A Gentleman's Guide to Scandal (10 page)

He offered her his arm, and she took it. “You are looking remarkably well,” Elinor observed of her twin. “I believe it is the woman who is meant to glow, when there is a child on the way.”

“We have decided on a division of effort,” Martin replied with a smile. “I do the glowing, and she does the groaning.”

“You realize that you are consigning yourself to several
decades of chasing after an inevitably mischievous child,” Elinor said. “Any child of Joan's—”

“Might well rebel, and decide that being stolid and boring is the best way to infuriate her parents,” Martin said. “Though I hope not. I rather enjoy mischief, myself.”

Elinor shook her head. She did not know how she had ended up the quiet, retiring member of an otherwise exuberant family.

“You seem to have brought some mischief yourself,” Martin went on.

“Not mine,” Elinor said. “I'm merely facilitating.”

“I hope I won't hear from Farleigh about this,” Martin said.

Elinor cut him a sideways look. “It is Phoebe's business.” If Martin went running to Farleigh, they'd be in real trouble. “Have you spoken much to Lord Farleigh lately?” she asked.

Martin shrugged. “Not particularly. We've both been busy. Or I have, I suppose; Farleigh's never busy.”

“I'm worried about him,” Elinor said.

He frowned. “Has something happened to make you concerned?”

“No, only . . .” She couldn't tell him the truth. But she couldn't keep the nighttime encounter entirely to herself, either. Martin had always been her confidante; it seemed strange that in the past few years, she had kept so many things from him. “He returned to the town house extremely drunk the other night, and I went to help him to his bed.”

“You helped him to his bed?” Martin repeated, voice devoid of inflection. He had halted completely, and she was brought around to face him by her own momentum and her hand on his arm.

“I mean that I was going to get a footman to help him,” she said quickly. “But he was rude, and I left him there. Nothing untoward happened.”

He regarded her for a long moment, but seemed to accept her explanation. “Farleigh has always had a fondness for spirits,” he said. “I wouldn't worry about it. He's probably broken up with another opera singer, that's all.”

“Martin.”

“What? You know he's kept mistresses, don't you?”

“I don't keep track,” Elinor said archly. She thought
kept mistresses
was a rather dramatic term for Lord Farleigh's habits, personally. It wasn't as if he had them installed in secret apartments, and his arrangements with them rarely lasted more than six months or so.

Not that she had paid attention, but he was so terribly unsubtle about it.

“I should hope not. The last one was dreadful, anyway.”

“You met her?” Elinor couldn't help the disapproval in her tone.

“It was before Joan,” Martin said. “And it's not as if I was courting her. I don't know who he's been seen with since, come to think of it. But he gets dramatic when it comes to women. I wouldn't read too much into it.”

“I won't,” she assured him.

“I know you've always had a bit of an infatuation with him,” Martin said.

She squawked, pulling away from him. He stared at her. She didn't blame him; the noise had quite startled her as well. “I do not have an infatuation with Colin Spenser,” she said. “I have never had an infatuation with Colin Spenser, unless you count the thirteen minutes between our introduction and the first time he directed a comment toward me, which as you may recall was when I was seven years old and thus cannot be blamed for my poor judgment.”

He blinked at her. “Wait. I thought you liked Farleigh.”

“I do!” She was becoming strident. She was becoming downright shrill. She turned away from her brother, choosing instead to contemplate the grounds. They were not the familiar grounds of Birch Hall, with its green hills and distant trees, its manufactured ruins and neatly tamed gardens. Thornwald Manor was designed for privacy, not to be inviting; the woods clustered up close to the flanks of the great, gray house, gouging deep shadows across the thin expanse of lawn, and the gardens—tucked around the rear of the house—were walled
affairs, where one might sit or wander unobserved. Even the approaching lane was shielded from view by the trees on one side and a high wall on the other.

“It's been too quiet, without you,” Martin said.

Elinor laughed. “I am not known for making things
less
quiet, Martin.”

“More lonely, then. Joan misses you. She hasn't been able to travel with the baby on the way, and you know how she is. She isn't content with a life spent at home. At least when you're here, she has someone to talk to other than her husband.”

“You are asking me to stay,” Elinor said. “For your sake, or for mine?”

Martin's lips twisted in a half smile. “I don't know why Farleigh has so upset you, but even I, dull-witted as I am, can see that spending time under his roof is not in your best interest. And while I have failed in many things in my life, I have not yet failed at looking after my sister.” He touched her arm. She gave a little shiver, and felt a lump rise unexpectedly in her throat. They were twins, born scant minutes apart. They had spent all their lives together, except when he was at school. She had always thought that she needn't worry about marriage, or anything else, because they would always be the two of them, unconquerable.

And then he had found Joan. He had found joy, and Elinor was happy for him. But diminished as well. It was as if she was suddenly not quite family, in the same way that she was not quite family enough to know the truth about Marie.

“Elinor?”

“There are things I need to take care of in London,” she said. “I promised Phoebe's mother I would see her through the Season.”

“The Season's nearly over.”

“But not quite yet,” she said. “And who knows? Perhaps we'll find her a husband at the eleventh hour.”

He snorted. “Phoebe is not ready for a husband.”

“Because she's too opinionated? Adventurous? Wild?”

“Because she hasn't yet learned to adjust her level of adventure to suit the situation,” Martin said. “If she were a
boy, she'd be the sort to be getting into constant scraps, always sporting a black eye and a bloodied nose. As it is, she can hardly slow down enough to notice that another human being is present.”

“Fair enough,” Elinor said.

“I don't think there's a force on earth capable of breaking her adventurous spirit, and I wouldn't want to discover it if there were. But I dearly hope there's one that manages to focus it.”

“I'll keep my eyes open,” Elinor said.

They walked in silence a while longer, and soon found they'd made a circuit, and the house was in sight again.

“Are you sure you won't stay?” Martin asked.

“I'm sure,” Elinor told him. She kissed him on the cheek and took her arm from his, turning back toward the house.

“You will always be wanted here,” Martin said quietly.

She looked back at him. “I know,” she said. “Of course I know that.” Of all the places in the world, this might be the one where she was least alone, and it was here that she would spend the many years ahead of her.

It might be enough. It would not be joy, precisely, but it would be enough. And as for Lord Farleigh . . .

Well, she would simply have to avoid him.

THREE WEEKS AND THREE DAYS LATER

Three weeks of dodging Lord Farleigh was nearly enough to drive Elinor mad, but they had finally discovered an equilibrium. He stayed out all night and slept until the afternoon; she rose roughly the same time he stumbled home, and retired early. He had eschewed balls altogether, so the rare evenings when Elinor was not walled away in her room were spent away from the town house. In three weeks, they had spoken precisely fifty-seven words to each other, most of them “good day.”

Elinor was in the midst of an early—and solitary—breakfast when a footman appeared to inform her that she had a visitor. A moment later he ushered Maddy in, who eyed the spread of food with great interest.

“Thought you'd be up,” she said. “Don't you know ladies are supposed to laze about in the mornings? Eat in bed and stew in their beauty juices.”

“You have such a poetic way about you,” Elinor said with a laugh. “And I notice you're awake.”

“Never shook the habit,” Maddy confessed. “I still expect to hear the housekeeper hollering for me to get upstairs and set the fires. I bolt up in bed like I've been pricked with a
needle, and then there's no getting back to sleep. But I like to think there's virtue in rising early.”

“Unlike certain other ladies of noble birth?” Elinor asked, sipping her tea. Maddy had accompanied them back to London, and though she'd been staying in the Hargrove town house, she joined Elinor most mornings to update her on the progress of their private project. This had the unfortunate side effect of bringing her into repeated contact with Phoebe. The two did not get along. In the place of her usual pointed barb in Phoebe's direction, Maddy offered only a distracted frown.

“Maddy?” Elinor said.

“Yes, well,” she said. “I have some news.” Then her frown deepened. “Mr. Hudson's here,” she said, head cocking to the side.

Elinor strained to hear whatever she had, but could only make out a heavy tread somewhere distant in the house.

“He's got a very distinctive gait,” Maddy informed her.

Elinor rose. “We should see why he's here,” she said.

They marched out together, Elinor in the lead, and found Hudson in the hall. His gaze brushed right past Elinor and locked onto Maddy.

“What are you doing here?” he rumbled. The butler looked at him askance.

“Visiting a friend,” Maddy said archly. “And you?”

“Business,” Hudson said. He eyed her suspiciously. “Here to see Lord Farleigh.”

“Who is, as I mentioned, asleep,” the butler said, obviously desperate to claim some control over the situation. Elinor almost pitied him.

“Then wake him. He said he wanted this the moment I found it, and that doesn't mean six hours from now when he wakes up on his own,” Hudson said. “He left me clear instructions. You want to be the one to explain to him why they weren't followed?”

“I'll . . . show you to his study, to wait until he is available,” the butler said.

Hudson grunted, apparently satisfied. He gave Elinor a nod, squinted at Maddy, and followed the butler up the stairs.

“What was that about?” Elinor asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Maddy said. “Only, a little of Mrs. Hargrove's business overlapped with a little of his, and I might have a little bit gotten one of his clients arrested. Which Mr. Hudson didn't mind, except that then the fellow couldn't pay him. Not that he needs the money. He's very vexing.” She frowned.

“You two are oddly suited for each other,” Elinor said.

“Agh. You make it sound like we're married,” Maddy said, wrinkling her nose.

“Heaven forbid,” Elinor said wryly.

“I'm never getting married,” Maddy said firmly. “I don't understand the appeal, being stuck living with a man and all.”

Given Maddy's habit of deep infatuation with members of her own gender, Elinor did not find this surprising. She looked up the stairs where Hudson had vanished. What was Colin up to? “If you have news, we should wake Phoebe.”

“She's already awake,” Maddy said. A moment later, Elinor heard footsteps coming down the hall.

“That hearing of yours is practically supernatural,” Elinor said.

Maddy grinned. “There's a reason Mrs. Hargrove hasn't fired me yet,” she said.

It took a few minutes to get Phoebe herded into the drawing room and to shut the door securely behind them.

“What have you found?” Phoebe asked eagerly, leaning forward.

“Well,” Maddy said. “It's more Joan's find than mine. She got a letter and sent it on to me. It's from Madame Lavigne,” she said.

“Who?” Elinor asked.

“Her real name is Gertrude Poole, but Joan says don't tell her she told you that,” Maddy said with a grin. “She's an old friend of Joan's, from before. She's a courtesan.”

Elinor raised an eyebrow. Even after all this time, she
had not gotten used to the fact that her sister-in-law was friends with courtesans. “I take it she's to be our agent?”

“Being as I'm not qualified,” Maddy said with an air of tragedy. “Joan says she trusts her, and that she's smart. But the real news is, she got an invitation and all the details.”

“What
kind
of details?” Phoebe asked.

“Details that you almost certainly do not need to know about,” Elinor said.

“Yes, but we are the ones in charge of this adventure, aren't we? So we really ought to know everything that's going on.”

Elinor had to admit she was curious, herself. She'd heard all manner of stories once the wine started flowing at dinner parties and the men had gone off to enjoy their billiards and liquor, but half the tales were too tame to be interesting, the other half too wild to be credited. She did not, for example, believe that Beauchene practiced human sacrifice. Nor that, as one very drunk and very virginal acquaintance had insisted, that the height of excitement was that the men “kissed the ladies on their stomachs.”

The other two were looking at her expectantly.

“Oh, fine,” Elinor said. “I'm already a corrupting influence, obviously. We may as well have some fun with it.”

Maddy grinned. “Then you're going to want to read this for yourselves.”

*   *   *

By the time Colin had collapsed into his chair in the study, he was at least awake, though he questioned his sentience at this hour of the morning.

“Taking care of yourself, I see,” Hudson said.

“I am a gentleman. Degeneracy and sloth are in the blood,” Colin said. He massaged his cheeks, trying to rub some feeling into them. “I take it you've found something?” Three weeks. Three weeks he'd been waiting, and not a word from Hudson. Colin had begun to think that he'd imagined hiring him. “Well?” Colin demanded. “What is it?”

Hudson removed his hat and tossed it onto the desk. He wore a scowl that would send children running for their
mothers. “He's been at Beauchene's chateau for months,” Hudson said, making the French words sound about as graceful as a pig rolling downhill. “Beauchene's locked the place up. No visitors. And word is Foyle's to go from there to the continent. So you were right that the party's the way to get at him.”

“I assume that means that you've secured an invitation,” Colin said.

“Trickier than I thought it would be. Not like I knew how to go about getting into a party like that.”

“Neither do I,” Colin assured him. “Strictly a matter of necessity.”

“Strictly,” Hudson agreed.

They shuffled their feet a little and didn't look at each other. Colin cleared his throat.

“But surely half those stories are wild fantasy,” Colin said.

“Must be,” Hudson agreed, though he didn't sound sure.

“And even if they are true, I am only going to see Foyle.” And kill him, but he hadn't admitted that to Hudson, and he wasn't going to. The only thing worse than being a murderer was being a fool about it.

“Wasn't cheap, getting that invitation,” Hudson said, clearly more comfortable with talk of money than . . . well, decadent displays of wealth, sex, and gluttony. Emphasis on the sex. “Now, if you was a woman, that would be another matter.”

“Women aren't invited,” Colin said, confused. Then he paused. “Oh. That kind of woman.”

“Rather a lot of them invited, matter of fact,” Hudson said. “That's the point, isn't it?” He had turned a remarkable shade of red.

“Yes, well. When is it?”

“A week from now,” Hudson said. “Sort of a dessert course for the Season, I suppose.”

“That doesn't leave us much time.”

“It's what I can offer. The party runs for five days. No names. They'll give you a new one when you get there. Dress fancy.” Hudson gave Colin a head-to-toe look that suggested that wouldn't be a problem. Colin touched his cravat self-consciously. He did not have the patience to be a dandy, but
he did like to think he had a discerning eye for clothing. “There's rules,” Hudson said doubtfully.

“I take it you don't want to explain them to me.”

“I don't,” Hudson said. Red was giving way to purple. “But I'll do my best.”

*   *   *

“How elaborate,” Elinor said. “Everyone wears masks?” She was still working her way through the dense paragraph of information. She could feel a flush creeping up her neck.

“Only the women,” Phoebe corrected, peering over Elinor's shoulder.

“All the men have special names,” Maddy said. “Like, Owl or Ferret or something or other. And they get a token, on a ribbon, and if they want to claim a lady—er, woman. Courtesan. Person. He gives it to her to wear. If you—not you, but one of them—isn't—aren't—” She paused. “The men aren't supposed to lech on any of the women who've been claimed by another fellow.” She frowned. “I thought the peerage was supposed to be more civilized than the rest of us.”

“He's French. It doesn't count,” Phoebe said.

“The
guests
aren't French,” Maddy pointed out.

“How would you know? Have you been?” Phoebe snapped. Maddy glared at her.

Elinor could not imagine anyone she had met spending five days in the pursuit of that level of debauchery. She considered. Actually, she suspected that there were quite a few men she knew who would leap at the chance. A week of pleasure without consequences? It wasn't just the men who might be interested. “Fascinating,” she said.

*   *   *

“Horrifying,” Colin said. “Don't they have the good sense to keep such things properly repressed?”

“It's a private party where no one knows your name and all the women wear masks,” Hudson said. “Can't get much more repressed than that.”

“I can't believe we are discussing this,” Colin said.

“Maybe we could stop, then,” Hudson suggested, halfway to pleading.

“If this is where Foyle is, I need to know everything about it,” Colin said reluctantly. “Keep going.”

Hudson sighed. “Well, the wholesome bit's out of the way,” he said. “The rest gets a bit racy.”

“Dear Lord,” Colin said, and Hudson continued.

*   *   *

“It seems like a great deal of effort, given that such diversions are plentiful enough in London. Why go to all the trouble?” Elinor asked.

“I think the trouble's kind of the point,” Maddy said.

“Wait,” Phoebe said. “What does that bit mean?” She pointed at the letter.

“‘Unusual tastes.' I expect that means, you know, ropes, or something,” Elinor said with a frown.

“Ropes?” Phoebe asked. “To tie people up? Who gets tied up, the man or the woman?”

“Either one, I guess?” Maddy said. “I'm not sure.”

“This is not appropriate conversation,” Elinor said. They glanced at her again. “Someone had to say it.”

“It all sounds unpleasant to me,” Phoebe said. “I mean, the sheer mechanics of the basic act. When a man—you know. It sounds uncomfortable.”

“If you do it right, it's quite nice,” Elinor said absently. The girls gaped at her.

“How would
you
know?” Phoebe asked.

Elinor blushed. “I
was
engaged,” she said. “It's not so very unusual to anticipate the wedding.”

“You and Matthew?” Phoebe said. She cocked her head to the side. “Oh. I hadn't realized.”

“It isn't precisely something I advertise.” She couldn't quite believe she'd admitted it to the two of them. Then again, it was hardly the greatest of the secrets they were bandying about this morning.

“In that case,” Phoebe said, shifting in her seat. “I have questions. Starting with what that thing is where . . .”

*   *   *

“. . . Not that I'd know from experience,” Hudson finished.