Once Upon a Scandal (26 page)

They were seated opposite each other beside the fireplace and looked up in surprise. “Shocked to see you here, Marworth,” Sir Aldus said, nodding towards the wide bay window overlooking the street. “Brummel and the rest of your set won’t be here for hours.”

“I’m not one to sit and ogle unsuspecting ladies going about their daily tasks,” he said. “I’d rather engage a willing one in a mutually pleasurable afternoon.”

Winchester knew his rakish behavior was for show, but Sir Aldus, bristling, did not. “We all know you’ve plenty to choose from,” he said, his expression resentful. “But you’re not the only one planning pleasures. During our recent outing in Hyde Park, Madame Fauchon was more than amenable to my attentions.”

How unfortunate that he’d left his walking stick with Withers. The stiletto blade in its shaft would have slipped quite nicely between the man’s ribs. A threat teased on his tongue, but Montford’s sudden arrival at the door forestalled it.

“Sir Aldus.” Montford’s breath was coming in winded pants. “I’d hoped to catch you at the house but was told you were here. I’ve brought the morning paper. I’m afraid it’s bad news.” He held
The Times
out to Rempley, who snatched it, scanning it quickly, his expression dismayed and then outraged.

“He’s gone and done it,” he said, his face a violent color. “I’m to be made a laughingstock. I won’t have it, I tell you.” He stood quickly, calling for his coat. “There must be something I can say to reverse this course. Come, Montford. We’re bound for Whitehall.”

“I can only imagine how this will upset my Charlotte.” Montford was wringing his hands. “She loves you so. Just as you love her, don’t you, Sir Aldus? We’ll be able to stop the word of this, don’t you think?”

“It’s too late for that,” Winchester observed, glancing at the news-sheet discarded on the floor. “Unless you mean to track down every subscriber, this will be all over London by mid-morning.”

• • •

“This will end badly for him,” Winchester said, once the two other men had departed. “You can’t wield power you no longer have.”

“A power that is now yours, I presume,” Benjamin said, taking the seat Sir Aldus had vacated.

Winchester shrugged. “I could not have planned it better myself, although I had nothing to do with the leaks. Someone else has Rempley between the crosshairs.”

“Odd, isn’t it? How committee members are toppling one by one.”

“Fitzsimmons brought about his own downfall, his unfortunate end notwithstanding,” Winchester replied. “And Rempley can rail all he likes, but it will change nothing.”

Bates had returned to the morning room. “May I have some tea sent in, your lordships? I could offer a platter of breads and pastries, as well.”

“I’m amenable if you are, Marworth.”

He nodded. He’d not eaten since luncheon the day before, having come straight from Whitehall to learn of Jane’s incapacity. And then he’d stayed at Lady Marchmain’s, which had led to things he’d had no business doing or discussing.

“I must say, you’re not yourself, Marworth. You’re not quite so … complete. I find it surprising.”

“I rushed here, following a discovery I made last night.” But now was not the moment to discuss Dobbins, Bates having just returned with the tea cart. Instead, Benjamin reached for a plate and a pastry as the butler poured them each a cup. Winchester, meanwhile, had turned his attention to a note set beside him.

A note.

When Winchester looked up, his lips curved at the corners, Benjamin knew. And it was all he could do to keep from throwing aside the tea cart and smashing that smile through his teeth.

“Bates, Lord Marworth and I need a few minutes in private. Can you see that we’re not disturbed?”

No sooner had the butler left the room than Winchester turned back to him, perfectly at ease, as if all of this were quite amusing. What game was he playing at?

“I understand you were at Lady Marchmain’s home very early this morning. I find I’m inordinately curious about the reason why.”

“Why the hell are you having her watched, ordering reports on her every movement?”

The bastard took a long sip of tea, watching him over the brim of his cup. “Perhaps the better question is why you’ve not thought to do the same?”

He would not be distracted. “Dobbins told you when she left the hotel to go shopping. You followed in your carriage while he stole into her room and tore things apart.”

“Believe what you will.” Winchester brushed an errant pastry crumb from his sleeve. “I had nothing to do with the theft. And as for Dobbins, I’ve used him before, even if I’m careful to disguise my identity. He’s close enough to London’s underbelly to hear rumors where we can’t. He has a keen eye for anything out of the ordinary.”

“Obviously, not keen enough,” he bit out. He and the others hadn’t agreed to these measures.

“There were too many people going in and out of the hotel. He didn’t have a clear view of the door.”

How convenient. An answer for everything. If he’d put Jane in harm’s way …

“If you can separate your feelings for her in this,” Winchester said, leaning forward, “you’ll see this needed to be done. You can’t be with her every hour of the day. We need a record of what goes on around her. Who, if anyone, is trying to make contact with Madame Fauchon.”

Much as he longed to smear that cloyingly sympathetic expression off Winchester’s face, the man was right.

“Just as you have your suspicions, Marworth, I have mine. So I will ask you once more. What were you doing at Lady Marchmain’s house so early this morning?”

“Jane was ill with a megrim. I stayed to help see to her care.” Even though it was the truth, something must have shown in his face, something telling. Self-loathing, perhaps.

“Does our dear Madame Fauchon know about your brother? About your determined bachelor status?”

“She knows pieces of the story. The whole of it has not been important to the task.”

“If you choose to make your life an unhappy one, the decision is yours. But you owe her an explanation for what will happen when this is done.”

“I’d not intended on getting so involved,” he admitted. Not that he had any interest in sharing confidences with Winchester.

“One never does. But at least I can offer this comfort. When you are done, there are others who will admire her, no matter who she decides to be.”

He looked up sharply. It was no comfort at all. Instead, it felt like he’d been gutted.

[If you do not] avoid Dangerous Connections, what is there on earth or in Heaven that can save you?—
Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women

Sophia was seated in the breakfast room when Jane entered, a sure sign noon had already slipped past morning. But after last night
—
she’d not slept at all once Benjamin left
—
it had been especially difficult to put on her disguise and pretend to a gaiety she was far from feeling.

“
Bonjour, la comtesse
,” she said, smiling weakly as she acknowledged a lone footman hovering near the sideboard. “I apologize for my tardiness.”

“The hour is still far too early for my tastes,” Sophia insisted as she waved for another cup of tea. “But I wanted to see how you were feeling. Though you are pale, I must say, you seem much restored. Have we Lord Marworth to thank for that?”

Hopefully, nothing showed in her face, even if she suddenly felt faint. She needed a distraction before the countess questioned her further. There, by the window, dozens of beribboned boxes sat on a table, when the ball Sophia was holding in Lillianne Fauchon’s honor was just days away. “You’ve been inundated by gifts,
madame
.”

“Actually … ” Sophia was smiling as she spread preserves on a sweet roll. “They’re for you. And if you’d like some privacy while you open them, I am sorry, but I’m far too nosy to oblige. They’ve come from Hamley Brothers on Regent Street.”

The very shop for which she’d set out yesterday, it had made the dolls she’d played with as a little girl. She picked up the note laid carefully beside the packages, Marworth’s signature upon it.

Unbidden, the image of the woman in his carriage came to mind. She, too, had been surrounded by opulent gifts. Payment for services rendered, perhaps? Dear God. Jane was weak at the knees.

She needed to consider this rationally. There was every chance the dolls had been meant as a thoughtful gesture. But she was quite certain an emptied shop was overdone. That when judging Benjamin’s motives in the face of it, the scales tipped towards guilt instead of generosity. And there had been that word at the end of his note.
Apologize
.

“Aren’t you going to open the boxes, my dear?” Sophia asked.

Jane nodded, took a fortifying sip of tea, and started untying bows. So many pretty little dolls, with hair and eyes in every shade, gowns fashioned from all the colors in a rainbow. Wax dolls. Wooden dolls. Each face with a Cupid’s-bow mouth. One blending into the other. After an hour, even Sophia lost interest and wandered away.

But Jane stood fixed to her spot. Because the dolls no longer looked like children’s playthings to her. They looked like every woman Benjamin was rumored to have dallied with. Or at least a fraction of them. A scientific sampling.

As if she’d needed a reminder.

She turned her back on the boxes, focusing instead on the books Hamley Brothers had also sent. Bedtime stories and beautifully illustrated fables. There were also folios, the kind newly popular, with stiff paper figures that could be dressed in paper outfits and hats, transformed in mere moments. All one needed was a pair of scissors and a steady hand.

Or in her case, Monsieur LeRoy, of the Rue Richelieu in Paris.

Like the paper dolls, she too was a milliner’s mannequin, dressed up in someone else’s image, to be packed away when her usefulness was done.

Last night, she’d conveniently forgotten it.

The tea on the sideboard had gone cold, but she drank it down anyway. Then she carefully boxed everything back up and retied the bows, asking Canby to call for the footmen at Hamley Brothers. Each and every doll was to be delivered to the Ormond Street hospital.

She would give Violet the doll that had been tucked among her mother’s things. It had seen Jane through some of the most painful days of her childhood. With any luck, it would offer comfort to Violet, as well.

She then spent the rest of the day waiting for Benjamin to call. Though Lord Winchester, Sir Aldus, and a number of others had paid visits, Sophia had met them alone, saying
madame
needed her rest, for which Jane was grateful. At last, nearing four o’clock, Canby rapped on the door of her suite. “Lord Marworth has arrived. Would you be willing to meet him in the family parlor?”

A private meeting then, if it was not in the drawing room. “
Merci
, I will be but a moment.” She dreaded this. Call it a premonition. She looked in the mirror hanging above her escritoire, refusing to glance over at the dressing screen in the corner or at the bed close by it. It was neatly made, no signs of mischief now, despite the odd look Oakley had given her this morning. Her color was high, flushed by a rapid pulse and a nervous stomach. If she did not look her best, she looked as well as she could under the circumstances. Past time, then, to see what Benjamin wanted to apologize for.

• • •

He was standing beside the window, seemingly lost in thought, but when he turned at the sound of her footsteps, her heart stilled. How could they be one and the same? The man who’d kissed her so passionately last night and the one standing before her, wary and unapproachable? He looked … tired. Perhaps he’d slept as little as she. A small, bitter part of her was glad for it.

“Are you feeling better? I hope the effects of the megrim have passed.” His voice was all solicitousness, despite the tension she sensed in the room.

“I am as well as can be expected, considering the circumstances.” She should set his mind at ease. Reassure him he had nothing for which to apologize, because she’d welcomed every touch between them. But she was not always the person she should be.

“I was sorry to learn none of the dolls would suit,” he said, his shoulders squared and stiff. “I only thought to save you the fatigue a shopping trip might cause.”

“I’d already found a doll among my mother’s things,” she said. “And the orphans will love their gifts.”

“That is good to know.” He‘d assumed one of his easy smiles, the kind he so often hid behind. “I worried you might have taken offense.”

“Because gifts are not exchanged between unmarried men and women?” she asked. “Because they might be construed as payment for favors of a sensual nature?” She should clap a hand over her mouth, or sew the thing the shut. She had no right to feel betrayed. But at least his smile was gone.

“You are offended,” he said, taking a step towards her. “I am sorry.”

“No, truly, I’m not,” she replied. “Now if the gifts had come from Bond Street, I might have been offended. But they came from Regent Street, after all.”

His jaw tensed, which told her all she needed to know. She settled herself into a nearby chair, her feet unsteady.

“You saw me with Claudette yesterday,” he said, taking the seat opposite.

Jane had always admired honesty, so she swallowed past her pride. “She is very beautiful. You have excellent taste.”

“I had just broken off things between us, Jane,” he said, his expression still guarded. “I have not … been with her in some time.”

“Whyever not?” What a glutton she was, to ask him to explain a relationship that tore at her innards.

“It seems her hair and eyes are suddenly the wrong color.” He’d looked away at that and rightly so. How could anyone be that shallow? Benjamin had encouraged this thing she felt, this … weakness. He’d laughed, and flirted, and cajoled, and teased. Just as he had with that redhead, and all the others.