A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World

by Jo Beverley

  “Ah, the perfumed tobacco,” she said, straightening quickly. “I doubt you’re smelling it now. It releases its scent in the evening. Restore me, please.”

  “And if I don’t, what will you do?”

  She counted on her fingers. “One, fend for myself. Two, send you the bill for my ruined gown, for I do have need of it for twenty-four days. Three, inform the world that you’re a dastard, my lord.”

  “Four?” he asked.

  “Three will suffice. Shall I begin fending?”

  She saw the way he looked at her lips. Lud! He wouldn’t!

  “We are within sight of the house, sir.”

  “And if we were not?”

  “I would probably slap you.”

  He laughed and said, “With reason.”

  He restored her to the ground, but this time she was more aware of being apparently weightless in his strong arms, of being settled back on the terrace with perfect care.

  She fussed over the smoothing of her skirts, wishing she could smooth the rest of herself as easily.

  “A perfumed tobacco,” he said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “It’s a rare plant grown from seeds given to my mother. She has a fondness for perfumed gardens.”

  “Truly?”

  She understood his skepticism. “No one has only one side, Lord Dracy.”

  “Some have too many. I like the idea of a plant that gives perfume only at night. A magical property.”

  “If it’s magical, it’s ordinary enough. I could have the gardener give you some seeds.”

  “Commonplace magic, so carelessly distributed. Are you an enchantress, Lady Maybury?”

  “You cited magic first, sir, and merely because of a tobacco plant.”

  He leaned against the copingstone, irritatingly at ease, even in command. “Clearly you haven’t inhaled tobacco smoke after a long, hard day, or you’d not discount the magic of it.”

  Ah, there she had him. “As it happens, I have smoked a pipe.”

  “The deuce you have! Did you enjoy it?”

  “No. It’s vile stuff.”

  “One has to apply oneself to liking it at first.”

  Georgia flipped open her fan and wafted it. “I can’t imagine why anyone would bother.”

  “Haven’t you discovered that some pleasures take time to appreciate?”

  Georgia raised her brows. “Applying oneself to the appreciation of a pipe, sir, seems much like applying oneself to the appreciation of brimstone.”

  The smile touched his eyes. “I’ve known people apply themselves to appreciating sea water.”

  She found herself smiling back. “Lud, don’t remind me! I drank some once.” She put on a shudder but then wondered if it was wise to be playful with this odd, scarred military man.

  “Only once?” he asked.

  “As I said, I don’t apply myself to tolerating the unpleasant.”

  “No one likes sea water, but many find potent pleasures in a pipe. That didn’t tempt you to persevere?”

  “I have pleasures aplenty, sir, without choking for them. Come, we must return to the house.”

  She turned, but he said, “Wouldn’t the ability to smoke a pipe be useful when you seek to play the manly part?”

  She turned back. “You refer to my attire at the race, sir? If this is your notion of polite conversation, I tell you it is sadly off.”

  “Then, please, dear lady, teach me better ways.”

  She was being challenged again, in ways she hardly understood. She’d never met such a man.

  “Are you truly out here because you’re uncomfortable in the company of fine ladies?”

  “Perhaps a little. I have no wish to disturb.”

  “No?” she asked pointedly.

  “Very well. I don’t always wish to disturb,” he amended.

  Georgia was aware of a strange temptation to linger out here bandying words with him, but she found the resolution to head back to the house.

  He fell into step beside her. “You will be my guide in there, Lady Maybury? I truly am unused to this sort of gathering.”

  “Very well.”

  “You’ll stay by my side?”

  “I’ll even elbow you if you commit a faux pas.”

  “Perhaps before?”

  “I’m not a mind reader, sir. You’ll have to learn by your mistakes like the rest of us.” He stopped and she turned back. “Cold feet, Lord Dracy?”

  “I merely wondered if you are usually so assiduous in obeying your father’s requests. I’m sure he didn’t expect you to go so far as saving my life.”

  “I’m sure he expected me to go as far as necessary to achieve his end.”

  “His end?” he asked, but he would know what she meant. She’d have her father’s purpose laid out clearly between them before he leapt to any other assumptions.

  “To retain Fancy Free,” she said. “Will you accept some substitute?”

  “Perhaps that depends on you, Lady Maybury.”

  “You’ll be swayed by my kindness? A strange way of deciding a stud matter, but in order to save Fancy Free, I shall do my tender best.”

  “You tempt me to delay my decision. How long could your kindness last?”

  “About two hours,” she said briskly. “My engagement is only for dinner, sir, and I don’t promise kindness even then. I am your mentor, not your comforter.”

  “I’d make a better Odysseus than a Telemachus.”

  She’d turned toward the house again, but she swiveled back. “I don’t understand that.”

  “You haven’t been classically educated.”

  “Lud, no!”

  He laughed. “Such horror at the prospect. I too didn’t get the usual tutoring past twelve, but I’ve always enjoyed the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey. Mentor was Odysseus’s friend, not teacher. He was teacher to his young son, Telemachus. Odysseus himself was advised by goddesses, sirens, and enchantresses. More suitable, wouldn’t you say, in our case?”

  Georgia flicked open her fan again, wary of the currents beneath this exchange. “Didn’t one enchantress turn Odysseus and his men into swine?”

  “Circe,” he agreed.

  “My purpose is the exact opposite.”

  “The swine will be humbly grateful.”

  Perdition, her cheeks were flaming. “I didn’t mean…!”

  “I was only teasing.”

  “But my words were careless.” When had she last been so maladroit? “There’s nothing swinish about you, Lord Dracy. Lud, that makes it worse! Oh, dear.…We’d best go in.”

  She turned to the doors but realized that they’d paused to one side, out of sight of those inside. How had that happened?

  “Stay a moment,” he said. “I’ve upset you, and your father might wonder what I’ve done.”

  She turned back to face him. “My father might have seen you tossing me around. Why did you come out here? I don’t believe you’re afraid of anything.”

  “Perhaps I simply have a fondness for fresh air.”

  “You mean fresh sea air? Was it very difficult to leave the navy?”

  A sudden blankness told her she’d hit a spot.

  “You’re the first person to ask that, Lady Maybury.”

  “And the answer?” She very much wanted to know.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “It was my free choice.”

  “Was it? You had no choice about inheriting the title. Your cousin’s death sealed your fate there, and you would be expected to take up your responsibilities. A death ripped you from your familiar life.” Too late, she realized she was speaking of herself as much as him. “Come. We’ll cause talk, lingering out here.”

  She plunged into the Terrace Room as if it were escape.

  Dracy followed Lady Maybury into the room, feeling the shift in the wind. Conversation ceased and all eyes turned to them. Everyone here had already seen his face, so the reaction was to the entrance of the Scandalous Countess. He had to fight the instinct
to step in front of her as a shield.

  Was this Lady Maybury’s first appearance before the company? She might have joined him on the terrace through another door. If so, what he’d been told of her scandal wasn’t false or overstated.

  One blond lady’s glance might as well have been an arrow tipped with spite. Ah yes, Miss Cardross, sister of Lady Pranksworth, the heir’s wife. She clearly considered herself fine goods, but she’d shown otherwise by curling her lip at his appearance.

  Would Lady Maybury be frozen out, here in her father’s house?

  No. Talk resumed, two women inclined their heads to her, if coolly, and here came two eager gentlemen. One was the young Duke of Beaufort, eyes bright. There was her destiny, to be sure. She’d make a stunning duchess.

  Dracy searched his memory for the name of the other swain. He’d attended the race, but he hadn’t encountered the man at any other race meeting.

  Ah, Sellerby.

  The Earl of Sellerby, but not quite at ease in this company. Whereas Beaufort’s brown country wear looked well-worn, Sellerby’s might rarely see daylight. Given that his conversation was all on London matters, he perhaps rarely ventured into the countryside.

  A Town man to the core, and Lady Maybury was treating him like an old friend, thanking him for letters but chiding him for unsuitable gifts, all in a playful way. Perhaps he, not the duke, was her choice.

  “Glad to see you on good terms with my daughter, Dracy.”

  Dracy turned to the earl. “She’s a charming lady, Hernescroft.”

  “Aye.” But the earl said it as if Dracy had said she had the plague. “I’ll thank you not to make more talk about her.”

  “Talk?”

  “Hefting her around as if she were a sack of grain.”

  “I hope I was somewhat more careful, sir, but I apologize. I merely sought to spare her gown.”

  Hernescroft leered. “And to get a feel of her, I’ll be bound. Satisfied?”

  He really couldn’t punch his host. Aware of ears nearby, he spoke softly. “The Duke of Beaufort seems enamored, sir. I can’t compete with him on any level.”

  “A fine match, but it’d leave our business unsettled.”

  “It’s easily settled by cash.”

  “Damn me…”

  “Now, now, gentlemen.” Here came Lady Hernescroft, smiling tightly. “The race is run,” she said loudly enough to be overheard by all. “You must not continue to argue over the virtues of the horses.”

  “Or fillies,” some lady said, causing a titter from someone and a further tightening in Lady Hernescroft’s smile.

  What the devil did that mean?

  Lady Maybury seemed happily unaware as she enjoyed the admiration of three swains, for Sir Charles Bunbury had joined the group. Not a suitor, for he was married, but no wonder the other ladies looked sour.

  Why didn’t she do the sensible thing and sit with them to talk of housekeeping or fashion or whatever women talked about between themselves? Was she perhaps as wicked and wanton as rumor whispered?

  Dracy made himself look away. “I asked Lady Maybury about the perfume near the terrace, Lady Hernescroft, and she said it was a form of tobacco.”

  The countess’s smile became a little more genuine. “Ah, yes. Delightful, is it not? You are interested in gardens, Dracy?”

  Hernescroft grunted and left them to it, and Dracy found himself enjoying the conversation, even if it was mostly a lesson on how to improve the Dracy gardens. People have many sides. He really should remember that.

  “I will send you seeds, Dracy, and instructions for your gardeners.”

  His “gardener” at the moment was an old man who kept the overgrowth within bounds, where the sheep left any standing, but he thanked her. Perhaps he’d have time and money for a flower garden soon.

  When he had a wife.

  He glanced at Lady Maybury again. She’d acquired a fourth swain—another duke. Portland.

  “Like moths to the flame,” Lady Hernescroft said.

  “You disapprove of your daughter’s charms, ma’am?”

  “Moths die in the flames, Dracy, and my daughter needs no more tragedies in her life.”

  Dinner was announced. Lady Hernescroft steered him over to her daughter. “I’ll ask you to take Lady Maybury through, Dracy. Take good care of her.”

  “It will be my honor, ma’am. No matter what the storms.”

  Lady Hernescroft stared at him but then took the other gentlemen away. Why the devil were the Hernescrofts so determined to bring about this unlikely marriage? The money couldn’t be an insuperable obstacle, and a union with Beaufort was too grand to be brushed aside.

  “Storms?” Lady Maybury asked, and he looked back at her, struck again by the perfection of her face. A mask on a she-devil?

  “A sailor learns to sense the wind, ma’am,” he said as she took his arm. No one else was nearby, so he added, “I heard that there was some scandal blowing around you and now I see it’s true. Unwise, perhaps, to snare four men for yourself?”

  “You are not supposed to be tutoring me, my lord!” Then she surprised him by saying, “You’re correct, however. It was simply that the men seemed more welcoming.”

  “You must be used to stirring jealousy in women.”

  She frowned slightly. “But I was married then, and it makes a difference.”

  “It does. Your road would be easier if you were less beautiful.”

  Unlike any woman he’d ever known, she didn’t react to the description. Clearly she’d lived with it all her life.

  “Yes,” she said as they joined the procession to the dining room, “but I’d not willingly lose my looks, you know.”

  Oh, her wretched tongue. How had she said such a thing to a man so ruined in appearance? This event was straining her more than she’d thought. He was right about her behavior too, though he had no right to speak his thoughts on that.

  As they walked to the dining room, she glanced at him but saw no reaction to her faux pas.

  Her unfortunate words had risen out of an earlier moment. Before her mother had brought him over, she’d seen him in profile, from his left, his unblemished side, and she’d realized that he was beautiful. That he had been beautiful. An odd word to describe a military man, but his face at that moment had seemed classically perfect.

  Perhaps he’d felt her gaze, for he’d turned and looked at her, shattering the illusion most horribly.

  She’d returned her attention to her companions, trying to hide her distress. What had it been like to have a glorious appearance and then lose it? To look into a mirror one day and see oneself so horribly changed? Even as she thought it, she’d known her horror was all about herself.

  Such a thing could never happen to her. She wasn’t going into battle. There were other ways to lose one’s looks, however. Smallpox could ruin a complexion, if it didn’t kill you. Anyone could be scarred in a carriage accident. Burns didn’t happen only in war. Poor Henrietta Wrothley had passed too close to a fire and her skirts had caught. The flames had been extinguished, but it was said she was horribly scarred all along one side of her body. She’d not been seen in society since.

  “Why so silent?” Dracy asked quietly as they entered the family dining room, the one that seated thirty at most.

  “Apprehension,” she said honestly. “This is proving more challenging than I’d expected.”

  “Remember, I’m by your side.”

  When he took his seat to her left, Georgia wasn’t sure whether to be glad or sorry that she could see only the ruination of his face. It was probably easier than a constant reminder of what had been.

  And, oh dear, Eloisa Cardross sat opposite, alert for any misstep she could report back to her sister. At least Sellerby was at Eloisa’s side. An eligible earl should distract her from her malice.

  A glance around the table was less reassuring. Waveney was leering at her, which was causing his pudgy wife to steam with fury. Mistress Fayne showed a greater appetite for
scandal than for her soup, and she was a notorious gossip. Had she made that comment about fillies, and what had the resulting titter meant?

  Throat tight with apprehension, Georgia merely stirred her soup and turned to the Duke of Portland, hoping for calm and boring conversation.

  Chapter 6