It Takes a Scandal

by Caroline Linden

  “A grotto is no ordinary cave.” Penelope grinned. “I can’t believe you didn’t invite me.”

  Abigail sighed. Penelope would want to search as if they needed to find the grotto to save their family from ruination. Abigail preferred to wander, keeping her eyes open for a grotto, of course, but not supremely focused on the search. She did want to read her book, and if Mr. Vane happened to cross her path . . . “It might not even exist. Lady Turley said it had been filled in.”

  “Then why are you searching for it?”

  She didn’t look at her sister as she replied, “Mr. Vane said he found it once, so I thought I’d have a look.”

  For a few minutes Penelope didn’t say anything, which was unusual. “You know, Abby,” she began at last, “I don’t think badly of you for being intrigued by him.”

  “Yes, I know; dark and reclusive and mysterious, how alluring!” She made a face.

  “Well, yes,” conceded her sister. “But we’ve gossiped about enough gentlemen that I can see this one is different for you.”

  Abigail swatted a trailing vine out of her way as she framed her reply. Too little admission would only prompt her sister to pester her more; too much admission . . . would be even worse. “It’s one thing to presume about a gentleman we’ve never met, based on reports in the gossip rags. Mr. Vane is our neighbor, and he was kind to me. I think it’s unfair of ­people to shun him because of his father’s illness and call him a murderer and a thief without proof, just as I think it’s unfair for some ­people to believe you and I are ambitious schemers bent on buying titled husbands. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, that’s all—­and so far he’s done nothing to warrant being avoided.”

  “That’s all true, but I think there’s even more to it.” Penelope cursed as a bramble bush caught on her skirt. “Am I wrong?”

  Abigail hesitated. “Perhaps. Perhaps not, but . . . I would like to find out.”

  For once her sister said nothing. She gave Abigail a long, searching look, and finally nodded.

  They walked in silence for a little while. Abigail tried to keep a mental map of their location to avoid getting lost, but gave it up after a while. Hart House was behind them, to the east. Montrose Hill, on the other hand, would be ahead and to the right, up the slope of the hill she could feel rising beneath her feet. She had no idea where the grotto might be, but if Mr. Vane had discovered it, it only stood to reason that it might be near his home. She tried to subtly steer them up the hill, and for once her sister didn’t complain about the climb.

  “You know, Lucy Walgrave is a chatterbox of the worst kind,” said Penelope all of a sudden. “I don’t think even she believes half of what she says. I certainly don’t.”

  Abigail grinned at her sister gratefully. “Nor I.”

  “That’s why I set her on Jamie.”

  “You didn’t!” Penelope just smiled her evil little smile at Abigail’s horrified, amused exclamation. “What did you do?”

  “I might have mentioned that he’s ready to settle down. I might have told her he likes the pianoforte, and poetry, and ladies who paint.”

  Abigail choked on a laugh as her sister named everything that would send their brother running. “What did Jamie do to you?”

  Penelope gave a gusty sigh. “Nothing. Nothing! Not a bloody thing. He let Papa buy this house and drag us out to a summer of exile, and then he fled the premises. Have you seen him once except at dinner? He avoided the ball, he never pays calls with us, he won’t even take a boat out on the river with me. He deserves to be pursued by a chatterbox and made to suffer for his unpardonable dullness.”

  “When has Jamie ever paid calls?” Abigail pointed out. “He attends balls in London only when Mama insists. And having ladies like Miss Walgrave pursue him isn’t likely to make him change his behavior, if that was your intent.”

  “He still deserves it, for being so maddeningly absent most of the time,” growled Penelope. “I swear he’s sneaking back to London, and if he can do so, why can’t I?”

  “He’s not. He just finds ways to amuse himself without forcing his company on other ­people.”

  Penelope stuck out her tongue. “Admit it, Abby. You’d be as bored as I am if not for the mysterious Mr. Vane.”

  “Hardly mysterious,” said a familiar voice.

  Penelope shrieked, seizing Abigail’s arm so hard they both almost fell to the ground. “Good Lord, did you want to frighten us to death?” she demanded, whirling around. “Where are you, sir?”

  He stepped from behind a wild flowering shrub. “On my own property.”

  Penelope folded her arms and looked him up and down. So did Abigail, although—­she hoped—­without her sister’s brazen staring. He was just as she remembered, tall and handsome and somber. His long brown coat hid the cane, but now she could see by his posture how he leaned on it, his left shoulder a little higher than the right.

  “Are you?” said Penelope tartly. “I don’t see a fence.”

  “But I’ve lived here all my life and know where my land ends and your father’s begins,” he replied. “I daresay after you’ve lived here thirty years or more, you’ll be able to locate the boundary as plainly as any fence.”

  “Do not, under any circumstances, suggest I will live here for thirty more years,” said Penelope under her breath. “Do you plan to shoot us as trespassers?”

  “Penelope,” said Abigail sternly, wishing she could shake her sister. “This is our neighbor, Mr. Sebastian Vane. Mr. Vane, may I present my rude and impertinent sister, Miss Penelope Weston?”

  “I thought as much.” Penelope grinned, her smile returning as bright and good-­natured as ever. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Vane.”

  “And you, Miss Penelope.” His gaze moved to Abigail at last, and something seemed to light up inside her. “How do you do, Miss Weston?”

  “Very well, sir.” She tried to keep the smile off her face. So he hadn’t been able to avoid the woods at all times, as he’d threatened. “What a surprise to encounter you here.”

  He acknowledged the hit with a slight tightening of his lips. “Boris went out, and hasn’t come back. He is why I’m in the woods at the moment. My housekeeper coddles Boris like a child, and she grew worried when he didn’t come back for his midday meal.”

  “Who is Boris?” Penelope wanted to know.

  “My dog.” He hesitated, then touched the brim of his hat. “I apologize for interrupting your walk. Good day, Miss Weston. Miss Penelope.”

  “Wait!” Abigail called as he turned away. “We’ll help you look,” she blurted out. “Since you were so kind to help me rescue Milo. We owe it to you.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” he said, watching her with those dark, somber eyes. “But thank you very kindly for the offer.”

  “What if he’s fallen into the grotto? Or become trapped under a bramble bush? He might be hurt.” Abigail forged through the tangle of vines and bracken toward him. “Now I shall be worried about him, too.”

  Mr. Vane hesitated. His gaze darted toward Penelope, and Abigail turned a fearsome glare upon her sister, who owed her a tremendous favor.

  Penelope blinked, then burst out, “Oh yes! We’ll help look for him. Is he small and adorable like Milo?”

  “He’s a large boar hound, so high,” said Mr. Vane evenly. He held his hand at the level of his waist. “Black. Drools a good bit.”

  Penelope blinked again. “That big, is he?”

  “When he barks, it tends to frighten ladies half to death,” Mr. Vane went on. “It’s a very deep, fierce bark.”

  “And yet he’s well trained and won’t hurt anyone.” Abigail gave him a reproving look. “Isn’t he?”

  He sighed as he gazed down at her. As usual, his expression was neutral, but now that she stood at his side, Abigail thought she could see something like amused frustration in
his eyes. “Yes, Miss Weston,” he said, almost reluctantly.

  “Have you any idea where he’s likely to be?” She shaded her eyes as she put her head back to see him better.

  “No.” He didn’t seem very concerned about it, either, his gaze still fixed on her as if in unwilling fascination.

  Abigail smiled. “Then we’ll just walk through the woods until we find him.”

  “Yes,” said Penelope with notably less enthusiasm.

  Abigail turned back to Mr. Vane. “If he’s hungry, isn’t he likely to be nearer home?” She started in the direction of Montrose Hill. “Perhaps he’s already started back.”

  “Perhaps,” allowed Mr. Vane as she walked away from him, “but the house is that way.” He pointed to her left.

  Without a word she switched directions. “Does he like bread or cheese? I have some in my basket, along with an apple.”

  For a moment he said nothing. Abigail kept walking, listening hard, until she heard a muffled curse and the quick sound of his steps as he hurried after her. Penelope, she assumed, was somewhere behind him. “He likes cheese.”

  “Excellent! We’ll tempt him out of hiding with some.” She raised her voice. “Boris! Come, Boris! I have cheese!”

  He glanced at her. “He’ll want to follow you home if you feed him cheese.”

  Abigail laughed. “Ridiculous! He’d run right back to you once Milo begins yipping at him for hours and hours every day.”

  He gave a quiet snort of disbelief. “Hours and hours?”

  “Sometimes without end. You can see I’ve fled the house entirely to escape it.”

  “That’s what sent you into the woods,” he murmured. “I see.”

  “Milo?” Penelope had caught up again, by ducking under a low tree branch and skirting a large puddle. “Milo is the sweetest little creature in the world. He does not bark all day.” She darted a sly glance at Mr. Vane. “My sister is determined to discover the lost grotto in these woods.”

  His gaze lingered on Abigail. “Indeed. I doubt it’s in any condition to be explored by ladies.”

  “So you’ve seen it?” asked Penelope brightly, as if Abigail hadn’t told her he had. “What’s it like?”

  “Dark,” he said. “Cold. It’s a cave.”

  “It’s a grotto,” Abigail corrected him. “Not a natural cave but one deliberately cut. Often they have lovely touches or some clever use. I read about one in Italy that served as a bathing chamber.”

  “It sounds scandalous,” said Penelope with relish.

  “It isn’t.” Mr. Vane’s voice was tight.

  “Then we could make it so. It can be our refuge from Mama. I’ll smuggle down a bottle of sherry.”

  “First we need to find Boris,” Abigail reminded her. She could just imagine what else her sister would smuggle to the grotto, if they ever found it.

  Penelope met her eyes for a moment, then grinned. “Right. Boris,” she called in the high, singsong voice she used with Milo. “Where are you, Boris?”

  Mr. Vane made a sound like a strangled laugh.

  “Boris!” Penelope wandered a little farther away. “Where are you, big, naughty, drooling dog? Abby has some cheese for you!” She kept calling and walking, keeping her back directly to them. Abigail said a silent thanks to her sister, even though Penelope sounded sillier and sillier, adding all manner of ridiculous endearments to her calls.

  “Would Boris come if he heard her?” she asked.

  Mr. Vane was watching Penelope disappear into the trees. “I have no idea.”

  “How do you summon him?”

  “With a whistle.” He pushed up a low-­hanging branch so she could walk beneath it. “He’ll come home eventually.”

  “You must be worried, or you wouldn’t have come to look for him.” She tilted her head to steal a glance at his face. “I’m surprised to meet you today. You did vow to avoid the woods at all times.”

  His mouth quirked. “Did I? I don’t recall that. Part of it lies on my property, you know.”

  A faint frown touched her brow as she tried to remember his exact words. Perhaps he hadn’t actually said he would avoid the woods, but he had certainly implied it. The frown lifted. She had warned him to avoid the woods if he didn’t want to see her. If he hadn’t done that, he didn’t really want to avoid her.

  “Do you share your sister’s nefarious plans for the grotto, if you should find it?” he asked.

  Abigail laughed. “I don’t think she’s truly interested in the grotto. Penelope is bored in Richmond. Her plans for diversion grow more shocking and more fantastical with each day she doesn’t have a more intriguing scandal to discuss.”

  She could feel his measuring gaze on her for a long minute. “I’m sure she’ll find some scandal in Richmond if she listens hard enough.”

  “Oh! She’s already heard one about you,” said Abigail airily.

  “No doubt,” he muttered grimly. “There are plenty to choose from.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Now you see why I warned you.”

  She stopped and waited until he also stopped walking and faced her. “I prefer to form my own opinion of a man’s character, thank you, not swallow others’ ridiculous notions whole. As does my sister, and the rest of my family,” she added as he looked unimpressed. “You’re not the only one ­people talk about, you know. If one believes the scandalmongers in London, my father is a jumped-­up parvenu who made his fortune through illicit business dealings. My sister and I are nouveau riche heiresses out for the blood—­and marriage proposals—­of highborn gentlemen, through any means necessary.” She raised her brows at his expression. “I will understand if you want to disavow our acquaintance.”

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, his mouth softened. The cool distance in his gaze faded, and he regarded her with grudging amusement. “You’re a difficult woman to dissuade, Miss Weston.”

  “On the contrary,” she protested. “I’m entirely susceptible to reason and logic. I have a great weakness for appeals to justice and fairness, and I daresay I could pardon almost any act committed by a parent in defense of his child. It’s merely wild rumor and gossip that I treat with suspicion.”

  He stared at her with narrowed eyes. Abigail’s heart thumped hard against her ribs. In the distance, she could still hear Penelope calling for Boris, but otherwise it was just the two of them, she and Mr. Vane, alone in the woods. “I’ve never met your like, Miss Weston.”

  “I hope that doesn’t make you want to flee in terror.” She put her head to one side with a little smile.

  His gaze drifted downward, slowly, tracing every inch of her figure until Abigail blushed. “No.”

  “Oh. Well . . . good,” she said, having trouble remembering exactly what she’d said.

  His eyes seemed to grow darker. “You might not say that if you knew what it does make me want.”

  This time her breath did stop in her chest, even as her heart seemed to have been jolted to thump at twice its normal pace. “Why? What do you want?”

  His mouth curved. Not in a sweet, lighthearted way, but in a way that could only be called seductive. His eyes had grown as dark as a moonless midnight sky, and even though he hadn’t moved an inch, Abigail could swear he was somehow much closer to her. “Many things I cannot have.”

  “Don’t we all!” She managed a shaky laugh. “I wish my hair was blond, like my sister’s. I wish my eyes were any color at all—­green, blue, brown, even black.”

  “You’re wrong to wish for those things. Never wish your hair was blond; such a pale insipid shade would never do you justice. You glow with passion and joy, as rich and warm as your hair.” He reached out, and with one sharp tug, loosened her bonnet ribbons and pushed the hat to hang down her back so he could touch her hair. “Never wish your eyes were blue or brown.” His thumb brushed over her cheekbone as he s
tudied her face. “They are as fresh and clear as a new dawn, filled with promise and hope. You’re perfect as you are.” Abigail tilted forward, expecting a kiss—­yearning for a kiss—­but he stepped backward instead, giving her an almost physical start. She had been so focused on him, held so immobile by his burning gaze, she felt unsteady and disoriented without it. “We’re not making very good progress looking for Boris.”

  “You said you weren’t worried about him!” She scrambled to catch up as he strode onward without another glance at her.

  “I’m not, but you were.”

  “Oh—­well—­I don’t want him to be lost or hurt . . .”

  “Boris is more than capable of finding his way home,” he said. “He knows these woods as well as any creature who dwells in them.”

  “If you’re not worried at all, then why were you in the woods looking for him?” She could barely keep up, he was moving so briskly. Did he regret what he’d said? If he didn’t, how he could practically sprint away from her?

  “You make an excellent point, Miss Weston. I should return home at once and leave you and your sister to an uninterrupted stroll. Forgive me.” His eyes flashed her way as he touched the brim of his hat.

  “Well, that’s a fine thanks, after we both offered to help find your dog.” She stopped, clutching one hand to her side as her lungs heaved. “Good day, Mr. Vane.”

  He continued a few more steps before he, too, stopped. For a moment he stood motionless, then he turned and walked back toward her, not quickly as before, but a deliberate prowl. Abigail held her ground and waited, keeping her chin up. She didn’t shy away from his gaze, even though he looked almost angry.

  “You ask what I want,” he said, his voice low and even. “Very well. I want to walk normally again. I’d give anything for two good legs.” He shifted his weight to prop the heel of his left boot on a nearby stump. “Instead I’ve got a shattered knee that aches in every heavy rain and betrays me at odd moments, sending me to the ground like a true cripple. I will never be able to walk without a cane again, nor dance with a woman, nor climb a tree, nor ride a horse comfortably.”