It’s Only a Scandal if You’re Caught

by Farmer, Merry

  Jack frowned, letting his arms drop to his sides. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

  “I most certainly am not,” hissed, snapping straight, anger filling her once more. At least, she thought it was anger. A part of her whispered that it felt much more like terror.

  Jack’s frown flattened to an incredulous stare. “That’s why you went to Scotland Yard,” he said. “Why you felt you needed to come here straight away. You were going to tell me.”

  “I didn’t come here to—I had no intention of—I went in search of you because—” She couldn’t manage to put a sentence together. Her hands began to shake and her knees threatened to give out.

  Now Jack looked confused. “You were sick,” he said, almost as if explaining.

  “Perhaps I ate something that had gone off at the May Flowers tea,” Bianca said.

  Jack tilted his head to the side. “Have you had your monthly since we started seeing each other at the flat?”

  Hot embarrassment washed through Bianca and she darted quick looks to the side to make absolutely certain no one was listening. “How dare you?” she hissed.

  Jack’s expression lightened a bit. “Maybe it hasn’t just been my imagination and your tits have gotten bigger.”

  She slapped him hard before she could think better of it. The sound would have been far more satisfying if she hadn’t been wearing a glove, but the way his head snapped to the side was satisfaction enough.

  “You rude, crude, villainous—”

  “I deserved that,” he admitted, rubbing the side of his face. “But you can’t hide from the truth, Bianca. Actions have consequences. Fucking makes babies.”

  She pulled back to slap him a second time, but he caught her wrist before her hand came near his face. With a decisive show of strength, he pushed her arm to her side and took a step into her, standing so close she could smell the salt of his skin.

  “This is what we’re going to do,” he began in a commanding voice. “We’ll go to your mother and Lord Malcolm together. We’ll confess everything. I will demand they consent to our marriage, no matter what. I’ll take the money I’ve been banking for years now and buy us the best flat I can afford, though it won’t be much. You won’t have to work if I can help it, but we’ll be pretty close to the bone for a while until things sort themselves out. You’ll have to be ready for the fact that your family and friends will cut you permanently, but—”

  “Stop.” Bianca pulled back, stepping away from him. She was surprised he let her go. “You can’t simply write my future like that. Besides, I’m not—”

  “You are,” he spoke over her. “And we’ll deal with it. Together.”

  “Arrogant bastard,” she hissed, snatching her coat from his free hand and throwing it around her shoulders. She struggled to shove her arms through the sleeves while saying, “High or low, men are all tyrants.”

  As soon as her coat was on, she stormed up the street. Ida and her friends snapped suddenly straight, pretending they hadn't been listening to the whole conversation. For some reason, the sight of them made Bianca want to cry.

  “Bianca.” Jack’s tone was back to being warning as he caught up to her, attempting to take her arm. She shook him off. “I forbade you to come here before because it is genuinely a dangerous neighborhood if you’re not on the inside. I’m not letting you walk off and get your pockets picked, or worse. Especially not in your condition.”

  “I’m not pregnant,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Yes, you are, love,” Jack said in a surprisingly tender voice.

  “Am not,” Bianca said, though she sounded more like she was about to burst into a fresh wave of weeping. She sniffled, threw her shoulders back, and stopped when they reached the intersection at the end of the street. “Fine. If you won’t let me walk through your godforsaken neighborhood, then call me a cab.”

  Without hesitation, Jack raised a hand. Within seconds, a plain, black carriage that had been idling at the end of the road lurched into motion, driving forward.

  “Go to the St. John’s Wood flat,” Jack said. “As soon as I’m finished with some pressing work for the day, I’ll meet you there. We’ll decide how to proceed together.”

  “Go to hell,” Bianca snapped.

  “I’m already there,” he answered without hesitation.

  The carriage pulled up beside them and Jack stepped forward to open the door. “Cheers, Harry,” Jack greeted the driver with a serious nod. “Take Lady Bianca to the address she’ll give you in St. John’s Wood. I’ll pay you double when you get back if you get her there quickly and safely.”

  “All right, Jack,” the driver said with a surprised and delighted smile. That smile vanished as soon as Bianca glared at him.

  “Bully,” Bianca growled as she reluctantly took Jack’s hand and stepped into the carriage.

  “Bitch,” he growled right back.

  Bianca wanted to laugh. Wanting to laugh made her want to scream. She settled for bursting into tears as Jack slammed the carriage door shut on her and ordered Harry to drive on.

  “What’s the address, my lady?” Harry asked when they came to a stop at the busy intersection of Calthorpe Street.

  Bianca wiped her streaming face—her gloves were thoroughly ruined now—and inched closer to the window. “Forget St. John’s Wood,” she called up to Harry. “Take me to Mayfair, to Campbell House.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the man said hesitantly, as if debating whether to disobey a noblewoman or Jack.

  By the feel of the carriage as it changed direction and the change in scenery as they drove on, Bianca could tell he’d chosen to obey her and take her to Rupert and Cece’s house. Bianca had no idea why she’d told him to take her there instead of home to Marlowe House….

  Except she did know.

  She sank into the seat, sobbing. “Oh, God,” she wailed, pressing a hand to her stomach.

  She was pregnant. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind. Six weeks she and Jack had been carrying on. Rutting like rabbits. And he was right, she hadn’t had her monthly since they’d started. They’d been utterly and disastrously careless, too caught up in passion for Jack to even think of pulling out in time. Not that that method was foolproof. How many of her married friends had whispered about the futility of preventing pregnancy within the first few months of marriage, when passion was new and exciting and lovemaking was frequent. What kind of ninny had she been to assume that because she wasn’t married to Jack, the inevitable wouldn’t happen?

  “Oh, no,” she whispered, clutching her coat over her stomach as wave after wave of horrific thought struck her.

  She was ruined. Pregnancy without marriage might have been part and parcel of life as a whore in Clerkenwell, but in Mayfair, in high society, it was a death sentence. She would be turned out of every great house and every polite club she was a part of. People who looked askance at her now would cut her outright whenever they saw her. How could she possibly have thought that carrying on with Jack in secret wouldn’t mean they would eventually be caught? Her life as she knew it was over.

  The thought brought her close to being sick again as they rounded the last corner onto the street where Campbell House stood. Harry brought the carriage to a stop in front of the door, then hopped down to open the carriage door for her.

  “Do I owe you anything?” she asked wearily as her feet hit the pavement.

  “No, Lady Bianca,” Harry said with the sort of familiarity that made it clear he knew exactly who she was too.

  She nodded to him, too undone even to thank him, and dragged herself up the steps to Campbell House. Harry waited, watching after her anxiously, until Mr. Galston opened the door to show her in. He then tipped his hat to her and climbed up onto his carriage.

  “Good heavens, what is the matter with you?” Cece asked after Mr. Galston showed her into the afternoon parlor, where Cece appeared to be busy knitting baby clothes.

  “I’m pregnant,” she wailed, every ounce of resolve
to face her sins like a woman melting.

  She dashed across the room, falling into her sister-in-law’s startled arms and weeping pathetically against her shoulder.

  “Oh, dear,” Cece said in tones of foreboding that held no hint of surprise whatsoever. “Jack?”

  Bianca snapped straight, sniffing with wet indignation. “Of course, Jack,” she growled. A moment later, her shoulders sagged and she plopped her head back onto Cece’s shoulder. “What am I going to do?”

  “I don’t know, dearest,” Cece sighed. “He’s a blighter and a cad for abandoning you like this.”

  Bianca jerked straight again, dizzy with the smash of emotions hitting her from all sides. “Jack has not abandoned me,” she roared. “He wants to marry me. He wants to make things right.”

  Cece blinked, surprised at last, her brow raising. “Oh. He does?”

  Bianca’s jaw dropped. She loved Cece as though she’d been her sister their whole lives, but the callousness of her reaction, her obvious prejudice against Jack, stung hard. “Jack is and always has been the very best of men,” she said, meaning it from her heart. “Unlike half the bounders of our set, he instantly stood up to take responsibility. I will marry him.” Her declaration came from the heart, even though part of her wanted to flay him alive for being so overbearing and for being half the cause of the mess she was in.

  A moment later, Bianca slumped into a dripping pile of tears and snot all over again. “What am I going to tell Mama?” she squeaked.

  “I don’t know that either,” Cece sighed, sympathy appearing to overtake whatever else she was feeling as she slipped her arm around Bianca’s shoulders. “But we’ll tell her together.”

  Chapter 11

  “…so completely and utterly irresponsible. And to behave in such a scandalous way then lie to me about it?”

  Bianca’s mother let out an angry sigh that sounded more like a lioness’s roar to Bianca’s sore ears. She’d been listening to her mother rail on for at least half an hour. Or perhaps it was an eternity, there was no way to tell.

  Bianca opened her mouth to respond to the accusation, but her mother flew on.

  “This will devastate your social standing, make no mistake about that,” she shouted, pacing a tight path back and forth in front of the settee where Bianca was huddled. “Not only that, you may have caused irreparable damage to Natalia’s reputation as well. The ripples of a crime like this reach much farther than you can imagine.”

  “It’s not a crime,” Bianca insisted, snapping straighter.

  At the same time, Natalia popped her head around the doorway and squeaked, “I will be affected too?” Her sudden appearance proved to Bianca that her younger sister had been lurking nearby, listening in on the whole, humiliating ordeal.

  “Not now,” Lord Malcolm barked at Natalia from where he stood in the center of the room like a furious, ancient oak, arms crossed, glowering.

  Simultaneously, their mother turned to Natalia and shouted, “Get out!”

  Natalia jumped and blanched, then turned and scrambled out of the room with a miserable sound. Bianca was certain her poor sister wouldn’t dare listen to the rest of the verbal flogging.

  Bianca peeked at Cece, who sat in the farthest chair in the room from Bianca’s settee, looking distressed and rubbing her round belly. It was impossible to tell which side of the whole mess Cece fell on, particularly since she refused to glance up and meet Bianca’s eyes.

  “Don’t you look to Cece to help you now,” her mother roared on. “This is your disgrace and yours alone. Although God knows the rest of us will have to bear the load as well.”

  “You contradicted yourself,” Bianca attempted to say, but was thwarted as her mother’s pacing and her tirade went on.

  “And just how do you intend to take care of a child? You’re too much of a child yourself. You’re in no position to hire a nursemaid to do it all for you, and I certainly won’t facilitate your horrific choices by hiring one myself. Babies are work. They ruin your body and your mind. And then they grow up and break your heart.” Her voice caught with her last words.

  It wasn’t enough to soften Bianca’s feelings toward her, not after the scolding she was getting, but it was enough to let her get a word in edgewise.

  “You’re such a hypocrite, Mama,” she said, raising her voice in the same way her mother had.

  “I beg your pardon?” her mother gasped, freezing in the middle of her restless pacing, eyes wide with offense.

  “I will not have you speaking to your mother like that,” Lord Malcolm bellowed, stepping up to her mother’s side.

  “You’re both hypocrites,” Bianca shouted on, scooting to perch on the edge of the settee, even though the motion made her already tender stomach rebel dangerously. “Mama has had more lovers than any of us can count. The two of you conceived Natalia while Mama was still married to my father. And yet you feel you have the right to lambast me for creating a child with a free man that I have every intention of marrying?”

  Her mother and Lord Malcolm burst into protest in an instant, speaking over top of each other.

  “You will not marry that bastard—”

  “—doesn’t deserve to show his face in public—”

  “—a villain and a scoundrel who doesn’t know his own place—”

  “—and will get exactly what’s coming to him, if I have my way.”

  Bianca burned with fury at the vehemence in her mother and step-father’s words. The only thing that kept her from flying into a rage herself and leaping from the sofa to stand toe-to-toe in a shouting match with her mother was Mr. Stewart’s appearance in the doorway, a sullen-looking Jack at his side.

  “Inspector Craig, my lord,” Mr. Stewart said gravely, looking ready to bolt as soon as he was able.

  Bianca’s mother and Lord Malcolm spun to face Jack, leaving Bianca with the feeling that a great burst of fiery wind had shifted direction in the room.

  “I ought to castrate you with the fire-iron, you ignominious upstart,” Lord Malcolm roared, marching toward Jack, looking like a thundercloud spitting lightning.

  Bianca had never seen Jack so much as flinch at anything until that moment. He’d entered the room looking confident enough to master the situation, but the moment Lord Malcolm’s wrath turned on him, Jack’s eyes went wide and he raised an arm as if to defend himself.

  With good reason, too, though he wasn’t fast enough. Lord Malcolm reached Jack and threw a punch so swift and so potent that, in spite of her step-father being more than twenty years older than Jack, the blow nearly knocked him to his feet. The only thing that saved Jack from spilling to the floor was the fact that Mr. Stewart hadn’t fled fast enough and was able to catch him.

  Bianca shrieked, but underneath her horror she felt a certain amount of satisfaction. Lord Malcolm had accomplished far more than her pathetic slap earlier in the afternoon.

  Jack straightened slowly, favoring his jaw, as Bianca’s mother stormed toward him, her own fists balled at her sides.

  “You snake,” she hissed. “I never should have let you befriend my daughter. I knew no good could come of allowing the son of a whore in her presence.”

  Her mother was truly intimidating when she was in a temper, but Jack held his ground, dropping his hand from his quickly-bruising jaw, and facing her boldly. “I can assure you, my lady, it was never my intention to bring dishonor to Bianca in any way. I love her and—”

  “You call the pitiful lust between the two of you love?” Bianca’s mother shouted. Where most women’s voices went higher in tone when they were upset, her mother’s only got louder and deeper. It was enough to shake the walls like thunder. “You, of all people, should know the consequences of rutting like pigs in heat. Is that all my daughter was to you? Another whore you could slake your lust with? Have you no respect for her title and position at all?”

  Through the entire tirade, her mother backed Jack deeper into the room. She kept after him, forcing him to backpedal all t
he way to the settee. Once the back of his legs hit the settee, he had nowhere to go but to crumple onto the thing by Bianca’s side.

  “As I said,” Jack tried to defend himself, looking as though he wanted to stand but unable to with Bianca’s mother blocking him, “I had no intention of causing a disgrace of any kind. I have every intention of—”

  “You have no right to speak,” Lord Malcolm shouted over him, striding across the room to stand by Bianca’s mother’s side. The two of them towered over Bianca and Jack, like furious gods about to punish puny mortals. “You have no right to exist after the insult you have inflicted on all of us.”

  “It was no insult,” Jack fired back, equally angry but forced into a position of powerlessness. “Yes, we were foolish, but—”

  “Foolish does not begin to cover what the two of you were,” her mother boomed. “You have destroyed Bianca in more ways than you can imagine. She will not be received by anyone of good standing now. Her life as she knows it has been thoroughly destroyed, and all because you, a cockney ass, couldn’t keep your cock in your trousers.”

  “Mama,” Bianca yelped, shocked and infuriated by her mother’s language.

  “And you are no better than the trollops that spawned this snake,” her mother shouted at her. “I did not raise my daughter to be a harlot who ruts with gutter trash.”

  “I am a Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard,” Jack defended himself. “My record is exemplary and—”

  “If you so much as speak without my permission, I’ll do far worse than cut your balls off and shove them down your throat,” Lord Malcolm threatened him.

  “Perhaps some consideration should be given to what must happen next,” Cece said quietly from her chair on the periphery.

  “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next,” Bianca’s mother raged on. “We’re going to do whatever we can to minimize the damage from this mess.” She faced Bianca. “You’re going to marry at once.”

  Bianca’s heart squeezed in her chest and she peeked at Jack.

  “I’m sure Frederick Herrington will understand the need for haste and agree to the match,” her mother went on.