The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  Andover’s head canted to the right, and a sliver of a smile flitted over his lips. “But that’s just it, Granbury. You’re the one who will have shot her.” He gave a careless shrug of his shoulders, but still his weapon never wavered from its target. “After all, who is to say what truly happened here? I assure you, I can be quite affecting when the situation calls for it. I will shed a few tears, blubber a bit as any loving father would—how tragic it is that my daughter’s lover became instead her murderer. And who will speak for you, Granbury? Who will contradict the account I will be only too happy to provide?”

  Grey felt his nails carve divots into his palms, forced to acknowledge the truth of it. Precious few were those who would defend him. He was no longer quite so universally loathed among the Ton, but it was a near thing indeed.

  “Why?” Mouse whispered. “Why, Father?” Her voice trembled over the words, spoken haltingly, but they rang hollow, as if she’d practiced them before a mirror, and Grey could only hope that Andover would not notice the false fright she had concocted.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Andover said with a scowl. “Really, what had you expected? That I would simply fade into obscurity, never to show my face again? Me?” A forced laugh split the night air, the sound a pale imitation of genuine amusement, as if Andover had never perfected the art of humor and mimicked it only poorly. His gaze slide once more to Grey. “You simply accepted that I had left,” he said, an oily thread of satisfaction oozing into his voice. “Arrogant. Like your father. It never once crossed your mind that someone might be cleverer than you.”

  Not cleverer; simply less principled, unbound by any shred of conscience or integrity, entirely absent any kind of morality. It had never been more apparent than now, Grey understood, for Andover could have—and should have—taken his shot already. But for a man so much lacking in any sort of moral fiber, it was impossible for him not to gloat, not to toy with his chosen victims like a cat with a mouse, drawing out suffering as long as possible before at last he ended the game.

  “I suppose I owe you my thanks,” Andover said to Grey. “After all, you saw fit to make my daughter quite a wealthy woman in her own right.”

  Mouse drew her brows together quizzically, and at last gave a theatrical gasp as if she had just understood the significance of that statement, turning her face toward Grey as if for confirmation—but Grey’s attention was elsewhere.

  Just behind a yew hedge some distance beyond Andover, there was a hint of movement. The reflection of the moon off of a row of buttons on an evening coat. A dark head of hair, a face half-hidden in shadows. Hugh, Grey thought, which meant that the constable could not be far away.

  With some effort, Grey drew his attention back to Andover, hoping that Mouse would not glimpse her brother hiding behind the hedges, lest she accidentally reveal his presence.

  “Of course,” Andover cheerfully began to elucidate for his daughter’s benefit, “with you deceased, my darling daughter, and your lover imprisoned—and hanged, most likely—for your murder, your assets will fall to me.” He gave a chortle, then tempered it with a look of mock tragedy. “Naturally, I shall be beside myself with grief. Weep at your funeral, and all that. Perhaps I shall set aside a sum to provide flowers for your grave each week.” He thought for a moment and corrected himself. “No, perhaps each month. For a year or so. I daresay it won’t be long until society endeavors to simply put you from their minds, and I will be relieved of the obligation.”

  Grey watched as a tumble of emotions skittered over Hugh’s face, the scant slice of it that could be seen in the moonlight. Shock, horror, fear—and finally, fury. Hugh drew himself up, no longer shrinking into the shadows, the countenance that Grey had once considered weak and pitiful now imbued with a new resolve. A hand snatched at Hugh’s shoulder, drawing him back within the shelter of the shadows lest he reveal himself too soon.

  Andover drew back the hammer of the pistol, his face shedding its delight to fall blank once more. “One fell swoop,” he murmured, almost to himself, and he aimed the pistol very deliberately at the center of Mouse’s chest, where the most damage would be wrought. “One fell swoop, and all of my troubles shall simply…disappear.”

  “Now, Hugh!” Grey roared, and several things happened at once.

  Hugh gave an incensed shout and attacked Andover.

  Grey grabbed for Mouse, turning her face into his chest.

  The pistol fired.

  Andover gave a scream of pain.

  And the constable made a disapproving sound in his throat as he emerged from the shelter of the shadows to loom over Andover, saying, “That’s attempted murder, that is. Men hang for less, my lord.”

  ∞∞∞

  Serena gasped, the roar of gunfire still ringing in her ears despite Grey’s efforts to dampen the sound. The dull thud of flesh hitting flesh thickened the air, coupled with Hugh’s hoarse exclamations of rage, and as Grey braced one arm at her back, she let out a harsh sigh of relief.

  “I thought he was never going to get around to firing,” Serena said, her voice muffled in Grey’s coat, and she felt his shoulders shake with a laugh which ended in a sigh of his own. It was done. It was done and over with at last, and there was nothing her father could do for it. At least, not with Hugh straddling him, plowing his fists into his face.

  “You sick bastard,” Hugh snarled, as Andover’s legs kicked out in a fierce attempt to free himself from beneath the rain of blows. Another swift jab was followed by a pathetic whimpering sound.

  “Er,” the constable said, tapping Hugh on the shoulder. “I think that’s quite enough now, sir.”

  “Give him a moment,” Grey said. “This has been a long time coming.” His fingers tangled in Serena’s hair and massaged the tension from the nape of her neck, steadfastly resisting her efforts to get a better look. “You truly don’t want to see this,” he whispered to her. “It’s a gruesome sight.”

  “A doctor,” Andover rasped when Hugh was at last persuaded to end his beating. “My hand—”

  “You’ll get whatever attention can be spared you at Bow Street,” the constable said. “Wouldn’t be at all surprised if you lose it.” His tone conveyed his disgust, and he shoved hand beneath the earl’s arm and hauled the man to his feet. “You’re under arrest, my lord.”

  Serena felt her stomach turn in revulsion to see the ruins of her father’s hand—the pistol had misfired, taking off at least two fingers and breaking the rest. With his hand a pulpy mess and his face battered beyond recognition, it was a wonder he held his feet.

  “I’m a peer,” Andover snarled, and in the bloodied maw of his mouth, it appeared as if Hugh had knocked out a tooth or two. “You can’t arrest a peer.”

  “For civil offenses, no,” the constable admitted. “However, murder—even attempted murder—makes it criminal. You can explain yourself to a magistrate, my lord, though I can’t imagine any would be inclined toward mercy. Not seeing as how I was assigned to this case by one of them, anyway. If not for Lord Granbury’s insistence, you might have had a prayer of success.”

  With a rattling breath, Andover’s knees began to tremble. “How?” he inquired, his wild gaze fixed on Grey. “How?”

  “I admit I had underestimated you,” Grey said, and Serena felt his arms hold her just a little tighter. “But after that attack in the park—”

  “You couldn’t have known!” Andover gasped. “There is no proof!”

  “No,” Grey acknowledged. “But Lansdowne suspected something was amiss, and both of your sons came to me. It did not take long for us to discern a motive. We decided we had to lure you out of hiding somehow, provide some actual evidence of your intentions—”

  “So we set a trap. An opportunity you could not afford to pass up.” Lansdowne appeared, his hands shoved in his pockets. His gaze settled briefly upon his father, then flicked away with an expression of distaste to land upon the constable. “Good evening, constable. I heard the misfire—I daresay the entire
bloody ballroom did. Has all been resolved to your satisfaction?”

  “Indeed, my lord.” The constable dangled a set of heavy handcuffs. “Not certain these’ll fit quite as well as once they might’ve.” He ignored Andover’s howl of pain and indignity as he began to fasten the cuffs about the man’s wrists.

  Serena ignored the sick, unsettled feeling in her stomach and extracted herself from Grey’s arms. “Did you not wonder, Father, at how easily you gained admittance to the house?” She tapped one finger on her chin. “A conveniently open window. Down the east hall, was it not?”

  Andover went still and silent, staring at her in shock.

  “And then, of course, you had to dodge the servants, who might have informed William of your presence. You would have taken a circuitous route. Perhaps near your office, where you store your pistol. Lucky for you—good weapons are hard to come by, especially when one lacks the funds to purchase them.” The scent of spent gunpowder was acrid in the air, overpowering even the coppery tang of blood. “But you could not waste your weapon on just anyone. Firing within the house—during a ball, no less—would have been disadvantageous. You couldn’t have an audience to a murder, after all.”

  He had caught on now, she could see by the slumping of his shoulders. He had begun to understand the enormity of his error, all the things to which his arrogance had blinded him.

  Grey’s hand touched her shoulder, bolstering her strength. “I expect that you were, at some point, trapped within the stillroom—it does have a lovely view out into garden, you know. Where you doubtless saw Grey and I pass by.”

  “You had only the illusion of freedom, Andover. Every move you made was planned, designed to allow you to think you held the upper hand.” Grey gave a nod to Andover’s mangled hand. “Even your pistol played a part, rigged to misfire. The house was a maze, and you were the rat trapped within. And you weren’t even aware of it.”

  The condescension in Grey’s voice was a bridge too far for Andover to tolerate; with a roar of fury, he lifted his bound wrists and threw himself at the constable, grappling for the pistol holstered at the man’s side.

  By the way he tensed, this was a turn that Grey had clearly not anticipated. Though Serena didn’t doubt that the constable—a much younger man, in the peak of physical condition—would easily subdue the earl, still Grey reached for her, tucking her against his chest as he turned his back to the struggle, shielding her with his body.

  The roar of gunfire resounded once more, and a dull ringing set up in Serena’s ears. Grey had flinched at the sound of the shot, and her heart leapt into her throat. For the first time during the interminable evening, fear clawed at her. She had not feared for her own life—but the thought of losing Grey terrified her to the tips of her toes.

  “Grey,” she whispered, her fingers curling into the fabric of his coat. “Please tell me you weren’t—”

  “No,” he soothed, the heat of his hands searing her through the thin silk of her gown as he rubbed her back in slow circles. “Only startled. I hadn’t expected—”

  Behind him, the constable swore vividly. A grotesque gurgling sound followed, accompanied by a thin wheeze. Serena lifted herself onto her toes to risk a peek over Grey’s shoulder.

  “Damned fool shot himself,” the constable snarled, as Andover slumped to his knees and then at last to his belly, face down on the grass. “Had his finger on the trigger before he had control of the gun.”

  A rattling gasp burbled up from Andover’s throat as blood welled past his lips, pouring out in a thin stream that looked nearly black in the moonlight. His features contorted through a number of emotions—disbelief, horror, and shock—and at last, with one vicious twitch, his face smoothed into a somber mask of death.

  “A bad end,” the constable remarked. “I think I’d have liked for him to see the inside of a courtroom. Preferably followed by a jail cell.”

  “A bad end for him,” Serena said, as her pulse began to slow once more back into a normal rhythm. “But for the rest of us, I think it’s a good one.”

  Chapter Thirty Five

  A fortnight had passed—two interminable weeks which Grey had filled with work, work, and more work. Two weeks where he had done his best to give Mouse the time and space that she had requested, to avoid exerting undue pressure upon her. Only Mouse could make her choice, and he found himself both dreading and anticipating it in equal measure.

  Fourteen days had come and gone, and with each one that passed, his analytical brain predicted dwindling chances—and he’d taught Mouse enough about risk assessment for her to recognize a poor investment when she saw one. Two weeks was certainly enough time for her brothers, for all of polite society, to work against him.

  He returned home after a long day at his office to find Simpson standing by the door, wearing an expression that smacked of guilt.

  “You have guests, sir,” Simpson said. “They’ve been here well over an hour.”

  Worn to the bone already and not in any mood to entertain callers—and there had been a good number of them, recently, owing to his part in Andover’s downfall—Grey heaved a longsuffering sigh and drawled, “Toss them out. They can make a bloody appointment.”

  “Er—well, as to that, sir—”

  A burst of raucous masculine laughter erupted from the drawing room, and Grey immediately understood.

  One did not simply toss out a damned duke.

  “I don’t understand why the two of you keep turning up,” Grey said as he stalked into the drawing room to find both the Duke of Davenport and Mr. John Darling awaiting him—and given their general joviality, likely more than a few glasses deep into his liquor.

  “Rude,” the duke said in mild reproach as he refilled his glass. “Honestly, Granbury, I can’t imagine why you haven’t got any other friends.”

  Other friends implied that these two gentleman counted themselves as his friends; a bizarre circumstance in and of itself, and not one Grey could reason out in his mind. Still, he supposed that counting a duke among his intimates—even if said duke happened to be irritating at the best of times, and ridiculous the rest—could hardly serve him ill.

  Darling, who had been flicking through a stack of unopened correspondence that Simpson had not yet sorted, said, “As I understand it, that nasty bit of business with Andover had concluded in a satisfactory manner for all involved—well, excepting Andover, that is. And yet I have it on good authority you’ve yet to call upon your lady.”

  “It would hardly be proper,” Grey snapped. “She’s in mourning, for God’s sake.”

  Darling and Davenport exchanged glances. “Is she, then?” Darling inquired. “I confess I am not entirely certain of the proper mourning protocol when one’s father attempts to do away with one, but I cannot imagine one would be honor-bound to conform to mourning etiquette in such a circumstance.” He lifted a letter for the stack. “There’s a note here from her.”

  “Give that to me,” Grey growled, lunging to snatch the letter from Darling’s fingers. He held it in his hand a moment, and though it was only a letter, it felt heavy in his hand—as if it contained the weight of the world. His world, at least.

  “Well, go on, then,” Davenport said with a flippant gesture of his hand. “A gentleman never keeps a lady waiting.”

  But he couldn’t bring himself to break the wax seal. His mind whirled, cogs and wheels spinning wildly, struggling to calculate probabilities and odds. Grey hesitated, unaccustomed to sharing anything of himself with anyone—but these men were Mouse’s peers, presumably his peers. If he wished to give her the kind of life she deserved, then it stood to reason that he ought to make the effort to walk in her world honestly.

  “I told her that I would give her time,” he said. “Time to think, to reach her own decision. It’s been hardly two weeks since Andover…well, you know it already. I can’t think she would welcome my presence so soon.” And that was the problem—the unmistakable possibility that the letter would not herald welcome
, but rejection.

  “Well, you might have a better idea if you read the letter,” Davenport said, with a weary sigh. “If this constitutes love, then I want none of it,” he said to John, with a dismissive gesture at Grey. “I’d sooner a marriage of convenience, in all honesty. It’s a pity, John, that my title is so much in demand. You’d make a far better husband than I, even without a title.”

  A queer expression crossed Darling’s face for a fraction of a second, there and gone in the space of a heartbeat. “I’m not in the market for a wife,” he said smoothly. “But Granbury clearly is.”

  Davenport made an inelegant sound in his throat. “He won’t even open her letter,” he said. “Bit cowardly, don’t you think?”

  Grey had the vague sense that he was being goaded, that to respond would be to play into Davenport’s hands. “What, then, ought I do?” he ground out in a scathing tone. “Even if she would see me, she’s had only a fortnight to come to terms with all that has passed. Shall I take advantage of her in a moment of weakness, manipulate her once again to my own ends—regardless of her own desires?”

  Darling scoffed. “Hardly. But you could at least speak with her. And if she does wish to marry you, you thank your lucky stars to have won the affections of so gracious a lady.”

  Grey scrubbed his hand over his face. “It’s hardly so simple as that,” he said. “Only think of what she would sacrifice. Social position. Respectability. Acceptance. I can buy her a great many things, but I’ve yet to find a way to purchase those.”

  “Granbury, if you will wed the chit and permanently remove her from my mother’s list of potential future duchesses, I will stand up for you at your wedding,” the duke said, with no small amount of feeling. “I am not above begging. You will, after all, be saving me from a fate worse than death.” At Grey’s perplexed expression, the duke clarified with a shudder, “Marriage. For if you will not wed your lady, Mother will no doubt find a way to wrangle me into the parson’s noose. And while Lady Serena is…er, perfectly lovely, I don’t care to end up married to her myself.”