Scandal

by Carolyn Jewel

  He threw back his head and stared at the ceiling. “Good God,” he said. “That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” He looked at her again, but she saw anger and frustration flicker behind his eyes. “That I’ll go to London to gamble away my fortune. Set up a mistress or two and come home drunk every night, if I come home at all, that is.”

  “Haven’t you before?”

  “Perhaps you’ve not noticed my fortune is quite intact, madam. Just as it’s also escaped your notice that I am rarely drunk. As for mistresses—”

  She put her hands on her hips. “I knew when we married that you would not be a faithful husband.”

  “Sophie—”

  “Please, this is quite enough, Banallt. It’s absurd for us to argue about what we cannot change.”

  “Tell me, Sophie, what have I done to make you believe I would treat you as Tommy did? Since I came back from Paris, I mean.”

  “I’ve said I’ll go with you. That ought to be enough.”

  “Have I been drunk? Spent a night away from here? Have creditors been knocking on the castle walls demanding to be paid? When you came to London, did you hear one word of scandal involving me?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “Recent scandal. Not something dredged up from the past.”

  “Mrs. Peters.” She had the sense that she was rushing toward disaster. Out of control.

  He put his hands on his hips. “What?”

  “Major Haggart said she was after you. Mr. Tallboys, too.”

  “Tell me,” he said in a tight voice, “when you have come to your senses about me.”

  They parted with neither of them happy. She was solidly in the right. After all, Banallt had lived a wicked life. She didn’t need to listen to rumor to know he was no stranger to immorality. She’d seen it with her own eyes. Hadn’t he spent the better part of three years trying to seduce her despite the fact that they both were married at the start? Hadn’t he done all those things and worse?

  She left her room not long after, feeling unsettled, at odds with the world. As if some vital part of it were missing. She found King in order to discuss their removal to London, but her mind constantly returned to Banallt. Had she been fair to him? Sophie had the uneasy feeling she hadn’t been. Truthfully, since he’d come to Havenwood with his ridiculous and heartbreaking proposal of marriage, he’d behaved nothing like the man she’d known at Rider Hall. Her throat closed off.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes, King?” As with Banallt, she had to look up to see his face. The butler looked puzzled.

  He cleared his throat and said, in the manner of someone who is, in fact, repeating himself, “The books his lordship sent down from London, we’ve just finished shelving them. Now that you’re going back to Town, should we crate them up again and send them back with you?”

  “What books?”

  “In the library, ma’am.” He smoothed the line forming between his eyebrows. “He said they were for you.”

  “Best show me what you mean.” She followed him to the second-floor room that had the look of a withdrawing room converted to a library. And there, in the middle set of shelves, were all the books she’d written and twenty more books by authors who did not reveal their names and others who did: Mrs. Radcliffe, Eleanor Sleath, Charlotte Smith. Dozens of the favorites she and Banallt had discussed over the years were here. He’d remembered every one. She touched the bindings and pulled out the second volume of The Nocturnal Minstrel. Tears burned behind her eyes again. A thread of stubbornness wound through her. She would not give in.

  “Ma’am? Shall we send them back to Hightower?”

  She sat hard on a nearby chair and clutched either side of the book. She looked up at King. He was rubbing the top of his ruined ear. The Mercers had kept the contents of the Havenwood library, including books that had long been her beloved favorites. And he’d remembered them all.

  “Lady Banallt? Are you all right?”

  She looked up, barely restraining her emotions. “No,” she said. “Not at all. I—I think we’re done for now.” She swallowed hard. “I’ll call if I need you. Thank you for your help, King.”

  “Milady.” King peered at her, and she was sure, with his piercing mud brown eyes, he’d seen right through her. Whatever he saw when he looked into her face, he bowed and left the parlor.

  Quiet surrounded her, a hush that whispered of unhappiness and a life threatening to take the wrong path. The walls here were so thick one rarely heard sounds from other rooms. She could quite easily be the only woman left in the world. It was possible, she believed, that if she walked out of this room, she’d find she’d traveled back in time to the days when archers positioned themselves at the windows, hands on their longbows, eyes narrowed as they aimed at marauders attacking the castle. Or perhaps she’d walk into some other life, a not so distant past when she had been unhappy and convinced there was no other way for her to live.

  During her marriage to Tommy, she’d never once thought she ought to tell him she wrote. In fact, she’d known that he must never know. Her survival depended upon her deceiving her husband. And once she was supplementing her income with her stories, meager as that income might be, she knew she could never tell her husband. Banallt had known from the start, and he hadn’t derided her successes. He’d also kept her secret. Tommy never knew that she wrote as Mrs. Merchant. Tommy had taught her never to share. Never to be herself. And she had let that poison take over her life. She shivered at the life that conviction had put before her.

  “Here you are.”

  She jumped, startled because she’d not heard anyone come in.

  Banallt.

  The sense that she had stepped out of time stayed with her, despite the fact that Banallt wore modern clothes. Her head felt light. The neckcloth she’d tied for him was askew again. She clutched the book on her lap. “Are we leaving tonight?” she asked.

  “No. Tomorrow morning is soon enough. King said you weren’t well.” He knelt at her chair, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Are you all right?”

  She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She tried again. “It seems I just did this, Banallt.”

  “Did what?”

  “Prepared for a sudden removal to London. John had political duties that called him to Town. Because of Bonaparte.” She grasped Banallt’s hand. Her chest tightened unbearably. “He never returned. Never came home.”

  “Sophie,” he said softly. “Sophie, darling.”

  Still holding the book, she leaned forward and brought his hand to her cheek, leaning her head against his palm. “What if something happens to you, too, Banallt?”

  “You’ve no worries for the future.” He sounded distant. Cold, even.

  She dropped his hand and shot to her feet. The book tumbled to the floor, and she left it there. “Is that what you think I meant?”

  “You’ve been left destitute twice. By Tommy, then by your brother.”

  “But that isn’t what I meant. Not at all.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks, as if that would keep her from flying apart. Her body trembled and she wondered if she was going to break down right now. She was in love with him, and now she worried that she’d realized it too late. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I’ve been so horrible to you.”

  He smiled and shook his head. He held out his hands. “Shh, darling. Come here. It’s all right.”

  “But I’ve been horrible to you all along.”

  He reached for her and drew her into his arms. “Nothing I haven’t deserved.”

  “Do you really love me, Banallt? Me? Sophie Mercer, who writes novels and imagines too much?” She licked her lips. “And who sometimes does not imagine enough?”

  “Haven’t I told you already?” He held her head between his hands. “I do love you, Sophie. Believe that, if you believe nothing else I say. I am your faithful hound.”

  She inhaled a breath that rattled in her chest. “Banallt.” She stepped away and g
ripped handfuls of her skirts. “I feel as if I’ve lived a lie. I didn’t want to believe you’d changed, because if you had I’d have to face the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I love you.” She put her hands to her mouth. “I’ve been in love with you for a very long time. And if I love you, then you can hurt me, and I never wanted anyone to have the power to do that again. Especially not you.” He took a step toward her, but she held up a hand. “Please, no. Let me finish. I was sitting here, before you came in, thinking that I had a choice to make. The most important choice of my life. I could go on as I have been, letting you get this close and no closer, and if I did that, you would never be able to hurt me, because I’d not have let myself love you. And we’d probably go on, getting on well enough but not as you deserved.”

  “Sophie—”

  “Please, Banallt. Or I could risk everything and let you love me. I could love you as you deserve. And I thought, when you came in, that perhaps I was too much a coward. Because you could break my heart.” She wiped away a tear. “But you brought those books here. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I thought you’d want them.”

  “You’re right.” She scrabbled in her pocket for her handkerchief. “Good heavens. What if I’d stayed a coward?”

  “The one thing you’ve never been is a coward.” He put his handkerchief into her hands.

  Sophie threw herself into his arms. “I love you, Banallt. I do. I have for quite a while. I’m sorry I was awful to you.” She was crying unabashedly. “Please don’t let it be too late.”

  He pulled her tight against him. “Hush, now. It’s not too late.” He stroked the back of her head. “Darling, we had a spat. Such things happen to a married couple. If we differ, it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped loving you.”

  She put her arms tight around his neck. “I love you. I do love you.” She buried her fingers in his hair and brought his head to hers. Sophie kissed him even though she was trembling. Even though she was afraid and the future was never certain. When they stopped, he kept his arms around her waist.

  “You do understand, Sophie, the scandal we’ll cause in London?” he asked.

  “Scandal? What scandal is that?”

  A wicked grin appeared on his mouth. “Among the ton, it’s always a scandal when a husband and wife make no secret of loving each other. It’s simply not done.”

  Her heart felt full. Overflowing. “Well, then, Banallt, let us cause a scandal.”