The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  Epilogue

  Serena St. Clair, now the Marchioness of Granbury, graciously accepted a maternal pat on the cheek from the dowager Duchess of Davenport as the festivities of the wedding breakfast wound down and the guests began, at last, to depart.

  “My dear, you look lovely,” the duchess said. “I confess I had hoped that you would wed my son—but, alas. I suppose a marquess is nearly as good as a duke.”

  Grey coughed into his fist. “Your Grace, I’m certain it’s in poor taste to inform a new bride of her husband’s inferiority. And at her wedding breakfast, no less.”

  “Cheeky,” the duchess sniffed, swatting Grey’s arm with her fan. “My boy, it is in poor taste to rebuke the manners of a duchess.” But her chiding was good-natured, and she turned once again to Serena. “I can see that marriage agrees with you, and so I shall forgive Granbury for subjecting you to the indignities of an elopement, and offer you both my congratulations.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” Serena said, conscious of Grey’s piercing stare that suggested it was her sacred duty to correct the duchess’ misapprehension. “But I’m afraid our elopement came as something of a surprise to my husband as well.”

  “Oh?” The duchess’ clear-eyed gaze moved between Serena and Grey with avid interest. “There is a story there—and I mean to have it. Granbury, I am stealing your wife for the foreseeable future. You shall simply have to entertain my son until we return.”

  Grey heaved a mock-sigh, though Serena suspected he’d long since wearied of the parade of well-wishers and rather relished the chance to retreat somewhere with Davenport and Mr. Darling—with whom he’d somehow become close—and do whatever it was that men did when left to their own devices. “Only if you promise to return her,” he said. “I will remind you she is my wife—”

  “Yes, yes, more’s the pity.” The duchess patted Serena’s arm as she linked hers through it. “Really, my dear. You could have had a duke.”

  Serena, who had heard such a refrain far too many times recently, simply rolled her eyes heavenward and said, “And instead I got the marquess I wanted.” At her feet, Cassandra gave a little whine and began to gambol about in lopsided circles, threading herself through Grey’s legs as well as around hers.

  “I’ll manage her,” Grey said, bussing a kiss to Serena’s cheek as he swept the puppy up in his arms on her next pass, enduring a few long, slobbery licks that Serena suspected he had secretly begun to enjoy. “Too much excitement for her today.” He gave Cassandra’s furry belly a fond scratch, and the puppy pressed her face against his chest and affected a rapturous expression.

  The duchess cleared her throat, reclaiming Serena’s attention, and together they began to move toward the drawing room. “I must say, I can’t recall an occasion I’ve known where an elopement came as a surprise to the groom,” she said, though her voice suggested interest rather than censure. “Highly unconventional, my dear.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Serena replied. “But then, neither my husband nor I are particularly conventional.”

  “How charming,” the duchess enthused. “I do love just a bit of wickedness now and again, don’t you? It keeps things so much more interesting.”

  Interesting was a word for it, though not precisely the one Serena would have chosen, but she smiled nonetheless. “Yes, well, it seems that I collect scandals the way some ladies might collect miniatures. I assure you, Your Grace, that I would not have made a suitable duchess—though I am flattered by your regard.”

  “Oh, pooh,” the duchess said, with a pout. “I fail to see why not. I count myself an excellent just of character, and you, my dear, are elegant, well-mannered, sophisticated—all anyone could expect of a duchess,” she said loftily.

  Serena’s lips quirked in amusement and could only wonder what Grey would have thought of duchess’ assessment, here in this room where the Aubusson rug still bore the evidence of the ink footprints she’d danced across it. “Again, Your Grace, you are very kind, but—”

  “And accomplished, no doubt,” the duchess continued blithely. “Surely you’ve mastered watercolors, an instrument or two, embroidery—”

  And as she settled onto her spot on the sofa, Serena tipped her head back and laughed. “The bed linens,” she said through her laughter as the duchess sat beside her. “Do remind me to tell you about the bed linens.”

  ∞∞∞

  “I thought I might find you here,” Grey said as he strode into his office—after having taken Cassandra up to her basket in the master’s chambers—to find Davenport and Darling secluded away therein. “I seem to recall Simpson heading this way with my best brandy.”

  “You can hardly blame us,” Davenport said, shuddering. “You, being—one assumes—a happily married man, are entirely safe from the machinations of the fairer sex.”

  “Save, of course, my wife,” Grey allowed. “But, fortunately, she restricts her machinations to me.”

  Davenport lifted his glass in Grey’s direction in a toast. “Better you than me,” he said. “Unfortunately, your wife is only one woman, and while I both commend and salute you for saving me from marrying the chit myself, I’ve felt an uncomfortable kinship with a rack of lamb hanging in a butcher’s window with so many unmarried ladies present. I had to absent myself, you understand, lest I find myself unexpectedly on the menu. Apparently there’s nothing like celebrating a wedding to make a woman long to snag a duke.”

  Darling chuckled. “You can blame your mother for that; she put it about that you would be attending.” He rose from his seat long enough to offer a glass to Grey. “I’m afraid I was obliged to accompany Alex when he ran for cover. The last time he slipped his leash, he ended up with a broken nose, and the duchess took it poorly.”

  “Mother takes everything poorly,” Davenport said, slumping in his chair. “I’m convinced the only thing that would please her is for me to take a wife. That, I imagine, would send her into paroxysms of joy.”

  “I don’t know,” Grey said. “I found her amiable enough, for all that she was determined to impress upon my wife her folly in wedding me when she could have had you.”

  Davenport slanted a meaningful look at Darling. “Marriage has clearly addled his brain,” he said. Dramatically he waved Grey away. “Stay back, if you please—it might be catching.”

  “Marriage?” Grey inquired, laughing. “I’ve yet to see a man break out in wedding rings simply through association.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Davenport insisted on a sigh. “Of course, now that you’ve fallen victim to the wretched state of matrimony, Mother will doubtless redouble her efforts. Thank God I have John to stand in the solidarity of bachelorhood with me.”

  His dark brows furrowed, Darling sipped his brandy in silence. It was not the first time, Grey realized, that Darling had been somewhat evasive in this respect. He’d said before that he was not in the market for a wife—but a man currently in possession of one would not be, he supposed.

  And somehow, even Davenport did not know of it.

  “Is that so, Darling?” Grey asked. “You’ll stand in the solidarity of bachelorhood?”

  Darling gave a huff of displeasure and slouched in his seat. “Damn,” he said, with a great deal of feeling. “I ought to have known you couldn’t leave well enough alone, Granbury.”

  “What?” Davenport sputtered, lurching forward in his seat, all dispassion and petulance summarily abandoned as the import of that statement crashed over him. “You’re joking—please say you’re joking. You can’t be married.”

  “Well, I don’t advertise it,” Darling said sourly, shooting an irritated glance at Grey. “Were it common knowledge, someone might expect me to produce my wife, for God’s sake.”

  “But when? How?” An offended expression crossed Davenport’s face. “And did I not merit an invitation? What do you mean, you might be expected to produce your wife? Where is she?”

  With an exaggerated sigh, Darling ticked off his responses upon his
fingers. “Years ago; the usual way; you were on your Grand Tour at the time and it was an extremely small affair; exactly what I said, and”—with this, he gestured to Grey—“ask Granbury. She’s been living in his house.”

  Grey’s brows lifted in surprise, taken aback at the assertion. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Really? You weren’t aware?” Darling gave a disbelieving laugh and scraped his hand over his jaw. “I suppose one not need to be born nobility to overlook servants, then. They are, by and large, invisible. It was a smart place to hide, I admit. I didn’t credit her with half so much cleverness.”

  “Your wife is hiding amongst my servants? Are you certain of that?”

  “Hiding is a strong word,” Darling admitted. “Perhaps she had been at one point, but your wife effectively put an end to that.” He gave a wry smile. “These days, it appears that she goes by Sarah. She’s your wife’s companion.”

  ∞∞∞

  An hour or so later, Serena knocked upon the door to Sarah’s small room. “Sarah? Are you well?”

  Within, there was the sound of harried movement, though no verbal response was forthcoming. The grating sound of drawers being pulled open and the furious click of heels across the floor penetrated the door; anxious sounds that rasped in Serena’s ears and frayed her nerves.

  “We missed you at the wedding breakfast,” Serena called. “I hope you did not feel unwelcome—”

  The door flew open with a jerky movement, and a hand seized the front of her gown and dragged her within. “Shh!” Sarah whispered urgently as she snapped the door closed once again.

  The room was a mess—bed covers rumpled, drawers half-pulled, personal belongings strewn about everywhere. Upon the mussed bed a valise rested, flung open and littered with hastily-collected garments that had been unceremoniously dumped atop it.

  And Sarah had resumed frantically pawing through her wardrobe, pulling down from their hangers only the plainest of garments. “I’m sorry,” she said as she worked, sifting through her clothes. “I would have attended your wedding breakfast. I wanted to attend your wedding breakfast. Only—”

  “Only what?” Serena’s brow furrowed as she took in the ruins of the room, the evidence of a woman who had fallen victim to panic. “Sarah, what is the matter? Are…are you leaving?”

  For a moment, abject misery overpowered the determination on Sarah’s face, and she swiped her hands over eyes that had gone bright and glassy with inconvenient tears. “Yes,” she said raggedly. “I’m so sorry—I meant to be gone before you knew. It was your wedding breakfast, after all. I didn’t expect you would come looking for me so soon.”

  “But why?” Serena pressed her back to the door, as if such a thing would prevent Sarah from escaping. “We were meant to open our school. I thought you wanted that—”

  “I did!” Wringing her hands in distress, Sarah backed away from the closet and wilted onto the bed, sending a pair of shoes tumbling to the floor in the process. “I did. For a while, I let myself forget who I once was and thought only of who I had become. I….” The words fell off into an awkward squeak, and her throat worked as she struggled to regain her composure. “I’ve been lying to you. To everyone.”

  “I know,” Serena said softly, and Sarah’s head jerked up in surprise, a horrified expression crossing her face. “Well, I didn’t know,” Serena amended. “Not for certain. But I suspected, at least. You always…seemed to know a little more than you ought, I think.” There had been so many times that Sarah had made an off-handed remark and quickly explained it away—but they had been things she never would have learned had she been only a maid, only a servant.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Sarah asked, frowning.

  “You’re my friend. You were my friend when I had no one.” Slowly, carefully, Serena edged away from the door and approached the bed. “How could I be less to you?”

  Mulishly, Sarah set her chin. “You never did have so much as an ounce of sense. Any other lady would have tossed me out on my ass.”

  “You’re my friend,” Serena repeated as she took a seat at the edge of the bed, narrowly avoiding crushing a bundle of gowns beneath her. “It occurred to me,” she said, “when you declined the part ownership of our school I offered you that perhaps there was a reason for it beyond that which you gave me.” She let her hands fall into her lap, wary of making a move that might spook Sarah into flight. “I know that you said it wouldn’t have been right to take it, that you hadn’t the funds to purchase your share of ownership, but…when I eloped with Grey, he chided me for my recklessness.” Serena plucked at a loose thread on the counterpane, delicately formulating in her mind the most inoffensive explanation she could manage. “You understand, of course, that as a married woman I cannot enter into a contract of my own accord. Everything I own belongs entirely to my husband by law. In reality, Grey will own our school—though he would never interfere in it. But he could, if he chose to do so, and I began to realize that…perhaps you had similar concerns. That there might be…someone who could exert ownership over our school on your behalf.”

  Sarah drew in a shuddering breath, and her hands fisted in her lap. “For a senseless ninny,” she said tonelessly, “you’re too perceptive by half. Nobody else ever—but then, servants are supposed to be invisible.”

  “Sarah, won’t you tell me?” Serena urged. “Perhaps I can help you—or Grey could help you. You know he would, if I asked him.”

  A wretched laugh gurgled from Sarah’s lips. “No, he wouldn’t, not when—” With a scathing sound deep in her throat, she leapt to her feet and began to pace once more, her heels clicking out a sharp report on the floor, the skirts of her bland blue gown whisking about her ankles. “I thought I would be safe here,” she said bitterly. “Your husband was a pariah, a villain to the whole of the Ton. Who would ever have expected him to find any sort of acceptance? For God’s sake, people said he ate babies. I was certain there would never be any visitors. Until—”

  Until Serena had upset the status quo. Until the Ton’s curiosity had outweighed their antipathy. Until Grey himself had found himself in the unlikely friendship of a duke. And if Grey had not found acceptance, per se, at least he was now connected to two noble families. His days on the fringes of society had come to an end, and so had Sarah’s faith in her invisibility.

  “He was invited,” Sarah blurted out abruptly. “He came to your wedding breakfast—my husband. That’s why I have to leave, you understand. I can’t stay any longer.” She turned tragic eyes to Serena. “I’ve stayed longer than I should have already.”

  Rising to her feet, Serena said, “Well, then, I shall have Grey ensure we are not at home to him in future. Sarah—”

  A high-pitched, hysterical laugh split the air, and it felt to Serena as if it had left sharp edges in its wake. “You’re mad if you think he’ll banish his friend from his home,” Sarah said ruefully.

  “His friend?” There were only two men that could truly fit such a description. And if not Davenport, then it had to be—“Mr. Darling?” Serena whispered. “Mr. Darling is your husband? But how? When? I’ve not heard a whisper—”

  “Long ago. When I was very young and very stupid. I thought—” Sarah shook her head, pressed her hands to her white face, and took a tremulous breath. “It doesn’t matter. It was only a noose to tighten around my neck, a scheme concocted to control me. I escaped it seven years ago, and I’ve no intention of being snared within it again.” And with that she began once more to cram clothing within her valise, working furiously to force things within, heedless of the expensive fabrics that would wrinkle beyond redemption at her rough treatment. “I’m so sorry,” she said on a ragged breath as she worked. “I wanted—I truly wanted to stay. It’s been so long since anybody at all has been kind to me. And I—I will miss you desperately.” Her expression fractured into melancholy, a hopeless longing for every dream that had crashed into splinters around her.

  “Oh, Sarah,” Serena murmured. “Please
let me help you.”

  A tear slipped down Sarah’s cheek and landed upon the bodice of a dove-grey muslin gown that lay half in and half out of her valise. “You don’t even know my name,” she said wretchedly. “Everything has been a lie. Everything. My name isn’t Sarah—it’s Violet.” She let out a sardonic little laugh. “And before it was Violet Darling, it was Violet Townsend.”

  Violet Townsend. Serena felt her breath leave her lungs on a shocked exhale, and she braced herself with one palm as her knees trembled and she sank once more to her bottom on the edge of the bed. “Oh, my God,” she breathed. “It’s you. You’re the runaway heiress!”

  Author’s Notes

  Dear Reader,

  By the time of the Hanoverian monarchs, many of the powers traditionally belonging to the Crown had been shifted instead to Parliament—including the right to create peers. Irish peerages in particular were given to those Parliament wished to honor without swelling the number of lords sitting in Parliament, since an Irish peerage did not automatically grant that right.

  Since the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, there have been only twenty one created peers of Ireland. It is highly unlikely that Grey would have managed to secure a title—even though titles were created under the reigns of George III and George IV in record numbers—as most of those honored with titles tended to be career politicians or men with existing familial ties to the aristocracy.

  Still, George IV was notorious for his reckless spending—indeed, it was his mounting debts that led to his marriage to Caroline of Brunswick (a notoriously unhappy union). I thought relieving the pressure from Parliament to further fund the King’s excesses—when they were already struggling to pay the interest on the national debt, and had failed in 1816 to renew the wartime income tax which would have bolstered revenue—would be an interesting way of getting a title into Grey’s hands.