A Matter of Scandal (16 page)

A shadow loomed behind her. “That’s sound advice,” Grey’s lower-pitched voice said. “And with the way John Nash is going through materials in designing Prinny’s damned Pavilion, you might be able to arrange a contract for exclusive furnishment.”

“Are you spying?” she asked, her voice sharper than she intended.

“No, I’m aiding and abetting,” the duke answered.

“Don’t you have a class to teach, Your Grace?”

He gazed at her for a moment, his expression unreadable. “That’s why I’m here,” he said finally, turning to Dare. “My students want to know how to tell if a man is a gambler. I thought you might be able to answer that better than I could.”

Tristan scowled. “You want me to chat with those little chits?”

“Yes. You’re my guest lecturer. And you’d best get over there before they think up something else to discuss, or begin calling you an old stuff-boots again.”

With an uneasy glance at the laughing circle of students, Tristan smoothed his coat. “I’ll fire a shot in the air if they overwhelm me.”

As soon as the viscount had strolled out of earshot, Grey turned back to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong.” She went back to pacing out the area she’d designated for the brickworks.

“Bricks. I wish I’d thought of that. It’s a damned fine idea, Emma.”

“I know. I’ve been doing my research.”

He was silent for a short time. “Will you stop striding about for a minute?” he finally asked. “I want to talk to you.”

She wanted to stride right back to the Academy and barricade herself in her bed chamber—not that that would keep him out if he wanted in again. “You teased me about the desk,” she shot back. “And about Latin.”

“What was I suppose to do, confess that we were lying on it, naked, at the time it broke?”

Emma flushed. “Hush!” Plunking herself down in the grass, she opened her book of notes and began scribbling figures.

“Or that just thinking about that bloody desk made me want to pull your clothes off and run my hands all over you again?”

She continued making notes at a furious pace, though she had no idea what she was writing. “Keep your voice down.”

He walked right up behind her, sank down to his knees, and grabbed her elbow. “Or that I wanted to make love to you again, and that I still do, right here and right now?”

Squaring her shoulders, she shrugged free of his grip and looked over her shoulder at him. “That would make it easier for you, wouldn’t it? If everyone saw us, I mean?”

He scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“You want to close down my Academy, remember? Compromising me would do that. Was that your plan, last night?”

“No!” With a curse he stood up and stalked away, but almost immediately strode back up to her again. “I don’t know precisely what last night meant,” he said in a low, serious voice. “But I do know that I enjoyed it very much, and that I would like to do it again.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you have Miss Boswell and Lady Sylvia staying at Haverly, then, isn’t it?”

“I don’t want them. I want you.”

She raised her chin. “Why?”

He knelt again, this time facing her. “Why did you want me, Emma?”

The question surprised her. “Because.”

“That is not an answer.”

She wanted to stick her tongue out at him. “I asked you first.”

“Don’t be juvenile.”

“Don’t avoid the question.”

Swearing again, he threw his arms up in the air. “I wanted you because you…interest me. I feel…attracted to you. At the moment I’m not certain why, because you’re obviously insane.”

“You’re just trying to change the subject.”

“No, you are.” He tilted her chin up with his fingers. “It’s your turn. Why did you want to be with me?”

She drew a shallow breath, trying to read his
gaze. He was annoyed, obviously, but deeper than that she saw curiosity, and desire. “As you said,” she managed, trying to sound calm and logical, “I was…curious.”

“Just curious.”

“Yes.”

He scowled. “You, my dear, are a liar.”

Curiosity didn’t make a woman respond to his touch as she had. She’d wanted
him
, as he had wanted—still wanted—her.

She glanced over his shoulder and abruptly backed away. Reluctantly, Grey lowered his hand. He was pushing too hard, and in front of witnesses. Until she’d mentioned it, he hadn’t even considered that he might use their indiscretion to bring down the Academy. On the contrary, he was beginning to consider how to prevent that from happening.

“Regardless of your opinion, Your Grace,” she said, standing again, “I have work to do.”

Damnation
. He was mooning after her like a schoolboy, and he didn’t want her to walk away, even for one morning. Catching her hand, he turned her back to face him. “Whatever I might think of the Academy or of the merits of instructing females, I would never—
never
—use last night to hurt you. I promised you, and I keep my word.”

“Very well, Grey,” she said finally, nodding.

“Now, one more thing. Lizzy.”

With another glance past him at his al fresco classroom, she gestured him to walk with her. Not about to miss an invitation like that, he fell into step beside her.

“I am only telling you this because you are a
fellow instructor. It will
not
go any farther. Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Elizabeth is somewhat young to be admitted to a finishing school, but her circumstances are unique. Her father abandoned her and her mother when she was quite young, leaving considerable debts to weigh down what had been a respectable name.”

Grey nodded. “I’m familiar with the scenario.”

Her sideways glance was skeptical. Despite his immediate instinct to question her about it, he kept silent. He didn’t want to do anything that might discourage her from confiding in him.

“I could wish the scenario wasn’t quite so common,” she said in her most headmistress-like tone. “Anyway, Lizzy’s mother seems to rely on the…goodwill of her male acquaintances to keep a roof over her head and food on the table. On occasion she comes up short of funds, or decides her life is too difficult, and so she writes to her twelve-year-old daughter to pour out her troubles about how miserable she is and about how having money would make everything right.”

“Does Lizzy have an inheritance?”

“All Lizzy has is a very large heart.” Her voice caught, and for a moment they continued along the creek in silence. “She takes in mending from the other girls and assists me with various chores to earn spending money, and she always ends up sending every cent to that blasted woman—as though five pounds would improve her life.”

His lips tight, Grey nodded again. He had seen
Elizabeth Newcombe’s generous spirit himself, and the idea that anyone—much less the little chit’s own mother—would take advantage of her good heart left him angry. Bloody furious, actually.

“That’s why she intends to be an instructor or a governess, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “To earn an income to support her mother.”

“She would never admit to it, but that would be my guess.”

Something about the entire situation didn’t quite make sense, yet he hesitated to ask Emma about it. He sensed that he wasn’t going to like the answer—not for Emma or Lizzy’s sake, but for himself.

“Emma,” he said, reluctance making him draw out the question, “if her mother is in such dire financial straits, who, precisely, pays for Lizzy to attend Miss Grenville’s Academy?”

She halted, turning to look up at him. “I do. Or more precisely, the Academy does.”

“And how do you, or more precisely, the Academy, afford this?”

“With the profits we bring in from the other students’ tuition.”

“And?” he prompted.

Emma drew a breath. “And with the money we save by accepting donated items such as the cart and Old Joe, and…and Haverly’s generously low rent.”

Grey exploded. “
Bloody, damned
—”

“Lower your voice,” she snapped, her eyes narrow with anger.

“That’s why you assigned her to my class, isn’t
it?” he demanded in the quietest voice he could manage, considering that he was about an inch away from murder.

She folded her arms over her chest. “Yes, it is. And it’s your own fault.” White-faced, she lifted her chin in her familiar gesture of defiance. “You might have asked what I used the Academy’s excess funds for before you decided to take them away, but you didn’t. Elizabeth is one of a dozen internally-tuitioned students. She deserves the same opportunities as anyone else.”

“Ah, excuse me,” Tristan said, striding up to them, “but I’ve been nominated by the class to discover what the devil is going on.”

“Nothing is going on,” Grey ground out, glaring at Emma. “Just a difference of opinion.”

But she was right, of course. If, on the day they’d made the wager, she’d told him precisely what the Academy’s surplus funds financed, he undoubtedly would have doubled the wager to close the place down even more swiftly. But despite his change of heart now, he still considered her tactics an ambush. And he didn’t like being ambushed.

“I see.” Lord Dare rocked back on his heels. “Well, if you’re still busy differing, might I teach the girls a few card tricks?” He produced a deck from a coat pocket and did an agile one-handed shuffle.

“No, you may not,” Emma said forcefully. “Despite what you men think, the purpose of this Academy is not to train tricksters, liars, or charlatans.” Turning her back, she stomped through the grass toward the girls. “Today’s lesson is over.”

There she went again, classifying all men as
boors. He
was
going to discover why she kept doing that. Grey glared at her back, looking away only when he realized his gaze had lowered to her rounded, swaying bottom. “Thank you so much, Tristan,” he grumbled, following the headmistress back toward the vehicles.

“What did I do? Except prevent bloodshed, of course.”

“Did you know she’s been using the Academy’s profits to sponsor additional students?”

“Didn’t you?”

Grey scowled.

“You didn’t? All you had to do was ask. I did.”

“Well, hurray for you. I hadn’t realized.” He swore under his breath. “If I win this wager, she’ll have to turn some of those girls—if not all of them—away.”

“I doubt that’ll be an issue,” Tristan said, climbing into the coach.

Grey glanced toward Emma again. “And why is that?”

“I don’t think you’re going to win the wager.”

Annoyed as he was at the comment, Grey was beginning to hope that Tristan was right.

E
mma would have been happy to avoid attending the soirée at Haverly. Both Grey and Tristan had mentioned it to the girls, though, so she’d have had a better chance of stopping the sunrise.

The other students were none too happy at being excluded, so to prevent any jealous fits, she announced at breakfast that they would have a party at the Academy to celebrate winning the wager. It wasn’t the wisest thing she’d ever done, but if she lost to Grey, then the Academy wouldn’t have much time left, and they might as well go out dining on chocolate.

Isabelle scratched at her bed chamber door. “Are you certain you want me to come along tonight?”

“Absolutely,” Emma answered, pulling a pair of pearl earrings from her drawer. One of her more wealthy schoolmates had given them to her years ago when she’d received a new set for a birthday. They were the finest thing Emma owned. “Miss Perchase, I’m afraid, is completely terrified of Wycliffe. With more nobles thrown into the mix, I begin to fear for her health.”

“I’m happy to help.”

The French instructor waited as Emma finished putting up her hair and fastened on the earrings. Her evening gown was three years out of style, but it had the advantage of only having been worn once or twice.

“You look lovely,” Isabelle said. “You should remember more often to be a female instead of a headmistress.”

“I am both,” Emma answered, collecting her shawl and reticule. Perhaps something less low-cut might have been more appropriate, but she couldn’t bear the thought of looking dowdy in the presence of the glittering nobles. Not tonight.

The din downstairs was deafening. Grey’s students stood in the middle of the hallway in their evening finest. Three dozen other students surrounded them, laughing and gossiping and complaining about being excluded yet again from the handsome Duke of Wycliffe’s presence.

“Wish us luck,” she said in a carrying voice, and the cacophony quieted. “We have a great deal to prove tonight.” Emma gestured toward the front door. “Ladies, if you please?”

The barouche pulled up just as they descended the front steps, and a liveried footman handed
her, Isabelle, and the girls into the vehicle. A coach would have been more appropriate, but no doubt Wycliffe had been thinking of Mary Mawgry’s aversion to closed vehicles. In a moment they were rolling toward Haverly, the coach lamps and the rising moon the only illumination along the road.

“I’m going to faint,” Mary whispered in a woeful voice.

“You are not going to faint. You’ll be fine. All of you will.” She gave them a confident smile. “Just remember everything you’ve learned.”

“Everything we’ve learned at the Academy, or everything we’ve learned from Grey?” Lizzy asked.

That was a very good question. “Well, since His Grace is hosting the soirée, I suppose you should follow his lessons. Always keep the Academy’s teachings in mind, though. You represent me and your fellow students tonight.”

“I’m not feeling any better.” Mary slid lower on the plush seat.

As they turned up the drive, Emma began to feel a little light-headed herself. She knew precisely why she was nervous tonight, and it had little to do with worry over how her students might perform. She had every confidence in the young ladies—she’d taught them well.

No, she had a perfectly logical reason for fiddling with her earrings and tugging at the tight bosom of her burgundy gown. As Isabelle had pointed out, tonight she wasn’t dressed like a headmistress. Tonight she felt feminine and vulnerable, and she wanted to know what Greydon Brakenridge would think of her.

“Oh, look!”

Burning torches lined both sides of the curving drive up to the manor house. Strains of well-played Mozart floated toward them on the evening breeze, and every window blazed with light. All it lacked was a crowd of vehicles and guests around the front steps, and she could believe they were attending a grand ball in London.

The barouche rolled to a stop, and a liveried footman hurried to flip out the step and hand them down. The girls’ faces were flushed with excitement as they trailed the footman to the front door, where Hobbes waited with his usual stoic expression.

“Your names, ladies?” he requested, producing a piece of paper and a pencil.

“It’s not necessary that you introduce us, Hobbes,” Emma said, moving to the head of the group.

“His Grace the Duke of Wycliffe has ordered otherwise, Miss Emma. You are to be announced.”

A shiver of pure nervousness ran down her spine. She couldn’t recall ever having been announced, except as a matter of politeness when she came to Haverly to visit the earl or the countess. The girls would be at least as nervous, and as always, they would follow her example. So, feigning complete calm, she named off the students, Isabelle, and herself.

“At a formal party,” she said, as they followed the butler upstairs, “you would have been issued personal invitations, which you would hand to the butler on your arrival so that you could be properly introduced without having to give him your names.”

“Are governesses introduced?” Elizabeth asked.

“Not as a rule.” In general, governesses didn’t even attend fine soirées, but she had no intention of spoiling anyone’s evening with that bit of information. She and Lizzy would discuss it later, in private.

The music grew louder as they reached the open drawing room door. “Greet your host and thank him for the invitation, then greet anyone he introduces to you,” she whispered, “and then move out of the way.”

“We remember,” Jane whispered back, smiling.

One by one Hobbes introduced her students, beginning with Lady Jane, and one by one they vanished into the drawing room. Grey’s low voice spoke just inside the door, and her stomach began fluttering again.

Belatedly she wondered whether he would still be angry over her revelations about Lizzy. He needed to realize, though, what his little wager could reap for her and the other internally tuitioned students, and if the idea bothered him, good. Now that she considered it, his anger about Lizzy’s situation was actually heartening. If he hadn’t cared, it wouldn’t have made him mad.

“Miss Emma Grenville.”

Belatedly Emma realized she stood alone in the hallway, and with a deep breath she entered the drawing room. Grey had arranged the soirée, so as the host he stood nearest the door. Just beyond him Lord and Lady Haverly chatted with Isabelle, while the girls had gathered around Lord Dare at one end of the room.

“Miss Emma,” the duke said, taking her hand and bowing over it.

As he straightened, their eyes met, and for a moment Emma couldn’t breathe. She’d thought him devilish handsome before, but tonight he looked…magnificent. The whiter-than-snow cravat at his throat sported one winking sapphire. Other than that, he was clothed in stark midnight black from his broad shoulders to his polished Hessian boots. What woman could resist him?

“Your Grace,” she answered, curtsying.

Yesterday’s annoyance was gone from his eyes, replaced by an unreadable look as glittering as his sapphire. He stepped closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her right there—and to her horror, she would have let him do it. Instead, he turned sideways, offering her his arm.

“Thank you for joining us tonight.”

“Thank you for inviting us.”

“Yes, we’re so pleased finally to meet Grey’s little protégés,” Lady Sylvia said with a smile, gliding up to them. “We’ve heard so much about them, you know.”

Lady Sylvia shimmered in a silk gown of opalescent ivory and green. It probably cost more than Emma’s entire wardrobe, but as lovely as it was, Emma was more concerned with the expression in Lady Sylvia’s eyes. Only one person had ever looked at her that way before, but she recognized it. Contempt was difficult to forget.

“I haven’t heard much of anything,” Alice said in a plaintive voice, approaching to take Grey’s other arm. “All I know is that Grey and Dare abandon us every day while they ride about
Hampshire and pretend to be professors or something.”

“I was only allowed to teach once,” Tristan countered. “And that was only about the ills of wagering.”

“That must have been quite a speech,” Sylvia cooed.

The viscount turned to his young female entourage. “I know you wanted to spend the evening with the best London has to offer, but with the short notice, this is all we could manage.”

“Tris,” Grey rumbled, “no bloodshed before dinner.”

Emma edged a little closer to him. “I really don’t want them exposed to this,” she murmured, most of her attention still on Lady Sylvia. She couldn’t possibly know, could she?

“They need to be exposed to this,” Grey returned in the same tone. “Life isn’t ideal, Emma.”

She freed her hand from his arm. “I know that, Your Grace. Better than you do.”

People never walked away from him. Emma obviously didn’t realize that, though, for she seemed to do it on a regular basis. Grey would have followed her, except that Alice had a death grip on his other arm and he didn’t fancy dragging her around the drawing room.

Blumton was circling Jane, a quizzing glass held to one eye. “I say, you’re the chit who played Juliet, ain’t you?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she responded, “but I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

Grey felt like applauding, though Emma
looked as though she intended to take credit for Jane’s composed answer.

“Ah. Allow me,” he said, and proceeded to introduce his companions to the girls. He didn’t doubt that Blumton would behave himself, or that he could intimidate Alice into doing so, but he wasn’t so sure about Sylvia. Emma could handle her, but the girls were too young to possess their headmistress’s composure and self-confidence. As he’d said, though, they needed to experience this. In London society, treachery lurked behind every smile. Trusting the world would only get them laughed at and ruined by it.

“May I see your quizzing glass?” Elizabeth asked Charles.

“Well—I—all right, I suppose so,” he blustered.

The thing was attached to his watch fob, so he had to lean down in order for Lizzy to look through it. She squinted her other eye and blinked up at him through the curved glass.

“It makes your nose look rather large,” she stated, continuing to examine him.

Blumton flushed. “You’re supposed to look down at everyone else with it. Not at me.”

“Oh. It’s just meant to make everyone else look silly, then.” She turned to Henrietta. “You look blurry.”

Henrietta giggled. “Well, you’re eye is
huge
.”

“Is it?” With a thoughtful frown, Lizzy handed the lens back to Charles. “Thank you, but I’ve decided I don’t want to get a quizzing glass.”

“Chits don’t use them, anyway,” he returned, examining it and then whipping out his handkerchief to polish the glass.

“Thank goodness. It’s ridiculous.”

Hiding a grin, Grey freed himself from Alice’s fingers and stepped forward. “I wouldn’t exactly call that a flattering commentary, Lizzy.”

“Well, what does it matter? I don’t want to marry him.”

The crowd laughed. Grey chuckled as well, until he noticed Emma’s scowl, quickly disguised. “Even so,” he added, “it’s best not to insult someone who outranks you in Society.”

“That’s right,” Blumton said indignantly. “My father’s a marquis. And I wouldn’t marry you, anyway. You’re practically an infant.”

“At least I know better than to use a stupid quizzing glass and show my big bulging eye to people.”

“Elizabeth Newcombe,” Emma snapped, her tone sharp. “We are guests, not the entertainment.”

Lizzy subsided at once. With a curtsy at Blumton, she made her way to her headmistress’s side. “I beg your pardon, Lord Charles,” she said quietly, her eyes downcast.

“S’all right,” Blumton returned. “Can’t expect an infant to comprehend high fashion.”

Hobbes appeared at the door. “Your Grace, ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served.”

“Thank goodness,” Alice said, grabbing onto Grey’s arm again. “I suppose the remainder of the evening will be as intolerable?”

The only thing intolerable about the evening so far was that he’d barely exchanged two words with Emma. He’d spent the day trying to untangle his mood after her revelation about Elizabeth,
and he still had some sorting out to do—sorting out which required her presence.

Angry as he wanted to be, he couldn’t help but admire Emma for her convictions and for her commitment to them. It annoyed him to admit that she was a better person than he was. A female, no less-though he saw less and less resemblance between her and most of the other women he knew.

“Grey?”

He blinked. “What?”

Alice was looking at him, her perfect brow furrowed. “You’re shaking.”

“You’re cutting off the flow of blood to my arm,” he muttered, shrugging free.

“Beast.”

Since the evening was a formal one, Grey offered his arm to his aunt. Uncle Dennis would escort Sylvia, Tristan lucked into Jane, and Blumton would spend dinner seated between Emma and Alice. The soirée was a bad idea—he’d concocted the whole bloody evening with the idea of being able to spend time with Emma Grenville, and the only way he would manage even a private word with her was if he kidnapped her and dragged her off somewhere. That notion sounded more appealing with every passing moment.

“So, ladies,” Sylvia began, as the footmen came around with the platters of beef and ham, “you must tell me. With Wycliffe and Dare calling on you every day, they must have all of you swooning over them.”

“Oh, no,” Julia stated. “Grey and Lord Dare are rakes.”

Lady Sylvia smiled. “And just how do you know that, pray tell?”

“They told us.”

She glanced over at him. “That’s interesting, wouldn’t you say, Alice?”

“I don’t think so at all.”

“Well, I’m curious as to what, exactly, is being taught,” Charles Blumton said around a mouthful of beef. “I can’t imagine what the Duke of Wycliffe sees fit to teach young girls.”

“I can,” Sylvia countered.

“All instruction is supervised, naturally.” Emma sliced a piece of ham into a dainty mouthful. “And I have to admit, despite my initial skepticism, that some of His Grace’s insights into the workings of Society have been enlightening.”