Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) (6 page)

Henry strode quickly away from the knot of matrons, and, skirting the dance floor, pushed his way through a small crowd of gentlemen that sat gazing admiringly at Agatha, whose plumped out skirts gave her the look of a small button mushroom.

“Now then, if I just lay this spoon on the floor.” Agatha leant forward and placed a silver spoon on the ground.

“You should apply to the Royal Academy of Sciences,” a gentleman at the back of her court said.

“Do you really think I could?”

Henry coughed and bowed. “Miss Beauregard, I would be grateful if you would join me.”

Agatha turned and stared at him before saying something quietly to Charles on her left.

“Are you asking her to dance?” Charles frowned and put out a hand to help Agatha to stand.

Henry breathed deeply. “No.” There was no way he was going to ask anyone to dance. “I—I need to consult her on something in her capacity as my sister’s companion.”

Agatha’s small intake of breath was inaudible but visible in the way her chest hitched slightly. Henry stared away at the dancers. “Quickly please, Miss Beauregard.”

“Steady on, Anglethorpe, she was just about to show us something interesting with an egg…”

So that was what Charles had given her.

“She won’t be showing anybody anything tonight.” Henry took Agatha’s arm in his and led her away at a fast clip, Agatha trotting to keep up with him.

“Why did you need to be so rude? I was just about to show them how silver tarnishes in the presence of a little water and the albumen of an…”

“It does? How…?” Henry shook his head and sighed, drawing her into a small alcove. “Miss Beauregard. When I brought you to London to have a season, I did so as a favor to your brother. A favor which you are sorely testing.”

“I don’t understand.” Agatha withdrew her arm from his and smoothed her hands over the silk of her skirts. “They asked me to demonstrate it. We discussed it last week at Lady Braithwaite’s ball. They seemed interested.”

Henry closed his eyes. “They are interested. They are interested in you as an oddity, engaging in scandalous behavior under my very nose. Everyone knows the Anglethorpe name and what it stands for.”

“Scandalous? But I wasn’t being scandalous at all…”

“In the eyes of the ton, any behavior of a woman out of the norm is considered scandalous, bad ton. It blights the name of that person and of those associated with her.”

Agatha’s skirts rustled as she stared down at her lap. “I… I didn’t realize. Would it help if I became a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences?”

“It might… but…”

“I could approach them next week.” She looked up with wide eyes. “That’s what I’ll do. After all, after I demonstrated—”

“There will be no more demonstrations, Miss Beauregard. Kindly confine them to my house.”

“But…”

Henry stood and gazed back across the crowds at Charles. “No more protestations.”

She wouldn’t look at him in the carriage on the way back to the house. Her mood extended to Victoria, who held her hand and gazed at Henry as if she wished he would disappear.

As the butler let them back into the house in Mount Street, a small leaf from the hornbeam tree whipped into his face. Pulling it away from him with a snort of disgust, he entered the hall and drew a tired hand across his face where the leaf had scratched at it. Dropping the leaf to the floor, he crushed it beneath his feet and kicked it out over the doorstep. Clenching his fingers to his side, he turned, only to catch the wide eyes of Smythe, his butler.

He straightened. “Goodnight.” Without waiting for a reply, he trod up the stairs evenly and walked straight to his room.

In his rooms, the footmen prepared a large tin bath and laid out a brush and some soap. The effect of the warm water was extremely calming, the tension of the ball leaching from his body. He would need to apologize to Agatha in the morning. By all accounts he had been extremely rude. And actually he was rather interested in what she had been planning to do with the spoon and the egg. Reaching out a long arm for the soap, he rubbed it along his chest, watching in satisfaction as a generous lather was generated.

Stopping, he sniffed and frowned as the faint aromas of pork filled the air.
Who was cooking at this time of night?
Rubbing his arm, he continued to clean himself.

The smell of pork became stronger.

“What in the hell?” Henry stared down at the bar of soap in his hand. Mixed in to its yellow texture were black flecks. Bringing the bar to his face, he sniffed and recoiled.

“I’ve found out what experiment Miss Beauregard intends to do next, sir.”

Henry dropped the soap in the bathwater with a splash. Ames quietly shut the bedroom door behind him. The smell of pork rose again through the air on the steam of the hot bath.

Ames sniffed. “They intend to make soap from homemade potash sir. Gods what is that smell?”

Henry slammed his hand down into the bath. “That smell, Ames, is me. I rather think you are a little late with your information. Agatha and Victoria appear to have made soap using pork dripping.” Grabbing a towel from a stand near the fire, he stood and furiously rubbed at his skin. “I need another bath.”
      “You can’t, sir. You’ve used up all the hot water. It’ll be nearly an hour until you can have one.”

“Gods Ames, what have you been doing? You need to keep an eye on her.”

“Miss Aggie, you mean?”

“Yes… she’s a… she’s a liability… a…baggage of the highest order!”

Ames pulled another towel off the rack and handed it to Henry. “Would you like me to order another bath, sir?”

“Yes. Right away.”

It was five o clock in the morning before he slept, and then only fitfully at that. Eggs and spoons chased him around the grounds of a familiar large house where the sea air swirled in the trees. When he tried the front door to escape from them, it was opened unexpectedly by Agatha.
I’m being chased,
he’d said, mumbling in his dream. Agatha had not said a word, but raised her eyebrows in disbelief. A crash sounded behind him. Looking back, the egg and the spoon lay splattered against the steps.

It was then that he awoke, a ringing in his ears, the lingering image of Agatha in his mind. He’d been sure that she had made to open the door wider to the house, inviting him in.
Inviting him into his own family home.

With a grunt, he pulled his pocket watch off the table. Nine o’ clock in the morning. Gods but his ears hurt; what had woken him so loudly? Pulling on his dressing gown, he blearily left his room and strode down the stairs.

“What’s going on?”

Nobody answered him; the usual footmen were absent from their post in the hall. Pulling his dressing gown tighter, he glanced quickly down the stairs. The door to the drawing room stood slightly ajar. Taking the stairs two at a time, he made straight for the door and strode inside.

Agatha lay sprawled on the floor by an upturned chair, the table in front of her a charred mess. With a curse, he ran to her side and knelt on the floor. He took her hand and leaned over her face. Agatha’s large eyes looked back at him, green and luminous. Slowly she blinked. With a sigh, Henry sank back on his heels and looked back around the room. A footman was busy sweeping up the ashes, whilst another held a bandage to Victoria’s eyebrow.

Agatha put her free hand to her head and hiccupped. “Mrs. B. did say that one shouldn’t open phosphorous to the air at home. Perhaps we should have listened to her.”

The footman next to Henry sniffed and looked up. “Lord Anglethorpe… err.”

Victoria gazed at him from one barely open eye. “Bloody hell,” she said limply.

Henry dropped Agatha’s hand, staring at her as she rubbed lightly at her face. Drawing in a deep breath, he got to his feet. For a few seconds he closed his eyes and just breathed. It was for their own good. Clenching his hands into fists, he caught Victoria’s gaze and held it, unable to look at the prone woman on the floor. “There will be no more experiments in my house, Agatha. Do you hear?”

Agatha moaned and sat up. “I agree the phosphorous was a bit of a mistake.”

“A mistake?” Henry roared.
She had no idea
. “The mistake was you coming to live with us.”

With a growl he strode to the door and ran up the stairs to his room. Dear God, why had she chosen to provoke him before he had even had time to have breakfast?

CHAPTER 7

Agatha sighed and pressed herself against the wall of the hallway. If it hadn’t been for Victoria, Agatha would have gone back to Devon to find her brother, as a very last resort mind. It was his fault she was in London. He was the one that had sent Horrible Henry to harry her. If only Peter wasn’t so insufferable when he was painting—only his wife and his small daughter could stand him. Six months it had been now, and it seemed that she had just exchanged one set of stifling constrictions for another.

Agatha sidled further back behind one of the artistically-placed pot plants. The corridor at Hanover Square Rooms was draughty. Agatha shivered slightly. The plant poked her again on the shoulder, its razor sharp leaves leaving little dots on her arm. She imagined plucking one off and pushing it in the side of the next lady who compared her ordinariness to the beauty of Victoria.

She stilled her hands as they reached for the leaf. Ladies did not brandish knives. Henry had made that very clear. They also did not go for walks alone, ride horses astride or mix water with salt on the dining room table to discover how soluble it was despite Mrs. B.’s extensive coverage of the experiment. In fact mentioning Mrs. B. was now a very taboo subject in the house in Mount Street. Especially as it had taken several weeks for Victoria’s eyebrows to regrow.

She wrinkled her nose. It seemed that none of the things that she liked doing were compatible with living within sight of the beau monde. They were all considered
somewhat scandalous.

“Aggie, over here!” Victoria poked her head into the hall from the doorway to the large ballroom, the soft light accentuating her blonde hair and creamy skin. “Have you done it yet?”

Agatha shook her head and mouthed a no. She shooed Victoria away with her hands. Victoria left with a soft swish of her skirts and a giggle.

Pulling her wrap lightly round her, Agatha glanced up and down the empty hall, cursing the day that she had revealed more of the secrets of her childhood to Victoria in an effort to fill the boring hours that had been left behind after all their experimental activity had been curtailed. Perhaps she
might
have exaggerated some of them slightly. She had illicitly tasted whisky and, cigars, all in the name of science of course, and flirted with the footman because human biological interaction was science,
wasn’t it
?

And then she was beaten again and shut up in her room. But she hadn’t told Victoria that part.

Just as she hadn’t revealed everything. The fact that she could
nearly
hit a target with a throwing knife at ten paces. That she had practiced and practiced in secret because after the book on mechanical principles had been burned, she had been shut up in her room all day with nothing but a knife and potatoes to peel as an endless punishment. It had seemed a fitting way to put into practice something called
centripetal force
the book had mentioned. Agatha flexed her fingers again, gazing longingly at the sharp leaves. Hah. Lucky Henry didn’t know about that.
You should have never come here,
he’d said. Perhaps she shouldn’t, but then she’d had nowhere else to go.

Her body stilled as she saw the handsome man she was waiting for emerge from the door nearest the entrance hall. He straightened his cravat as he walked and pulled fastidiously at his breeches.

She wished she had left more time to visit the powder room. Agatha was pretty, she knew that, but she was not beautiful. Not a diamond of the first water. But Victoria was. They practiced dances together, endured dress fittings together, and when it came to the balls and musicales, conspiratorially sat together. The endless line of gentlemen who paid court to Victoria gallantly included Agatha in their attentions too. She had more dances that she would have done, but many less than Victoria achieved.

Mr. Charles Fashington had been one of Victoria’s court, although she did not accord him a dance very often. Two months into the season, he had deigned to ask Agatha to dance. Of course she had said yes with alacrity. One didn’t get the chance to dance often and there was no point in wasting the excellent Monsieur Bertrand’s tuition. Charles had also listened with a very interested ear to her discourse on science. Why he had even provided her with some of the material she had used to show the others some of the more interesting topics in Jane Marcet’s book. It was just too bad Henry had caught her. He never normally set foot in the ballroom.

Shrinking back into the cover of the leaves, she watched as Charles walked past. He was only a few years older than her and
he
danced beautifully. Whilst his lips turned down slightly at the edges, his face was handsome, with dashing hair and only slightly padded shoulders. Agatha knew that he was part of the same club as Henry, he had mentioned it himself.

Despite standing behind the pot plant in the cold hall, a warm flush travelled up her neck and reached Agatha’s ears. With a gasp, Agatha took off her wrap. Goodness, it really was rather warm. And she had had a rather brilliant idea.

Charles was going to help her fulfil Victoria’s request.

Victoria wanted to drink beautiful, bubbling champagne—not the watered down lemonade that she, Agatha and all the debutantes had to rely on. The current ball they were attending was being held in Hanover Square Rooms, a large recital hall in Mayfair. Hanover Square Rooms had only just been constructed and Lady Foxtone, the current hostess, was considered all the rage for having arranged her ball there. Her lemonade, however, was more watered down than most.

Agatha couldn’t refuse Victoria. Especially not after the stories that she had told to impress her.
You are just her companion,
her senses whispered to her.
You don’t need to do this.