A Proper Scandal

by Charis Michaels

  “Yes,” Bryson agreed absently, but he thought, She’s gone. She’s gone. I’ve driven her away, and she’s gone.

  His heart began to pound. He hurried after Mr. Eads, barely restraining himself from setting the old man out of his way, running ahead, and shouting out her name.

  “Lucy?” sang Mr. Eads. “Lucy? Lamb?”

  “Elisabeth?” Bryson called.

  Mr. Eads craned around, puzzled. “But was she unwell, my boy?”

  Bryson called again, more urgently this time, “Elisabeth!”

  Please don’t be already gone.

  “Papa?” answered a voice in the distance. “Papa, we are here. May I . . . ”

  The voice belonged to a girl of about sixteen—to Lucy, he presumed. He nearly collided with her, darting around the corner. She came up short, clasping her chest.

  Bryson croaked, “My wife—have you seen her? Lady Rainsleigh?”

  “Oh,” said the girl, “I worried this would happen. She was so upset when she left.”

  “Left?” His voice was too loud, too imperious, but Lucy did not blanch. The eagerness in her expression fell to concern. She was a pretty girl, black hair and blue eyes. Just like Mr. Eads, she had that familiar look of . . . well, of him.

  The girl said, “Not thirty minutes, she’s been gone. She forbade me from calling for you, my lord. She was very insistent. And she said she was meant to go alone.”

  “But why would she go?” wondered Mr. Eads. “Would the reality of my confession upset her?”

  “No, no,” Bryson said dismissively, “your confession is the only thing that has kept her with me for so long. Oh, God, what have I done?”

  “What have you done?” asked Lucy. “She was quite upset when she left.”

  He shot her a surprised look. He was not accustomed to being challenged by young ladies. She raised one eyebrow, clearly not intimidated.

  Bryson nodded. “The story of . . . what I’ve done is so terrible and one-sided and unbelievable to have gone on this long. My entire purpose these last six weeks was to have Elisabeth for my own, but I have I failed to . . . to . . . ”

  He dropped his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Dear Lord, he’d failed in so many ways. Most grievous of all, perhaps, he’d failed to acknowledge the love that she had so freely given him.

  And oh, how he loved her. His heart soared with it. He just learned that he was a bastard. He had no name, no title, and he didn’t even care. Because of love. For her.

  He ached with it. He almost laughed at the irony. If it had not been for Elisabeth, he would never have known that this ache—this urgent, breathtaking ache—was love unacknowledged. It only hurt if he turned away. As he had been trying to do for days.

  But what had she also taught him?

  He lifted his head.

  It didn’t have to be this way.

  He could choose to acknowledge the love—hers, Raymond Eads’s—he could choose to acknowledge it all. He could choose to stay.

  When he looked at Lucy Eads, all trace of pride was gone. “What I’ve done is refuse to give myself to Elisabeth,” he said. “I reserved the most vulnerable part. I was afraid of the depth of my love for her, and I tried to keep her at arm’s length. She would not stand for it, and we quarreled. We quarreled just this morning. I threatened to send her away.”

  He blinked, realizing the magnitude of what he had just said.

  He turned to the door. “My hat? My gloves?”

  “Nell! His lordship’s things,” bellowed Mr. Eads, scuttling after him to the door.

  To Bryson, he said, “But surely she will listen to you when you go to her. She is a forgiving woman; this I know. You will make it right. If you can say it so plainly to us, you can make it right.”

  “There are so many wrongs to be made right,” Bryson said, “possibly too many. Repeatedly, I have pushed her away. I have blamed her for things that were not her fault. I have—”

  “Oh, but you must tell her!” said Mr. Eads reaching for the door.

  The maid tripped up with Bryson’s things, and he swiped them from her, shoving into his gloves. Speaking to himself, he said, “I was so afraid of being overcome. I never wanted to fall victim to any pleasure that would make a fool of me, like every pleasure made a fool of my fath—”

  He stopped himself. He froze with his glove halfway on his hand. He looked at Mr. Eads.

  The older man smiled at his son. “Marriage is the place to indulge your pleasure, my boy. Here is where you revel in it. This love you share with your wife is what bolsters you and sends you out in the world to take on every other fear and temptation.”

  Bryson nodded, shoving his hat on his head. “Yes, well, I did not know. I did not know if what I felt was right. I was never shown.”

  “We start today,” said Mr. Eads quietly, his voice breaking again. His daughter stepped to his side and grabbed his arm.

  Remarkably, Bryson felt his own eyes fill with tears. He could but nod.

  “Go!” urged Mr. Eads, ushering him out the open door. “Hurry to her! We will not depart London until we have had some word.”

  Bryson was almost in the hall before he paused, turned, and asked, “Miss Lucy, I beg your pardon, but did she happen to say where she was going?”

  “She said, ‘home.’ ”

  “Home?”

  “No,” Lucy corrected herself. “She said, ‘I’m going to my home.’ ”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  There was a warm but spacious room in the rear of Elisabeth’s foundation building that she had designated long ago as the reception room for new girls on the night of a rescue raid. Originally conceived as living space for a married butler and his housekeeper wife, the room connected to the kitchens and led to the garden.

  It was anchored by a long table, thick and sturdy, that was lined on both sides by low benches with cheerful pink cushions. On the night of a raid, the table would be laid with warm bread and salty cheese, sweets, milk, ham, and fruit.

  Along the wall was a small cot, also made up in the sweetest pink, with soft linens and fluffy pillows, and warm blankets folded at the end. Two bookshelves offered picture books and simple novels on the higher shelves; an array of bonnets, ribbons, and fans on the lower. A large crib in the corner was filled with dolls in frilly dresses and explosively curly hair. Near the fire, which illuminated the room with warm, orange light, lay three friendly dogs and a cat.

  By design, the room was meant to appear irresistible to frightened, deprived, lonely girls. The dogs, the fripperies, and the dolls were the result of years of consideration. Elisabeth wanted each girl, no matter how frightened or displaced, to feel welcome and curious and open to the program that the foundation would offer her if she elected to stay.

  Despite the food and the toys, the blankets and the pets, a final, crucial element was the large, arched door that led to the garden and the outside gate beyond. Both door and gate remained open—wide and gaping—while the girls were welcomed in, situated, introduced, and fed.

  Open doors posed all kinds of security risks, and it meant that Stoker and his lads remained outside, patrolling, on alert and in danger for more than an hour while the girls settled in. Still, to Elisabeth, the open doors were essential. A lock on any room, she knew—even a comfortable and safe and inviting room—could be just as terrifying as any of the places from which they had come.

  To that end, they kept the doors open, even on cold nights, even in the rain. There was to be no question about anyone’s will in the matter of a rescue. If a girl did not wish to stay in Elisabeth’s care, she need only walk through the open door.

  It was, she thought, looking around this very room, exactly the manner of choice Bryson had given her. An open door. A way out. He did not mean to reject her so much as to say, This is all my heart can allow. Manage with this much—this little—or go.

  Or perhaps she was being too generous.

  Perhaps he did simply reject her.

  Sh
e sighed, reminding herself that the marriage he had offered was hardly the husbandly equivalent of a warm, inviting room. But for some women, it might have been enough. It simply was not enough for her.

  She looked around the spacious room at chores that needed to be completed before the next group of girls came. She smiled hopefully at Jocelyn Breedlowe.

  Jocelyn was shaking her head. “I cannot possibly handle this—not alone, Elisabeth.”

  “You can, and you must,” Elisabeth countered softly. “The sooner I leave, the better.”

  Jocelyn’s head still shook. “But all the way to Yorkshire?”

  “Stoker may never go if I do not personally escort him to the school. And Rainsleigh has bade me go, so . . . two birds, one stone. That said, the raids and acquisition of newly rescued girls must not stop simply because I am away. Not when you may be here to do the important work.”

  “But I’ve never even been present on the night of a raid.”

  “Oh, it’s really rather exciting,” Elisabeth said, sliding a crate of food from the market down the table. “You will enjoy it, I think. The other staff will help you. You bring a calming presence that will be a boon to the rattled girls. They will need you more than ever, with Stoker gone.”

  “You have too much confidence in me. I don’t understand why you and Stoker cannot wait. The raid is just three days away.”

  Elisabeth hefted a sack of flour aloft and looked at her. “And where else am I to go? My aunt is relocating to the other side of the moon. She mustn’t even know. And I cannot go back to Henrietta Place.”

  “You could live here for a time.” Jocelyn began to unpack the provisions.

  Elisabeth shook her head and plunked the flour on the table. “Rainsleigh would seek me out; maybe not soon, but eventually. You saw him hound me—for weeks, he has hounded me, even when he was furious with me. He tracks me down so he may hold me at arm’s length. I cannot take it anymore. I cannot.”

  “Perhaps he will track you to Yorkshire?”

  Another head shake. “This circumstance with Mr. Eads will keep him quite busy, I’m afraid.” She thought about this, thought about the two men embracing when she’d left. “I could have helped him sort it out. It would have been the perfect opportunity for us to function as a little team, working toward a common goal. To turn to each other for support and counsel. But Rainsleigh does not want a wife in this way. He doesn’t want a wife at all. He wants a figurehead.”

  The crate was empty and she carried it to the door. “No, I will not stay, I cannot. He has offered me the opportunity to bow out, and I will take it.”

  “But he would not wish you injury nor harm. It is dangerous for a lady to travel alone in a public coach for so many days.”

  “I won’t be alone. I shall have Stoker with me. It’s not the Orient, Jocelyn, I’m only going to Yorkshire.”

  “You are not,” said a male voice from behind her, “going to Yorkshire.”

  Elisabeth froze.

  Slowly, she turned around.

  Rainsleigh filled the doorway, hovering on the garden stoop.

  The bottom fell from Elisabeth’s stomach, and she stared, taking in his handsome face, red with exertion. Had he run here? His chest rose and fell as he took in great gulps of air.

  “Please tell me you have not chased me here,” she managed to say. He looked resigned and ruffled and sad, and she reminded herself of her own determination and sadness. She was determined not to be affected. With great force of will, she turned her back on him and walked to the basin. There were potatoes, fresh from the market, and a pail of water. She took up the scrub brush, wet it, and selected a potato.

  “Chased you is exactly what I have done,” he said, ducking through the door. “And I will chase you all the way to Yorkshire if I must.”

  “You mustn’t.”

  “No,” countered Rainsleigh, crossing his arms over his chest, “you must not. You won’t. Not now.”

  “I’m going,” said Elisabeth, stressing the words, “and you cannot tell me what to do.”

  “I am your husband, and I very well may tell you what to do, if it pleases me.”

  Her head shot up.

  “But it does not please me,” he finished, raising an eyebrow. “However, I will ask you not to go.”

  “And why?” It was out before she could stop herself. She scrubbed the potato as if her life depended on it and then dropped it into a bowl before taking up the next, angry at herself for engaging him.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” mumbled Jocelyn, “I’ll just check on the girls’ sewing . . . ” Before Elisabeth could stop her, she slipped discreetly through the kitchen door.

  “You cannot go to Yorkshire because I need you. Here. With me. Because I am lost without you.”

  “Lost?” She dropped the potato. “Lost?” She reeled around, pointing at him with the dripping scrub brush. “Spare me the hyperbole, please. I know of no other man more capable than you. Only you could lose your entire birthright and have a self-made, independent fortune waiting to sustain you in exactly the same style.”

  “I don’t require you to navigate my life, Elisabeth. I need you because my life is worthless without you in it. The money? The boats? Even the birthright—it means nothing to me if you are not at my side.”

  “Bryson . . . ” she began, shaking her head. She turned back to the sink and picked up another potato. “This week has been the sort that would drive any man to edge of sanity. First the wedding and now Mr. Eads? Even you can be expected to flounder a bit. It is precipitous, I think, to judge your needs based on all that has happened since Wednesday.”

  “I needed you before Wednesday,” he countered, taking a step toward her. “I needed you on Tuesday”—another step—“and Monday, and every day before that. I have needed you since I first saw you disappear into your aunt’s stairwell.”

  She dropped the brush again and threw the potato into the pail with a plunk. “Two nights ago, I told you that I loved you, and you . . . you said nothing. A day later you began to talk about sending me away. I am stubborn, but I am not stupid. It’s too late.” She lifted a section of her skirt and dried her hands.

  “It is never too late,” he said. He was close enough to touch her now. She turned again to the sink.

  “I know this, only because of you. I have the figure of a real father now, because of you. I have an entirely new future with no title and certain scandal—”

  “Because of me,” she said to the potatoes.

  He leaned in, speaking in a low voice, “I was going to say, but I am at peace with it—because of you.”

  She shook her head, refusing this logic, refusing, even, to look at him. “You are at peace with all of this at the moment, Bryson. At the moment, all things seem possible, because you are swimming in bad luck and poor timing, and I am a proficient source of support who does not judge. But what if all was well with your world, and it was my life falling apart? What if I was wretched? What if I needed to rely on you? Because this, too, will happen. It’s only a matter of time. Life, as you must know, is not exactly as you direct it.”

  “Yes, and thank God,” he said on a breath. “Because I never would have directed my life to know you.”

  “That’s a lie; you have hounded me. You hound me still. But not for what I want or what I need. Not for forever.”

  “Hear what I have to say, please,” he said softly, reaching out. He caught her wrist and held it gently. “I have more than hounded you, Elisabeth, I have pursued you with a single-minded vigor. Not only is out of character for me, but it has been exhausting. In my right mind, I should never have endured. In my right mind, I should never have set my sights for a woman who runs a charity for prostitutes, who was in possession of a deep, dark secret that she revealed in her own time, rather than mine. Who—and I am speculating here—blackmailed me for her charity and the extradition of her aunt—before she would agree to marry me.”

  “Don’t forget, who was not even a p
ure, virginal bride,” Elisabeth interjected flatly.

  “Oh, you were a virgin, but that is beside the point. What I was going to say, was—”

  “Wait.” She pulled her wrist from his hand and reared back. “Stop. What did you say?”

  “You were a virgin; I thought you knew—”

  “How was I to know? Why, why . . . didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh, well,” he hedged, “I was distracted, I suppose. It didn’t seem important at the time. It’s not important.”

  “But my almost-certain ‘impurity’ was the primary reason I didn’t tell you about the brothel,” she whispered. “You wanted a virgin.” She came to the bench beside the table and dropped onto it.

  “No, I wanted you, Elisabeth,” he began carefully. “I didn’t care that you were a virgin; I only cared that you were mine. That is all I have ever cared about.”

  “But how can I be yours if you will not allow yourself . . . to belong to me in return?”

  “Oh, my darling,” he said, crouching before her, taking up her hands, “I want nothing more than to belong to you. Forever. Please, can you overlook my stupidity, and reticence, and fear, and every other bloody barrier I have erected between us? Can you help me show you that I”—he looked away, squeezing his eyes shut, and then looked back at her—“that I love you, Elisabeth. And that my greatest wish is to remain in our marriage—our real marriage—starting now, until death, like the bishop said?”

  She blinked down at him, fighting for control. Her mind was a tangle of desire, and fear, and fledgling hope.

  “Whatever life brings,” he continued, his voice breaking, “if you will have me. I want only you, and I want all of you, just as you are. I give the whole of my heart into your safekeeping.”

  “And I’m expected to believe that your fear of . . . of . . . intimacies has just disappeared?”