Simply Scandalous (40 page)

"I did exactly what you said, Julie," he said earnestly.

"Good," she assured him, stroking his face. "Good,
my darling. These things have a way of working themselves out. You'll see."

"I should speak to Sir Benedict, all the same. I
should like to speak to him. I should like to convince him I shall be a worthy husband for his sister."

"And you will," she said quickly. "You will. But not
just yet. I'll tell you when the time is right to speak to
Sir Benedict. I know my brother. I know best how to
handle him."

"I feel like that Macbeth chap plotting to murder his king," Swale complained. "Wheels within wheels.
Secrets and lies. I want everything out in the open,
Julie. Well, perhaps not everything," he amended
hastily. "You know what I mean. I want to deal frankly
and plainly with Sir Benedict."

"I know, my darling," she answered, biting her lip.
"I know any form of subterfuge and deceit is abhorrent to you. It is abhorrent to me! But it's the only way
we can be happy. You could not marry anyone but me,
and I can't wait two years to be your wife."

"Marry anyone but you, Julie?" he cried passionately.
"No, indeed. I'm ashamed that I ever thought of marrying the Calverstock ... or poor little Coralie Price,
for that matter. The soul recoils in horror. But this,
Julie ... skulking around like a pair of thieves ...
I think it would be better if I spoke to Sir Benedict now,
before the notice appears in the London papers. How
am I ever to face him after that? He will think me the
most dishonorable wretch that ever drew breath, if he
doesn't already."

"No!" she cried in panic. She could just imagine
Benedict's reaction if Swale spoke to him tonight
about marrying Miss Wayborn, just a few hours before
the notice of his engagement to Serena was printed
in the papers. "Ginger, you must not speak to Benedict before that happens! That would be a catastrophe. Not only would he refuse to give his consent, but
he would also never speak to me again." She leaned
down to kiss him, her voice growing soft and, she
hoped, seductive. "I understand how you feel about
skulking, but it's not all unpleasant, is it? It has a few
consolations, does it not?"

"As a temptress, you are nothing short of diabolical," he moaned. "No! No more kissing," he protested
weakly as she pressed her lips against his. "If you go down to dinner with swollen lips, your brothers will
put their heads together and then their arms together, and before you know it, Uncle George's rapier
will be snicking off my head."

"As though I should ever let anyone snick your
head off," she crooned soothingly. "Will you trust
me to know what I'm doing? I have a plan."

"You're worse than Lady Macbeth, you know that?"

Juliet laughed. "Nonsense. If I had been Macbeth's
lady, he would have gotten away with it."

"I don't know," he muttered. It seems wrong somehow. Devious."

"`Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and
valor as thou art in desire?"' she countered. "`Wouldst
thou have that which thou esteem'st the ornament of
life, and live a coward in thine own esteem'-"

"Oh, shut up," he interrupted crossly. "I can see it
now. Amateur theatricals at Auckland Palace. Stupid,
burbling actors soliloquizing on my blessed lawn. I
daresay you'll want a bloody outdoor amphitheater
too? God help us."

She observed him rather frostily. "Did you just tell
me to shut up?"

"Less persiflage rather," he amended hastily.

"We're not married yet, Ginger," she informed
him from the doorway. "I can still change my mind.
If I were you, I'd keep the rudeness to an absolute
minimum. Points off for rudeness, in fact. Macbeth
never told his lady to shut up, did he, Pickering?"

"No, Miss Julie," replied the servant who was waiting politely in the hall.

Swale admitted the valet into the room.

"I have taken the liberty of preparing a poultice for
your lordship's eye," said Pickering. "It is composed
chiefly of chamomile and witch hazel. I have used it in the past to reduce the appearance of swellings
and bruises, particularly in the eye region, with some
noticeable success. If my lord would sit down ... ?"

Swale submitted to the poulticing. Appearing at
dinner with a shiner would scarcely endear him to Sir
Benedict. And since that gentleman was Juliet's legal
guardian and he was more than capable of withholding his consent for his sister's marriage until
Juliet reached the ripe old age of twenty-one, it was
best not to antagonize him. Juliet was definitely worth
a poulticing. Definitely worth a black eye, if it came
to that. Which it had, of course.

"What did he say, Pickering?" he asked, resting
comfortably in the chair with something wet and
sticky plastered to his eye.

Pickering looked at him in some surprise. "Who, my
lord?"

"That Macbeth chap. He must have said something
to that scaly wife of his. Holdeth thy tongueth, 0 lady?"

Pickering thought a moment. "`Prithee peace,' my
lord. Act One, Scene Seven."

"Prithee peace ... meaning, of course, shut up?"

"Indeed, my lord."

"Or, if one prefers the Latin, Quieta non movere."

"Indeed, my lord."

"Prithee peace. Pretty well for a Scotsman," he
observed.

"Indeed, my lord," said Pickering.

'A man can safely say `Prithee peace' to his lady love
without suffering the slings and arrows, I trust?"

"Indeed, my lord."

"Good man, Macbeth. Excellent fellow. Whatever
happened to him?"

Swale was sixteen minutes late for dinner, but the
swelling in his left eye was barely noticeable, and his
shirt and waistcoat were snowy white. He took his
place across from Cary, making his apologies to Juliet,
who was seated at the foot of the table in her aunt's
customary place. Juliet accepted his excuses very demurely and explained that her aunt had grown overtired during the picnic and was taking supper in her
room.

"We thought you'd gone, Swale," Cary said rudely.
"We were looking forward to a quiet evening. I have
lost my appetite." Angrily, he slung down his napkin
and left the table, despite Benedict's order for him
to remain where he was and not be a fool.

"I seem to be decimating your household, Sir Benedict," Swale said ruefully. "First, Lady Elkins, then
your brother. Take care. Miss Wayborn may be next."

"I apologize for my brother, sir," Benedict said
coldly, his embarrassment magnified by having to
apologize to a man he disliked. The report that Cary
had given him before dinner of Swale's actually being
engaged to Juliet, he had already dismissed. He could
not conceive of any lady regarding Swale with anything but revulsion, and Juliet was not likely to be seduced by the promise of riches and a title.

The cold soup was taken away, and the main course
was brought in.

"Do you know," Swale said suddenly, "what happened to Macbeth? The fellow in the play, I mean. His
head was cut off and put on a pole underwrit with the
words, `Here may you see the tyrant."'

Benedict stared at him in appalled fascination.
"You have just discovered this, my lord?"

`Just now," Swale confirmed. "Pickering told me. Guess my shock! Things were going so well. And his
poor wife, Chuck."

Benedict could not contain himself. "Chuck?"

"Yes, her Christian name was Chuck."

"Was it?"

"Of course," Swale said irritably. "Act Three, Scene
Two, if you don't believe me. `Be innocent of the
knowledge, dearest Chuck, till thou applaud the deed.'
One of your less popular Scotch names. Understandably so."

With the greatest effort, Benedict kept his countenance, but Juliet could not.

Swale gave her a hard look as she collapsed into giggles. "Do you know what happened to Chuck, Miss
Wayborn? It is popularly believed that Chuck-Queen
Chuck she would have been-threw herself from the
battlements, which I gather are pretty high things to
be throwing oneself from! That is what comes of
plotting and scheming, Miss Wayborn. I think Shakespeare is trying to tell us something, huh? We could
learn much from the lessons we draw from the fate
of Chuck and her Macbeth."

"The tragedy of Macbeth surely is more complicated
than a mere morality play," said Benedict. "In his
grasping ambition to enlarge himself in the temporal world, Macbeth throws away his immortal soul, the
only thing that truly makes man greater than the
sum of his parts."

"Very well put, Benedict,"Juliet congratulated him.

"And poor Chuck, after all her scheming, is driven
to suicide by her guilt," said Swale.

Juliet looked at him sharply. "That never rang true
to me, my lord. Mrs. Siddons was very moving in the
sleepwalking scene, of course, but I never thought
Lady Macbeth had a conscience. Macbeth had a con science, but he suppressed it like she told him to." She
leaned forward and spoke deliberately. "`Screw your
courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail."'

"Easy for you to say," Swale grumbled, tucking into
his boeuf en croute.

"Actually," said Benedict, "I think-"

"They're calling this dish Beef Wellington now,"
Juliet brightly informed them.

`What's next?" Swale asked resentfully. "The Wellington hybrid tea rose? Wellington suspender buttons?
Wellington toothpick holders?"

Juliet frowned. "His Grace is so modest he has insisted the new bridge be called Waterloo Bridge and
not Wellington Bridge, as originally proposed. It's not
his fault everyone wishes to honor him. He has saved
all Europe from the Bonapartists. What have you
done?" She looked down the table at her brother.
"Benedict, I think we should call our little cheeses
after the Duke of Wellington, don't you?"

Benedict shuddered. "That could scarcely be considered a compliment to the man," he said repressively.
To his dismay, his sister and Lord Swale spent the rest
of dinner suggesting various names for the Home Farm
cheese, none of which could be considered for a
moment. A more inane conversation he could not have
imagined, but the young people pursued it vigorously,
the lady suggesting absurd French phrases, the gentleman responding in Latin. Resolutely, Sir Benedict
looked up at the ceiling and concentrated on chewing his food thirty times per bite.

He actually started in surprise when Juliet rose
from the table.

"Don't forget-you promised me the Moonlight
Sonata," she was saying to Lord Swale. Her eyes were
sparkling, and her color was high. She also seemed rather grotesquely overdressed for a quiet meal at
home in the country. The shimmering blue dress
was daringly low cut, showing a high rounded bosom;
white shoulders; and a long, slender neck. Not at all
the sort of dress an elder brother wishes to see his
sister wearing. Dresses like that, in fact, were one of
the many reasons he avoided London altogether.

Without actually touching Juliet, Swale was glued
to her side. He reminded Benedict, odiously, of a
fawning puppy. Was Cary right? He suddenly wondered. Was Juliet engaged to the odious Swale?

She had not been tempted to have him in Hertfordshire, but, he reflected, life had become very
trying for his sister since the arrival of Lady Maria
Fitzwilliam in Surrey. Miss Wayborn had gone from
being of first importance in the neighborhood to
anathema, and she might be tempted to accept the
first offer of marriage that came her way. After the
scandalous race to Southend, she could not expect
to receive many. And becoming Marchioness of Swale
offered the unique opportunity of being revenged
upon Lady Maria, her chief tormentor.

It broke his heart to think of his sister marrying for
such unworthy reasons.

"My lord," he said sharply before the other man was
out the door. "May I offer you some port?"

"Yes, do," said Juliet quickly. "I must go up to my
aunt in case she may need anything."

She pulled the doors closed behind her, and though
Benedict observed her very closely, he could detect
no special regard in the last glance she gave Swale. His
lordship, however, was horribly transparent. The uncivilized brute actually had designs on Juliet!