Saved by Scandal (24 page)

Floria did not like what she was hearing. Throw her out, would he? Lay hands on her person? Never. No one had ever so abused Lady Floria Cleary, and no one would now, certainly not her faithless former fiancé. Besides, she had nowhere to go. If the brat Harriet was not going to Bath, then Floria could not very well go visit at the aunt’s house by herself. Without the old lady’s sponsorship, Floria would be in worse case than she was here, pretending to be Woodbridge’s wife’s cousin. Why, horrible, heavyweight Harold might be the only escort she could command. No, Bath was no longer an option. The chances of her being invited, or permitted, to join the family at the viscount’s country estate were less than negligible.

Floria could go to her grandmother’s in Wales, after all, she considered; Woodbridge would be pleased to send her in
his carriage. She would not give him the satisfaction, though, the traitor. As a last resort, Floria supposed she could go grovel to her father. He’d be a bear about it, but if she pleaded hard enough, the earl would take her in and find someone to marry her, whatever it cost. But an earl’s daughter did not beg. She got even.

This whole mess was entirely Woodbridge’s fault, after all. If he had not betrayed their betrothal by marrying someone else, Floria and he would be wed by now. A gentleman would have waited, to know his promised bride was safe and sound and solemnly, solidly hitched. Why, if Woodbridge had been more interesting and attentive in the first place, Floria would never have been forced into seeking excitement elsewhere. Now he planned on tossing her out like yesterday’s slops? He’d regret so much as thinking of it, much less telling that syrup-sweet songbird of his.

She would not go until she was good and ready, Floria decided. Woodbridge might threaten to throw her out bodily, but she could simply threaten to tell the servants her name, and that the viscount had invited her to share his home and his marriage bed. In fact, she’d tell that tale anyway when she was gone, twenty thousand pounds in hand, but she wouldn’t bother with the servants. She’d go straight to the reporters who wrote the
on dits
sections for the news sheets. See how the high and mighty Lord Woodbridge liked that scandal on his doorstep.

Another go-round in the gossip columns might not be enough to ruin his marriage, though. Judging by the sounds she was no longer hearing from the parlor, Floria knew she’d need heavier artillery to breach the wall of wicked lust being built on the sofa. Rutting men disregarded rumormongers.

Floria vowed to use every weapon in her arsenal to bring down Woodbridge and his wife. Timing was everything, of course, for she had to be on her way before Woodbridge realized who to blame, and she had to wrest her wealth away from the clunch’s clutches before leaving. He should have
handed her the blunt with a smile, the simpleton. No, he should have doubled the amount, for all the trouble his miserable misalliance was causing her.

Rubbing her back that was aching from bending over so long, Floria promised herself that Woodbridge and the wench he wed would be sorry. She’d ruin their party, for a start, making them look no-how for the Prince and the Polite World. She’d ruin those perishing paintings of his. He’d forced her into looking at them some years ago, all horses and houses, and he’d even suggested painting her portrait himself, rather than paying one of the famous, fashionable artists. She’d put paid to that idea on the instant. First of all, however, Floria swore, she’d ruin his sister.

*

“They are going to lock you in your room until the party,” Floria told Harriet that night while Galen and Margot and Ansel were at Astley’s. Harriet was painting her toenails with some of Galen’s paints she’d stolen from his studio. Floria was poking at the crumbs on the dinner tray they’d shared, since Harriet was supposedly too ill to dress for dinner, and Floria was too ill-liked to invite. She’d have her revenge for that slight, too.

“I heard your brother say those very words. And he’s going to take away your clothes and bedding.”

Harriet’s brows furrowed. “My blankets? Whatever for?”

“Why, to make you miserable so you will never think of coming back, I suppose. How should I know how such a devious mind works? I merely happened to hear that scoundrel tell Lady Woodbridge he was going to keep you prisoner until your father came. Oh, he also said that Bath was too good for you, that your father has decided to drag you to a series of horticultural lectures as punishment for disobeying him. They agreed to tell you His Grace was attending various house parties so you’d be more amenable to the journey, but you know your father. He’ll be staying with dry-as-dust old men who never leave their greenhouses.”

“Galen said that?”

“In my very presence. Oh, and they are not holding a ball after all, just another tedious musical evening, so you do not have to regret missing the entertainment.”

“Missing it?”

“Of course. Your brother has decided you are not to be seen in public until your presentation, next fall, but do not count on that, either, my dear. The viscountess is likely to be breeding by then, the way those two are pawing at each other, so you’ll be kept in the country to bear her company.”

“Dash it, I won’t!”

Floria waved her hand around. “What can a woman do? You know the men hold the purse strings and the power. Marriage would be your only escape from such tyranny, but how can you find a proper gentleman when you are so confined?”

“There has to be a way!” Turning red with rage, Harriet tossed the jar of paint at the wall.

“I don’t see how. Of course, if they took you with them on their social rounds before your father arrived, you might meet an eligible
parti
.
They attend Astley’s Amphitheater tonight, for instance, where crowds of young gentlemen go to leer at the female riders in their scanty spangled outfits. You could have encountered any number of beaux there, but Galen is too busy impressing that sickly child to bother with you.”

“I’ll have his liver and lights!”

Floria shuddered. “Much too bloodthirsty, Harriet. You’ll have to do better if you wish to attend a ball before your twentieth birthday.”

“Well, I can get the doctor to declare me well enough for an outing, so they have to take me along tomorrow night.”

“Oh, tomorrow they are attending Vauxhall Gardens with some friends. You’d never be invited along, even if you could convince your brother to let you out of the house. You must have heard of the Dark Walks? Why, Vauxhall is no place for innocents at the best of times, not with scores of gentlemen always strolling the grounds.”

“Scores of them?”

Floria nodded. “Most of them are well to pass, though. You would not like that, all the singing and joking. Have you ever tasted the arrack punch served at Vauxhall? No? What a shame. Perhaps you’ll get to go eventually, if your aunt and cousin come from Bath to chaperon you. I am sure Harold would escort you, if the night was not damp, if no one sneezed on him, and if he could find a waistcoat to match your gown, one that was large enough to fit him. Oh, but I forgot. Didn’t Harold get seasick in the rowboat that time we all went on the lake at Three Woods? He’d never take the boat ride there, which is the most romantical part of Vauxhall. Woodbridge and his wife are going by water, naturally. La, it really is too, too bad you cannot go with them.”

*

Whoever said one good turn deserves another might have been taking a turn in Lord Woodbridge’s garden the night the viscount and his wife went to Vauxhall.

Jake Humber was enjoying the evening, after spending nearly a year in the depths of one hellish prison or another, with barely a breath of fresh air. Now he couldn’t get enough of the stuff, or supper, or his wife’s welcome home. By some miracle, home was now upstairs in Viscount Woodbridge’s town house, instead of the dismal one-room flat Jake and Ella had shared. Damn, freedom was some sweet stuff! So was the cigar he was smoking, one of his lordship’s finest. Even the old jacket he was wearing was a castoff of Lord Woodbridge’s, since Jake’s own clothes had to be burned before they brought vermin or prison fever into the grand residence. Jake would sooner put his own hand in the fire than queer his chances with his nibs.

Two days ago a solicitor had come to the prison, asking for Jake. Viscount Woodbridge had sent him, that Hemmerdinger bloke announced. Jake didn’t know any viscounts, and he couldn’t afford a lawyer. If he could, he wouldn’t have been in this fix in the first place. The old man had coughed—he couldn’t have contracted the fever yet—and asked Jake if he had stolen that blasted pistol from the gunsmith.

“Hell, no,” Jake had answered, truthfully. He’d twigged many a bauble in his days—a chap had to eat, didn’t he?—but he wasn’t gudgeon enough to rob anyone who could shoot back. Besides, he told the solicitor, he already had a pistol of his own.

“Not if you wish to get out of here, you don’t.”

Just like that, Jake was a free man, with an offer of honest work at Viscount Woodbridge’s, where Ella was looking after the gentry mort’s silks and laces, at twice the wages she’d been earning at the theater. They’d be able to purchase that little shop of their own someday, at that rate. Of course, Jake wasn’t niffy-naffy enough to serve the swells. Hell, that starched-up butler near had conniptions just thinking about Jake handling the family silver.

Old Fenning might be top-lofty, but Jake’s cockloft had a full head of hair, and something in it besides a disregard for the law. He’d turn his hand to anything his nibs wanted, Jake swore, from carpentry to carrying bathwater. If it needed doing, Jake would do it, rather than go back to prison. What the viscount wanted, though, was someone to look after the nipper, make sure no one made off with the tyke or tipped him any drugs. Jake thought he must have died and gone to heaven while he wasn’t looking.

While he wasn’t looking tonight, right now, b’gad, someone was slinking around the side of the blasted house. Jake snubbed out his cigar and faded back into the shadows, watching. Two figures, there were, with dark capes and hoods, making for the rear of the building. They must have found the library doors locked, from the direction they came, so decided to try the service entrance. That rear door was indeed open, for Jake had gone out it himself. Damn, he wished he had his pistol.

Unarmed or not, Jake was not about to let anyone rob the viscount’s house, not after all Lord Woodbridge had done for him and Ella. Besides, Jake knew he’d get blamed if
anything went missing. Darting between shrubs and ducking behind benches, he followed the two inept cracksmen, who didn’t even know enough to keep to the grass, but were making enough racket to raise the Watch as they crept along the gravel paths. Dash it, what if they were here after the boy? Jake took a deep breath, gave forth a banshee wail, and rushed at the two intruders, who started screaming. Before they could run away, he leaped up, grabbed both hoods, and knocked the two heads together. One of the sneak thieves collapsed in a heap, but the other tried to escape, so Jake tackled the dastard.

Needless to say, Lady Harriet wouldn’t be going to Vauxhall Gardens and her ruination this night after all, and Lady Floria wouldn’t be revenged. Neither of them would be leaving Woburton House soon, either, for Harriet really did have a concussion this time, and Florrie’s ankle was swollen to twice its usual size. Galen measured it himself when he got home, to make sure she was not pretending. Florrie screamed so loudly at his rough touch that the Watch came running back.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Whoever warned that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, should have mentioned wicked women. And weasels. Manfred Penrose was going to Town.

He’d been expecting a summons to a funeral, confound it, not a hearing about changing custody of the brat. The boy was not dead, by Jupiter, despite that expensive sawbones declaring he wouldn’t last a week, no matter what anyone did, or did not. Now some officious prig was coming around, demanding to see the estate books. Well, Manfred wasn’t worried about that, at least. The set he was bringing with him to London ought to pass muster.

Manfred was not about to put up with this interference in his plans, not by half, not when he was two-thirds of the way to having it all: the land, the money, the title. He knew whom to blame, and where to go to demand satisfaction. The more he thought about it, getting rid of that plaguey viscount ought to be satisfying indeed. If his niece became a widow, Manfred could set himself up as Maggie’s trustee, too. Of course, he couldn’t challenge his notably accomplished nevvy-in-law, not if he hoped to live to enjoy the barony. Nor could Penrose simply shoot the man. Renshaw could, though.

Yes, and then maybe he’d move into that vast pile in the center of London, Manfred considered, to console his niece. And he’d slam the door in his Cit wife’s face, when she came to Town to lord it over the mushroom class.

Unfortunately, although the door to Woburton House was not precisely slammed in Manfred’s face, neither was it
opened wide in welcome. The self-consequential butler looked as if he’d just sucked a lemon when Manfred handed him his card, and then he directed Manfred to a narrow side room, likely where tradesmen waited to be interviewed. Treat Manfred Penrose—son, brother, uncle to Baron Penrose of Rossington—like a toadstool, would he? Renshaw’s list just got longer by one priggish popinjay in a powdered wig.

*

Galen was in his library when Fenning brought in the cad’s card. Thunderation, that scurvy, sharp-faced scoundrel was not what Galen needed right now. He had enough problems in his dish without Margot’s murderous kin. His own relatives were nigh to driving a man to drink, witness the twice-filled glass of wine on the desk.