It Started with a Scandal

by Julie Anne Long

  “You have been sleeping with that whore,” she all but hissed.

  “Have a care,” he warned silkily. “Have a care.”

  She was gasping for breath through her own shock and anger. “Surely you don’t intend to marry . . . you will be the laughingstock of everyone you know, you will bring shame upon your great family with that common little—­”

  “This . . .” She jumped when he took his fist and lightly thumped his scone, shattering it into a million little crumbs. “. . . is all that is left of my life and my great family. And that is how much I now care what you or anyone else thinks of what I do now.”

  She was breathing hoarsely. “You will leave now.”

  He nodded and stood looking down at Alexandra, for it was likely the last time he would see her.

  “If you are disappointed or hurt, Alexandra, I do regret causing you discomfort. I have cherished the friendship between our families.”

  “Get out,” she hissed.

  “And there is nothing common about love, Alexandra,” he said gently. “I do sincerely hope one day you learn it for yourself.”

  He bowed shortly and showed himself out.

  Chapter 25

  THEY HAD SO FEW things between them. Their clothes. Her hairbrush.

  A toy lion.

  A brown velvet chair.

  Packing would proceed swiftly.

  She’d read her parents’ letter again, and she didn’t know how she’d missed it the first time.

  Please come home and bring Jack. We will love him, too.

  How had her parents known the name of her son?

  Philippe must have written to them.

  The devil.

  She laughed softly, and it filled her again, that glorious light that came with being loved. Because she knew he loved her. And no matter what, no matter where they were, whatever became of either of them, she knew she could call upon that feeling whenever she wanted to remember how loved she’d been.

  The day after Philippe departed for London, she decided to tell Jack.

  “Jack, sit beside me and let’s have a talk.”

  “Am I in trouble, Mama?”

  “Not at all. Now, I know you are concerned about your father, Jack, and how he doesn’t live with us.”

  “That’s all right, Mama. I love you and you love me and that’s just fine.”

  She gave a soft laugh and squeezed her son. God bless Philippe and his wisdom.

  “That’s true, and it is quite fine. And I have some truly splendid news. Other ­people love us, too. You’ve never met them, but we are going to live with your grandmother and grandfather, and be a family. They are wonderful, wonderful ­people, and you will love them, too.”

  Jack took this in, his eyes round, studying her face. She didn’t know it, but the searching gaze was disconcertingly like her own.

  “But I like it here, Mama. The Giant!”

  “Remember when we left Miss Endicott’s, and I told you you would love it here? Was I right?”

  He thought about this. “Yes, Mama.”

  “I promise you will love your grandmother and grandfather, Jack. They are so funny and wise, and the house is just a little bit smaller, but you will have a bigger room of your very own, and I can show you the banister I slid down when I was a little girl, and the river where I caught fish. There are so many wonderful places to play, and they even keep a horse you can learn how to ride.”

  “Cor—­I mean, hurrah! Will the Giant come to see us?”

  Elise hesitated.

  Philippe had been so certain she would come to him.

  He’d been so right.

  And now she was very nearly certain that what she was about to tell Jack was true.

  She crossed her fingers for luck. “If the giant can find his way down the beanstalk, I’m sure we’ll see him again.”

  IT WAS A long, slow trip back to Sussex from London—­almost two days of travel. Though the weather was clearing, the roads had yet to recover from the last of the storms and were still soupy ruts in parts.

  He’d spent nearly a fortnight in the city, looking in on The Fortuna, dining in establishments with ­people who would have horrified Alexandra but who had crewed their ship. Men he would trust, and had trusted, with his life. He’d stood on the dock beneath glowering skies alongside Jonathan Redmond and the Earl of Ardmay, and they had shaken hands on an agreement to use their ship to transport silks and spices rather than chasing down pirates, an endeavor that would prove profitable in a few months’ time. They would hire a captain for her, or anoint a member of their crew, while Philippe and the Earl of Ardmay would remain on land.

  Besides looking in on his ship, Philippe had also written to Monsieur LeGrande.

  Dear Monsieur LeGrande,

  I thank you kindly for your patience and consideration, but I now give you leave to sell Les Pierres d’Argent. I wish the new occupant many years of happiness and health. It is a beautiful home.

  He’d posted it before he could change his mind.

  And because he now knew a bit about love and sacrifice, he knew now how he intended to repay Lyon Redmond for saving his life.

  Alder House was a dark hush at one in the morning, which was when Philippe finally arrived home in Pennyroyal Green. And it did feel like home, oddly: he drew in a long breath and took in linseed and lemon, the faint scent of snuffed candles, some lingering aroma of what he could swear were apple tarts, but that could simply be wishful thinking. It all settled over him like the softest, sweetest of blankets, soothing and loving. He crept up to his rooms and flung off his clothes and crawled beneath the blankets, immediately sinking into a dreamless sleep for what felt like five minutes before there was a tap on his door.

  He jerked his head up, blinking.

  “Enter,” he croaked in an exhausted morning voice.

  And in bustled . . .

  “What the devil . . . who the devil . . . what are you doing here?”

  “Good morning, sir. I understand you like an apple tart and coffee in the morning. I’m Mrs. Winthrop, if you’ll recall sir—­we’ve met—­and I’m on loan from the Earl and Countess of Ardmay until we find a new housekeeper for you.”

  “Loan? A new . . . I have a housekeeper.”

  He shot bolt upright. Surely this was a dream. Or perhaps he’d dreamed everything between Mrs. Winthrop and Elise. Did Elise even exist? Was Mrs. Winthrop a dream?

  If so, this was definitely not his favorite dream so far.

  Poor Mrs. Winthrop was wholly unprepared for the glory of his torso at this time of the morning. She dropped the tray.

  He winced at the clatter and thunk.

  They both watched the coffee land and spread inexorably on the carpet, eyeing it as if a murder had taken place there.

  He stared at her. “Never mind that, Mrs. Winthrop. Where the devil is Elise?”

  The Chris­tian name made her widen her eyes in alarm.

  “Mrs. Fountain has returned to her ­people in Northumberland. Didn’t she leave you a letter, sir?” Her voice quaked.

  “I’ve been in London. I returned only last night. Letter? What letter?”

  Surely this was still a dream.

  “Well, Mrs. Fountain wouldn’t dream of leaving without telling you, she’s right responsible, she is. She said you would have anticipated it. Oh, and you ought to know a young lady arrived yesterday evening.”

  “A young lady? Ramsey! James!” he bellowed, as if he was trapped in a nightmare. It was too much information to take in five minutes after he’d opened his eyes.

  Poor Mrs. Winthrop had been informed that Lord Lavay had become charming and had stopped shouting and throwing things. She felt betrayed by how untrue this was.

  His footmen scrambled into the room.

  At least they were there and app
eared to be real. Dressed in midnight blue livery.

  And if it wasn’t a dream, then it must be true:

  Elise was gone.

  “The young lady says she’s your sister,” Mrs. Winthrop said, her voice quavering.

  “My sis—­Ramsey! James! Get me dressed and shaved.”

  Mrs. Winthrop, who couldn’t bear all the shouting, slipped out. Things really were in a fix if the former Violet Redmond seemed like a mild-­mannered employer.

  HE’D JUST ARRIVED in his study when a tornado in muslin rushed through the door at him.

  He grunted as she caught him midtorso in an embrace. His arms were trapped. She was muttering a tangled torrent of incensed and worried French and English.

  “Marie-­Helene,” he ground out through his teeth from the confines of her embrace, “what in God’s name are you doing here? How did you get here?”

  She released him and stood back.

  “Where does it hurt, brother, and I will not punch you there!”

  “Why must you punch me at all?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt, at death’s door, Philippe? I am not a child. Do you think I’m so callous and shallow that I see you as only a tree that shakes out money? I used the money you sent to buy passage, not gowns. I arranged it all on my own. You see, a child wouldn’t have been able to do that. It was easy. I just order ­people about like so.” She waved her hand airily. “I don’t know why, but they want to do what I ask.”

  He knew why. She was beautiful and imperious and charming and willful. And yes, he had underestimated Marie-­Helene. Looking at her now, it seemed to him almost incomprehensible that he had underestimated her. As Elise had pointed out, she was his sister.

  “How on earth did you find out about the cutthroats in London?”

  He knew his grand-­père would never tell her.

  “It was in your letter. Have you forgotten? Were you injured in the head?” She produced it and shook it at him as if it were a royal decree.

  Only his sister could get away with saying “were you injured in the head?” to him in that tone of voice. It was in fact lovely to hear it.

  “It was in my let . . . give that to me now, please.”

  He snatched it out of her grip and scanned to the final paragraph.

  I am recovering well enough from my attack by cutthroats in London. Many parts of me are still sore and may never be quite the same, but I bless all the pain, as I could have easily died. I thought of you as I lay near death’s door and miss you, Marie-­Helene, as you have been a good sister.

  Good God. That was a bit much. He could picture Elise laughing even as she wrote it. That minx.

  And he never would have been so sentimental. No wonder it had panicked his sister into boarding a ship and coming to Sussex straightaway.

  And now that she was here, he didn’t want her to ever leave.

  “I will stay here,” Marie-­Helene said breezily, looking around the house as if she already owned it. “It is not the same in Provence or Paris without you. None of it is the same, Philippe,” she added softly. “And it never will be again. Surely you know that.”

  He did. Oh, he did.

  He blinked warily. “You will stay here? In Pennyroyal Green?”

  “And why not? London is not so terribly far, and London is not Paris, but it is not provincial. The house is remarkably clean and comfortable, your footmen are handsome, and the towns­people seem very friendly. A delectable-­looking man by the name of Mr. Duggan, I believe? Outside the vicarage? Assisted me when one of our trunks came loose and fell from the carriage. How very fortunate he managed to be nearby when we rolled into town.”

  Oh, God.

  Philippe gave a short laugh. “And grand-­père . . .”

  “Oh, he will never leave Paris, but we can go to him and see if we can persuade him, Philippe.”

  And then he stared at his sister, in whom he could see his mother, his father, himself.

  “Why are you staring so?” she asked uneasily.

  “I am just . . . unutterably glad to see you, Marie-­Helene.” He seized her by the shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. “Even if your gowns are last season’s gowns.”

  She swatted at him. “You were injured in the head.”

  “In the heart,” he corrected. “But I’m about to see about mending it.”

  Chapter 26

  WINTER WAS SHOWING A little willingness to give way to spring, and as evidence, the sun poured into the cozy kitchen of the Fountain house. Toasted bread and kippers and eggs and sausages were heaped on platters, and the pot of coffee placed in the center of the table by the maid was enthusiastically greeted.

  Jack had already found a few new friends in Northumberland, but he yearned after a church with a proper bell.

  He was lunging across the table for the marmalade when he looked out the window and—­

  “It’s the Giant!” he bellowed, and Elise’s father’s scrambled eggs shot into the air on the way to his mouth, much like that fateful morning when Elise had told them she was pregnant.

  Jack dashed out the door, leaving it wide open, and ran like a shot up the path, hurtling himself into Lavay’s thighs.

  Lavay hoisted him easily and strode up the path with Jack, big as he was now, tucked in the crook of his arm, almost as if he were in fact real, not a hallucination or a dream, which would really be the only reason he was striding up the path to this little house in Northumberland nearly a month after she’d left him, she thought, for good.

  She froze and waited for him to disappear. Surely he must be a dream.

  Her parents stared at Lord Lavay as if he were indeed a giant.

  Then rotated in unison to stare at Elise.

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing like the last time,” she said distantly.

  Which really didn’t do much to reassure them.

  Lavay stood in the open doorway, Jack in his arms.

  Elise couldn’t speak. Her heart had leaped up and flown away like a dove released from a cage, and clearly it had taken her voice with it.

  Centuries of breeding all but rolled off him in waves. He was still the vast, hard, arrogant, beautiful man, and he somehow both dwarfed and elevated everything in the house.

  “The Giant is here, Mama,” Jack said quite redundantly.

  “So I see,” she said softly.

  He was wildly out of context in this quiet Northumberland doctor’s home.

  “Mother, Father, this is . . . this is . . . my former employer. Lord Lavay.”

  “What a pleasure it is to meet you,” he said to them.

  His voice echoed for a time all by itself in the kitchen, that familiar, much-­beloved baritone, the soft s’s, the exquisitely constructed consonants, like diamonds.

  Finally her parents bowed and curtsied like toys wound and set loose.

  “If I may have a private word with your daughter,” Philippe said in that pleasant way of his that made ­people reflexively leap to do his bidding. Her parents collided with each other in an effort to leave the room. “Jack, will you go with your grand-­mère and grand-­père?”

  He lowered Jack to the ground with a little grunt, and Jack dashed after them up the stairs.

  They heard his voice following his grandparents up the stairs. “He gave me a lion!”

  “Come outside with me, if you will, Elise.”

  She would have gone straight to Hades with him if he’d asked, but she couldn’t quite find her voice. She followed him.

  They stood outside, blinking in the clean sunlight, surrounded by the land of her birth, by everything she’d known and loved.

  They simply stared at each other for a time.

  “I like your ribbon,” he said. “Is it new?”

  She smiled faintly. “This is your conversation?”
r />   He didn’t laugh. He was looking at her as if he’d located the grail.

  “I think your laugh is my favorite sound in the world.”

  Oh. Well, that went straight into her heart.

  He looked so deadly serious when he said it.

  “That, and that little gasp you made when I first kissed you. And the sound you make when you—­”

  “Philippe, you must tell me why you’re here.” Her entire body was covered in a sort of soft, feverish heat that he could inspire so quickly. Her heart was slamming against her breastbone.

  “My sister has arrived in Pennryoyal Green.”

  “Oh, she came?” Elise was delighted.

  “That was quite a risk you took with that letter, Mrs. Fountain. But then you have always known me better than I know myself.”

  She was silent.

  So was he.

  “Did you come here to tell me that, Philippe?”

  “No.”

  “To complain about your sister?”

  “No.”

  She still seemed unable to make him smile. She realized he was tense as a drum skin.

  If he were any more still, he’d grow roots like a tree, and the birds would come to sit on his shoulders.

  “It’s just . . .” He took a deep breath and thrust his hands into his pockets. “I am here because there is life, and there is death, but they are one and the same without you, Elise.”

  Oh.

  She gave her head a little shake, because the tears had begun.

  “I thought I needed everything I once had . . . I thought I owed it to my family to preserve it as it was. But the only thing that gave those places meaning was love. My family has scattered or died, gone on to make new lives elsewhere. All the memories I wish to keep were comprised of love. And home, Elise, is anywhere love is.” He stepped toward her urgently and looked down. “And you are my love.”

  He was blurry now. She dashed tears away from her eyelashes. The breeze lashed at her hair and whipped it about gaily, and she almost missed her hairpins, because she didn’t want to miss a second of his face during this moment.