mayhew. But we’re talking about me, now. I believe Geoffrey’s going to ask me to marry him.”

  “And what,” Kate inquired, “does he propose the two of you will live on? Moonbeams and morning dew? Mr. Saunders owes far more money than he makes, you know.”

  “I shall simply have to convince Papa to pay off his debts,” Isabel said, with a shrug. “And then the two of us will start fresh.”

  “Your father would far sooner approve your marrying a Papua New Guinean than Geoffrey Saunders,” Kate said.

  Again the airy hand wave. “I shall take care of Papa. I expect he’ll do whatever I say after that embarrassing scene tonight.”

  Kate looked pointedly out the window of the chaise. “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.

  “Oh, Miss Mayhew, don’t pretend you didn’t see it. Mrs. Woodhart slapped him hard enough to be heard all the wayto Newcastle. I’ve never been so mortified in all my life. I mean, really. All my friends think he said something lascivious to offend her.”

  Kate couldn’t help glancing over at her charge, her eyebrows raised. “Lascivious?”

  “Yes. Isn’t that a delicious word? I learned it from one of your books. I forget which one.”

  Kate turned her face back toward the window. “I’m sure,” she said, after a moment’s silence, “that they only quarreled. Mrs. Woodhart is an actress, and is probably prone to dramatic gestures like the one tonight. I’m certain there wasn’t anything lascivious involved.”

  “They weren’t quarreling,” Isabel said knowingly. “Papa dropped her months ago. He hasn’t had a mistress since you came to stay with us, Miss Mayhew.”

  Kate pretended to be absorbed in admiring a passing barouche. “How you come to know these things,” she murmured, “I will never understand.”

  “Oh, that’s simple enough. Duncan told me.”

  Kate shook her head. “You shouldn’t be listening to servants’ gossip, Lady Isabel. You know better than that.”

  “Oh, pooh. It’s perfectly obvious to everyone in the entire house, if not all of London by now, that he’s in love with you, Miss Mayhew.”

  Now Kate had to tear her gaze away from the window and stare, horrified, at her charge, while color flooded her cheeks. “Lady Isabel!” she cried, her voice cracking.

  “Well, it’s true.” Isabel, looking a bit like Lady Babbie after catching a particularly fat mouse, curled up on the seat opposite Kate’s, and all but purred. “Surely you’ve noticed how he avoids you when we’re at home. But then he pops up wherever we go, sure as clockwork. He can’t help himself. I believe he wakes up each morning and says to himself—she performed an uncannily accurate imitation of her father’s deep voice by dropping her own several octaves—“ ‘I shall be certain to avoid Miss Mayhew today.’ But then by evening, all his resolve is gone, because you really are irresistible, Miss Mayhew. Like chocolate.”

  Kate said, with all the sternness she could muster, “Lady Isabel, you must stop teasing. It isn’t respectful of your father, and it is unkind to me.”

  Isabel ignored her. “Even Mrs. Cleary said something the other day. She said, ‘It’s not like his lordship to miss his supper. But I don’t believe he’s been home for it these past three months.’ And three months is how long you’ve been here, Miss Mayhew. He’s avoiding you, probably because the very sight of you sends him into a frenzy of lust.”

  Kate, realizing that the more she protested against this subject, the longer Isabel was going to continue to worry it, said only, “Wherever did you pick up that phrase? It certainly wasn’t from any book of mine.”

  “Three months is the longest Papa’s ever gone between mistresses,” Isabel went on. “Once he went six weeks, but that was only because of a riding injury. As soon as he was back in top form, out he went to find another one. He must really be in love with you, Miss Mayhew, or he’d have found a replacement for Mrs. Woodhart by now.”

  Kate said, her voice constricted, “Oh, look. Here we are on Park Lane.” Thank God.

  “Perhaps,” Isabel said thoughtfully, “we could have a double wedding. You and Papa, and Geoffrey and I. Wouldn’t that be lovely, Miss Mayhew? We’d be such an attractive wedding party. You and Papa look very well together, because you have such little, smiley lips, and Papa’s are so big and growly.”

  Kate could ignore the topic no longer: “Lady Isabel,” she burst out. “I hope you aren’t serious. You can’t possibly think a man in your father’s position would ever entertain the notion of marrying someone in mine.”

  Isabel did not look, however, as if she were anything but serious. “Why not, Miss Mayhew?” she demanded. “It’s not as if you’re an actress, or”—she shuddered—“a ballet dancer.”

  “Marquises,” Kate said, severely enough that she hoped it would put an end to the conversation, “do not marry their daughters’ chaperones.”

  Isabel lifted her nose into the air. “They do,” she said, “if the marquis in question i
s my father, and the chaperone is you, Miss Mayhew.”

  The carriage pulled to a halt. Kate nearly catapulted from her seat in her haste to leave its confines—and Isabel’s heartless chatter.

  She could hardly meet the footman’s gaze as he handed her down from the vehicle. Good Lord, she kept thinking. Does Bates think Lord Wingate is in love with me? And in the foyer, when Mr. Vincennes came forward to ask if there was anything her ladyship required before retiring, Kate couldn’t help saying to herself, Surely Mr. Vincennes knows better than to think so! And when she was safe in her own room, peeling off her dress, and heard the giggle of Isabel’s maid from the next room, she thought, Oh, no. Not Brigitte, too.

  Crawling naked into her bed—she had given up wearing nightdresses since the day she’d first spied Lord Wingate coming out of his bath; she invariably woke with whatever she’d worn to bed twisted about her hips, so she’d decided to make matters simpler by wearing nothing—she asked herself, for the thousandth time, why she didn’t just chuck it all in and marry Freddy. Everything would be a good deal simpler if she did. True, she didn’t love him, but she was beginning to think love wasn’t such a pleasant thing, after all. Of course, he hadn’t exactly renewed the invitation lately—their relationship seemed to have been permanently strained by the introduction of that Viennese soprano—but Kate was fairly certain Freddy wouldn’t say no, if she introduced the topic.

  The problem with the plan—besides Freddy’s mother, of course—was that, while it would certainly physically remove her from Lord Wingate, it wasn’t guaranteed to remove him from her mind, where he’d been dwelling, nonstop, for the week that had passed since that fateful night in the library. It wouldn’t be at all fair of her to marry Freddy knowing she was in love with someone else ... if, indeed, love was what she felt toward the marquis. Kate wasn’t completely convinced “love” was the word for it. Isabel’s phrase “frenzy of lust” might be more apt.

  Sleep, which had become very elusive of late, came to her rather quickly that night. As usual, she was dreaming of her employer—this time, they were both on the ladder in the library, naked, of course—when she was wakened suddenly by a sound she recognized. Sitting up at once, she turned incredulous eyes toward the window.

  There it was again. That rattle of pebble against glass. That idiot boy was up to his same tricks again. After all her threats, he was doing it again, come, no doubt, to ask Isabel that infernal “question” she’d been chattering about.

  Well, he’d regret it, this time. She’d get Lord Wingate. See if she wouldn’t.

  Throwing back the sheets, Kate hastily pulled on her nightdress and wrapper. No sooner had she set foot into the hallway, however, than she’d realized she couldn’t possibly wake Lord Wingate. It would mean a duel, since a man with the marquis’s temper was highly unlikely to be satisfied with a mere verbal lashing. And news of a duel was likely to get out, and the inevitable rumors would spread like wildfire, until Kate was quite certain people would be going about saying Isabel’s father had found Mr. Saunders in his daughter’s room, and thrown him out the window ....

  No. She wouldn’t wake the marquis. She’d handle the situation herself. She’d give Geoffrey Saunders another reminder of just how very nasty she could become when adequately motivated.

  But when she flung open the French doors to the garden steps, she found that she’d been mistaken. Not about how nasty she could be when motivated, but about the identity of the man in the garden.

  For it wasn’t Geoffrey Saunders at all. It was, in fact, Daniel Craven.

  “Oh, there you are,” he said, lowering the hand that held another fistful of pebbles he’d evidently been intending to hurl at her window. “Thank God. I was worried I’d got the wrong window.”

  Kate, completely speechless, could only stare at him. He must, she decided, in some distant part of her brain, be drunk. There was no other explanation for it.

  “I hope you aren’t angry, Kate,” he said, dropping the pebbles, and brushing his fingers off upon his trouser leg. “I asked that boy, the one with whom your little Lady Isabel is so besotted, about the best way to get in to see you—past that ogre of an employer of yours, I mean—and this is what he recommended. You aren’t miffed at me, are you, Kate?”

  Kate shook her head—not in response to what he’d asked, but because she could not quite believe what she was seeing. “What,” she whispered hoarsely, “are you doing here?”

  “Isn’t that obvious, Kate?’ He smiled at her—she could see the smile plainly in the moonlight. She knew it was a smile meant to reassure her, but all it did, actually, was send a shiver of fear up her spine. “I had to come. After what you said tonight ....”

  She blinked. “What I said? What on earth could I have said that would induce you to do something this ... this stupid?”

  “Stupid?” He didn’t look as if he liked the sound of that. The smile disappeared. Kate was rather thankful for that “What’s stupid, Kate, about my wanting to see you?”

  “You can see me in the morning,” Kate said. “Like a normal person, by calling at the front door. But this ... this is madness, Daniel. I happen to need this job. You of all people should know how much I need this job. Do you want me to be given the sack?”

  He seemed to relax a little. “Of course not,” he said. “How could you even think such a thing? It’s just that you heard him—your Lord Wingate—tonight. He doesn’t seem to like me very much. I wasn’t at all sure he’d let me see you the normal way. What can you have been thinking, Kate, agreeing to work for a man like that?”

  Kate said truculently, “He’s a very kind man, and I’ll thank you to keep your opinions on the matter to yourself. And it isn’t as if I had a lot of choice in the matter, you know. Some of us have to work to earn our keep. We don’t all happen to own diamond mines.”

  He flinched as if she’d slapped him. “Kate,” he said, in a voice she supposed he meant to be tender. She cut him quickly off.

  “Truthfully, Daniel,” she said, “I think it would be best if you left.”

  He looked even more hurt. “Kate,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “How can you say that? We have so much catching up to do, you and I. Why, I still have never gotten to say how very sorry I am about what happened—you know, between your father and me. It wasn’t true, Kate, what he told everyone about me. I mean, it’s only natural you’d take his word over mine, but really, Kate, I swear I didn’t take anyone’s money. I don’t blame him for looking for a scapegoat, but—”

  Kate only stared at him coldly. “Are you suggesting my father took it, then?” she asked.

  “Lord, no, Kate. I don’t know what happened to it. I swear I don’t. I suppose it was cowardly of me to leave the way I did, but I ... well, it seemed the best thing to do, at the time. I’ve regretted it since. You don’t know how much. Just like I’ve regretted not being there for you, you know, after the ... well, after the fire. That terrible fire. Your father was a great man, Kate. A very great man, despite what ... well, what anyone else thinks. You and I, Kate, know the truth.”

  Kate noticed that as he’d spoken, he’d been taking slow, cautious steps toward her. She, in her turn, had been backing away, until the French door was at her spine, and she could go no further.

  “I think,” she said carefully, “that you had better go, Daniel.”

  “I felt so terrible,” Daniel said, ignoring her request. “I had no idea your poor father had taken things so hard. I mean, he never seemed to me to be the type to kill himself, let alone take your poor mother with him ....”

  It was on the tip of Kate’s tongue to shout at him her suspicion—the suspicion she’d harbored since that awful night. In fact, she had even inhaled, and was preparing to make her accusation, even though reason and every rational fiber in her being told her she was wrong, she had to be wrong, when she saw all the blood in Daniel’s face drain away.

  A second later, he turned around and started racing for the back wall. S
he couldn’t for the life of her think why he’d given up so easily—or looked so frightened all of a sudden—until she felt the latch of the French door behind her move, and then heard her employer’s deep voice ring out, in tones of unmistakable anger:

  “Miss Mayhew. May I have a word?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “My lord,” Kate said with a gasp, turning quickly around. “I can explain ....”

  But she never got the chance. Her voice trailed off as she got a look at his face. The marquis had never struck her as a particularly handsome man, in the strict sense of the word, despite her attraction to him. She had never seen him looking the way he looked just then, however. While anger supposedly became some people, that certainly wasn’t true of the Marquis of Wingate. His face had become a livid mask, his lips curled back into a snarl, his nostrils flared, his eyes—those jade-green eyes, which Posie had declared glowed like a cat’s—in truth seeming to shine out of the darkness in which the library was swathed, since this time, he held no candle.

  Kate made a noise—not a word, but a sort of gulping sound—and then, before she could entertain another rational thought, something came shooting out of the darkness that surrounded the marquis, and locked around her wrist. Too late, Kate realized that the something was Lord Wingate’s hand, and that if she’d had the slightest bit of sense, she’d have followed Daniel Craven, and run for her life.

  But she’d been completely distracted by the fact that Lord Wingate, though still in his evening clothes, had loosened his cravat and undone most of the buttons to his shirt, so that his wide, thickly furred chest was in plain view. Kate, standing there stupidly, had been wondering what it might feel like to run her fingers across the flat, muscular plane of his stomach, when suddenly she found herself with a closer view of it than she’d bargained for as the marquis yanked her nearly off her feet, and dragged her into the darkness with him.