A Wicked Scandal For The Bluestocking (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Lucinda Nelson

  Now, Eric wished that he had talked more to Charlene at the ball. She seemed certain that her father was innocent, and he wanted to know what it was that made her feel that way. Maybe she knew something more than what his sources had turned up.

  Maybe she could shed some light on what was really happening with her father.

  Because at the end of the day, Eric had to admit that he believed Charlene. No matter how damning the information that was in front of him now, he was sure that she was right when she said that her father was wrongfully accused.

  There was some other part of the story that he was missing. And he wouldn’t know what it was unless he had a moment to chat with Charlene herself.

  How to go about that, though? He could hardly summon her here, nor could he just show up at her aunt’s home unannounced. He was a duke, and that meant that people gossiped about him all the time. His visit to Lady Helene’s wouldn’t go unnoticed.

  Not only that, but there was no way that he would be able to talk to her in private, freely, if he showed up at her home. Talking freely with her would be even more impossible if he scheduled an official visit, though.

  And yet more impossible still if he tried to meet with her at the next ball, whenever he happened to see her at another society event. She had her charge to look after, and sneaking off once to meet with him at the library had been risky enough.

  He wished, suddenly, that things were simpler. That he wasn’t the duke, or at least not yet.

  But of course, that in itself had been the common refrain ever since his father’s death: he wished that he had had just a little while longer to bring himself around to the idea that he was going to one day be duke.

  Of course, it was the position that he had been brought up into, his whole life. At the same time, it felt like his responsibilities had come on to him too soon. He was only twenty-seven years old, but already he felt tired.

  He sighed and set aside the information on the doctor, wishing that he knew what to do. Finally, he decided that if the information in front of his was still damning, it meant that he needed more information about the man.

  Somewhere out there, there had to be something that proved the doctor’s innocence, he was sure of it.

  Charlene believed that her father was innocent, and Charlene was smart. If she was willing to risk her reputation by being caught alone in a library with him, the young duke, then it meant that there was something that she wanted him to know, something that she wanted the world to know. Something that proved her father’s innocence.

  Just then, one of his servants poked his head into the room, cutting off his train of thought. “Duke?” the man asked. “Lady Annabelle is here, and she would like to speak with you.” The man looked a little frazzled, and Eric couldn’t help but feel pity for the man.

  No doubt the man had tried to fend her off, reminding her that she didn’t have an appointment with the busy duke. Eric knew that his servants had done their best to help him since he had taken over his father’s position.

  They had been his father’s servants before they became his, and Eric was sure that they knew more about being a duke than he himself did.

  Eric had realized, soon after becoming duke, that if he allowed everyone to have a piece of his time as they seemed to feel that they had a right to, then he wouldn’t last long. He would go mad, or he would allow his subjects to drive him into the ground.

  But Lady Annabelle just wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  In his head, Eric knew that the viscount’s daughter would make a perfect match for him. Not only that, but logically, he knew that the woman was attractive, sexy, accomplished. He should want for nothing in a wife if he would but court her.

  Yet he couldn’t seem to feel interested in her. And it wasn’t just that her boldness stretched the realm of propriety.

  It was funny, really. He had never had a problem before with the idea of a woman be improper.

  It hadn’t bothered him when Charlene had been left alone with him. When Charlene had allowed him to kiss her, back when they were younger, or when she had asked him to meet her in the library at that ball.

  When Lady Annabelle arrived unexpectedly like this, however, all he could think was to remind her that the two of them shouldn’t be alone with one another, that it wasn’t right for her to be there.

  He would never say that to the woman’s face, however, and he certainly wouldn’t allow his servant to relay that to her. She would see it as an insult, and even though an insult was, no doubt, exactly what was needed to get the woman to leave him alone, he had no wish to insult her.

  “I’ll see her in the sitting room, James,” Eric sighed, getting up from the table and making to do just that.

  “She is already waiting,” James said, sounding resigned to the fact that his master’s day was going to be interrupted, regardless of what either he or Eric hoped.

  Eric smiled at him, though, hoping that he didn’t consider this a personal failing on his part. The young duke knew for himself how difficult it was to ward off the lady.

  He had lost count of how many dances they had shared at the last ball, but it had seemed that every time he turned, there she was, her head thrown back as she laughed.

  He had never had a chance to think about talking to Charlene again. And he doubted that he would in the future, if Lady Annabelle had her way.

  Eric shook his head and went to find her. She was wearing a new dress in a bright scarlet, cut in the latest fashion. Her hair was impeccably drawn up away from her face, and she simpered at Eric as he entered.

  “There you are!” she said, giggling. “I was afraid that I was interrupting something. Oh, do tell me that I wasn’t interrupting anything!”

  “Nothing,” Eric promised her, knowing that if he had even hinted that she had, in fact, interrupted his day, she would want to know just what it was that he was up to at the moment.

  And what would he tell her? That an old acquaintance was on trial and that he was trying to clear the man’s name? He didn’t want anyone to know about that, and especially not before he was sure that the doctor hadn’t intentionally poisoned Lord Henrich.

  He paused, waiting for her to invent some excuse for being there. She smiled at him again, standing and coming close to him, brushing her fingers against his arm.

  She didn’t take things any further than that, but that in itself was already more familiar than Eric would have liked. He wanted to take a step back, but again, he didn’t want to insult her. He should be interested in her, he knew that. He just couldn’t seem to find it in his heart to be.

  Lady Annabelle’s smile told Eric that she knew just how much he wanted to flee the room. “Don’t look so worried!” she said. “I’m not here to seduce you. I merely wanted to tell you how much I appreciated our dancing the other night. It was a wonderful evening, all thanks to you.”

  She paused, brushing her fingers along the young duke’s shoulder as she headed towards the window. “In all honesty, I don’t love London’s balls and frippery. I’m much more at home at our country estate.”

  She paused, glancing over her shoulder at Eric. “I’m sure that we can both agree that with our positions in society, there are also certain responsibilities. They can be tiresome at times. It’s nice to lay those aside, away from the gossip-mongers.”

  Eric stared at her, wondering what exactly she was saying. Did she want the two of them to run away to her country estate? Surely she didn’t think that that would get them away from the ‘gossip-mongers’.

  If anything, that would give everyone something to talk about until, well, the end of time. Their judgements would be endless. And that was the last thing that the young duke needed now, when he had newly taken over his father’s title and responsibilities.

  Eric remained silent, and Annabelle laughed, turning back to him. “I have overstepped,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to.”

  She looked at him through her eyelashes. “I merely wanted to say
that I enjoyed our dances the other night.” She paused. “You are someone that I feel comfortable with. Perhaps too comfortable. I simply hope that there are many more nights like the other in our futures.”

  Eric knew that she was trying to get him to fall for her. That she was trying to remind him of all the things that they supposedly had in common: their discomfort at those balls, their relentless responsibilities to their people, everything to do with their positions.

  And in a way, he knew that she was right. Out of everyone in all of England, she was probably one of the few people who were close enough to Eric’s age and in a similar position to his. One of the few people who could really understand what he went through from day to day.

  She was playing on his unhappiness, though, without giving him any hope for the future. What would happen if he threw his lot with hers?

  They would only have more responsibilities, he was sure. And they had nothing in common other than those responsibilities. In spite of their positions, Eric was sure that they were very different people.

  Annabelle had come here to thank him for a wonderful night at the ball, and to ask for many more. But there was only one person that Eric could imagine spending those long and wearying nights with. Annabelle wasn’t it.

  Not that the young duke could actually ask Charlene to dance with him. The rest of society would be up in arms if he did.

  He wasn’t stupid. He knew that there were plenty of young women out there who would love nothing more than to have Eric court them. Many of them were wealthy, of good families, and the perfect political match for him.

  And given his position, someone like Annabelle was much more suited to the challenges of being his wife, rather than a doctor’s daughter like Charlene.

  He could do much better than Charlene. He had a difficult time reminding himself why that mattered, sometimes.

  In his heart, he couldn’t help thinking of the way that she had looked in that navy blue dress of hers. He couldn’t stop picturing those bewitching eyes of hers. He couldn’t help imagining the way that she would look pressed down in his bed as his wife.

  Those were simply fantasies, though.

  Annabelle brushed his shoulder one last time as she headed towards the door. “I’ll see you soon,” she promised Eric as she showed herself out.

  The young duke nodded to himself, knowing that she spoke the truth. He was much more likely, in his position, to see her again than he was to see Charlene again.

  She was Miss Matilda’s chaperone, and the young woman seemed hell-bent on going to every ball this season. At the end of the day, though, Charlene was beholden to her client and couldn’t slip away whenever she chose to.

  They had exhausted their one chance, Eric was sure. No matter how much information he gathered about Dr. Ellington and his innocence, the young duke might have ruined his only chance with the doctor’s daughter.

  He felt a sour taste in his mouth at the thought. But what more could he do?

  Chapter 9

  Miss Charlene Ellington

  Charlene couldn’t help but feel more and more desperate about her father’s situation, the more time passed. She knew that there were already testimonies floating around about other ways that the doctor had wronged people.

  Even if those testimonies proved untrue, the general consensus seemed to be that when it came to Lord Henrich, Dr. Ellington was fully at fault for the man’s death.

  Charlene still couldn’t believe it. She knew her father. He would never have prescribed the wrong medicine to a patient, and he certainly wouldn’t have signed off on the incorrect medicine that the apothecary’s assistant had given him.

  He knew that you didn’t treat gout with a medicine for stomach parasites. He would have foreseen the man’s spleen rupture, long before it caused the man’s death.

  He wouldn’t have done it, Charlene was sure. Someone must have framed him. But she didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to clear her father’s name. Not by herself.

  Unfortunately, no one seemed interested in helping her to clear the man’s name. She felt sick to her stomach, thinking of what might happen to the man that she had always admired more than any other.

  Part of the trouble was that Charlene couldn’t go see her father on her own. If she could only talk to the man, she was sure that her father would have some way of knowing who it was who had framed him. He must have his suspicions.

  Not only that, but just seeing him would calm Charlene down some so that she could think things through logically. As it was, every time she started thinking about her father, she found herself getting more and more upset as she contemplated his possible fate.

  Execution. How cruel to sentence a man to death, Charlene thought. But it was possible that the judge would believe that Dr. Ellington deserved it, because it was entirely possible that he would believe that the doctor had taken another life in his turn.

  There was a knock on the door. Charlene sighed and went to answer it, sure that it was her Aunt Helene with more bad news. Whatever else could it be, after all?

  Her aunt had remained coolly practical about the whole thing, reminding Charlene that in the event that her father was convicted, they would find a way through as a family.

  Of course, Charlene knew that her aunt was crafty. She had managed to evade everyone who wanted to know why she wasn’t married, to find her place in society on her own without tying herself down to someone.

  Charlene couldn’t help but feel worried, though.

  Surprisingly, though, it wasn’t Helene at the door. Instead, it was a man she didn’t recognize. “Miss Ellington?” he asked.

  “Yes?” Charlene asked.

  “My lord, the Duke of Havenport, has sent for you. He said to ask when you would be available. He would prefer if you could make it this afternoon,” the man said, sounding nervous, as though he was unsure what Charlene’s response might be.

  Or what his lord’s response would be if Charlene told him that she wasn’t available today.

  Interesting. Charlene felt her heart beat a little faster. She had told Eric to forget what she had said before, but perhaps he had gone ahead and attempted to help her case anyway. Perhaps he had some information for her.

  Or perhaps he was looking for something else? Charlene’s body felt hot all over as she considered that possibility. Not that she would cave to his desires, not after seeing him with Lady Annabelle.

  If he wanted Charlene, it was only as a mistress, not as a bride. Charlene liked to think that she wouldn’t give herself up that easily.

  At the moment, though, it was Eric’s servant who was waiting for Charlene’s response. And Charlene knew that she had no choice but to go with him.

  If she declined, or even if she pushed off their meeting until the following day, she knew that curiosity would eat her up inside. No, it was better that she find out what it was that Eric wanted from her, or what he had found out.

  She hoped that it was something that would help her father. Or that he would at least let her plead her case once more.

  “I can meet him today,” Charlene said. She paused for a moment, wondering if she should locate her aunt and ask Helene to come along with her. She shouldn’t arrive alone at the duke’s house.

  If anyone were to notice such a visit, it could have an adverse effect on Charlene’s reputation, as well as that of the duke. Yet Helene had intended to do some shopping that day and have tea with one of her girlfriends, and Charlene didn’t want to interrupt that. Nor did she want to keep Eric waiting.

  What if he changed his mind and decided that he didn’t want anything to do with her after all?

  “Let me just grab my hat,” Charlene said to the man. Then, she followed him alone to the waiting carriage, letting him help her inside.

  She could practically hear the beating of her heart inside her chest. The carriage, before it set off, was too quiet with just her inside of it. The ride to Eric’s manor gave her too much time to think.

>   She stared up at the imposing building as the carriage drew up in front of it. Before she could start to regret this, before she could ask the driver to turn around and return her to her family’s home, Eric was coming down the steps at the front of the manor and climbing into the carriage with her.

  “I’m sorry to do things this way,” he murmured as the driver set off. “I know it’s the height of impropriety to whisk you off like this. But I thought you might, perhaps, wish to visit your father at Newgate.”

  Charlene stared at Eric for a moment, barely believing that those were the words that she had heard come out of the man’s mouth. He was taking her to see her father?

  “Why?” she blurted out, before she could consider how loaded a question that was.

  Eric shrugged, looking seriously into her eyes. “I’m sorry that I told you, at the ball, that I wouldn’t help you,” he said.