Love and Other Scandals (5 page)

“It is not.” Tristan took a step backward anyway. “A pound I can make it from here.”

“A guinea you cannot.”

A wild and exhilarated grin touched his mouth. He bent his knees a little, turned the hat around, and let it fly once more. It sailed neatly through the air and caught the hook, swinging precariously for a moment before settling into place. Tristan made a fist of triumph as Bennet uttered another halfhearted curse.

“Take it off my board.” Tristan peeled off his gloves and handed them to the servant who had belatedly come into the hall. “And I advise you to give your sister a wide berth. That female is trouble.”

“As if I haven’t known that for twenty years.” Bennet stalked back into the drawing room and sprawled in one of the few chairs. Tristan followed, waving aside Bennet’s offer of a glass of brandy. “My thanks for trying to find her, Burke.”

“I found her. Murdoch, bring some coffee and bacon,” he shouted into the hall before taking another of the chairs. “If we’re to be up at this hour, we might as well have breakfast.”

“You found her? Then why don’t you have the paper? I thought you could talk any woman out of anything you wanted from her!”

“Good Lord, Bennet, you make me sound like a confidence man.”

“Only where ladies are concerned.”

Tristan leveled a finger at him. “I am not concerned anywhere near your sister. That woman is trouble.”

Bennet turned an astonished, and increasingly amused, face to him. “She refused you.”

“She refused to give back that damned paper,” Tristan swiftly corrected him. “You were an idiot to sign it at all.”

“So much for the celebrated Burke charm.” Bennet snorted with laughter. “Turned down by a spinster!”

He glared at his friend. “She bade me tell you she looks forward to seeing you at the Malcolm ball tomorrow.”

That punctured Bennet’s mood. His grin vanished and he took a large swig of his brandy. “Damn it. I’m sunk, then. I managed to avoid my mother, but my father warned me she’s serious this time. There will be hell to pay if I don’t go, once Joan shows Mother that bloody note—which she still has, no thanks to you.”

“Have a pleasant evening,” Tristan told him. “I’ll make every effort to be out of the house before you bring your bride home.”

“It’s just one bloody ball.”

“It’s the end of your bachelor life. Once you give way to one woman, it’s only a matter of time before she has you shackled to another.”

A muscle twitched in Bennet’s jaw and his brows lowered. “Shut it, Burke.”

“In my experience, women tend to prefer other women like themselves. She must have a regular Gorgon chosen for you.”

“I’m not getting married,” Bennet growled.

“But soon,” added Tristan, to provoke him.

“Blast it!” Bennet leapt out of his chair. “You have to come, too, then. If you’d done a proper job of coaxing Joan to be reasonable, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“If you’d shown some spine and refused to sign her extortionate note when she invaded the house, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Bennet jabbed a finger at him. “You let her into the house. You let her stroll off with that paper. You let her keep it even after I explained how dire the situation is. You owe me. I’m turning you out of my house if you don’t come with me to that blasted bloody ball tomorrow night.”

Tristan sighed. He’d meant to go to the ball all along, just for the thrill of confronting the Fury again. “Very well. But you owe me the guinea.”

Chapter 4

J
oan soon regretted her hot-tempered exit from the bookshop. Tristan Burke was a boor, but that was no reason to let him spoil her rare independent outing. She’d stormed out of the shop in high dudgeon, only to spy one of her mother’s dearest friends strolling down the pavement directly toward her. All thought of soothing her temper with a visit to her favorite bonnet shop vanished. Her only hope was to head directly home and, if confronted about being seen here, claim she’d only taken a slight detour to see if Howell’s had any new printed silks displayed in the window. Heart racing, she ducked her head a little and walked as briskly as she dared to the next street, where she darted around the corner toward home.

By the time she reached South Audley Street, her irritation had blossomed into full bitterness. What business was it of Lord Burke’s whether Douglas went to the Malcolm ball? Her brother, no doubt, had put him up to following her, which was utterly unfair of him. She had only asked for the signed promise to tweak his nose; if he’d asked nicely, even apologized for yelling at her, she would have given it back. It had only been a small token she could hold over his head against some future favor she might ask of him, and her brother should have known that.

Now, though, she was giving that paper to her mother, and she wasted no time in doing so. “Douglas will be at the Malcolm ball tomorrow evening, just as you wished,” she told Lady Bennet when she found her mother writing letters in the morning room. “In fact, he was eager to go.”

“Indeed?” Her mother’s eyebrows went up.

“Oh, yes.” With a flourish she took his signed note from her reticule. “He even wrote it down.”

Lady Bennet still looked suspicious as she read the note, but she only nodded. “Very good. Thank you, Joan. You must have a persuasive way with him.”

She smiled vindictively. “Yes, I must.”

“I’ve told Janet to press your new blue gown for the ball. Ackermann’s had the most charming hairstyle in the latest issue; would you care to try it? Janet could manage your hair as well if we begin early.”

Joan looked at the magazine her mother held out to her. The illustration showed a young lady, slim and demure, with her hair drawn into a smooth coronet of braids on her crown, secured by a small tiara and ornamented with a graceful ostrich plume, with clusters of curls framing her face. It looked delicate and beautiful, and she thought she would give her most valued possession to look like that. “Oh, it’s
lovely
.”

Her mother beamed. “Isn’t it? And it’s very fashionable.” Fashion was very important to Lady Bennet.

On the other hand . . . Joan studied the illustration more closely. The young lady it showed certainly was very beautiful in her net-trimmed dress and sleek coif, but she was also a great deal more petite than Joan. More than once she had enthusiastically agreed to some new fashion, only to discover with dismay that it never quite suited her. Plumes, for instance. They only seemed to emphasize her height. There were few things more lowering to a girl’s pride than watching the eyes of a gentleman climb up and up and up her figure, as if he were surveying some monstrous Amazon. “Perhaps without the plume,” she murmured.

“You don’t like it?” Her mother frowned and looked at the illustration.

“It might make me look even taller.”

Lady Bennet turned the magazine from side to side as she pondered the seriousness of that possibility. Joan’s height had always been a matter of concern. Unlike her petite mother, she could look her father in the eye, and was only a few inches shorter than her brother. “Perhaps if Janet puts it in at an angle, like this one. You need something to frame your features.”

“Perhaps a few more ringlets?”

“Well, there’s only one way to know. You must try it and see.”

“Yes.” Joan cheered up a bit as she gazed at the illustration. How wonderful it would be to look so elegant. Her new blue dress was similar in style to this one; perhaps combined with the hairstyle it would render all of her elegant.

She gave the illustrated beauty a slight nod. A new hairstyle and a new gown probably wouldn’t keep her from spending the evening at the side of the room with the other unmarried and unwanted ladies, but it was worth a try. It would give her something to talk about with her friends, especially since she wouldn’t even have the pleasure of discussing
50 Ways to Sin
with them, thanks to Lord Boorish Burke. Her main hope for entertainment would probably be Douglas, who might well arrive thoroughly foxed and bent on being outrageous.

“Do you really think Douglas will marry Felicity Drummond?” she asked on impulse.

Her mother turned her head aside and coughed, touching her lips with her handkerchief. “What’s that, dear? Oh. It would be a very good match, and it’s time he took a wife. Felicity is a lovely girl with good connections and a pretty dowry. And he’s shown no interest in other young ladies; there’s no reason he wouldn’t be happy enough with her.” Her attention had already returned to her letter. “Do you disapprove?”

Joan thought of reminding her mother how dreadful Felicity’s mother was. She thought of asking why Douglas ought to get married now, when he was still as wild and untamed as a bear and obviously had no inclination to marry. It wasn’t as though he needed a wife’s dowry or had expressed a desire to start a family or even any boredom with his current life—which, to Joan’s eyes, seemed to consist mainly of drinking, gambling, and carrying on with actresses and tavern wenches. If not for his devotion to sport, he would likely be a fat, gouty fellow by now.

But then, it didn’t really matter. Once Mother made up her mind, there was no changing it. At least this time it was Douglas’s future in the crucible and not hers. “No,” she said. “Felicity is lovely.”

“Good.” Lady Bennet cleared her throat and put down her pen. She touched her throat and coughed again. “Ring for Mrs. Hudson, would you, dear? I feel in need of some tea.”

Joan got up and rang the bell. She slipped out the door when the housekeeper arrived, and went up to her room since there was nowhere else to go, taking the copy of Ackermann’s with her. She settled onto the chaise near the window and opened the magazine. She skipped the more earnest and scholarly sections about housewifery and history, meant to improve her mind, and read the stories and poems. Idly she flipped through the description of a recent exhibition of paintings. She would have liked to attend such an exhibit, if only she could have. Her mother approved of music but not picture viewing, where any number of immodest scenes might be portrayed under the guise of mythology. Joan had never quite grasped why it was so terrible to see a man’s naked chest, even an imaginary, idealized man’s chest, when she would be expected to allow a husband all sorts of liberties with her own, naked person. Her cousin Mariah, married almost two years now, had told her all about a wife’s duty—although in Mariah’s telling it was the most pleasant duty one could imagine, with nothing dreadful about it. Joan was quite sure Mariah saw her husband’s bare chest on a regular basis, and was routinely ravished in every thrilling way. She must be, since she was due to have her first child in a few weeks.

If Mariah weren’t her dearest cousin and most intimate confidant, Joan would have been wild with jealousy. As it was, the only male chest, flesh or painted, she had seen was Tristan Burke’s. True, she had rather enjoyed it, which lent some weight to her mother’s concern that it was indecently titillating, but it had hardly led to ruin. If anything, it only showed her how dramatically separate a gentleman’s person and his personality were. Lord Burke might have a very intriguing chest, but the rest of him was obnoxious.

She picked up the magazine again and paged through it to the fashion plates. Gold, he said. What did Lord Boor know about ladies’ fashions? She would never have admitted it aloud, but the thought of a deep gold gown sounded rather appealing. She did like rich colors, even if her mother deemed them inappropriate for an unmarried lady. If she ever managed to get a husband, the first thing she would order would be a gown of pure scarlet, just because she loved red.

But tomorrow evening, she was going to look elegant in blue. Pale blue, true, but with a very fine fall of lace at the neckline. And her hair—her one truly beautiful feature—would be winsome and charming, just like the young lady in Ackermann’s.

She almost hoped Lord Boor would be there to gape in awe.

Chapter 5

I
t didn’t take Tristan long to remember why he rarely went to balls.

First, there was the company. He had nothing against a good crowd, especially if there happened to be a boxing match in the middle of it. What he didn’t enjoy were the stares of women: some sly, some scandalized, some just rabidly curious. Lady Malcolm had gazed at him in amazement when he followed Bennet through her door, and that turned out to be the most polite reaction he got. Every now and then he would meet the eye of a particularly bold female and give her a wicked smile. The young ones blushed, the old ones turned their backs, and the ones in the middle sometimes smiled back. He didn’t care. There was only one female he had come to vanquish tonight, and she was late.

“It seems a pity to serve your penance when the judge isn’t even here,” he remarked to Bennet, who was leaning morosely against the fireplace mantel at the far end of the room.

“If I leave, Mother is sure to turn up ten minutes later and flay me for ducking out.” He flagged down a passing footman and took two glasses of wine from the servant’s tray. “Might as well drink at Malcolm’s expense.”

The second problem with balls, Tristan thought, was the wine. Few hosts served their best wine to the hundreds of guests who came to balls. He sipped from the glass Bennet handed him and sighed. It was either very average burgundy or watered. He didn’t see the point in drinking it at all.

Bennet had already gulped down most of his. “Can’t imagine what maggot got into my mother’s brain. Why should she want me married already? Oughtn’t she be busy getting Joan wed? Lord knows that would be enough to occupy her for another decade.”

“Perhaps she’s given it up as hopeless.”

Bennet downed the remainder of his wine. “Well, it probably is. Joan drives people to distraction.”

“Indeed,” Tristan muttered. He knew that all too well. He was perilously close to it right now, scanning the room for the dratted woman.

“Still, it hardly seems right for Mother to take such an interest in my marriage,” Bennet went on. “I don’t need funds, and I like my life the way it is now. What could I possibly gain by marrying?”

Tristan thought about it. What did marriage offer a man? “Security,” he said at last. “If your fortune, or your father’s, should suffer reverses, you’d have a harder time finding a wealthy bride. If you begin now, you’re more likely to have your pick of the girls.”

“Reverses,” scoffed Bennet. “Even I’m not daft enough to wager away too much blunt. And I’d rather economize than take on a wife who would be nattering in my ear all day and night about something. No, this is all a mania of my mother’s, and I won’t be cozened into it.”

“Right,” said Tristan, hardly paying attention. “Good man.” His eye had caught the arrival, at long last, of the Fury. She was tall enough to stand out in the crowd, especially with that feather in her hair. “Go tell her that.”

Bennet jerked upright. “Mother’s here? Thank God. The sooner I dance with the girl she favors, the sooner I can leave.”

That didn’t quite sound like making a stand against Lady Bennet’s manipulations, but Tristan forbore to mention it. He watched Bennet charge through the crowd like a bull. His sister had already detached herself from the slim older woman who must be her mother. Tristan tracked the bobbing plume in her hair, wondering what made women want to look like half-plucked ostriches. She soon joined a group of other young ladies, barely visible to him even though he could see over most heads in the room. His mouth thinned, and he drank half the wine in his glass without tasting it. Another thing he’d forgotten: females usually roamed in packs. He wanted to confront her in private.

He watched her through several dances, one of which was a long country reel. Footmen passed him with trays of drink, and he absently exchanged his empty glass for a full one. The claret was slightly more palatable than the burgundy, though not by much. Belatedly it struck him that she wasn’t dancing. Her companions were escorted into the dance a few times, but she stayed where she was, apparently from lack of partner more than lack of interest; he could see the feather swaying in time with the music. Most likely she would sharpen her tongue on any man brave enough to ask her to dance, but Tristan vaguely remembered that dancing was important to most women.

Before he had much time to wonder if he should pity her, she finally—at long last—turned and headed out of the room with another young lady. Tristan snapped to attention and set down his now empty wineglass. As if he needed further proof this woman was trouble, he’d drunk two . . . or perhaps even three . . . glasses of lackluster wine without realizing it, all because she distracted him.

He wound his way through the other guests, ignoring the hushed whispers and surreptitious glances in his wake. The room was long but relatively narrow, and by the time he reached the door, Miss Bennet had disappeared. For a moment he paused, listening, then turned in the direction of female voices. Brilliant; he could lie in wait for her outside the ladies’ retiring room.

A private parlor at the end of a long corridor had been made available to the ladies, and was occupied by several of them, to judge from the sounds of conversation and laughter. Not wanting to just stand there waiting for her to emerge, Tristan tried a nearby door and found it unlocked. He stepped into a small music room, lit by two lamps on the side table behind the harp. He left the door ajar, so as not to miss her, and strolled over to the table. The lamps caught his eye; they were made of a design he’d never seen before. It was similar to an Argand lamp, but more delicate. Intrigued, Tristan bent down to study it more closely, and then went down on one knee to see the underside. How did the wick draw from that oil reservoir?

“At last,” trilled a female voice behind him. “I never thought to see you down on bended knee.”

“It’s not for the reason you wished,” he said without looking around. “What sort of lamp is this?”

“How on earth would I know?” With a tipsy hiccup she strolled into the room.

Tristan barely glanced at her. Lady Elliot had been his lover for a few impassioned weeks last fall, before she unwisely told him she wanted marriage. Since they’d been engaged in vigorous amorous activity at the time, almost at the crucial moment, he considered it a low form of coercion. You won’t get it from me, he’d told her before pulling away from her clinging limbs and walking out of her bedroom without looking back, even when she screamed at him to give her a climax at the very least.

“You’re right,” he said absently. “I was foolish to ask you, of all people.”

“Oh, don’t be like that.” She walked her fingers over his collar and combed them through his hair. “I do know some things, you might remember.”

Carefully Tristan slid the glass chimney off the lamp, wincing as the hot glass seared his fingers. He blew out the flame and picked up the lamp, studying it from all sides. “I remember you thought very highly of your charms.”

“So did you,” she whispered in a playful tone. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten? I could show you again . . . tonight . . .”

“I have other plans.” There was some sort of clockwork device in the base of the lamp, with a key protruding from the back. He gave it a gentle turn, watching how it affected the mechanism. How clever; he’d have to ask Lord Malcolm what sort of lamp this was and where he could obtain some for his own house.

“Change them. I’ve missed you, Burke . . . Let me apologize for my ill-considered parting.”

He glanced up. She had leaned over, putting her very impressive bosom, in its very low-cut bodice, right at his eye level. “Jessica, it’s no good. I won’t marry you, so find another man to grace with your favors.”

She pouted, still playing with his hair. He jerked his head to one side as she plucked at the leather thong that held it back out of his face. Lord save him from women who couldn’t handle champagne, yet drank it to excess anyway. “But I want you. I miss you. So vigorous, so untamed, so thrilling! Come, let’s have a go for old time’s sake.”

“No, thank you.” He went back to studying the lamp, only to curse vividly as her lace-trimmed pantalets fell over his head a few minutes later.

She giggled. “Come, my love. I know how you like it.” Swishing her skirt above her knees, she backed up until she collapsed onto a chaise. Now laughing out loud, she lay back and pulled up her skirt in one motion, exposing her bared legs all the way to her waist. She spread her legs wide and kicked up her feet. “I am yours to invade!”

For a moment he was transfixed. Gads, she was even bolder than he remembered. But then he shook himself. He wasn’t going to avail himself of her offer, no matter how . . . adventurous it might be.

“The door is open,” he said as he set the lamp back on the table. “You’re making a fool of yourself, Jessica—”

The gasp seemed to echo through the room. Tristan whipped around to see his nemesis in the doorway, her eyes wide and her mouth open. For a moment the air seemed as thick as treacle, with only the drunken giggling of Lady Elliot—still wiggling her feet and holding her skirts over her face—to break the deafening silence.

“Oh my,” said Miss Bennet at last, her voice trembling.

Lady Elliot lifted her head, peering over the billows of her skirt. “Alas,” she cried. “We’ve been discovered
in flagrante delicto
, Burke!”

“Not we,” he said, tossing the pantalets at her. “You.” With three strides he crossed the room, seized Miss Bennet by the arm, and pulled the door closed behind him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in mock despair as he towed her down the corridor and around a corner. “I really thought even you would have more decorum than to fornicate with the door wide open for all the world to watch—”

“Listen to me,” he commanded, stopping short and squeezing her arm. “I was not fornicating with that woman, and don’t you dare go telling people I was.”

“Oh, no,” she murmured, lowering her eyes demurely. “That would be wrong. I could only, in good conscience, repeat what I saw with my own eyes.” She gave him an outrageously saucy look through her eyelashes. “I daresay Lady Elliot wouldn’t mind.”

Tristan tried not to curse out loud. How did this woman always manage to get him on the defensive? “I was waiting for you,” he said to throw her off.

Her head came up sharply. “For me? You, sir, are completely barmy if you expect
me
to lie down on the chaise and show you my—”

“Hardly,” said Tristan, trying not to think about it. He didn’t want to see under the Fury’s skirts, nor imagine her gleaming eyes gone soft with desire, and he really didn’t want to wonder how her penchant for unpredictability would show itself in bed. “I have something of yours and wanted to return it.”

She gave him a look arch with disbelief. “Indeed. What is it?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“I can’t think of anything you might have that I would want.”

He leaned closer, relishing how her coffee-colored eyes widened, the golden striations seeming to glow. “Nothing? Are you certain, Miss Bennet?”

Some of her condescension faded. “Yes, quite certain,” she said, not sounding very certain at all.

“Interesting,” he murmured. Her blush was a dusky rose, not bright pink at all.

Suddenly she flinched, and the blush faded. “You must excuse me, sir,” she said quickly. “I must go.”

Oh, no. He wasn’t letting her go that easily. “Why the hurry?” He’d only come to this damn ball to see her. “Don’t you want it?”

“Not now,” she whispered, looking nervous. “You may keep it.” She tried to duck around him and back into the corridor that led to the ballroom.

He put his hand on the wall, blocking her escape without thinking. “Not so quickly. I have a few things to say to you—”

“My mother is coming!” she hissed. “Let me pass!”

Indeed. The only thing Tristan clearly remembered about Lady Bennet was the frigid glare she had given him ever since the one school holiday he’d been invited home with Bennet. He’d been only twelve, but clever enough to see that he wouldn’t be invited back. It had struck him as a bit unfair; most of the escapades that earned her enmity had been her own son’s idea, but he doubted a mother would turn her son out when there was a much easier focus of blame. More than once in the years since, Bennet had remarked in passing conversation that his mother still didn’t approve of Tristan. He hardly cared, but now . . .

“Are you afraid?” he asked, not bothering to hide his amusement as Miss Bennet tried to shove past his arm.

“Yes!” And she did look it.

He ought to let her go, just raise his arm and allow her to slip past him. Instead he turned the knob of the door beside him and pushed her through it, following hard on her heels and easing the door closed behind him just as a pair of older ladies went past the broader corridor. “Then you should hide.”

He could barely see the pale shape of her arm before she slapped his shoulder. “Why did you do that?” Her whisper seethed with shock. “Are you a complete idiot?”

“I see. You are completely unafraid of defying propriety by invading your brother’s bedchamber, or by slipping off to a slightly disreputable bookseller, but the approach of your own blessed mother strikes fear in your heart.”