Suzi Love

by Embracing Scandal

  Embracing Scandal

  Suzi Love

  Avon, Massachusetts

  This edition published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

  www.crimsonromance.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Suzi Love

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-6048-X

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6048-4

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-6049-8

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6049-1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 123rf.com; istockphoto.com/dreef

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  More From This Author

  Also Available

  Chapter 1

  Martin House

  Mayfair, London, 1843

  Curse the city and its constant interferences. Secluded in his fire-heated library, Cayle St. Martin, Duke of Sherwyn, attempted to block out all things British by imagining himself back on a Mediterranean beach, unfettered, unhurried, and warm.

  The brandies he’d downed didn’t guarantee peacefulness but they fired his blood and ensured a few hours of deeper sleep. No doubt they, and several glasses of wine at the ball, would also earn him a pounding head in the morning as well. His butler’s shoes echoed on the marble tiles in the hall, the reverberations making it easy to trace Jenner’s progress to and from the front portico as he opened, closed, and secured the heavy oak doors, twice.

  At the first knock on his front door, Cayle had listened and dismissed the disturbance as inconsequential. After the second knock, a long silence had been shattered by solitary footsteps as the butler strode towards the library where Cayle sat, comfortably sprawled in an overstuffed armchair.

  Despite now living in theoretically peaceful England and not having heard a stranger’s tread, old habits of mistrust died hard. Cayle eased up his trouser leg and gripped the hilt of his thin bladed knife, an assurance in case his butler wasn’t alone.

  Jenner tapped and pushed the door open. “Your Grace.”

  “Yes, Jenner.” Cayle relaxed his grip on the knife and sighed. He flicked his tongue around the rim of the crystal goblet, savouring the last drops of brandy. If only his new ducal status, with its never-ending demands on his time, was as palatable as his late father’s well-aged liquor. “Who was at the door?”

  Displaying his habitual unruffled demeanour, his butler crossed the library and deftly plucked the glass from Cayle’s lax fingers before he dropped it onto his stepmother’s latest extravagance, a thick Persian carpet.

  “A person who demanded an audience with the Duke of Sherwyn.” His butler’s nose raised another notch, a seemingly impossible feat, as he placed the brandy glass on his silver tray without even the tiniest clink. “The individual was informed that His Grace was not at home.”

  Cayle rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. On occasion, Jenner’s puffed-up snobbishness drove Cayle mad. Yet when he wanted to be left alone, Jenner’s inflexible stance at the front door was a blessing. His butler could sniff out beggars and pretenders at a hundred yards and only the highest-ranking members of the ton were invited inside these hallowed halls. If the St. Martin’s lofty address failed to deter unwanted visitors, Jenner’s haughty manner generally succeeded.

  “Did he say why he wished to see me at this ungodly hour?”

  “No, Your Grace, she did not enlighten me.”

  “She?” His feet hit the floor. “What sort of woman comes knocking on doors at this hour?” He studied his butler’s stern expression. “Obviously not any of the ladies of my acquaintance.”

  “From her shabby attire and her insistent manner, I deduced that she was in dire need of employment. Either as a maid, in which case I advised she present herself to the housekeeper at the tradesmen’s entrance later in the morning, or by attracting a richer patron than her present keeper. As her appearance would offend the sensibilities of any Mayfair gentleman, such as yourself, I insisted that she immediately remove herself from Your Grace’s doorstep or I would summon the watch.”

  “Ah, well done, Jenner,” Cayle said. He hid his grin as he pushed himself to his feet with the assistance of the wide chair arms. “So, if our first visitor was so easily disposed of, who knocked the second time?”

  “Of that, Your Grace, I am uncertain. The street was empty apart from a street urchin running along the pavement. I assumed the boy had knocked on our door as a prank.”

  Cayle strolled to the doorway and stared down the dimly lit passageway. Nothing moved. He couldn’t detect any sound apart from the final sputtering of the last candles burning out.

  “Most likely some boyish lark. A dare.” Yet the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. “Though I don’t doubt your capabilities, Jenner, I shall recheck the locks before I retire. It’s long past time we were both in our beds.”

  Jenner dipped a small, stiff nod. “Indeed, Your Grace.”

  Cayle had privately spent three gruelling months untangling the family’s finances while publicly pretending to be one of his peers, lazy and without direction or ambition. But even now he had no inkling as to how Jenner regarded him. As the black sheep who’d been booted out by his father after an incident at a ball. Or the heir who’d not returned in time to stop his father send the family close to ruin when his wits became addled.

  He hoped perhaps their old retainer had forgiven him and they could return to a more acceptable relationship. Though Jenner’s bending spine appeared to be from a bone-deep weariness, the equivalent of Cayle’s own exhaustion, rather than forgiveness of past sins.

  Jenner walked with his measured steps towards the servants’ quarters. He stopped halfway down the hallway and turned back. “One hesitates to speak out of turn, Your Grace, but you appear to be suffering from more than an excess of brandy and overwork this evening. Before your time abroad, your disposition was generally regarded as steady and cheerful. However, your recent sombreness has been noted by the staff.”

  Cayle froze at such candid observations from his reserved butler. According to his stepmother, fraternizing with underlings was a sin as horrifying as dressing oneself without a valet’s assistance.

  Jenner spoke quietly yet his words resonated down the tomb-like passageway. “The staff has asked me to thank you, Your Grace, for working so tirelessly to restore the household and the estates to their former glory. They … All of us, pray that Your Grace will resolve the family’s difficulties quickly. Once the reputation of the St. Martin name has been re-established, we hope you may find time, once again, to see to your own happiness.”

  Household servants knew everything that happened and often before the inhabitants became aware of events. So it came as no surprise that the coldness between Cayle and his stepmother had been discussed below stairs. His brothers regarded Julia as
Satan reincarnate and she’d certainly helped ignite the feud between Cayle and his father that had seen him dispatched to the continent, out of sight and out of everyone’s mind.

  Since his return, he and Julia had made a pact. An agreement that he hoped would see her out of their lives once and for all. But she was determined to see her title of Duchess of Sherwyn returned to its, and her, former glory before she’d remove her talons from his hide. Being chained to her side on public occasions was sending him further into hell.

  His brandy-mellowed mind could easily envision her so-called friends, the pretend elite of London’s society, being the ones to pound on his door. Each time he attended a societal event with Julia clinging to his arm he was reminded of his responsibilities to the St. Martin name and what he owed his brothers. Julia sent ladies to his side at these events. Whispered in their ears the long list of his titles. Dangled him in front of their lemon-bleached noses like a carrot to be awarded to the most greedy and grasping donkey.

  Julia believed herself subtle and congratulated herself on selecting a ready-to-breed duchess who would be under her command. Under normal circumstances, Cayle would respond to these fast ladies with their none-too-subtle sexual advances with a few seductive moves. Stolen kisses at a ball that may, or may not, lead to a few pleasurable romps in the lady’s bed.

  He regarded his self-enforced celibacy as a temporary inconvenience, nothing more. But his stressful months were not only tormenting him mentally. His ignored physical needs had started clamouring for more attention. Solitary relief was too brief to truly satisfy him.

  He missed the feel of a woman’s soft body wrapped around him and each time those women brushed his body, accidentally or on purpose, he imagined arranging an assignation. They’d meet in the conservatory. He’d lift the woman’s satin skirts; push aside the layers of petticoats, and plunge, without ceremony, into her sweet body.

  Then sanity would return. Julia’s hawkish eyes followed every move he made as she waited for him to make another stupid mistake. To drop his guard and find himself trapped by another woman in a compromising situation. To secure his brothers’ futures, he needed to stick to his plan. That plan included avoiding women, all women.

  Jenner cleared his throat. “And as an older man, might I also be so bold as to suggest that solutions to a gentleman’s troubles often present themselves after a good night’s sleep and without a sick head and heaving stomach.”

  In the half-dark, Cayle grunted his agreement.

  “Apart from which,” Jenner’s voice rose a notch, “mindless swilling of your father’s perfectly aged brandy is a gross injustice.”

  Jenner left and Cayle slumped against the wall. His battles with both the accounting ledgers and his ghastly stepmother must be disconcerting his staff if his lofty butler had lowered himself to dispensing fatherly advice. He started towards the street door, instinctively walking close to the wall and avoided the open middle path. His senses warned him of another presence, mystical or physical. As he’d made peace with the house’s resident ghost when still a boy, the likely explanation was a material presence. Well, then! He dealt with physical combat better than emotional or physic stresses.

  With fluid movements, he retrieved his knife, slipped past the portico doors, and edged towards the medieval laird’s chair. From the dark corner came the scent of flowers, faint yet appreciable. A small shape huddled in the depth of the chair, half-concealed by the wooden arms and with scuffed boots hanging at least a foot above the floor. His uninvited visitor must be either a woman or a young lad.

  His nostrils filled with flowery scents and reminded him of happier times when bouquets were picked in meadows and tied with ribbons and love. Definitely a female and one possessed of enough coin to be wearing a tantalizing and expensive fragrance.

  Memories stirred but he pushed them aside. Pleasurable recollections didn’t belong here, in his cold hallway on this miserable night.

  He peered at the chair. An old coat engulfed an undersized frame and a soft brimmed hat dipped over her face. He lowered his blade and rested the steel’s tip against his thigh.

  “You can come out now. We’re alone.”

  Quiet, even breaths purred from the stationary figure. He frowned. Ridiculous idea that any she-thief would sneak into his house and fall asleep in the entrance. He bent closer. Without warning, she sucked in a breath so deep it hissed like a blacksmith’s iron sizzling in water.

  He jumped back and every muscle clamped like a vise as his error, his own greenhorn foolishness, registered like a slap in the face. She was awake.

  “Stand up.” He raised his knife and waved it in a circle between them. “Let me see the person audacious enough to break into my house.”

  Taking her time, she slid off the chair and stood. The cloak, more decrepit than any respectable housemaid would wear, fell into soggy folds over her skirt. A damp dark veil drooped over the hat’s brim while from beneath the hat, bright auburn hair tumbled like a waterfall to her shoulders and wet strands clung to her cheeks. He reached out to lift her veil but she leapt back, skittish as a new foal, and banged the backs of her legs against the chair.

  “I won’t harm you if you behave.”

  Silence.

  As a sign of trust between them, he lowered the knife. “But I am intrigued. Many people try to slip past my butler. Before you, they’ve always failed. You’ve obviously had a lot of practice at entering houses illegally.”

  No comment.

  “You must be an excellent thief.”

  Her hands clenched at her sides. Her cloak was pushed aside when she planted her fists on her hips. “I. Am. Not. A. Thief.”

  Though he’d finally goaded her into speaking, her indignation barely registered. His eye was drawn to the feminine form she’d unwittingly exposed when the thin fabric of her skirt pulled tight across her stomach.

  “If you’re not here to steal, why go to such lengths to get inside my house.”

  “I needed to see you.” She flicked clumps of wet hair over her shoulders. “Alone.”

  “And I would definitely like to see more of you.”

  For a second time, he tried to lift her veil. She flinched. He waited. Frustration rose as he pondered her need for obscurity. Was she a ruthless robber avoiding detection? A harlot trying to appear exotic and mysterious? Or worse, a husband-hunting miss pretending coyness to ambush a duke.

  He let his eyes drift upwards from an ill-fitting brown skirt to hover where her full breasts strained against bodice fabric thinned with age and moisture. After a long appreciative look, his gaze meandered up and over those never-ending cascades of bright coloured hair.

  His scrutiny might unnerve many women but this mysterious female merely huffed, stiffened her spine, and waited. Her breathing sounded louder, a little faster, yet she stood squarely and anchored her gaze around his upper chest. And took the offensive.

  “I’m relieved you discovered my face at last. I was beginning to think I’d need to draw you a map.”

  He treated her to his most roguish and unrepentant grin. “Ah, but you see, my sweet, if you haven’t come here to rob me — ”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then, you’re a puzzle. If you were better dressed, I’d assume you’d come to entertain me.” He stared at her sodden and shapeless cloak and dull clothing. “Ladybirds tend to dress like peacocks. Even my maids dress better than you. And though I approve of what’s on display — ”

  He nodded towards her chest where her breasts squeezed up and over her ill-fitting bodice like fruit spilling from a basket. She glanced down and gasped. She tugged the bodice’s folds together but managed a mere thumb’s breadth. That garment obviously belonged to someone far less endowed.

  “Your speech is far too refined for any street walker.” He tapped a finger to his mouth. “Did my well-meaning brothers send you?”

  A crease dipped between narrow brows the same hue as her hair, reddish-brown but leaning more towards
red, and the colouring blend he’d always preferred.

  “Your brothers?” Noticing that his eyes were roaming over her body again, she huffed and tried to tug her bodice upwards. “I wish you’d stop speaking in riddles. You’re making my head spin.”

  With reluctance, he lifted his attention back to her face. “I thought they might have sent you to cheer me up. Consolation for my fortitude in dealing with all this.” He waved his hand to indicate his house.

  “Nonsense. You were trained from birth to take charge of all this.”

  Another moment of déjà vu tugged at his mind. He ignored the off-putting and ill-fitting garments and tried to make out the female beneath.

  His doorknocker clanged for the third time.

  “Bloody hell! Can I never have peace?”

  He spun towards the door, eager to reach it before the knocker echoed a fourth time. Before it woke every servant in his household. Or worse. Before it roused the Dowager Duchess of Sherwyn, who’d retired an hour ago to her own expansive wing.

  “No. Wait.”

  His still unidentified female ran behind him. She clutched the sleeve of his right arm, the one dangling his knife. As one, they looked down at the blade swinging beside his thigh. She made no sounds of terror. Nor did she recoil or tremble. He was struggling to sort out this female paradox when she tightened her grip on his arm.

  “Don’t open the door. Please.”

  “I must or they’ll knock again and awaken my servants.”

  She clung like a limpet. “Please, I beg of you. Send them away. Don’t give me up.”

  “Them? Who’s after you? The watch?”

  “I’ve broken no laws. Do as I ask, please. For your own safety.”

  He frowned at her in the dull light, trying to see past the hat and the endless hair to the woman beneath, to understand what she thought. What she plotted.

  “Very well. But in return, you’ll reveal yourself and explain why you’re here. Agreed?”

  The ugly hat bobbed twice, before she disappeared back into the shadowy corner. He opened the door, knife grip tightened, to confront the two men who stood in the rain wearing sodden coats and sheltering under black umbrellas.