Tempting The Rival (Scandals and Spies Book 3)

by Leighann Dobbs

  Sullen, Gideon added, “He knows nothing about botany.” Even if the fool wanted to pretend otherwise with his embarrassing, heated letters through the Royal Botanical Gazette.

  Gideon couldn't help but be curious about Albright. With all the sparring back and forth in newspapers and journals, he’d never met the man, though he suspected F. Albright was actually Farnsworth Albright a somewhat reclusive scholar. An older gentleman, if what Gideon had heard was correct. Maybe he would tire easily and leave Gideon the room he needed to prove this crazy truth serum theory incorrect once and for all.

  Morgan raised his eyebrows. “That’s why we need you to take point on this one. Are you able to do this?”

  Giddy gritted his teeth. “This is for Britain, isn’t it?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but his brother answered anyway.

  “This is for us all.”

  Put that way, Gideon couldn’t refuse. “I’ll do it,” he said, resigned.

  Even if it meant that he had to work with his arch rival, F. Albright.

  2

  Felicia Albright adjusted the bodice of her flamboyant red-and-indigo dress. Her skin puckered with goose bumps against the autumn chill clinging to the air. With the sun hiding behind clouds this morning, it would be a long while before she warmed up. Even so, she dismissed the notion of finding a shawl. More often than not, it was her feminine charms that attracted customers to her stall. Hence the reason her dress ended just high enough to display the curve of her ankle in her faded red, heeled shoes.

  To keep herself warm, she busied herself around her stall. She stepped over her black mastiff, Chubs, who lounged with his eyes shut and his gangly legs stretched out to trip customers. After she adjusted the awning to ensure that her sign, Felicia’s Love Perfumes: Guaranteed to Attract the Man or Woman of Your Dreams!, was visible from the far end of the market, she herded her dog closer to the wagon. Chubs groaned like an old man before he slinked closer to the wagon wall.

  The gaudy, blue-and-gold covered wagon that doubled as her home shone like a beacon among the plain wood wagons parked along this row. With the harvest complete, farmers amassed on the northern edge of London in the hopes of selling their wares and stockpiling the other items they needed to survive the coming winter. They, like Felicia, parked on the half-frozen, churned mud. Some used their wagon beds as their stalls; others set up tables and awnings like Felicia. With the sky lightening to blue in between the wispy scraps of gray cloud, the city would soon be waking up to invade the market en masse. By noon, the ground would be thawed and thick with boot prints as men and women clogged the lanes in search of produce.

  At this time of year, there were few stalls like Felicia’s that sold wares other than agricultural. Fairs were more lucrative to her, but she hoped to take advantage of the farmers thinking about winter—and Christmas gifts. Yesterday, when she’d arrived from her tour of the northern counties, had been an encouraging day. Today, she hoped to be even better. After all, she had a winter to survive as well. October was often the last month she was able to remain open before she had to find shelter with thicker walls for the winter.

  A young man wandered closer, empty-handed as he peered at the stalls. His brown hair fell over his forehead, all but obscuring his eyes as he cast glances toward her stall. The painted wagon tended to attract a lot of attention, which Felicia capitalized on by becoming an attraction, herself. Given the shabby quality of the clothes that hung on his thin frame, he had more likely come looking to rob someone than buy. Felicia wasn’t worried; she had yet to encounter a thief that could outrun Chubs. However lazy he pretended to be, her dog knew that he only got fed if she got paid.

  Toying with a lock of her curly red wig, Felicia strutted the length of her stall, keeping one eye on the thief. She tugged down her bodice to display the swells of her breasts to the cool air. Men always assumed two things about women: that they were weak and easily taken advantage of—hence the necessity of keeping Chubs close at hand—and that they were stupid. Felicia boasted a mind quicker than most scholars, but her ability to tally numbers and formulas in her head wouldn’t put bread on the table. She’d learned early on that if she appeared to be the confident, intelligent woman she was and treated her clients with a businesslike demeanor, not only would they choose to believe her weak and stupid anyway, but they would often be off-put by her demeanor. As much as she’d like to change that, it was the way of the world. She wasn’t above lowering herself to expectations in order to make ends meet—or, at the very least, pretend to.

  The young man strolled closer. He tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his breeches, a deceptively casual pose. When he glanced in Felicia’s direction, she twirled her finger around a lock of red hair and smiled, thrusting out her chest. Her figure wasn’t as bountiful as some ladies’, but it did the trick. His gaze meandered to the swell of her breasts.

  Now…buy something or go away. She kept her smile in place by practice alone.

  This close, she noticed the freckles on his cheeks beneath a smutch of dirt. At her guess, he was seventeen or eighteen years old—no older than she had been when she’d run away from home. Her flirtatious stance wilted as she recalled too many hungry nights before she’d been welcomed into the bosom of the circus she’d traveled with for the next few years. Maybe she should let him have a vial of her perfume, one of the more diluted ones.

  She gritted her teeth. She couldn’t afford to have sympathy for thieves or vagabonds. If she did, she would go hungry, too.

  The young man slowed as he strolled past, paying more attention to her than to her wares. She followed him, shifting her attention from him to the table she’d set out beneath the awning. A cheap scarlet tablecloth that resembled velvet when not in bright light dripped over the sides of the rectangular table. Perfume bottles in small and medium sizes, hewn of translucent glass to showcase the pale amber liquid within, rested on the cloth by size. Although they looked the same, the formulas varied slightly. One contained ingredients to attract a woman; the other to attract a man. The ones on display were of the most diluted solutions—Felicia kept more condensed versions of the perfume in the wagon, contained in suitably expensive crystal bottles to reflect the quality.

  Lightly, she brushed her fingertips over the tablecloth, straightening it as she ensured for the tenth time this morning that her wares were displayed to advantage. The young man moved on. Maybe she’d misjudged him.

  “Ouch!”

  A high-pitched squeal from behind made Felicia whirl to face the opposite end of her stall. On the far end of the table, a girl of about seven or eight writhed in pain as Felicia’s mule sank his teeth into her arm. Still hitched to the front of the wagon, Rudolph shouldn’t have been able to reach. In fact, he wouldn’t have, if the girl hadn’t backed away from the table after snatching one of the largest bottles. She clutched it in her free hand.

  Felicia bunched her skirts and launched to help the girl. The instant she had the thief by the scruff of her scratchy, undyed shift, Felicia tugged on Rudolph’s mane. “Let go, you brute. You’re hurting the poor thing.”

  The thief, on cue, burst into tears.

  Sweetheart, I was just like you, once. Albeit, about ten years older. Tears had earned her no sympathy. She hardened herself to the thief’s plight and stuck out her hand. “I’ll thank you to return that. You’re much too young for it, anyway.” Although she claimed that her perfumes induced true love, lust was a more accurate byproduct.

  Rudolph stamped. He stretched out his neck, curling his lip up from over his blocky teeth as he tried to take a nip out of Felicia’s skirts.

  She steered herself and the girl out of reach with a scowl. “Eat your oats if you’re hungry, you nag.”

  Rudolph twitched his tail.

  As Felicia turned her full attention on the girl, she quivered beneath her palm. Tears jumped to the girl’s eyes, making them as red as her nose. “Please don’t hurt me, mum. I didn’t mean nothing personal by it, I
swear.” Her voice was high-pitched and nasal with tears.

  She almost had Felicia fooled. Against her better judgment, her hand relaxed and she nearly released the girl.

  Until Chubs got to his feet, his hackles rising as he growled. But he didn’t aim his snarl toward the thief in Felicia’s hands—he advanced on the one at the other end of the stall. The young man had circled back and now had his hands poised over her wares.

  Blast! If she pursued him, she would be leaving herself open for the girl to rob her instead.

  The young man blanched the color of the wan clouds overhead, snatched as many bottles as his hands could carry, and turned to run. The glass clinked together. He stopped short as a tall man stepped into his path.

  The man—an aristocrat by the tailored cut and quality of his coat, waistcoat, breeches, and boots—stood easily six feet tall. Broad in the shoulders, his build narrowed to lean hips. The confidence in his stance, more than his athletic build, made him formidable. When he swept the topper off his head, stopping the thief with no more than a palm on his shoulder, he uncovered black hair styled in a fashionable Brutus haircut with a white streak at one temple. His piercing gray eyes fixed on the young man.

  “I suggest you return those.” His voice, although temperate, send a chill down Felicia’s spine. She was happy not be the focus of that unforgiving gaze.

  The young man paled even further. He stammered an apology, blindly thrusting the bottles behind him onto the table once more. They bunched together in a haphazard fashion, more than one toppling onto its side. Fortunately, Felicia had sealed the vials herself and the stoppers allowed no leaks to escape.

  Satisfied, the aristocrat produced a white card from his pocket. “Can you read?”

  The young man drew himself up. Although he was taller than Felicia’s five-foot-three, he didn’t nearly match the supercilious lord for height.

  “Of course I can.”

  A young woman around Felicia’s height or shorter snorted as she came abreast. Like the aristocrat, she wore expensive fabrics—muslin, in her case, a dark netting over a forest green gown beneath. Her auburn hair was neatly styled, though she wore no bonnet to shield her from the sun. Given the sun-kissed cast to her skin, she didn’t seem to care much for the standards of her peers. Her mouth curved in a secretive smile, made all the more mischievous by the sharp cast of her chin.

  Felicia liked her on sight.

  The lord shared a glance with the woman as he drawled, “No, then.” He tucked the card in his pocket once more. “If you’d like gainful employment that will keep your belly full and keep you warm for the winter, take your companion and present yourselves at Lord Strickland’s house. Tell him Tenwick sent you.”

  Tenwick, as in the Duke of?

  The girl in Felicia’s clutches twisted out of Felicia’s slackened grip and scampered away. With a surly, guarded expression, the young man bowed and left as well. Given the look on his face, he didn’t seem likely to obey the duke. A pity. If the duke’s offer was genuine, it might be the best the pair could hope for this winter.

  Could this be the duke standing in front of her? Felicia couldn’t begin to fathom why he would be shopping in this market. Surely he had servants to do this sort of thing for him.

  Better to err on the side of safety. After returning the bottle of perfume the girl had tried to steal to its rightful place, Felicia snapped her fingers. The sound silenced the low rumble in her dog’s chest. She directed him to lie down next to the wagon. He laid his head back against his paws as he complied.

  Good boy. You’ll get a treat later, she silently promised. She didn’t have time to praise him, not in front of a duke.

  Spreading her skirts, she gave the aristocrat a smooth curtsey, adding a flourish to the end. Given the woman lingering next to him, Felicia opted not to show her cleavage too much. She didn’t want to scare off a potential customer by making his wife or lover jealous.

  “Thank you, your grace, for your assistance with those ne’er-do-wells. What can I do to repay you? Do you need some help wooing your lady, perchance?” She fixed a smile on them both, wavering between the couple so one didn’t think she focused too much of her attention on the other. She could be wrong in her hunch—they might only be friends, and have need of her potions.

  With a wry smile and a glance toward the duke that crackled with amusement, the woman said, “I should think by now I’m sufficiently wooed.”

  The lady stepped forward, reaching for the bottles dumped onto Felicia’s table. “Please, let me help you with those.”

  Felicia leaped to intercept her. “That’s very kind, but far from necessary. It is my pleasure to arrange them myself.”

  As she hurried to upright the bottles to keep the well-bred lady from doing so, she noticed a gleaming diamond ring circled with sapphires on the woman’s left hand. Married, then. And likely to the duke, given the protective way he hovered behind her.

  Felicia leaned forward to whisper, “I know my sign claims that the perfume incites love, but in truth, it is closer to lust. You might find it…enhances your husband’s performance in the bedroom.”

  Behind her, the duke stiffened. Drat. Felicia must have spoken too loudly and offended him.

  The duchess, on the other hand, looked intrigued. “How does the perfume work?”

  The duke muttered, “I do not have performance issues and you well know it.”

  Close up, the duchess stood an inch or two shorter than Felicia. She drew herself up to her full height as she twisted to meet her husband’s gaze.

  “You’ve been treating me like glass ever since you learned I was with child.”

  “I have not…and even if I have, I don’t want to hurt the baby.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s well protected, Morgan. It can’t be hurt that way.”

  That sounded like a conversation Felicia should definitely stay out of. She smiled. “I have some better quality perfumes in the wagon. Why don’t I fetch one for you and you can see if you like it?”

  Before the pair answered her, she dipped a hasty curtsey and escaped. Chubs lumbered up after her as she dashed through the cramped interior to the small cupboard where she kept her bottled perfumes. She chose the best quality, a bottle-necked vial of intricately carved crystal that ended in a round bottom the size of her fist.

  When she emerged into the crisp open air once more, the aristocrats hadn’t moved on from her stall. That was encouraging.

  Even if the duke said, “We do not need one of your perfumes.”

  The duchess snorted. “Speak for yourself.” She leaned forward as Felicia broke the seal on the vial and removed the cork. The duchess leaned forward to sniff. She wrinkled her nose.

  Felicia laughed. “I know, it smells potent in such a concentrated dose. You’ll need only a dab on your neck, wrists, between your breasts… and anywhere else you’d like his attention.” She stoppered the vial again, pressing her thumb against the wax seal to mold it in place and hopefully keep it from leaking if she tipped it accidentally. “I should warn that it will attract any man in the vicinity.” She turned her attention to the duke. “If you want one to make your wife wild, that would be another formula. I do have those on hand, as well.”

  The duke rolled his eyes. “My wife is wild enough on her own, thank you.”

  In a smooth movement, the duchess elbowed her husband in the side. She shifted to stand in front of him, not that that blocked Felicia’s view of his face.

  “That’s curious. How does it work?” the duchess asked.

  “It’s a complicated scientific reaction. Suffice it to say that it will work.” She offered the vial on her palm, face up. “If you’re unsatisfied, I will of course offer you a full refund.”

  Felicia didn’t normally offer such a thing to her customers. Then again, she didn’t normally sell to the likes of dukes, so if it would ensure a sale, she would make the offer. Word of mouth in that sphere could feed her all winter from a single day’s pu
rchases or commissions.

  Narrowing her thickly lashed eyes, the duchess pursed her lips. “I am a scientist. I’ll be able to follow along.”

  No, you aren’t. Oh, the young woman—less than a handful of years younger than Felicia’s age of twenty-nine, at a guess—might have an interest in science. She might even actively pursue the acquisition of knowledge in the fields that interested her. However, the science community, like every other, was dominated by men.

  Scientists were doddery old men with weak chins and beady eyes that liked to think themselves above everyone else because they went to university. They respected women in such a sphere even less than they respected dogs. It was why Felicia had to publish her research papers under her initials rather than her name.

  By force of will, she kept her smile in place as she took a deep breath, warding away the storm of resentment conjured by the knowledge of how the world worked.

  None of this was the duchess’s fault, of course, so Felicia tried not to take out her frustrations on a potential client. She’d thought she was immune to the disappointment by now, given that it had been twelve years since she’d learned the harsh truth of her future. But, seeing the beautiful scientist alongside a duke who seemed to indulge her every whim made the resentment fester in Felicia’s chest once more.

  She endeavored to ignore the feeling.

  Before she pinched the precious crystal vial too hard and cracked it, she set it down on the table. “Are you familiar with pheromones?”

  “I assume you mean the chemicals secreted in a mating sense.”

  So she did know science. Felicia nodded. “The perfume works on a similar principle. The chemicals are tailored to attract men or women, depending on the preference of the user. Since His Grace is already attracted to you, the perfume will make him lose the inhibitions that he has erected between you.”