A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal, Page 3

  “Colton will be beside himself to find you here,” Harcourt remarked. “Was asking after you earlier. Said he hadn’t seen you in weeks.”

  Colton was the host of this event. Intent on proving his credentials as a man-about-town, he’d been courting friendship from any half-notorious gentleman he could locate. Avoiding him grew tedious; encouraging him was a deadly mistake. “I’ll tell him I went off to find God,” Simon said dryly. “That should quell his interest.”

  As the remark echoed in his ears, it began to sound less ludicrous than portentous. The court ruling left him little choice but to hunt for a wealthy bride. Alas, rakes excelled on the marriage market only when in a state of reform.

  The crowd parted and he spotted Dalziel. The man was standing a short distance away, behind a long table atop which an unclothed woman was serving as the platter for canapes. When anxious, Dalziel ate; at present, he was plucking up cheese and grapes with speed and enthusiasm.

  His animal sense registered danger: he glanced up and did a comical double-take as his eyes met Simon’s.

  “You,” he gasped, then stumbled as the woman playing the part of the table slapped his clumsy hand away from her eye. Regaining his balance, he wheeled to flee.

  “Hold there!” In three long strides, Harcourt caught Dalziel and turned him around by the shoulder, slamming him up against the wall with enough force to make a nearby candelabra rattle.

  “Don’t hurt me!” Dalziel squeaked as Simon strolled up. The lovely lady on the table gave Simon a smile and reached out to take his empty glass.

  “My thanks,” he said to her.

  “Shut your face,” Harcourt was bellowing at Dalziel. “You’re lucky if I don’t gut you. What do you say, Rushden? A facer to start?”

  Dalziel whimpered. “No, no—for God’s sake! Please …”

  Putting his hands in his pockets, Simon looked Dalziel up and down. The man was generally quite florid, but just now his puffy face had gone as pale as Italian cheese. He’d clearly been enjoying himself this evening; his waistcoat was improperly buttoned and his cuffs gaped open. Was there such a thing as poor form at an orgy? Simon put the question aside for later consideration. “You have something of mine,” he said.

  Dalziel’s mouth worked. He had the wide-eyed, startled look of a small creature trapped in sudden bright lights. “Please, I—I want no trouble.”

  “Pathetic,” Harcourt commented.

  “No trouble is required,” Simon said. “Simply hand over the book.”

  “I’ve not got it!”

  “But feisty,” Harcourt said in impressed tones.

  Simon cut his friend a silencing look, then leaned toward Dalziel. “This game bores me. You’re not clever enough to play it, and you won’t like how it ends.”

  The color rushed back into Dalziel’s face. “It’s no game,” he squeaked. “You—you didn’t honor the terms!”

  “Terms? You named the price. I accepted it.” The manuscript was not particularly valuable; no true collector would have coveted it. But Simon did, and Dalziel, knowing this, had asked for an undeservedly high price. “Don’t tell me,” Simon added with open scorn, “that a hundred pounds did not satisfy you?”

  “Zero,” Dalziel whispered.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Zero,” Dalziel said through his teeth.

  “Cheek,” growled Harcourt. He tightened his hand around the man’s neck, his knuckles turning white as Dalziel loosed a gasp of pain.

  “Zero!” Dalziel screamed—then flushed a violent red, as though mortified by his own outburst.

  Simon laughed in astonishment. The man was a caricature. “Zero is a number,” he said. “Not an explanation. Do try again.”

  Dalziel’s gaze cut between them. “I tried to cash your check,” he said rapidly. “It was refused!”

  “A mistake,” said Harcourt. “You should have asked to speak with Rushden’s banker!”

  “Morris, yes. I did speak with him.” Dalziel swallowed. “Ain’t a mistake. Morris said—he said your account’s been frozen!” He shrank into himself with a little gasp and crammed shut his eyes.

  The reaction, and the remark that had preceded it, seemed so bizarre that Simon wondered if the man was having an attack of some sort. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Dalziel cracked open one eye. “Don’t hit me!”

  Simon took a step backward. “I have no plans for it.” He wouldn’t hit a man who showed no intention of defending himself. It seemed a bit much, though, to inform Dalziel of his own effeminacy.

  Harcourt was staring, wide-eyed. “I would hit him. That’s a deuced nasty rumor, Rushden. People will think—they’ll think—well, I don’t know what!”

  That I’m pockets to let.

  Good God. Could Grimston have acted so quickly?

  Simon turned away to disguise his reaction in a survey of the crowd. Yes, of course Grimston would have acted at once. He was guardian to old Rushden’s remaining daughter; what money went to her, passed through his hands first. He’d coveted every penny of the estate, and would no doubt help himself to a good many of them before Kitty attained her majority.

  He drove his hand through his hair as he turned back—pausing midturn as he caught his reflection in one of the pier glasses set around the room to show the guests their wicked antics. In the mirror, he saw a man, more than averagely handsome, more than averagely tall, resplendently fashionable in evening blacks, with an expression on his face of ill-concealed shock.

  The man now smiled faintly. What a clever turn out. He was the very picture of a buffoon as sketched by some cartoonist in Punch. The caption beneath his portrait would read: The wandering rakehell faces his destitution manfully, in the finest French fashions.

  He released a long breath. The coroneted bankrupt: not very original. He had some small funds tucked away, though. Enough to buy this book, certainly.

  Perhaps he should be more concerned with paying his creditors.

  Comical thought. Who in London actually paid his creditors?

  Simon laughed. It was a strange sound and he watched its effect on his reflection, trying to hold on to that peculiar sensation of looking at himself as a stranger would. It was far more comforting to fathom bad news about oneself when seeing clearly what an ass one was. Then it did not feel so much like bad news as it did a rare piece of justice.

  He turned back to Dalziel, who flinched. “I’ll have the money to you tomorrow morning,” he said. “You will be at home, waiting for me.”

  “Yes, yes,” Dalziel said quickly, gratefully. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Simon swept out a mocking hand. Dalziel shoved off the wall and bolted into the crowd.

  Harcourt looked after him. “Is it true?” he asked quietly. “Are you hard up?”

  “Suffice it to say that I’m in the market for marriage.” He shrugged at Harcourt’s marveling look. He had no objection to the institution. He’d been engaged once, in love not only with the woman but with the idea of becoming a husband to her.

  Of course, in the aftermath of old Rushden’s interference, his tolerance for courtship had eroded. He would not take well to explaining and excusing and proving himself to some wide-eyed debutante.

  The thought actually made him weary. The French probably would diagnose him with a bad case of ennui, but he rather thought that what ailed him was a case of adulthood.

  Harcourt was shaking his head. “Bad timing here.”

  “Indeed.” The season was almost at an end. He’d have to follow the likely prospects north and waste his summer grouse hunting in Scotland.

  Simon laughed softly. He could not believe it had come to this.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Harcourt said thoughtfully. “I think I’d still like to plant a facer on Dalziel. Meet you outside afterward?”

  Simon remembered with a start his promise to return to Lady Swanby before dawn. It had seemed a fair reward for her good taste in showcasing Andreasson. Her husband, she cla
imed, was a very sound sleeper. “Not tonight. Possibly tomorrow.” Although most of his day would probably be spent in conference with panicked accountants, solicitors, secretaries, stewards … Sometimes he felt as though half the world depended on the fullness of Lord Rushden’s bank accounts.

  “I live in hope,” Harcourt said. With a clap to Simon’s back, he departed.

  A low, sultry voice came from the direction of the table: “Did you scare them off, then?”

  “Hmm?” Simon glanced down at the woman. Her mons veneris and upper thighs were blanketed in nuts. At least she looked to be out of her teens. “No,” he said with a smile, “I’m afraid they got the best of me.” His smile turned into a laugh as he considered the assortment of food laid across her. “Darling, I’ll admit it: I have never felt so envious of confections.” He plucked a walnut from her navel.

  “Don’t stop there,” she purred. She had pretty, dark eyes, tilted like a cat’s. “You can have them all, you can. And maybe something else for dessert.”

  “Charming,” he murmured. Alas, he didn’t play with the help. And now—he laughed again—he couldn’t afford to do so anyway. “Some other time, perhaps.” He lifted her hand for a kiss, then turned on his heel for the exit.

  As he passed into the hallway, a nearby clock began to chime the midnight hour, and a startled bellow came from below.

  It seemed Harcourt had caught up with Dalziel.

  His laughter welled up again from nowhere, suddenly, and with such startling force that he had to stop and lean against the wall. He had no idea what set him off, but the hilarity expanded to encompass more and more, to encompass it all: Dalziel shrieking below; old Rushden selling off manuscripts like a merchant; grouse hunting, for God’s sake, and little debutantes in white dresses, demanding repentance; Simon’s mother’s disgust when she heard all these tidings from her comfortable summer home in Nice; and the intensity of his own delusions, his grand musical talents, a youth misspent pursuing them, all for nothing, now, as the clock rang so insistently, though it made no bloody difference whether or not anyone knew the time, not really; it kept on moving whether one was informed of it or not.

  He wiped tears from his eyes. As his mirth ebbed he became conscious of a curious sensation in his stomach. It felt like an ache, not a pressure as much as a sort of hollowness, expanding, cold, like the dull blue deepening of twilight.

  Alone in this hallway, he suddenly felt … like the only person in the world.

  Lady Swanby was waiting. The thought made him draw a long breath and push off the wall. Yes, God forbid he keep Lady Swanby waiting for him. What an inconvenience it would pose her to have to find someone else with whom to pass the night.

  Like billiard balls bashing around the table, he thought. How randomly we smash into and away from each other.

  He shook his head at himself. Heard Harcourt below and put a smile on his face. As he started down the stairs, he threw in a salute to the clock for good measure. “Time waits for no man,” he murmured.

  But every day, it certainly ran out for someone.

  A girl got to thinking after her mother died. Some people were born saintlike, and Nell’s mum had been one of them: righteous, holy, with a pale, thin voice made for muttering prayers in some hushed alcove where nobody could overhear. At the wake, people had said she’d been beautiful once, but Nell couldn’t imagine it. Beauty was a broad grin, a loud laugh, the water beating up on the Ramsgate sands—things that would be here tomorrow, that didn’t give a damn.

  Mum had always given a damn. Anxious, worn by it. Even her silences had offered reproach. Did you? Would you? Will you? Oh, devil’s child, what am I to do with you? Furrows in her forehead, bruises beneath her eyes, trembling hands permanently stained by the tobacco she’d handled—Jane Whitby had been anything but lovely, and Nell wouldn’t think of her.

  Nor would she cry again, blast it. She was done with weeping. Mourning was a luxury for the rich, a duty for the righteous poor. Nell was neither. Self-righteous, maybe. Poor, without doubt. But there it ended. No need for tears.

  She forced a smile onto her face in the darkness. Oh yes, she knew her faults very well. No grace in her. No forgiveness. What modesty she had came of shame. And in her heart no piety swelled, no compassion or patience. Resentment was what fueled her now. Rage.

  She was the one who belonged in jail, not Hannah. Hannah’s only fault had lain in the company she’d kept. But the ladies at GFS hadn’t cared for the truth. I am very sorry for your friend, Mrs. Watson had said. But we cannot condone thievery. You must trust in the fairness of the law.

  Oh, aye, the fairness of the law. Much fairness it had been to haul Hannah away—Hannah, whose only fault had been to pick up Nell’s purse the moment before the bobbies had swept in to search them. Hannah hadn’t taken that brooch from Mrs. Watson, or the money, either.

  Nell had confessed it but nobody had paid her heed. Where do you think I got the money for my mum’s wake? she’d yelled. Or for the medicine that came before it? I’m the thief!

  It hadn’t made a difference for Hannah, but somebody had carried word of Nell’s speech out the door. It had traveled to Michael, who’d knocked her down the stairs in his rage that she’d not shared the profits; it had reached all the way to the factory, where the foreman, already troubled by her talk of windows and the right to leave the workroom for lunch, had called her a troublemaker and sacked her.

  No justice in Bethnal Green. So she’d find a bit of it right here in Mayfair.

  “Oh, Cornelia, I fear for you. Wickedness is in your blood.”

  “Right you were, Mum,” Nell whispered. Dressed as a lad and set on bloody revenge: to become any more wicked, she’d need Lucifer’s own instruction.

  Ten pounds was what she’d asked of Lord Rushden. Had he sent it, she’d never have needed to steal a thing. But he’d never bothered to reply. He was about to find out that he’d sold his life cheaply.

  She pulled back the hammer. Heard the hollow click of the chamber falling into place. Irons, now they were lovely. The one in her hand had been polished to a fine, gleaming shine. Brennan’s doing. The pawnshop owner had laughed when she asked for it, but a few coins had sobered him up. Hadn’t even tried to thieve them. That wasn’t Brennan’s way. “You’ve got guts, Nell,” was what he’d said when he brought out the pistol. “Let me spiff it up for you. Make it a first-class affair.”

  Oh, she’d thought it very first class—the pistol, the hansom cab she’d hired to get here. No omnibuses for her, not tonight!

  But now that she was inside, the taste of humiliation was back in her mouth, stale and bitter like old beer. First class, she thought with scorn. For all it meant to her kind, it might as well be a phrase from some foreign language. First-class cab? The residents of these parts owned too many coaches to count. Wasn’t anything first class about a chariot that stank of someone else’s vomit. Remembering it, she drew a deep, steadying breath—and then scowled.

  The air in this dark hallway smelled better than she ever had. Not a trace of gas, and no smoke, coal or candle or otherwise. Fresh flowers and wax, the barest trace of some exotic cologne, mingled into a perfume that made her feel as if she was dreaming. Wealth: there was even a scent to it.

  And a feel. It had never been hers, but Mum had described it so often that she’d known what it would be like; she felt it now, beneath her. The carpet was so thick that her feet sank deeper with each step, growing more and more difficult to lift. And the sound—no babies screaming for feeding, no kids shrieking in the stairwell. An immensity of silence filled the long corridor. The gentle ticking of a clock lulled her breath into calm rhythms. Be at peace, the house invited her. Feel … smell … rest.

  Ha. No rest for her. Her grip tightened as she prowled forward, counting off the doors to her right. She’d watched for hours from the shadows of the trees in the square: as the lights had started to shut off, this area was where the activity had concentrated. The fifth door seemed about
the right spot.

  The crystal knob was cold, smooth beneath her fingers. Alas for Lord High and Mighty, his servants were proper workers; the door opened without a squeak.

  A snore rattled through the room. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! If she hadn’t just eased off the trigger, she would’ve shot herself in the foot just then. How typical that would have been. Obviously God had no sense of irony, a mercy for which she paused to give quick, heartfelt thanks.

  Three cautious steps carried her into the center of the room. Her eyes found the source of the noise, a portly, balding man asleep on a cot in the corner. Valet, that would be, and if she wasn’t mistaken, she smelled gin even from here. With a roll of her eyes, she moved lightly past him to the next door, which also opened soundlessly. She shut it behind her with a small click.

  She turned, and as she beheld the canopied bed at the far end of the room, a sharp breath escaped her. So. She was here, then. End of the road. She swallowed against a welter of emotions too tangled to separate. Grief. Bitterness. Fury.

  Not fear. That would be stupid.

  Nevertheless, she paused for a moment to draw a few steadying breaths, to orient herself. Big room. Desk, dresser, standard assortment of furniture—glossy, thanks to some maid’s aching wrists. The curtains were drawn; through the open window came the rustling of wind in the leaves, the minute scurrying of some night creature through the garden. The moon was riding high in a bank of clouds, loosing a shaft of light that illuminated the rosettes on the dark Oriental carpet.

  A grim smile twisted her mouth. She had enough of the stage in her to appreciate nature’s invitation. She moved into the center of the moonbeam and leveled her gun at the canopy.

  “My lord,” she said quietly. “It’s Nell come to visit. Best awake and face your death like a man.”

  Like a man?” The lazy voice came from her right. She whirled, fingers tight around the barker. “Is there some template for a manly death?” the voice continued from the darkness. “Because I was preparing to weep and cringe. Is that off the table?”