A Scandalous Publication (6 page)

“No. Thank you. I’ll wait until the rain stops.”

“You may have a long wait. It seems to me that this is something more than a short shower.”

She wished he would leave her, for exchanging idle pleasantries with him was never easy. “Are you an expert on the weather, Sir Maxim? I can see blue sky approaching, and to me that signifies an imminent end to the rain.”

He studied her for a long moment. “London doesn’t seem to have improved your manners, madam.”

“My manners are not at fault, sir,” she replied coolly.

“No? Well, if that’s the case, the implication must be that there’s something about me that is at fault, and since I know that it’s not my manners, it has to be something else. Have you been listening to scurrilous rumors, Miss Wyndham?” He was looking at the three volumes she still held so closely. “So,
Glenarvon
is. your taste in literature. That explains a great deal.”

“About what, exactly?”

“Your willingness to appreciate the finer points of scandal. That
is
the reason for your cold manner now, isn’t it?”

An angry flush stole into her cheeks. “What constitutes scandal, sir? I’m not a connoisseur of the subject, never having caused any myself.”

“How very dull of you.”

“Possibly, but then I wouldn’t presume to judge, since I’ve always been content with my dullness.”

“You do not strike me as being satisfied with your lot, Miss Wyndham; indeed, far from it.”

This was too much. “Please, Sir Maxim, will you leave me alone? I have no desire whatsoever to speak to you.”

“I know, and I find the fact extremely vexing, since I know full well that at the moment it’s based on nothing more than hearsay. You don’t really know anything about me, madam, but you’re woefully prepared to believe the worst anyway.” He still ignored the rain, which had soaked his costly coat as he stood there, his steady, shrewd gaze upon her as she sheltered in the doorway.

If he was vexed, however, she felt the same. Glancing deliberately at the scar on his cheek, she replied scornfully. “Are you suggesting, sir, that you are completely innocent and misunderstood?”

“Hardly, since that would of a certainty lay me open to ridicule, but I
am
saying that I’m not as black as some have seen fit to paint me.”

“No doubt the devil himself has been heard to make the same claim.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said softly, “since I’ve never presumed to think myself in his confidence.”

The flush was still hot on her cheeks. “Please go, sir, for this conversation serves no purpose.”

“I have no intention of going until you’ve at least allowed me the courtesy of a fair hearing,” he replied, very deliberately offering her his arm. “Now, then, are you and Lady Caroline Lamb going to accept my offer, or shall we stand here in public until full attention is drawn to us?’

She glanced around, seeing that several people were already looking a little curiously in their direction. “Sir, I don’t wish to accept anything from you.”

“Then we stand here.” He folded his arms, still holding her gaze.

“I seem to recall,” she said coldly, “that you once boasted that your conduct toward me had at all times been correct.”

“I also said that my conduct was always the result of yours, which it is at this very moment. Be sensible, Miss Wyndham, my carriage would be much more convenient for you right now, and I promise you that whatever you may have heard to the contrary, it is not my habit to molest ladies in broad daylight in the middle of London. Your chastity is perfectly safe; you may be perfectly assured of that.”

She felt she had no choice, for she did not like the attention they were attracting. Reluctantly she accepted his arm, stepping from the shelter of the library doorway and across the rainswept pavement to the waiting carriage. He bandied her inside, instructed the coachman to drive to Henrietta Street, and then climbed in as well, slamming the door behind him. The noise of the rain and the busy London street was immediately muffled and more distant.

He sat on the seat opposite, his long legs so close that they brushed against her skirts. His blue eyes were almost lazy then as they rested speculatively on her. “Now, then, Miss; Wyndham,” he said reasonably, “are you going to tell me to what tittle-tattle you’ve been paying foolish attention? Or am I going to have to guess?”

“Has it not occurred to you that my manner is born purely and simply from an instinctive dislike?”

“Yes, that had indeed occurred to me, but I dismissed it immediately because I did not think a daughter of George Wyndham’s would be so foolish as to allow such a thing to completely color her views.”

Hearing her father’s name on his lips so swiftly after the revelations in the library forced her to look quickly away. A sudden rush of mixed emotions beset her and she had to look out at the rainy street to hide her reaction as best she could.

He watched her, a slight frown creasing his brow. “Very well, since you will not tell me, I’m forced to arrive at the answer by a process of elimination. I shall begin with the furor aroused by this idiocy of Lord Westington’s. Ah, I see that I have hit the bull at first shot.”

She was looking at him in disgust. “How can you speak so sneeringly of it? You’ve gravely injured Lord Westington’s honor, and now you have the gall to call his reaction idiocy. You’re beneath contempt, sir.”

A cold fury leapt into his eyes. “Damn you for saying that! If anyone’s honor has been injured in all this, it’s mine.”

“I fail to see how.”

“No doubt, but it so happens that I’m not and never have been
—
”
He broke off sharply as something outside caught his full attention.

The carriage had come to a temporary halt in a crush outside the fashionable haberdashers, Messrs. Clark & Debenham of 44 Wigmore Street, and a young woman was just emerging into the rain. She was dressed in a deep-rose spencer and there were matching ribbons on the dainty hat on her dark, curly hair. She had wide brown eyes and an oval face of quite breathtaking sweetness, but it was her walking gown that held Charlotte’s gaze, for it was of pale-pink muslin, sprigged with silver-gray, and its hem was adorned with satin bows and vandyked lace. The young woman could be none other than Sylvia Parkstone.

At that moment, as if she sensed the close scrutiny to which she was being subjected, she looked directly at the carriage. She met Max’s eyes, her expression cold
.

Charlotte was very aware of the atmosphere that suddenly pervaded the carriage, and when she looked at Max, she saw how inscrutable his face had become, and how still. As the carriage jerked forward once more, Charlotte looked out again and for a fleeting moment her glance met the young woman’s, but then the carriage had carried them apart and she could see no more.

Max remained silent for a while, and she couldn’t tell what his thoughts were, but then he looked at her. “As I was saying, Miss Wyndham, if anyone’s honor has been injured in all this, it’s mine. I am not and never have been Lady Westington’s lover, although she has long wished that I was. Oh, no doubt you regard that as the ultimate in male arrogance, but it happens to be the truth. She pursued me without success and now wreaks her vengeance by accusing me of having vilely seduced and maltreated her, which fairy story her fool of a husband chooses to believe. I promise you, Miss Wyndham, that I’ve given him every opportunity to retract, but he persisted in reiterating his accusations very publicly indeed, in the end leaving me little choice but to pick up the gauntlet.
That
is the truth about this duel, madam, not the idle gossip to which you’ve apparently been lending your gullible ears.”

She said nothing. He sounded so very plausible, but how could she really believe a man whose reputation with other men’s wives was as notorious as Max Talgarth’s? The carnage entered Cavendish Square and at last turned into Henrietta Street, halting at her door, but as she quickly made to alight, he leaned across to prevent her.

“Miss Wyndham,” he said softly, “what other tales you may have given credence to I shudder to think, but this much I ask of you: in future, please allow that there are two sides to every story, and that maybe, just maybe, my side is occasionally the more creditable.” He opened the door then, stepping down to the wet pavement and turning to hold out his hand to her.

She slipped her fingers into his as she alighted, but then quickly snatched her hand away and made to hurry into the house without another word, but his voice detained her.

“Isn’t there something else apart from your manners that you’ve forgotten, Miss Wyndham?”

She turned coldly. “I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything at all, sir.”

“Oh, but there is.” He leaned into the carriage and took out the volumes of
Glenarvon,
which she’d left on the seat. “Please don’t leave me alone with Lady Caroline, for she is a lady whose word you simply cannot trust.”

Only too aware of the mocking light in his eyes, she hurriedly took the books and then went quickly into the house. When she glanced out from the drawing-room window a moment later, she saw his carriage pulling away. He sat gazing straight ahead, not looking back once.

She made up her mind not to say anything to her mother about what had happened, for it didn’t seem right or necessary to ruin the happiness aroused by the arrival of Richard’s letter. It wouldn’t help her mother in the slightest to know that someone suspected foul play in her husband’s death. Such news would only cause deep distress. It was all better left unsaid, especially as there was no proof at all that Sylvia Parkstone, who was undoubtedly Max Talgarth’s avowed enemy, was being anything other than malicious when she’d suggested what she did in the library.

In spite of this resolution to say nothing, Charlotte’s own doubts were very unsettling, and rather than let her mother see that something had upset her, she spent most of the rest of the day in her bedroom, ostensibly to commence reading
Glenarvon,
but really to try to come to terms with what she’d overheard.

Her bedroom, at the front of the house, was a soothing place with green-and-white-striped walls and green velvet curtains with golden tassels and fringes. The plain bed had a coverlet of the same green velvet, and the dressing table was draped with frilled white muslin. Beside the plain fireplace was a single comfortable chair, and in the far corner stood a table with a bowl and water jug, and the small wardrobe, which was more than adequate for the few clothes now in her possession.

She sat in the fireside chair, the first volume of
Glenarvon
open on her lap, but she made no attempt to read it; she just sat there, gazing at the raindrops meandering slowly down the windowpanes. The blue sky was still close by, but could not quite push the clouds aside. A rainbow arced across the heavens to the north of Cavendish Square, its colors brilliant against the reluctantly retreating storm.

For a long, long while she thought about Max Talgarth and what he had said. He had accused her of being woefully disposed to believe only ill of him, and perhaps he was right, for her opinion had been swayed long before she’d met him; he had his reputation and his liaison with Judith to thank for that. And today she’d been further swayed by the words of a woman who’d made no secret at all of her loathing for him. Was that right or fair? One should never believe
all
one heard, for if one did, then one would honestly think Bonaparte to be a hideously deformed dwarf who ate only frogs’ legs, and the Prince Regent to be a monster toward his poor, defenseless, virginal wife, Caroline of Brunswick, whose present antics on the Continent proved her to be the very opposite
—if, indeed, one could believe
those
lurid tales either! No, anyone must be considered innocent until proven guilty, and that included Sir Max Talgarth, against whom there was not one shred of proof, no matter how much Sylvia Parkstone may plead.

Charlotte took a deep breath then. Her mind was made up: she would do her best to forget what she’d so unwillingly eavesdropped upon; indeed, she would do her best to forget everything about Max Talgarth, for there was nothing she could do about him anyway. Settling back as comfortably as she could, she applied herself to
Glenarvon.

Mrs. Wyndham was still in high spirits the following morning at breakfast, rattling on at great length about the very cheering prospects opened up by her brother’s letter. As she thought about some of the very grand town houses she knew were available in Mayfair, there was a sparkle about her that had been absent for nearly a year.

Charlotte was quiet. Try as she would, she couldn’t put the previous day’s events from her mind, and after a while her mother noticed her withdrawn mood. “Is something wrong, Charlotte? You’re unusually quiet this morning.”

“I’m quite all right, truly I am,” replied Charlotte, hurriedly rousing herself to look brighter.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t up too late reading that dreadful book?”

“Not too late.”

Mrs. Wyndham studied her for a moment. “But you
were
reading it?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that your answer seemed less than enthusiastic. You waited for so long for the wretched thing, and now that you have it, you haven’t said anything about it. Wasn’t it worth the wait?”

“Well, Lady Caroline isn’t the world’s most talented writer, and her plots are so wildly improbable that they’re positively ridiculous.”

“With all due respect, Charlotte, you knew that before you started, and on your own admission your sole reason for acquiring the book was because you wished to read its attacks upon society.”

Charlotte smiled. “Yes, and in that respect it measures up to expectations. Lady Melbourne is caricatured most horridly as the Princess of Madagascar, your poor William is positively pilloried as the heroine’s far-too-worldly husband, Lord Avondale, and Lord Byron is suitably monstrous as the cruel lover, Glenarvon. Lady Caroline herself, needless to say, is the sweet, innocent, misunderstood heroine Calantha, whose ruin is brought about by anyone and everyone but herself. The whole thing is a vitriolic attack on Melbourne House
et al.
and I’m thoroughly enjoying it, my only quibble being that Judith Taynton fails to make an appearance. If the book had been mine, she wouldn’t have slipped through the net.”