Love and Other Scandals (3 page)

“She wants you to come to the Malcolm ball tomorrow evening.” She made a great clatter shoving things off the only chair in the room and dragging it to the side of the bed. “Shall I ring for tea?”

“Go away,” he said beneath the blanket.

“I’m very sorry, I can’t do that until you promise to attend the Malcolm ball. Do you promise?”

“No,” her brother moaned.

Joan reached for the bell cord and pulled it, hard. “I braved your half-naked friend downstairs. What is he doing here, by the way? He really should let the footman answer the door; it was quite alarming to come face-to-face with his bare chest. Also, he
shouted
at me when he opened the door. Douglas, are you listening?”

“No,” he moaned again.

“Good,” she told him. “I have plenty more to complain about, and might as well do it to you.”

Douglas flipped the blanket away from his face. “What will it take?” he asked desperately, “to make you go away?”

“Your promise, in writing, to attend the Malcolm ball.”

“In writing?”

“So I can prove to Mother that I did, in fact, secure your promise, and that it is
not
my fault when you don’t show up anyway, despite having given said promise.”

Her brother stared at her for a moment, finally focusing his gaze. “I despise you, Joan,” he said at last. “I really do.”

She seized the blanket when he tried to pull it back over his head. “It’s not my idea that you go to the Malcolm ball. Even Papa doesn’t care. But Mother has it set in her mind that you would make a handsome couple with Felicity Drummond, and she’ll be at the ball tomorrow night.”

“Felicity Drummond?” Douglas’s face was comically blank. “Who?”

“I suppose you could ignore Mother’s summons and stay away, but then you run the risk of finding yourself betrothed to Felicity without having ever met her. She’s sweet enough,” Joan added conscientiously, leaving out any mention of Felicity’s snide sister and grasping mother.

At that moment a servant stumbled into the room, breathing hard and looking as if he’d just fallen out of bed. “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?” he asked in a rush, then stopped and looked at Joan in bewilderment. “And miss,” he added uncertainly.

“Tea, please,” she said.

“Throw this woman out, Murdoch,” croaked Douglas. “She’s assaulted me in my bed!”

Joan ignored him. “Very strong tea,” she said to the servant, whose gaze was swinging between her and the lump in the bed that was her brother. “With muffins, if you have any.” The servant hesitated, then fell back on his training and bowed to her.

“And brandy!” Douglas called after his departing servant. “Don’t forget the bloody brandy!”

“Douglas, you’re a sot.”

“You’re a nag!” he returned indignantly, shoving himself up on one arm to glare at her. “I never woke you at the break of dawn and started yammering on about balls and betrothals and Mother! God, I’m going to have a beastly headache all day now, thanks to you.”

Joan went to the small writing desk, tossed a crumple of discarded cravats off it, and got out a piece of paper. She uncapped the ink and wrote a brief line, promising to attend the Malcolm ball, then carried it and the pen over to the bed. “Sign this and I shall leave.”

Douglas eyed it as if it were a poisonous snake. “You can’t mean it!”

She sighed. “Then I must stay. Perhaps you can help me decide which color my new dress should be. Blue, do you think? But I’ve got a number of blue ones. Mother thinks pink is my color, but I really don’t like it. Yellow is even worse”—Douglas wrenched the blanket back over his head—”and that leaves green. But I look like a shrub in green. I suppose there’s also orange . . . What do you think?”

“Gold,” said a familiar voice from the doorway. “You should wear gold.”

This time Joan was prepared, having expected him to return eventually. So much the better that he’d got right to it; having a quarrel with his friend could only make Douglas even more anxious to appease her. She turned in her chair, a delighted smile on her face, and then stopped cold.

Tristan Burke was quite a sight when surly, half-asleep, and barely dressed. But with his hair slicked back and a deep green dressing gown wrapped around him, he was the essence of seduction. And he was watching her with his heavy-lidded, intent gaze as if she were as fascinating to him as he was to her.

Chapter 2

B
y the time Tristan located his dressing gown, the invading Fury had found her quarry. Gutted and filleted him as well, to guess by the sound of Bennet’s increasingly desperate voice coming from under the covers. For a moment he stood in the open doorway and let the scene amuse him. Douglas Bennet, the devilish brawler destined to inherit a fortune and an ancient baronetcy, was cowering beneath his blankets like a sniveling boy as the Fury—his sister, if she could be believed—sat calmly beside his bed and talked about dresses.

She didn’t look like a Fury. She looked rather ordinary, to Tristan’s eyes. She was taller than average, with a generous figure that wasn’t at all suited to the current women’s fashion. It made her look . . . fat, he thought unkindly. Well, not really fat, but a little more than could be called plump. Her breasts, where a woman ought to be quite plump, were all covered up by an acre of lace, and the petticoats under her pink-striped skirt gave her quite a girth. Her hair was a nice color, but she wore it in those tight ringlets he hated; they looked like a child’s hair, in his opinion. Her face . . . her face was handsome, he decided, and interesting, but perhaps that last was due to the unholy glee that sparkled in her eyes as Bennet tried in vain to escape her chatter.

But when she said orange, he cringed. Never orange. Orange was a beastly color on most women, and on her it would be hideous. Tristan considered himself something of a connoisseur of women and their clothing. He loved women, especially beautiful women, and if a woman wasn’t actually beautiful, she could at least look her best. “Gold,” he said. “You should wear gold.”

She twisted to look at him, her face bright with delight. Her expression froze a split second later, but not before Tristan registered the color of her eyes. Deep, rich brown, like fresh coffee, glinting with golden streaks. She should definitely wear gold, a rich warm shade that would play up her admittedly fine complexion. If she would change the style of her hair and wear something flattering, she might be passable, he thought before he could stop himself.

But stop himself he did. First, because she was a Fury, and he didn’t need any more of those in his life. His aunt and cousins were more than enough. Second, because she was Douglas Bennet’s sister, and one didn’t trifle with the sisters of drinking mates unless one wanted to marry them—and even then it was a risky business. But mostly he stopped himself because she was decidedly not his kind of woman, with those fussy little ringlets and lace-shrouded bosom and the way she banged that door knocker like Hephaestus at his anvil. God almighty, no man needed a woman like that.

“I’m sorry,” she said, finding her tongue. “Have you taken up residence?”

“For two months,” he said. “Until my roof is repaired.”

“Ah,” she said. “How lovely that Douglas will have a companion in vice so conveniently at hand.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Vice? How interesting you would seize on that so quickly.”

“It is the first thing that comes to mind when one considers my brother.” She looked him up and down. “And you, I imagine.”

“Good heavens,” he drawled. “It must have been the first thing to come to your mind, then, when I opened the door for you. Should I be flattered?”

The golden flecks in her eyes glinted. “Probably not,” she replied. “I imagine the two of you, thoroughly foxed, unable to walk, lying in your own filth as you sleep it off—no doubt snoring viciously and twitching every few moments.” She flashed him a coy smile. “Are you flattered?”

“You sound as if you know the state well.” He leered at her. “Have you been with us on a bender? I can’t recall seeing you drunk as a lord, but a description such as that is no mere flight of imagination.”

“Oh, but it is,” she assured him. “I have a vivid imagination.”

His gaze dipped again, sweeping over the lace at her neckline that didn’t hide the quick pulse in her throat. Was it anger—or something else? Tristan found himself oddly taken by the Fury’s sharp tongue. “So do I,” he murmured.

“I don’t doubt it,” she said. “Especially if you believe I shall leave without securing my dear brother’s promise to attend the Malcolm ball tomorrow night.” She leaned forward and poked the blankets on the bed again. “Douglas, think how happy Mother will be to call on you this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, to remind you. I shall make a point of telling her you invited her specially.”

Bennet lunged out from under his refuge and across the bed to seize the pen and ink pot. Spattering ink everywhere, he dashed his signature across the bottom of the paper she thrust at him. “There! Will you leave me in peace now?”

She smiled in triumph and waved the paper in the air to dry the ink. “Of course! I told you I would go as soon as you gave your promise—and now Mother will see proof that I obtained it. Thank you, Douglas, it’s been a pleasure seeing you again.” She folded the paper and put it in her reticule. “Don’t forget: the ball is tomorrow evening. I should hate to have to come back to remind you of it.”

“Just go,” snarled Bennet, diving back beneath his pillows and blankets.

His sister just smiled again, wagging her head a little from side to side. Gloating. Tristan frowned. God save poor Bennet, growing up with her.

She got out of her chair and turned to leave, but paused when she saw him standing in the doorway. The pleased look faded from her face. “Pardon me, sir.”

“For badgering a poor man still in his bed? No, I will not,” said Tristan.

Her brown eyes narrowed. “You are blocking the door,” she said, in tones that questioned his mental competence.

He grunted. “You should have thought of that before invading the house.”

“Oh yes, I forgot you live here now—perhaps as the butler, questioning the guests?”

“You’re utterly charming,” he said.

“Is that why you don’t want me to leave?” she cooed, batting her eyelashes. “I confess, I never thought my brother would witness me being
assaulted
and
insulted
by a half-
naked
man!” She raised her voice and gave each word a dramatic inflection worthy of Mrs. Siddons. “I vow, he’ll have to challenge you to a duel from the
impropriety
of it!”

“Let her go,” bellowed Bennet from under his pillow. “For God’s sake, Burke, get her out of here!”

“Thank you, dear brother,” she told him, swatting the covers. “I shall see you in two nights’ time.”

This time Tristan stepped away from the doorway as she approached. “Good day, Miss Bennet.”

She gave him a sunny smile. “Isn’t it? Good-bye, Lord Burke.” She swept past him, leaving a wisp of fragrance in her wake. It was lovely—soft and warm without being insipid or sickly sweet. Tristan revised his opinion slightly: a woman who smelled good was a step prettier than someone who didn’t.

He transferred his gaze to Bennet, huddled in bed under a mound of blankets. He still felt mostly pity, for growing up with that virago in the house, but part of him also wondered why she clearly had more spirit and spine than her brother. Bennet, for all that he was a capital fellow, was easily led. Just witness how easily he signed that paper, indenturing himself to a night among the hungry lionesses of London’s marriage mart. Tristan would have torn up the paper and set it on fire as Miss Bennet watched, and he would have smiled at her while he did it. He could just imagine how she would respond to that . . .

“Burke.” Bennet’s voice sounded dazed, with an undercurrent of panic. “Burke, I signed that bloody paper.”

“Damned foolish thing to do,” Tristan agreed, dropping into the vacant chair by the bed.

“I can’t go to the Macmillan ball.”

“Malcolm ball,” Tristan corrected him.

Bennet sat up, throwing off his covers. “It’s the opening night of the new opera—there’s an entirely new ballet corps. From France.”

“So it is.”

“So you see I can’t possibly go to the bloody ball!” Bennet exclaimed. “The best girls will be taken by the end of the week.”

Tristan shrugged. “So don’t go to the ball.”

“No.” Bennet looked almost fearful. “You don’t understand. Now Joan’s got my promise in writing—if I don’t go to the ball, there will be severe consequences.”

“Your sister will come back?” Tristan was appalled. “Someone needs to rein her in—”

“No, it will be much worse.” Bennet shuddered. “It will be my mother. She’ll have me at tea. At balls. Cotillions. Musicales. Philosophical meetings.” He might as well have been describing the circles of hell, from his expression. Although, to Tristan’s ears, those
were
the circles of hell.

“You should go to the ball, then.” Tristan got up and turned toward the door. This was not his problem, after all.

“God, no! I just need to get that paper back from Joan before my mother sees it.”

“You’d better run,” said Tristan dryly. The sound of the door closing had echoed up the stairs just a moment ago. “She’s already gone.”

“Christ!” Bennet leapt out of bed and scrambled for his trousers. Tristan was almost out the door when he called, “Burke, wait! You’ve got to help me.”

“Why?” Tristan scratched his chin. “You should have put her in her place and ordered her from the house.”

Bennet gave a harsh laugh as he pulled a shirt over his head. “You don’t know Joan if you think that’s the way to deal with her. Help me, man, or I’ll be cut to pieces.”

“No more than you deserve,” he muttered, but he threw up his hands. “How am I supposed to help? She obviously didn’t approve of me, if you didn’t notice.”

Bennet was yanking on his boots. “You know how to talk to women. Just . . .” He waved one hand in the air. “Talk her out of the paper.”

He’d much rather talk her out of an orange dress and into a gold one. Yes, a rich gold silk, cut low across her bosom and shoulders—without a shred of lace—and swathing her hips and waist closely. He wondered how small her waist was; with a bosom like hers, a small waist would be just the thing. There could be a true Venus under those wretched ruffles.

“Burke, I’m begging,” said Bennet. “Help me, this once, in my time of desperate need.”

It didn’t really matter how small her waist was, or what her hair would look like unbound. She was a blackmailing Fury. One couldn’t abandon a fellow man to the manipulations of such a creature, even if it was his sister. Tristan gave in. “Very well. Let me dress.”

By the time he was clothed, Bennet was pacing in the hall, raggedly knotting a cravat around his neck. “She’ll be almost home by now,” he said. He shoved his hands through his hair, not for the first time from the looks of things. “Good God, what a plague!”

“She can’t be that bad,” said Tristan, thinking of his aunt and cousins. They
were
a plague, with all of Miss Bennet’s sharp-tongued temper and none of her wit. All of her interest in ugly dresses and none of her bosom. All of her boldness and none of her dash.

“You’ve never had to live with her,” muttered Bennet as he threw open the door.

Sunlight blazed into the hall. Bennet squinted and cursed some more, but clattered down the steps to the edge of the street. Then he stopped, turning from side to side. “Devil take me. Which way would she go?”

“Home?” Tristan followed more slowly, pulling his hat low on his forehead. Gads, it was bright out here. “I absolutely refuse to chase her into your parents’ house.”

Bennet inhaled a long breath. “Right. Home. Although Joan is fond of sneaking off on her own—she thinks I don’t know, but she slips out to bookstores and millinery shops every chance she gets.” He paused. “You go that way”—he pointed east—”and I’ll go this way. If she’s made it home . . .” He shuddered. “My father will have to step in.”

Tristan wondered why he’d never noticed this spineless side of Bennet before, but he just nodded. Bennet nodded back before taking off to the west, striding down the street as though he longed to burst into a run.

He turned and strolled east, toward the shops. Where would a young lady go, alone? He hadn’t noticed a maid waiting on the steps, and no servant had accompanied her into the house, where chaperonage was most needed. Most likely she’d gone home to lay the spoils of victory at her mother’s feet. And if Bennet was such a coward to sign that damned paper at all, Tristan privately thought he deserved whatever he reaped.

But still. Bennet had offered him a place to stay in town where he could easily and conveniently supervise the repair of his roof, allowing him to get the work done without causing a stir. His aunt would seize any opportunity to upbraid him about his management of the estate, even though in this case he was repairing a century-old roof that his uncle couldn’t be bothered to replace. If Uncle Burke had properly seen to the roof, it wouldn’t have leaked for the last ten years, quietly rotting the upper story of the house before collapsing under a heavy rain last month.

He turned into Bond Street, halfheartedly looking for a flash of pink-striped skirts. God knew they were wide enough, he should be able to spot them from half a mile away. How on earth was it that women didn’t learn how to dress themselves well? Why must they go like sheep after the latest style, whether it flattered them or not? Gold was definitely Miss Bennet’s color, and richer, darker tones that would reflect well with her dark hair and creamy skin. Not pink, for certain.