It’s Only a Scandal if You’re Caught

by Farmer, Merry

  “Get Brickman,” he moaned from the floor.

  Jack turned to the second man, but as he did, sudden light filled the cellar. Bianca had pushed open the door, letting cold, winter daylight and Lady Katya in.

  “My God, what is all this?” Lady Katya gasped.

  Before she could answer, the second man dashed past Jack, pushed Bianca out of the way, and darted out into the December afternoon.

  Bianca fell with a groan. Jack sprinted to her, dropping to her knees to pull her into his arms.

  “What happened?” he asked as Lady Katya sank to her knees as well.

  “They grabbed me as soon as I went around the house,” Bianca said, wincing and holding a hand to her head. “When I struggled, they hit me over the head. I blacked out, then came to as they were trying to tie me to one of the barrels.” Her eyes widened as she glanced up at Jack. “The explosives,” she said. “We have to warn people.”

  “I’ll get them out of the house,” Lady Katya said, jumping to her feet.

  “We need to get you out of here,” Jack said in as calming a voice as he could manage while energy pumped through him. He slowly helped Bianca to her feet. “I never should have let you come with me. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Never mind that,” Bianca said, swallowing once she was upright. “We have to get everyone out of the house.”

  Jack nodded and helped her through the door and out into the frosty lawn. It was a relief to have her out of the cellar, but none of them would be out of danger until the police arrived to remove the explosives. All that mattered in the moment was getting Bianca as far away from the house as possible.

  They made it around to the lawn that stretched away from the ballroom as a flood of noble guests were making their way onto the lawn.

  “What’s going on?” Reese asked the moment he spotted Jack nearly carrying Bianca around the corner. Reese’s eyes went wide at the blood that trickled down the side of Bianca’s neck, blood Jack hadn’t noticed in the dim cellar. “Good heavens.”

  “Take her,” Jack said, attempting to hand Bianca over to the man. “The house is loaded with explosives. We need to get everyone as far away as possible.”

  “You heard the man,” Harrison, who was helping lead the others to the back of the lawn shouted. “Get as far away from the house as possible.”

  “No! It’s a lie. A shameful lie. You’re ruining my party,” Lady Claudia screamed, charging across the lawn when she spotted Jack and Bianca. “If this is some sort of revenge for rightfully shunning you, I will have your hide. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. I’ll make sure that you’re never accepted anywhere decent again. My brother will—”

  “And where is your brother?” Jack raised his voice to ask over her petty tirade.

  Lady Claudia’s jaw hung open in indignation for a moment before she shouted, “He’s at our country house in Derbyshire for the Christmas Holidays. I’m going there myself tomorrow, and—”

  Jack turned away from her rant, wanting to curse up a blue streak. Of course Denbigh would be certain to be well out of town when it came time for his plot to be carried out. It would be harder than ever to blame him for the near disaster when he was miles away. Brickman hadn’t been seen either.

  “I won’t stand for this,” Jack growled, turning back to the house. “There has to be proof.”

  “Jack, wait. What are you doing?” Bianca broke away from Reese to follow after him. “You can’t go back in there.”

  “There has to be proof,” he said over his shoulder.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lady Tavistock and Rupert helping Fergus out of the ballroom. They worked together to lift his wheelchair down the stairs. They were the last to evacuate the house, but it was only a small comfort.

  “You can’t go back in there,” Bianca called again, reaching for his arm as he neared the door to the cellar. “This whole thing is a plot to kill you,” she said.

  “What?” Jack stopped at the door and turned back to her, eyes wide.

  “I heard them say so,” she said. “It isn’t about hurting Denbigh’s political opposition or Irish Home Rule or any of it. It’s about killing you so that the investigation stops.”

  Jack gaped at her. Deep in the back of his mind, it made sense, but his pride didn’t want to accept it.

  “No,” he said. “I can’t settle for that. I have to—”

  His words were cut off as Bianca shrieked while looking into the cellar. Jack twisted to see the guard who had gotten away standing at the far end of the room, a lit torch in his hand. A second later, the man tossed the torch into the pile of explosives and dashed out the other door, shutting it behind him.

  They were too close. Standing in the doorway with that many explosives just feet away, they were far too close. As soon as the powder ignited, it would blow him and Bianca and half the house to kingdom come. Bianca was right. The plot had been to kill him all along.

  “No!” Bianca screamed.

  And then she did the unthinkable. She threw herself into the cellar full of explosives, lunging for the torch.

  Chapter 20

  “Bianca, no!” Jack shouted behind her.

  Bianca barely heard him. She didn’t think—she couldn’t think with her head throbbing the way it was—she merely acted. Her husband’s life was at stake. Flashes of an old memory of one of her mother’s servants throwing a blanket over the flames when she’d knocked a lamp from a table as a child pushed her forward.

  She reached the torch and dove, trapping it under the voluminous skirts of her party dress before it could ignite any of the boxes or barrels of explosives. A spark leapt free as the torch was smothered, and she slapped a hand over it on instinct. The sharp burn was nothing next to the intense relief of cool darkness that signaled the fire was out.

  “Bianca,” Jack shouted a second time, rushing toward her. He scooped her up, lifting her as though she were a feather, and whipping her away from the extinguished torch. “My God,” he managed in a shaky voice, dragging her toward the door and outside.

  “The torch,” Bianca gasped, reaching back into the cellar. “Is it out?”

  Jack didn’t answer until he had her far out onto the frosty lawn. He held her at arm’s length, pale as death and shaking as he looked her over. A sharp red mark had already appeared on her hand from where she’d slapped the spark and a huge, black and burned spot stood out grimly on her skirt. Her head still throbbed and she was certain she would feel the consequences of diving onto a lit torch soon but, for the moment, all that mattered was that she was alive.

  “What where you—you could have been—what on earth possessed you—” Jack breathed heavily, running his hands over her arms and sides, as if looking for injuries.

  Bianca had never seen him so undone in her life and instantly felt sheepish. “I couldn’t let you be blown up,” she said, lowering her head.

  Jack made a strangled sound, then raised his hands to her face, cradling her cheeks, and leaned in to kiss her. It was a clumsy kiss, quick and desperate, but Bianca welcomed it with her whole heart. She, too, began to tremble as she realized just how close they’d come to disaster.

  A moment later, Jack pulled back suddenly as he slid his hands to the back of her neck, fingers threading into her hair. Murderous rage flared in his expression as his right hand touched the enormous goose egg on the back of her head where she’d been hit. “What did they do to you?” he growled.

  “One of them hit me,” Bianca told him with a wince. “I didn’t see what with. I blacked out, but only for a moment. It hurts like the devil.”

  “Where are they?” Jack whipped back to the house, anger radiating from him. “I’ll kill them all.”

  Instead of being met with the toughs who had manhandled Bianca, or any of the other men Bianca was certain worked for Brickman and Denbigh, they saw a swarm of police officers rushing into the back garden, led by Lord Malcolm and Mr. Smiley.

  “The house is surrounded,”
one of the officers announced. “Two bodies were found in the downstairs hallway.”

  “Bodies?” Bianca pressed a hand to her chest. She was beginning to realize just how dire the whole situation was.

  “Killed by gunshots,” Lord Malcolm told her, then turned to Jack. “No sign of the others.”

  Jack swore under his breath. “Dead men tell no tales.”

  Lord Malcolm answered with a grunt. He seemed uncommonly subdued, considering how he’d been acting recently.

  “And the explosives?” Bianca’s mother asked, striding forward from the clustered crowd of party guests at the far end of the garden.

  Bianca glanced from her to the open cellar door. Half a dozen police officers rushed in and out. One of them brought out the extinguished torch.

  “I demand you stop this charade at once,” Lady Claudia rushed into the midst of the activity, looking equal parts furious and anxious. She pushed her way through police officers toward the door to the cellar. “It is astounding that your lot would go to such lengths to stage this whole—”

  Her words died away mid-sentence as she stared into the cellar, no doubt seeing the explosives. Her face went pale, and she clasped a hand to her chest as though she couldn’t breathe. That was enough to convince Bianca that Lady Claudia truly hadn’t known she was entertaining on top of a powder keg. An officer had to take her by the arm and lead her away from the house.

  “This would have blown it all for certs, sir,” he told the officer who seemed to be in charge.

  That officer took the torch from his man and studied it. “Whoever put this out probably saved a dozen lives and more.”

  Bianca felt weak at the statement, but it seemed to give Jack life.

  “Do you hear that?” he demanded, looping an arm around Bianca’s waist to support her as he turned to the shivering party guests. “My wife saved all of your lives.”

  “Jack,” Bianca warned him under her breath. He was exaggerating.

  But Jack wasn’t deterred. “You cast her out. You shunned her for loving me. You branded her as a pariah. She didn’t have to come here with me today. She didn’t have to put herself in danger for you ungrateful lot. But she did. She risked her life and the life of our unborn child for your sake. And yet you still stand there, acting as though she is somehow less than you. You bunch of bloody—”

  “Jack,” Bianca scolded him, far louder than before, pressing a hand to his chest to stop him before he caused even more damage.

  He sucked in a breath, rippling with tension, and turned to her.

  Bianca put everything she had into smiling reassuringly at him, even though she felt far from reassured herself. “It’s all right,” she said in a voice for him alone. “Let them think whatever they’d like. You’re the only society that matters to me.”

  “It’s not right,” he said with such feeling that it brought tears to Bianca’s eyes. “It’s not just.”

  Bianca opened her mouth to reply, but her mother beat her to it.

  “No, it’s not,” she said, lowering her eyes. A flush painted her cheeks that had nothing to do with the December weather. “I fear we’ve done you a great injustice.”

  “Do you think so?” Jack barked, eyes wide with indignation.

  “Jack,” Bianca silenced him with one final scolding. “They don’t know any better. They don’t know any rules but their own.” She glanced to her mother, to Lord Malcolm, to Rupert and the others standing some distance away. “Their bloodlines may be lofty, but their imaginations are limited.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bianca’s mother said, eyes still lowered, her hands clasped in front of her.

  It was as though the explosives had ignited after all. In all her life, Bianca had never heard her mother apologize for anything. She could barely comprehend it.

  “We need to clear the area,” the chief police officer said, returning to the lawn after a few minutes in the cellar. “The explosives are safe for the time being, but with that much gunpowder in one place, even the slightest spark could cause a tragedy.”

  “You heard the man,” Lord Malcolm said, marching toward the guests as though it was a relief to have some sort of action to take. “Clear the area.”

  “This is a tragedy,” Lady Claudia insisted, bursting into a sob. “My party is ruined because some vicious criminal chose me as a target. I’m certain it was the Irish. Those bloody cowards.”

  “It wasn’t the Irish,” Bianca said, peeling away from Jack, even though the sudden movement made her head throb all the more. “It was your own brother, and he was targeting Jack.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. Charles couldn’t. He only asked me to host this party at his new house because he is concerned about the health of the Liberal Party and….” Her words faded away as a truly horrible, stricken look pinched her face. It was almost enough to make Bianca feel sorry for her. At least until Lady Claudia shook her head and clenched her jaw, as though fighting with the truth. “My brother isn’t even here. He would never use me to…. He would never put me in danger. He loves me. And why would he single out gutter trash like him?” She flung a hand toward Jack in a dismissive gesture. “It must have been the Irish.”

  The bulk of her guests gaped at her and looked embarrassed on her behalf, but there was no indication of whether they believed Lady Claudia’s explanation for the almost-crime or Bianca’s.

  “Jack is a hero,” Bianca defended him, fists clenched at her sides. “As for your brother, he is a murderous coward who tried to kill Lord O’Shea for the crime of being Irish, and whether he’s here or not, he tried to kill Jack because he has come so close to discovering the truth.”

  “Rubbish,” Lady Claudia said, stomping in a rage of her own. “How dare you malign my brother’s good name when you are nothing more than a whore who spreads her legs for trash and ends up in the family way. You’re no better than—”

  Lady Claudia stopped abruptly when her friend, Lady Jane, stepped forward to place a hand on her shoulder. The surprise of that touch may have silenced her, but whatever Lady Jane whispered in her ear—whispered while staring straight at Bianca with nothing but malice in her eyes—kept her quiet.

  Lady Claudia drew in a breath and resumed her superior air. “It doesn’t matter one way or another,” she said with a sniff. “You’ll forever be a whore and a fallen woman. My brother will always be a gentleman who would never put me in harm’s way for his own ends. Nothing you can do will change that.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Henrietta said, stepping forward from where she’d been standing beside Fergus in his chair. The entire, baffled assembly seemed to hold their breath as she strode across the lawn to Bianca. “On behalf of the May Flowers, I would like to formally invite you to rejoin our ranks.”

  A wave of gasps sounded from the rest of the guests. Bianca noted a few frowns, but for the most part, the members of the May Flowers that she could pick out seemed excited and delighted by the invitation. Cece in particular looked near to tears of relief.

  “We would be honored to count a genuine heroine among our ranks,” Henrietta went on. “Your selflessness in the face of such danger has humbled me, as I’m certain it has humbled the rest of us—” She pivoted to gesture to the other guests. “—and it seems only right that you should be part of us once more.”

  Bianca froze, bowled over by the offer. And yet, no words came to her mouth, either to accept or decline. She didn’t know what to do.

  “There you are.”

  She was spared having to answer by the sudden arrival of Sir Edmund Henderson. Jack’s boss strode purposefully around the corner of the house into the startled silence of the garden. He acknowledged Lord Malcolm with a nod, then turned his frown on Jack.

  “Sir Edmund,” Jack acknowledged the man, his back going straight, stubbornness in his eyes.

  Paradoxically, as the two men stood face to face, the garden burst into activity. The police officers who had been dashing in and out of the cellar, removing explo
sives, continued their work, and Lord Malcolm finally managed to convince the party guests to vacate the premises. Bianca chose to stay by Jack’s side instead of leaving as the rest of her family did.

  “I was informed of all this just now,” Sir Edmund said, nodding toward the house, his hands clasped behind his back. “I was also informed that you are responsible for averting disaster.”

  “My wife played as big a part as I have,” Jack said, reaching for Bianca’s hand.

  Sir Edmund stared at her for a moment before turning his attention back to Jack. “You were given strict orders not to pursue investigations in any of your former cases,” he said. “Mr. Poole was given charge of this and other cases.”

  “Poole is a good man,” Jack said, holding himself as regally as Sir Edmund. “But do you see him here?” He glanced around to make his point.

  Sir Edmund remained fixed on Jack, his frown deepening. “Scotland Yard is overburdened with criminal investigations,” he said. “We are stretched thin as it is. Perhaps it was a mistake to cave to pressure and to remove you from some of those investigations.”

  Bianca caught the barest hint of a satisfied smile from Jack. His expression was as challenging as ever, as though he knew that Sir Edmund knew which way the wind was blowing, but he wasn’t going to take the man to task for his faults. And as far as she was concerned, that made Jack even more of a hero.

  “I only regret that we were unable to find the evidence we need to prove who was behind this potential attack,” Jack said. “Lord Denbigh is cleverly out of town at the moment, and his associate, Brickman, is nowhere to be found.”

  “He was found dead in his flat this morning,” Sir Edmund said, as grim as ever.

  Jack gaped at him. Bianca as well. “Dead?” she squeaked. “Just like that?”

  “Just like the men who attempted to carry out this crime,” Jack answered, letting out a heavy breath and rubbing a hand over his face.