Ten Kisses to Scandal (Misadventures in Matchmaking)

by Vivienne Lorret

“You look like hell,” Daniel said from the doorway, appearing as though he’d slept a few days in his clothes, too.

  “Isn’t that right where I belong?” Nicholas winced, catching the scent of his own breath, whisky and bile coating his tongue, about five layers thick by the feel of it. And the pulpy mass of his brain was trying to push its way out of his temples by way of a battering ram.

  “Yes, though hell might be an improvement from where you are.”

  True. Nicholas couldn’t deny it. But he would suffer this agony a hundred times over if he could see Briar once and tell her that he loved her, and that she wasn’t wrong.

  He’d been a coward by not admitting it when he’d had the chance. And if he could just go back to the beginning, he would change everything. Absolutely everything.

  “I came to finish our discussion,” Daniel said.

  “I wasn’t aware that there was anything left to discuss. After I told you what I’d done, you said we were no longer family. And rightfully so.”

  “Then you know how hard it is for me to stand here.”

  Nicholas nodded. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Disgustingly enough, he was still wearing his boots and they were covered in filth that he could not even name. “Is there anything I can do to earn your forgiveness?”

  Daniel scrubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw, squinting at him. “You don’t sound like yourself. Where is your famous arrogance? Your certainty about every choice you make? Barking orders, threatening to tie me to a column in the ballroom?”

  “Lost somewhere in one of the rooms at Blacklowe Manor, I think.” Nicholas tried to stand up, but his balance was off, his head spinning. He gestured to the bureau. “Hand me a knife from the top drawer. I’m cutting off these boots.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You’ll cut yourself and bleed to death and then I won’t be able to torture you for the rest of your life. Therefore, I’ll assist you.”

  “Thank you,” Nicholas said, humbled. “But be warned. I cannot identify the source of the putrescence on the outside or on the inside.”

  Daniel swore and covered his nose when he drew near. “You smell worse than a scavenger cart. At least have the wherewithal to suffer in dignity.”

  “I’m afraid I lost that, too.”

  Daniel turned his back, took hold of the boot, and yanked hard, stumbling forward when it slipped free. He tossed it to the side and wiped his hands on his trousers. “Blacklowe Manor—where everything is lost and nothing is found.”

  “If I had a flagon of ale, I would toast that statement.”

  The second boot came off, after more of a fight, and Daniel collapsed on the chair opposite the bed. He leaned his head back against the wall. “I want to know what made you do it. Forget about your pious redemption right now. I want to know what drove you to send my fiancée away without having the decency to tell me in the first place.”

  “I suppose I owe you that much, and more,” Nicholas said, resigned. “Very well. For months, Miss Smithson flirted shamelessly, trying to seduce me.”

  Daniel swallowed. “She was passionate and playful. Her exuberance was one of the things that drew me to her.”

  “I never had a moment’s peace when she was there. I had to lock myself in my study.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did,” he said, embarrassed. “I knew I had to do something or else you were going to marry her. And if you did, I think she would have found a way to . . .” He hissed at his own memory and muttered under his breath, “just like Marceline.

  “Anyway, I didn’t want that life for you,” he continued. “I didn’t want you to become dark and bitter like me, so I went to her father. I believed I was saving you from a horrible fate, when I was actually trying to save myself from reliving one.” He drew in a breath, hefted himself up, and staggered over to the washbasin. “And it was all my own doing. If I hadn’t left the masquerade with her that night—”

  “You needn’t repeat it.” Daniel stood, too, and moved to the door. He paused there, considering, his hand gripping the frame. “Tell me one more thing. Do you believe she would have gone through with it—our marriage, I mean?”

  “Do you truly wish me to answer that?”

  “I believe you just did.”

  Nicholas stared down into the bowl, loathing the watery reflection glaring back at him. When he looked at the doorway, Daniel was gone.

  * * *

  “I’m not going through this again, Briar. Up. Up. Time to join the rest of us in daily misery,” Ainsley said, hands on her hips as she stood at Briar’s bedside. Her voice might have sounded forceful, but the worry lines beside her eyes betrayed her.

  Briar drew in a deep breath and stared up at the rose-colored canopy. It was strange. She didn’t even know how she was breathing. Or why. Every bit of air burned down her throat, raw and ragged, stuttering in and out like a broken bellows. “I thought I was stronger. I thought love would never hurt me.”

  “Ah. Is that what happened? You fell in love.”

  “With the wrong sort, just like Mother,” she wheezed, tears gathering in her throat. Her heart was shredded into red strips of flesh that would never be mended. “And now I know it will break me, too.”

  She couldn’t imagine living like this, with part of her wanting to be with Nicholas and the other abhorring what he did.

  Ainsley took her hand and placed it between her own. “It wasn’t that long ago that you were determined to prove that you weren’t like Mother.”

  “Now I see that you were right all along.”

  “That I was right?”

  Briar’s head listed to the side and she stared at her sister. “When you look at me, I know you think of her.”

  Ainsley blanched. “You resemble her, yes. And you have some of her mannerisms, but then we all do. But you’re not her, Briar. You’ve always been stronger, more hopeful. Where you always see a ray of light in a cloudy sky, she only saw rain.”

  Stronger? Now that was a surprise, indeed, and likely the last thing Briar ever thought she would hear from her sister.

  “But for your sake,” Ainsley continued, solemn, “I wish she was still here. You were so young when she fell ill and never had the chance to really know her—that is what I think of sometimes when I look at you. And I worry that I have not honored her wish that I look after you.”

  “She asked you to . . .” Briar let her words drift off in disbelief. “I always thought you were protective because you believed I was incapable.”

  Ainsley heaved out a watery sigh and sank down onto the bed beside her. Hand in hand, they stared up at the canopy. “Do you want to know the real reason I never wanted you to be a matchmaker?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, holding her breath.

  “It wasn’t because I underestimated you. It’s quite the opposite. Actually, I was afraid.”

  “Of what, me?”

  “In a way. You’re accomplished at everything you do. I knew you would also be good at this. Better than me. And this—the agency—is all I have. All I’m good at. I can manage accounts, ask questions, take down information, and sort through names. I don’t play any instrument. You know I can’t sing or draw. I barely speak French, let alone all the languages that Jacinda knows. I don’t devise new ways of catching fish on a whim. I don’t even have much of an imagination. Compared to my sisters—especially the youngest one—I’m rather boring. So you could say that I kept you from becoming a matchmaker because I’ve always been jealous.”

  Briar blew out a disbelieving breath. “You sound like Mother. That’s the type of thing she always said. But I don’t believe that is the real reason. You’re too strong and confident for jealousy. Capable of meeting challenges head on. I’ve always wanted to be like you.”

  “Strange how we both see each other the same way, isn’t it?” Ainsley squeezed her hand and they shared a look. A new understanding. “We’ll switch roles, then. You’ll take my office and I’ll have a good cry in bed and c
up after cup of chocolate.”

  Briar rolled her head toward the bedside table where three tall cups of chocolate sat, untouched. “I don’t want them. I told Ginny, but Mrs. Darden keeps sending more.”

  “They’re not from Mrs. Darden.”

  “Then who?” An uncanny suspicion rolled over her, starting with a quick shiver along her instep. “You don’t mean they’re from . . .”

  Ainsley nodded. “Edgemont is rather persistent.”

  “Is he making a nuisance of himself by sending messengers all around town and to our door, collecting chocolate from the coffee houses?”

  “No. He’s here.”

  Briar sat up, her head spinning, heart pinching. “Here?”

  “Apparently, he’s earned Mrs. Teasdale’s favor. But Mrs. Darden is glowering at him for taking over her kitchen to make your chocolate.”

  “He’s making the chocolate?”

  “He won’t budge either. It doesn’t make any sense, but he says that he’s trying to make the froth just right.”

  “Bother,” she growled. “You’d better help me dress.”

  A quarter hour later, Briar arrived on the scene of a tragedy. The bittersweet scent of burnt chocolate hung in the air. Dirty dishes were piled on every surface, and dark brown splatters covered the table, the floors, even the windowpanes. And there was Nicholas, hunched over the stove.

  “What have you done to Mrs. Darden’s kitchen?”

  He whipped around, then staggered in place, his hair standing on end. His face was pale and drawn with dark smudges along his nose and cheek. Even his clothes were in disorder, muddy from ingredients. His coat hung on a peg by the back door, and he stood before her in his ruined waistcoat and shirt, his sleeves rolled up to reveal more spatters intermingling with the crisp dark hair on his forearms.

  “You’re out of bed,” he breathed. His gaze, red-rimmed from exhaustion, turned warm and eager. “Feeling better?”

  “No, irritated.” She huffed.

  Actually, it hurt to see him. She ached all over, her skin prickling. Her heart lurched out of rhythm as jolts of sensation scattered down her limbs, telling her to rush into his arms. And worse, the last words he’d spoken played like a melody stuck inside her head. One that she couldn’t be rid of if she tried.

  Can’t you see that you’ve changed me?

  From the beginning—that very first day—you breathed life and effervescence into my soul . . .

  I need you.

  Still she refused to go to him or to believe that what he’d said was anything other than a charming rogue’s manipulation.

  Instead, she took hold of the back of a wooden chair, a shield between them. “What are you doing here, aside from making a horrendous mess?”

  “Did you try the last one? I think I’m getting closer to—”

  “No, and you’re not,” she interrupted. Angry, she swiped a hand through the air. “Look around. You’ve created a disaster.”

  He wavered on his feet but didn’t take his eyes from hers for an instant. “But you always see possibility amidst chaos. That’s one of the things I love about you.”

  She gasped, her lungs burning from the charred air. A similar sound came from Mrs. Darden. At a glance, Briar saw her press her hands to her bosom and tears gather, clearly swept away in the moment and forgetting about everything Nicholas had ruined.

  The old Briar might have done the same. But she’d changed. This small admission was not enough to make her forget what he’d done.

  “I’m not that person any longer. My eyes have been opened to what is real, and you cannot undo what has been done. No one can go back to the beginning and start again,” she said, turning her back on him and leaving the kitchen.

  Chapter 34

  “Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always in love.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  Briar went down to the kitchen the following morning, prepared to help Mrs. Darden set matters to rights. But when she arrived, she was surprised to find the room immaculate. Even more so than ever before. Sunlight gleamed through sparkling clear windowpanes and off the surface of the copper pots and faucet fixtures. The stone tile floor looked glossy and new.

  She hardly knew if she was standing in the same house. “What happened in here?”

  “He stayed here all night cleaning up, refused to leave even a speck behind,” Mrs. Darden crooned, hugging an earthenware bowl to her generous bosom and beaming.

  “Nic—Lord Edgemont did all this? By himself?”

  “Indeed. What a dear. Didn’t want you to see a disaster, so he worked himself into exhaustion. Practically had to prop him up to get him out the door early this morning.”

  She eyed Mrs. Darden coolly. “Don’t tell me you’ve warmed to him, too.”

  “Can’t a woman appreciate a man who knows how to take care of a mess?”

  “Some messes are just too large to fix,” Briar huffed, and went about making a tray to take upstairs. After all, it was important to carry on with her life as it was. She couldn’t sit around feeling sorry for herself for the rest of her days. And besides, she had no doubt that a certain someone would be there with her knitting.

  Briar looked forward to the distraction. Though, when she went into the parlor, Mrs. Teasdale wasn’t the only person she found. Daniel was there, too.

  Briar nearly dropped the tray. “Mr. Prescott. But what are you doing in London? I would have thought . . .”

  He came forward to assist her. “That I would want to be as far away from my cousin as possible?”

  Mutely, she nodded.

  “Is there someplace we can talk?” He glanced uncertainly at Mrs. Teasdale, sitting on the sofa.

  “Don’t mind me, for my attention is on my knitting. Won’t hear a word,” she said, click-clacking away. “This is as good a place as any, the way I see it. After all, it’s Miss Bourne’s office.”

  Briar opened her mouth to argue, then the strangest thing occurred to her. With fresh eyes, she looked around at the cozy little parlor with the rose silk wallpaper, a landscape painting of a boat on a lake, and the furniture she’d arranged for ease of conversation. And she realized something important. This was her office. It had been from the very first day.

  All along, she’d felt excluded and left to do a job that meant nothing. Only now, she realized that what she provided was just as important as taking applications, vetting clients, and making matches. She put people at ease with friendly conversation and, perhaps, she even gave them hope. And a monkey, no matter how well trained, could not do that. No, indeed.

  “If it is amenable to you,” she said, standing a bit taller as she gestured to one of the tufted armchairs. After he placed the tray on the low table and they settled in, she poured for him, this new awareness brimming inside her.

  Peculiarly, she felt a sense of peace for the first time in days.

  She handed a cup to Daniel. “I apologize for leaving Hampshire without bidding farewell, or without explaining my sudden illness the day we drove to . . . Mr. Cartwright’s residence.”

  Daniel nodded, his expression solemn. “Under both circumstances, your absence was perfectly reasonable. My regret is that you had to suffer at all.”

  “We all have our trials, dear,” Mrs. Teasdale said with a tsk to her yarn. In the silence that followed, she looked up. “Well, go on. I was only giving a little encouragement. Not listening to a word.”

  Daniel shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, well. You see, I came here to tell you that I plan to leave in a matter of days, but I wanted you to know that I hope we are able to meet as friends in the future.”

  “Of course. I can think of no reason it would be otherwise.”

  “You are all kindness, especially when the matter that ended my betrothal was the very thing that finished yours as well.”

  Briar sucked in a breath, her hands trembling as she set down her cup. “Your cousin and I were not engaged.”

  “My apologies. Wi
th the way Nicholas has been moping around and muttering strange things about starting from the beginning, from the day you met, I thought surely . . .” He shook his head, confusion marking his brow in furrows. “Well, perhaps I have misunderstood. I’ve just never seen him this way.”

  “I marvel at your ability to speak with such compassion. Had the same been done to me, I don’t think I could ever forgive him.”

  He looked down at his cup, thoughtful. “I am disappointed. He showed me little respect by withholding the simple fact that he’d been acquainted with Miss Smithson before I met her. Then he showed me even less by offering her father a fortune to marry her off to someone else, without even discussing it with me. He’d always been of a nature to protect me, but this time he went too far.”

  Briar’s heart stalled, blood rushing in her ears. “Did you say he knew her before you met?”

  It seemed to take an eternity for Daniel to speak. He stared back at her with his head tilted in scrutiny and then suddenly his brows shot up and his face grew pale. “I think I understand now. Miss Bourne, let me assure you that Nicholas would sooner cut off his right arm than to . . .” He stopped and averted his gaze, clearing his throat. “I did not know Miss Smithson when she was in London.”

  “Oh,” Briar breathed, realizing that she’d misunderstood that part. Tears gathered in her throat, threatening to spill.

  Yet, before she was too swayed by this information, she reminded herself that it did not alter what Nicholas had done. He’d still acted without conscience or concern about who he may have been hurting.

  “I am ever so sorry for what you endured,” she said to Daniel.

  “Miss Smithson was unlike anyone else and I was captivated by her vivacity.” He glanced sideways at Mrs. Teasdale as if expecting a comment, but to her credit, she didn’t break her knitting stride. “I was so caught up in her spirited attentions, reveling in my good fortune, that I ignored every flirtation she cast in Nicholas’s direction. And I ignored every warning from him, too. I turned a blind eye to how uncomfortable she made him, how many times he would leave a room when she entered. I even made excuses for her.”