It Started with a Scandal

by Julie Anne Long

Well, all right, then.

  Her cheeks were hot with disappointment. Perhaps he hated the livery so much that he felt the need to throw something, and his sense of economy resigned him to throwing something humble, rather than invaluable.

  With a heavy heart, she scaled the stairs to her little room.

  And came to a sharp halt.

  The brown velvet chair was situated right beneath the window, next to the little writing table. The previous occupant of that space, the pedestrian wooden chair, had apparently been whisked away.

  She approached it slowly, as if it were perhaps a hallucination.

  Very like, in other words, Lavay had approached the footman earlier.

  She circled it at first, then reached out and dragged her hand across its luxurious, now familiar, nap.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked it.

  The chair remained inscrutable.

  She gave a short, wondering laugh and closed her eyes as joy poured through her, warm and soft and brilliant. Then she brought her hands up to her face and down again.

  She seized the little vase, though now she thought it was a ploy.

  She pivoted on her heel and wandered in a daze down the stairs to the kitchen, where things were as usual and none of the furniture seemed to have migrated to where it didn’t belong. Then she paused to review her hair in the nearest reflective object, which was the coffeepot, and bolted with unseemly haste for the stairs.

  She remembered to adopt a more dignified pace as she approached, so that she managed to look entirely composed when she arrived, clutching the vase.

  And her heart of course gave an appallingly eager little leap when she saw him. He hadn’t gotten uglier in the intervening days.

  “A footman woke me this morning, Fountain,” Lavay said without preamble. As if it had been only yesterday since they’d last spoken, instead of a number of very awkward days.

  “Very good, sir.”

  “He offered to shave and dress me.”

  “Did you take him up on that offer?”

  “What do you think of my chin, Fountain?”

  “It’s very shiny.”

  That slow smile of his began, the one that wound around her like a golden net, and she smiled, too, helpless not to.

  They basked for a moment in each other’s happiness.

  “How did you do it, Fountain?” he said on an awestruck hush.

  “Ingenuity, sir.”

  He laughed, delighted.

  She saw an interloper chair in the place she usually sat, retrieved from the second, smaller sitting room. This chair was a shade of rum, and it, too, looked quite soft though she’d never quite tested it.

  “Lord Lavay, the brown velvet chair is in my quarters. Do you know why?”

  “Is it? Puzzling, indeed. Perhaps it missed you and your caresses. Perhaps it walked up there all on its own.”

  He used his fingers to walk across the desk, presumably demonstrating the chair walking up the stairs.

  “My caresses?”

  Her face all but burst into flame. Of course he’d noticed her touching the chair. He noticed everything. Just as he was likely noticing her flaming face now.

  He made his fingers walk across the table again. “You see? A week or so ago I could not do that comfortably. Soon I will be stabbing cutthroats with alacrity once more.”

  She clearly looked horrified, because he became serious instantly.

  “I am giving you the chair, Fountain. You gave me footmen, and you have made me feel more at home than I have in so long. I will give you a chair. A fair exchange, n’est-­ce pas? It is my wish as your employer that you should accept my gift. It has been in my family for generations. It was, in fact, once temporarily a throne.”

  Oh, good God. Now she felt a little faint.

  “It was a throne?”

  “For heaven’s sake, no, Fountain.” He sounded pained. “And I thought you were clever. Only two generations, and I believe my aunt Louise-­Anne died in it. She was ninety, closed her eyes, died, and tipped out of it during a game of faro, or so family legend has it.”

  She laughed again. “But I can’t keep your chair! It’s an heirloom!”

  She could in fact finance a few years of her life and Jack’s with that chair.

  “It certainly is. Your heirloom now. But if you doubt me, I shall call it and see if it comes to me. If it does not, then it belongs to you.”

  She gave a short, breathless laugh and shook her head. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say ‘Thank you, Lord Lavay.’ ”

  She breathed in deeply and exhaled. “Thank you, Lord Lavay.”

  He smiled at her approvingly.

  “Perhaps you will fall in love with this one, too.” He gestured broadly to the chair that had taken the brown one’s place.

  The word “love” throbbed in the air so obviously that it might as well have been a heart, especially since all her senses were acutely heightened, anyway.

  They both looked momentarily nonplussed.

  He hurriedly added, “I wondered if you would be so kind as to sit in this new chair and take a letter for me, Mrs. Fountain.”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  She settled into the new chair—­also quite comfortable—­and wriggled in until the back cupped her back. Then she took up the quill.

  He strode to the center of the room, prepared to orate.

  “Very well. It is to a young lady, so your best penmanship, please, Mrs. Fountain.”

  “I have no other kind of penmanship, Lord Lavay.”

  “Of course not, Fountain. And we begin.” “Dearest Alexa.”

  She dashed off the words.

  “It has been too long, and as you suggest hopefully in your letter, I am indeed indestructible and all the essential parts of me remain intact. How could you question whether I’d like to see you, when you know your very presence is like spring in the midst of winter, and so forth? I hear you laughing even now, but how could I resist hyperbole when I know how it entertains you?”

  “Mrs. Fountain? Why are you not writing?”

  “Oh! Forgive me.” “. . . entertains you . . .”

  It was just . . . who was this Alexa? And why was his prose suddenly so sparkling?

  It certainly sounded rather too enthusiastic to be another sister.

  “It is as lovely to be known as it is to survive an attack in London that would have killed most men. Deep is my regret that our paths did not cross when you were last in Pennyroyal Green, and I should rend my garments if you did not pass this way again before I return to Paris.”

  He paused.

  “Do you think ‘rending my garments’ is a bit much, Mrs. Fountain?”

  “Not if you don’t mind breaking the hearts of your new footmen-­valets, who think you have beautiful clothing.”

  “Lady Prideux finds me amusing, Mrs. Fountain. It is my responsibility to perpetuate that illusion.”

  She froze.

  The quill hovered over the foolscap, not touching it, like a bird frozen in flight.

  And then she lowered it very, very carefully.

  She was unusually still.

  As if she was enduring some sort of twinge or pain.

  “I notice you raised no objection to the word ‘illusion.’ I’m hurt, Mrs. Fountain, truly. In some circles I am in fact considered charming.”

  He was teasing. Gently.

  Her expression, stunned and blank, was puzzling.

  She cleared her throat. “Lady Prideux?” she said faintly. She didn’t look at him. Her gaze was aimed steadfastly at the foolscap.

  “Our families have been friends since I was born. They emerged from the revolution a trifle more intact than my family, in terms of both family members and fortune.”
>
  He said this shortly. Because tension was gathering in the room, and he wasn’t certain why.

  “Ah,” she said finally. And gave a strange, short little laugh.

  She finally did look up at him. Staring at him as if she was seeing him for the first time, or rather, seeing him clearly for the first time.

  She didn’t appear to be breathing.

  And why on earth had she gone so white?

  “Have you said all you wish to say to . . . Lady Prideux . . . Lord Lavay?”

  “No,” he said, bemused, and a bit gently. “I have not. There is a bit more. If you would, Mrs. Fountain? Or have you chairs to caress?”

  “Of course.”

  She squared her shoulders, as if he’d asked her to lift the table instead of a quill, then bent to the task.

  “I hope to hold an assembly in the home I am renting, my dear Alexandra, and if you should return, I most certainly will. Nothing gives me more pleasure to imagine dancing with you again, and the possibility of kissing your hand would warm the winter.

  I remain your,”

  “ . . . and then I shall sign it, as I usually do.”

  She was silent, motionless, gone stiff and formal, and the light had gone out of her face. The joy of the previous few moments might never have happened. He was bewildered.

  “If you have said what you intend to say, Lord Lavay, I shall post the letter.”

  “I will take it to be posted tomorrow, Mrs. Fountain. It will do me good to walk as far as Postlethwaite’s.”

  “Very well.”

  She still hadn’t moved. As if she was waiting out some great pain.

  “Is aught troubling you, Mrs. Fountain? Do you think the line about ‘hand kissing’ too florid?”

  “No. If you have no further need for me . . .”

  She stood abruptly and turned to leave as if the room were on fire. She was nearly to the door, and he felt something akin to panic.

  “If I were to kiss you, for instance, you would never forget it.”

  He all but flung the words at her like a net.

  She froze midstride.

  It was as if he’d shot her in the back with a dart.

  Then she spun so quickly that her skirts continued to sway after she’d stopped.

  She looked utterly stricken.

  Hardly flattering.

  “Mrs. Fountain, you’ve gone white. Am I so very repulsive, then? I thought my new scar made me look rakish.”

  But his words emerged awkwardly. It was a jest meant to disguise a serious question, but it had failed at the task miserably.

  She gave her head a little shake.

  “You ought not tease me that way.” Her voice was peculiarly hoarse.

  She tried for a smile.

  It slid from her face like raspberry jelly.

  He stepped toward her abruptly, concerned.

  She stepped back.

  “Tease you?” he said softly, urgently.

  He realized he was burning her with a stare when she dropped her eyes.

  He regretted it instantly, because he wanted to study the effect of his words there, because what he’d just witnessed had probably been more thrilling than it ought to have been.

  And if he was honest with himself, he’d said those words for a reason.

  The silence was filled with confusion.

  And she was suffering. He wasn’t certain why. He only knew that he couldn’t bear it.

  “Mrs. Fountain,” he said gently. “I sometimes forget that I am French and others are not. The English are perhaps more reticent. We speak of such things as if it were the weather.”

  She looked up at him, searching his face as if for the truth of this.

  “But not typically to housekeepers.” She said this gently, as if she were pointing something out to a child.

  And yet there was the faintest hint of a question in her words.

  He went utterly still.

  His mind blanked in astonishment.

  And all at once he was wholly abashed.

  Then flooded with admiration.

  Damned if she hadn’t skewered him with truth.

  She was not a toy. She was not a game. She did not exist to ease his moods. She was not a woman of his world, for whom flirtation was merely a second language. For whom gifts were all but meaningless.

  But she was a woman. With feelings of her own, no doubt secrets of her own, and right now she was suffering.

  Was it . . . because of him?

  Or perhaps his vanity suggested this.

  The notion elated him in a way he was afraid to examine.

  But it made him gravely unhappy to distress her.

  “Perhaps I have forgotten my place,” he said gruffly at last.

  She drew in what sounded like a bracing breath. “I won’t forget mine,” she said.

  At the moment, they seemed like the worst words he’d ever heard.

  He could feel the beginnings of a flush on the back of his neck. Of all things.

  When was the last time he’d blushed?

  Perhaps when he was fourteen years old.

  “Forgive me if I carelessly caused offense,” he said stiffly.

  “Oh, there is of course nothing to forgive,” she said hurriedly, graciously, and gave him an actual smile. The sort that made an impish point of her chin and revealed dimples and turned her eyes into stars. “One cannot help being French.”

  The smile was gone too soon.

  His regret made him realize he’d begun to crave that smile a bit too much.

  It was better than laudanum. Than brandy. Than the vile willow bark tea.

  And she was always so much more comfortable easing his distress than allowing her own to be eased.

  Since “humbled” was another unfamiliar condition for him, he remained silent and thoughtful. At a loss, for perhaps the first time in . . . he could not recall.

  “If you’ve no further requirements at the moment, my lord, I must oversee the apple tarts or they will burn. And just to remind you, tonight is my evening off.”

  “Please do leave. Nothing is more important than those apple tarts. Enjoy your evening, Mrs. Fountain.”

  But he could hear that his voice had gone peculiarly thick.

  He didn’t know why his feelings should be hurt.

  She curtsied and hurried past him.

  He watched her go, rotating as if he’d been a weathervane and she the wind. Just that helpless.

  Chapter 15

  THE NEXT DAY BEGAN very early and innocently enough, apart from the glowering skies and the intermittent torrential downpour that would keep Jack inside and underfoot in the servants quarters. No one minded his presence, though, since he was like a lively breath of spring, and in great danger of being spoiled by everyone. Elise and the servants had reached a civil, even collegial, rhythm to their days—­truly, everyone enjoyed being in a spotless house featuring strategically placed vases of flowers here and there. The footmen were quite decorative, as well.

  They now all breakfasted together along with Jack.

  Even Dolly had been . . . sweet.

  Treacle sweet.

  Elise decided to forgo suspicion and congratulated herself on winning her over.

  Jack, perhaps with the instinct small children and animals have for ­people, generally went mute around Dolly and eyed her with big, wary eyes, which got warier when she smiled.

  Fortunately it was Dolly’s half day off, and she wasn’t about to forgo it, rainstorm or no.

  She pushed her empty plate away from her and thumped out a muffled belch with one fist to her sternum. “I’ll just get me cloak and go then, Mrs. Fountain.”

  “You won’t want to go out in this, Dolly, will you?” Elise scooped Lord Lavay’s coffee into a
pot and shook his tea into a cup, too. “Perhaps you can have an extra entire day later?”

  “Oh, it willna be like this all day, Mrs. Fountain. Me sister will be taking me out, ye see, for a visit, and she’ll be waiting.”

  Elise stood on her toes and peered out the window. She could just make out a cart and horse waiting at the far end of the drive, with what appeared to be a very large driver bundled in heaps of clothing. One would have to be mad or desperate to go out in this weather. It was close to being dangerous for everyone.

  She frowned faintly.

  They all scattered to see to their duties—­Kitty and Mary to clean the kitchen, the footman to see to the fires—­and Elise decided it would be a fine time to make more headway on polishing the silver. She sifted through her keys and paused.

  The cabinet containing the fine porcelain appeared to be ever so slightly ajar.

  She leaped for it and yanked the door wide open. She peered inside, her heart in her throat, a suspicion burning.

  Suspicion was sickeningly confirmed: the little blue sauceboat was missing.

  Fury hazed her vision.

  She whirled and listened. Dolly hadn’t reappeared on the servant’s stairs. Usually one could hear her footsteps coming from a significant distance away.

  Dolly might be big, but Elise was faster.

  “Jack, stay here in the kitchen!” she ordered as she shut the cabinet. And then she bolted down the passageway and ran like the devil through the house.

  She intercepted Dolly hastening her way out the front door.

  Dolly was swathed in a vast cloak.

  And interestingly, carrying a valise that appeared to be bulging.

  Elise leaped in front of her and barred the exit.

  “Ye’ll want to move, Mrs. Fountain,” Dolly drawled. “Me sister will get drenched out there.”

  “Why are you carrying a valise, Dolly?”

  Dolly remained rooted to the spot. The hand not holding the valise was tucked beneath her cloak.

  “I dinna think that be yer business, Mrs. Fountain,” she said pleasantly, which only served to make it sound sinister.

  “Show me what is in your hand, Dolly.”

  Dolly remained as rooted as a boulder.

  “Now.” Elise spat the word like a bullet from a gun.