Last Night's Scandal

  “I got myself into it,” he said.

  “Your eye is very bad,” she said, leaning forward a little to peer at it.

  “It looks worse than it is,” he said. “Nichols knows how to treat these things.” If he hadn’t known, that eye would be swollen shut at present. “It’ll turn a few ugly colors over the next few days, and then it’ll fade. My mouth, as you have no doubt observed with regret, is not so much damaged as you thought.”

  “You are not as pretty as you were at the ball,” she said. “Mama had a lively description of the fight and your injuries from somebody, and she’s furious. She says I ought to keep away from you. She says you have enough difficulties without my getting you into trouble.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “Who will I talk to if you keep away? Come along. It’s too noisy here.”

  Though the park itself was deserted—by the haut ton, at any rate—Hyde Park Corner bustled. Peddlers, milkmaids, soldiers, and loiterers of all sorts crowded the pavement. On the Knightsbridge Road, the Royal Mail and the stagecoaches vied for space with lowly farm wagons, elegant private carriages, riders, and pedestrians. Stray children, cats, and dogs darted among the vehicles and horses.

  It was here, at Hyde Park Corner, that their first adventure together had begun. The memory came back vividly: Olivia, standing with a surly ox of a boy . . . Lisle having to beat the boy out of the way . . . then climbing onto a farm wagon after her. . .

  Every time he awaited her, he expected the skinny girl he used to know, with her striking hair and eyes. Every time, seeing her as she was now threw him off balance. He still wasn’t used to the beauty she’d become. It almost hurt to look at her face, and the soft curves of her body—which the snug tailoring of her riding dress emphasized—made a muddle of feelings inside.

  Wrong feelings. They were the kind any attractive woman could inspire in a man. Any number of loose women could tend to them.

  What he needed at this moment was a friend and ally.

  Yet even when they entered the park, he found he wasn’t quite ready to talk. He needed to clear the jumbled feelings from his head or his heart—he wasn’t sure where they were, exactly.

  “Race?” he said.

  Her eyes lit.

  Their horses were fresh, happy to gallop westward along the deserted Rotten Row. Her mare was as powerful as his, and she rode with the same skill and daring she applied to everything in her life. He won, but not by much, and at the end, they were laughing—at themselves, and at the sheer pleasure of a gallop on a fine autumn morning.

  They eased to a trot, then headed further into the park.

  When they reached a stand of trees, well out of sight of the more traveled pathways, they slowed their mounts to a walk.

  Then he told her what had happened.

  “They’ve cut you off?” she said incredulously. “But they can’t! You’ll go mad here. You must return to Egypt.”

  “I told you they were determined to keep me home,” he said. “I didn’t realize how determined. I thought they might settle down after a while, or forget, as they usually do. But they’re even more adamant today than they were yesterday about that dratted castle. Father will only extend funds for me to undertake their restoration fantasy.”

  “I can imagine what he’s thinking,” she said. “He thinks you’ll become involved in the project, and transfer your passion to it.”

  His heart raced guiltily. “My passion?” he said.

  “Your parents are jealous of Egypt,” she said. “They don’t understand the difference between an old castle and ancient monuments. It’s all ‘old’ to them.”

  He wouldn’t have called Egypt a passion, but Olivia would, and perhaps, after all, what he felt for the place and his work there was a sort of passion.

  She understood so well, sometimes better than he did. But then, she was a DeLucey, and they’d survived for so many generations because they were adept at reading people and manipulating them.

  “I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t think of using the purse strings before,” he said.

  “If they had, Lord Rathbourne would have paid your way,” she said.

  “Your stepfather’s done more than enough for me,” Lisle said. “He has you and your sisters and brothers to think of now.”

  “I would give you my money,” she said. “You know I would.”

  “That would be monstrous improper,” he said. “I’m glad it’s not possible.” Her funds, he knew, had been very carefully tied up, to protect her not only from fortune hunters but from herself. She was a strange mixture of contradictions: her mind calculating and her heart generous. Her leaping to the ragamuffin’s defense yesterday was typical.

  She drew nearer and put out her gloved hand to touch his. “I won’t let you be trapped here,” she said. “We’ll think of something.”

  There it was, the gleam in her great blue eyes.

  “No, we won’t,” he said firmly.

  She was his friend and ally and confidante, but her impulsiveness, ethical blind spots, and fervent nature sometimes made his hair stand on end—he, who dealt daily with snakes, scorpions, crocodiles, thieves, cutthroats, and—worst of all—officials.

  To say her judgment was dubious at best was putting it very mildly, indeed.

  Nine years ago she’d lured him into a journey to Bristol on a hunt for a pirate’s treasure, of all things. That was one of her Ideas, with a capital I. It could have ended very badly for him—in a sadistic Scottish school, for instance—had Lord Rathbourne not intervened.

  Lisle knew very well that his journeying to Egypt instead was entirely thanks to Rathbourne. Lisle knew, too, that one couldn’t rely on miracles. Furthermore, he was a man now, not a boy. He couldn’t expect and didn’t want friends and relatives to get him out of every difficulty.

  “No, Lisle, you must listen,” she said eagerly. “I have the most wonderful Idea.”

  Olivia with an Idea.

  A prospect to strike terror into the heart of any man with a modicum of intelligence and any sense of self-preservation.

  “No Ideas,” he said. “Not on any account.”

  “Let’s go to Scotland,” she said. “Together.”

  Her heart pounded so hard it must be audible at Kensington Palace. She’d been thinking about the castle in Scotland since Saturday.

  “Have you lost your mind?” he said.

  “I knew you’d say that,” she said.

  “I’m not going to Scotland.”

  “But we’ll go together,” she said. “It’ll be fun. An adventure.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “We’re not children anymore. Even you can’t get away with going to Scotland with a man. Your parents will never approve.”

  “They don’t have to know.”

  His grey eyes widened. “Olivia.”

  “Tomorrow morning they’re leaving for Derbyshire,” she said. “I’m staying in London with Great-Grandmama.”

  He looked away. “This grows worse by the minute.”

  “I’ve thought it through,” she said.

  “Since when?” he said, his too-keen gaze coming back to her. “I told you only a moment ago what’s happened.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the castle,” she said. That was absolutely true. It was better to stick as close to the truth as possible with Lisle. He was not only viciously logical and straightforward to a fault, but she thought he could read her mind a little. “I was trying to devise a plan to save you from it.”

  “You are not rescuing me,” he said. “You are not my knight in shining armor or whatever you think you are. I’m nearly four and twenty years old, and perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

  “Please don’t turn all proud male on me,” she said. “If you would only l
isten, you’ll understand how practical my Idea is.”

  “Nine years ago you had the practical Idea of saving your mother from penury by running away to Bristol to dig up a pirate’s treasure in the Earl of Mandeville’s garden!”

  “Yes, and it was fun, wasn’t it?” she said. “It was an adventure. You have adventures all the time. I—” She waved one gloved hand in the air. “I break engagements and hit men with my umbrella.”

  He shot her a glance she couldn’t read. Then he nudged his horse into motion.

  He needed distance.

  He didn’t want to be thinking about this, about the girl she used to be, who wanted to be a knight and undertake Noble Quests.

  She followed him. “Don’t close your mind,” she said. “You’re a scholar, and a scholar keeps an open mind.”

  “Not to insanity,” he said. “You can’t simply jaunt off to Scotland because you’re bored with breaking engagements and hitting men with your umbrella. I’m sorry you have to abide by silly rules for women, but I can’t change them. And even I know you can’t pop into a carriage and travel four hundred miles on your own without stirring up a terrific scandal.”

  “I always stir up scandal,” she said. “I’m known for it. Whatever I do or say at this dinner or that party makes the rounds of the ton the following morning. Olivia Carsington, Last Night’s Scandal, that’s me. I should have it engraved on my visiting cards.”

  He looked about him. The park was quiet this morning, activity in the surrounding streets sounding so faintly that one heard clearly the leaves rustling in the trees, the clip-clop of their horses’ hooves, and the call of a pair of birds, one to the other.

  He could hear his heart pounding, too. He was tempted, horribly tempted.

  But she always tempted him. She’d been doing it since she was twelve years old. If he hadn’t spent most of the last ten years in Egypt, she would have made a shambles of his life.

  “I should not have to tell you this,” he said. “But since you’ve lost your mind, I reckon I must: You may think of me as a brother but I’m not. You can’t travel with me unchaperoned.”

  “Of course I must be chaperoned,” she said. “But you can leave all the arrangements to me. All you have to do—”

  “I’m not doing anything,” he said. “Of all the harebrained schemes—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I can’t believe this. My father has cut off my money, I have nowhere to go and nothing to live on—and you want me to take you four hundred miles to a moldering old castle. In October, no less! Do you know what Scotland’s like in October?”

  “It’s dark and wet and cold and gloomy and terribly romantic,” she said.

  “I’m not going!” he said. “I can’t believe I’m even arguing with you about this.”

  “It’ll be fun,” she said. “An adventure.”

  An adventure. He had them all the time. But not with Olivia. Not in years.

  But this wasn’t the same Olivia. He’d been able to manage that one. To a point. But then he’d been a thirteen-year-old boy, oblivious when not actively hostile to females.

  “It’s my one and only, my very last chance for an adventure,” she said. “The family is sick to death of my carryings on, and Grandmama and Grandpapa Hargate are insisting I marry. When they start insisting, one might as well give up fighting. You know how they like to have everybody wed and settled. I shall have to settle on somebody and settle down and be a wife and mother. Settle, settle, settle. I shall never have a chance to do anything interesting, ever again.”

  He remembered how fearless she’d been, setting out on her own . . . climbing into wagons . . . luring a pair of grooms into a card game. He thought about her life now, one party after another, where the mildest departure from propriety set the scandalmongers whispering behind their fans.

  “Dammit, don’t do this to me, Olivia,” he said.

  “You know it’s true,” she said. “Women lead narrow lives. We’re somebody’s daughters, then somebody’s wives and somebody’s mothers. We never do anything, not as men do.”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I will not let my parents coerce me.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” she said. “You’ve always been able to ignore them or get around them, but they’ve finally realized they have one powerful hold over you.”

  “And you’re playing into their hands,” he said. “Have you any idea what’s involved in rebuilding an old castle?”

  “I have an excellent idea,” she said.

  “It could take years. Years! In Scotland. With the bagpipes!”

  She smiled. “It won’t take years if I help you,” she said. “And it won’t hurt to let your parents think they’ve won one battle. If we play this game properly, you’ll be back in Egypt in—oh, by spring, very likely.”

  The smile was enough to make him yield. But the guardian voice that had kept him alive all these years said Wait. Think.

  It was very hard to think when the full power of those blue eyes was turned upon him, and things were stabbing at his heart.

  Yet he wasn’t altogether bewitched. He was still the stubborn boy who’d known her long ago, as well as the scholar, the detached observer who’d watched her in action recently. He knew she could make people, especially men, believe anything.

  “No,” he said as gently as he could. “If I let them control me this way, they’ll use it again and again. If I give in to this demand, they’ll make more.”

  Her smile didn’t falter. “Ah, well, if you won’t agree, you won’t,” she said cheerfully.

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  “Oh, I do. Absolutely.”

  “Good, because—”

  “You needn’t explain,” she said. “I understand completely. But I can’t stay. I’ve a great deal to do today.”

  She touched her crop to the brim of her hat and galloped away.

  Chapter 4

  Atherton House

  Friday 7 October

  Lisle should have realized.

  He should have been prepared.

  But of course that was out of the question in anything involving Olivia.

  Olivia. Suddenly. Unexpectedly.

  The three words engraved in his mind.

  He came down to breakfast, and there she was.

  Not only Olivia, either. She’d brought along the dowager Lady Hargate and two of the Harpies, Lady Cooper and Lady Withcote.

  Lisle hadn’t slept well. In the quiet of his club he’d come up with any number of schemes for dealing with his parents, but each proved fatally flawed. Then Lord Winterton turned up. Their paths had crossed in Egypt more than once, and they had a great deal to talk about. Winterton invited Lisle to his house to examine a fine set of papyri he’d brought back from his latest trip. The papyri were a welcome distraction from Lisle’s parents and Olivia, and the cool-headed Winterton made an agreeable antidote to all the emotional turmoil. Lisle accepted an invitation to dine, and time slipped away.

  As a result, he had no more idea this morning how to deal with his parents than he’d had yesterday when Olivia galloped away.

  Everyone beamed at him as he entered the breakfast room.

  Lisle prided himself on having no imagination. He didn’t believe in a sense of impending doom.

  Until now.

  He went to the sideboard and filled his plate. He walked to the table and sat down next to Lady Withcote and opposite Olivia.

  “Olivia has been telling us of your plan,” said Mother.

  Lisle’s insides went cold. “My plan,” he repeated. He looked at Olivia.

  “To take me to Scotland to help you with the castle,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I thought you would have told them already,” she said. “I’m sorry I
spoiled the surprise.”

  “Everyone understands, child, I’m sure,” said the dowager. “You were carried away with excitement and couldn’t wait.”

  “What?”

  “It was a surprise, indeed,” said Mother. “And I will confess I was not altogether enthusiastic at first.”

  “But—”

  “She thought it wasn’t the thing,” the dowager told Lisle. “A pair of young people setting out for Scotland together. Not at all suitable for a young lady, she said. As though we didn’t know that and hadn’t already worked it out.”

  “Worked out—”

  “Lady Cooper and Lady Withcote have kindly agreed to act as chaperons,” Olivia said. “We’ll each take our lady’s maids. Great-Grandmama has agreed to lend us some housemaids and footmen until we can hire permanent ones. And I shall borrow Mama’s cook and butler, since they won’t be needed while the family is in Derbyshire.”

  Lisle looked about him at the cheerful faces. She’d done it. She’d gone ahead and done it after he’d told her in no uncertain terms. . .

  No, this was a nightmare. He wasn’t awake.

  Were his parents blind? Was he the only one who noticed how suspiciously well the dowager was behaving? Did no one else see the evil gleam in her eye? No, they saw nothing, because Olivia had completely bamboozled everybody.

  It was mad, mad.

  Cooper and Withcote as chaperons! Like all of the dowager’s friends, they lived to gossip, drink, gamble, and ogle young men. There couldn’t exist more unsuitable chaperons outside of a brothel.

  This was absurd. He would have to bring everybody to their senses.

  “Olivia, I thought I made it clear—”

  “But you did,” she said, all wide-eyed innocence. “I understand completely. If I had a calling, as you do, only a matter of life and death could distract me from it. Your calling is ancient Egypt. A Scottish castle does not seize your imagination.”