A Little Scandal (12 page)

Not at all certain how to respond to that, Kate chose instead to worry the subject they’d originally been discussing. “I really believe, my lord, that Lady Isabel ought to be allowed to see this Mr. Saunders, at least in my presence. What possible mischief could they get up to, with me there in the room with them?”

“Miss Mayhew,” Lord Wingate said severely. “How is it that on the night we met, you were sufficiently suspicious of my perfectly innocent behavior to want to turn me in to the police, and yet you are naive enough to believe that a chaperoned couple cannot—” He broke off, after sending her another of his piercing looks, then suddenly shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well. Never mind. But suffice it to say, Miss Mayhew, that I myself was only slightly older than Isabel when I first began courting her mother. Allow me to assure you that there is all kind of mischief a chaperoned couple can—”

Kate interrupted quietly. “Perhaps that’s the problem.”

Lord Wingate flashed her a look of annoyance. “What is the problem, Miss Mayhew?”

“Perhaps you fear that your daughter is going to make the same mistake you did.”

“Well, of course that’s what I fear, Miss Mayhew.” He eyed her oddly. “And I must say I find it … singular, to say the least, to be sitting here discussing my marriage with the woman I’ve hired to act as my daughter’s chaperone.”

“And yet you’re overlooking an important point, Lord Wingate.”

“What point?”

“That however ill-advised you think your marriage to Isabel’s mother might have been, it produced something you care about very much. You can hardly blame your daughter, sir, for refusing to heed her father’s warnings, when she’s perfectly aware that if you had heeded your own father’s, she might never have been born.”

He leaned back in his chair with enough force to cause it audibly to creak. His expression was no longer inscrutable. He looked positively astonished. Kate, suddenly aware that she might have gone too far, looked at the carpet. Three hundred pounds, she said to herself. Three hundred pounds.

“My lord—” she said, an apology already on her lips, but Lord Wingate cut her off.

“Miss Mayhew,” he said, and Kate braced herself. Was he going, she wondered, to throw her out the window? She had three in her room, looking out over a lovely garden two stories below. She imagined that, thanks to the spring thaw, the ground just might be soft enough to break only a few bones, not kill her outright

“You make your points,” the marquis went on, in his deep voice, “with astonishing clarity, whether you are wielding an umbrella, an atlas, or simply
le mot juste
.”

Kate felt the blood that had drained from her face returning with a vengeance. “Lord Wingate—”

“No, Miss Mayhew,” he said, climbing to his feet. “You are perfectly correct. Forbidding Isabel from seeing Mr. Saunders has not cooled her ardor for him one iota.”

Kate got up from her chair. “Lord Wingate …” she began, but her voice trailed off a second later when she realized she was addressing the silver buttons of his waistcoat. Burke Traherne was so much taller than she was that she was obliged to crane her neck if she wanted to look up into his face.

And then the minute she did so, she regretted it. Because even though it had been nearly a week since that embarrassing incident in Cyrus Sledge’s library, everything she’d felt then came back in a rush: the shock at the hardness of his chest, the incredible strength in those muscular arms; the stimulating scent of him—a scent that shouldn’t have been the least arousing, since it was only a combination of soap, and the fainter odor of tobacco; the sight of those sensual lips, so out of place in such an otherwise masculine face.

But most of all the intense heat that emanated from him, which had produced in Kate the oddest desire to give in to that warmth, to press herself against it and forget everyone and everything else, to lose herself in all of that intoxicating masculinity ….

And then, of course, the horror that she could even think such thoughts, and about someone like him, coupled with the indignation that he’d made her think them, which in turn had caused her to reach for the atlas ….

And here she was, days later, suddenly as aware of his physical presence as she’d been when she’d stood in his arms. Only this time they weren’t even touching, his arms weren’t even around her ….

Abruptly, Kate sat back down, her knees having suddenly given way beneath her.

The marquis, however, did not move from where he stood. Kate wasn’t certain, since she found herself perfectly incapable of looking at him, but she believed he was looking down at her.

And then, as if his thoughts had been traveling along the same lines as hers, he said, in a somber voice, “I believe I owe you an apology, Miss Mayhew, for that unfortunate incident in the Sledges’ library.”

Kate, certain she’d gone scarlet all the way to her hairline, kept her face turned resolutely toward the fire.

“We owe apologies to one another,” she said stiffly. “Let us consider those apologies said, and the matter done with.”

But that didn’t seem to satisfy Lord Wingate. “I am afraid that won’t do, Miss Mayhew. I was the one who behaved abominably. You had every right to repudiate me.”

“But I ought,” Kate said, now speaking to her lap, “to have repudiated you in a gentler manner. And it is for that that I apologize.”

Lord Wingate cleared his throat. “Nevertheless,” he said. “I feel an obligation, as your employer, to assure you that it will never happen again.”

She risked a glance at him then, surprised as much by his words as by his tone. Why, he actually sounded sincere! But that, of course, was impossible. Sincerity was not a virtue held in any sort of esteem by the
haut monde
. He was only parroting what he thought a gentleman ought, under the circumstances.

Wasn’t he?

But he certainly looked as if he meant it. Was it possible that there existed a nobleman who was not a two-faced parasite?

No. And if so, it certainly wasn’t this one. She would not soon forget how he’d treated her that afternoon in the library, as if she’d been put on earth exclusively for the purpose of providing him with a bit of lascivious entertainment.

Still, Kate stood up again, unwilling to let him think she was incapable of letting bygones be bygones. She stuck her right hand out toward him, and, looking him straight in the eye, said, as his large warm hand closed over her much smaller, and significantly cooler, fingers, “And I shall do everything in my power to see that you do not become a grandfather before you’re ready, Lord Wingate.”

A strange expression passed over the marquis’s face. As it was similar to the one he’d worn the moment before he’d tried to kiss her that day, she took a wary step backward.

But he merely shook her hand, and then turned to go, muttering something about how she had better hurry up and dress, as she hadn’t much time before the carriage pulled round.

Before he left the room, however, Lord Wingate was stopped in his tracks by the sight of Lady Babbie stretching luxuriously, all of her claws extended, on Kate’s bed pillows.

“Good Lord,” he said.

Kate felt all of her short-lived self-assurance drain away. Before she had a chance to begin apologizing for the animal’s presence, however, Lord Wingate asked, “That cat’s not female, is it?”

Kate raised her eyebrows. “Yes, she is. Why do you ask?”

“Well, it explains why I saw Vincennes’s ginger tom sniffing around this floor earlier. You had better keep this door closed, Miss Mayhew, unless
you
want to be a grandparent.”

And with that, the marquis left the room without another word.

It hardly seemed possible, but after six interminably long weeks, Burke Traherne finally had an evening to himself, to do with exactly as he chose. He almost didn’t dare believe his good fortune.

Since Isabel had been released from school, Burke had been harassed and harangued at every turn. He had cajoled, threatened, and finally punished, all to no avail. Storms of weeping had become a commonplace occurrence. Remonstrations were hurled hourly. Burke had found himself using language he had not employed since his own days at school, when the headmaster’s whip had brought swift retribution for every curse, and finally cured him of the habit. All it had taken, however, was a seventeen-year-old girl’s first season out to bring them back to the tip of his tongue.

And now, quite suddenly, silence. Perfect, undisturbed silence.

It was an exceedingly odd sensation. Burke was still a bit incredulous. Under Miss Mayhew’s firm but gentle guidance, his daughter, Isabel, had actually left the house without a single tear or recrimination. She had even kissed him goodbye! Kissed his cheek and laughed, saying, “Good night, you silly old thing. And thank you for letting me see Geoffrey. Enjoy your silly old book.”

She was a changed creature, and Miss Mayhew hadn’t been in the house twenty-four hours yet. Could it be that if he had only given in to Isabel’s demands that she be allowed to see the wretched Saunders, he might have had this silence weeks earlier?

No. Impossible. Because with the other chaperones, everything had been a battle, from deciding on which dress to wear to how Isabel ought wear her hair. But tonight, none of it. The dress had been agreed upon without acrimony, and Isabel’s hair had never looked less blowzy—doubtlessly the work of Miss Mayhew.

Oh, there was no doubt about it. It was Miss Mayhew. It had to be. There was no other explanation for it.

And now he was free. Free to enjoy his “silly old book” at last.

And Burke had settled down to do just that—enjoy his silly old book, which was just that, a work by Mr. Fenimore Cooper that he ought to have read as a boy, but was only just now getting to. He sat in a deeply cushioned, hugely comfortable chair by a fire that hissed every so often from the rain that was pouring steadily outside. He had a glass of his favorite whiskey resting on the small table beside him, and he had left instructions with Vincennes that he wasn’t to be disturbed, not by reports from his various properties overseas—he had holdings in both Africa and the Americas—not by petty household difficulties, and, most especially, not by Mrs. Woodhart.

For Sara Woodhart, in her continuing effort to win back his affections, had lately taken the habit of sending missives marked Important at all hours of the day and night, and instructing the messenger to wait for a response, thus inconveniencing the entire household until Burke either sent the letter back unopened, or penned a laconic reply. The missives were not, actually, all that important, since they contained only long and tearful—in some cases, the ink with which they’d been written was smeared, as if by actual tears—appeals to Burke’s better nature, begging his forgiveness.

But there was nothing, in Burke’s opinion, for him to forgive. He ought, he sometimes felt, to thank Sara for her inconstancy. Because of it, he had been driven to the desperate act that had resulted in his securing the peace he was currently enjoying. He did not regret, not for a minute, the sum of money he was paying in order to insure it, either. Though to some, three hundred pounds was a staggering sum, three hundred pounds to a man who had a few hundred thousand more than that was nothing.

And yet it had bought him something he’d thought beyond price.

Quiet.

Luxuriating in his solitude, Burke dove into his novel, beginning where it was proper, with the preface, which he normally skipped. He was in no hurry, after all. He had all night. He had, in fact, an endless calendar of nights, since he had not yet found a replacement for the estimable Mrs. Woodhart. He was in no rush to find a new mistress. Mistresses were fine things, it was true—as fine as this whiskey that rolled so smoothly over his tongue when he sipped it—and yet, like the whiskey, too much of any fine thing was not necessarily good.

Perhaps, he thought, lifting his gaze from his book, and staring into the fire, he would not find a new mistress at all, but try celibacy for a change. It was a novel thought, and yet it seemed to fit in with his new mode of restful quietude. He had never, after all, given celibacy a try. Even during those horrible months after he’d discovered Elisabeth with her wretched Irishman, when he’d torn about the Continent in a drunken haze, he’d still had a need to slake, and he’d slaked it readily enough, with ballerinas and the occasional soprano.

But the truth of it was, he was tired of mistresses. Oh, they were pleasant enough, he supposed, in their way. And his appreciation for a finely turned ankle and ivory shoulder had not waned in the least. But there was no denying that aside from their obvious usefulness in relieving pent-up … er … tension, mistresses were a bit of a nuisance.

Perhaps this was a natural result of the fact that their affections were of the purchased variety. And while actresses like Sara Woodhart were fairly good at feigning an interest in the buyer, the dancers and singers hardly even bothered. They were far too used to being worshiped themselves to know how to worship others. And it seemed to Burke that if he were going to spend good money on a woman, she ought to at least act as if she liked him.

And there was, of course, the uncomfortable fact that he was not the most even-tempered of men. Invariably, mistresses—perhaps by the very nature of their position in a man’s life—drove him to some act of violence, whether it be dispatching some rival for her affections—such as they might be—or defending himself from various members of her family, who felt outraged by his refusal to marry their sister/daughter/cousin/niece or, in one memorable incident, mother. Burke’s reputation for possessing a volatile temper was bad enough. He did not need to have it constantly tempted.

It was factors like these that cemented Burke’s resolve to avoid mistresses for the time being.

He took another sip of whiskey, replaced the glass, and neatly turned to page two of the preface to
Last of the Mohicans
. He was, he decided, going to enjoy his newfound peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet, at long, long last.

Only now that he had it, Burke found that he couldn’t help thinking perhaps it was a bit too quiet.