Scandalous

by Karen Robards

  She remembered his assertion that kissing was fun, and felt sick to her stomach.

  It was as well that she had been reminded that the man was a practiced rake, Gabby thought, as the parties said their farewells and the curricle at last sped through the gates. If she had been well on her way to having her head turned by a charming manner and a handsome face, then here was an end to it. He would not catch her succumbing to his wiles again.

  “You’re very quiet,” he observed after several minutes in which he weaved in and out of traffic and she stared fixedly at the passing scene.

  “Am I? I seem to have developed a headache,” she said with a mechanical smile.

  He looked at her keenly. “It came on very quickly.”

  She shrugged. “Headaches are like that.”

  “If I were conceited, I would observe that it developed immediately after we left Lady Ware and her friend.”

  Embarrassed by his perception, Gabby made a quick recover and looked at him haughtily. “You are conceited, to even allow such a thought to enter your head.”

  He grinned at her as though her answer removed all doubt. “Admit it, Gabriella: You’re jealous.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “Belinda is a friend.”

  Gabby snorted derisively, quite unable to contain herself in the face of that blatant falsehood. “Strumpet is more like it.”

  “Now, now, Gabriella, you really shouldn’t say such things to me. You shock me, my dear.” The glance he sent her way was teasing.

  “You might at least have the decency not to carry on with your inamorata while in my company. I realize that you probably aren’t familiar with the finer points of well-bred behavior, but a gentleman would never ogle his mistress while in the presence of his sister, which is what I am supposed to be.”

  “I did not ogle Belinda.” His protest was mild.

  Gabby gave a tinkling little laugh. They had reached Grosvenor Square by that time, and he reined in the horses to a more sober pace.

  “You may call it what you will, but I pray you won’t do it in public again. It is an object with me to keep our family name clear of scandal until Claire is safely wed.”

  “Do you know, Gabriella, that you make an extremely pretty shrew?” There was laughter in his gaze as he glanced at her.

  At the realization that he was finding in her entirely justifiable annoyance at his behavior a source of suppressed amusement, she lost her temper. Her eyes flamed at him as he pulled the curricle up in front of the house.

  “And you, sir, make the very model of an insolent, vulgar goat that I would be rid of with a snap of my fingers if I could!”

  With every fiber of her being, she longed to leap down and whisk away from him without further ado. Because of her weak leg, however, she was forced to wait until he came around to help her out. In seething silence, as he secured his horses and jumped down to assist her, she stood and came to the curricle door, ready to take his hand. Instead of offering it, as the most untutored clod knew to do, and in full view of Francis the footman, who stood at the open door, and any other servant or neighbor or passerby who chanced to be watching, he set his hands on either side of her waist and lifted her down.

  By the time she had both feet on the ground, she was quivering with temper.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he said softly, grinning down at her. “You like me too much.”

  Then he let her go. Eyes flashing, Gabby purposefully clamped her lips together, too conscious of their audience to let fly at him as he deserved. With regal dignity, she turned her back on him and stalked—there was really no other word for it—up the steps and into the house.

  To add insult to injury, Jem was waiting for her inside. No sooner had Francis closed the door behind her than he appeared from the nether regions of the house, eyes anxious, words of reproof trembling on his lips.

  Gabby glared at him before he could open his mouth.

  “Don’t you dare say one word,” she snapped. That the warning was delivered under her breath in no way detracted from its ferocity. Taking one look at her face, Jem remained prudently silent. Gabby cast him one last fulminating glance, then, drawing off her gloves with savage jerks, began to ascend the stairs to prepare for the evening’s entertainment.

  Late that night, when the knock came on the connecting door, she was not entirely unprepared for it. Indeed, she had just retired to bed, and could only suppose that he had been listening for her to dismiss her maid. Scowling, she glared in the direction of the door, crossing her arms over her chest as she lay in bed and vowing that it would be a cold day in his putative birth place before she would open the door to him.

  In the event, she didn’t have to. With widening eyes she heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock, then the creak of an opening door followed by soft footsteps. With as little ceremony as that he was inside her bedroom, his gaze fastening on her as she lay in bed, fortunately covered to her armpits by a pile of quilts and coverings, glaring at him.

  28

  “How dare you just walk into my bedroom without so much as a by-your-leave?” Gabby snapped, sitting up in bed while taking care to keep the covers clamped to her chest. Her hair, on orders from the hairdresser, who felt that sleeping in hairpins weakened delicate tresses, was confined in a thick braid down her back. Her nightgown was of thin white lawn with long sleeves and a frill around the base of her neck. Her eyes, she knew, must be bright with temper. Her jaw was tight with it.

  He grinned at her teasingly. Lit only by firelight, clad in his maroon dressing gown over a nightshirt that left his lower legs and feet bare, he looked tall and broad and disturbingly handsome. Just a few days ago, she thought, she would have felt menaced by the very fact of his presence. She no longer felt the least bit menaced by him, she discovered. Instead she felt cross as a crab, edgy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and ready, willing, and able to box his ears.

  “I thought you might be missing your book.” He held up Marmion as he padded toward the bed.

  Gabby’s cheeks reddened as she recalled the exact circumstances in which she had left the book behind.

  “Give it to me, and give me the key, and don’t ever, ever come into my room without permission again.”

  “You wound me, Gabriella. I made sure you would be most thankful to have your book restored to you.”

  He was laughing at her, the beast. Gabby scowled at him as he reached the side of her bed, and snatched the book he held out to her with little grace.

  “There. You’ve discharged your errand, so you may give me the key and leave.”

  “With your hair like that, you look like you’re about fifteen, Beth’s age.” His eyes twinkled teasingly.

  “Get out of my room.”

  “Or you’ll scream?”

  Infuriating man. He knew perfectly well she would not.

  “Or I will make sure Mary shares my chamber in future,” she said with dignity.

  His brows rose. “Don’t I at least get a thankyou for returning your book?”

  “No!”

  “Then I see I’ll have to take one.”

  Before she realized what he meant to do, he bent and, cupping the back of her neck with his hand, pressed a quick, hot kiss to her mouth.

  Gabby gasped. Given such easy access, his tongue slid inside. She was mesmerized for a moment, but the image of Lady Ware was too fresh. He would not use her so. Her temper exploded, and she jerked her mouth free, letting loose with a roundhouse right at the same time that connected solidly with his jaw.

  “Ow!” He jumped back out of reach, clapping a hand to his jaw, but didn’t seem otherwise dismayed. Indeed, he was grinning.

  “Such a violent creature you are, Gabriella,” he said reprovingly.

  “Get out of my room.” The covers forgotten, she surged to her knees, swinging at him. He retreated, laughing.

  “Temper, temper.”

  She growled, remembered the book in her hand, and hurled
it at him. His eyes widened as he saw it coming, and he dodged barely in time. It smacked into the wall just beyond his shoulder.

  He tsked. “And to think that I was always taught that the mark of a lady born was that she was gentle, soft spoken, and kind.”

  Maddened, she glanced at the bedside table and grabbed the nearest object to hand: a brass wick trimmer. She hurled that at him too, and then snatched up a hairbrush and flung that. He retreated before the onslaught, one hand upflung to protect his head, laughing.

  Gabby leaped out of bed, hefted a small crystal clock, and prepared to give chase. There was no need. He ducked into the dressing room.

  “Sweet dreams, my vicious little bedbug,” he called. As she ground her teeth, moving with swift purpose to brain the graceless lout, she heard the door between their apartments close. Then, just as she gained the dressing room, the key turned in the lock.

  The cowardly blackguard had locked her out.

  By the time she finally returned, fuming, to bed, she had wedged a straight-backed chair firmly beneath the knob.

  The next two weeks passed in a whirlwind of activity. The season was in full swing, and they were soon caught up in the feverish pace of it. There were parties and dances and dinners and breakfasts, visits to the theatre and drives in the park, calls paid and returned. Claire and Beth both soon developed their own circle of friends, which was composed of unmarried young ladies of compatible temperament and similar ages. Gabby made many agreeable acquaintances of her own, but found that she was often the odd person out in any gathering of ladies. She was too old to be numbered among the unmarried girls, but the young matrons who were her contemporaries inevitably talked of husbands and babies, which left her with very little to say. Not that she bemoaned her status. She had acquired a very respectable beau of her own—a widower with children, to her secret amusement, who was quite devoted—and, more important, Claire was a raving success. Every afternoon their drawing room was packed with eligible gentlemen jockeying for a favored place on the sofa beside the Beauty; and Claire received so many bouquets and other small tokens of esteem that Gabby, not without some pride, was forced to contemplate the necessity of throwing a great many of them out. Preparations for their own ball, to be held on the fifteenth of May, proceeded apace. In addition, the vouchers for Almack’s having arrived as promised, they were involved in making ready for Claire’s first appearance there. These preparations included repairing a shocking lapse in Claire’s education: although she could perform her part in country dances creditably enough, thanks to Twindle’s tutoring and those assemblies in York, she had never been taught to waltz. Having left fashionable London behind when she had moved with Claire’s mother to Hawthorne Hall, Twindle had never learned the steps, and so was unable to instruct her charges in them.

  “Of course, you may not waltz until the patronesses have given you permission to do so,” Aunt Augusta cautioned when she learned of this shocking omission. “But when one of them—Lady Jersey, say, or Mrs. Drummond-Burrell—presents a gentleman to you as an agreeable partner, to be unable to accept because you did not know the steps would be to risk being labeled a rustic. Nothing could be more fatal, I assure you. Well. A dancing master must be engaged at once.”

  Accordingly, early in the afternoon of the day before Claire’s much anticipated debut at the august supper club, Gabby, Claire, Beth, Twindle, and Mr. Griffin, the impecunious young dancing master who was already, after a quartet of visits, showing alarming signs of growing infatuated with Claire, were gathered in the long ballroom at the rear of the house, practicing the waltz.

  Twindle was at the piano, playing a tinkling melody from sheet music provided by Mr. Griffin. Claire, under Mr. Griffin’s eagle eye, was dancing with Beth, who was, to her disgust, assigned the part of the gentleman. Gabby stood near the door, applauding her sisters’ sweeping twirls about the room, which were marred only when Claire forgot that Beth was to lead, or Beth trod on Claire’s slippered foot. Mr. Griffin, watching their peregrinations with the eye of an expert and ignoring, with commendable tact, the muttered threats that flew back and forth between the sisters like bullets in a war, moved with them, doling out criticism and encouragement as he deemed necessary.

  The music was lovely, a magical, intoxicating tune, and Gabby found herself swaying with it without even really being aware that she was doing so. She only noticed when, to her surprised consternation, Wickham’s voice said in her ear, “What, Gabriella, no partner?”

  Startled, she glanced over her shoulder. He stood behind her, having apparently entered through the open door without her noticing. She had seen him only in passing since she had driven him from her chamber; she was rarely home, and neither, apparently, was he. She, at least, came home in the small hours to sleep, but whether he did or not she couldn’t say. In any case, she had heard no sounds from his room at night, although, much as she hated to admit it even to herself, occasionally she would find herself lying in bed and listening hard to see if she could. She had even given up wedging the chair beneath the knob; clearly he no longer had any thought of invading her chamber. Perhaps, she thought waspishly, instead of passing his nights in his own bed he was spending them with Lady Ware.

  He smiled at her then, quite as if he could read her thoughts, and the teasing quality in that smile set up her back even more thoroughly than her speculations about him and his mistress.

  Knave, she thought, and skewered him with a disdainful glance.

  His black hair had been trimmed, and was brushed back from his forehead in the most fashionable of styles. He was clean shaven; the hard lines of his jaw contrasted with the crooked curve of his mouth. His broad shoulders were showcased by a bottle green coat that fit him to perfection. His linen was snowy, his breeches biscuit-colored and snug, his boots tasselled and gleaming. If he was not a belted earl—and he was not—he looked the part, far more than did most of the nobles of her acquaintance.

  All this she noticed with a glance, and wished she had not. Turning a cold shoulder on him, she lifted her chin a notch and pretended to ignore him. To actually do so was, of course, impossible, she discovered to her chagrin.

  “I’d be happy to offer myself up in the name of contributing to a worthy cause.” His blue eyes laughed at her.

  “Thank you,” she answered shortly, casting him a cold glance before looking away again. “But I do not dance.”

  29

  “Nonsense,” he said, and pulled her into his arms. Gabby stumbled forward willy-nilly, and for a moment found herself held close against his chest. She glared up at him, to which look he responded with a wicked grin.

  “I am lame,” she hissed, resisting. Furious at him for forcing her to make such an admission, humiliated because her defect was thus glaringly exposed, she put both hands against his chest and shoved. To no avail: his hold was unbreakable.

  “I won’t let you fall,” he promised. And then he wrapped one hard arm around her slender waist, clasped her reluctant hand in a strong grip, and began to move in time with the music, slowly, counting the steps off under his breath for her edification. If she was not to make a scene—and with her sisters and the rest present she certainly did not wish to—she had no choice but to follow his lead. She did so with her head held high and twin spots of angry color dotting her cheekbones. Her eyes burned with temper at finding herself so coerced, and her lips were pressed firmly together with the effort involved in keeping her limp from becoming too dreadfully apparent.

  If there was any way on earth to prevent it, she would not appear clumsy before him—before them all.

  “You look like you’d give a monkey to box my ears again,” he murmured teasingly. “Remember that we have an audience, and smile.”

  Indeed, a quick glance around told her that the others were looking their way with some interest now even as they continued with their own activities. Reminding herself that Wickham was supposed to be her brother, of whom she was quite naturally fond, she pinned a smile on her
lips, and murdered him with her eyes.

  “That’s my girl,” he approved with a lurking grin, ignoring her killing glare, and whirled her into a turn. Clinging to his shoulder for support, leaning back against the hard strength of his arm, Gabby felt her skirt bell out around her as she matched his steps. As long as she came down only on the ball of her foot on her weak side, she discovered, she could manage. She was never going to be as graceful as, say, Claire, but at least she would not fall on her face.

  “Do you always ride roughshod over everyone?” she said through her teeth, the coerced smile still plastered on her face.

  His eyes twinkled at her. “Only when I find that it’s necessary to do so to get my own way.”

  She drew in her breath. “Bully.”

  “Shrew.” He smiled at her.

  “I’m surprised someone hasn’t murdered you before now. I’m tempted to give it another try.”

  “Ah-ah, you’re forgetting to smile.”

  He made another of those sweeping turns in response to a flourish in the music, and Gabby caught a glimpse of the pair of them in the long mirrors that lined the walls. She blinked, surprised by how well they looked together. He might be a rake and a mannerless churl, but he was also tall, dark, and powerfully built. As far as physical beauty was concerned, she was a mere candle to the blazing light of his sun, but she looked becomingly slim and pale and delicate in his arms, and in her slim, fern-green muslin, with her hair styled in its becoming topknot, she felt almost beautiful.