by Isobel Carr
Mrs. Whedon pushed past him, her hand perfectly steady as she shoved him aside. “Is there anyone else in the house, Nance? Did you see another man?” The sobbing girl shook her head from side to side, her hand covering her mouth.
“Back door was open though, ma’am,” the housekeeper said.
“Then it’s likely your other intruder has also left the premises.” All four women turned to look at him as though he’d sprung from the ground like a fairy toadstool. The little maid sucked back another hiccup.
He picked up one of the candles and set his foot on the first tread of the staircase. “Stay here while I check the house. No, one of you had best wait out on the steps for the nightwatch.”
The housekeeper nodded her grizzled head and turned toward the door. Leo put her, the sobbing maid, and the dazzling Mrs. Whedon firmly out of his mind as he crept up the stairs.
The house was utterly quiet. Soft, dark room after soft, dark room greeted him. The mantels had been swept clean, pictures ripped from the walls. A clumsy attempt to be sure. The treasure had to be better hidden than that. A porcelain figurine lay smashed on the floor of what appeared to be the only occupied room—Mrs. Whedon’s, judging by the faint hint of Eau de Cologne that permeated the space.
Leo set the candle down and sheathed his sword. The men were gone, and his cousin had never been inside the house in the first place. A personal assault wasn’t at all Charles’s style. There was no point in roaming about armed like a buccaneer on the deck of a ship.
Her room was surprisingly simple. Plainer, in fact, than his own. It was hardly the lair of a woman famed for wanton indulgence.
No paintings or prints adorned the walls. The curtains surrounding the bed were a deep, solid blue. No embroidery to enliven them. No trim to soften them. The bedclothes spilling from between them were nothing but crisp, white linen. No silver brush sat atop the dressing table. No profusion of scent bottles lay scattered atop its surface. Just a few serviceable dishes and boxes, such as any woman might have for her powder and patches and pins. In fact, the only decoration appeared to be a mirror, a bit tarnished about the rim, and the smashed figurine.
Leo crouched down and scooped up a few of the larger, opalescent shards. Two legs ending in cloven hooves. A delicate head, ears pricked. A white deer. A symbol of good fortune in Scotland. A sign to the knights of old that it was time to begin a quest. A creature straight out of legend. Something not unlike Mrs. Whedon herself.
One of the Second Sons is after an heiress’s heart…
Her brothers are after him.
Please turn this page for an excerpt from
Ripe for Scandal.
CHAPTER 1
London, October 1784
He had the saddest eyebrows in the world.
They were straight and well defined, but they dipped from the center downward to their end, leaving him with a melancholy expression that didn’t entirely dissipate even when he smiled. Every time Lady Boudicea Vaughn saw him, she found herself wanting to cup his cheeks, smooth those brows with her thumbs, and kiss away whatever it was that haunted him.
Not that he’d ever noticed…
Gareth Sandison, second son of the Earl of Roxwell, still thought of her as his friend Leonidas’s scrubby little sister. He treated her more as a boy than a woman, when he bothered to acknowledge her existence at all. Mostly he seemed to do his best to avoid her.
As the Season progressed, Lady Boudicea had found herself missing his taunts. Missing his scathing wit and withering set-downs. Fighting with Sandison was far more invigorating than flirting with her London suitors. He might not like her, but he saw her. Truly saw her and sparred with her as an equal, or he had until she’d grown up and made her curtsey to the king.
Their roles had changed seemingly overnight. Instead of being her brother’s friend, he was a rake to be avoided. Instead of being simply Beau, his friend’s baby sister, she was Lady Boudicea, marriageable daughter of a duke. It was maddening.
The dance reunited her with her partner, Mr. Nowlin, and she dragged her attention away from Sandison. Nowlin smiled at her, brown eyes teasing her for missing her step. Beau smiled back. He might be an Irishman with a penchant for too much scent, but he was certainly handsome enough, and the lilt in his voice was charming. Half the ladies in London were enamored with their newest addition with his pretty coats, gleaming buckles, and fulsome compliments.
Sandison’s pale head caught her attention again, and she jerked her eyes away from him. He was standing against the wall, flirting none too slyly with the very married Lady Cook. Her husband was, no doubt, in the card room oblivious to the set of horns sprouting from his head.
The lady and Sandison were rumored to be lovers, but gossip made such allegations about people on a regular basis. According to the scandalmongers, Beau herself always seemed to be on the cusp of contracting some grand alliance or on the verge of covering her family in mortification.
The scandals she’d nearly caused—or that had nearly been inflicted upon her by various overeager suitors—didn’t bear thinking about. Better by far that the ton’s gossips distract themselves with rumors of unsuitable engagements and heartless flirtations. The truth would ruin her.
A trickle of hot wax fell in a drizzle onto her chest and splattered across the silk of her gown. Her skin stung and she bit back an oath, missing the next series of steps. She sucked in a sharp breath and pulled the wax from her breast, flicking it to the floor with disgust. This was the second time tonight. Beau glanced up at the offending candles and stepped carefully back into the dance. Getting it out of her hair was going to be pure hell.
Beau glanced over her partner’s shoulder, meeting Sandison’s gaze for the briefest of moments. A smile hovered about his lips. Whether it was for her or Lady Cook she couldn’t say, but given the way his companion was thrusting her ample bosom at him, it was likely the latter.
Light glittered off Sandison’s hair. He’d been silver-haired as long as she’d known him, as were all the men in his family by the time they finished their teens. He never bothered to wear a wig, just his own pale locks, clean and immaculately dressed.
His family was reputed to be the illegitimate descendants of the disreputable second Earl of Rochester himself. A rumor that lent him a certain air of titillation, a deliciously illicit cachet. It drew women like moths to a flame… or maybe it was just his eyebrows.
She couldn’t be the only woman undone by them. Could she?
She was watching him again.
Gareth could feel her gaze upon him as distinctly as if she’d reached out and run her hand down his arm. Lady Boudicea Vaughn: possessor of two gigantic brothers, a father who was legend with the small sword, and a mother who was herself distractingly entrancing even as fifty became a distant memory.
Lady Cook reclaimed his attention, her lovely face pulled into a pout. She wasn’t used to being ignored, nor was she likely to be forgiving about such a breech. Especially over Beau. They were of an age, and she’d married one of the many suitors that Lady Boudicea had declined.
Gareth traced one finger along the exposed skin between the sleeve of Lady Cook’s gown and the top of her kidskin glove. The tiny tassels dangling from the edge of her ruffle swayed. She shivered and stretched her neck out like a languid vixen. He circled his finger over the pulse point at her elbow, and she let out a small, indiscreet moan.
If their host’s garden wasn’t so well lit and filled to overflowing with guests, he’d have steered the oh-so-willing Lady Cook outside and satisfied them both. As it was, he’d have to wait and see if her husband accompanied her home.
Lady Boudicea disapproved of his dallying with married ladies. Hell, she disapproved of him. She always had. She’d been scathingly disapproving as a girl, more haughtily so since she’d left off playing with dolls and taken her place among the ton in London. Even muddied from head to toe and only twelve years old, she’d already had the ability to make him feel like an impudent fool. A decade later, he s
till couldn’t say that he’d ever come out on top when they’d clashed.
And clash they did. It seemed inevitable at this point. Unavoidable. Was it wrong of him to enjoy it? To look forward to their little skirmishes? Probably so, but it was too delicious an entertainment to give up. Or it had been. He’d made a concerted effort to avoid such interactions of late.
He schooled his expression, concentrating on Lady Cook’s breasts, the creamy flesh overflowing her bodice, begging for admiration. Anything to keep from glancing across the room, from meeting Beau’s frosty gaze, from crossing the room to see if he could tease a smile out of her, make her rap him with her fan, provoke her into some small indiscretion…
Lady Cook inhaled, holding her breath for a moment, breasts rising until the edge of her areolas peeked out of the fabric. Full, soft, ripe. But somehow not as tempting tonight as they’d been previously. Tonight her smile was brittle, and the powder obscuring her skin was too heavy, making her corpse-like rather than luminous. The small taffeta beauty mark she’d placed beside her mouth was half-obscured in a frown line.
Beau’s laugh caught his attention like a whip. He clenched his jaw and forced himself not to follow it back to its source. She was haunting him this season. Her brother Leonidas had asked him to keep an eye on her while he was absent from town. It hadn’t seemed much of a burden at the time, but now that March was giving way to April and the Season was well and truly underway, a mild irritant had become outright torture.
Why was she was still unmarried? Were his fellow Englishmen blind, deaf, and utterly stupid?
She’d been out for several years, and while rumor had her engaged a dozen times over, nothing had ever come of any of it. It was maddening. She was maddening.
She was the daughter of a duke, with a dowry that was likely to be immense, and she was far from being an antidote. Her one fault—aside from that temper—was her height. At nearly six foot, few men outside her own family were tall enough not to appear ridiculous beside her.
Look at the poor fop she was dancing with now. Gareth blew his breath out in a disgusted huff. Even in his evening pumps, the man was barely her match. If not for the poof of his wig he might even have appeared shorter than she. But still, somewhere there must be a man who was suitable? They didn’t call the ton the top ten thousand for nothing. Even if you discounted those who were too short, too old, too young, and female, that had to leave a score or more who would suit? Didn’t it?
Life would be so much simpler if she were married and happily domesticated somewhere far away like York or Dublin or Edinburgh. She was Scottish, after all. That should have expanded the pool of suitors. And everyone knew Scots tended to be great tall fellows. Surely there was a Highland laird or two in need of a wife.
Yes, life would be simpler if only she were somewhere else. Somewhere where she couldn’t spend her evenings glaring at him and making him wish that he were something other than a penniless younger son.
That fact was like a flea biting deep below the layers of his clothing, niggling and occasionally sharply painful. He had more than enough for a life of elegant leisure for one, but it wouldn’t stretch to supporting a wife. Certainly not one of Beau’s quality and station.
They had a term for men like him who married girls like her: fortune hunter. Her father would shoot him before he’d give permission for such a match. Her brother Leo wouldn’t bother with the gun. He’d use his bare hands.
No, men of his sort didn’t marry, unless they took orders or found themselves a wealthy widow. There was no reason to do so, and every reason not to. And they certainly didn’t marry girls with Lady Boudicea’s pedigree and prospects. Not since Hardwick’s Marriage Act went through anyway. Damn the old blighter.
Gareth forced a smile as Lady Cook pressed herself against his arm suggestively. She leaned in, close enough that he could almost feel her lips on his skin.
“I feel faint.” Lady Cook opened her fan with a flick of her wrist, the sound causing heads to swivel toward them.
“Of course you do, my lady. Perhaps some air?”
Lady Cook smiled in response. Gareth propelled her through the thick of the crowd, circumventing the dancers. Her fingers slid possessively over his biceps.
A lady with the heart and soul of a whore from the gutter. She was everything a man such as he needed in life. Beau passed them in the whirl of the dance, so close her skirts struck his leg, silk and wool clinging to each other. Gareth ground his teeth and swallowed hard, ignoring the way his pulse leapt.
He’d known since the first time that he’d seen Beau with her hair up that he was done for. She’d come down the stairs in her father’s house in a spangled silk gown, hair dressed and powdered, eyes glittering with excitement, and his lungs had seized.
Gone was the muddy child. Replaced, as if by fairy magic, with a startling young woman whose vivid green eyes had a secret dancing behind them. A devilish, teasing secret.
If he’d thought for a moment that he had any chance at all, he’d have made himself miserable over her. As it was, he simply avoided her when possible and picked fights with her when avoidance wasn’t an option.
Tonight, Lady Cook was going to be all that he needed to keep Beau at bay. They cordially loathed one another. Had done since their very first encounter. Beau would never seek him out so long as Lady Cook was on his arm. Lady Cook glanced unhappily around the garden. It was brightly lit with colored lanterns, and revelers had spilled forth from the house to choke its narrow walkways.
“My husband will be here all night playing cards and drinking too much port. Escort me home, Sandison. It will take hours simply to extricate my carriage from the mess outside… I’ll need something to keep me amused.”
Gareth nodded, tucking her hand securely into the crook of his arm. Lady Cook’s idea of entertainment would no doubt prove entirely unimaginative, but it was better than spending half the night watching the unattainable Lady Boudicea Vaughn dance with other men, one of whom might someday actually get to call her wife.
His chest felt empty, soulless, as he hurried Lady Cook toward the door. This was his lot: unchaste wives and widows with an itch to scratch.
There’d been a time when he thought his life perfect.
CHAPTER 2
Rush off to Firle Hill? Now?” Gareth’s friend Roland Devere stared at him across the table. Sunlight streamed in through the window, casting half of Devere’s face into shadow. Gareth squinted and slid his seat so that he wasn’t staring directly into the light.
The taproom at The Red Lion was nearly empty. Most of his fellow League members had taken themselves off to a mill and the rest must still have been abed, exhausted from their exertions the night before.
Gareth blew out his breath in a disgruntled sigh and nodded. “Got a letter from Souttar this morning demanding my presence in no uncertain terms.”
“How much trouble could your brother possibly have got himself into? He’s only been married three months. Perhaps he needs advice of a very delicate nature?” Devere grinned wickedly.
“More likely he’s bored, mired in the country, and simply wants Sandison at his beck and call,” Lord Peter Wallace said with a shake of his head. “Someone to order about, someone to go shooting with, someone to play cards and chess with. You know what Souttar’s like.”
“Likes to have a fag. Always did,” Devere said with a hint of disgust. “Never happier than when ordering someone about. I remember that much clearly. You’d think his new wife would fulfill that role admirably.”
Gareth wrinkled his nose. The summation was perfectly accurate when viewed from the outside. He’d always been his brother’s favorite subject, but it had also always been the two of them against their father. They might treat each other dreadfully, but when it came to dealing with the earl, he could always count on Souttar to have his back. He’d been close to refusing when he’d first read Souttar’s summons, but truth be told, there was a hint of desperation in the wording, and a week o
r so away from town and Lady Boudicea would be a welcome relief.
He’d very nearly called out her name while fucking Lady Cook in her plush carriage. Whatever his brother wanted—and it was sure to be petty; it always was—it would still be better than causing a scandal of epic proportions because his mind was endlessly bent on a single subject. He’d come so very close to disaster with Lady Cook…
Gareth shuddered as the implication of his near slip worked its way down his spine: death, dismemberment, scandal, ruin. One simple word, one mistake, and he could have destroyed both their lives. Lady Cook wouldn’t have taken the mistake lightly, and she wouldn’t have spared either him or her former rival. The gossip would have lit up London like the Great Fire of 1666.
Not a soul would have believed either of them innocent. He was a rake, known for dallying with other men’s wives. The leap to seducing virgins wasn’t all that far… and when the girl in question was the outrageous Lady Boudicea Vaughn? Well, very few would want to believe her innocent. Seduction and ruin were her just deserts. Her entire family was considered either mad or depraved, and her brother marrying a courtesan had only added to that image.
Gareth shook off the sensation of doom. Better to put up with his family’s decidedly feudal ideas for a few days or weeks. He’d be happy to see his mother, at least. His father’s idea of her rights and prerogatives was nearly as ancient and restrictive as what he thought the dues of an elder son. Everyone was there to serve the earl first and the heir second. No one else really mattered.
Gareth could only be thankful he had no sisters. Their lot would have undoubtedly been worse than his, mere pawns for his father’s machinations. At least he, as a man, could escape the greater part of his father’s control now that he was grown.
The small independence that his maternal grandfather had left him had helped immensely. His father hadn’t even bothered to threaten to stop his allowance for the past year or so. The earl took no pleasure in making empty threats, but Gareth knew with a cold certainty that his father would eventually attempt some new method of bringing him to heel. The earl simply couldn’t help himself.
