The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior

by Jennifer McQuiston

  It would have been better to pick the lock.

  Could she outrun him? Wilson was old, but he wasn’t wearing skirts and carrying a bag. She didn’t like her odds.

  “And where might you be going this fine, early morning?” he asked, as though their meeting was a casual one.

  Lucy took another frantic step backward, until the bark of the tree dug against her back. He was part of the family, but he was also a servant. He couldn’t stop her, not really.

  He could only tell her father.

  But that would mean disaster, given that the train didn’t depart the station until eight o’clock. She expected her father to eventually come after her, of course. But she hoped to have at least a day’s head start. “I’d rather not say,” she told him tersely.

  “I see. Do you mean to tell me you’ve found enough money for the journey?” Wilson inclined his head, his broad face awash in doubt “I was led to believe you lacked the funds to reach Cornwall.”

  Lucy bit her lip. She should have known Wilson would be aware of all of this. The man knew everything that went on at Cardwell House. “I’ve enough to get there,” she told him defiantly. “That’s all that matters.”

  “I see.” He crossed his arms. “And how will you eat once you are there?”

  “Well, there are rats, aren’t there?” As his bushy brows rose, she sighed. “Honestly, I will sort it out when I get there. You can’t stop me, Wilson. So you may as well bid me good-bye.”

  His familiar frown made her chest squeeze tight, reminding her that in spite of their long history, she was going to miss the man. He inclined his head. “I haven’t come to stop you.”

  She blinked. “You . . . you haven’t?”

  “No.” He stepped forward, and she tensed. But instead of grabbing her arm, as she had feared, he picked up her hand and pressed something cold and metal into her palm. “Safe journeys, Miss Lucy.”

  She looked down. In the dim gaslight, she caught the glint of two gold sovereigns.

  “But . . . you . . .” she stammered through a sudden wash of tears. “You can’t mean to do this. You could lose your position,” she protested.

  “I wiped your father’s nose when he was a lad,” he scoffed. “I wiped his sister Edith’s nose as well, God rest her soul. He’s not going to sack me.” He gave her a rare ghost of a smile. “And I’m not trying to help you reach Cornwall, Miss Lucy. I don’t imagine I could stop you with a pistol and a length of rope.” His big voice shook with emotion, and if she wasn’t mistaken there was a sheen of tears in his eyes as well. “No, I’m trying to help you get back safely, you see.”

  Lucy’s fingers closed over the precious coins. “Thank you,” she whispered, swallowing the lump in her throat.

  Wilson regained a bit of his usual frown. “And I insist you take a cab to the station. ’Tis too dangerous to walk this time of morning. All sorts of suspicious sorts lurking about.”

  “But . . . I need every penny,” she confessed.

  “There’s a hackney waiting on the corner of Oxford Street. I’ve just come from paying the driver.”

  Lucy gaped at him. “How did you know—”

  He smiled again. “Your next steps are never that hard to guess. I just imagine the most impulsive path possible, and there you are, tripping along it, brave as anything.” His smile fell away, leaving him suddenly looking more like the old Wilson she knew. “If you like, I will tell your father you are skulking about in your room and don’t wish to see anyone. That should buy you a day or two’s head start at least.”

  Lucy stared at him, speechless. Not even Lydia had been willing to do this for her.

  And Lydia was family.

  He jerked his head toward Oxford Street. “Go on, then. Quickly, before I change my mind.”

  Lucy took several steps toward freedom, hugging her bag to her chest. At the corner, she could make out the shadowy shape of the cab and horse that would carry her to the train station. She turned around to look at the servant she’d known nearly all her life one last time. “Wilson?”

  He stood like a dark rock in the street. “Yes?”

  With a soft cry, she launched herself into his arms. She hugged him fiercely, as though this good-bye could stretch to the rest of her family. Somehow, in this moment, knowing she had Wilson’s approval was enough.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Just promise me you’ll try to stay out of trouble,” he said gruffly over the top of her head, patting her back.

  “I’ll try to,” she promised, pulling back with a smile. “But we both know my efforts don’t always end well on that front.”

  And then, with her bag in one hand, she ran like the dickens for Oxford Street.

  STREAKS OF DAWN were just appearing on the horizon as Thomas made his way out of the hotel. Or at least they should have been appearing.

  If he had been back home in Lizard Bay instead of London, he was quite sure he could have seen it. Instead, soot-streaked buildings obscured his view. When he breathed in, the morning breeze smelled of coal fires instead of salt air and sea grass. And the muddled pounding of his head told him that even had the sky been more promising, he was still too knackered from last night’s dive into the bottle to properly appreciate it.

  Wincing from the effort of breathing, he lifted a hand to hail one of the cabs sitting in a line. A voice pushed from behind his shoulder. “Branston?”

  He stiffened but didn’t turn around.

  The voice came again. “Excuse me, but are you perchance Lord Branston?”

  Thomas gritted his teeth and forced his feet to turn. A well-dressed gentleman grinned up at him, umbrella in hand, hat perched quite properly on top of his head. The man was close to his own age and looked vaguely familiar, but then, all of London did.

  He’d once imagined himself friends with half the ton. It had taken his sister’s scandal to realize that friendship was a term best used loosely in London. The discovery of the true friendships he’d formed in Cornwall had shown him that such memories of his friends in London were based on little more than smoke and mirrors.

  Thomas tried to school the surly expression that wanted to settle on his face. “Are we acquainted, sir?”

  “Wellingsford. Edward Wellingsford. Come now, don’t say you don’t recall?”

  Thomas shook his head.

  “We went to university together?”

  “Did we?” Thomas responded bleakly. He still didn’t remember. And while he didn’t remember many details of what came after graduation, given his rapid descent into dissolution once he’d entered London’s social scene as a marquess who’d reached his majority, he remembered very well his years of study during university.

  He’d bet his right hand he had never seen this man in a single, solitary class.

  “Well, I was there the first year. I was thrown out for doing poorly.” The man shuffled his feet. “But we both belong to the same club. And I came to your sister’s funeral.”

  Thomas forced himself to give a curt nod. He still didn’t remember, but perhaps pretending to might send the man scurrying off.

  “How long has it been?” the man mused. “Two years?”

  “Three,” Thomas murmured, turning back to the street and raising his hand again. Damn it, but why was the hackney taking so long?

  “I was sorry to hear about your sister,” Wellingsford said next, glib as punch. “Though, from the gossip I heard, I have to say it was probably for the best.”

  A red haze of anger descended over Thomas’s line of sight, and he had to force himself to stare straight ahead, to not react. For Christ’s sake, it had been three bloody years. Were the gossips still talking about Josephine as though she were a parlor joke? A cautionary tale, meant to scare young women into prudish compliance?

  It happened to the sister of a marquess, it could happen to you, too.

  Christ, but this visit had devolved into everything he’d feared encountering in London. The incessant gossip. The
false smiles.

  The now-empty brandy bottle, rolling about the floor of his hotel room.

  He’d promised himself he wouldn’t fall into old habits. That he was better than that, different inside. But his hard-fought sobriety in Cornwall had apparently made him forget this piece of his former life. From the moment he stepped off the train yesterday, the sounds and scents of the city had crept beneath his skin and stirred unwelcome memories. The disastrous meeting with Miss Westmore hadn’t helped.

  Here he was, not even twenty-four hours in London, facing the mean-spirited censure of former friends and clawing his way out of a bottle.

  A better man would swear never again. A lesser man would seek out a dose of laudanum to shave the edges from last night’s mistake.

  He counted himself somewhere in between, and so he did neither.

  “Have you seen Miss Highton yet?” Wellingsford pattered on, pulling Thomas’s thoughts reluctantly toward his former fiancée. “I hear she’s doing all right for herself, though she’s facing her fourth Season now. Angling for a duke, to hear the tales.” The bastard actually laughed. “Must have been a blow for you to lose a woman that beautiful. I know I wouldn’t kick her out of my bed on a Monday.”

  Thomas turned slowly, his hands clenching. “I don’t care to hear such things said about my former fiancée, thank you very much.” He glared down at Wellingsford. Gabrielle’s callousness might have once left him reeling, but she didn’t deserve such slander.

  Something in Thomas’s expression caused Wellingsford’s eyes to widen, and he took a quick step back, his hands held up in defense. “No need to get testy. I didn’t mean any harm to the girl. I’m just making polite conversation.” He pushed a nervous laugh from his lips. “She wouldn’t have me anyway, old chap. I’m only a second son. Too lowborn for the likes of Miss Highton.” He glanced toward the cab, which was finally rolling to a stop at the curb. “Say,” he said, brightening “can we share a cab?”

  “No.” Thomas clambered up into the hackney, feeling strangled by his high collar and necktie. Feeling, too, disgusted with the Wellingsfords of the world.

  “Come on, then,” the man whined, placing a hand on the cab’s runner. “Just a quick hop across town. We could catch up. Lots to talk about. It’s been three years, after all.”

  Thomas leaned down, beckoning the man closer. Wellingsford stupidly tipped an ear toward him. Though it was probably a terrible idea, given how quickly rumors flew through London, Thomas grabbed the man’s coat lapel and hoisted him closer. “If I let you up in this cab,” he growled, “and have to listen to one more disgusting word out of your mouth, I can promise you your face will be rearranged before we even reach your destination.” He released his hold on the man’s coat and patted the man’s hat for good measure.

  Wellingsford stepped back, his face a ghastly white. “Er . . . n-never mind,” he stammered. “I think I see another cab.”

  As the bastard hurried away, Thomas settled back in the seat, a grin settling on his face for the first time all morning. He knew he had likely just started a new train of gossip that would soon be spread through every club in London.

  Mad Marquess Threatens Idiot.

  Well, that was a change of headline he could live with, at least.

  “Where to, governor?” the driver asked, far too cheerfully for seven o’clock in the morning.

  Though Thomas had intended to go straight to the train station, for some reason—no doubt on account of his encounter with Edward Wellingsford—his tongue now took an unexpected detour. One he had promised himself he wouldn’t take.

  Then again, his judgment had never been trustworthy when rendered down the barrel of a bottle. “Golden Square, if you please.”

  As the driver chirruped to the horse, Thomas slouched down into his seat and lifted a hand to his temple, pressing gingerly. What had made him say that? There was no doubt the unwelcome encounter with Wellingsford had stirred his emotions, but was this a good idea? He’d left three years ago as much to protect her as to protect himself, and distance was an essential element to that unspoken agreement. He didn’t know what he might be capable of if he saw her again. Perhaps he was still drunk.

  Although . . . he was quite sure his head would probably feel better if he was.

  Too soon, they were at Golden Square. The driver tied off the reins, but Thomas didn’t get down. Instead, he leaned back against the cracked leather seat and stared up at the red brick town house he had last seen three years ago.

  It seemed different, somehow.

  Whatever else he’d expected of the address, it wasn’t this starched, residential street lined with its spindle-limbed trees, the branches patiently waiting for the warmth of late spring. Then again, those days around his sister’s funeral and Gabrielle’s scathing betrayal had been almost insensible. He recalled coming here, of course, to meet with her.

  To beg her to change her mind.

  To come with him to Cornwall, if necessary.

  But one by one she had rebuked his suggestions, standing firm, preferring to choose her own path. It was odd how he could remember how she had looked, the tears swimming in her eyes, but couldn’t recall the look of the town house.

  But was it any wonder? It had all been conducted in a drunken haze.

  No doubt that was why the actual look of the place took him by surprise this morning.

  As the morning began to lighten around him, the house slowly came to life. A light flared in the downstairs window, a servant stirring about. Then a light appeared abovestairs, in what he presumed was her bedroom.

  “Shall I go and knock for you, gov’nor?” The cabbie sounded confused.

  “No.” Thomas shook his head, but stilled as the curtains on the second floor moved. He heard the sounds of the sash coming up, and his eyes stayed sewn to the spot. He’d not seen her since the day after the funeral, when he came by one last time, determined to make her see reason. But as the muslin stirred and the sound of light laughter reached him through the window, he caught a glimpse of a profile he’d once known as well as his own, and his breath caught in his throat.

  She’d changed. Grown less slender.

  But there was no doubt it was her.

  The sound of her morning laughter through the open sash plucked a nerve inside him. He felt tautly strung, ready to burst. Once upon a time, he’d have done anything to pull laughter from those lips. He’d make up limericks. Tell terrible jokes. Tickle her arm, if the teasing didn’t work. How long had it been since he’d made someone laugh?

  God, did he even possess the skills anymore?

  “Gov’nor?” the driver asked again

  Thomas shook himself from his stupor. It hadn’t been a good idea to come. Christ, but would he ever be able to move on from this? It was clear she’d carved a new life for herself, one that didn’t involve him. He had no business intruding when she’d made her wishes quite clear.

  “My business here is done,” he answered briskly. “To Waterloo Bridge Station, if you please. Quick as you can, I need to make the eight o’clock train.”

  With a sour glance—no doubt on account of the stupidity of such a detour when time was marching by—the cabbie set off. Thomas leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes.

  She’d looked . . . well. Happy, even.

  That was something at least. It was a relief to know she had a normal life, and lived in a normal house. He wondered if she was as happy as she sounded, if she might eventually find someone she could love. He hoped so.

  No matter the nature of their parting, no matter even Wellingsford’s vile words, he’d never wished anything less for her. It was the closest glimpse he’d had of her in three years, and already he couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before he had another.

  Bloody hell, he could use another drink.

  From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore

  February 21, 1813

  Second impressions give one a better understanding of a person than
first impressions, I think. A peek behind the curtain, so to speak.

  Well, Reverend Wellsbury has been given a peek he won’t soon forget.

  After the audacity of his kiss—followed by his unwelcome lecture on propriety—I made sure to sit in the front pew of church this week. I also sewed a bright red ribbon along the edge of my crinoline, and shortened the hem of my skirts. Sure enough, the pompous windbag stumbled over his sermon every time I flashed my ankle.

  Proving, of course, that men are imminently untrustworthy.

  They all say they want a pure, obedient wife, but then lose their heads over a bit of red ribbon. I wonder if the good vicar realizes the potential moral peril in staring at a woman’s unutterables? He should be pleased that he now has something more significant to worry about than me living alone on the edge of a cliff.

  Now he has to worry about me coming to church.

  Chapter 8

  Thomas trudged his way down the boarding platform. The entire trip was a failure. He’d failed to convince Miss Westmore to sell Heathmore Cottage, with all its hidden secrets. He’d broken down and visited the one address he had sworn to avoid. And the reek of brandy on his breath and his pounding head were reminders enough he’d failed in that respect, too.

  Just three more reasons to hate London.

  Damn, but it was crowded at the station this morning. A schoolboy in plaid wool tossed a ball from one hand to the other, and as he passed, Thomas was reminded enough of Danny to glance down to make sure the boy was wearing shoes. At the edge of the platform a young man in a checked apron tried in vain to sweep up the castoffs of humanity, pushing paper wrappers and discarded flyers on the edge of his broom. But much like the people themselves, the detritus just circled back around to fill in the empty space.

  Thomas had never liked crowds, preferring instead to lurk amongst libraries and gardens. But when his time at university had ended, he’d felt adrift, unsure of what to do with himself. He’d been almost pushed toward the teeming streets of London, his preferences be damned. He was a marquess, after all, and there were certain . . . expectations . . . to the position.