Lady Mariel's Scandalous Love: Regency Romance (Regency Scandals Book 2)

by Arietta Richmond

  Chapter Twelve

  A week went by after the rather horrible dinner at Kirkwold Hall, with nothing to disturb the peace of their routine. Nothing, that is, except the fact that Mariel dreamt of Dash touching her, kissing her, every night, and spent every moment in his presence at a fever pitch of awareness, of desire. She did not understand herself, entirely – how had she come to feel so strongly for him? Whilst she had wanted to explore forbidden things for a very long time, every man who she had allowed to even kiss her, before Dash, had rather revolted her, even whilst the scandalous nature of those kisses had excited her.

  Dash was different – she wanted to be near him, wanted to touch him, even when they could do nothing more than sit beside each other as she worked on the translation. And the way he looked at her… it made her suspect that he felt a similar need to be near her, to touch her. But since the dinner party, she had concentrated on the translation – the sooner it was done the better, for the time when she would have to travel to London for the Season was approaching at a rapid rate.

  She did not, she knew, want to leave. But what choice would she have? This stay with Selina and Alex was like a holiday from real life, a chance to indulge in exploring all that was usually forbidden – well, almost all… she flushed as she remembered the moment when Dash had refused to let her give him pleasure, like he had given her. She wanted to take those last steps – with him, she realised, not with any other man.

  This particular morning was no different. Dash had greeted them when they arrived at Longwood Peak, then gone to deal with his day’s correspondence, promising to return to assist Mariel with words, later. Selina was curled in her usual chair, reading, when Chalmers tapped at the door.

  “This weeks London newspapers have arrived, Ladies – would you care to read them? Lord Longwood usually leaves them until late in the evening, but I thought that you might be interested.”

  Selina looked up with a smile. “Thank you, Chalmers. Please just put them on this side table for now.”

  The butler deposited the papers, and left the room. Selina put aside her book, and lifted the first one from the pile – it had been weeks since she’d seen news from London. Mariel continued with her work, ignoring the whole exchange, as usual, totally focussed on the words on the page. There was no sound in the room but the scratch of Mariel’s pen, and the rustle of the newssheet pages, for quite some time, until Selina broke the quiet.

  “Mariel…” her voice was oddly uneven, “I think this is bad. Very bad.”

  Mariel looked up. Selina’s face was rather white.

  “What is bad?”

  “This – look.” Selina held out the newspaper. Mariel set down her pen and went to look. “There are two letters here, on two consecutive days – and they each talk about ‘scandalous goings on in the countryside’ naming this district, and using initials which quite clearly allow people to work out that it refers to Dash… and us.”

  Mariel dropped onto the couch beside her, with a feeling of horror sinking into her.

  “Who would have done this? And why?”

  “I don’t know… unless…” They looked at each other, and, at the same instant, spoke the rest of Selina’s sentence together “…unless Lady Phyllida has somehow learnt more, and this is her way of making good on her threat.”

  Mariel shook her head.

  “We can’t be sure of that. But I can’t imagine anyone else would…”

  “We’ll have to tell Dash. If she has done this, who knows what else she might have done? And I wonder how many of the ton will have worked it out, already? How much scandal about us is already the gossip of the ton, even if they don’t know the truth of what Dash has here? Just when I thought that they might be starting to gossip less about us, after our Christmas Scandal wedding!”

  “You will weather this, just as you have weathered the first scandal. But I am not sure what my mother will do…”

  “We must find some way to make it less scandalous, somehow.”

  Mariel laughed, and indicated the book beside Selina, and the ones on her desk.

  “How, pray tell, does one make it less scandalous?”

  “Make what less scandalous?” Dash spoke from behind her – so intent on the paper before them had they been, that they had not heard him enter the room. Mariel turned to him. There was no simple way to explain.

  “This. In the London papers this week. It makes it seem that you almost have started a house of ill repute, right here, and we are all complicit, the way that these ‘anonymous letters’ are phrased – and the gossip mongers will lap it up.”

  His face paled, and he came to sit beside them, Mariel having squashed across so that the three of them might all fit on the couch, and view the paper at the one time. Mariel felt the heat of him, so close. As he read, his face become paler still.

  “It’s a good thing, then, that today I should have the last crate unpacked, and that in my morning’s correspondence, I have a letter from my man of business, with good news – he has secured the purchase of a suitable building in London, which will become the Museum of Human Eroticism. Very, very soon.”

  “You are going to create a Museum? Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

  He looked half embarrassed at Mariel’s words.

  “Ah… because I wasn’t sure…”

  “…how we would react?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “Well, now you know – I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

  “I’m glad. I was hoping to have it all set up before any gossip got about – I especially hoped to inform my father myself, but the chance of that happening seems rather slim now, if the gossip is going about the ton. Which it is. I suspected that Lord Manderforce, who is on the Exhibitions Committee for the British Museum, and whom I had approached quietly about their potential interest in an exhibition, which they declined, had been gossiping when I received a few letters from gentlemen with cautious enquiries, but now I am sure. And I am also sure that this has made things worse, for I received a pile of letters today, from gentlemen wishing to arrange private viewings of my collection. I wondered why the sudden extra influx of requests. It’s obviously getting about. I have no immediate idea who might have written these letters to the paper, but I do know that the gossip has reached this area, for at Kirkwold Hall, Hockingmoor pulled me aside and asked if he could see it. I brushed him off… but still.”

  Mariel and Selina exchanged glances, and Selina flushed. Mariel was certain that she felt embarrassed, and a little guilty, which was confirmed when she spoke. “Aah… I think that we might know who wrote those letters, actually. And… it’s all my fault.”

  Dash turned, his thigh pressing against Mariel’s, and making her feel heated, and met Selina’s eyes, puzzled by her words. “But Selina, why would it be your fault?”

  “Because Lady Phyllida Wormington may put a good face on it in public, but she has never forgiven me for ‘stealing’ Alex from her. And at that dreadful dinner party, she almost directly threatened both of us with ‘exposing the hotbed of vice she knew we were hiding from her’, to paraphrase her statement. I believe that this is her way of fulfilling that threat.”

  “I see. I did note that she seemed not entirely happy that night, for a woman supposedly overjoyed at her betrothal. You don’t suppose that Hockingmoor actually told her about the collection, do you? Given that he had obviously heard the gossip, or he would not have approached me about seeing it.”

  Mariel considered a moment.

  “I wouldn’t expect him to – it’s a far too risqué and scandalous topic for him to discuss with a woman, based on what Selina has told me of the man. But – could she have overheard his conversation with you? Or guessed somehow, and pestered him until he told her something? In the pursuit of what she wants, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had done either.”

  Selina nodded. “And if she had heard even a little, she would be quite capable of embroidering upon it to make everything seem
more scandalous, just to hurt Alex and I, and anyone associated with us. I am so sorry, Dash.”

  He waved his hand dismissively.

  “Well, it’s happened now, and we will just deal with it – it is not as if my collection, and the eventual Museum, was ever going to avoid scandal completely.”

  ~~~~~

  Lady Phyllida sat at her escritoire, drumming her fingers on its surface. To one side, a copy of the latest London newspaper lay, folded open to the scandal column. Her letters had, as she had hoped, stirred up rather a hornet’s nest of commentary and inquiry, from much of society. But, satisfying as that was, it was not enough – for nothing had happened here, in the country, yet.

  Nothing had happened to make those whom she wanted to make suffer, do so. Being gossiped about so badly did not appear to have altered their lives at all, from what she had been able to ascertain.

  Perhaps some stronger measures were called for. She could not easily directly implicate Alex and Selina, but she could cause disturbance for their friend…. And surely that would reflect on them.

  She drew out a clean sheet of paper, and began to write.

  ~~~~~

  Another week passed and, each day, they braced themselves for what might come. More anonymous letters appeared in the London papers, which were delivered to the house each day – a day or two after their release in London. More enquiries from gentlemen appeared in Dash’s correspondence – and in some cases, two letters from the same man – one obviously written at his wife’s insistence, deriding Dash for scandalously destroying the morals of society, and the other, obviously written without his wife’s knowledge, asking when viewings might be arranged.

  Dash found himself torn between anger, and hysterical laughter. At least, so far, he had heard nothing from his father.

  The building in London had been equipped with display cases at lightning speed, and Dash had spent the week sorting the now fully uncrated collection into things which would go to London to be displayed, and things which would stay at Longwood Peak.

  Today, he was reusing some of those crates, to bundle the items going to London up in groups, so that they could quickly be put on display once they reached London. He felt as if he had utterly lost control of his life – things happened, and thrust him forward, filling him with a sense of desperation and impending doom.

  Mariel had made better progress with the translation than she had expected, and thought that she was perhaps a week away from completing it – which made Dash feel oddly sad and disconsolate. He wanted the book fully translated, as he always had, but he had come to realise that he did not wish this time, where he saw Mariel every day, to come to an end.

  For part of each day, he still sat with Mariel, answering her questions, and helping her to find the right words, and every day, that was still exquisite torture, where the nearness and scent of her made him wish to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless, where lust filled him, driven by the erotic nature of the book before them, and where he did not act on it, no matter that sometimes her hand would come to rest upon his thigh under the desk, and drive all sensible thought from his mind.

  He sealed the lid on the last of the crates, which would go to London in his carriage come the morning, brushed the dust from his clothes, and left the East Wing. In the small office, Mariel sat working at the desk, and Selina curled on the couch, reading – exactly as they had been, each day for so many weeks.

  It felt right, now, that they should be there – he could no longer imagine a day of his life without Mariel in it – yet soon, she would leave, would go to London for the Season, and be courted by the gentlemen of the ton. That thought made him clench his jaw.

  “Good afternoon ladies. I trust you are well? I have just sealed up the last crate to go to London, so it seems that we might, just, manage to get the majority of the things to the new Museum, before the scandal becomes overwhelming. But tell me, Mariel, how is your progress today?”

  She looked up, and her deep violet eyes caught him, utterly. She smiled, and waved her hand to the chair beside her.

  “Come, sit with me and I will show you. There are only twenty more pages to the end of the original book! I might, if it goes well, be finished in just a few days.”

  His heart sank, even as his body tightened with the acute awareness of her nearness.

  They settled to work, both bent over the book as she asked him questions, their thighs against each other, and his cock achingly hard, as it so often was in her presence, as every word they spoke gave his imagination material for visualising the actions described in the book as performed by himself, and Mariel. The memory of her shattering into pleasure on his lap filled him with the longing to touch her that way again. He forced himself to endure, and to concentrate only on the book before them.

  ~~~~~

  Mariel savoured the heat of Dash beside her, of his leg touching hers, and the scent of him – as always, heady and intoxicating, making her want nothing more than to kiss him, to touch him, to explore every wanton possibility she could imagine with him.

  But, in the two weeks since that afternoon upstairs in the East Wing, he had remained steadfast in his avoidance of touching her, no matter how she had provoked him. She was beginning to wonder if he did truly want her, or if, as he had suggested, his reactions had been purely driven by lust in the moment, and now he was being the gentleman.

  She did not want him to be the gentleman – she wanted the passionate man she had known that afternoon – wanted his kisses, and his touch in her most intimate places – wanted even more than that. Wanted him, for himself – all of him. The thought made her pause, her fingers tightening on her pen. It was as if a veil had been drawn back from her mind. She more than wanted him, physically – she rather thought that she loved him. Which was wonderful, and terrifying at once.

  Because if she did… and he did not love her… if his reactions were, truly, just lust inspired by the subject matter all around them, then what could she do?

  She forced her mind back to the book, to the words on the page, and to the awkward and intriguing description below the latest illustration, which appeared to contain at least two devices she had no words for. She pointed to the objects in the picture.

  “Dash – what are these? What might they be called in English? For I have no idea, and I can’t make even a guess from the way that this sentence is constructed. What is the man in the picture doing with that….?”

  He began to speak, to answer her, but his words were drowned out by the crash of the front door slamming and a roar of sound from the hallway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dash started at the sound, and all thought of desire left him in a rush. He knew that voice. Knew the sound of it raised in fury, as it was now. It would seem that what he had dreaded most had happened. Now, he began to be able to discern the words, from within the roar.

  “Madness!!! Disgusting to bring shame to the family like this! What on earth are you thinking?”

  The last words were uttered as his father rushed through the door, with a distraught looking Chalmers almost running in his wake. The butler gave a small grimace of apology to Dash, accompanied by a shrug, which clearly indicated that he had been unable to even slow the Duke in his charge.

  As the Duke of Cockleigh entered the room, his eyes were focussed on Dash, but he faltered when he took in the fact that a young woman sat beside his son at the desk. Selina was not within the Duke’s immediate sight, due to the placement of the couch. Dash winced to think how it looked.

  The Duke was waving what looked suspiciously like a newssheet in his hand, and Dash wondered if his father had clutched it like that, all the way from Cockleigh Great Hall. He took a deep breath.

  “Good day to you, Father. I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “No doubt you weren’t! Trying to keep all of this secret from me, weren’t you? Who is she? Some strumpet drawn by your scandalous interests?”

  Selina rose from the couch, havi
ng obviously taken the measure of Dash’s father, and stepped forward, into his view.

  “Your Grace, I am the Duchess of Southolton, and this is my friend, Lady Mariel Angleton, whom I am here to chaperone whilst she assists Lord Longwood with a translation. Please reconsider your view.”

  Dash had never before seen his father quite so lost for words, and swallowed hard to stifle the laughter that rose in his throat.

  “I… aaah… I… Good day, Your Grace.”

  The Duke bowed to Selina, and then, grudgingly, in Mariel’s direction. Dash rose, and went to his father.

  “Do take a seat, Father, and perhaps speak more quietly about your concerns?” As if I don’t know exactly what you are ranting about! But best to let you tell me how you perceive it…

  Selina resumed her seat, and the Duke sat stiffly in an armchair. Mariel kept as much of her attention as possible on the book before her, attempting to be invisible, but listening carefully. The Duke thrust the newssheet in his hand in Dash’s direction.

  “This – this is what I am concerned about. More than concerned – shocked, horrified… but…” He glanced around, as if suddenly realising that there were ladies in the room, “…it’s not the sort of thing we should be discussing with ladies present.”

  Dash sighed. But he supposed that it was best to maintain the illusion of respectability as long as possible.

  “As you wish. Selina, Mariel, might I ask you to repair to the parlour?”

  Mariel set down the pen, capped the ink bottle, and rose. Selina gave a gracious nod to the Duke, and they both left the room. Dash suspected that, if they had thought it feasible, they would be eavesdropping at the door, for he knew that both of them would wish to hear the conversation that was about to occur. As they left, Chalmers appeared, with a tea tray.

  “Your Pardon, my Lord, but I took the liberty of arranging some tea.”