The Perks of Loving a Scoundrel

by Jennifer McQuiston

  The man had never once, in his wildest dreams, imagined the woman in question might have made her own choice in the matter.

  “Damn it, Westmore.” Southingham looked ready to explode, but alas not, it seemed, on the side of brevity. “It shall be the 26th, and not a day before.” He picked up his glove and turned on his heel, but shouted over his shoulder as he left. “And this time, I’d advise you to bring something other than rats to the fight.”

  Darkness swirled. Rough hands shook her from her dreams.

  “Mary, wake up.”

  Sleep was yanked from her like a curtain pulled from its moorings, and Mary opened her eyes to the confusing combination of darkness and the bright, searing light of a nearby lamp. Not yet five o’clock then. Her mind pinwheeled against the unaccustomed intrusion, wanting only to return to sleep. But then her gaze swam upward to see her sister’s pale face looming over her.

  “Eleanor,” she gasped, pushing off her covers. “Is something wrong?” The last dregs of sleep slid away, and a ribbon of fear spiraled through her. “Is it the baby?”

  “Get your things,” Eleanor said firmly. “You are coming home with me.”

  Confusion crushed down on her. “But . . . I am home.” Mary reeled, trying to make sense of it all. Behind her sister, she could see Lord Ashington standing silent, a lamp in one hand. Mary reached out beside her, intending to shake West awake, only to realize that his side of the bed was empty, the sheets cold to the touch. She cringed, realizing that while she might be home, her husband clearly was not. “What on earth is going on?”

  “Ashington came home from White’s bearing the news.” Eleanor’s voice was pinched with anger. “And it’s simply not to be borne. Perhaps we can have your marriage annulled, somehow, given that Westmore seems to regard it as a joke.”

  “Annulled?” Mary gawped at her sister. “Joke? Eleanor, what are you talking about?”

  “Ashington saw all of it.” Eleanor glanced back at her husband. “Tell her. Tell her what he has done this time.”

  Ashington cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Westmore has taken up with the Duchess of Southingham. The duke discovered their affair and called him out this evening.”

  Mary gasped. “What?”

  Eleanor nodded. “There’s going to be a duel in Hyde Park, and his friend Mr. Grant will stand up as his second.” She laid a hand around her swollen middle, though the expression on her face looked the opposite of motherly. “And if Southingham doesn’t kill him,” she added fiercely, “I’ll tear him apart myself, for treating you this way.”

  Through the haze of disbelief that threatened to swamp her, Mary shook her head. “You should not be up,” she protested. “Surely it wasn’t good for you to be this upset. You could force the baby to come early.” Then again, it was nearly July now, closer to Dr. Merial’s prediction for a delivery date. And in truth, Eleanor looked fine, her eyes flashing, her chin held high. She was stirred up, to be sure, but not courting the edge of a crisis.

  If only Mary’s own reaction were so measured.

  Her thoughts raced in the direction of denial. It was all a misunderstanding—West wouldn’t do such a thing to her. Perhaps he had just stepped out for a moment, gone to the washroom, or to the kitchen for a bite to eat—

  A movement at the bedroom door pinned her doubts to a spot where they could neither shift nor slide out of reach. West stepped inside, fully dressed, his hat in his hands. His gaze roamed the room. “What’s all this about?” he asked slowly.

  “My sister could ask you the same thing,” Eleanor retorted. “Come, Mary. You don’t need to stay here with him.”

  Mary hesitated, her eyes afraid to settle on her husband. Instead, they drifted toward Lord Ashington. “You saw it yourself?” she asked in a small voice. “It isn’t just a rumor you heard?”

  Ashington nodded. “I saw it unfold. There’s already a round of wagers in the betting book as to who will emerge the victor.”

  Mary pulled her knees up tight, disbelief and disappointment clashing in her chest. It wasn’t possible. West was standing in the doorway, his handsome face unreadable for the moment. But just a few hours ago, he’d been in bed with her, her head on his shoulder.

  It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

  But what if it was?

  Hadn’t she imagined tonight he was keeping something from her? Hiding some important detail, some crucial fact? And in spite of the way he could make her feel, hadn’t she feared he would never be happy with nothing but a mousy wife in his bed?

  Her gaze settled on her husband. Standing there in his street clothes, he looked windblown and cautious and guilty as hell.

  And for once, she was determined to have the truth out of him.

  “Eleanor,” she said, not taking her eyes off West, “please go home now. I will speak with you in the morning, but for now I would have a word with my husband in private.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Eleanor!” Her voice came out more sharply than she intended, but she couldn’t soften it, not now. Her gaze finally swung from West’s guilty face to her sister’s shocked one. “I am a grown woman, and this is my life, and I would appreciate it if you would let me manage things myself for once!”

  Her sister’s lips flattened into a line. “Very well then. But know you’ve a place to stay with us.” Eleanor shot West a poisonous glare. “A home where you are wanted and loved.” She reached out a hand and beckoned to her husband. “Come, Ashington.”

  As they filed out of the room, Mary sat, waiting. Hurting. How inconvenient an organ the heart was, a stone about one’s neck, pulling one down, suffocating. And how persistent the mind, sifting through evidence while wanting to pretend none of it mattered. She reached out a hand to turn up the lamp burning low on the bedside table. Not that she expected it to help her see more clearly. There were shadows in this marriage, shadows purposefully created by her husband. She felt abraded on the inside, the fragile trust that had been starting to take shape in her marriage toppling into a pile of rubble. She’d feared losing him, of course.

  Imagined all the terrible ways this affair might end.

  But this was something else entirely.

  “Mary, I can explain.” At least, he hoped he could explain.

  West was really rather afraid he couldn’t even explain it to himself.

  No matter his earlier conviction that he had the power to fix this, he was only now beginning to realize that the cost of this misguided attempt to save the queen might yet be his wife. He feared he was going to lose her. If not by gunshot, then by stupidity.

  Because she’d never before looked at him with such profound disappointment, not even when she’d imagined he’d slept with a corpse.

  She lifted her hands, as if trying to shield herself from his words. “Is it true, then?” The doubt in her voice told him all too clearly that she already suspected the answer, and it came close to breaking his heart. “There is to be a duel with Southingham?”

  He took a tentative step forward. “Southingham called me out tonight,” he admitted. “That part’s true enough.”

  “And the rest?”

  He moved toward her then, wanting desperately to make her see. “No. My association with the duchess is just a misunderstanding.”

  “Is this one of your infamous jokes, then?” she asked sharply.

  He stopped as though she had struck him, her words twisting like the very knife he’d shown her how to use. “No. This is not a joke. Mary, I wouldn’t do that to you. Not on purpose.” Though, given his significant reputation on the matter of jokes, he probably couldn’t blame her if she believed such a thing.

  “Then why.” She didn’t ask it as a question.

  He moved again, stopping in front of her. “Ashington should not have rushed back to tell your sister,” he growled, pulling a hand through his hair. “The man’s a proper idiot. I thought Dr. Merial had strictly warned him against agitating your sister.” />
  “I do not dispute the claim of Ashington’s idiocy, but you cannot blame my sister’s agitation solely on her husband,” she snapped. “Eleanor has never liked you, and she would have found out about this, one way or another. I imagine the gossip rags are already printing the news of your evening’s adventures, and she most assuredly will see those on the morrow.”

  West lowered himself to sit beside her on the bed. Caught the scent of lemons, rising off her heated skin. “I suspect Southingham is one of our traitors, Mary. I had planned to tell you myself, tonight.” Regret tugged at him, knowing he had delayed this reckoning. Perhaps even caused it, with his careful attempts to shield her from the emerging truth. But much like Crimea, he was proving ill-equipped to save those who insisted on leaping into the fray. “As soon as you woke.”

  “When I woke?” she choked out, and he could hear the anger splinter through the earlier doubt in her words. “Why didn’t you tell me before I fell asleep?”

  He hesitated, knowing she wasn’t going to like his answer. “I wasn’t sure yet that it was Southingham when you were falling asleep,” he said, though the explanation sounded lame, even to him.

  “But you could have told me you suspected him. I told you everything I had discovered tonight, every piece of every conversation, and you sat there and said nothing. I suppose you think it is better for a wife to be kept in the dark as her husband goes about flirting with duchesses and dueling with dukes?”

  In spite of the anger rolling off her, West found his lips twitching. Whether she realized it or not, her choice of words was illuminating. He was beginning to understand that beneath her anger lay something . . . interesting. “Are your objections more to a perceived flirtation,” he asked, cocking a brow, “or the threatened duel with Southingham?”

  “Don’t try to distract me with that scoundrel’s smile. In fact, never mind.” She swung her legs over the opposite side of the bed. “Perhaps it is best if I go to stay with my sister after all,” she muttered, reaching for her wrapper. “It is clear you are not the sort of man I thought you were, to do something like this as a lark.”

  “Mary.” He reached out a hand, curling his fingers against her arm. “It wasn’t done for a lark. That is not why I was smiling. And I don’t want you to go.”

  She looked back at him, her hands clenched to fists. “Give me one good reason why I should stay and listen to another word you say.”

  He bowed his head. “I will give you the truth. It is up to you to decide if it’s a good enough reason.”

  Slowly, she shifted back onto the bed. At least he was talking to her now, and not avoiding the topic. Promising her the truth, instead of trying to distract her with a practiced seduction.

  Whether or not he was capable of delivering it, however, was another thing entirely.

  “Tell me, then,” she asked warily. “Why were you smiling just now?”

  “Because it is clear you are jealous of the thought that it might be true.”

  She opened her mouth to protest. Closed it again. Drat it all, but he was right. The man really could read her like a book. “What if I am? It seems I’ve a right to be, given that you have been tupping the Duchess of Southingham!”

  “Tupping, is it? You seem to have lapsed a bit in your vocabulary since marrying me.”

  “For heaven’s sake, can you not be serious for two seconds?” she snapped.

  “All right. I’ve not tupped the Duchess of Southingham. Tupping requires touching, and I swear to you, I’ve never even touched her. Not now, and not last year, either.”

  “Then why does the Duke of Southingham believe you have?”

  He exhaled loudly. “I’ll admit that I permitted the misunderstanding to persist tonight, but only because it was necessary.”

  “Necessary? For revenge?” She threw up her hands. “I know there is a good deal of sour history between you and the duke, but this is scarcely a harmless prank. Did you think about those who would be hurt by it? For heaven’s sake, you have very likely destroyed the duchess’s reputation. Perhaps the duke might even blame her for this. Divorce her over it.”

  “He is far too possessive a man for that.” His jaw hardened. “But if he does, I say she is better off without the bastard. The man has a heavy hand.”

  “Be that as it may, that ought to be her decision, not yours. And duels are nothing to trifle with. Neither are they strictly legal, West. If you kill Southingham, you could very well be charged with murder.” She swallowed, unable to give voice to the rest of it.

  And I could be left alone.

  “Mary. This wasn’t about revenge, or even a good joke. It was about justice.” He hesitated. “And while not legal, duels are still somewhat tolerated. Meeting Southingham on a field of honor would afford me at least some protection against a proper murder charge. But I never planned to kill the man.” He hesitated. “I only intended to take out his shooting arm.”

  “What? Why?” She glared at him, none of it making sense. He’d promised her the truth, but she couldn’t see anything of it in the fits and pieces he was handing her. “If you expect me to make sense of any of this, I think you better start at the beginning.”

  “The beginning, hmm?” There was a slight upturn to his handsome mouth. “Very well then, once upon a time, a man met a woman in a garden—”

  “West!” she shrieked. “This isn’t one of your silly jokes!”

  “I know.” He reached out. Threaded his fingers into hers. “Very well then. From the beginning. Earlier this week, I interviewed Ashington’s staff and discovered who had left the note, and at whose request. That information made me suspect the identity of our duke. Tonight I snuck into Southingham’s study and confirmed it.” At her resulting gasp, his fingers tightened against hers. “There can be no doubt he’s the duke we overheard the night of the literary salon. Tonight, I overheard him making new plans with the woman from the library.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?” she asked, stunned.

  “His handwriting matches the note that was left in your journal. His voice has always seemed familiar, and now I know why. I heard him, in his house, making these plans. And I did not agree to this duel out of some twisted sense of revenge. I did it because it afforded me an opportunity to disarm him.” He met her gaze. “Before he destroyed the queen.”

  The room spun around her. They had a name. An identity. This changed everything. For weeks, they’d been searching for a single, guttering candle in a sea of lights.

  But now, the candle had a name. A face.

  She listened as he told her about interviewing Eleanor’s maid, and the girl’s roundabout connection to Southingham. He told her about the mention of Scotland and June 24th and Vivian’s escape with the money, as well as the fact that the duke now planned to carry out the assassination himself. He told her about searching Southingham’s desk, picking up the newspaper, and accidentally leaving behind his case of matches.

  “When he burst into White’s shouting for blood, I could think only of defusing the threat, so I agreed to the duel, thinking that if I could injure him, prevent him from carrying out the plan on June 24th, I might at least buy a little time to sort the rest of it out.”

  Mary sank back onto the pillows, finding it hard to breathe. “But . . . Southingham could just as easily kill you.”

  “Do not worry.” His hand tightened over hers. “I am a decent shot, Mary.”

  Her thoughts pulled to the scar West bore, just above his heart. Being a fair shot didn’t save someone from death if their opponent was also a fair shot. Nor did it excuse the idiocy of presuming there was no other way to go about this. “Bollocks to that,” she huffed.

  In spite of the gravity of the moment, his lips twitched. “Mrs. Westmore.” He tilted his handsome head. “Did you just say ‘bollocks’?”

  “I did, and I will say it again,” she said impatiently. “Bollocks to you trying to disarm Southingham in a duel. You told me yourself that dueling pistols have terrible a
ccuracy, that they are designed to ensure gentlemen bent on killing each other haven’t a prayer of hitting where they aim. And bollocks as well to the notion that we have no other options to pursue.”

  His smile faltered. “There are no other options, Mary. I swear, I have told you everything I know.”

  “I believe you are telling me the truth,” she breathed. But neither could she trust he would continue to do so. Even if what he said was true, even if this started as a misunderstanding and evolved into a plan for him to play the reluctant hero, he was apparently willing to let everyone else in London believe he would do such a thing, her sister included.

  Which meant he had no notion about how such a thing might hurt her.

  “It just seems clear you didn’t believe in me. You interrogated Lord Ashington’s staff without telling me your plans, and then you pursued the lead with Southingham without giving me any clue you suspected him.” Her voice hitched, though she tried in vain to steady it. “You didn’t care enough about me to have been honest with me from the start.”

  “Good God, Mary,” he said, his voice sounding raw. “How can you think that? I believe you are brave, and smart, and too full of good ideas. But the thought of involving you in this terrifies the hell out of me.” He shook his head. “I used to have nightmares about Crimea, but now my dreams are tangled with you and the danger I cannot defuse.” His eyes met hers, pleading. “Can’t you see? I care about you, too much. And the notion that I might be unable to save you . . . I don’t think I could live with myself if anything happened to you.”

  “Live with yourself?” Mary snorted, though her heart had thawed several degrees to hear him say he cared about her. It wasn’t a confession of love, but it was something more than she’d feared several minutes ago. “For heaven’s sake, tonight you goaded a man into a duel.” In spite of her resolve, her voice wavered. “You may not live.”

  He bowed his head. “I should have told you before now, but I was afraid . . .” She heard him swallow. “I was afraid of losing you.”