by Merry Farmer
“Wherever did you get your hands on this?” she asked with a giddy giggle.
Mr. Mercer shrugged. “I have connections.”
“I bet you do,” Lenore said.
She thumbed through the first few pages, wondering what scandalous and juicy stories the latest issue of the erotic journal held. Before she could say anything, though, Mr. Mercer bowed abruptly and stepped away.
“Good evening, Miss Garrett. I hope we meet again soon,” he said.
“You’re not staying?” she called after him as he walked away. She’d been hoping he would ask her to dance.
“I have duties elsewhere,” he said with that cryptic grin of his, nodded, then walked off.
Lenore watched him go, feeling as though she’d let something precious get away, then glanced at the copy of Nocturne.
As soon as she read the title of the first story, her heart caught in her chest. “Confessions of an American Heiress from the Wild West.” Her mouth dropped as she read the first paragraph of the story. It leapt right into what purported to be a first-hand narrative of the scandalous adventures of a rancher’s daughter let loose in London.
By the time she reached the second paragraph, Lenore’s cheeks were burning.
“Oh, dear,” she giggled, unsure whether to be scandalized or delighted. It seemed as though she was the latest victim of the mysterious erotica author’s fantasies.
I hope you’ve enjoyed Phoebe and Danny’s story! I’ve actually had this one in mind for a long, long time, and it was so much fun to finally get to write it. Society and the concept of wealth was changing fast by the end of the nineteenth century. Old money and the families that had controlled it were dying out at a rate that alarmed the British upper classes. I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of stories of the American dollar princesses that swooped in to shore up the fortunes of great families (like the Churchills). And hint, hint, you’ll get to hear more about dollar princesses and their aims when Lenore and Phineas have their day in Scandal Meets Its Match, coming soon!
But the other side of the story is Danny’s side. Men who were born into middle-class circumstances were the ones who were rising to the top as the new brand of aristocracy, even though they didn’t have titles. Yes, some were granted titles after the fact for their contributions, like the Rothschilds. But not everyone. I have a hard time believing Danny would accept a title if one were offered to him.
The other aspect of this story that was fun to write about was the development of Earl’s Court. Whenever I visit London, I love to stay in Earl’s Court. Not only is it convenient to two Tube stations, the architecture is just lovely. So me being me, I started researching the area, and I was surprised and delighted to find out that it was built up at exactly the time I’ve been writing about. London was in the midst of a decades-long housing crisis by the end of the nineteenth century as more and more people flocked into the city for factory, business, and commercial jobs. There was no place to put them at first, so the push to build hard and build fast was a huge one. Parliament was, indeed, responsible for handing out contracts to development companies, and more than a few men made huge fortunes on the developments.
I also just had to throw in a little shout out to my M/M series, The Brotherhood, in this book as well. Because it is also historically accurate that there were entire neighborhoods of London that were well known as being safe spots and enclaves for the LGBTQ community. Most of them were in areas like Marylebone and closer to the East End, but I took the liberty of having Danny’s future development in Earl’s Court be one of those secret-but-not-so-secret areas.
As I mentioned earlier, if you’re curious about Lenore Garrett and Phineas Mercer, about Lenore’s true reasons for coming all the way to England from America’s Wild West, and about Phineas’s super-secret, naughty, behind the scenes activities, be sure to read Scandal Meets Its Match, coming next month! Keep clicking to get started reading Chapter One now!
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AND NOW, GET STARTED ON SCANDAL MEETS ITS MATCH…
Chapter One
London – October, 1887
Lenore Garrett was perfectly happy with the way her life had turned out, though she was certain that almost every one of her friends back home in Haskell, Wyoming would balk and make faces at her if they knew the truth of her situation in life. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Literally. And if they all believed that she had dashed off to foreign shores as one of dozens of American Dollar Princesses, intent on marrying a titled gentleman so that she could lord it over folks back home, then that’s what they could believe.
Lenore knew better.
She’d traveled to England a year before with her father, who had made the trip for business purposes. Lenore had begged him to let her tag along. Indeed, her life had depended on it in very real ways. Her dear papa always had been indulgent, so of course he had allowed her to make the trip with him. He might not have been so quick to bring her to London if he’d known she had no intention whatsoever of returning to America. Ever. Returning to America, let alone Haskell, would be a death sentence.
“Do you need a drink of something?” Freddy—that is, Lord Frederick Herrington, Earl of Herrington, her fiancé—asked, leaning closer to her as they stood in the crowded theater lobby.
“Oh. What?” Lenore blinked her way out of her pensive thoughts and turned to Freddy, fanning herself furiously to cool her suddenly overheated face. “Do theaters serve refreshments before the show has started?”
Freddy shrugged, a genial smile on his handsome face as he glanced around the lobby for the answer to her question. “Probably not,” he said. “But you look a bit piqued, so I thought I’d ask.”
“Dear Freddy.” Lenore grinned, resting her free hand in the crook of his arm. “You really are a gem.” She raised her fan to hide her face from casual onlookers and proceeded to say, “Reese is a lucky man indeed.”
“I most certainly am,” Lord Reese Howsden said, leaning into Freddy’s other side so that the three of them formed a secretive cluster. He winked for good measure.
Lenore knew full well he was winking at Freddy, even though, to the outside observer, it would look as though he were teasing Lenore with the wink. Lenore knew full well that Reese and Freddy were lovers, and that they were passionately devoted to each other in a union that was stronger than most marriages she knew. They’d even adopted a baby girl, Rose, from a tenant on Reese’s country property to raise together, along with Reese’s son, Harry, from his long-deceased wife, though to the rest of the world it seemed like nothing more than Reese’s generosity at taking in a foundling child to keep his son company. Lenore knew the truth. Indeed, she considered herself a co-conspirator in her friends’ love story.
And if she were honest—which she hadn’t been, not as she should—the false engagement she had entered into with Freddy did far more to protect her than it ever would to protect Freddy and Reese.
“You do look a bit anxious, though,” Reese picked up where Freddy had left off, frowning gently at Lenore. “Is the crowd?”
“I’ve never seen a crowd so large or so boisterous at an opening night for an untested play,” Freddy added, glancing out over the packed lobby.
“All of London has been buzzing about this young upstart, E
verett Jewel,” Reese said with a slight shrug, nodding to the poster hung on one of the far walls. It depicted a dazzlingly handsome man, Mr. Jewel, dressed as the character he would be portraying that evening. “They say he’s the greatest talent since Edmund Kean.”
“Well, he’s better looking than Kean at any rate,” Freddy added with a laugh. “Much better looking.”
“Don’t get any ideas, love,” Reese teased him, chuckling himself.
“It’s hard not to with a figure like that,” Freddy murmured, swaying closer to Reese.
“Are you trying to make me jealous?” Reese all but whispered in return.
“Stop,” Lenore laughed loudly, drawing attention from some of the expectant theater-goers near them. “The two of you will land in hot soup if you don’t behave with a little more decorum.”
“Land in the soup?” Reese snorted. “Is that an Americanism?”
“No one would dare to suggest I am guilty of any impropriety when I have such a dazzling and clever fiancée,” Freddy said, inching closer to Lenore and hugging her arm to his side.
Lenore chuckled and smacked him with her fan. She would never be in love with Freddy, for obvious reasons, but he was the best friend she ever could have hoped for. Reese as well. The three of them made the perfect team. The antics they got up to—with or without involving the children—were almost enough to content her with not finding real love.
Almost.
“Are you certain you’re still happy with our arrangement?” Freddy asked, as if sensing her thoughts. Or perhaps he’d read her expression, which had fallen as her attention was snagged by a particularly amorous couple at the far end of the lobby. She knew Lady Agnes Hamilton vaguely. The way the woman smiled adoringly at Lord Granger, her color high and her eyes bright, left Lenore with a wistful feeling in her chest that she couldn’t avoid.
“I am perfectly happy,” Lenore said, standing straighter and insisting inwardly that she wasn’t saying that to convince herself. “I have a delightful life here in England. I have wonderful friends. And I get to attend opening nights of plays that all of London will be talking about tomorrow.”
“True,” Freddy said, tilting his head to the side, then leaning closer to go on with, “But I’ve come to know you well enough in this last year to know that you would be much happier if you could end the evening in bed with a bloke who fancies you instead of curled up with yet another issue of Nocturne and the unmentionable item you failed to hide fast enough when I knocked on your boudoir door to see if you were ready earlier.”
Lenore’s already flushed face went beet red at Freddy’s mention of the artifact in question. “You’re not supposed to even know about such things,” she hissed, “let alone mentioning them in public.”
“Darling,” he said with a smirk. “I not only know about those things, Reese and I have an entire set for when we’re in particularly high spirits.”
Lenore laughed so hard she snorted, drawing far more attention than she needed to. She found herself feigning a coughing fit just so that the middle-aged matron who frowned at her would glance away instead of attempting to listen in on the conversation.
“I find Nocturne to be quite enough on its own at the moment,” she whispered to Freddy. “The stories in that particular periodical are educational as well as entertaining.” She assumed a superior attitude and punctuated her statement with a nod.
“That publication is pure smut,” Reese said, leaning in so that the three of them formed a triumvirate again. “Which is why everyone adores it, of course.”
Lenore and Freddy both laughed like naughty schoolchildren who had been caught with the journal in question. In fact, Nocturne had been captivating London audiences for over a year with its highly erotic content. Mostly because every scandalous story contained in its pages was clearly about someone in society who everyone knew, based on their behavior at various parties and events throughout the season. The new season had yet to officially begin, but London was buzzing with enough activity that high and low both were waiting with baited breath for the latest edition, which was weeks overdue, as far as everyone was concerned.
In more ways than one, Lenore considered herself lucky to have avoided inclusion in Nocturne. She was exactly the sort who its author—whoever that may have been—included in its pages. She was young, beautiful, wealthy, and American. And she wasn’t particularly shy about making her presence known at social events. But it was all the things that society didn’t know about her, all the things that even Freddy and Reese didn’t know about her, that she dreaded the author of Nocturne getting wind of. As flattering to her saucy sense of vanity as it might have been to be included in Nocturne’s pages, she had too many things to hide.
A burst of shrill laughter shook Lenore’s out of her thoughts, and she glanced across the room to see Lady Agnes nearly hyperventilating as she clung to Lord Granger’s arm. The circle of waiting theater patrons near the pair took a step back, affording the couple a bit of space. Lady Agnes seemed to be dancing on her spot and fanned herself furiously as her laughter continued unabated. Lenore frowned. Whatever Lady Agnes was up to, it was more than simply flirting. If she had been a betting man, like her father, she would have said something was wrong with the poor woman.
No sooner had that thought struck her than Lenore spotted a shadowy figure beyond Lady Agnes, near the theater door, staring straight at her. Her heart leapt in her chest, and she suddenly felt every bit as agitated as Lady Agnes.
“Is that Mr. Mercer staring at you as though he’d like to take a bite out of you?” Freddy asked with a teasing grin.
“I believe it is,” Lenore said with feigned casualness, fanning herself as she made eye-contact with Mr. Phineas Mercer.
“Have you two spoken since that coup you pulled to get old what’s his name to confess to burning down Danny Long’s pub?” Freddy asked on.
“Only in passing, at parties and the like,” Lenore said, cursing herself for sounding so breathless. “We had quite a conversation at Lady Phoebe and Mr. Long’s wedding reception.”
“You should go over and say hello to him.” Freddy let go of her arm and nudged her into motion. “I’m sure he’d love the chance to be reacquainted.”
Lenore glanced over her shoulder at Freddy with a flat stare that said she knew exactly what he was up to. Knowing didn’t stop her from heading toward Phineas, though. Freddy leaned in to say something to Reese, no doubt at Lenore’s expense, as she faced forward, setting her sights on Phineas.
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About the Author
I hope you have enjoyed The Road to Scandal is Paved with Wicked Intentions. If you’d like to be the first to learn about when new books in the series come out and more, please sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/cbaVMH And remember, Read it, Review it, Share it! For a complete list of works by Merry Farmer with links, please visit http://wp.me/P5ttjb-14F.
Merry Farmer is an award-winning novelist who lives in suburban Philadelphia with her cats, Torpedo, her grumpy old man, and Justine, her hyperactive new baby. She has been writing since she was ten years old and realized one day that she didn't have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something. It was the best day of her life. She then went on to earn not one but two degrees in History so that she would always have something to write about. Her books have reached the Top 100 at Amazon, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble, and have been named finalists in the prestigious RONE and Rom Com Reader’s Crown awards.
Acknowledgments
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my awesome beta-readers, Caroline Lee and Jolene Stewart, for their suggestions and advice. And double thanks to Julie Tague, for being a truly excellent editor and assistant!
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Merry Farmer, The Road to Scandal is Paved with Wicked Intentions (The May Flowers Book 6)
