A Matter of Scandal (20 page)

For a moment he thought she would kick him in his nether regions, but then her expression sharpened. “Go on.”

“I obviously forced you into this, because what female could stand up to me?”

“Grey—”

“Wait.” He strode to the window and back. It was brilliant. Well, perhaps not brilliant, but it was better than Emma’s broken-hearted sobbing. “What sort of upstanding gentleman would want to cause the Duke of Wycliffe to lose a wager?” he continued. “And to a female, yet. Besides practically being a crime, it would be decidedly…unhealthy for anyone to interfere.”

The door opened. “It’s gotten quiet in here. You haven’t killed one another, have you?” Tristan drawled, leaning into the office.

The viscount’s smooth tone didn’t fool Grey for a bloody minute. He was genuinely worried for Emma. Feeling his hackles rise, Grey stepped between them. “Henrietta’s parents think Emma’s
turned the Academy into some sort of bawdy house.”

Her face turning white, Emma abruptly took a seat. “Everything’s ruined,” she muttered, lowering her face into her hands.

“No, it isn’t, because we came up with a plan.”

“No, we didn’t,” Emma said, looking up again.

That stopped him in his tracks. “Yes, we did.”

“No,
we
didn’t.
You
spouted off some half-witted drivel about using the wager to keep the Academy open. It won’t work.”

He folded his arms. “And why won’t it work?”

“Do you,” she said, slowly and distinctly, as though asking her students an essay question, “intend on winning or losing this wager?”

“I—”

“Because once everyone knows about it, ending the wager will prove the gossips right and ruin this Academy. Your winning the wager will cost the Acad—”

“I’ll lose it,” he said, daring her to argue with that.

“You’ll lose,” she repeated, her tone dripping with skepticism.

“Yes.”

“Intentionally.”

“Yes.”

“Well. Even if I were to swallow my pride and the notion that you might lose whether you plan to or not, I don’t understand how my winning will serve any positive purpose whatsoever.”

“I will make it so.”

“You’re very arrogant.”

“I’m never wrong.”

She nodded. “You’ll have to change that little
declaration to ‘seldom wrong’ after your intentional loss. And everyone in London will know that you lost, but not that you did it on purpose.”

Grey narrowed his eyes. “As I have suggested before, you might just say you’re grateful and shut up.”

Emma stepped toward him. “I just want to make certain you understand that people…other men, especially, might very well laugh at you.”

“At the risk of getting my jaw broken, she’s right, you know,” Tristan said in the abrupt silence.

“I know.” To his surprise, the notion really didn’t bother him. “More important, Emma can’t have been doing anything improper if she’s spent all her time chaperoning the class and devising a brilliant estate plan.”

“That’s a flimsy argument, at best,” Emma countered.

“First things first. Have Henrietta write her letter. Have all my students invite their parents. We have nothing to hide here. And it’ll give us ten days to come up with something better, anyway.”

Strangely enough, Emma felt better as Grey and Tristan left the Academy. Something in his eyes had been very…reassuring.

“Em, are you all right?” Isabelle pushed open the office door.

“Not yet. Oh, Isabelle, how could I have been so very, very stupid?”

“It is Henrietta’s father who is stupid even to think of accusing you of such things.”

Tears burned at the back of Emma’s eyes again. If they only knew how guilty she was. “I can
hardly blame anyone but myself.
I
am the Academy’s headmistress, and
I
am responsible for any disaster that befalls it.”

“As His Grace was leaving, he said he would take care of everything,” the French instructor countered. “Perhaps you should just let him. The wager was his idea, after all.”

“Oh, yes, that would be wonderful, wouldn’t it? The Duke of Wycliffe, famous for his enlightened benevolence toward all female kind, charging in to the rescue.”

Isabelle turned her palms upward. “Why not?”

“Because neither his benevolence, nor his enlightenment, is likely to last past the point where the Academy becomes a public embarrassment. We will rely on those we can trust
always
to have the Academy’s best interests at heart. And I’m afraid that just leaves us.”

“So you have some plan in mind, yes?”

Emma sagged into her lonely desk chair. “Not yet. But I will.”

As Grey had said, announcing the wager to the parents would hopefully give them ten days to come up with a plan. For once she wished the London mail wasn’t quite so prompt and reliable. They might claim never to have received Mr. Brendale’s letter, but he wasn’t likely to believe it. And if they didn’t believe it was the wager alone which had concerned Wycliffe and her, the parents would take the five girls home with them. And then by twos and dozens, the rest of the parents would follow to take their daughters away from the Academy.

As for Grey, she was simply not going to rest all her hopes on his promises, noble and generous
though they might be. She knew enough of men to understand that concern over his position and his pride would take precedence over any temporary feelings he might have toward Lizzy—or her. They were lovers, yes; but he’d had lovers before, and from what Vixen had said, he never kept them for long.

She shook herself. “I’m going for a walk.” A long stroll would clear her head of thoughts of Grey for a few moments, anyway. Heaven knew she had more dire things to worry about.

Nodding at a worried-looking Tobias, she passed through the gates and started up the road toward Basingstoke. Of course she could write Mr. Brendale back and inform him that nothing untoward was going on, but no one would believe her protests of innocence. Therefore, she needed to accept that London would know that the Duke of Wycliffe had entered the halls of Miss Grenville’s Academy, and with her permission. All right. That was a given fact.

The logical part of her brain, the part she hadn’t been using nearly enough lately, slowly began to churn into motion. Increasing her pace, she continued working at the next step of the problem. Any backlash for her idiocy would come from the families of her students. She couldn’t stop it, so therefore she needed to counteract it.

With what?
Well, obviously it would take a noble’s support to counteract a noble’s wrath. Wycliffe immediately came to mind, but she brushed the thought away. He was too entangled with her and the Academy for his protests of blamelessness to have much credence.

When the idea finally occurred to her, she couldn’t believe it had taken her so long. Two of her dearest friends, fellow graduates of the Academy, had recently made very notable marriages. The Countess of Kilcairn Abbey and the Marchioness of Althorpe were definitely forces to be reckoned with.

As she reached town, she headed for Sir John’s offices, and more specifically, for his writing desk. Emma allowed herself a slight, hopeful smile. Let the girls write their letters, and let Wycliffe conjure his plans. She was going to call in her own reinforcements.

U
ncle Dennis’s skill at chess had improved over the years. Grey stood alone in the earl’s office, looking down at the pieces arranged beneath the window. In one move, or a maximum of three if he attempted a delay and counterattack, he was going to lose his queen. Grey reflected that if Dennis only managed his estate with the same degree of cleverness, none of them would be in this mess.

“Did they send the letters?” Dare asked, strolling into the room without bothering to knock first.

With a slight frown, Grey shifted his remaining bishop. Better to delay the inevitable and hope for a miracle than to concede defeat. “Yes. By special messenger this morning.”

“So you really intend to go through with the wager?”

“It’s the only way I can see to save the Academy. If you have a better idea, please enlighten me.”

Tristan sat behind the desk. “You’ve already become surprisingly enlightened over the past few weeks. When we arrived here, you’d have been happy to set a torch to Miss Grenville’s Academy—and Miss Emma Grenville—yourself.”

He felt more enamored then enlightened. Not just of Emma, but of the whole blasted school. “I may have rushed in without knowing all the facts,” he admitted, glancing through the window as Alice and Sylvia, accompanied by Blumton, climbed into Haverly’s phaeton for their afternoon tour of the countryside.

“Just out of curiosity,” Tristan said, playing with the brass duck paperweight, “what will you do if you can’t contain the damage to Emma’s reputation?”

Grey faced him, leaning back against the edge of the gaming table. “That won’t happen.”

“Because you’ve already decreed a victory? Even if Brendale and the other parents wait for the end of the wager before they storm the school, it’s only because they expect Emma to lose. Nasty rumors are better than facts, and they may well have both.”

“I’m not an idiot, Tris. At least the ruse will give us a few more days to come up with a solution.”

“And what about Emma?”

The duke met Dare’s gaze, warm anger touch
ing him at the viscount’s proprietary tone. “What about her?”

“I couldn’t help noticing yesterday that a certain item of your clothing was in the doorway of her bed chamber. Unless she’s being visited by someone else wearing fine silk cravats with sapphire pins stuck through them, that is.”

Grey clenched his fist, fighting to keep himself from hurtling across the room and pounding Dare while he explained that no man touched Emma but him. “I suggest you not repeat that observation to anyone,” he growled.

Tristan looked offended. “I wouldn’t. But the fact is, the rumors are true, aren’t they?”

“Mind your own affairs, Dare, and I’ll mind mine.”

“That’s all well and good, but who told Brendale? Emma swears it wasn’t Henrietta.”

Grey shook his head. “Emma got another letter this morning, from Jane’s father. He’d heard the rumors, too.”

“He wrote directly to Emma?”

“Yes. And he was even less polite in his phraseology than Brendale was.” Emma hadn’t cried this time, but her quiet acceptance of all blame in the fiasco had upset him even more than her tears.

The viscount cleared his throat. “I do want you to know that, your own likely heroic performance aside, I am available to assist your rescue of the Academy should the need arise.”

Grey wanted to do it himself, to prove to Emma that she could trust him. Even so, the offer was something of a relief. “My thanks, Tris. I may take you up on…”

The phaeton rattled back up the drive. With a
frown, Grey looked through the window as his traveling companions returned. He had enough to sort through without the prying lot of them about all afternoon. Then a coach trundled up behind the phaeton, a second vehicle following it. Grey’s scowl deepened.

“What the devil?” he muttered, shifting as Tristan came up beside him.

“Brendale?” the viscount suggested.

“He would have gone straight to the Academy, and he’s not due till Friday at the earliest.”

A footman pulled open the door of the lead coach. A dainty pearled slipper peeked into the doorway, followed by a second shoe and a pearl and blue muslin gown. A white gloved hand fluttered out, and the footman gripped her fingers as she stepped to the ground. The conservative blue bonnet tipped upward, exposing the woman’s face to their view.

“Good God,” Tristan murmured.

His jaw clenched, Grey muttered a quiet curse and stalked to the front door. He stopped on the top step. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“I’m pleased to see you again, too, son.”

For a moment Grey felt as though he was five years old and had just pushed his cousin Georgiana into Wycliffe Park’s pond. Frowning, he came down the steps to take the tall woman’s hand. “Mother,” he said, leaning down to kiss her pale cheek.

“Much better, Grey.”

“I thought you still in London.”

She returned the kiss. “Obviously. You’ve gotten sneaky as you’ve matured. I would never have expected to find you in Hampshire.”

He inclined his head, offering his arm to escort her into the house. “That was the very reason I chose to come here.”

“So I thought.” Her pale gray eyes found Tristan, lurking behind one of the towering porticos which lined the entryway. “Dare, escort my companion.”

“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” he said, bowing. “Which companion would that be?”

“Whom do you think, Lord Dare?” a second female voice drawled.

Grey stifled a grin as Tristan stiffened. His mother apparently intended on torturing both him and his main accomplice. “Cousin Georgiana,” he said.

The tall young woman, her curling blonde hair in a fetching knot at the top of her head, curtsied, graceful as ever in a soft green gown that matched her eyes. “Grey. How delightful that you’ve chosen to disrupt the Season so thoroughly.”

“I’m surprised you allowed yourself to be dragged into this.”

Light green eyes slid over to Tristan and back. “It wasn’t by choice.”

The viscount cleared his throat. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go down myself in the duck pond.”

Georgiana bent down and picked up a rock. “Here,” she said, handing it to Dare. “This should help.”

While Tristan made his escape, Grey returned his attention to the entourage. “Mother,” he murmured, his gaze following his cousin as Sylvia and Alice came forward to greet her, “what are you doing here?”

The duchess leaned against his arm. “I was under the impression that you were going to offer for Caroline. Imagine my surprise when instead you vanish without a word to anyone, while at the same time Caroline claims ill and flees to her father’s estate in York.”

She didn’t know the half of it. “Where did you hear I was going to offer for Caroline?”

“From Caroline, of course. You never tell me anything.”

“Especially when there’s nothing to tell. I never had any intention of becoming leg-shackled to that devious b—”

“So it’s true.”

“What’s true?”

“Where are Dennis and Regina?” the duchess asked, allowing her son to lead her up the front steps and ignoring his question.

Grey shook himself. “They went into Basingstoke after luncheon,” he said, guiding his mother inside and instructing Hobbes to have two additional bed chambers prepared for the new guests. If she didn’t wish to answer, he could wait.

His mother kept her light grip on his arm throughout their tour of the manor and all the group’s bantering small talk, and didn’t set him free even after he led her to her guest room.

“Georgiana,” she said to her companion, “will you please see if anyone at Haverly knows how to brew peppermint tea?”

“I’ll see to it myself, Aunt Frederica.” With a sideways glance at Grey, she disappeared back down the hallway.

The duchess glided into her small private rooms. “Grey, come open the window for me.”

He complied, unsurprised when she took the opportunity to close the door behind them. Servants had stacked a half dozen trunks against the room’s far wall. Obviously Her Grace intended on staying for awhile.

“All right, I’m listening,” he said, leaning back against the window frame.

The Duchess carefully removed her bonnet. “Georgiana heard that you stripped Caroline naked in the middle of Almack’s coatroom, found her wanting, and sent her away.”

“The stripping was her idea, but otherwise the tale’s fairly accurate.”

“So you fled to Hampshire? That’s not like you.”

“I left London because I was tired of all the damned females who find it necessary to trap, trick, and lie in order to drag me to the altar.” He scowled. “I had intended on returning already, to inform cousin William that as far as I’m concerned, he can have the title and all the accompanying headaches when I die, because I’m not going anywhere near an altar for the rest of my life.”

Her gaze sharpened. “Then why didn’t you return and tell him?”

“Because I made a wager,” he said. “One which I intend to win.”

“A wager? That’s not what I heard.”

“What did you hear, then?”

“That you’ve been conducting some sort of affair with the headmistress of that girls’ school. You and Dare both, actually. You’ve been sharing her.”

Grey swore long and loudly. “That is
not
even remotely…” he growled, belatedly slamming the window shut when he caught sight of one of the gardeners staring up at him in surprise. “
Damnation!
”

“You already used that one, dear.”

He needed to tell Emma. The gossip was even worse than he’d realized, and the situation infinitely more serious. It wasn’t just a few parents whose concerns needed to be allayed; it was London, destroying the reputation of a fine school and a finer woman.

“Grey? You’re muttering.”

He shook himself. He needed to make this right. If he had to tell Emma the worst of the rumors, he also wanted to be able to tell her that he’d found their source and stopped them, and that everything would be all right. “Where did you hear this?” he asked.

His mother sat on the edge of her bed. “It’s everywhere.”

He strode up to her. “It started somewhere,” he snapped. “Who told you?”

“Grey—”

“
Who?
”

“Georgiana told me.”

The duchess looked startled, and he couldn’t blame her; he’d had messy affairs before, and he’d never been upset about the ensuing gossip and exaggerations.

“Excuse me then, Mother. I need to speak with Georgiana.”

He headed downstairs, looking for his cousin. Georgie was one of the few females he could tol
erate, but in the mood he was in, she’d best have used her famous insight to figure out where the damned rumors had originated.

“Your Grace,” Hobbes said, intercepting him at the bottom of the stairs. “I was just coming to inform you that you have callers.”

Grey stopped. “Callers?”

“Yes, Your Grace. I showed them into the library while I inquired whether you were available.”

Wonderful
. Probably Mr. Brendale and half the fathers of the Academy had arrived. “Are they armed?” he asked, turning for the library.

“Armed? N…no, Your Grace. Not that I’m aware of.”

Grey pulled open the library door and stepped inside. And stopped.

His students—all five of them—stood ranged in a loose semi-circle facing the doorway. They may not have been armed, but they looked bloody determined about something.

“Where’s your chaperone?”

“We escaped.” Lizzy stepped forward while the others closed ranks behind her, precise as a military battalion. “Why is everyone trying to hurt Miss Emma?”

For a moment Grey had a vision of what Haverly would look like if every female he’d ever insulted or wronged appeared on the doorstep. It was getting crowded already. “I’m in something of a hurry at the moment. I’ll explain things later.”

Jane shook her head. “No. We want to know now. If you don’t tell us, we won’t help you win the wager.”

For God’s sake, the little midgets were trying to blackmail him. “It’s complicated.”

Her fists coiled and her eyes floating with tears, Lizzy glared up at him. “My mother wrote me a letter and said Miss Emma was a…a wanton strumpet who should have known better than to allow a rake like you anywhere near her. You said you were the good kind of rake, Grey.”

Looking into Elizabeth Newcombe’s innocent brown eyes, he wanted to confess everything—and he didn’t even know what he would be confessing to. “Lizzy, I can’t tell you right now. I want to, but I can’t.”

“Then we don’t want to talk to you anymore. We don’t like you anymore.”

“And please don’t come to the Academy again,” Jane added. At her gesture, the girls lined up to leave.

“As you wish.” With a stiff nod he opened the door for them. “Did you walk here?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have the barouche hitched up.”

This time it was Mary Mawgry who faced him. “No, thank you, Your Grace. We prefer to walk.”

“Very well. I understand.”

Georgiana leaned into the doorway as the girls trooped down the hall to the front entry. “What was that all about?”

“Those were my students,” he said, moving to the window. He couldn’t see the drive from there, and stifled a scowl at the realization that he would miss the little chits. It would work out. They wouldn’t hate him forever.

“‘Were?’” his cousin repeated.

“I think they just dismissed me.”

“Ah.”

Grey glanced at her, seeing the amusement in her eyes. “That’s just between us.”

She nodded. “Certainly. Your mother said you were looking for me.”

He gestured her inside and closed the door again. “I need to know where you think the rumors about Emma Grenville and myself originated.”

“And Dare. Don’t forget that he’s a part of your
menage à trois
.”

“Georgie, I know you don’t like Tristan, but this really isn’t about him. Please.”

Georgiana studied his face for a moment, her green eyes thoughtful. “I heard it from a half dozen people. Since we’re related, everyone thought I should be able to confirm your involvement.”

“Georgi—”

“I’m getting to it, Grey. The most interesting conversation I had was with some woman I barely know—a Mrs. Hugh Brendale, I believe. She said she’d received a horrid letter about her own daughter’s headmistress. I asked to see it, and she actually showed it to me, the ninny. It was anonymous, of course, but it was franked in Hampshire.”