The Book Of Scandal (6 page)

“What has that to do—”

“If the king so chooses,” he continued brusquely, “he could have her tried in a true court of law for adultery, among other things. Not by the Lords Commissioners, but in a court, before a judge, where she may know details about the private lives of those who testify against her and may respond in her own defense. The longer the king delays in making that decision, the more frantic Caroline becomes. She stands to lose everything! She is mounting her defense now, Evelyn. There are spies everywhere. The slightest event might be turned round to suit her defense. In the meantime, if the prince can’t obtain the evidence he needs for a trial of treason, he will at least have enough evidence to bring about a parliamentary dissolution of his marriage.”

Evelyn turned away from him, trying to absorb that news.

But Nathan tightened his grip of her arm and forced her around. “This scandal will ruin everyone who comes near it, do you understand? It will echo across this nation and you, my darling, will be forever ruined, because you are suspected of witnessing or knowing of some debauchery in which the prince was engaged while in the company of your lover! Do you think Princess Mary will want you waiting on her then?”

“That’s not true,” she said, trying to pull her arm free of his grip.

“For some reason, Caroline seems to think you do know something. What do you know, Evelyn?”

“Nothing! On my honor, I know nothing!”

His eyes narrowed.

“On my word!” she said again.

He suddenly released her and turned away, pushing his hands through his hair. He looked over his shoulder at her. “Then there is nothing to be done for it.”

“Pardon?”

He abruptly pivoted and took her face in his big hands, his fingers splayed across her hair and her ears. He was so close that she could smell the spicy scent of his cologne and see the little flecks of gray in his eyes. But it was his mouth that drew her attention. His lips…

“The troubles of the Greys are rather minor in comparison to those of the royal family, but there is nothing to be done for it. You must come home.”

Damn it, she could feel tears suddenly begin to well. “No,” she said, and wrapped her hand around his wrist. “I won’t abide it, all the hunting and gaming and Lord knows what.”

“And here in London you, my pet,” he said, slipping one arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer, “will be no more than a step or two from the nearest fashionable salon or soirée, hoping to ruin me.” He bent his head toward her. “It seems we cannot escape one another,” he murmured, and kissed her.

His lips were soft and sultry on hers, sparking a deep, hot flame. But anger quickly followed; anger that he could provoke such longing in her, anger that he had come and ruined everything. Evelyn opened her mouth beneath his…and bit his lip.

“Ouch!” he snapped.

She slipped out of his embrace. “You don’t know me anymore, Nathan. I won’t go.”

Nathan put his finger to his lip, then slowly dropped his hands to his side. “Pack your things, Evelyn,” he said curtly. “We leave this week.”

“Will you force me to return knowing my feelings?” she cried incredulously.

“It seems so,” he said bitterly. “I wish that it were not this way, I wish I could trust you to conduct yourself properly, but as you give me no reassurance of that, I will do what is necessary to protect my name and holdings.”

“You have such gall! The man everyone knows as the Libertine of Lindsey would lecture me?”

“I don’t give a damn what you do, Evelyn,” he said sharply. “But who here will protect you from scandal? The king? Your lover?”

Her blood began to race in her veins. She had trouble catching her breath. “Get out,” she said evenly.

He strode for the door. But there he paused and turned to point a finger at her. “This week, madam,” he said. With that, he pushed the door wide open and walked away.

D idn’t know her?

Nathan wondered what nonsense filled his wife’s head. Was that the sort of thing she had learned in London? Of course he knew his wife. He knew her very well, indeed! He knew that she took cream with her tea, liked long walks on summer evenings, and was diligent about correspondence. He knew her!

He abruptly stood from his desk in the private apartments he had taken and walked to the window.

“A woman would be my guess.”

Nathan glanced at his old friend Sir Oliver Wilkes. Tall and lanky, and still as athletically inclined as he’d been in their youth, Wilkes had met him in London. Along with two more old friends who’d remained behind at the abbey, Declan O’Connor, Lord Donnelly of Ireland, and Jack Haines, Scotland’s Earl of Lambourne, Wilkes had, for all intents and purposes, made Eastchurch his home in England.

“I’ve no idea what you mean,” Nathan said irritably. He was in no mood for idle chatter. He was too busy mentally listing all the things he knew about his wife. For example, her favorite color was blue. He was almost certain of it.

“I mean, sir, that I’ve not seen you in such a dour disposition since the night you lost four thousand pounds to that gent from London.”

“Rundberg was his name,” Nathan muttered. “I still owe him two thousand pounds.”

“One might think your sour mood was due to a bad hand at cards, but I looked for you in the gaming rooms at White’s and you were nowhere to be seen. Therefore, I have concluded it is a woman who must be the cause of your long face.”

“It is not a woman, it is my wife.”

“Lady Lindsey?” Wilkes said with surprise.

Nathan shot him a look.

Wilkes instantly raised a hand in a placating manner. “You cannot fault my surprise. Her name has not crossed your lips in months.”

Her name may not have crossed his lips, but it didn’t mean he didn’t think about her. Or know that she had a small birthmark on the outside of her left thigh. He knew his wife, goddammit!

“I have had occasion to see her,” he said shortly. “And I intend to take her back to the abbey—but she does not want to go.”

“So? If you desire it, take her,” Wilkes said, as easily as if he was suggesting Nathan go for a stroll.

Surprised, Nathan looked at him. “Take her?”

Wilkes nodded as he walked to the sideboard to pour two whiskeys. He handed one to Nathan. “It is well within your rights. You are her husband and she is answerable to you…and not some young buck fresh out of short pants.”

So Wilkes had heard of her affair as well.

“Tell the king first if you must, or George,” he said, referring to the Prince of Wales. “But take her. The longer you allow it to continue, the bigger fool you will become in the eyes of the ton.”

Frankly, Nathan cared less about the way he was perceived by the bloody ton than he did Evelyn’s adamant refusal.

“Surely I need not mention that another adulterous affair and scandal at this time could be disastrous for all parties involved,” Wilkes added slyly. “The sooner you are at Eastchurch, the sooner the scandal surrounding her will die. Take her, and go by the road that runs through Cricklade. It is quicker if there is not too much rain.”

Nathan studied his friend. Wilkes gave him a bit of a shrug, but it was enough that Nathan understood everyone—all of London, all of the ton—knew that he’d been cuckolded.

And Wilkes was right. Nathan would take her by force if he must, but he would take his wife away from London as quickly as possible and before she ruined them both completely.

Wilkes must have realized what he was thinking; he held up his tot for a toast. “To the Lady Lindsey,” he said.

Nathan grudgingly clinked his tot against Wilkes’s. “To my reluctant wife,” he said bitterly.

The note that came back from Pierce in answer to Evelyn’s plea to meet her had one word: Yes.

At half past one the following day, Evelyn held up a red ribbon and a gold ribbon to her hair. “Which one would you choose?” she asked Claire.

“Husband or lover?” Claire asked idly.

Evelyn stole a look at Harriet, who was busying herself in Evelyn’s jewelry box.

“Ribbon,” Evelyn corrected her, and handed the gold ribbon to Kathleen, her longtime ladies’ maid. She glanced again at Harriet and smiled. “And he’s not my lover,” she added with a wink for the girl.

Sprawled on a chaise, leafing through a set of fashion plates, Claire ignored her and asked, “Where is Princess Mary today? She’s so loath to be without you.”

Loath to be without her yet unsympathetic to Evelyn’s plight. Mary had taken the issue to the king, but the king had dismissed her. “He has much on his mind and his knee pains him,” she’d said to Evelyn. She meant that the Prince of Wales was on his mind. The entire family was on tenterhooks, wondering what Caroline might reveal about them all.

So Evelyn had begged her to speak to the queen. Mary had shaken her head vehemently at that suggestion. “The queen would never sanction it. She believes a woman’s place is with her husband.” Which was why, Evelyn thought wryly, the queen spent her time at Buckingham House and the king at St. James’s Palace.

“Princess Mary is with the queen,” Evelyn responded brightly to Claire.

“You’re very lucky to get away, you know,” Claire said. “I’m waiting on Princess Sophia, who is in quite an ill humor.”

Sophia was notoriously ill humored.

“Harriet, do please stop touching everything,” Claire added without looking up from her fashion plates. “And take those earrings off. You look like a harlot.”

Harriet’s young face turned crimson. “But you wear them, Mamma,” she muttered as she quickly pulled them off her ears.

“That’s an entirely different matter, and you know it,” Claire said as she rolled onto her belly and propped herself up on her elbows to watch Kathleen dress Evelyn’s hair.

“What do you intend to do about Lindsey’s demands?” Claire asked. “You should divorce him, you know. No one would blame you.”

Kathleen snorted; Harriet looked at her mother, mortified.

Evelyn shot Claire a look in the mirror’s reflection. She didn’t really care to discuss her personal life in front of Harriet, but Claire never had such reservations. “You’re much better suited to London,” Claire added.

For a long time after she’d arrived in London, Evelyn had harbored a secret hope that Nathan would come for her and admit he’d wronged her. But when he didn’t come…didn’t even inquire…she had thrown herself into London’s elite society, and had, at least in Claire’s eyes, made quite a splash. Claire was constantly telling Evelyn who had noticed her, or had inquired about her.

“How long will you be this afternoon, Lady Lindsey?” Harriet asked.

“Why should you concern yourself, Harriet?” Claire snapped. “You bother Lady Lindsey endlessly as it is.”

“At least she has time for me,” Harriet mumbled.

“Pardon?” Claire asked.

“She doesn’t bother me in the least,” Evelyn said quickly to Claire. “I very much enjoy her company. We share secrets,” she added, and Harriet smiled. Just this morning, they had stolen into the ballroom and, suppressing laughter, had twirled the entire length of it and back. Harriet had stopped in the middle, twirling slowly, her head tilted back, looking up at the empty chandelier. “I will be a great lady someday, and Mamma shall have to come to me,” she’d said. “I’ll be prettier, too, and my husband shall love me.”

“You shall, indeed,” Evelyn had assured her. And then they’d escaped, lest a footman or underbutler find them and report them to the queen.

“In answer to your question, Harriet, I shan’t be gone more than an hour or two,” Evelyn said.

“Really?” Claire asked, and laughed silkily. “What if your friend schemes to whisk you away to someplace quite exotic to save you from Lindsey?”

“Such intrigue, Lady Balfour!” Evelyn scolded her. “I assure you I shall return this afternoon.”

Claire shrugged as she studied the hem of her sleeve. “Were it me, I should be tempted to suggest it to him. Perhaps I shall do so on your behalf. Perhaps France.”

“I enjoy my post here,” Evelyn said, and saw Claire roll her eyes in the reflection of the mirror as Kathleen finished dressing her hair.

Evelyn admired herself in the mirror. She was wearing a camel-colored gown with red trim and a red underskirt that flashed color when she walked. It was her best walking gown and one she hoped Pierce would admire.

“Oh, my lady, you look so lovely,” Harriet said longingly as Evelyn turned one way and then the other before the mirror.

“Thank you, Harriet.”

“You should wear these,” Harriet said, and held up a pair of tear-shaped amber earrings she’d fished out of Evelyn’s jewelry box.

“They’re beautiful!” Claire exclaimed. “Dunhill has superior taste!”

Evelyn felt a tiny prick of guilt. They’d been a gift from Nathan. “An excellent choice, Harriet,” Evelyn said, and donned them. She stood back to look at herself one last time.

She was nervous, so very restless. And it wasn’t the same sort of butterflies she usually had before seeing Pierce. This was more a feeling that something wasn’t right.

“Oh dear, you mustn’t frown!” Claire advised. “You look so terribly grim.”

Behind her, Kathleen rolled her eyes. “Come, Lady Harriet. You may give me a hand in pressing her ladyship’s new ball gown.”

“Oh yes, Kathleen, do teach her the household arts,” Claire said with an impatient sigh. But she made no move to stop them.

“I don’t mean to frown,” Evelyn said low so that Kathleen, who clearly disapproved of her flirtation with Dunhill, couldn’t overhear, “but my situation is rather complicated.”

“No more or less complicated than the situations of half the people at court,” Claire said as Kathleen and Harriet disappeared into the adjoining sitting room.

Evelyn ignored that and smoothed the lap of her gown. “What is the time?”

“A quarter of two,” Claire said on a yawn.

“A quarter of two! I shall be late!” she cried, and swept up a reticule lying on her bed on the way out. She hurried into the sitting room, promised Kathleen she’d not be late, kissed Harriet’s cheek, and went out.

At a quarter past two, Evelyn walked briskly in the direction of Duke Street, her mind and her heart racing as she thought of all the things she would say to Pierce. I’m sorry, my husband has come and I cannot continue. Or perhaps Claire was right and a simple Take me from here! might be in order.