Scenting Scandal (Scandalous Siblings Series Book 2)

by Suzi Love

  “Possibly, but can I believe you?” The little demon—or did one call her

  a demoness?—tapped a finger to her mouth and fluttered her eyelashes in a falsely provocative manner. “Should I believe things spoken between lips touted in gossip columns as the most kissed in all three hundred upper echelon British families?”

  “Bloody hell! Enough. There’s only one way to stop your irritating taunts.”

  She raised an imperious eyebrow. “Oh, and what’s that?”

  He reached across the seats and grasped her waist. He lifted, spun her about and laid her across his lap. His mouth came down to cover hers, to silence, dominate, but above all pleasure her. When he drew back to suck in a shaky breath, her eyes were wide, her mouth open, and her heart raced under his palm spread across her back. He’d discovered a way to silence Lady Laura Jamison, at last. Excellent.

  So he grasped the opportunity she presented with her widely inviting mouth to descend, again and again, and cover her soft, enticing lips. After several long minutes of pleasure, he pulled back. Chest heaving, lids drooping, he was unable to form a coherent thought.

  He was unable to speak. But she wasn’t.

  “Delicious!”

  After a stunned second, he threw back his head and laughed. Laughed aloud. Laughed with true joy, for the first time in many months. Trust Laura to have the last word.

  Never mind. He only needed to see her dazed expression to know he’d won the last round of this battle. If only he could win every battle with luscious Laura so easily.

  “I do regret eliminating you from my list of suitable candidates to be my husband.” She sighed. “Because I certainly enjoyed our kiss.”

  Winchester’s moment of euphoria dissipated as quickly as soap bubbles in a tub of dirty laundry, when he realized he’d also enjoyed their kiss. Far too much for a man who’d sworn to never dally with any woman he liked and to avoid any relationship that might cause him future pain.

  Chapter Six

  Laura dragged her feet that evening, as she trailed her sister and aunt along the hall to the balcony above the polished staircase. Her heart had wedged itself firmly in her mouth, and no amount of panicked swallowing could dislodge it. Aunt Aggie assured her the mixed hues of her gown complimented her dark coloring. Yet, until she saw that same appreciation reflected in those other eyes, she’d hover in the no man’s land of doubt that assailed her whenever she attended these large social gatherings.

  Beside her, Lottie whispered, “Be truthful. It’s Winchester’s approval you seek.”

  “Stuff and nonsense. Why should I care what such an aggravating man thinks?”

  “We both know why. And your flushed cheeks when you returned this afternoon advertised the fact clearly.”

  Laura swallowed hard. “Any color in my cheeks was from rushing hither and thither seeking information on Lady Hetherington’s whereabouts. Nothing more.”

  Her sister looped their arms together, leaned closer, and smirked.

  “I’m positive,” Lottie said in a loud aside, “Winchester will be offended if you refer to today’s solicitous behavior towards you as nothing.” She arched a brow. “And when bullets were fired in our direction this morning, your exasperating earl,” she nodded in his direction, “had no regard for his own safety. His sole concern was assuring that one person was removed from the firing line. That person being Lady Laura Jamison.”

  Lottie was well known for sensing people’s deepest feelings and being able to predict where their emotions and actions might lead them. But having her sister apply her intuitiveness to the relationship between her and Winchester disconcerted Laura. Their push-pull confrontations left her flummoxed and she felt no compulsion to imagine what their future held. Truly she didn’t.

  Besides which, she already understood what must happen. As soon as Becca and Sherwyn returned from their honeymoon and resumed their duties, Laura would no longer be thrust into Winchester’s company. Avoiding each other would suit both of them admirably. Until then, she’d keep at least a long arm’s distance between them. Preferably two. Out of kissing distance. That way, no harm could come to her person. Or to her feelings.

  The three Jamison girls had retreated into a low key but acceptable form of social life for several years before Becca enlisted Sherwyn’s assistance, and he in turn insisted Becca and her sisters accompany him to the top houses in society to search for papers. Financial constraints had pushed the cash-poor Jamisons to the fringes of society, living in the country and unable to mix with the town’s high fliers. At least until Becca’s railway investments had begun to return staggering profits, and before the days they’d called a wealthy duke part of their family.

  For better or for worse, the Jamisons had been thrust back into the whirl of social engagements. Although, after several months of being under scrutiny, Laura still hadn’t reconciled herself to the never-ending list of rules and obligations associated with wealth and position. It galled her to be watched by matrons eager to find fault, and to know she’d provide gossip fodder for the next day’s visits and tea.

  Despite being labeled the outrageous one by her family, she preferred to carry on her daily life unnoticed. She enjoyed slipping like a ghost between groups of people at balls, absorbing the mixture of sounds and scents, taking notes and experimenting with new blends and fragrances in peace and privacy later. She glanced up, caught Winchester’s gaze upon her, and stumbled.

  Lottie’s grip on her forearm tightened and she looked at her in puzzlement. Aunt Aggie walked ahead, speaking non-stop over her shoulder as she stepped onto each tread, one hand on the curved top rail, the other lifting her skirt the allowed three inches from the floor. A light hand on the rail remained Auntie’s only concession to her age, as not once did she need to look at where she placed her slippered foot.

  “How does she do that?” Laura asked her sister.

  Lottie returned Laura’s bemused look, as they held tightly to each other to prevent any accidents in their own descent with the sweeping skirts of their elegant ball gowns. To their amusement, or aggravation, their aunt stepped with head-held-high dignity to unerringly descend the long staircase. As she walked, she carried on one of her one-sided conversations, laden with the heavily-punctuated words she favored in the presence of others.

  Laura shook her head. How a lady who displayed the outward dignity of a duchess, yet who held the inward fortitude of a washer-woman from Cheapside, managed to so easily blend her many character traits remained a mystery. She snuck another sideways glance at Winchester. He’d covered his mouth with his hand but, from Laura’s higher position, she saw his amusement over her portly aunt’s light-footed glide down the stairs. She smiled. Though they argued over many trivial things, they were a perfect match in their sense of amusement.

  “Lady Laura,” Aunt Aggie announced in her duchess-going-visiting voice, the one she used when she wanted everyone within ten feet to overhear. Inwardly, Laura groaned. Her shrewd aunt always had a reason for adopting her fawning social voice.

  “Auntie,” Laura said, pointing at the standing clock. “It’s time—”

  “My dear, you look most becoming in that gown.” Her aunt ignored her growled warning, but her distress earned her a concerned look from Winchester. “And I’m soooo glad we chose the ruby net over the gold underlay. My lord, doesn’t our darling girl resemble a fairy princess?”

  Laura walked towards the entrance, praying the distraction of accepting cloaks from the footman would stop her aunt’s comments about her gown. But to her dismay, Winchester halted. When he shook his head, she froze in her tracks and could barely breathe as she waited to hear why he’d disagreed with her aunt. Despite knowing she’d acted like a shrew earlier in the day, if Winchester broke habit and made a single derogatory remark about her, she’d turn tail, scurry to her bedchamber and pull the covers over her head.

  “No, not a princess, Lady Jamison.” His eyes were sinful-black rather than sweet-brown tonight as his all-
encompassing gaze ran over her gown —up, down and up again— until she felt as hot as if it were his hands roaming free over her body. “In those rich colors, Lady Laura resembles–”

  “No!” Laura leapt towards him. “Remember, we’re supposed to act like friends this evening. Jamisons united with St. Martins.”

  To Laura’s shock, the Earl simply smiled, displaying those ridiculous baby-chubby dimples. Every other man outgrew such child-like things, but not Winchester. Oh, no.

  A more suspicious woman might believe the wretched man contrived to appear so adorable for the sole purpose of unsettling her, though she knew the appeal of his facial features had tempted hordes of women in the past. And quite probably would continue to do so far into the future. Ah yes, his tactics worked. A man as handsome as him would never lack for female attention, an hypothesis she would do well to remember. Perhaps she should write in her notes like a mantra: A woman should never surrender her heart to a man with the face of a cherub. Because though he might look like the Archangel Gabriel, his soul may be blacker than Lucifer’s.

  “I simply meant to comment,” he said in a silky tone, while his eyes flashed devilment, “that a princess is normally depicted in story books as golden haired and blue-eyed and even tempered–”

  “Ha!” Laura’s hands went to her hips. “In other words, my lord, all the things I am not!”

  He laughed. “No, it’s true nobody could mistake you for any of those, at least not today when you appear to be…out of sorts. Yet, in your wine-colored gown, you remind me not of a princess, but of a magnificent rose. One who stands strong and blossoms, even after the weather turns foul and others around you have long since wilted.”

  Aunt Aggie made a loud oohing sound and covered her heart with her hands. Lottie gave an over-loud sigh. Even the footman were murmuring.

  “I may swoon,” Aunt Aggie said, “over your poetic and perceptive sentiments. So aptly said of our dearest Laura, my lord. I am certain your kindness will lift the poor girl’s spirits.”

  Despite Laura’s growled warning, Winchester ignored her and faced their aunt directly. “Is Lady Laura worried about attending Lord Brentwood’s ball this evening?”

  Aunt Aggie, obviously coerced by the cherub’s winning smile and his confiding attitude, placed her gloved hand on the sleeve of Winchester’s immaculate black evening coat and leaned closer.

  “Oh, yes, poor dear. She fusses over the outcome of every ball we attend. She begins the evening supremely confident that this will be the one when she detects her perfect partner for a happy marriage.” Aunt Aggie sighed dramatically, and stretched even closer to Winchester’s ear, forcing Laura to do a quick and undignified forward shuffle in order to hear. “But so far, the medley of men our dear Laura has approached have proved dreadfully disappointing. Not a single one of them holds the right…appeal… for someone as sensitive to aromas as my niece.”

  “Auntie, please.” Laura pushed between the two confidents, certain her face now resembled an overripe persimmon, and her mortification was being noticed by every servant within ten feet. Not to mention the man standing before her. “We must go or we shall be late, and Lottie and I are already promised to partners for the first dance.”

  She kept her head dipped as she accepted her cloak from the waiting footman and swept out the door towards the waiting coach, taking the seat furthest from the door in an attempt to distance herself from the Earl. When Lottie stepped inside the coach, Laura tugged her hand and pulled her off balance, forcing her sister to land beside her in a puff of billowing skirts. When Lottie’s eyes went wide with amazement, Laura squeezed her hand—a signal for her sister to allow Laura’s panicked action to pass without notice, something generally unachievable when Winchester hovered with eyes as sharp as a circling hawk.

  She flinched when she heard his chuckle, and peered across Lottie and out to him, letting him know she was aware of his motives as well. He’d seated their aunt by the nearside door, ostensibly for easier access for the older lady. Yet Laura knew in her bones it was another of Winchester’s calculated moves, as it left the seat across from her vacant.

  Did the man have no shame? She rolled her eyes and watched his smug smile widen. With a casual air, he strolled around to her side, leapt inside with enviable agility, and made a huge show of seating himself. His long legs stretched across the dip between them and discomforted Laura. A feeling, akin to fingers tickling across bare skin, made her squirm in her seat and long to tug off her gloves and scratch.

  Her fingers clutched together and twisted the tips of her soft suede gloves into knots, and sweat broke out inside her palms. After forcing herself to unclench her hands, she reached down and smoothed out imaginary catches in the skirt’s netting, twitching one caught fold. When the gown held fast, she frowned, before noticing he’d shifted his right knee so it pressed down towards the seat and beside her bottom.

  She glanced up and saw that the edges of his mouth were turned up into a half-smile, noticeable only by her at this angle. From their positions, the other two wouldn’t know his leg was on the edge of the satin underlay of her gown, or that, no matter how much she surreptitiously tugged, it was caught under him. She dipped her brows and flattened her own mouth, wanting him to see her displeasure.

  Winchester reached down with one gloved finger and, in a slow and deliberate movement, hopped it along the netting. His finger lingered over every fourth or fifth hole and pressed into the satin. She sucked in a quick breath.

  “Heavens above, Laura,” her aunt said. “You’re jumpier than a rabbit this evening.”

  Laura forced herself to sit still. She needed to focus on something apart from the six foot or more of muscled form sitting far too near to her. She shifted her thoughts to the inane, concentrating on the mist visible through her window, rather than recalling the earlier earth-shattering announcement made by the mountainous man opposite her.

  Patting the folds of her skirt for the twentieth time, she thought about her choice of cut and color. Unmarried girls were, as a rule, urged towards lighter colors that reflected the optimism and expectancy of a rainbow after the rain. Not steered to the deeper and more dramatic contrasts Laura preferred. She was thankful her aunt allowed her three independent nieces to choose clothing suited to their strong characters. Apart from this morning’s wedding-lemon fiasco, of course. Their Aunt Aggie encouraged her nieces to join the women’s movements springing up around the city, often lamenting that forward-thinking had been frowned upon for women during her own youth.

  Secretly, the girls shuddered at the thought of their already radically-minded aunt being exposed any younger to revolutionary ideas. They could picture her marching the streets with a laden picnic basket under one arm and a raised clapboard in the other.

  But nothing was a big enough distraction to shift Laura’s thoughts from the warm limb she could feel through her skirts. She gave herself a severe talking-to: do not look him in the eye, and do not betray your feelings.

  “Sherwyn told me a little,” the Earl said, leaning back in his seat and casually directing his conversation to Aunt Aggie, “about Laura’s friends and their theories about evolution. And her own search for a scientifically-selected mate.”

  Laura bit her lip and stayed silent.

  “I’m certain Laura will soon find a suitable husband because…” He waved a casual hand. “Well, because she is one of the most courageous and selfless ladies I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting.”

  Her aunt gave him a beaming smile, taking the Earl’s second compliment of her niece in under half an hour as a direct reflection of how well she’d raised her girls. She leaned across to pat Laura’s hand. “There, you see, my love. His Lordship believes a wonderful gentleman will soon present himself to you. Besides which, you told me you weren’t in any hurry to find a husband.”

  “I’m afraid any change of heart on Laura’s part is my fault,” Lottie said, making her presence known for the first time. “Now that Becca is
wed, Laura feels pressured to marry next and, therefore, free the way for me.”

  Aunt Aggie waved a dismissive hand. “Nonsense. Such silly rules are no longer important. Though, in my younger days—” The girls moaned, but their aunt ignored them and spoke directly to Winchester.

  “Each girl had to marry in correct turn, with no variations. It was terrible if the eldest was a stick-in-the mud, or had some other failing and no man wanted her.” Laura rolled her eyes. “But, my darling girl, we live in more enlightened times. No woman is expected to wait until her elder sister is married, or even betrothed. If you truly believe your aromatic senses will allow you to select the best husband for you, then hold strong to your convictions.” Her aunt waved her hand in an encompassing motion. “We shall all support your beliefs, however long it takes.”

  “Sherwyn told me,” Winchester said, directing his conversation to Aunt Aggie, “that Laura has been keeping records of her reactions to different aromas. A scientific search to find the best husband man?”

  Laura heard the question in his comment but refused to be drawn into another discussion or argument with him.

  “And you, Lady Charlotte, are you following in the footsteps of your sisters and using scientific methods to select your husband?” No one spoke. “Or do you believe in the more tried and tested methods? Alliances of titles and estates?”

  Lottie chuckled. “Oh, no. Neither of those methods would suit me.”

  “Ah, but your beauty is more than enough to attract a thousand husbands.”

  Lottie’s hissed breath sounded over-loud in the cramped space, and Laura felt her sister go rigid beside her.

  Winchester frowned, not understanding her sister’s reaction to words that would thrill most debutantes. But since they were young girls, Lottie’s golden-haired beauty had attracted attention and, to Lottie’s mind, far too many people admired her visible attractions and never bothered to look further. To some degree, Becca and Laura had suffered the same problem, but they had learned to turn it to their advantage, especially when Becca needed their peers to view them as impressionable chits who would be impressed to hear of their latest investment acumen.