by Rose Gordon
Brooke nodded. “What’s he doing here?” she asked numbly.
“I don’t know,” Madison replied. “But since he’s here, you can get your answers. Let’s go,” she prodded, “he’s looking in our direction. If he hasn’t noticed you already, he soon will.”
Brooke attached a bright smile on her face and started walking in his direction. Andrew had also started walking, or running if one wanted to be precise, toward her.
He closed the distance between them within seconds. “Brooke,” he said unevenly.
“Andrew,” she said in a stilted tone.
Andrew turned to look at Madison and bowed. “Good morning, Madison.”
“How did you know we were coming here?” Brooke demanded.
Andrew gave her a little smile. “That's my little secret.”
“You seem to have a lot of those, don’t you?” Brooke shot back. Her anger with him was quickly returning.
Andrew sobered.
“Well, I can see my presence here isn't needed,” Madison said airily, then pointed to an empty bench. “I’ll be right over there.”
“Thank you,” Andrew said with a surprisingly grateful look on his face. He waited for her to leave before he met Brooke’s eyes again. “I don’t know what to say,” he admitted.
“Starting from the beginning would be my strategy,” she replied tartly.
Andrew’s jaw clenched. Then with a nod, he released a pent up breath and words started tumbling out of his mouth. “I borrowed money from Gateway. I couldn’t pay and he repossessed my estate. In order to get it back, I was asked to bring shame on your family. I refused at first, but then he twisted the words around and I got defensive. Then, before I knew what I was saying, I agreed to do it. That was the night before we met.”
“Wait,” she interrupted, putting up a hand to stop his rambling. “You just said you were to bring shame on my family. Why?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I asked, but he wouldn’t say. All I know is he wanted your family on the next ship bound for America.”
“So you’re saying it wasn’t me specifically?” she asked skeptically, her brow furrowing in confusion. What would anyone, especially Gateway, have to gain from her family returning home?
“No.”
“All right,” she said cautiously. “I don’t quite understand, but pray continue.” Maybe she’d understand better if she just let him keep talking.
“Gateway just wanted enough shame to fall on the family that you would all go home. He didn’t care who it fell on, just that it happened and your family left. I don’t know about in America, but here, a lady’s reputation is everything, so I assumed it would be the easiest avenue to pursue. Gateway knew that, too, and when he first approached me, he even suggested it.”
“From the day we met you’d set out to ruin me?” she asked quietly.
“Yes. No. Not exactly. At first, I wanted to try to find out some sort of family secret, expose that and be done with it, but there wasn’t one. Once I realized that, I had to rely on ruining your reputation.”
“Why me?” she cried. “Is it so well known that I’ve been in the garden with a few gentlemen that you thought I’d be the easiest to ruin? Is that it?” Tears formed in her eyes and her throat constricted.
“No,” he said fiercely. “I didn’t even know your penchant for kissing in the shrubs until later. I picked you because I liked you. From the moment you entered the room, I liked you. Nobody had ever had the nerve to just stare at me that way. Nobody had played such a prank on me before. I truly believed for the better part of a day you had indeed decorated that atrocious room. It wasn’t until I saw the initials on that mind-numbing painting that I realized you were having me on. I liked it. I liked you. That’s why I chose you.”
Andrew ran a hand through his hair. “Then we went on our ride in the park, I enjoyed teasing you then. I also enjoyed taking you to the museum. I had never enjoyed a kiss as much as I did that day. Before I knew what was happening, I was looking forward to our next meeting and being with you.”
“If that’s true, then why didn’t you just tell Gateway you could not go through with it?” she interrupted.
“Because he would have just found someone else to do it. I knew that if I just carried it out, I could keep you protected. Someone else would have been completely heartless about the whole thing and would have caused you, or possibly one of your sisters, more pain and embarrassment than necessary.”
“Whereas you were just doing enough to send us away, is that it?” she asked flatly, belying the rage that was coursing through her.
“Yes,” he said solemnly, then he grabbed her hand and pulled her over to a bench in a somewhat secluded area. “This all sounds really bad. Believe me, I know. But the truth is, the more I got to know you, the more I didn’t want to hurt you. I honestly thought once we married this would be taken care of without you ever finding out. I knew Gateway would confront me. I just didn’t know he would do it so soon, or in such a way. You were never supposed to know about this. I didn’t know how I was going to handle Gateway, but when I saw you walk out of that library that night at Alex’s, I realized you were more important to me than anything else.”
“Even the estate he held?” she asked shyly.
“Even the estate.” Andrew confirmed, interlacing their fingers. “When I saw you walk away from Alex’s library I realized what I knew all along: I couldn’t live without you. I didn’t want you to go back to America, nor could I stand it if you came back to London and I wasn’t allowed to see you. The only way to keep you in my life was to make you my wife. I wanted to marry you enough that I didn’t give a second thought to enduring whatever Gateway might do to destroy me. Having you is worth more than anything else.”
“If I understand correctly, you’re telling me that you realized that night that you enjoyed my company?” she asked uncertainly.
Andrew gave a harsh laugh. “Yes, I do enjoy your company. But what I mean to say is that I love you. I realized that night that I loved you enough not to care about my deal with Gateway to make an enemy of him or lose the estate. I rode through the rain for six hours getting my hands on that special license. I couldn’t wait another day to have you—all of you.”
“You love me,” she whispered, wondering if she had heard him correctly.
“Yes. I may not have been very good about showing it so far, but I will get better, I promise. How could I possibly get any worse?” he teased, coming to his knees in front of her. He leaned over, reached into a bag she hadn’t noticed he had with him, and removed what looked like a yellow object resembling a rose. Handing it to her, he said sheepishly, “Because I’m sorry for what I’ve done.” He reached in again and withdrew a pink one. “Because I adore you,” he said, replacing the yellow one he had just given her with the pink. He reached down again and this time he pulled out a red one. “Because you’re my true love,” he said, handing her the paper rose. Then he moved his hands up to frame her face. Cupping her chin and tipping it down toward him, he said solemnly, “Brooke, you know I’m not a man of great means, so please know if I could afford to shower you with dozens of the real things, I would have bought every stem in every hothouse between my house and the Garden this morning rather than staying up all night trying to fold colored squares of paper to resemble roses.”
“Surely you’re not so poor you couldn’t have afforded three,” she teased, remembering their pitiful dinner at Rockhurst. But in her mind it was better this way. She was glad he hadn’t bought them. Money could be earned and spent, but time could only be spent. Him spending time folding silly little scraps of paper meant far more to her than one hundred bouquets of the real thing would have.
Andrew cracked a small smile. “I said I’d shower you with dozens if I could.” He tipped the bag so she could see inside where dozens of paper roses were resting. “I didn’t think you’d really appreciate it if I poured these out on you right here, but if you want…” he trailed
off, his eyes dancing with amusement, letting her know just how much he’d enjoy dumping the bag over her head. “If you must know I had to fold all of these—” he looked down at the bag— “just to remember how to do it.” He gave her a self-depreciating smile.
Setting the bag of paper roses aside, he came back to his knees in front of her. He cupped her face with his hands again, and tilted her head to look straight into his eyes that were full of concern, but she also recognized a glint of hope in them, too. “I know nothing changes what I’ve done. But I’m asking you to stay. Stay with me. Give me the chance to prove to you how much I love you, and perhaps earn your love in return.”
Brooke met his eyes and brought her hands up to where his hands were holding her chin. “You cannot earn my love, Andrew,” she said, her voice so quiet it was barely more than a whisper.
“Oh,” he said solemnly, clamping his mouth into a tight line. He nodded once and his hands loosened their grip on her face, but they didn’t move. He swallowed visibly, his face looked shuttered and his eyes looked watery.
Brooke let go of his hands and reached out, grabbing his face the way he was touching hers. Pulling him closer to her, she smiled sweetly and said, “The reason you cannot earn my love, is because you already have it.”
Andrew’s grip on her face tightened again, and a broad grin split his handsome face before he closed the gap between them. Then, right there on a bench outside of Covent Garden in front of anyone who happened to be walking by, the Earl and Countess of Townson engaged in a scandalous kiss.
And now for an excerpt of the next book in the Scandalous Sisters series,
Liberty for Paul
Coming Spring 2011
Early December, 1812
London
Liberty Banks had two loves in her life. One of which was something her entire family (and most of the London society) knew about: propriety. Her other love she went about hiding a little better. Not perfectly, but well enough that for the most part she was able to keep her second love a secret, and that, was her love for revenge.
Sure, when she and her sisters were young girls Brooke, her oldest sister, knew it was Liberty who tied her slippers together with some white string that was just long enough not to catch Brooke’s notice that her slippers were tied together before she started to walk. After only three steps, Brooke fell on her face because she took too much of a stride and the string caused her to trip. Both Liberty and their other sister, Madison, laughed, but neither owned up to the prank; nor placed the blame on the other. But Brooke didn’t need a confession. She knew it was Liberty. And not two days later when Liberty opened up one of her drawers to grab a pair of stockings, a toad jumped out at her, causing her to nearly leap out of her skin!
When she confronted Brooke, who was the only Banks sister who would dare touch a toad, Brooke simply told her it was payback for tying her slippers together. Liberty just shook her head and didn’t disclose that the reason for tying Brooke’s slippers together in the first place was because Brooke had stolen them from her at the milliner’s shop. Well, maybe not stolen exactly. Liberty had seen them first and was about to grab them and claim how wonderful they would go with her new green velvet gown. Just then, Brooke accidentally knocked them from where they’d been sitting on the shelf because she wasn’t used to how puffy her new stays made her dress. Then, when Brooke leaned down to pick them up, she cried with delight about how perfect they’d match her new green silk dress and wouldn’t depart with them. This infuriated Liberty and she decided then and there to get her just revenge. And quite honestly, she’d been rather pleased to see Brooke fall on her face, even if it were only in front of her family.
The toad was a different matter altogether. It took her a while to get revenge for the toad, but when she did, she was able to escape notice and nothing happened to her in return. It was a good thing she hadn’t been discovered because she’d done something that really upset Brooke. She’d cut all the heads off her roses. Had Brooke known it was her; she’d probably be missing her own head. Brooke had always put a lot of time into her roses; they were her pride and joy. However, from listening to Brooke drone on spring after spring about her roses, Liberty knew that pruning them, or cutting the tops off, if one was being precise, actually helps the rosebush. So in a way, she did Brooke a favor, right?
Liberty didn’t always do these things to be spiteful, mind you. Of course some of it was pure, unadulterated spite. But she had a good reason to be a little spiteful. She was the youngest of three daughters and that came with a lot of abuse.
When she was younger, her older sisters would leave her out, saying she wasn’t old enough to join in their games. With her sisters being only a year apart, and the younger of the two, Madison, being three years older than Liberty, it was easy for them to get away with leaving her out.
And, if they were made to include her, she always got the bad part in whatever game they were playing. Sometimes she had to be the person standing in the middle while her sisters threw a ball back and forth over her head, or sometimes when they’d play Pioneers and Indians, she’d be the Indian who was given the inferior weapon. In short, she always had the bad role.
When she and her sisters got older they were able to enjoy each other’s company more. Well, maybe “enjoy” isn't the right word, but they were able to do activities together and be civil to each other. However, by then, the damage was done and Liberty made up her mind to pay her sisters back in kind for how they’d treated her when she was younger.
At first, her newfound love for vengeance involved doing harmless, good-natured things to her sisters—either for their past or present sins. But a few months ago she started seeking revenge on someone outside of her family, and it wasn’t exactly harmless or good-natured.
It only happened a few times about seven months ago. But today, she’d decided she was once again going to seek revenge against a man named Mr. Paul Grimes.
Mr. Grimes was a devilishly handsome vicar who lived near Bath. He had a flawless face with high, distinguished cheekbones, a wide mouth that could make a girl swoon when he grinned, and beautiful emerald eyes that rested behind a pair of silver rimmed spectacles. His hair was a sandy blonde color and was kept an inch or two past fashion. They’d been introduced at a house party that was being hosted by her uncle, Edward Banks, Baron Watson. Mr. Grimes came to the house party to seek out Liberty’s father—who also happened to be a minister. Upon meeting, Paul had told her father he had some problems in his vicarage and asked her father to mentor him. Of course her father agreed because, one, he liked to help people, no matter who they were or how awful their personality; and two, because while spending some time in England, the man needed a hobby—desperately.
John, her father, had grown up in England and had gone on his Grand Tour at nineteen. When he reached America he was twenty and met a woman named Carolina. In no time at all he made Carolina his wife and they moved to New York where he began work as a minister. It wasn’t long after that the family grew and less than five years later they had three young daughters: Brooke, Madison, and Liberty.
This was the first time in twenty five years John set foot on English soil. He said he loved his wife, daughters, and America and saw no reason to return to England. But when Brooke had reached her twenty second year without any prospects for proposals and Madison fell into a state of melancholy after ending a semi-serious courtship, John packed them up and decided to see if the girls could make a match with an English gentleman.
Liberty had been so excited at the prospect, but knew she lacked the beauty her sisters possessed in abundance, therefore, she’d taken it upon herself to learn all the rules and execute them to perfection as her way of finding a husband. So far it hadn’t worked, but she hadn’t given up hope. Not yet anyway. Following rules of society always had a way of helping a woman find a husband—she had numerous books to prove it. A man would not wish to be embarrassed by his wife, even if he did hold her in high esteem.
When they were first introduced he’d immediately told her his wish for her to call him Paul instead of Mr. Grimes. There was no way she was going to be so informal with a man she’d just met; so she’d insisted he refer to her as Miss Liberty and she would call him Mr. Grimes. Just as she finished explaining her wish to remain formal, dinner was announced, and because no other unpaired lady or gentleman was nearby, they were paired up. And so she had to suffer his dreadful personality all during dinner.
The whole time he sat there looking angry. His jaw was clamped shut and his face appeared hard and as impassive as stone. When she spoke to him, he’d nod or give monosyllabic answers. He asked no questions and offered no type of conversation. It took her less than two minutes to conclude he was a bore.
If that had been the end of their acquaintance she would have merely just disliked him. But no, they had four other unfortunate encounters.
The first time happened when she was having a private conversation with Madison; which unbeknownst to her, he was eavesdropping in on. In the middle of their conversation, he cleared his throat and proceeded to volunteer his unflattering opinions of Liberty. He told her she’d never find a husband and said she was cold and callous. After such remarks, he’d had the nerve to act polite by seeking her out and apologizing; which she knew he only did to save his new found friendship with her father.
The second encounter had been only days later when he purposely let someone roll a lawn bowl over her toe. When he showed no real remorse, she elbowed him in his midsection; which then led to the end of their second encounter, but produced the need for a third.
After she’d elbowed him, he had made a yelping noise and hobbled away. Not ten minutes later she was summoned to the room where he was waiting with her parents. Her uncle, the baron and host of the house party, had born witness to the events on the lawn and told her father what happened. Papa demanded she do whatever Mr. Grimes thought was necessary for her to make amends. Then Papa and Mama left, leaving her alone with Mr. Grimes.
