It Started with a Scandal

by Julie Anne Long

  He straightened to his full height.

  And gave a humorless laugh. “Even you may not be rash enough to finish that sentence,” he warned grimly.

  Her spine straightened and her chin went up. “ . . . if she is anything like you, she is a survivor,” Mrs. Fountain said. “May I just say this? Women are often more resilient than men credit us with. And often much stronger than you know. And that is all I will say.”

  “For now,” Philippe said grimly.

  She gave a one-­shouldered shrug. She was clearly trying not to laugh. The cheek of her.

  He studied her a moment in silence. “Do you perhaps speak from experience, Mrs. Fountain?”

  She simply regarded him evenly. Which was answer enough.

  He paced again.

  And then he turned and began haltingly. Because for some reason he wanted her to know.

  “I am not angry at her. I am angry at myself. I am angry at fate. I am angry at this”—­he thrust his healing hand into the air—­“and I am angry at the limbo that prevents me from earning the money I need to buy back my own home and provide my sister with a dowry and every bloody ball gown her heart desires. I am angry that my family was smashed to smithereens by revolution and I am left to pick up the pieces. The best cure for anger is constructive action, Mrs. Fountain. The time is ticking away from me. I can marry well and swiftly, or I can accept another assignment from the crown, or I can, feasibly, do both. But I need to decide which it will be before the winter is over, because Les Pierres d’Argent will be sold out from under me if I do not.”

  She took this impassioned speech in.

  “So . . . you can hurl yourself back into danger because that is lucrative, or you can . . .”

  “Hurl myself into matrimony.”

  It was another word that seemed to ring portentously. More like a tolling, really, than a joyous ring of the church bell, as accomplished by two small boys, one dangling from the other.

  “Was that why the king’s messenger was here?”

  “Yes. The Crown has . . . work for me.”

  “And by work, I suppose you mean something involving weapons.”

  “I’m prized for my charm, as well, Mrs. Fountain. And my skill with languages.”

  “None of which would mean a thing to His Majesty’s men if you did not also know how to wield a sword. I expect you’re wanted to do something dangerous again.”

  To her surprise and his, he smiled. She was so tart and astute and bracing. “Oh, you better not get in the way of the powerful Lord Philippe Lavay . . .” he sang softly, teasing her. “Ah, I long for the days when my charm was all that was necessary to keep a roof over my head.”

  It ought to have made her smile.

  But she was studying him thoughtfully, and something darkened her expression.

  She was clearly deciding whether to speak.

  He sighed. “Say what you wish to say, Mrs. Fountain,” he ordered.

  “Where . . . precisely does it hurt? Besides your hand?” she ventured.

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “I’m sorry . . . is that too indelicate a question?”

  “Is ‘everywhere’ too indelicate an answer?”

  “Is it true? I’m terribly sorry if it is.”

  “Thank you,” he said finally. Simply.

  Because it was so very clear that she meant it. There was nothing accusatory or fawning or hysterical in her.

  He held up his hand in a silent gesture. “Here is what is troubling me the most, as you know. Or rather, it’s the most inconvenient.”

  “May I . . . see it? As I said, I am a doctor’s daughter. I know a thing or two about injuries.”

  “Are you trying to make me battle worthy in order to save me from matrimony, Mrs. Fountain?”

  He realized his breath was held while he waited for her glib answer.

  Something flickered in her eyes then. It was like watching clouds rush across the face of the sun.

  “I think both conditions will require the use of your hands, Lord Lavay.”

  He laughed, surprised. And thoroughly delighted.

  And he settled into the chair opposite her and extended his hand as though she were a gypsy reader who could read his future in it.

  She took it with grave gentleness and a bit gingerly, as if it were a sleeping baby hedgehog and not a hand.

  She studied it for a moment, so seriously it made him smile.

  What a luxury it was to surrender himself to someone for a moment. Her hands were soft and cool, but not the silky, tended kinds of hands his female relatives and all the beautiful women with whom he’d danced or made love possessed. It was a hand you could trust with precious things, with serious things.

  It had been so long since a beautiful woman had simply touched his hand. Without wanting or expecting a thing.

  This realization surprised him, too. It wasn’t an entirely comfortable conclusion, and he wasn’t certain every man would reach it. It was more of an intangible thing. Some magical formula comprised of the lovely softness and angles of her features, combined with the way she moved, the way her skin took the light, the depthless eyes that lit like stars when she smiled, that crackling wit she wielded so very strategically, the things she hid.

  It occurred to him that surely whatever his hand had to reveal should have been revealed by now.

  But she hadn’t relinquished it.

  And suddenly the air around them seemed close and velvety, as if they were beneath a dome, separate from the rest of the world.

  A peculiar peace stole over him. He could not recall ever experiencing a similar sensation.

  He wouldn’t know what to call it. Perhaps “rightness.”

  “Who stitched the wound?” Her voice was a hush, too, as if his hand was a patient who was resting, and they both ought not disturb it.

  “A . . . I shall describe him as a samaritan . . . who fortuitously happened to be at the same place I was at and came to my assistance. And I was then given into the care of someone who was, rightly so, more concerned about me bleeding to death than the aesthetic appeal of my hand. There was a good deal of me to attend to, you see. Cut open and so forth.”

  “You do say such things so casually. ‘Bleeding to death,’ ” she quoted dryly.

  “Do you wish I wouldn’t?”

  She shrugged with one shoulder, which amused him. It was contagious, apparently.

  “They nearly gutted me like a fish. But I am quick like a cat, so I rolled before they had my liver on the tip of a sword, like a pickle on a fork.”

  Her head shot up again and she stared at him in wondering horror.

  He grinned like a naughty boy. “Consider it a test of your fortitude, Mrs. Fountain, and your ingenuity—­how not to blanch when I say such things. Though it is gratifying to know my survival is of interest to you.”

  She dropped her gaze immediately.

  He realized he kept saying these things to see how she would respond.

  There was naught but silence for a few minutes.

  “Part of what is troubling you is that you should have had more stitches, and stitches that were closer together. Like . . . lettering on an embroidered pillow. It would allow for freer movement of your hand.”

  “What would you embroider upon me, Mrs. Fountain?”

  “Caveat emptor,” she said, sounding entirely serious.

  He laughed.

  He thought perhaps he would like to spend the rest of the day sitting here across from Mrs. Fountain, waiting for one of her curls to escape, while she looked up at him with those dark eyes that were three parts sympathetic, one part wary, and one part wicked, sensual humor that she tried very hard to squelch.

  Because he suspected this last part comprised most of her.

  This was the part he desperately wa
nted to tempt out of hiding.

  He touched that pink slash across his cheekbone. “Given that my face is my fortune, I suppose it’s fortunate that the rest of me took the brunt.”

  She quirked her mouth. If he was fishing for a compliment, he was destined for disappointment. “Where else are you injured?”

  He made no move to remove his hand from the soft little cradle of hers.

  She made no move to give it up.

  The moment had officially shifted into something for which neither of them possessed a compass.

  He gestured with his other hand. “There’s a slash from here . . .” He pointed to a space in the low center of his chest and watched her eyes follow it. “. . . to . . .” He drew his finger slowly down, down down to a spot her eyes couldn’t follow. “. . . here.”

  Her gaze stopped and lingered on his chest.

  Then she slowly raised her head. Their gazes met. Collided, more accurately.

  He wondered if his pupils were as large as Mrs. Fountain’s pupils currently were.

  “And everything gets so very . . . stiff . . . you see,” he added. Somberly.

  She visibly drew in a breath.

  “I know how to address the stiffness,” she said gravely.

  His eyes widened. An interesting sensation had begun to trace his spine. That delicious whisper of desire that could so easily be fanned into a conflagration.

  “Do you? I am all ears, Mrs. Fountain.” His voice was a hush.

  She hesitated again. She bit her lip thoughtfully and leaned forward just a very little.

  “Well, you first need to warm it . . .”

  And then her hand came up and covered his with her other hand, making a little sandwich of it. As if it were a creature she needed to capture and release into the wild.

  “ . . . to loosen the muscles around it.”

  He couldn’t speak.

  It was very like she’d just laid down a card in a daring wager.

  “Ah,” he said softly, hearing the tautness in his voice. “Is that so?”

  “Stretching it will help. In fact, you must stretch it if you’d ever like to wrap it around a sword again.”

  Were those glints in her eyes actual glints, or a reflection of the lamplight?

  “And as my sword is of significant length and girth, and I am a renowned swordsman, this is of grave concern to me.” He kept his voice soft and so, so serious, too. They might as well have been at a funeral.

  The air was officially full of illicit sparks. A bit like the air before a thunderstorm.

  “And then, once it’s warm, Lord Lavay, you need to rub it . . . like so . . . to loosen the muscles.”

  She took her thumbs and pressed them into the palm of his hand, and kneaded.

  Once.

  Twice.

  He sighed at length, a sigh he seemed to have held for years. “Mother of God, that feels good.”

  She froze.

  He could almost hear an inaudible shattering sound. As if some sort of spell had been broken.

  “If only I had something warm to cover the rest of my poor, wounded body in order to keep it limber, Mrs. Fountain.”

  Her eyes flew open in alarm.

  She practically thrust his hand back at him.

  He’d officially shocked her.

  Or she’d shocked herself.

  He wasn’t unshocked, for that matter.

  His impulse was to rescue her, regardless.

  “Thank you,” he said briskly. “That will help, when I had begun to think nothing would.”

  “I’m glad,” she said just as briskly. “You will be able to rub it for yourself, with your other hand, and I think you will find that things improve rapidly.”

  “I’ve become accustomed to rubbing it for myself with my other hand.”

  She froze.

  And that was when he witnessed one of the mightiest struggles he’d ever witnessed. The corner of one side of her mouth turned up, and then it seemed to drag up the other corner.

  But she ducked her head before he could see the smile. She took a few deep breaths.

  When she lifted it again, she was somber and composed. If considerably pinker. He had a pleasant vision of her staggering down the stairs, roaring with laughter when she reached the bottom so he wouldn’t hear.

  “Shall I post the letter to your sister tomorrow, Lord Lavay?”

  “Thank you, Fountain. Please do take it with you.”

  She shot to her feet so quickly that she nearly tipped the brown chair.

  “I’d best return to the kitchen now. I think something is burning.”

  That was putting it mildly. He was tempted to say my loins, but then he might never see her again.

  She was out of the room so quickly that she nearly created a wind.

  He watched her go.

  And he looked at the doorway long after she was gone, then gave himself a good shake when he realized what he was doing.

  He frowned and looked around the room. He’d best light another lamp. The room seemed dimmer now, somehow.

  He stared at his hand, gave it a flex. It felt strange somehow to have it back. Oddly, it felt as though it now belonged to her.

  Chapter 13

  ELISE WASN’T LAUGHING.

  In fact, if she’d had a vase to hurl on her way back down the stairs, she would have done it, reveling in the smithereens.

  “Why, why, why, why?” she implored the ceiling with a wide-­armed gesture that was wholly Lavay. She was muttering again. “Why make me a woman, why make him a man, why make him charming, why make it such a pleasure to touch him, why must it feel as though I’m touching a flame, why must I be tempted like this? I’m just a frivolous way to pass the time for him until he marries magnificently or gets himself killed, and I do. Not. Want. To. Care. I am not that weak. I need nobody but Jack.”

  Having clarified her desires to whatever celestial beings might be listening, she felt somewhat bolstered.

  Which would she prefer? That he thrust himself back into danger or into the arms of some woman appropriate to his station?

  Was it evil to prefer the former?

  She gave a helpless little laugh at her own expense. The trouble was . . . when she’d touched him, he’d been both chaos and peace. Nothing had ever felt more right. Nothing had ever been more wrong.

  And ah, what a pleasure it was to touch him. The heat of his skin, the rough elegance of his hands, scarred and callused through use. What kindling it would add to her dreams any nights she might find it too difficult to sleep.

  Because she did know what a man’s hands could do, given free reign of a woman’s body.

  The memory of that was just the sobering cold splash of water in her face that she needed.

  She stopped and took a deep breath as her seesawing emotions came to rest upon some sort of equilibrium. But she felt a bit like Lavay, moving stiffly, holding herself still, so as not to jar the wound.

  She thought she now understood the rather picayune budget. The man took care of everyone and everything around him, except, it seemed, himself.

  She glanced down at the letter she was clutching. The one addressed to Marie-­Helene.

  She went still, and thought for a moment.

  She decided it needed a ­couple more sentences, which she could easily accomplish in her rooms.

  And she decided she would make sure Lavay had something warm to cover his poor, wounded body.

  “BAAAA!” JACK SAID by way of greeting that evening. And butted her with finger horns. “I met an angel today—­well, she’s going to be an angel—­named Colette.”

  “Well, baaa to you, too. We’re all going to be angels one day, Jack, my love.”

  “All save me,” Seamus said, still breathing a trifle hard from running, as usual, aft
er Jack.

  “You’re not dead yet, Mr. Duggan. Whatever news you bring me today might play a role in your admission to Heaven. Jack, go and see Kitty and Mary about having a tart before—­”

  He was up the stairs in a flash.

  “We’re fresh out of flowers over at the vicarage, but I brought news instead,” Seamus said immediately.

  She closed her eyes and clasped her hands in prayer.

  “The wise men will have footmen. Mrs. Sneath was quite taken with the idea—­thinks it will add a dash of elegance, and she has a son who’s a merchant who will donate the fabric, braid and all. She quite liked bragging about him, and how I might amount to something some day if I—­well, suffice it to say, Mrs. Fountain, I suffered a good deal on your behalf.”

  “Oh.” Elise exhaled and sat down hard on the steps in relief. “I suppose they’ll need to keep their own shoes. But the stockings . . . I mean, thank you, Seamus.”

  “Postlethwaite’s Emporium has silk stockings. For ladies. Possibly for men, too.”

  She could only imagine how he knew that.

  And she could hardly eke out enough money from Lavay’s budget for silk stockings for the footmen, no matter how she trimmed or maneuvered. They both knew how dear they were.

  “Tell Mrs. Sneath I’ll send Ramsey and James over for a fitting. I’ll help with the sewing on my half night out. And my spare time will be at her disposal for the next few months if she’ll allow me to keep the footman costumes.”

  “As you wish, Mrs. Fountain,” he said, backing away.

  “And I’ll see you at the Pig & Thistle next week.”

  She made so bold as to blow him a kiss, which he made a great show of trying and failing to catch, and he then pretended to chase after as though it were a butterfly, across the downs and all the way back to the vicarage.

  LAVAY WAS PORING over the map of the London docks when the footman rapped at the door.

  His head shot up.

  He glared.

  The man really was unprepossessing. Which one was this? James? Ramsey?

  Livery would improve him, but he hadn’t heard anything about it since, and he simply couldn’t imagine how Mrs. Fountain would achieve such a thing. He sighed, resigned.

  “Yes?”