Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) (18 page)

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

Henry sighed. “Ames. What is wrong?”

Ames huffed.

“It’s Agatha, isn’t it?” Henry rubbed his face with his hand. Sitting in the carriage as they had left Lady Guthrie’s ball had been torture. Twice he’d tried to speak, but each time he had had not known what to say.

Ames drew out a chair and sat heavily on it. Henry watched, bemused, as Ames took his plate and fork and helped himself to the rice and stew.

“That’s my dinner.”

“I know. It’s just that every time you are angry, eating helps you. I thought I would try it myself.”

“I’m not normally angry, just mildly peeved.”

“Well, my lord, I am mildly peeved at the moment.”

Henry folded his arms. “What did you expect me to do?”

“You should have known that Lady Guthrie was Lady Foxtone! Good grief, Lady Guthrie is famous for her maliciousness. Her previous husband Lord Foxtone owned a large chain of confectionary shops. On the grand opening of the flagship shop in the Strand, he trod on her toe. In front of all the newspaper men that had been invited, she picked up one of their famous blackberry tarts, ate it in one mouthful, and said it was the worst that she had ever eaten!”

“A little over the top.”
      “Hmm. Many thought that was out of character even for Lady Foxtone.”

Henry winced. He’d heard the story before himself. Lord Foxtone had been furious, but that hadn’t managed to arrest the wave of order cancellations that followed the newspaper publicity. The shops started to close within weeks. “I—”

“You move in those worlds, you know that once a hostess has barred a guest, they can’t enter the same ball again.” Ames speared a piece of pork with his fork.

“I didn’t know Lady Foxtone had become Lady Guthrie.”

Ames paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. “You didn’t know? The Hawk knows everything.”

“I haven’t been going to balls. I haven’t been interested.” Hadn’t been since Agatha had disappeared to Devon.

“Too busy chasing your mistresses, you mean.”

Henry shook his head. “Even that’s not what you think, Ames.”

“Why couldn’t you have just married her? It would have saved everything.”

“I wanted to.” Henry slapped a hand down on the table and stood, turning away to study his painting of the two horses. It was at this table that he had done what he had thought was best for her, forcing her into the engagement with Charles. If he hadn’t done that, then Agatha might not have run away.

Ames leaned back in his chair and pulled another fork and a bowl from the sideboard. He pushed it towards Henry. Pulling out his chair again, Henry sat and plunged the fork into the stew. He didn’t allow himself to speak until he had eaten several mouthfuls.

Ames spoke through the stew in his mouth. “I saw you both last night. She was like putty in your hands. You could have kissed her and hauled her away in your carriage and—”

Ames had been reading too many penny dreadfuls again. Henry tapped at the table. “She refused me. Marriage, I mean.”

Ames looked up in obvious astonishment. “You never said.”

Henry shrugged. “I didn’t want you to know. Gods, I didn’t want anyone to know. It hurt. More than I thought it would.”

“Berale House. That’s why you reopened it again.”

“Mmm. Yes. There didn’t seem to be any better solution. I needed it for business with Renard too.”

Ames pushed his bowl away. “What are you going to do now, then? The last time she was in London, you said she was no end of trouble.”

“She still is.”

Ames took a mouthful of stew.

Henry tapped his fork against his lips. “We’re going to do a Maximus.”

Ames spluttered, his half chewed spoonful of stew splattering to the plate. “Not the Maximus. Please, no.”

“Oh. I’m not going to do the Maximus. You are. Especially you are so keen on Miss Aggie.”

“Those bloody Etruscans again. It won’t turn into another Wales, will it?”

“You keep bringing up Wales. There was only one failing with the Welsh operation and that was because I didn’t quite fully master Welsh in time.”

“Two failings. It was a bloody disaster.”

“I defy anyone to ask where the privies are in Welsh whilst being extremely hungry and having to face up to the man that killed their father!”

“I don’t want to do the Maximus.”

“Oh, Ames.”

The Maximus was what Ames had called it, a maneuver that a wily Roman had invited in the war with the Etruscans. In 300 BC Consul Quintus Fabius Maximus sent his own brother disguised as an Etruscan peasant into the Cimian Forest to win over the Umbrians to Rome. His brother was a master of disguises; fluent in the Etruscan language, he was successful in bring the Umbrians into the alliance with Rome. “All you will need to do is insert yourself as a footman into my sister’s household.”

Ames shook his head. “No learning any other languages?”

“Not even that. The worst that could happen would be that one of those odious little dogs my sister parades around will bite you on the ankles.”

“It doesn’t sound too bad.”

“I knew you would come round to my way of thinking.”

“What am I meant to be doing when I’m there?”

“Same thing as you did when she was last in London. Keep an eye on her.”

“And bring her into alliance with the Anglethorpe clan, sir?”

“Enough of your cheek, Ames. Let me work on that.” He’d wanted to kiss Agatha very much the night before. Too much. But he was conflicted. If she still detested him, she would never gladly receive his embraces. But the way she had looked at him… if she didn’t hate him, worse he dared to think, even harbored the smallest amount of feeling for him, then he wouldn’t—couldn’t marry her.
      Ames sat back with a satisfied look on his face. “So what are you going to do about the rumors?”

Henry chewed at his bottom lip. That was one thing he couldn’t control. After Agatha had left, the
on dits
had raged about her disappearance and the break-up of the engagement between Charles and Agatha, yet little by little the worst had died down. With Agatha’s return, new rumors swirled, of the parentage of Harriet, Agatha’s ward, where she had been for the last few years. It was as Agatha had rightly predicted, many years before.

He sighed and pushed back from the table. “I will have to find Agatha and warn her. After last night she will be in no mood to talk. From the little I managed to get out of Carruthers, if I know anything about my sister, they’ll be sat in that back room at Colchester mansions, drinking whisky and smoking cigars.”

CHAPTER 23

“You know,” Victoria said, inhaling perfumed smoke with a dreamy smile on her face, “it’s a good thing I own this house. I can do anything that I want and nobody cares. It was almost worth marrying that old stick Colchester.”

Agatha lay back in the winged chair that completed the book-lined room in which they sat. They were alone for the first time in a while; Harriet was attending a musicale, well chaperoned by one of Victoria’s acquaintances.

It had taken a while for Victoria to persuade Agatha into taking the cheroot. It lay still in her hand, unlit. She toyed with her knife, unwilling to cut the end off. Once she did, it was a slippery slope to her mind. Searching the room with her eyes, she could not see her jam jar. Damn, that normally deterred her from her worst excesses. But it was upstairs, hidden away in the cupboard. 

“I’m not sure I would agree with that,” she murmured. “What about your brother?”

“Henry? Gracious, he’s too busy worrying about you again,” Victoria said. “Most deliciously, the things that you do far outweigh anything that I might have done. Five years rusticating in Devon, allowing your niece to dress as a man…”

A door slammed at the front of the house.

“Quickly!” Victoria cried. With quick jabs, she motioned to Agatha to put the cigar into the cleverly concealed ashtray that stood behind the wingback chairs. “I’ll distract him, you open the window and get out the incense. And do something with that knife!”

“Him?”

“It’ll be Henry. The blasted man always seems to know what I’m up to.”

“What were you saying about no one caring what you did?” Agatha shot back. She had to get rid of the cigar.

“It’s not what we are doing, it’s the fact that you are doing it with me. He will think you’ve gone back to your old ways.”

Oh dear
. Stumbling across the room, Agatha fumbled with the catch on the window and slowly hauled open the sash. A plume of cold air sucked the perfumed smoke from the room, ruffling her wrap as it went. With care, she slid the knife onto the windowsill behind the curtain.

Henry slipped quietly through the door and sniffed the air. Agatha studied him anew from her semi-hidden state in the shadow of the curtains. He was still the catch of the season even though five years had rolled by and he still wasn’t married despite all the mistresses. Silver threads glinted in his blond hair, however he was still as muscular and lean as she remembered.

“I know you are in here, Miss Beauregard, and I know what you have been doing.”

Agatha sighed. Stepping out from the curtain, she dropped into a full curtsey and stayed in it, waiting.

“What the hell do you think you are doing, Agatha? Get up!”

She stared over his shoulder at the door. “I wasn’t hiding, my lord, nor was I concealing what I was doing.”

“I did not say you were concealing anything, I just said I knew what you had been doing.” Henry sauntered across the study to the desk, opened the top right-hand drawer and pulled a lever. He calmly selected himself a cheroot from the secret drawer that popped out.

“Now how did you know where they were kept, brother?” Victoria stood in the doorway, hands on her hips and a dangerous glint in her eye. Henry sat back in the desk chair with his eyes closed.

Agatha watched as tension coiled in her stomach. She had seen Henry behave this way before. His face was without expression and he made no mention of the smoke that still hung lightly in the room.

Something was awfully wrong. Again.

“I didn’t smoke the cigar,” she said hurriedly, standing upright. “I knew I shouldn’t do it.”

Henry frowned at her. “Victoria, go away.”

Victoria gaped and peered at her brother. Seeming to sense the same as Agatha, she turned on her heel and pulled the door to. The snick of the lock was the only sign of her anger.

Henry opened his eyes and selected another cheroot. Lighting it, he poured a glass of whisky from a decanter in the tantalus on the sideboard and held it out to her.

“Sit down, Agatha. And leave the knife there too, please.”

Frowning Agatha left the compromised safety of the curtain and, crossing the carpet, sat back in her customary chair, ignoring the glass of whiskey.

“Take it.”

Really he was quite the conversationalist. Agatha picked at the braiding on the chair with her free hand. “No thank you.”

“Take a sip, Agatha.” Henry repeated. “You are going to need it.”

Hands trembling, Agatha stared at him as she took the glass from his large warm hands. For an instant as her hands clenched around his, she gasped. Snatching at the glass, she lifted it to her lips and knocked the contents back in one long swallow.

He steepled his fingers and placed his elbows on the desk. The sunlight on his face threw a bird-like shadow on the wall.

“It is as you feared, Agatha. Someone has remembered. I’m afraid that it is much worse this time.”

Agatha opened the door to Victoria’s room, her hands feeling for the knob automatically. With heavy steps, she trod across the carpet and stood, shoulders slumped in the half light.

      Victoria turned from her vanity desk where she had been twirling her hair, her small dogs prancing around her ankles. “It will all be different this evening, Aggie. You’ll see,” she said softly.

Agatha fell back on the bed in Victoria’s room. “I can’t believe he knew where your cigars were.”

“He’s too bloody observant, is what he is,” Victoria muttered darkly. “He’s like a scientist, scrutinizing the minutiae of everything that you do.” She glanced up at Agatha. “I’m sorry, Aggie. I didn’t mean to mention—”

“No. It’s alright,” Agatha said slowly. Henry, a scientist. A person that fiddled and meddled and hypothesized and concluded.

I’ve been analyzing the sources, but I cannot yet pinpoint the source
he’d said, puffing at the cheroot, as Agatha had felt the fire of the whiskey burn in her stomach.
If I could just create a viable scenario into which this all fitted I could draw a suitable end to this debacle.

Bloody hell. Surely they were nothing alike? Agatha had given up on science anyway. Agatha groaned. The burn of the whisky in her stomach had been almost overwhelming, the taste of alcohol and herbs on her tongue beckoning her to investigate them.

“Get up, Aggie. I haven’t seen you with such little backbone for a while!” Victoria swung in her chair to watch her best friend. “You can’t give up now and go back to Devon. Think of all that you’ve come through. A few rumors never hurt anyone.”

“Try living in a small village.”

Victoria stared at her. “The ton
is
like a small village. But the people change and events move on. Up you get. We’ll be late.”

In the carriage, Victoria leaned over and pressed Agatha’s hand. “He’s not coming tonight, you know. He said he had to go off and deal with something.”

Agatha just
knew
Victoria was speaking of her brother. She took in a deep breath.

Victoria winked. “Better for us without him looking over our shoulders. We can have some real fun.”

Agatha nodded and took a deep breath as the carriage rocked to a halt in front of a large double fronted building. She sat straight as the footman stared in. A strange smile spread across his face as he held out a hand for her to exit the carriage. He was still holding her hand when Victoria stepped out. She stared at him in obvious incredulity and held out her hand.

“Don’t I know you?”