A Little Scandal (2 page)

“Oh, she was my chaperone. Until she gave notice an hour ago, anyway.”

“Chaperone? Why in heaven’s name must you be saddled with a chaperone?”

“If you must know,” Burke replied acidly, “it’s because her mother is dead. Now, if you’ll excuse us, madam—”

“La!” Isabel said. “That isn’t it at all, Papa.” To the stranger, she confided, “Mama is dead, but the truth is, he hires chaperones for me because he can’t be bothered to take me anywhere. He wants to spend all his time with Mrs. Woodhart—”

Burke’s grip on Isabel’s arm tightened. “Perry,” he said. “The door, please.”

The footman, who’d been listening to the conversation with more wide-eyed attention than he’d ever paid to any of Burke’s instructions, jumped at being so suddenly addressed, and stammered, “M-my lord?”

Burke wondered if it would be considered brutish of him to deliver a swift kick to the back of Perry’s trousers. He decided it would.

“The door,” he growled. “To the carriage. Open it. Now.”

The hapless footman hastened to obey his master’s orders. Meanwhile, to Burke’s utter fury, Isabel was still chattering away.

“Oh,” she was saying, “I kept telling them Dame Ashforth’s was the place, but would they listen to me? Not a bit. It wasn’t any wonder I had to be rude to Miss Pitt. I mean, if no one will listen to you—”

“Oh, is Dame Ashforth’s ball tonight?” The young woman was leaning nonchalantly against her umbrella handle now, as if it were a croquet mallet, and they were all standing on a summer lawn, enjoying a friendly game. “Well, that’s it, then. You simply can’t miss Dame Ashforth’s.”

“Yes, but it’s all a plot, you see, to keep me away from the man I love—”

“Into the carriage,” Burke interrupted stonily. He was proud of himself. He hadn’t yet booted her into the vehicle, which had been his first impulse. He was learning to control his temper. Lord knew it had been sorely tempted, these past few weeks. But he was keeping it in check. If they could just escape this talkative young woman and her umbrella without any blood being shed, he would be well pleased.

“But Papa.” Isabel looked up at him, round-eyed. “I thought you heard the lady. The Peagroves’ cotillion is simply not—”

“Get in the carriage!” Burke roared.

Isabel staggered back a step, but he was too quick for her. He caught her up and tossed her—but gently; even the shrew with the umbrella would have to admit he did it very gently, indeed—into the chaise-and-four. As soon as the last bit of her train had disappeared into the confines of the vehicle, he turned and said, to the very astonished young lady standing on the street, “Good evening.”

And then he too disappeared into the carriage, barking at the driver to get a move on, which he did, right smartly.

Isabel, recovering herself, said, from the opposite seat, “Really, Papa. There was no call to be so rude!”

“Rude!” He let out a humorless laugh. “I like that! And I suppose it was out of sheer politeness that a total stranger pointed her umbrella at me and threatened to fetch the police, as if I were some sort of escaped convict.”

“She wasn’t a total stranger,” Isabel said, as she arranged the yards of white satin that made up her skirt. “She’s Miss Mayhew. I’ve seen her before, out and about.”

“Good God.” Burke stared at his daughter in astonishment. “That creature lives on Park Lane? I don’t know any Mayhews. To whom does she belong?”

“To the Sledges. She’s governess to all of those wretched little boys.”

“Oh,” Burke said, somewhat mollified. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her. Well, that was one thing to be grateful for: the woman was only a servant, and wouldn’t go prattling around the neighborhood about the fact that Burke Traherne, third Marquis of Wingate, had no control whatsoever over his headstrong daughter.

Or at least, if she did, no one who mattered was likely to listen.

Then he asked, with some indignation, “If you’ve seen her before, why the devil didn’t she know you’re my daughter? Why did she think I was about to despoil you?”

“She’s only just started working there,” Isabel said, tugging on her gloves. “Besides, when would she ever have seen you before? Certainly not at church, considering how often you make it to bed before dawn of a Saturday night.”

Burke glared at her in the light from the carriage oil lamp. It didn’t seem to him that a man’s daughter ought to speak to him in such a familiar manner. This is what came, he supposed, of having married so young. His father had warned him. And his father hadn’t been wrong. Other men—older men, who, unlike him, had waited until they were past twenty before marrying—had daughters who didn’t speak to them so flippantly. Or at least, Burke supposed they didn’t. He didn’t happen to have that many acquaintances, thanks to his somewhat checkered past, and the reputation that came along with it.

But he supposed that if he had had male friends, and they’d happened to have daughters, their daughters would be docile and dainty things, like the daughter he’d always imagined he’d have, instead of this unmanageable creature who’d emerged from the expensive ladies’ seminary she’d attended up until a month and a half ago, and had been speaking to him so uncivilly across the dinner table ever since.

“Isabel,” he said, as evenly as he could. “What did you do to Miss Pitt?”

Isabel studied the ceiling of the carriage very deliberately. “If the carriage pulls up in front of the Peagroves, I shall run away. I’m warning you right now.”

“Isabel,” he said again, with what he considered admirable patience. “Miss Pitt is the fifth chaperone I’ve hired for you in as many weeks. Would you like to tell me what you found so objectionable about her? She came very highly recommended. Lady Chittenhouse says—”

“Lady Chittenhouse,” Isabel said, her disgust evident. “What does she know? None of her daughters ever needed chaperones. No man in his right mind would ever go near any of ’em. I’ve never seen such dreadful complexions in my life. You would think they’d never heard of soap. It’s a wonder any of them married at all.”

“Lady Chittenhouse,” Burke said, ignoring her, “wrote a very glowing letter of recommendation for Miss Pitt—”

“Did she? And did she happen to mention in her letter that Miss Pitt, besides being fantastically boring, with her endless prattle about her precious nieces and nephews, has a tendency to spit when she speaks, particularly when she is attempting to correct what she calls my wild ways? Did she happen to mention that?”

“If you found Miss Pitt so offensive,” Burke said, as gently as he could, considering the fact that he longed to throttle her, “why didn’t you come to me and ask me to hire someone else?”

“Because I knew you’d only find someone worse.” Isabel peered out the window at the mist-shrouded street. “You know, if you’d only let me interview the candidates—”

Burke couldn’t help smiling at her elaborately casual tone. “And who would you consider a suitable chaperone, Isabel? Someone like that Miss Mayhew back there, I wouldn’t doubt.”

“What’s wrong with Miss Mayhew?” Isabel demanded. “She’s a spot less disagreeable to look at than that horrid old Miss Pitt.”

“You don’t need someone agreeable to look at,” Burke growled. “You need someone stern, to keep you from running after that wretched Saunders fellow—”

The minute the words were out of his mouth, he knew he’d said the wrong thing. Suddenly, a storm erupted on the seat opposite his.

“Geoffrey isn’t wretched!” Isabel cried. “Which you would know, Papa, if you’d only take a moment to get to know him—”

Burke rolled his eyes, and turned his own gaze toward the window. Unfortunately, they had already become stuck in traffic, and the carriage was now being besieged by flower and ribbon sellers, beggars and prostitutes … the usual riffraff one encountered on the streets of London of an evening. The glass was up in the windows, so no one reached in, but Burke could see their hands plainly enough, empty palms lifted toward them, dirty, chafed from work and hardship. He could not restrain a sigh. This was not, by any means, how he’d envisioned spending his evening. He’d planned, by this time, to be in his box at the theater. Now he’d be lucky if he made it to the stage door before Sara slipped through it, into the usual throng that gathered there nightly, to pay homage to her unequaled talent ….

Or so she liked to think. Burke knew good and well what they were there paying homage to, and Sara Woodhart’s talent had very little to do with it.

“I don’t need to get to know Mr. Saunders, Isabel,” Burke said, with more equanimity than he was feeling at that moment. “You see, I’m fully acquainted with all the particulars concerning that gentleman, and I can only say that the day that jackanapes darkens our doorway is the day he tastes lead.”

“Papa!” Isabel sucked in her breath on a sob. “If only you’d listen—”

“I’ve been listening to you drivel on about Geoffrey Saunders for as long as I care to,” Burke said. “You’re not to mention his name in my presence again.” There. That sounded very forthright and forbidding, the way fathers were supposed to sound. “And now we’ll be going to the Peagroves’, since I happen to know that Mr. Saunders has not been invited there.”

Isabel let out another sob, this one much louder than the last, and said, in the tones of the tragically wounded, “You mean you’ll be going to the Peagroves’! I’m going to Dame Ashforth’s!”

And before Burke knew what she was about, Isabel had thrown herself upon the carriage door, flinging it open and hurling herself through it with a dramatic flair even the unparalleled Sara Woodhart might have envied.

Burke, finding himself suddenly alone in the chaise-and-four, sighed. God preserve him from young women in love. This was really not how he’d planned on spending his evening. He tugged on his top hat and heaved himself out the still-open door, and into the teeming street after his child.

A blast of heat from the fire in the great kitchen hearth was not the only thing that greeted Kate Mayhew as she slipped through the door: Posie, the day maid, blasted into her as well, a veritable hurricane of rosy cheeks and lace petticoats.

“Oh, miss,” Posie cried, racing to the older girl’s side before Kate had even had a chance to shut the door behind her. “What do you think? You’ll never guess!”

“Henry’s put another snake in the pocket of his father’s dressing gown,” Kate said, as she stripped off her gloves.

“No ….”

Kate worked the buttons to her pelisse. “Jonathan’s said that word again in his mother’s presence.”

“What word, miss?”

“You know what word. The one that begins with the letter f.”

“Oh, no, miss, nothing like that. It’s who’s in the front drawin’ room, waitin’ for ye.”

“If it’s his lordship, I should sincerely hope so.” Kate untied her bonnet strings and hung the hat on a wooden peg by the door. “He was supposed to have met me at the recital, and I spent an hour searching high and low for him.”

“He says he must’ve gone to the wrong church.” Posie trailed after Kate as she wound her way through the kitchen. “Ol’ Fusspot is right put out, an’ the master’s beside himself! He’s pacin’ a hole through the floor outside the drawin’ room door, tryin’ to think up things to go in there an’ say.”

Kate stopped in front of a mirror at the bottom of the stairs, hung there especially so that the maids could adjust their caps before heading through the baize door out into the rest of the house, and tried, ineffectually, to fluff out the fringe of hair that covered her forehead. Her cheeks, already pink from the chill spring air outside, didn’t need pinching, but her nose looked a little shiny. A fingertip of flour, taken from the sack in the pantry and rubbed in well, did the trick admirably.

“Poor Freddy,” Kate said. “How long has he been here?”

“Since right after you left, nearly.” Posie stood at Kate’s right shoulder, and spoke to her reflection.

“Oh, dear,” Kate said with a sigh. “Is Mrs. Sledge cross?”

“’Course not! She’ll be preenin’ like the Queen of the May tomorrow when the ladies in her missionary sewin’ circle ask about the carriage what was pulled up out front of the house, an’ she’s able to tell ’em it was the Earl of Palmer.”

“Come to pay a call on her children’s governess?” Kate adjusted the cameo that held the lace collar of her blouse closed. “I rather think not.”

“She won’t tell them that. She’ll make it sound as if he was here to talk to her—”

The baize door burst open, and Phillips, the butler, appeared at the top of the stairs. Both girls started, and Posie threw herself at the large plank table where an assortment of copper pots had been set out, which she industriously began to polish.

Kate, however, was not so lucky. She had no duties belowstairs, and, in the butler’s way of thinking, hadn’t any business being down there in the first place. Descending the narrow staircase with great effrontery, Phillips said, “Miss Mayhew, I believe I have mentioned a number of times that it is not one of the master’s expectations that you utilize the servants’ entrance. As the children’s governess, it is perfectly acceptable for you to use the front door.”

Kate opened her mouth to inform the butler cheerfully that she preferred the trade door to the front door—primarily because by using it, she was able, most days, to avoid running into him, though she’d never be fool enough to admit that out loud—but he kept right on speaking.

“And if you had utilized the appropriate door in this instance,” Phillips went on, with what she began to realize was barely suppressed rage, “you would have realized that his lordship, the Earl of Palmer, has been waiting for you for nearly two hours in the front drawing room.”

“Oh, Mr. Phillips,” Kate said. “I am sorry. Lord Palmer was supposed to meet me at a recital this evening, and I suspect we missed each other somehow. I can’t tell you how—”

“In the future, Miss Mayhew,” Phillips said, as emotionlessly as an automaton, “if you are going to invite titled personages to this house, would you be so good as to inform me beforehand, so that I might decant the good brandy well enough in advance for it to make a difference.”

Phillips, Kate realized, was furious. He wasn’t screaming, and he wasn’t throwing things—a man of Phillips’s training would never stoop to such a display of emotion. But his very lack of inflection made it clear to Kate that he was angry, furiously so … and all because he’d been demoralized by having to serve inferior brandy to an earl. A butler of Phillips’s status might never recover from such an ignominy.