Lord Scandal (2 page)

George glared up at him. “You're going to be difficult about this, aren't you?”

“Difficult? Me? When have I ever been difficult?”

Her fingers dug into his arm as she propelled him across the terrace. “When haven't you been? You can survive two weeks without setting up a flirt, I know you can.”

“Are you going to tell me why I'm to forego the considerable enjoyment of flirting with Miss Imogen Mowbray?”

George sighed and looked up at him, her gaze serious. “Because you don't flirt, you seduce. Because she used to be Mrs. William Perrin. Because I asked you not to.”

“William Perrin…” Gabriel removed George's claw-like grip on his arm and steered her down the brick path towards the large formal herb garden laid out on the second terrace.

He turned the name over in his head. There was a scandal. Years ago now…it had all been over a painting.

That's why she looked so familiar.

He'd seen those eyes gazing down at him every day for the past year. Ever since he'd added the most infamous portrait in England to his collection. Those amazing eyes, a wicked come-hither smile, and the creamy skin of her shoulder where her gown had slipped, seemingly unnoticed…

His blood heated. His cock twitched, rude and demanding. How could he have not recognized her? “You've got the Portrait Divorcée staying with you?”

George nodded, her mischievous smile peeping out. “I met her at Helen Perripoint's last season. She's been living in the most dreadful boarding house imaginable, and we have all this room.” She waved one hand around, taking in the house, the gardens and park. “She's currently occupying our dowager house, and I like her very much.”

George stopped and turned to face him. She took his lapels in her hands, holding him in place. “So, you see why you should leave her alone.”

“I do?”

“You do,” she replied firmly, giving his coat a little yank, then smoothing the fabric. “Your cousin and I have plans for her social resurrection—at least on a small scale—but we'll never pull it off with you sniffing around. She has to reek of respectability and repentance.”

“Does Miss Mowbray know about your little scheme?”

George looked at him as if he'd broken out in purple spots. “Of course not.”

“My God!” Gabriel's jaw dropped slightly, icy fingers crawled up his spine. “You're getting to be as bad as Torrie.”

“Aren't I?” George agreed, stooping to sniff one of her roses, trailing curls spilling over her shoulder.

Beautiful, graceful, dear as a sister. She scared the hell out of him. He'd survived his cousin's machinations all these years, but if Torrie and George were to unite forces? There wouldn't be a man in England who could stand against them.

Lady S——is set to host her first country house party, dare we hope for a bit of the old Lady Corinthian to appear and provide us with something like the entertainments we once enjoyed?

Tête-à-Tête, 11 August 1789

She shouldn't be amused. She shouldn't be repressing laughter. Being accosted by a stranger was supposed to overset a lady's delicate sensibilities, or at the very least, enrage her. So why couldn't she stop smiling?

Her foot twisted in the loose gravel of the walk and she forced herself to stop, take a deep breath, and continue more slowly. The countess's friend was clearly used to getting his way with women. He had the unmistakable air of a rake. There was always something cynical about the eyes. Something a tad humorless about the mouth, no matter how they smiled. They were a breed apart. The fox hiding within the dog pack.

He'd been genuinely surprised when she'd stomped on his foot. Apparently that was not the response he was used to receiving to his overtures. She put one hand up to hide a grin. She sincerely hoped she'd left a scuff on his boot for him to remember her by.

Barton Court's dowager house was a neat, three story manor house set off to one side at the far end of the gardens. Compared to the great house it was little more than a cottage. It was pure heaven compared to the boarding house she'd been living in only a few months before.

When William had divorced her, her parents had simply wanted the scandal to go away by whatever means necessary. And if that meant leaving her nearly destitute, well, her father had plainly informed her that was her own damned fault. He wasn't about to have a ruined daughter hanging on his sleeve.

So she'd scraped by on the pittance an aunt had left her, unhappily purse pinched and well aware that she would remain so until her dying day. No matter how many watercolor lessons, French lessons, or music lessons she gave to the daughters of wealthy cits and shopkeepers, she was never going to be able to command more than the basic necessities of life. The elegancies she'd been raised with were completely beyond her means.

Then this past spring she'd encountered the new Countess of Somercote at a small party given by a mutual friend. Within a month the countess and her husband had extended an offer of the use of their dowager house. Imogen wasn't fool enough to look a gift horse in the mouth.

After more than four years of less than genteel poverty, her new circumstances were a relief. There were horses in the stable for her to ride, and there was always an ample supply of coal and wood in the house. There were real wax candles and oil lamps in every room—not sooty tallow ones that sputtered, stank and smoked—good quality tea, and a lovely pianoforte which had been sent down from the main house for her use.

For the first time since William had walked into their home and literally thrown her out the front door and down the steps, her life didn't seem to be an endless, bleak burden. There was air to breathe.

Imogen came to the end of the gardens and slipped off her hat as she entered the house. Several hairpins pinged on the wooden floor. She stooped to collect them before hanging her hat on a peg near the door and retreating to the parlor.

She really should go up to the house and see if the countess had any further need of her, but she wasn't up to another encounter with the countess's friend just yet. She could feel him lurking up at the house, just waiting to catch her out again.

She repositioned her slipping hair and maneuvered the pins back in, twisting them through the curls until they felt secure.

No, best to wait for more guests to arrive before she encountered him again. She sighed and picked up her work basket; the last thing she needed was another scandal attached to her name, and her new acquaintance had trouble written all over him.

 

The next morning Imogen was comfortably ensconced in the parlor, habit on, booted feet extended to the fire, embarking on her second cup of tea when the countess arrived for their morning ride.

“George.” She rose to greet her friend. “And Caesar, too.” She bent to scratch the mastiff and pull softly on his floppy ears, not caring that the dog was likely to wipe his drool-covered chin on her skirts. “Are we ready to go? I'm pining for a good gallop.”

“I'll be ready just as soon as I get a cup of tea or two into me, and eat some of the scones cook made this morning. And I have to return your basket as well,” George added slyly, “since you didn't come to the house for dinner last night and retrieve it yourself.”

Imogen blushed hotly and George raised one brow. Why had she never learned to control her blushes? It was mortifying. “Yes. I-I dropped it yesterday…in the garden.” Why had she left it behind? Why?

“You needn't dissemble.” George poured herself a cup of tea, steaming liquid flowing in a graceful arc from pot to cup. “When Gabriel Angelstone arrived with your basket over one arm, a sadly scuffed boot, and wearing a sheepish smile, I was quickly able to put two and two together. He's always been a rogue. I didn't expect him until Monday at the earliest, or I'd have warned you.”

“Warned me?” Imogen's stomach lurched, twisting like a fish caught on a line.

“Don't look so stricken. I didn't mean to startle you. Though I'm sure Angelstone did, dreadful, provoking beast that he is.”

“Angelstone. So he is English? I thought perhaps—”

“That some foreign devil had leapt from the pages of a horrid novel and invaded my garden?” The countess laughed, shoulders curling inward with pure amusement. “His father was old Edymion Angelstone, diplomat, world traveler, and in the end, one of the great scandals of his day.”

Imogen took a bite of her scone and nodded, wanting the countess to continue. “What did he do?”

“Nothing so very terrible, unless you're English and anything foreign threatens to shake the foundation of your world.” George set her cup down, and tossed the crumbs of her scone into the fire. “He married the daughter of a Turkish Pasha, lived happily with her in the shadow of Galata Tower for more than a decade by all accounts. When she died he brought his eight-year-old son home to England.”

“Ah, a great misalliance as my grandmother would say.”

“As she probably did say. Mine certainly did. It's one thing for poor Englishmen in India to take a native wife. Something else entirely when the wealthy grandson of a duke does the same. Don't mind him, though. He'll do everything in his power to make you blush—especially considering you do so so prettily—but he's not a danger to you.”

“He's already succeeded in making me blush.” Imogen tried to keep the amusement from her voice. Her response was yet another symptom of what her father referred to as “her fatal flaw.” Humor was not, in his opinion, a trait one looked for in females; let alone a healthy sense of the ridiculous.

“Really?” The countess sipped her tea, eyes dancing. The silence stretched, making Imogen's throat tighten. Her pulse raced with the slightest beginnings of panic, heart fluttering like a caged song bird.

“I think he thought I was you, and he-he-he grabbed me from behind.” Laughter, totally inappropriate laughter, bubbled up, nearly choking her.

“And that's when you stomped on his foot?”

“Not exactly.” Imogen bit her lip, trying to hold the laughter back. George quirked a brow and waited for her to continue. “He started quoting Shakespeare, and trying to be…flirtatious,” she considered her words, “seductive. It was really quite funny.”

George smiled, nodding her head. “I don't think I've ever heard any woman who's been the object of that particular Angelstone's attentions laugh at him. They're usually too busy fainting or fawning.”

“Oh?” Imogen replied, doing her best to present a picture of casual interest. It was easy to imagine either response, she'd swung between them both before anger had burned them away. “He clearly thinks himself quite something, but really,
Shakespeare?
”

“Too cliché?”

“Well, not the way he employed it, but—”

“So it was the Shakespeare that got his foot stomped on?”

Imogen shook her head. “He kissed me. More to shut me up than anything else, I think. That's what got his boot scuffed.”

“He got less than he deserved, then.” George said with an edge to her voice that Imogen was hard put to interpret. The countess rose from her chair and shook out her skirts. “Shall we get underway? Some of the guests are due later today, and I want to be back in time to greet them.”

Their return to the house coincided with the arrival of the Earl and Countess of Morpeth, along with their three boys. The middle boy, who looked to be ten or eleven threw himself upon the countess, cries of “Aunt George! Aunt George!” echoing in the great hall.

Imogen stood quietly to one side as the family swirled about. The eldest boy bowed credibly before George laughed and hugged him, neatly disposing of his bid for manhood. The commotion drew Mr. Angelstone and the earl out of the billiard room, boot heels ringing sharply on the marble floor.

He looked even more out of place—more foreign—here than he had in the garden. Golden skinned and almond eyed: a Sultan masquerading as an English Gentleman.

“Torrie.” He grinned widely at Lady Morpeth as he scooped up her youngest son. He slung the rambunctious child over his shoulder, the boy erupting into squeals and giggles. “Morpeth,” he added, nodding at her husband. He caught her eye and smiled. It was a very intimate smile. A lover's smile. She twisted her crop in her hands and raised her chin. He was not going to fluster her, no matter how hard he tried.

George broke the moment, waving Imogen over to her. “Victoria, you remember Miss Mowbray? You met her at Helen Perripoint's last spring. Imogen, I'm sure you remember the Countess of Morpeth, and this is her husband.”

Imogen dropped a curtsy. She had been too young to mingle freely with their circle when she'd been married, and she sincerely hoped they didn't recognize her. Please? Just this once, let her scandal go unremarked upon?

Lady Morpeth gave her a friendly smile, without a hint of scorn or condensation. “Of course I remember Miss Mowbray. Morpeth, you remember my mentioning her, don't you?” The earl chuckled and assured her that he remembered both his wife and George mentioning their delightful new friend.

“And this,” George said, indicating the man who'd kissed her the day before, “is Mr. Gabriel Angelstone, the countess's cousin, and a very old friend of mine. Gabe, Miss Mowbray. I think the two of you have already had the pleasure?”

“The pleasure was entirely mine,” he said, somehow managing to sound disreputable and seductive even while being climbed upon by a small boy.

Imogen nodded, then excused herself to go and change. His look of warm appraisal was far too forward. Especially in front of the other guests; his own family no less. He looked at her as if she were a sugared bun at a frost fair. She wouldn't allow it. Couldn't. She should have inquired how his footwear was fairing today, but under the assembled guests' curious gazes, she'd faltered.

 

After luncheon the guests began to arrive in droves, carriages rolling in one after another. Dust rose in the stable yard. The sound of iron-rimmed wheels on gravel became a constant hum of background noise. By late afternoon the garden was filled with ladies in colorful robes, their hair piled high in massive curled coiffures, mingling with gentlemen in equally magnificent coats, some in wigs, some with their own hair pulled back into casual queues. Laughter and conversation filled the garden as the guests swirled about like so many bees and butterflies.

Imogen sat in her favorite perch in the dowager house, idly working her tambour frame, watching them. The countess might think it no matter for her to be present, but she could feel a knot of uncertainty coiling in her belly. She recognized many of the people strolling past her window—she was one of them by birth—but she couldn't get up the courage to go out and join them. It would take an amount of brazen confidence that she was far from feeling.

As the light failed and the garden emptied Imogen reluctantly called her maid to help her dress. She chose one of her simplest gowns, a pale blue silk robe with a matching quilted petticoat. Striving for demure, she filled in the neckline with a fichu, the sheer fabric swathing her bosom, hiding her entire décolletage from view.

She sat down in front of her mirror and watched as Nancy carefully pinned up her curls. Her hair had always been a trial. It was a thick mass of tiny, spiraling curls, so darkly brown it almost appeared black. No amount of curling papers or hot tongs had ever been able to tame it.

When Nancy had achieved something they both thought passably attractive, she secured the whole with a dozen more pins. Imogen studied herself in the mirror, praying the pins would hold, and then took a deep breath. It was time to go up. She'd only a half-hour or so before dinner would be announced. She pulled on a pair of slightly darker blue gloves, grabbed her shawl, and made her way up to the house.

In the drawing room she quickly found herself lost among all the happily chatting guests. There was a knot of immaculately dressed men gathered around the fireplace, and two ladies gossiping in one corner. There were also, inevitably, several people Imogen had known previously when she'd been Mrs. Perrin, such as the elderly Earl of Carr and the even older Duke of Alençon.

Chest tight with panic she looked about for George. If she could just find the countess, she'd make it through the evening, and if she made it through the evening, then she'd likely make it through the next two weeks.

The countess had her back to the door, and over the din didn't appear to have noticed her arrival, but Alençon noticed her right away. He rose and quickly crossed the room, as immaculate and frightening as ever.

“We reprobates have to stick together, Miss Mowbray,” he said with what would have been a flirtatious twinkle in a man half his age. He had to be over eighty, but was still trim and spry, with boyish dimples in his cheeks. He was a flirt and a roué. Someone her husband had loathed. That alone made her want to like him.