A Scandal at Midnight

by Annie Burrows

  ‘Yes, but, Daisy,’ he said, coming over to her, ‘those are the conditions I don’t want you to have to endure.’

  Ah. There was that irritating, masculine need to protect her, which had driven her brothers to behave in such an obnoxious fashion.

  ‘What,’ she said tartly, ‘if you are injured in some battle? Who will look after you if I am not there?’

  ‘Sergeant Wilmot is experienced in—’

  ‘Yes, but he won’t go back with you, will he? Haven’t you noticed? He’s fallen for Sally.’

  ‘Sally?’

  ‘The scullery maid. Whenever she is in the scullery, peeling vegetables, he’s there, chopping them. If she’s washing up, he’s drying up. If she’s out tending the vegetable patch he’s out there with a hoe.’

  ‘Well...’ he frowned ‘...I can hire someone else...’

  ‘Why would you want to do that when you have a wife?’

  ‘Daisy,’ he began, on an exasperated sigh.

  ‘Don’t you Daisy me,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘If you go without me, I shall just jolly well follow you.’

  ‘And abandon all your schemes for restoring the prosperity of the Park?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. You are not the kind of woman to promise so much to the poor folk around here, only to let them down.’

  ‘But anyone could continue that work, now that we’ve decided what wants doing. I could write to...to James, for example, to come here and carry out the plans we’ve already put in place.’ James was showing signs of becoming rather frustrated with the lack of purpose in his life. Father would not let him implement any changes on their own land, saying he was not ready to hand over the reins just yet. And James didn’t have the outlets available to other men of his rank. Father had given all his sons an abhorrence of gambling and whoring. And so he just drifted about from the house of one friend to another. And the number of those friends was dwindling, too, now she came to think of it. ‘It would do him good to have something productive to do with his time.’

  ‘Daisy, be sensible...’

  ‘No. I won’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t care about the improvements for their own sake. I am happy doing them all because I’m doing them for you, can’t you see that? I... I love you.’

  He raised his brows. Shook his head. Took a step back. ‘Look, Daisy, you might think you do, but this is just...panic speaking. Because you—’

  ‘It is not panic speaking. I know my own mind. I’m not a child,’ she said, stamping her foot in vexation. ‘Why can you not believe that I love you?’

  ‘Perhaps because you never said so until this moment. Even though I have said it to you many, many times.’

  No, she hadn’t said it before. Because she hadn’t realised she did love him. Not until he’d said he was leaving, and the happy, shiny future she’d been imagining turned into a grey, bleak wilderness.

  ‘I didn’t realise I did love you,’ she explained, ‘until just now. When you said you were leaving and a pain went right through my middle.’ She laid her hand flat on her abdomen, where she’d felt that pain slice into her. ‘I don’t want to stay here, fretting myself to skin and bone worrying about you. I don’t want to live without you, Ben, not now that we’ve finally found each other, after all the years of...stupid misunderstandings.

  ‘And if you...die...abroad...in some battle...’ She sniffed. Had to dash a tear from her cheek. ‘You have no right to put me through that, Ben,’ she said angrily. ‘If you really love me. No, Ben, I would never be able to survive that. Knowing I’d stayed here, in safety, while you went off on your own...to die alone...’

  He put his arms round her. Cradled her head with one hand. ‘Shh... Shh, now. Don’t cry. I never wanted to make you cry.’

  ‘Well, what do you think telling me you were planning to go away and leave me behind was going to do? Just imagine if it was the other way round? Could you stay at home managing this estate knowing I was off in danger somewhere?’

  ‘Daisy, it’s different for men. I’m used to the life. You are not...’

  ‘No, but I could learn. And, oh, Ben, for the first time in my life I want to...seize life, and love, rather than just being content to read about it in books. To fight for what we could have together. Because of you. You have made me feel I belong, and have value, things I have never known before. Not only that, but for the first time in my life I want to follow a man wherever he goes, whether it’s dangerous or not.’

  He sighed. ‘Daisy, I am not worth you putting your life in danger for...’

  ‘Ben, you have got to stop thinking of yourself as worthless. You have as much value as any man. More than any man, for me. But...’ she grabbed his lapels and gave them a little shake ‘...surely you believe that all men have equal value in God’s eyes? You came to church with me. You believe in it all, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s just religion, Daisy. And maybe I can believe in the goodness, the impartiality of God. But when it comes to people, to real life...’

  ‘People are idiots! All of them. All of us!’ She slapped at her own chest. ‘We look on the outer shell and judge others by clothes, and appearance, and rank, and wealth, and pedigree. None of which matter. Not really. What really matters is what’s in here.’ She laid her hands on Ben’s broad chest. Right over his heart. ‘You are a good man, Ben. The best. A man worth fighting for.’

  She looked into his eyes, bracing herself for signs of masculine exasperation. Instead, she saw something she’d never seen in Ben’s eyes before. It looked like the dawning of hope.

  ‘You really do mean what you say, don’t you? About me being your...your frog amongst toads...’

  She had never said that, not specifically. But it sounded as if he was taking a step in the right direction regarding his self-esteem.

  She nodded. ‘My home,’ she assured him. ‘My love.’

  ‘It...it isn’t true,’ he said slowly, ‘what you just said, about this being the first time you have been prepared to fight for what you want.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said hastily, feeling as though he was slipping away from her somehow.

  ‘No. Don’t you remember that night by the lake? When your brothers knocked me down? Instead of walking away, you leapt right into the fray, wielding your umbrella like a sword. You looked like some kind of avenging angel, all in glittering white, with lightning flashing across the sky as you tried to drive them off.’ A smile tugged at his lips. ‘You were magnificent. If I hadn’t loved you before that night, I would have fallen in love with you right then. You see...’ he frowned down at her hands, which he was holding between his own ‘...nobody had ever come to my defence, before then. Not me personally, I mean. In the army, when I was part of a unit, we all looked out for each other, but that was done to preserve the integrity, the strength of the unit.’

  ‘Ben, what are you trying to say?’ Was this some new line of reasoning he was going to use to try to convince her he knew best? That he was making ridiculous decisions for her own good?

  He looked up into her face. His own twisted as though he was screwing himself up to say something he feared he was going to regret. And he took a deep breath.

  ‘What I am trying to say is that, I suppose, as long as you bring your umbrella with you...’

  She gave a whoop of joy. ‘You mean it? You really aren’t going to leave me behind?’

  ‘You haven’t given me much choice, have you?’ he said, cupping her cheek with his hand and looking at her in a way that tugged at her heartstrings. ‘I don’t suppose I will ever be able to argue you out of it. Let alone think I could ever command your obedience...’

  ‘Not a hope,’ she said, hugging him. And then she kissed him hard, but briefly. ‘Oh, Ben, thank you, thank you. You won’t regret it, I promise. I will be such a good wife to you. Bandages,’ she said, suddenly thinking of all the occasions she might
need to nurse him. ‘And medicines. I had better get in a stock of such things...’

  He cupped her face in his hands. ‘Not tonight. There is plenty of time to purchase such things. Tonight I want to share our last night together in this house as the Earl and Countess of Bramhall. As from tomorrow we will be Major and Mrs Flinders.’

  ‘Major?’

  He nodded. ‘I bought promotion. I didn’t use your money, truly, I—’

  She placed one finger over his lips. ‘I don’t care if you did. And I don’t care if you are a captain or a major or an earl, because to me you are... Ben. My Ben. Others can call you what they like. Or me. As long as, to each other, we are always just Ben and Daisy. Dealing with whatever comes our way, together.’

  It was going to be an adventure, she reckoned, marriage to Ben. And one that would be better than any she’d ever read about in any book.

  Because she was going to live it with the man who loved her and who she’d learned to love right back at her side.

  ‘Very well, then, Daisy,’ he said, smiling in a way she’d never seen him smile before. With pure joy. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

  * * *

  If you enjoyed this book, why not check out

  these other great reads by Annie Burrows

  A Marquess, a Miss and a Mystery

  The Scandal of the Season

  From Cinderella to Countess

  His Accidental Countess

  And be sure to read her

  Brides for Bachelors miniseries

  The Major Meets His Match

  The Marquess Tames His Bride

  The Captain Claims His Lady

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Marriage Deal with the Devilish Duke by Millie Adams.

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  Marriage Deal with the Devilish Duke

  by Millie Adams

  Chapter One

  1818

  There were not many things a woman could control in the world. Her life determined not so much by the winds of fate as the whims of men.

  But there was a point where Lady Beatrice Ashforth decided that while she could not be the ultimate queen of her own existence, she could be the architect of her own ruin.

  And in the end it would amount to very much the same thing.

  Her brother, Hugh Ashforth, the Duke of Kendal, might have control over many things, but only so long as she behaved.

  She was through with behaving. The life that Hugh wanted her to live stretched out as grey and unending as a mist on the fields of the Bybee House grounds, the house she would never leave if her brother had his say.

  She would never have a Season. She would never...

  Marriage, he had decreed, was not something she need concern herself with.

  For she was taken care of.

  Her brother had consulted a physician—the one who had cared for her in her childhood—on her continued good health, and it had been the opinion of the doctor that childbearing would be the death of her.

  That had been all her brother had needed to hear to decree that she should stay beneath his protection.

  Beatrice was concerned with her freedom.

  She had spent her childhood shut up in the walls of Bybee House. Everything from fresh air to rain to too much sunlight was deemed the enemy of her health.

  When her father had died, the responsibility for her health had fallen to Hugh. Hugh did nothing by half measures.

  He cared a great deal for her happiness. He brought her sweets from London whenever she wished, new dresses, beautiful bobbles for her hair.

  That was precisely why she’d come up with her scheme. One she had told no one—not even Eleanor, her brother’s ward—about.

  Well, she had told one person. Her accomplice in the plan.

  But she trusted James. His family had purchased a country manor within proximity to Bybee House four years earlier and the two of them had fallen into a strange sort of friendship.

  She had never expected to befriend a man. She knew it was somewhat unseemly for a young lady. But Beatrice was accomplished at sneaking out. It had been the only way she could ever have fun as a child. The only way she could leave her bedchamber.

  More than that, she had sensed that...it was where she might find her strength. Lying in bed, endlessly bled by physicians, confined to rooms with low light. She felt as if she were withering away. A flower starved for the earth, the rain and the sun.

  Out there she had found strength she hadn’t known she’d possessed. It was how she had met Penny, who had once been destined to be her sister-in-law, until the engagement to Beatrice’s brother had been broken. And ultimately, she had found James, and a deep friendship with him.

  That friendship had led to conversations about marriage. He was having issues around the subject as well. He did not want a wife, in truth, and though he had not been able to explain it all to her—he had stumbled over his words and in the end asked if she could simply believe him—they had discussed a potential solution for them both.

  She would have freedom. She would have a life, a real life. A life as a woman, rather than simply as her brother’s shut-in sister for the rest of her life.

  At least tonight the party was at the house, which meant she would be permitted to be in attendance. Though, she was not treated as a real guest. She did not dance. Or have a dance card. Had not made her debut in society.

  For after all, what was the purpose?

  Hugh did not wish her to marry. And so, he did not have any plans to bring her out. It all made her feel so desperately sad. So desperately lonely. As a married woman she would be permitted to attend balls. She knew she was playing a very dangerous game. That her reputation would be poised on the edge of a knife, and the wrong interpretation of the moment, the wrong strain of gossip, the wrong timing, could damage her in a way that made things quite difficult. But she was invisible as it was, and she would rather be ruined than non-existent.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ Eleanor said.

  Her friend was lounging on the settee in the corner, dressed in a delicate silver gown covered in glittering stars. Eleanor was to debut this Season. She would not be formally presented in court, as her father had not been part of the aristocracy. Bea didn’t know the full circumstances surrounding Hugh’s connection with Eleanor’s family, only that he had been named her guardian and she was now his responsibility.

  Well, Beatrice was his responsibility as well, and he had made decisions about her life that were far too high-handed for her to endure.

  ‘Thank you,’ Beatrice said, looking at herself in the mirror.

  She liked the dress that she was wearing, but she did not look beautiful in the way that Eleanor did. For Eleanor was allowed to look like a woman.

  And Beatrice still... She was not in a sophisticated ball gown, not in the way that Eleanor was. Her hair was not pinned up in the same fashion. But it did not matter. For Beatrice was going to make her own way. Her brother was a duke, and he was powerful. And he prized propriety above all else.

  He had been engaged a year prior to the daughter of an earl. And when he had heard rumours of her affair with a Scottish soldier he had broken the engagement off swiftly. Coldly. Her brother was a good man, and she knew it. His care of Eleanor was evidence of that. But he had absolutely no tolerance for impropriety. Not after the way their father had treated their mother. He had made a mockery of honour, and Hugh despised it.

  Which made the game she was about to play tonight all the more dangerous. Hugh would see her married to James after this. But he would be... He would be deeply disappointed in her. He would not understand. As far as he wa
s concerned he was the head of the household, the head of the family, and what he deemed to be right and true and necessary was so. Her brother was arrogant, all the way down to the soles of his boots.

  He was a duke. No one dared question him. No one except for his best friend, the Duke of Brigham, whom they all called Briggs.

  They were as different as two men could possibly be. They might have the same title, but their behaviour, their outlook on life, was quite different.

  He would understand. When she explained to him. If she was allowed to explain it to him. Ever. If her brother didn’t actually kill her.

  Though, she doubted he would, considering he was pushing her to this place out of his concern for her untimely death.

  ‘You seem distracted,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘I am rather,’ Beatrice said. ‘I only hope that tonight is...’ She could not find a word for it. ‘Fun.’

  What a silly, nonsensical word for planning to upend your whole life.

  Eleanor smiled, but the smile seemed sad. ‘I am sure that it will be. Your brother is intent on finding a husband for me.’

  ‘You don’t sound happy about it.’

  She smiled and it did not reach her eyes. ‘What I want is impossible, Beatrice.’

  Beatrice’s heart crunched slightly. On behalf of her friend. If there was one thing that she knew about Eleanor it was that... Well, she knew that Eleanor was in love with her brother. It had been clear when Hugh had become engaged to Penny last year.

  Oh, Eleanor had been lovely to Penny. And she had said nothing. But the devastation was evident behind her eyes.

  Beatrice had never felt it was at all appropriate to mention it. For no matter how true her feelings were, no matter how real, they were doomed. Hugh would no more return her affections than... Well he would not. For many reasons. Propriety, the title... He would have in mind a very particular sort of woman to be his Duchess. She knew that about her brother. He had very particular ideas. And they would not include Eleanor or her feelings.