How to Handle a Scandal (2 page)

“Isn’t it the most splendid night?” she said, and as he watched the starlight mingle with the gold lights in her hair, he was pierced by her beauty. He murmured his assent as he led her away from the manor and into the quiet, deserted space of the garden, which was lit with torches.

“It
is
a splendid night,” he said to the side of her face as she gazed at the stars. He took a deep breath. “But do you know what makes it truly splendid for me? Being here with you.”

There was a longish pause, then she turned to look at him. He’d never said something so personal to her, and he was dying inside waiting to know how she would take it.

“You must be in the mood to flirt tonight,” she said lightly.

“I’m not flirting. I’m serious.”

She frowned. “I’m not good at being serious, Tommy.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “You can be serious when you choose.”

“Er…thank you,” she said, sounding puzzled.

He’d never once kissed her, though he’d wanted to desperately, countless times. But now that he had such serious intentions toward her, and considering how well they knew each other—surely it wouldn’t be inappropriate now?

“Lizzie,” he said, huskiness creeping into his voice, “I want to kiss you. May I?”

She seemed surprised by his request, as though all the days and nights they’d spent talking and flirting hadn’t been leading in any particular direction. But there was a bond between them, built of affection and friendship. And attraction—he felt as certain of it as of his own breathing. They were meant to be together.

“Erhm.” And then she smiled. “Yes. I’d like that.” The words, breathy wisps that hinted at awakening emotions, inflamed him.

She tipped her head up and his heart thundered. When his lips finally—finally!—met hers, he
felt
it: she was going to be the love of his life.

Her mouth opened to him, and her tongue gently sought his, which gave him the unwelcome awareness that he wasn’t the first man she’d kissed. How many of the gentlemen of the
ton
had tasted her? he wondered with a surge of jealousy.

He pushed the thought away. It didn’t matter, because he meant to be the last.

A little whimper escaped her, and she hugged him closer as though she needed him. The awareness touched him in the most welcome way. She
needed
him, just as he needed her. He forced himself to break the kiss.

“Lizzie,” he murmured, “we can’t go on like this.”

“Like what?” She sounded adorably dazed.

He smiled a little. “Stealing kisses in the garden.”

“Who would know if we did?”

“Trust me, we can’t. I won’t survive the experience.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, dearest Lizzie, that you make my head spin.”

“Do I?” She laughed. “Will said the same thing yesterday when I told him I loved champagne.”

“You make my head spin in a
different
way.”

An inscrutable emotion flitted across her face. “Er…” She mumbled something that sounded like, “Me too.” But it might also have been something that ended in “you.”

Then she smiled brightly, as if they’d been talking about any old thing, and said, “Do you know, I should quite like a lemonade.”

And before he could say a word, she’d stepped away from him toward the ballroom.

He stood blinking for a moment at her abrupt departure. That kiss…it had been amazing, but it hadn’t been amazing just for him. He’d felt the thrill pulsing between them, heard the wonder in her voice.

He moved to the doorway. She’d found her way to Will and Anna, who were standing with the rest of his cousins near the edge of the ballroom. It occurred to Tommy that this was perfect: most of the people they loved best were right here. What better moment could there be to declare their love for each other?

* * *

Lizzie swept into the ballroom wondering if she had a silly smile on her face. But Tommy had just kissed her! And it had been a little wonderful.

He was a
much
better kisser than Lord Hewett, who’d stolen a kiss in an alcove at a house party last month, or young Mr. Fletcher, who’d quickly pressed his lips to hers under the mistletoe at a Christmas party. She wasn’t even going to count the lieutenant she’d kissed in the garden at the Rosewood School the year before, because that had really been about something besides kissing.

Her smile slipped a little as she thought of what Tommy had said afterward. He
had
made her head spin a little, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Talking made things too fixed, like they were all decided, when really she just wanted everything to be
possible
.

She hoped the kiss wasn’t going to make it impossible to go back to the way they’d always been, because she needed Tommy to be her friend.

She hoped… No, surely it wasn’t necessary to hope anything. Surely
Tommy
wasn’t going to be like the other gentlemen who’d wanted to be serious. This was Tommy, with whom she always laughed and teased with no consequences. Surely it had only been a kiss, even if it had been a little amazing. But she decided right then that they mustn’t do it again.

“And what have you been up to, Lizzie?” asked Will’s cousin, Louie Halifax, who only months before, on the shocking death of both his uncle and his cousin, had become the Earl of Gildenhall.

Lizzie thought “Gildenhall” was the perfect title for him, since, with his dark blond hair and extremely handsome looks, he seemed gilded. And since he’d been a commoner his entire life, he was not at all stuffy—which wasn’t to say that he didn’t have quite a bit of presence. He was certainly considered the catch of the season by all the mamas of the
ton
, even if despite being over thirty, he seemed in no hurry to be caught.

“Oh, nothing,” Lizzie said. “Are there any cakes left?” She strained to see beyond Louie’s shoulders.

He chuckled. “There were three left last I saw, unless Andrew ate them.”

His brother rolled his eyes. “Why would I do such an uncouth thing?”

Emerald, their younger sister, cocked her head. “Have you ever noticed how we say people are uncouth, but we never say they are ‘couth’?”

Emerald was the same age as Lizzie, and, with eyes as purely green as Tommy’s, perfectly named. Thanks to the dramatic reversal in her family’s fortunes, Emerald and her older sister Ruby were enjoying the kind of lavish season they could never have had with the burden of debt that had once pressed on them all.

“Or ‘ept,’” Ruby pointed out. “People are inept, but never ‘ept.’ Maybe we should make it a word. This could go down in history as the ‘ept’ season.”

“You can’t just sprinkle your conversation with made-up words and think everyone will start using them,” Andrew said.

“Can’t I?” Ruby said with the light of challenge in her eyes. Ruby Halifax might look haughty, but she had a competitive streak when it came to her brothers, and Lizzie found their squabbles entertaining.

From the moment she’d met them, Louie and his brothers and sisters had treated Lizzie like one of the family, and getting to know them had been one of the best parts of becoming Will’s ward.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, and there was Tommy. He looked funny, but not in a humorous way. Something fizzed unpleasantly inside her.

“You left so suddenly, Lizzie. I had an important question to ask you.”

She’d heard that kind of thing before, and it wasn’t good.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no.
He wasn’t going to do the very thing she desperately didn’t want him of all men to do—he
mustn’t
.

She had to lighten the tone immediately and keep him from speaking serious words he would regret. But before she could speak, Will said, “What’s going on, Tommy?”

Oh please
, she thought desperately,
don’t let this be what it sounds like
.

Tommy’s green eyes pinned her. He had black hair with a rogue blade of white slashing through at his forehead, and she’d seen more than one young lady swoon over his striking good looks. But to Lizzie he was simply Tommy. And he wasn’t supposed to say momentous things to her.

“I’m sure Tommy doesn’t have anything to say to me that can’t be said in front of all of you,” she said, giving him a smile meant to encourage him to keep things light.

But his face was serious.

“You’re right, Lizzie. The words I have to say, while especially for you, will mean something for all of the family. Because what I want to ask, dearest Lizzie,” he said, taking her hand and dropping fluidly to one knee as his eyes held hers and her stomach plummeted, “is if you will do me the very great honor of becoming my wife.”

All the breath rushed out of her. She could feel that Will had gone still next to her, and she heard Anna’s quick intake of breath and knew that the others were watching as well. Behind them, people were glancing curiously their way, doubtless drawn by the sight of Tommy Halifax on bended knee.

Panic rushed through her, making her light-headed and off balance. She felt startled and also a little angry that he was ruining the friendship they’d shared. No—he was ruining everything, because how would his family ever look on her the same way again, now that he’d chosen her? Already excitement was beginning to brighten the beloved faces around her. She felt as if the parson’s noose were already slipping over her neck—and everything within her revolted against it.

Which was how, unable to stop herself in that terrible, awkward, panicking moment, she did the one thing she should never have done.

She laughed.

In the stunned moment that followed, she heard Ruby gasp and saw a terrible dark look come over Tommy’s face, changing it so she felt suddenly that she hardly knew him. He was still holding her hand as though frozen. She struggled to find something to say, but she couldn’t say yes, and she couldn’t disappoint him, so she said nothing.

His eyes turned into shards of sharp green glass that cut her, like a knife paring a rotten part from an apple. He dropped her hand and stood up, but now he would no longer look at her, and she understood with a terrible finality that nothing would ever be the same.

Without a word to her or anyone else, he turned and left the ball.

She wrote him two different letters that night and tore them both up before crawling into bed, desperately unhappy and confused and wishing she’d never even gone to the ball.

The failed proposal was the talk of Town, but Lizzie supposed Tommy didn’t care or, more accurately, didn’t notice, because three days later he boarded a ship for India.

When Captain Tommy Halifax—soon to be Captain
Sir
Tommy Halifax—caught his first sight of England from the bow of a ship after six years away, he was surprised to find himself grinning. Good old England. He’d barely given it a thought all this time.

He’d left the country still practically a youth, and he was returning—just for a visit—as a man who’d seen quite a bit of the world. He hardly felt like the same fellow.

He had skills now that he hadn’t possessed when he’d left, gained while working on behalf of England’s interests in India: he could speak Hindi fluently, undertake complex diplomatic relations, withstand punishing conditions for days on horseback across vast stretches of uninhabited lands, and charm females of all ages with little more than the arching of a black eyebrow over his distinctive green eyes.

In addition, he’d become adept with a sword, which had been a good thing during the long voyage from India, since the ship bringing him to England had been set upon twice by pirates. Tommy had aided the crew in repelling the brigands both times, the second time coming to the rescue of the ship’s captain as he was about to be felled by a terrifying beast of a man.

This last episode had earned Tommy the undying gratitude of the crew and the small number of passengers, and considering that one of the purposes for Tommy’s return to England was to be knighted for service to the Crown (in recognition of, among other feats, his diplomatic efforts with a powerful rajah that had averted an all-out war), he seemed to his shipmates to be quite covered in glory.

The sailors, in fact, had created a song in his honor that they’d taken to singing while scrubbing the deck, with bawdy verses that rhymed such things as “manly thighs” with “darkening skies,” which made Tommy hide a smile whenever it rang out over the sea. But he was honored to be called a “lion for England,” and he was happy to serve his country.

And happy, he realized as the September sun gilded the spires of London, to return for a bit, even though this visit home was taking him away from work he wanted to be doing in India. And he was eager to see his family. He’d missed his older brother, Will, and his sister-in-law, Anna, and his Halifax cousins.

It was too bad that his stepmother, Judith, was away tending to her ailing mother, and that his cousins Andrew and Emerald would still be in Switzerland while Tommy was in England. But he was eager to meet Will’s young son and daughter. Not being near his family had been the only thing he’d regretted about living in India.

On the other hand, family—of a sort—was also the reason he’d originally left.

Six years before, he’d been naive and foolish enough to mistake lust for his brother’s niece for love. His life had felt ripped apart when Lizzie rejected him.

Now he could acknowledge that she’d done him a favor. But for her laughing at his proposal, he might have stayed in England and missed out on the most amazing experiences of his life. He might almost have wanted to thank her.

Almost.

* * *

Anna, Lady Grandville, had been stirring her tea for far longer than the addition of a spoon of sugar required, and Lady Elizabeth Tarryton Truehart, formerly known as Lizzie but now called Eliza by all those who cared for her, supposed she knew what was coming. She’d just been hoping they wouldn’t have to talk about it.

“Dearest,” Anna began, but then she frowned as though not sure where to begin. Eliza couldn’t blame her.

They were sitting in the drawing room in Truehart Manor, which Eliza had inherited upon the death of her husband, Sir Gerard Truehart, two years before.

Anna cleared her throat and began again. “People are starting to notice that you haven’t been to any of the events held since Tommy’s return.”

The crisp September breeze slipped in the window behind Eliza, stirring the long curtains against the skirts of her demure blue-and-white-striped gown and brushing the tops of her plain black ankle boots. Her hair was styled in a simple knot, and she wore no jewelry save a pair of pearl earbobs Will had given her as a birthday present. The breeze was perhaps a little chilly, but even in the winter months she preferred that the windows be cracked to let in fresh air.

“If people are gossiping about me and Tommy not being in the same room together, then they have far too much time on their hands. I’m just an old widow anyway.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “You are
twenty-four
, Eliza—younger than many ladies who’ve yet to wed once, and you’re the lovely niece of Viscount Grandville, so your movements will always be of interest to society. But it’s not the gossip I care about.”

Although Anna was an artist with an excellent eye for the beauty of nature (and she’d once been known as the Beautiful One), her appearance always had an absentminded quality. Today was no different. She was wearing red shoes with a bronze gown that no one else would have paired for fear of clashing, but on Anna, somehow the ensemble looked very fine and rather ahead of its time. Eliza hid a smile as her eyes lingered on Anna’s slightly messy coiffure, guessing that her aunt had dispensed with the services of a maid and simply jammed her boisterous black hair into a knot in lieu of wasting time she preferred to spend crawling around on the floor with her young children.

“Good,” Eliza said. “There are far more important things.”

A blast of cold autumn air came in through the window, and Anna pulled her blue shawl more snugly around her shoulders. Eliza ignored the discomfort from long practice.

“What I should have said is that
Will and I
think it’s odd that you and Tommy have yet to meet since he returned from India, because both of you mean so much to us and we want to have the whole family together. And what must Tommy think, with you not even present at the celebration for his knighthood?”

“I was not in London when he returned from India.”

Anna sniffed. “Yes, that trip to visit an ailing friend came up
quite
suddenly. However, you’ve been back for several days, and you haven’t been to a single one of the dinners or parties we’ve held for him. And since he’s only going to be in England for a few months, there’s a limited time for all the family to be together.” Her eyes settled on Eliza’s. “Or are you avoiding him?”

“Why should I be avoiding him?” Eliza said. “That would be silly of me.”

Which didn’t mean it wasn’t also exactly what she was doing.

After Tommy left for India, she’d finally managed to set down her thoughts and sent him a letter of apology. But she’d never had a reply, and she’d taken that to mean he wanted to forget what she’d done—and her. Which she’d understood.

He couldn’t know how bitterly she’d regretted her behavior. Nor how guilty she felt when Will had said quietly, “I don’t think he’s coming back for a long time. If ever.” Though neither Will nor any of the family had ever behaved any differently toward her after Tommy left, for the first two years, Eliza had lived in daily fear that everyone was secretly furious and disgusted with her, and that Will would send her away just as her father had.

“You’re a beautiful and charming young lady,”
her father had written in the only letter she’d received from him after he sent her to the Rosewood School,
“but beauty and charm can’t bring your life meaning and value. You have to make something of yourself.”

The letter had forced her to accept that, just like her stepmother, her father had thought her worthless. Hurt and angry, sixteen-year-old Eliza had set about proving just how important beauty and charm were in life. Every man who’d come under her spell had been one more reason to believe she wasn’t the good-for-nothing person her father had so clearly thought her—until the disaster of Tommy’s proposal.

After Tommy left for India, she’d finally taken her father’s words to heart and begun to make a new path for herself. Marrying Gerard when she was nineteen had been part of that path. A kind, serious, older gentleman, he’d helped her focus on the important things, like self-discipline, and forgiven her frequent mistakes. Their marriage had been a beneficial friendship that had left her in a better place when he had, sadly, died after two years, leaving her enough money to be independent.

And though Will was too noble ever to send her away, with the birth of each of his and Anna’s children, Eliza had felt a little guiltier that their Uncle Tommy wasn’t there to meet them. She’d known that she could never strive hard enough to earn the love Will and Anna so foolishly bestowed on her.

“Well,” Anna said, “you can see Tommy at the Cowpers’ dinner party tomorrow night. I know he’s going, and you’ve been invited as well.”

“I declined the invitation.”

Anna waved a hand dismissively. “You can change your mind. Aren’t you curious to see him? I’m told there was a ranking system devised by this year’s debutantes. Lord Bernard was listed as Most Likely to Marry Quickly, and that nice Mr. Caruthers was deemed Least Likely to Steal a Kiss.” She paused. “Tommy was voted Most Swashbuckling.”

A spark of interest niggled Eliza, but she ignored it. “That’s fairly outrageous, making a list like that.”

“It’s just the kind of thing you would have done at their age.”

“Exactly—a bad idea.”

Anna frowned thoughtfully. “Eliza, I think it’s wonderful, what you and Meg are doing here with the girls you’re helping. But…I worry that you don’t have any fun anymore.”

Eliza and Meg Cartwright, who’d been her closest friend since the season they were seventeen, had gotten lost one day in a part of London where they’d never ventured before—and found street upon street where children sat neglected and begging. Their hearts went out especially to the girls, who would have the least opportunity to better themselves, and before they’d even returned to Mayfair, the two friends had begun planning how to help.

Education would be key, they knew, but girls who’d been living on the street were hardly in a state to begin attending school. Meg and Eliza finally came up with the idea of making Truehart Manor into a sort of halfway point, a place where destitute, orphaned girls could come to stay for weeks or months, depending on how long they needed to acquire the skills, polish, and basic education that would allow them to blend in at a school in Bath run by Eliza’s friend Francesca. Meg moved into Truehart Manor, and they began work. So far, they’d sent eight girls to Francesca.

Eliza took a sip of her tea. “Helping the girls at Truehart Manor
is
what I do for fun.”

“But you need a life apart from that, too. You should go out to parties and dinners sometimes.”

“I really don’t feel the need.”

Anna smiled encouragingly. “You might meet an interesting man. I know any number of nice gentlemen who would like to meet you.”

Eliza laughed. “I’m not interested in meeting men, Anna. I’ve already tried marriage.”

“You were married to Gerard Truehart for two years. That’s hardly a vast experience. And Gerard…” Anna’s brown eyes settled on Eliza with the weight of seriousness. “We always worried he wasn’t the best match for you.”

Eliza’s marriage to Gerard had been…pleasant. If their time together had sometimes seemed a little boring, Eliza reminded herself that life couldn’t be thrilling all the time.

Anna didn’t say anything about how the couple hadn’t had children because she knew that Eliza couldn’t; Eliza had told her so. Though Gerard had religiously made an effort several times each month to produce an heir and Eliza had dearly wanted a baby, there’d been no result. Gerard had had a son with his first wife—though the child eventually died—so they knew the problem wasn’t with him. A doctor had pronounced Eliza infertile.

Her lack of a baby was the secret sorrow of her days, but she didn’t allow herself to dwell on it because she already had so much for which to be grateful.

“Listen, Anna, I really don’t think it would be very nice for Tommy if the two of us met. I’m certain I’m not his favorite person.”

“It’s been six
years
, Eliza. He can’t possibly be holding a grudge. I’m sure he’s forgotten about it.”

Eliza wasn’t. Certainly he might no longer care that she’d laughed at his proposal. But forgotten? She highly doubted it.

Anna hadn’t been the one pinned by Tommy’s fierce glare six years ago, nor had she been the very good friend who’d shared a kiss with him.

And that kiss… There’d been magic in it.

Unfortunately, Eliza had discovered that affection for a person you’d liked and admired wasn’t something that could be turned off like a tap. She’d dreamed of him for years after he left, even though she’d been married to another man. And no matter how many times she’d sternly told herself that one kiss was no indicator of anything, something in her had remained stubbornly unconvinced.

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t go to the Cowpers’,” Eliza said. “I’ve already committed to attending a lecture with Meg.”

“You’ll have to see him sometime, Eliza. It will be difficult not to.”

Eliza was rescued from the necessity of a reply by a heavy thump in the corridor outside the drawing room, followed by a cacophony of girlish voices and the thundering of feet on old floors.

“That will be Mrs. Trinkett with the girls,” Eliza said, referring to the middle-aged widow who’d moved in a few months before to help Meg and Eliza with the girls. “They’re doing grammar today.”

The two ladies waited out the racket as Eliza poured more tea for them. The sound of a door closing greatly reduced the noise.

“How many girls are there now?” Anna asked. “It sounded like hundreds.”

“Only four. You’ve met Mary, Susie, and Thomasina. Franny came two weeks ago. She is, well, a bit hard. She lost her parents in a fire last year, and she’s been living on the streets all this time, trying to stay out of the poorhouse.”

“The poor child.” Anna shook her head. “Will and I are so proud of what you’re doing. It’s hard to believe you are the girl who was expelled from the Rosewood School for climbing out her bedroom window to meet a man.”

“Thank God I’m not like that anymore.”

“Oh,” Anna said, an almost sad look coming into her eyes, “but you were charming.”