Lady Scandal (2 page)

Ah, the pernickety solicitor. Mr. Bamber Hastings was not unknown to Zeus. In fact, it was his name in particular that had drawn Zeus to read the entire advertisement. The
contents
of the appallingly intriguing notice itself earned his presence here in Derbyshire.

Duffield, Derbyshire. He’d sworn never to return after his last inquiry—some years prior and conducted
through
Hastings—was met with substantial disdain.

But though they had a past history, albeit a brief one, Zeus didn’t think Hastings had shown him any favor, scrutinizing his letters of validation with his quizzing glass amid indecipherable
harrumphs
and
tut-tuts
, until, finally, granting Zeus a line on Lady Scandal’s appointment card.

One he’d had to cool his heels a good week before fulfilling, thanks to that yet-to-be-accounted-for delay.

Though the serving wenches at the Crown & Cup were willing to serve up themselves—and made that excessively clear to Zeus time and again—he’d not sampled their charms.

Nor been overly tempted to.

While a frolicking frisk with a fulsome wench might prove desirous for some, Zeus prided himself on mastering his baser urges. Stifling the compulsion to dip his wick in just any old—or young—wench with a willing wax pot, no matter how eminently swive-worthy their exterior might appear.

And that was because of Things He Valued #3—his stolen birthright. Or as he preferred to think of it…Amherst.

For if Lady Scandal proved to be who Zeus suspected, given her list of what she provided in exchange for money and loads of it, the unwilling prodigal would at last have a home. His own.

And the thought of finally realizing
that
particular satisfaction could warm a man on any number of cold nights, in any manner of cold, empty beds.

For Zeus was determined to regain what he considered his, and if he had to forsake flipping coins to beddable, buxom dells and palm his staff night after night, he’d do it and gladly. And he’d tell his randy prick to quit offering up complaints each time a serving wench brushed against his arm, or parts decidedly lower.

Juliet had been married, under protest, to an old goat who spent more time grazing beneath her skirts than he did tending his tenants. More time prodding between her thighs than he did taking his place in Parliament.

More time barking orders at everyone in his household—including her—than following his doctor’s dictates.

So, when the esteemed—at least in everyone else’s eyes—Lord Letheridge collapsed in a heap after devouring his third helping of glazed duck, Juliet did nothing more than nod, finish her
first
serving, and ring for dessert.

Oh, who was she hoaxing with that version?

Though Juliet might like to wish she possessed such strength of character, in truth, upon seeing her soused spouse slouch face first into his ravaged duck bones, Juliet had shrieked, rushed to his side, and screamed for the butler.

But all of Leth’s vices had stolen the vitality from his viscerals, rendering him nothing but a dustman. Rendering Juliet, she’d dimly realized, free of his fumbling. But not of his responsibilities.

Now, some fourteen months and as many assorted disasters later, Juliet remained determined not to let Fate or fatalistic happenings cast her down. And she’d certainly had a lot of practice, given how a carelessly placed candle caused her very home to go up in flames, and how her father recently attempted to wed her to yet another titled old codger with no advance warning (only this one had the good grace to expire on the journey up from Weymouth, thank the saints). And again when a series of tremors caused the well to cave in at another estate, a shockingly sudden occurrence and her with no funds to hire someone willing to “dig” her out of the resulting predicament.

After the well ran figuratively dry, she’d retreated to her last remaining option and current abode. As had happened with a number of the applicants, she’d learned what often presented itself well on paper didn’t always convey in person.

Set amidst a respectable copse of trees and a good distance from any neighbors, the century-old home she now inhabited might be greeting her with falling plaster and broken hinges each time she entered a room, but just as they’d learned to tack the roof tiles back in place (the ones they could locate, that was) and prop the working windows up on boards, Juliet took it upon herself to shore up the spirits of everyone around her. As “lady” of the manor, she was determined to right the wrongs Leth’s spendthrift ways had saddled her with.

To that end, once her viable options ran as dry as the well, Juliet turned to the unviable ones, consulting with Leth’s rather haughty but surprisingly helpful solicitor and ultimately placing her advertisement. Only to have the disasters continue, with her lady’s maid running off with the head groom (and taking the remaining few horses with them), the butler fleeing for greener (and irrigated) pastures, and herself, hosting the most recent adversity directly upon her person in the form of a broken bone in one of her lower limbs, thanks in no small part to an unintentional altercation with several uninvited barking barkers.

Dogs. She might have liked them once upon a dog day, but after hobbling around on one foot because of the four-legged fiends, her opinion of canines had taken a decisively downward turn. She now prayed Providence would do the opposite, take an upward turn and smile—instead of smirk—on her today by sending the right man into the sanctum of her sitting room.

Not a single applicant as yet had come close to reaching the vision she’d created of a respectable and worthy man intent on delivering them from penury. Or her from another marriage not of her choosing.

But that’s what came with having the misfortune of being sired by a man still mired in medieval times, one who thought he had the right to command her obedience in all things, regardless of her age. She’d witnessed that enough times with how he treated her mother. Despite no longer residing under her father’s roof, Juliet had no doubt if she were unlucky enough to ever land there again, he would assume absolute power over everything she did, and that was not to be borne.

She might not be a worldly, wise widow similar to the ones who enjoyed a unique freedom in sophisticated places such as Brighton or London once their spouses were gone (even stashed deep in the country, she’d heard stories aplenty), but Juliet was determined to maintain her independence far away from her restrictive, remaining parent.

“We’re down to the last two Mr. Hastings scheduled.” Making her way to the back corner after restoring her dress to rights, Oliva, known affectionately as Wivy, edged past the cumbersome partition and glared down at Juliet. “Are you certain I cannot persuade you to halt this mad scheme? Did applicant twenty-three not illustrate the idiocy in continuing?”

“You mean
failure
twenty-three?” Juliet couldn’t stop the shudder that convulsed her shoulders. “Wretched man. Taking his irritation with me out on you. We’re well rid of that one, I vow.”

The bounder! Exasperated with questions Wivy required answers to on Juliet’s behalf and enraged at not being graced with her ladyship’s presence immediately upon his arrival, he’d had the effrontery to snag Wivy’s sleeve and jerk her toward him, his fist raised!

At the horrendous action Juliet could easily observe through the screen they’d worked to strategically place so she could see through it, though the men were “kept in the dark” about her presence, she had burst clumsily from her concealed corner, brandishing her homemade crutch. Her burly footman Jacks had done the same, charging in from his preferred position just outside the door—minus the crutch. Jacks didn’t need such props to instill fear, his formidable size being more than sufficient for the challenge.

Now that both men were gone, Juliet couldn’t help but ask herself:
Was
she totally addled to continue believing such a bird-witted plan held the answer? Entrusting the lives of herself and all those relying on her on the outcome of one lone, beetle-headed advertisement?

Pushing past Wivy with a confidence she was far from feeling, Juliet stretched her legs, with some measure of difficulty, across the expanse of her sitting room. Brought up to breed an heir and little else (proficiency at French, watercolors and selecting complementary lengths of yarn for embroidery projects notwithstanding), Juliet had not the training nor the knowledge to return her late husband’s exhaustive grounds back to their former glory. Not without funds or a strong man at her side. It seemed creditors and, sadly, her own tenants distrusted even the most heartfelt of assurances and expressively disliked following instructions from a woman when there wasn’t a man behind her to back them up.

She and the few servants who remained had outrun the most persistent creditors, retreating first to one ignored property then another until landing here: the most dismal home she now had the misfortune to own, where half the windows were boarded over to avoid the dreaded window tax. More importantly, where she hoped to conduct her interviews with a modicum of peace.

Peace? Hah!

There’d been little enough of that because time grew ever shorter, the portions on their plates ever smaller, and the leaks overhead, as the second bucket brought into her bedchamber could attest, ever larger. A far-off rumble of thunder punctuated her thoughts.

“We’re doing the right thing, depend upon it.” The only thing, given how she refused to put herself at the mercy of another
titled
gent ever again. If she dragged her feet, um
foot
, much longer in this regard, her overbearing father was sure to arrive on her doorstep with preacher and picked-out pompous peer in tow. And that would never do.

“No…” She slowed her thumped pacing and returned to her place as Wivy again arranged the elaborate divider, masking her presence. “The men answering my advertisement are desperate in their own right. They wouldn’t face wedding a complete unknown otherwise.” There’d been third and fourth sons, a military man or two and several accomplished tradesmen in their ranks. But there hadn’t been a single one she’d remotely considered choosing—not yet. “If neither of these last men come up to snuff, I’ll have Mr. Hastings start scheduling another batch of interviews. Fear not. It’s simply our job to weed through the chaff and discover the toff most likely to nurture the grounds until they again bloom and prosper.”

There now
, Juliet congratulated herself. She’d sounded appropriately certain. But after the unexpected setback stemming from last week’s Injurious Mishap (though Wivy claimed it was more along the lines of a Canine Catastrophe) and her inability to find a suitable candidate by now, Juliet dreaded, deep inside, that she might have set herself on a losing course. “It’s been a long several days, I know, but let us see this through.”
For I know not what else to do.
“Only two more. Did you not say so yourself?”

Pray God, one of them was her future husband.

Jacks poked his head in the doorway. “That bleedin’ mort didn’t leave any lasting marks, did ’e?”

“Bleed
ing
?” Wivy asked, her voice rising.

Through the crewel-worked screen, Juliet saw Jacks’ smile widen. “’E is now.”

One could take a boxer from the ring, Juliet mused, biting her lip against a reluctant grin, but couldn’t take the fight out of him. She might not have many servants left, but the ones who’d remained were unfailingly loyal. “We’re both in a fine twig,” she called out, “owing to your swift intervention. My sincere appreciation! Now, do please send in our next man.”

“Before ’Enry can lick ’is ear,” Jacks promised, smacking one fist into the opposite palm. “And you can bet I’ll be right outside the door like always. Just in case another tries getting orn’ry.”

“Speaking of Henry,” Juliet wondered out loud, “where’s he off to?” She hadn’t seen tail nor whisker of her beloved tomcat all day.

“Like as not,” Wivy answered with asperity, “he decamped upstairs to the bedchambers once today’s applicants started arriving. That or the kitchen. And who can blame him, after last week’s Currish Calamity?”

There was that. Juliet’s leg twinged in sympathy.

Attempting to arrange her skirts around the wooden chair that took up most of the cramped space, she looked beyond the embroidered scene that hid her presence. In front of her but angled so Juliet could see the room, Wivy situated herself at the desk.

“Ready to have another go?” Juliet whispered.

Wivy took a deep breath and released it on a loud sigh. “Two more,” Juliet heard her murmur. “Two more then the blessed respite of the weekend.”

Juliet knew this marriage scheme had been hard on her friend. For years, she’d been the one constant in Juliet’s life. If it weren’t for her companionship, betrothal to Lord Letheridge at sixteen—with Papa refusing to grant her the opportunity of a season, much less the chance to meet any other gentlemen—might’ve been her undoing.

As it was, by the time their extended engagement elapsed and the pompous ceremony held at St. George’s as her dear mama insisted (her mother’s dying wish, else Juliet had no doubt Papa would’ve disregarded it as he had all her others), old Leth’s determination had dwindled, his winkle had waned, and though Juliet couldn’t bring herself to in any way welcome his persistent attempts at bedding her, she’d tolerated them in good stead as she’d been taught a dutiful wife ought.