The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  And he had cast that unhappy fact into her face. He hadn’t even meant to do it. It had been a thoughtless, careless remark, and though it hadn’t been his intention to hurt her, he’d accomplished it was stunning ease.

  Against all reason, there was something in him that wanted to apologize. Which was ridiculous, because regardless of her feelings on the matter, nothing he had said had been untrue. But the vaguely sick feeling had been lingering there beneath his breastbone for several days now, a period too long to have blamed on an excess of liquor or a turned piece of meat.

  Perhaps he ought to have placed Mouse in another house after all. There was a street not too terribly far away which was commonly known as ‘Mistress Row,’ where the nobility often hid away their mistresses in tidy little townhomes to visit at their leisure.

  But that was too common, too ordinary. Grey wanted Andover’s peers talking, whispering, speculating—he wanted the man to see the tide of conversation sweep over any room he entered, to know that whatever was spoken of him behind concealing hands was not complimentary. It was easy to take money from a man, to snatch away possessions—but there were some things that could only be crushed out. Influence. Power. Pride.

  Grey had wealth enough to see him through several lifetimes. Andover’s possessions, such as they were, were hardly a drop in the ocean. It was those intangible things he wanted now, and he intended to thoroughly enjoy the process of divesting Andover of every last scrap of prestige to which he might once have laid claim.

  But there might be a small part of him—a very small, nearly nothing, insignificant part of him—that wished it hadn’t been at Mouse’s expense. A minuscule bit of him that wished that he hadn’t crushed her opportunities in his careless hands. A sliver that might have enjoyed seeing her run wild just as much as it had loathed that it had only been because he’d stolen every part of who she had once been. A part that worried that the manner in which he had degraded her before society might have led her to devalue herself.

  Grey scrubbed his face with his hands and stifled an uncharacteristic sigh. Guilt was not an emotion with which he had much experience, but he was beginning to consider that it would not be easily set aside. Not when any move he made promised to injure Mouse further.

  He’d simply have to determine a way to move past it—to gather it up and tuck it to the very back of his mind and lock it away in a box and bury it beneath a host of other, far more important things. Compartmentalization was key, and he had always been a fervent advocate of keeping things in their proper place.

  Starting with himself in his.

  And Mouse in hers.

  ∞∞∞

  When Sarah shook her awake on Saturday morning, Serena batted at her hand and crinkled her nose in annoyance. “Go away,” she mumbled blearily, retreating within her cocoon of blankets in an effort to stave off the inevitability of morning’s arrival. She’d been up until the early hours of dawn, working feverishly at her project until her hands had somehow managed to be both numb and sore, until her eyes had fairly crossed with the effort to concentrate upon tiny, perfect stitches. Embroidery had never been a passion of hers, but this project had deserved her utmost dedication—and betwixt her efforts and Sarah’s, it would likely only take a few weeks to come to fruition.

  “His lordship said to wake you,” Sarah said. “It’s near to noon, you lazybones.”

  Noon? The thought had her jerking up to her elbows for half a moment, before they gave beneath her and she slumped back down with a groan. “I can’t,” she said. “Just let me sleep a bit longer. You might have abandoned me at eleven, but I soldiered on alone until half four.”

  With a fierce huff, Sarah flounced off, and the room went blessedly silent once again. Peace settled over her, and Serena turned her face into her pillow and struggled to ignore the slash of a shaft of sunlight streaming into her face.

  She’d nearly nodded off once again when there came the pounding of boots outside her door, and it flew open without even the courtesy of a single knock.

  “Out of bed, Mouse.” The marquess’ voice reverberated in the room, crashing over her ears, and Serena struggled to sit, her fingers sliding across smooth, downy fabric in a vain attempt to pull the counterpane up to her shoulders.

  “You can’t be in my room!” she squeaked, horrified.

  “It’s my damned house, Mouse. I can be anywhere I like.” His eyes were cold again, surveying the scant impression she’d left upon the room she’d been given—a bristly hairbrush left upon a table, a discarded gown draped over the back of a chair, ready for washing. “I’m well aware it takes a not-insignificant allotment of time for a woman to prepare for an outing. You’ll need to begin now.”

  “An outing?” Her voice dropped to an incredulous whisper, and her fingers curled into the counterpane in a death grip.

  “The park, Mouse. Surely you hadn’t forgotten.”

  She had, actually. She’d been certain that the offer had been cast out only to force William to show his hand. “I thought…but William said—”

  “I didn’t have only your brother in mind when I informed him of my intentions,” he said, his voice sharp and icy. “You’re not convalescing here, Mouse. This is not a house party to which you have been invited, nor a country estate you are visiting. You are here for a purpose, and you’d do well to remember it.”

  She felt the blood seep from her face in a wild rush, her cheeks tingling as if they’d been frostbitten. “Everyone already knows,” she whispered. “Is there…is there really a need to parade me about like a public spectacle?”

  He arched a single brow, and she felt the condescension in that gesture all the way to her toes. There was nothing of humor in him now, nor the minutest hint that he was a man who had ever possessed even a fraction of anything that could be called good or merciful. He was only a cold, dark demon, looming over her as if prepared to snatch up one of her feet and drag her straight down into Hell.

  “I’ve given you adequate time to acclimate to your new situation,” he said, the inflection of his voice hovering somewhere between exasperated and bored. “We had a deal, Mouse. I’m certain it will come back to you—whilst you’re making your preparations.” And with that, he turned on his heel and stalked away.

  ∞∞∞

  There were a whole host of things she’d rather do than this, Serena reflected as she descended the staircase to the foyer, having been scrubbed and primped and combed to within an inch of her life. Have teeth pulled at the barber. Find herself in the path of a runaway carriage without avenue for escape. Be mauled by a vicious dog.

  Unfortunately, none of those things were likely to happen in the foyer of a marquess’ home, and so there was little to do except continue to place one foot before the other until she had reached the bottom step.

  The marquess waited near the door, his hat held in his hand. A muscle ticked in his jaw, attesting to his impatience. Likely he was not a man often kept waiting, and she experienced at least a tiny skirl of satisfaction in it. It seemed incredible to her that there had been even a handful of moments in which she had somehow managed to forget that he was the villain in this farce, for she didn’t think he’d ever looked more dastardly. The severe slash of his dark brows over his cold eyes was enough to make her shiver, and he’d clearly forgone a morning shave if the shadow of stubble shading his cheeks was anything to judge by.

  He had developed a habit of looming like a spectre in a Gothic novel, and it felt like a deliberate posture he had developed in order to make everyone else feel small and weak. And it had worked, because she felt small and weak. For all that she had reveled in her newfound freedoms, a public appearance seemed a bridge too far for her yet. There was a difference between privately acknowledging her lost reputation and being confronted with the reality of it in public.

  She would be snubbed, cut, ignored. There hadn’t been so much as a whisper of gossip about her in the whole of her life, but now her name would be whispered behind han
ds, her character ripped to shreds in muted tones—if she were lucky.

  The marquess’ indifferent gaze raked over her as if to ferret out flaws, and it was such a markedly disrespectful thing that she found her chin lifting mutinously.

  Though she hadn’t asked, he grunted, “You’ll do, I suppose. Simpson?”

  “The carriage is waiting, sir,” the butler replied from his station near the door, which he opened with one hand as he stood aside to allow passage through.

  “Come, then, Mouse,” the marquess snapped out as he stepped outside, and Serena was left to trail along after him.

  “You look lovely, my lady,” Simpson said as she passed, and she spared a hollow smile for him on her way to the carriage.

  It was a different carriage altogether, she realized as she saw it, than the one in which he had taken her from her father’s house. Plain, ordinary, with none but the most common of embellishments without. Even the horses were unremarkable, and the coachman, though dressed finely enough, wore nothing that would mark him as being in the marquess’ employ. It struck her as odd indeed, but she supposed the marquess cared little enough for the strictures of society that he would simply do as he pleased.

  A footman handed her into the carriage, and she found to her surprise that the marquess had already taken up the seat facing backward, leaving the forward-facing seat for her—a courtesy which she had not expected from him.

  The curtains covering the windows had been drawn, leaving the interior of the carriage dim but for the slivers of light that bounced through them as the carriage lurched into motion. It wouldn’t be a long ride to Hyde Park, but in the ominous silence that stretched thick between them, it already felt interminable.

  Serena had never been a bad traveler, but anxiety was a crawling thing in her belly, scrabbling for freedom. Concerned that she might actually embarrass herself, she reached for the curtains shading the window to give herself something to focus on besides the pitch and roll of her stomach—but her hand had hardly touched the fabric before the marquess’ sharp voice stayed her.

  “Don’t.”

  Her hand dropped back to her lap. “I—” she began, but her voice came out low and hoarse, like the croak of a frog. “It’s too dark.”

  “It’s fine. The curtains stay closed.”

  It seemed especially odd that he would want the curtains to be closed when the primary purpose of this exercise was ostensibly to make certain that she was seen. “I suppose I had thought we were going to ride,” she said. “But when I asked Sarah for a riding habit, she said I wouldn’t need one.”

  He was a faceless shape in the dark, like a shadow that had some substance behind it. “Someone shot at my carriage recently,” he said. “I thought it best not to leave you exposed on horseback.”

  “Someone shot at you?” Her voice quavered over the words, horrified.

  “At my carriage, Mouse, not at me.” The light speared in through the slit in the curtains and briefly slid across his jaw, revealing a slice of his lips pressed into a grim line. “This carriage is new. I decided it would be best, for the time being, to travel beneath notice. Best not to draw attention. At least the park is crowded enough that another attack is unlikely.”

  “You think someone was trying to kill you?”

  “It would hardly be the first time.” The heel of his boot scraped across the carriage floor as he shifted his weight. “As I recall, you once laid such a threat against my life. Should I be looking a bit closer to home for my would-be murderer, then?”

  Serena felt her breath whistling in her chest, and her fingers clutched at the folds of her skirts in distress. “I didn’t—I wouldn’t—” But she had, in a way. Even if it had been poorly executed and impetuous. Still, that chilly voice suggested a sort of apathetic cruelty, like a cat toying with a mouse. “Is that why you insisted on the park?” she asked, her voice trembling. “You think I—I tried to kill you, and this is to be my punishment? Public humiliation?”

  “It’s not a punishment, Mouse,” he said gruffly, after a long moment of silence.

  But she knew of no way to respond, because it certainly felt like one. If nothing else, it was her penance for having the audacity to have been born to the wrong family. An accident of birth had ruined her.

  “I don’t think you tried to have me killed,” he said, as if that ought to be some consolation. “You don’t have it in you to murder anyone.”

  “Thank you for that, at least,” she muttered, tightening her jaw against a sudden surge of nausea. She thought she must have made some sort of pitiful whimpering sound, because one of his hands breached the space between them to rest upon hers, and he made an odd sound that she suspected was meant to be soothing.

  “The only opinion that ought to matter to you is your own,” he said, and his voice was firm and resolute in the darkness, the sort of voice that came from a man who was accustomed to being obeyed. “No one who snubs you is worth your time or your attention. Don’t mind them, Mouse. They’re nothing. You’ll hold your head high, because you are better than they are and stronger than you know.”

  She didn’t know why he had bothered attempting to comfort her when it was by his will that she had been placed in such a position, but despite her efforts to dislodge them, his words echoed in her head.

  Serena knew they had arrived even before the carriage had begun to slow; the city sounds from without the carriage had faded, blunted by the cover of trees in the park. Voices rose around them in an unintelligible murmur—a lady’s laugh, the answering chuckle of some gentleman or another. It was the fashionable hour, and Hyde Park was one of the premier places to see and be seen. It would be filled with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. Many of whom she would have talked with, danced with, visited at their homes. Ladies who had once been friendly with her. Gentlemen who would once have deigned to scribble their names onto her dance card.

  “We’ll walk along the Serpentine,” the marquess said, and Serena had the oddest sense that he was attempting to mollify her, almost as if he were tendering an apology for some offense given. “Perhaps we’ll have something to eat at the Cake House. Or somewhere else—there’s always someone selling something to eat somewhere.”

  “I don’t think I could eat,” she said tonelessly.

  “Candied almonds,” he said, and there might have been something akin to desperation in his voice, as if plying her with treats constituted atonement. “With sugar and cinnamon. Or a cheese tart. Or after I could take you to Gunter’s for a lemon ice.”

  “I don’t want to go to Gunter’s.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, would you,” he said, a thread of regret tinting his voice. “Don’t think about it—it’s only a walk in the park, and it won’t be long. I promise you it won’t be long.”

  A minute was too long. Even a second would be torturous. But the carriage had halted at last, and she felt the shift as the coachman jumped down to open the door. Then light assaulted her eyes, and she blinked away the temporary blindness.

  And this time it was neither the coachman or a footman offering her his hand to assist her from the carriage, but the marquess himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mouse’s hand tucked into the crook of his arm felt like a dead thing settled there, limp and lifeless, and she was so pale as to look sickly, her face expressionless. But her eyes—they darted about, bouncing from one person to another, in utter fear of falling upon someone she recognized.

  Most of those about were not truly of her social set, of course, though they were most of them well-to-do. It was possible that they would encounter few enough of the nobility on their walk after all, and Grey found himself rather absurdly grateful for it. It would be enough, he supposed, for a select few to glimpse the two of them from afar, because for some godforsaken reason, he didn’t think he had it in him to force Mouse to greet people who would certainly cut and humiliate her.

  He was careful to keep her to the side facing the Serpentine, where they
strolled along the bank. She moved like an automaton, matching his easy stride without thinking, but there was nothing of grace in it. Like a rabbit surrounded by hawks, she moved as though she expected a strike at any moment.

  And she was probably not too far off the mark. Most of what had once been her social set would likely savage her, given half a chance. Though she looked every inch a lady in her lovely walking dress of blue muslin, in their eyes she had become something less.

  A couple of gentleman passed them headed in the opposite direction, and he felt more than heard Mouse’s indrawn breath, saw from the corner of his eye the way she cast her gaze toward her toes. They stared with open curiosity, and then, after they’d passed, let loose a raucous burst of laughter that made Mouse flinch with shame.

  Grey muttered a curse beneath his breath. “Who were they?” To his newfound regret, he recognized relatively few of the nobility on sight. He might have a dossier at his office on most of them, but he’d spent little enough time among them. Most of them were simply beneath his notice.

  “Lords Pendleton and Wortley.” Her voice was just a whisper on the wind, a shred of sound that hardly reached his ear at all.

  “They’ll pay, Mouse.” His free hand slipped over hers in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture.

  “That’s not necessary,” she said. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Neither had she. But they punished her as if she had. They had made her into an object of ridicule—

  No. He had made her into an object of ridicule. They had merely accepted the role he had given her. The shame that had settled onto the fine lines of her face, the resignation that darkened her eyes—that was all his doing.

  And because that sliver of guilt which had lodged itself beneath his breastbone seemed to have grown into a shard, he found himself muttering, “I suspect you’re wishing that whoever shot up my carriage hadn’t made such a muck of it right about now.”