Scandal of the Year

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “I only came down about twenty minutes ago.”

  “How terribly indolent of you, Aidan, to stay abed so long.”

  He didn’t tell her his indolence was the result of a very restless night.

  “I’ve been down for over an hour,” she added.

  “You have?” He shot her a dubious look that made her laugh. “You, up and about at eight o’clock in the morning?”

  “I am capable of it, you know,” she assured him with a smile.

  “Well, you can’t really blame me for having doubts. I seem to recall that at Pixy Cove, you were nearly always the last one down to the beach.”

  “Are you saying I’m lazy?” she demanded, but the humor in her voice told him she wasn’t insulted. “Pixy Cove’s different. When I’m there, I’m on holiday. Here, I have things to do and no time to laze the day away. I’ve been hard at work on your behalf, I’ll have you know.”

  “My behalf?”

  “Yes. I’ve been through all the new invitations your secretary forwarded. What with helping Aunt Gennie prepare for the house party, this morning’s the first chance I’ve had to set to, and there are some definite possibilities. Shall we discuss them after dinner?”

  Somehow, he couldn’t muster much enthusiasm, but he nodded.

  “Also there are several young ladies who live nearby with whom you should become acquainted. We may want to involve Aunt Gennie in that. She knows the local gentry hereabouts far better than I do.”

  “Eugenia?” He groaned. “No. Her matchmaking efforts I can well do without. She ushered me over to Miss McGill last night with so much eagerness, you’d have thought the girl was her own daughter.”

  She made a choked sound, but when she spoke, her voice was bland. “Yes, so I saw.”

  “It was not amusing, Julia.”

  “Yes, it was. Just not to you.” She gestured to another path. “As to Aunt Gennie,” Julia went on as they turned in that direction, “you can’t really blame her. She feels some responsibility for you still being a bachelor. She was chaperoning Beatrix at Pixy Cove, you know, and to her mind, if she’d been a more diligent chaperone, you never would have caught Trix and Will in a compromising situation. And she finds it reassuring to know that you are considering matrimony again, proving that her negligence caused no permanent damage.”

  “I can understand that. Just don’t let her labor under any misapprehensions that I harbor a romantic interest in Miss McGill.”

  “What, you didn’t like Eileen?” Julia asked, actually sounding surprised. But as they stopped to let Spike investigate an intriguing smell amid the rhododendrons along the path, Aidan shot a sideways glance at her and saw that upward curve at the edges of her lips. “But I don’t understand. She’s a very sweet girl.”

  “Yes, she is,” he agreed, “and I’m not the least bit interested in her. But I suspect you knew I wouldn’t be.”

  Her smile faded, and suddenly, she seemed just as interested in the flowers bordering the path as Spike was. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, leaning forward to pluck off a few spent blossoms.

  “Don’t you? Hmm . . . amazing that someone who was so perceptive about what I would think of Felicia Vale should be so obtuse when it comes to Eileen McGill.”

  She still didn’t look at him. “Attraction is sometimes an inexplicable thing, and Eileen is a remarkably pretty girl. How was I to know she wouldn’t attract you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps the fact that she snorts when she laughs might have been a clue?”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Really, Aidan, it’s a bit shallow of you, isn’t it, to judge a woman by her laugh? For all I knew, you might have been captivated enough to overlook it, or perhaps even find it endearing. You might have decided on the spot you want to spend your life with her.”

  He thought of a life of upside-down drawers and frogs popping out of clocks, and he shuddered. “While I’m sure Miss McGill will make some man an excellent wife, I can safely say I will never be that man.”

  She shrugged. “All right, then. You don’t want Eileen. Now I know.”

  “I think you knew it all along.” He leaned sideways, easing closer to her while allowing Spike to remain between them. He studied her profile, appreciating with pure masculine pleasure the luminous flush of pink that spread across her cheek, liking the finely molded line of her chin and the delicate shape of her ear. He imagined the velvety softness of her earlobe against his mouth and the satiny texture of her inky black hair sliding through his fingers. “I think you were perfectly aware of Miss McGill’s fondness for practical jokes, and you knew what my reaction to that sort of woman would be. So you engineered a little practical joke of your own.”

  She made a smothered sound, trying for all she was worth not to laugh and give the show away. “Why on earth would I do such a thing?”

  “To bedevil me, perhaps? You seem quite fond of that particular sport.” He paused, and as he studied her, he thought again of how she’d looked in the library, and a deeper revelation occurred to him, one that was even more intriguing and dangerous than the desire he thought he’d seen in her face. “But bedeviling me isn’t really the reason you had Eugenia shove Miss McGill in my direction, is it?” he added softly.

  Her amusement vanished. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you? Eileen McGill was the first unmarried girl you could use to block my path.” He moved closer. “My path to you.”

  “You hired me to introduce you to potential brides.”

  “Not precisely. I hired you to assist me with forming a wider circle of acquaintance.”

  “With a view to matrimony. And anyway,” she added, her voice rising a notch in obvious agitation, “I didn’t shove Eileen at you!” With a tug on Spike’s leash, she continued down the path.

  “No,” he agreed, easily keeping pace with her hurried steps. “You introduced us. Your aunt did the shoving, at your instigation. But Eileen aside, you can’t deny that you were the one who practically threw Phoebe Marlowe into my arms in the library yesterday.”

  “What?” She stopped again, causing him to stop as well. “I did not—”

  “Another woman you know I have no interest in,” he added, interrupting her outraged protest, “and who is not the least bit interested in me. That’s why you felt safe in using her to keep me at bay.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Being that you are a gentleman, you should have offered to escort Phoebe into the hall, and you didn’t.” She paused, then added in a lofty tone, “I covered your lapse of good manners.”

  “My lapse?” He laughed. “That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. Really, Julia, your clever brain can’t come up with something better than that?”

  “I don’t see what’s so amusing. And I don’t understand why you are attributing me with all these secret motives. I’m your social secretary, aren’t I? You want to marry, don’t you? You wanted a wider social circle, didn’t you? Well, I’m helping you along. That’s just the plain truth.”

  “The truth?” He smiled, more convinced his theory was correct with each defensive, indignant word she uttered. “You’re right to say the truth is plain. At least, it is to me. I’m wondering, however, if it’s equally plain to you. I don’t think it is.”

  “I wish you’d stop speaking in riddles!” she burst out. “If you have something to say, then say it.”

  “All right. I think you’re shoving all these other women at me because you’re afraid.”

  “Afraid of what, in heaven’s name?”

  He leaned closer. His gaze lowered to her lips, watched them part, watched her tongue dart out to lick them in nervous agitation. “You’re afraid of being attracted to me yourself.”

  “What? Of all the conceited, asinine . . .” She spluttered, her voice trailing away, as if she just didn’t have words to articulate how absurd his conclusion was. From Julia, who was always ready with a clever quip, spl
uttering was a sure sign he was on the right track.

  “Strange, isn’t it,” he went on. “You’re so damned perceptive about everyone else, but you don’t understand the first thing about your own feelings. No wonder I didn’t see it sooner—you’re superb at hiding how you truly feel, even from yourself.”

  “How I feel? I don’t feel anything, not for you.”

  He leaned even closer, so close he could smell the scent of lilacs on her skin, so close his lips almost brushed her ear, and when he spoke, his breath stirred the dark tendril of hair at her cheek. “I don’t believe you.”

  She jerked, stepping back and folding her arms as if to erect another barrier between them. “I was never attracted to you,” she said in a hard voice. “You said it yourself the night of the May Day Ball. I used you, it’s done, and though I seduced you, I didn’t care two straws for you. I never did.”

  He already knew that, but after yesterday in the library, he also knew it might not be true anymore. “I like the forbidden fruit,” he murmured. “What can I say?”

  She made a sound of exasperation. “For heaven’s sake, if I wanted you myself, why would I ever agree to introduce you to other women? Hmm?” She nodded, as if she’d scored a point or something.

  “A child could see why. You’re using those women to keep me at a distance because you’re afraid of having me—or any other man, for that matter—get close to you.”

  Her chin quivered, showing that under the surface bravado, he was the one scoring points. He kept going. “That’s why you have Spike. That’s why you lost no time shoving other women at me. Yet at the same time, you can’t bear the thought of introducing me to a woman I might actually desire. Hence, Eileen. And Phoebe, too. We’ve known each other for years, and if I wanted her, I’d have made a move in that direction long before now. You know that, so it’s safe to throw her at me. Face it, Julia.” His smile widened with a complacence he was far from feeling. “You want me.”

  “This is nonsense, complete and utter nonsense! And . . . and . . . I can prove it!”

  “Really? How?”

  “By doing what you hired me for! During the next two weeks, I’ll introduce you to women so beautiful, it’ll make your head spin; women so charming, you’ll be enchanted; women so desirable, it’ll drive you mad. Before this house party is over, you’ll be lusting after one of those women like a randy sailor on shore leave!”

  She turned on her heel, jerked Spike’s leash, and marched away with the bulldog in tow.

  “Too late, Julie,” he murmured under his breath. “I met that woman thirteen years ago.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  During the years of her marriage, Julia had developed a talent for evasion and avoidance, and during the days that followed her conversation with Aidan in the gardens, she made good use of that talent, but though she managed to keep well away from him, his words to her proved harder to avoid. They had the irritating tendency to come back to her again and again.

  Face it, Julia. You want me.

  “Of all the conceit,” she muttered, not for the first time, and rolled her eyes.

  “Pardon, madame?” Giselle paused in the act of placing a spray of lilacs in her hair, and met her gaze in the mirror of the dressing table.

  “Nothing, Giselle,” Julia said hastily, waving a hand in the air. “Carry on.”

  The maid resumed dressing her hair, and Julia’s thoughts returned to Aidan’s contentions, contentions that she knew were absurd. Of course he was a terribly attractive man, she’d always known that. And of course any normal, healthy woman with an ounce of sensual feeling would find him desirable. Those facts weren’t in dispute. But Julia didn’t fall into that category. Any sensual feeling she had within her was long gone.

  And even if what he said was the truth, even if she did feel a certain attraction to him herself, what difference could it make? He wanted to marry, and that was the last thing in the world she wanted.

  No, best all around if she diverted his attention to some other woman, a woman who had some chance of making him happy.

  She knew his type well enough, and over the past few days, she had determined that there were several young ladies here who might suit him, right down to their brown eyes, sweet dispositions, and perfect pedigrees. Tonight, she intended to steer them in his direction. One of them was bound to catch his eye and make him forget any silly ideas he might have about her.

  Two hours later, however, Julia was forced to admit her confident prediction might have been a bit premature.

  After dinner when everyone was milling about the drawing room and its connecting music room, she ascertained the locations of her first two choices, and then sidled up alongside Aidan at the table of fruits, cheeses, and cordials.

  “Are you ready to take the plunge back into courtship?” she asked him, nibbling a grape as he poured himself a glass of port.

  “Plunge into courtship?” he echoed, frowning in bewilderment.

  “What,” she countered, opening her eyes ingenuously wide, giving him her most mischievous smile, “did you think I’d forgotten my vow from the other day?”

  Julia would not have been human if she didn’t find his expression of dismay a bit gratifying. But it took him only one or two seconds to recover.

  “I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he said and shrugged. “I mean, if you don’t want me, what other choice do I have?”

  His voice was suspiciously bland, but she chose to take those words at face value.

  “See the girl in pink standing by Sir George and Lady Debenham? Dark brown hair? Pearls around her neck? That’s Lady Frances Mowbray. She’s—”

  “No,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “I’ve already met Lady Frances. She won’t do.”

  “Oh.” She felt a bit disconcerted by this immediate and unequivocal refusal to consider Lady Frances. “Didn’t you like her?”

  “I thought she was charming. I didn’t like her father.”

  “What’s wrong with her father? Lord Mowbray is a viscount, with substantial lands.”

  “He’s a lout. Far too fond of music hall dancers, if the gossip is to be believed. He’s a heavy drinker, and an even heavier gambler, and he’s deeply in debt from these dissolute habits.”

  “That has nothing to do with her,” Julia pointed out reasonably. “She can’t be blamed for her father’s dissolute habits.”

  “Agreed, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to be paying my wife’s father’s gambling debts. That’s a bottomless well if ever there was one. Not to mention the possibilities of scandal associated with a skirt-chasing gambler. No.”

  “All right then,” Julia said, rallying with another glance around. “There’s a slender, willowy blond standing by the piano with Vivian Marlowe. See her? White lace dress, with pink rosebuds in her hair? That’s Jane Heyer.”

  Aidan gave Miss Heyer a considering glance. “She’s lovely,” he was forced to concede.

  “Jane is the daughter of Sir Alfred Heyer, the famous botanist, and she’s the granddaughter of Earl Cavanaugh. As you see, she’s an exceptional beauty. She even has brown eyes, your favorite.”

  “This notion of yours that I have a preference for brown-eyed women is nonsense,” he objected.

  “If you say so. Jane’s mother, Lady Margaret, was the daughter of Henry Albemarle, Second Baronet Oxmoor, but she died when her daughter was a baby. Miss Heyer assisted her father extensively with his work in Africa, but came home four years ago to pursue a university education. She attended Girton College, graduating with honors.”

  “No.” He shook his head again. “I couldn’t possibly consider marrying her.”

  Julia was beginning to feel a bit frustrated. “How can you say that? You haven’t even met her.”

  “I don’t have to. She attended Girton College, you said?”

  “Yes. Why should that matter?” She frowned. “Oh, I see. You want a woman of keen intelligence, but heaven forbid she should ac
tually put her keen mind to good use by obtaining a university education. Is that it?”

  “Not at all. I take no issue with a woman attending university. I find it laudable, in fact.” He took a sip of port. “You’re missing the point.”

  She lifted her hands in a gesture of futility as he paused again. “What is the point?”

  “She went to Girton.” When she still continued to stare at him blankly, he added, “Girton is a Cambridge school.”

  Julia made a sound of disbelief at such an absurd excuse. “You would refuse to consider marrying a woman because she went to a Cambridge school?”

  He pointed a finger to his chest. “Oxford,” he said, then nodded at the girl. “Cambridge. It would never work. Who’s next?”

  She opened her mouth as if to argue, but closed it again. She knew Aidan well enough to know that if he’d made up his mind, there was no changing it, not about things like school ties. She might as well argue with him about the merits of bohemians and divorce. Not Jane Heyer.

  Julia took a glance around, searching for the third candidate on her list, and when she spied Peggy Bourne-West, she breathed a little sigh of relief. “There’s a girl in blue silk standing by Paul at the fireplace. Light brown hair.”

  “Very pretty,” he said, and Julia couldn’t help noting his lack of enthusiasm.

  She persevered. “Her name is Miss Margaret Bourne-West,” she said. “Her family—” She stopped, eyeing him doubtfully. “I don’t think I’ll provide any more information about her background. If I do, you’ll find a reason to be prejudiced against her.”

  “Too late,” he said, smiling. “I know her mother. Loathsome woman. I can’t tolerate Mrs. Bourne-West, and if she were my mother-in-law, I’d have to shoot myself. Do you have any other candidates for me to consider?”

  He made short shrift of the remaining three young ladies on her list as quickly as he had the first three, and she gave a sigh, thoroughly exasperated. Despite that, she was also just a little, tiny bit relieved. Knowing that was absurd, she tried to shut down.