Season for Scandal

by Theresa Romain

  “Damned lucky they didn’t rise up,” Alleyneham said. “There were what, fifty thousand there? They’d have overwhelmed the cavalry in a second. But then you can’t expect peasants to possess an understanding of arithmetic.” He leaned back in his chair, setting his walking stick to swinging like a clock pendulum. Tick, it went, as the ebony head of it rocked back and forth. It seemed the voice of time itself, tugging on Edmund with dreadful force.

  The subject was all too familiar to Edmund. Too familiar, the protests by a desperate crowd; too familiar, the violence and blood. More than twenty years had passed, yet it was not long enough to forget.

  He tried for a calm voice. “It had less to do with arithmetic than human decency, Alleyneham. Even a child can tell that a crowd is more powerful than a few mounted riders. The workers wanted to be heard, not to hurt.”

  Turner raised his brows. “What does a child know of revolution?”

  Edmund wished that his pale skin didn’t flush so easily. They might attribute it to the port; Alleyneham and Weatherwax had already grown ruddy. “In an ideal world,” Edmund said, “a child would know nothing of revolution at all. But this is hardly an ideal world. Sometimes children are pulled into the struggles of adults, and they must cope as best they can.”

  Xavier looked at him oddly; then an expression of amused tolerance draped their host’s features. “Indeed, Kirkpatrick. In comparison, adults are damnably complacent—at least, we often are in Parliament. I’ve no idea how the voting will shake out, but we wouldn’t be having a special session of Parliament if the Prince Regent wasn’t a bit nervous.”

  “Quite right.” Alleyneham blinked pouchy eyes. “Think of that Irish uprising in, what was it?”

  “1798,” Edmund supplied. His fingers went cold, and he set down his port glass. At once, he picked it up again so his hands would have something with which to busy themselves.

  Alleyneham’s walking stick clattered to the floor. “Right, right, 1798,” he said loudly as a footman raced to pick it up. “Those rebels killed thousands, didn’t they, and laid waste to half of Ireland. And how did it all turn out? With their leaders executed and their Parliament dissolved. People who can’t rule themselves must be ruled with an ever-tighter fist, and there’s an end to it.”

  “Ah, but that wasn’t an end to it.” Turner opened his case again, taking his time selecting a cigar.

  “How do you mean, sir?” Alleyneham was looking still redder.

  “The spirit of revolution survived.” With a tiny blade, Turner lopped off the end of his cigar. “If the government tightens its fist too much, people become accustomed to slipping through its fingers, don’t they?”

  “You are right,” Xavier admitted. “There was another uprising in the early 1800s, wasn’t there? Around—oh, I’d say 1803. I had just gone to school when it took place.”

  “It went nowhere. Quickly quashed, just like this Peterloo nonsense.” Alleyneham eyed Turner’s cigar case with some interest. “Having one of your fine Indian cigars, Bellamy?”

  “Indeed, my lord.” The so-called Bellamy walked over to the earl, holding forth the case. “You’re welcome to one.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Edmund watched as England’s greatest fraud handed off a cigar to England’s most complacent old lion. What would Alleyneham do if Edmund were to shout, he’s lying to you; he’s as bad as those you’ve called traitors. Worse, far worse.

  And those cigars could not possibly be from India.

  He couldn’t shout it, though; it would be the work of a moment for Turner to spit his own truths right back. The man hadn’t plotted treason alone, nor committed adultery by himself. Edmund could never implicate Turner without destroying what was left of his own family, himself, and now—Jane, too.

  Inside, he boiled; a boiling that tightened his fingers on the curve of his glass and made him wish it was Turner’s neck. He wanted to crush the man who had taken so much and who was back now, cheerful and vile, to take everything else.

  Snip. Turner cut off the end of Alleyneham’s cigar. “There you are, my lord. Enjoy it.”

  “Indeed. I thank you, Bellamy.” Lord Alleyneham took a puff, and an acrid smell like burning manure wafted from the end. “It has an interesting bouquet, hasn’t it?”

  Again, Xavier offered his own sort, and the conversation was directed from politics to tobacco before a towering argument took place.

  Edmund made his way to the fireplace. Setting his glass on the mantel, he rubbed his hands together. Either the autumn weather was bleeding into winter as November fled by or the chill came from within, as Edmund was forced to keep a damned smile on his face while Turner lied and lied.

  “Enjoying the conversation, my lord? It’s a fine day for talk of revolution.”

  Turner. Of course, Turner had followed him to the edge of the room. His flat voice was unmistakable, as were the scents of pomade and cheap cigars.

  “Not now, please,” Edmund said without turning. “Really, not ever.”

  “Wolfe Tone,” Turner continued, “died on this day twenty-one years ago. Finest of the Irish revolutionaries. It’s fitting we should talk of his cause today, don’t you think? So much to celebrate and mourn.”

  Edmund turned. “Is it his cause, or yours?”

  “Hmm.” Turner shrugged. He was still working his cigar cutter, probably liking its clean sound of destruction. Snip snip. The tiny blade winked sharp and gilded in the candlelight. Edmund wondered, dimly, where the man got all his money.

  No. No need to wonder. He was brilliant at persuading money from people, and if that failed, stealing it. The ends justified the means, so far as Turner was concerned.

  The idea made Edmund’s knees watery. The ends justified the means, and Turner’s end now was turning Jane’s loyal heart away. So what would the means be?

  Anything. Anything. But this time, Edmund was a grown man, not a boy, and he would protect his own. “Go away, Turner. You’ve already inflicted far too much of your presence on me.”

  “Tut, tut. Just inquiring after your welfare, I was.”

  “My welfare would be significantly improved if we were never in one another’s presence again.”

  Turner clipped the end off a cigar. “Likewise, boyo. Yet here we are. Neither of us can leave unless the other gives in.”

  “Ah, Bellamy, are you sharing one of your good Indian smokes?” Lord Weatherwax called in a voice thick with drink. “Enjoy it, Kirkpatrick.”

  Edmund offered what he hoped was a careless grin. “Never know when we’ll find a new favorite, do we, Weatherwax?”

  He waited for the nobleman to continue drowning himself in port before turning back to accept the unwanted cigar, now lit, wrapping him in its acrid odor.

  “This smells of the stable yard,” he muttered. “Hardly a fine imported cigar, is it?”

  Turner took up a glass of port, then smiled. The same diplomat’s expression that had once eased him through negotiations with Edmund’s father; through lover’s quarrels with Edmund’s mother. “It amuses me,” he said, letting the words lilt in his true accent, “to see a lord puff away at the worst sort of mundungus, simply because he thinks it’s from another part of the world.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to try new things.” In Edmund’s mind’s eye, he saw Jane’s face, eager as she asked if they might travel. “It shows openness of character.”

  “It shows foolishness, to believe everything one’s told.” He looked Edmund up and down. “But then, you’ve always been that way. Dob—”

  “Dobhránta. Yes, yes. Get a new word, won’t you? I think you’ve done all you can with that one.” Edmund motioned for a footman and handed off the horrid cigar. When he turned back, his former tutor was staring at him with grudging approval.

  “What?”

  “You could’ve put it out in my port, couldn’t you?”

  “That would have done a disservice to the port, besides drawing unwanted attention to
our conversation.”

  Slowly, Turner shook his head. “Unaccountable lad.”

  “I’m no more a lad than that was an Indian cigar.” He paused. “Turner, if you keep up this ruse of life in India, you’ll be caught out soon. Not everyone is credulous or untraveled—which are not the same thing, nor anything to be ashamed of,” he added when a smirk began to form on the man’s features.

  “Hasn’t happened yet, has it? People believe whatever they’re told. Why, I got your wife’s silly little mother to invite me to the wedding, didn’t I? Swore I was your father’s oldest friend—”

  Edmund spluttered.

  “—but I told her I couldn’t possibly intrude when you hadn’t known me well yourself. No, no; not even for the sake of family.” He put a hand over his heart, his expression a mockery of sentiment. “The more I insisted, the more she did, too. Ah, Mrs. Tindall, the good-hearted dupe. I can see why you settled on her daughter.”

  “Don’t,” Edmund said low, “talk of my wife or her family.”

  “Why not? You talk of my family all the time.”

  “They were my family.” Edmund caught himself. “Are. They are my family. Not yours. Not in any real sense.”

  “What’s a real sense to you?” Turner sipped at his port, then set his glass on the mantel beside Edmund’s. “A blood tie? I’ve that as much as you. You can’t say it’s spending time together, for you’ve admitted yourself, you’ve not been back in twenty years.”

  How could Turner speak so calmly? How could he claim a right to any piece of a family he’d done his best to ruin? If they hadn’t been tucked into the corner of a dining room, Edmund would have called him out for sheer gall.

  But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even raise his voice. More reputations than his own were tied to the way he behaved. Again, Edmund felt his dreadful connection to Turner. They could hold one another at the edge of the cliff, or they could both tumble from its edge.

  The edge lured him with a keening siren’s song. But Edmund stepped back. This time.

  In a low voice choked with anger, he said, “I consider that a family is made up of people for whom one takes responsibility. In that sense, you’ve never had any family at all.”

  “And whose fault was that?”

  Edmund didn’t hesitate. “Yours. You could have done the honorable thing before my parents were married. Stayed behind in Ireland. Accepted that there was no place for you in England.”

  Turner took out another cigar and snipped off the end with a brutal gesture; then another section, and another, before tossing all the pieces into the fire. “Your mum and I had love on our side. What was a marriage of convenience compared to that?”

  “Everything. Once she took her vows, you should have left her alone. Love had nothing to do with it.”

  “Is that what you tell your wife? When you take her every night, all business and duty? ‘Love’s got nothing to do with this, Lady Kay. Now spread your legs.’”

  Disgusted, Edmund shook his head. “How foul you have become. My marriage has nothing to do with this conversation, or with you. And neither will my wife.”

  “You keep wishing for that, and see how it works for you.” Turner clapped him on the back. “Pardon me, boyo. Lord Weatherwax!” he called in his horrid, flat Bellamy voice as he began to move away. “Care for another of my Indian cigars? How about you, Mr. Pellington?”

  Edmund grimaced. Shuddered, like a dog shaking off a chilly drenching. He reached for his glass, ready to toss back the warming spirits and chase a bit of oblivion.

  But there were two cut-crystal tumblers on the mantel. He couldn’t remember which glass was his and which Turner’s.

  Never mind, then. Instead, he leaned against the wall next to the fireplace, pasting a sleepy smile over his features so the other guests would ignore him.

  Turner was right: they were bound together. Perhaps if he had been able to expose the man’s false identity at once, he could have prevented this terrible charade. But he’d been blind. Stuck too deep in the past to recognize how it appeared here and now. And Turner had become a novelty, lifted up and held to the light by the beau monde, just like a glass ornament. If Edmund smashed it, he—as much as Turner—would be injured. And so would his family. They were all living a respectable life only because no one knew the truth.

  It seemed secrets had become a habit he couldn’t shake, like other men became steeped in drink or fascinated by whores. Edmund could almost wish for such an escape; to forget oneself, even for a few minutes, in a bottle or a bed.

  When the men heaved themselves from the table and lurched upstairs to the drawing room, Jane’s was the first face Edmund sought. And when she smiled at him, he smiled back.

  There were, as yet, a few things Turner hadn’t spoiled.

  When they returned home that night, Edmund bade Jane farewell until the morning. The door of her bedchamber closed him out with a soft sigh of hinges. This time, though, Edmund knew why there was a wall between them. And in a few days, it would come down.

  Until then, and ever after, he would devote himself to making her the happiest of women. Pleasured and treasured. Somehow, he would find a way.

  Such a victory was essential.

  Chapter 13

  Concerning Theft, Pain, and Sleep

  A few days later, Parliament began its special session, and Edmund spent long afternoons away in the House of Lords.

  Jane found these afternoons endless. In the country, one might tear about, clambering over ruins or shooting at any furred creature unwise enough to poke its head from its burrow. Then return home, heart pumping with joyous exertion, for an early supper of hearty meats and cider.

  In London, the hour was too early to dine and too late to pay calls. And shopping seemed a waste of time when Jane had already been given every item she wanted and many that she didn’t. She tried to amuse herself with her new atlas, but the bright-tinted maps seemed to taunt her, and she soon closed the book and laid it aside on a drawing-room table.

  For the first time, London had failed her. So she would have to make her own diversion.

  It was the work of a few minutes to send a messenger to Lady Audrina Bradleigh, and within an hour, the two women met for an outing in Hyde Park.

  The winter sky was gray and hazy, greased by coal smoke and made surly by clouds hanging low overhead. Though they threatened rain, the weather kept its peace for now, and Jane and Audrina were two among many of the quality who took the chance to promenade.

  “I’m glad you wanted to walk out today,” Audrina said. “My parents are being intolerable. Papa has been ranting about scoundrels and ruffians and revolution for days on end. With the opening of Parliament, he’ll finally have new people at whom to rant.”

  “Lord Kirkpatrick has taken up his seat, too. Probably without quite so much ranting.”

  “If he can’t froth at the mouth a bit, he’ll never make himself heard. No one listens to anyone else. Or such is my impression of Parliament.”

  “What’s the fun of shouting if no one hears? I used to be annoyed that women couldn’t hold seats in Parliament,” Jane mused. “But maybe I won’t bother anymore. There are so many other things to be annoyed about instead.”

  Such as the fact that walking next to her taller friend made her feel like a bit of broccoli: a little sprout, all in green; her pelisse in a dark shade, her gown in a pale color. She had preferred the color to all others since Edmund once gave her a compliment. The morning after their marriage, when she had felt as though she had to leave or cry, yet neither was an option.

  And then he had told her he liked her dress.

  Silly of her to care, when he said that sort of thing all the time, to all sorts of people. Yet one’s clothing had to be some color, didn’t it? So it might as well be green.

  Draped in a cloak of deep red wool and velvet, Audrina looked as beautiful as a hothouse rose, all deep colors and sweeping curves. A bit thorny, too, in the way she swept along on the park
paths, scattering those who sought her attention.

  “If you want something else to annoy you,” Audrina grumbled, “do allow me to suggest my mother. I mentioned that both of my parents were being horrid, didn’t I? She gets as fussed as my father does. Look.”

  She pulled back the edge of her cloak to display a gown fairly spangled with brooches and pins.

  “Er,” said Jane. “She wanted you to wear an entire jewel box at once?”

  As Audrina let the cloak drop again, Jane noticed it was closed with not one pin, but three. “Aren’t those evening pieces? With real stones?”

  Audrina’s gloved hands covered them, then clasped together in a gesture of frustration. “Yes. It’s silly, isn’t it?”

  “Wearing evening pieces during the day? Well. Not if you like them.”

  “Three at once. On a cloak.” The earl’s daughter blew out an impatient breath. “It is silly. But Mama insisted I wear everything today.”

  “Are you for sale?” Jane teased.

  “You’re more right than you realize,” Audrina said drily. “What’s a dowry, after all, but a sale price?”

  “Oh.” Jane didn’t precisely adore the subject of dowries.

  “But as to the jewels,” Audrina continued, “I’m to wear them for safekeeping. Ever since Lady Sheringbrook’s pearls were stolen—”

  “What? When?”

  Audrina’s brow furrowed. “A few days ago. The day after that dinner party at Xavier House.” She lowered her voice below the crunch of their feet on the graveled path. “They were stolen out of her very house, from some safe or locked cupboard or whatever it was.”

  “Oh! Those beautiful matched pearls.” Jane remembered how they had clasped the neck and wrists and ears of the dignified viscountess. Each was perfect: gray-tinted and iridescent like the throat of a pigeon.

  Jane wished she could recall society’s rules, like the depth of a curtsy to a countess, as easily as she remembered cards and gems. Alas, she seemed to have the mind of a pirate.