Scandal of the Year

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “Wait!” he called after her. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Julie.” She laughed, turning around to look at him even as she kept walking away. “At least that’s what my friends call me.”

  “Friends? But we aren’t friends. We’re barely acquainted.”

  “We shall be friends though. I’m quite determined.”

  “Why should you be?”

  “Because you don’t like me, that’s why.”

  He shook his head, bemused. “Even if that were true, it makes no sense.”

  “Yes, it does. I hate not being liked. Besides . . .” She paused to glance over her shoulder to see where her backward steps were taking her, then she returned her intense gaze to him and went on, “I like you, despite your snooty manner and your morality and your hopelessly old-fashioned ideas. We shall be friends one day. You might as well resign yourself to it now,” she added before he could protest that he was not snooty, “for you haven’t a hope of resisting me. Cheerio.”

  She shifted the spinning wheel to one arm, pressed the palm of her free hand to her lips and blew him a smacking kiss, then turned her back and walked away.

  Aidan watched her go, telling himself he ought to be relieved by her departure. She did things no young lady ought to do. She said things that caught him off-guard, nonsensical things to which he could think of no intelligent response and shrewd things that made him uncomfortable. She was flippant and brazen and rebellious, and even though she was engaged to be married, she had no scruples about flirting with men.

  Still, despite all that, as she vanished from sight amid the trees, he felt something that wasn’t relief at all, but regret. He’d never before encountered a storybook heroine, and he knew he’d probably never see this one again.

  It would be ten years before circumstances proved him wrong.

  Chapter Six

  You again!” Startled, he jumped to his feet, staring in dismay at the woman in his study, a woman he couldn’t seem to avoid no matter how he tried. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  She eased back the ermine wrap that was slung round her shoulders, revealing a disconcerting amount of décolleté to his view. “I might ask you the same question.”

  Aidan was in no mood for riddles. He folded his arms and glared down at her. “How did you enter my home without my butler knowing about it?”

  “Well, I didn’t break in, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She gestured to her evening gown. “Climb through a first floor window in this ensemble? Heavens, no! I opened the door and walked in. No one seemed to notice. Really, Aidan,” she added, shaking her head as if in amazement, “it doesn’t seem like you to have such an inferior butler. He must be a new man.”

  Covington was new, but he had no intention of admitting that fact to her. She might have a talent for observation and deduction, but he didn’t have to encourage it. “You walked in?” he said with some skepticism. “Just like that?”

  “I rang the bell.” She shrugged. “No one answered. A domestic crisis involving one of the maids, it seems. At least that’s the conclusion I drew from all the shouting your butler was doing. You should give him the sack,” she went on as she opened the small gold evening bag on her lap and rummaged inside. “He doesn’t ensure that your doors are latched at night. That’s madness here in London. Why, anyone could just walk in, abscond with some of that lovely Tass silver you’ve got displayed in your foyer, and be back out the door in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  She paused long enough to pull out a slim, enameled case and extract a cigarette and a match, but before he could raise an objection to her smoking, she went on, “He abuses the lower servants, Aidan. He was berating that poor maid of yours loudly enough that I could hear his insults before I’d even reached your front door! Evidently, she missed a bit of soot when she was polishing the fireplace fender or some such nonsense, and he had the poor girl in tears over it.” She paused, and a queer, frozen brittleness came into her face. “She’s terrified of him.”

  Aidan frowned, not liking her implications about his butler, liking even less what he saw in her face. But then she looked up at him and smiled again, and the brittleness dissolved into her usual cheerful impudence. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “I do mind, as a matter of fact. You know how I feel about it. And I thought you said you were trying to stop this particular vice.”

  “I am trying, but it isn’t going very well.” She sighed and shot him an apologetic look. “I’ve no willpower at all, I’m afraid.”

  “Try harder,” he said, unfolding his arms and leaning down to yank the cigarette and the match out of her hands. He tossed the offending items into the fireplace. “Women should not smoke. It’s—”

  “Not decorous, yes, I know,” she interrupted. “You said that the first time we ever met.”

  It surprised him that she still remembered their very first conversation, but then every time he saw her, she seemed able to surprise him, shock him, and keep him off-balance. It was very trying.

  “You haven’t changed since then, by the way,” she told him. “Your notions about what women should do are as antiquated now as they were when we were seventeen. But really, Aidan, when have I ever done what I should?”

  “Never,” he acknowledged with a sigh.

  “Besides, I don’t think my smoking habit, shameless as it is, ought to be your greatest concern at this moment. You’ve something far more important to worry about, I fear.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The time, darling! It’s after ten.” She sighed, looking at him and shaking her head. “And you’re not even dressed for the opera.”

  “Opera?” Realization dawned, followed by dismay. “Lady Felicia. Damn and blast, I completely forgot.”

  She laughed. “Lady Felicia does have that effect on men.”

  He cast her an impatient glance as he pulled out his pocket watch, not nearly as amused as she seemed to be. He confirmed the time, his dismay growing. “I’ve already missed the first intermission.”

  “Don’t worry, petal. You shall arrive in plenty of time to make the second one. That is,” she added, rising to follow him as he put his watch away and started for the door, “if your valet is more efficient than your butler. If so, you’ll be able to change clothes and be at Covent Garden just in time. Still, if I were you, I wouldn’t rush it, not to be in Lady Felicia’s company. You already have a ticket, I hope?”

  He stopped and turned to find her so close that she almost cannoned into him. Instinctively, he put his hands on her arms to steady them both. The moment he did, he felt her silky skin against his palms and jerked his hands down, but it was already too late. With just that brief contact, arousal began flooding his body.

  He took a deep breath, trying to think. “I don’t need a ticket. I have a box, something I’m surprised you don’t know, since you seem to know everything else about me. And since we’re on the subject, how do you know I’m supposed to be attending the opera and meeting Lady Felicia? Never mind,” he added as she opened her mouth to explain. “I don’t want to know.”

  He turned and started for the stairs, but then he remembered what she’d said about Covington, and he paused to give the bellpull at the foot of the stairs a hard yank. As he waited for his summons to be answered, Julia did not depart. Instead, she paused by the front door as the parlor maid, Ellis, came running from the back of the house.

  The moment Aidan saw the servant’s face, Julia’s concern was confirmed. The maid’s lip was cut and her cheek was swollen, and it was clear she’d been backhanded, hard. When she looked at him, he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed from weeping, and there was a painful resignation in her expression that told him she fully expected to be dismissed from her post as the one to blame. Rage began seeping into Aidan’s bones, and he wondered if Scotland Yard would do anything to punish a duke if he beat his soon-to-be former butler to a bloody pulp.

  The maid ducked her head and dipped a cu
rtsy, lowering her gaze to the floor. “You rang the bell, sir?”

  “I did, Miss Ellis. Tell Mrs. Bowles to cancel the supper I requested, and have my carriage brought around. And have a footman inform Covington that I wish to see him in my rooms at once.”

  Her shoulders drooped, her resignation deepening into despair. “Yes, sir,” she whispered, and started to depart, but he stopped her.

  “Ellis?” When she paused, he said gently, “Tell Bowles I said to make an ice poultice for you. And don’t be uneasy, my girl. You won’t be sacked, and he won’t strike you again. He’ll be gone before I leave this evening. I promise you.”

  The poor girl’s knees almost caved beneath her and she gave a sob of relief.

  “I will inform Mrs. Ward of this situation before I depart,” he went on. “As housekeeper, she will be in charge until a new butler is engaged. You may go.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” She curtsied again and departed, practically stumbling over her own feet in her haste to carry out his instructions.

  When she was gone, he glanced at Julia and found her watching him. She started to speak, then stopped and swallowed hard. It was several moments before she tried again. “You’re a good man, Aidan,” she said at last.

  He looked away, embarrassed yet strangely pleased, though he didn’t feel he deserved praise for his action. No true gentleman would continue to employ a butler who abused the lower servants, or any other woman for that matter. “Why the devil are you still here?” he said in a gruff voice as he started up the stairs. “I thought you said you had plans this evening?”

  “I’m going, I’m going,” she assured him as she opened the front door. “I don’t want to miss the Ride of the Valkyries. It’s my favorite part.”

  “You’re going to Covent Garden, too?” He stopped again and turned on the landing to look at her. “Of course you are,” he muttered, answering his own question. “Why should my luck change now?”

  She smiled that dazzling smile of hers. “Want to share a cab?”

  Despite everything, he could feel an answering smile tugging at the corners of his own mouth. He turned away before she could see it, for he didn’t want to encourage her.

  “I saw that,” she called after him as he continued up the stairs.

  He grinned. He couldn’t help it. She really was the most outrageous woman. She always had been.

  The second intermission had just begun when Julia returned to Covent Garden. Paul and Eugenia were attending the opera with her, but only Paul was in the Danbury box when she entered it.

  Paul, fair-haired and brown-eyed like their mutual cousin Beatrix, stood by the rail, staring down at the crowd below and drinking a glass of champagne. “All alone?” she asked as she crossed to his side.

  He turned to her as she joined him at the rail, visibly relieved. “Mum saw that the Marlowe family is here, and she went to have a visit with them during intermission. Where on earth have you been? I thought you were only slipping out for some fresh air, but you’ve been gone over an hour.”

  “I encountered some people I knew, and we started talking, and the minutes just flew by. I didn’t realize how much time had passed until other people began streaming outside and I realized it was the second intermission.”

  Julia was able to utter this slew of lies without a blush. A lifetime of being rebellious and twelve years of marriage to Yardley had given her a perfectly honed ability to lie whenever she deemed it necessary.

  Paul accepted the story without even asking whom she’d encountered outside. “Well, thank heaven you’re back. Mother insisted upon whispering to me all during the second act because she didn’t have you to talk to instead.”

  “Driving you a bit batty, was she?” Julia asked with sympathy as she set her evening bag on her seat and draped her stole over the crimson velvet back.

  “Rather. Why you women insist upon watching people through your opera glasses and gossiping, instead of watching the performance, is beyond my understanding.”

  “Darling Paul, no one—except you, perhaps—goes to the opera for what’s on stage. The audience is the interesting part.” She chuckled as she glanced across the way and located Vale’s box. Squinting, she could make out a feminine figure in pale green standing by the railing, but she was too far away to see who it was, and in any case, there seemed to be no one else in Vale’s box at present. Aidan, who’d had to change into evening clothes, hadn’t yet arrived.

  Julia bent down to retrieve her opera glasses from the pocket attached to the short wall in front of her seat, for when he did appear, she wanted to be ready. She adored comedy, and watching Aidan, so polite and proper, attempt to escape Lady Felicia was sure to be deuced amusing. She’d been looking forward to it ever since visiting Vivienne the day before, and she’d been so disappointed when the first intermission had come and gone with no sign of him, so disappointed in fact that she’d had to go looking for him.

  “Anyway,” Paul went on, “I forbid you to leave your seat again until this is over, Julie. That way, Mum will resume chatting with you about who’s here and with whom, and who’s wearing which jewels, and I can enjoy the music.”

  “I shall be happy to be your buffer, Paul. It’s the least I can do, after the way you’ve so staunchly stood by me.”

  “Of course I’ll stand by you. We all will. Family, you know. I just wish I’d been able to rid you of that blackguard years ago.”

  “I know.” She squeezed his arm affectionately. “But there was nothing you could have done, and it’s over now. I’m just sorry the family has to endure the humiliation of it all.”

  “No need to be sorry. I suppose any woman married to Yardley would eventually be driven into the arms of another man.”

  That made her almost want to smile. Paul was such a pet. He actually believed it had all been accidental and romantic.

  “Who’d have dreamed Yardley would kick up such a fuss over you having an affair? But still, Julie . . . Aidan?” He paused and shook his head, looking at her, bemused. “You could have knocked me down with a feather—all of us, really—when the story came out. We didn’t think the two of you even liked each other, and with Trix having been engaged to him, and all that—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I’m babbling. Point is, having you home again has been a godsend. You’ve been back less than a week, and already my life is so much more pleasant.”

  “I’m glad.” She hesitated, then said, “Is there no chance you and Susanna could—”

  “No,” he cut her off before she could finish asking about his wife’s possible return to England from America. “She has informed me she intends to stay in Newport indefinitely.”

  Julia sighed and sank down onto her chair. “I do wish you two would work things out.”

  “We can’t.” His face was frozen, his body stiff as he sat down beside her. “It’s not possible.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, well, love’s rotten.” He tried to smile. “When it’s over.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “but it’s wonderful while it lasts.”

  She looked down over the rail, but in her mind’s eye, she didn’t see the boxes across the way with their crimson velvet seats and their gilded moldings and lavishly dressed patrons. Instead, she saw the lodge on her father’s estate and the man who had leased it, a dozen years older than she, a man with long hair and Dangerous Ideas. “I was in love once.”

  “You were?” Paul’s voice was full of astonishment. “I never knew that. Who was he? Not Yardley, surely!”

  She shook her head. “Not Yardley.”

  “Who, then?”

  She didn’t answer for a moment. She was thinking back to that moment when she’d first laid eyes on Stephen Graham. A handsome man, handsome in the dreamy, wild, brooding poet’s way that had appealed so much to her girlish heart. She hadn’t known, not in that first moment, that he wrote the most beautiful poetry she’d ever read in her life. She hadn’t known she would risk
everything simply to be with him and the price she would pay for it. But in that first shared glance, before she’d even known his name, she had already known what it was like to love and be loved. What had Stephen called it in a poem? The divine sting of happiness.

  “He was no one important,” she said, answering Paul’s question. “We used to meet in secret.” She paused. “It was wonderful.”

  “What happened?”

  “Papa found out and put a stop to it, forbade me to marry him, and sent him away.”

  “Deuced bad luck,” Paul murmured. “Why couldn’t you have fallen in love with someone acceptable to Uncle Percy?”

  “Me?” she quipped, forcing lightness into the moment. “Do something acceptable? Heaven forbid.”

  Paul laughed at that. “You do have a tendency to swim against the tide. You always have.”

  “We were going to elope,” she confided. “He left, and I followed him to Scotland a few weeks later, but when I got to Peebles, he was dead. Scarlet fever, his people told me. Part of me died with him. Papa and Mama came after me and dragged me home, and they insisted on marrying me off to someone else before I caused a scandal that couldn’t be hushed up.”

  “That’s how you ended up marrying Yardley. Our lot all knew when you became engaged that something wasn’t right. Your parents were pushing for the match, but you didn’t seem to want it much. We never understood why you agreed.”

  “It would have been like me to rebel at that, too, you think?”

  “Well . . .” Paul shot her a look of apology. “Yes.”

  She smiled ruefully. “I wanted to make good for all my past mistakes. Yardley was . . . I suppose I thought he was my penance.”

  “A high price for falling in love,” Paul remarked. “Do you ever regret it? Falling in love, I mean?”

  She smiled. “Never.”

  “No. Neither do I.” He smiled, a melancholy smile. “Susanna’s not coming back.”