A Little Scandal

London April 1870

“I’m not going.” She twisted in his grasp. “I told you before. Let go of me!”

He was tired of reasoning with her. Sometimes it seemed to him that all he’d been doing these past seventeen years was reason with her.

“You’re going,” he said, his deep voice nothing more than a menacing growl. So menacing, in fact, that the footman straightened up beside the chaise-and-four, and looked everywhere but in his master’s direction.

“I won’t,” she cried. Again, she gave the wrist he held a jerk. She’d grown slippery as a cat lately, and it was all he could do to keep his hold on her slender, silk-clad arm. “I said let go of me.”

He heaved a sigh. So this was how it was to go. Oh, well. He ought to have known. Everything had pointed to it. An hour earlier, when he’d been retying his cravat in the looking glass—Duncan was an exemplary valet, it was true, but he was getting on in years, and had become quite intractable in his ways, so that subtle changes in men’s fashion now only served to irritate him. He continued to tie the knot in his employer’s cravat in the exact same manner that he had for over—twenty years, thus forcing Burke to resort secretly to undoing his valet’s work and retying it himself—Miss Pitt had burst into his sitting room, quite unannounced, and in a state of considerable agitation.

“My lord,” the old woman had cried. Quite literally cried. There were tears streaming down her corpulent cheeks. “She is impossible! Impossible, do you hear? No one—no one—could be expected to put up with that kind of abuse ….”

Here the woman had pressed a shaking hand to her mouth and fled the room. Burke hadn’t been completely certain, but it had seemed that Miss Pitt had just given her notice. With a sigh, he’d begun undoing his cravat. There was no sense in looking his best now. He would not, as he’d originally planned, be enjoying the company of the inimitable Sara Woodhart that evening. No, now he would be escorting Isabel, in the unfortunate Miss Pitt’s stead, to Lady Peagrove’s cotillion.

Damn it all to hell.

Now the minx was writhing in his grasp, actually attempting to bite him—yes, bite him—in order to loosen his hold. He sincerely hoped none of the neighbors were watching. It was getting to be damned embarrassing, these public displays of temper. It had been different only a few years ago, when she’d been younger—and smaller—but now …

Well, now he found himself longing, more often than not, for a pipe and the comfort of the fire in his library.

Yes, even more than he longed for the company of the estimable Mrs. Woodhart.

Good Lord! How repulsive! Could it possibly be true? Was he getting old? Duncan had told him so, on more than one occasion. Not in so many words, of course. A good valet never implied that his master was in anything but his prime. But just the other morning, the fellow had had the nerve to lay out a flannel waistcoat, of all things. Flannel! As if Burke were approaching fifty-seven, and not a still relatively youthful thirty-seven. As if he were infirmed, and not the prime physical specimen he knew himself to be—that many of the most attractive women in London, including the discriminating Mrs. Woodhart, had assured him he was. Duncan had learned a sharp lesson that day, that was certain.

Just as Isabel would learn one now. He was not going to be trifled with. Particularly not since it was for her own good, in the end.

“And I”—he bent down, and with the ease of long practice, threw her bodily over his shoulder, as if she were a sack of wheat—”said that you’re going.”

Isabel let out a shriek so shrill it seemed to pierce the thick yellow fog that had fallen like a curtain across Park Lane—across all of London, most likely, knowing his luck. It would be hours before they managed to wind their way through the traffic, backed up because of the fog, to the Peagroves’ door. It was all he needed, really, this thick, smothering fog, on top of Isabel’s hysterics. The only thing he needed more, perhaps, was a bullet in the brain. Or maybe a blade to the heart.

And a moment later, it appeared his second wish was about to be granted. Only instead of a blade, the interloper, who’d appeared from the fog as if from nowhere, was pointing the tip of an umbrella in the general direction of his heart.

Or where his heart would have been if, as Isabel was insisting at the top of her lungs, he happened to own one, which, according to her, he did not.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” Burke said to the umbrella’s owner—quite calmly, too, he flattered himself, for a man with a reputation of being so very hot-blooded. “But would you mind lowering that thing? It is impeding my progress toward that carriage waiting there.”

“One more step,” the umbrella’s owner said, in a surprisingly hard voice, for a creature so … well, puny, “and I shall seriously endanger your hopes of siring an heir.”

Burke glanced at his footman. Was it his imagination, or was he being accosted on his very own doorstep—and on Park Lane, of all places, the most exclusive street in all of London—by a perfect stranger? Worse, a perfect stranger who happened to be a young woman … exactly the sort of young woman whom Burke so assiduously avoided at social gatherings.

Well, and who could blame him? It always rather alarmed him when, in the middle of a conversation with one of these creatures—who were not, truth be told, generally very scintillating conversationalists in the first place—the girl’s heavily jeweled mamma swooped down suddenly from out of nowhere, and politely but firmly steered her little darling away from him.

Yet here there was no jeweled mamma. This young woman was quite alone. Quite absurdly alone, and on a night as gloomy as any he’d come across in a good long time. Where was her chaperone? Surely such a very young woman ought to have a chaperone, if only to keep her from threatening gentlemen with the business end of her umbrella, as appeared to be her habit.

What was he to do? If she’d been a man, Burke would merely have struck him down, stepped over the limp body, and been on his way. If necessary, he’d even have called the fellow out, and taken great pleasure, in his current mood, in putting a bullet through his head.

But she wasn’t a man. She was even a bit on the smallish side for being a woman. He supposed he could have lifted her out of the way, and easily, too, but laying hands upon any woman, particularly one of the youthful variety, had a tendency to cause all sorts of trouble. What was he supposed to do?

Perry, whom Burke made the mistake of looking to for aid, wasn’t the slightest help. He too was staring at the young woman, his already slightly protuberant eyes bulging to their very limits—not, of course, at the sight of the umbrella tip waving in his master’s direction, but at the sight of the young woman’s very slim ankles, quite plainly observable beneath the hem of her skirt, which had hiked up a little in the front when she’d assumed her fencer’s stance.

Stupid boy. Burke would see that he was sacked upon the morrow.

“Put her down,” the young woman said. “At once.”

“Now, see here,” Burke found himself saying, in a tone that was far more reasonable than he felt. “Don’t go jabbing that thing at me. I’ll have you know that I happen to be—”

“I don’t give a whit who you happen to be,” the young woman interrupted, and very smartly, indeed. “You will put that girl down, and count yourself lucky I don’t call for the constable. Though I’m not at all certain I shan’t. I’ve never seen anything so disgraceful in all my life, a man of your advanced years taking advantage of a girl who can’t be half your age.”

“Taking advantage!” Burke nearly dropped his burden at that point, he was so surprised. “Of all the impertinent suggestions! Do you honestly think—”

To his horror, Isabel, who had grown suspiciously silent since the approach of this umbrella-wielding termagant, lifted her cloaked head and said, in a plaintive voice quite unlike her usual self-assured tones, “Oh, please help me, miss. He’s hurting me dreadfully!”

The umbrella tip pressed upon his lapel, the metal point pricking the flesh just above his heart. Now the young woman did not bother addressing Burke at all, but turned her head and said to his footman, “Don’t just stand there, you ignorant boob. Run and fetch the magistrate.”

Perry’s jaw dropped. Burke watched irritably as his footman’s face contorted as he struggled with himself, torn between his loyalty to his employer and his desire to obey the girl with the very commanding voice.

“B-but,” the idiot boy stammered. “He’ll sack me, miss, if I do—”

“Sack you?” The girl’s already ridiculously large grey eyes widened with outrage. “And you’d prefer a sacking, would you, as opposed to being jailed as an accomplice to abduction and intimidation?”

Perry wailed, “No, miss, but—”

Here Isabel could restrain herself no longer. Burke could feel her quivering against his shoulder. Even the whalebone stays of her corset couldn’t suppress the violent spasms of her belly as she burst out laughing.

Only, of course, to the girl with the sharp-ended umbrella, the laughter sounded like sobs. He saw the pale face, framed by a bonnet that had at one time probably been quite expensive, but was now several seasons out of fashion, tighten with anger, and then she drew back her arm, intent, he didn’t doubt, on skewering him bodily with her umbrella.

That, he decided, was the last straw.

“Now, see here,” he said, swinging Isabel from his shoulder and setting her, not very gently, upon her own two feet beside him. He kept a firm hold on her wrist, however—he was no fool—to keep her from slipping off into the night, a recent trick of hers. “Although I haven’t the slightest idea how it is that I come to be slandered so rudely—and at my own doorstep, no less—I ask that you allow me to assure you that this situation is, in every way, respectable. This young woman happens to be my daughter.”

The umbrella did not waver. Not even an inch.

“A likely story,” its owner said woodenly.

Burke looked around for something to throw. He truly felt as if he might suffer an apoplexy. Really, what had he ever done to deserve this? All he’d wanted—all he’d ever wanted—was to get Isabel married off to a decent fellow who wouldn’t beat her or squander the money Burke had settled on her, leaving him free—at last—to spend a pleasant evening alone with an agreeable woman like Sara Woodhart. Or a book. Yes, even a book by a nice, roaring fire. Was that so much to ask?

Apparently so, as long as there were umbrella-wielding madwomen roaming the streets of London.

Perry, perhaps for the first time in his stupid life, opened his mouth and actually said something helpful. And that was: “Um, miss? She—the young lady—is his daughter.”

Isabel, who’d been struggling to suppress a fit of the giggles since Burke had set her down, could do so no longer, and now let loose a peal of laughter that likely was heard all up and down the street.

“Oh,” she cried gaily. “I am sorry! But it was so rich, your threatening Papa with your umbrella. I couldn’t help myself.”

The umbrella wavered. Just slightly, but noticeably.

“If he is your father”—beneath a fringe of dark blond hair, slim eyebrows knit in bewilderment—”then why, in heaven’s name, were you shrieking so?”

“Oh, la!” Isabel rolled her eyes as if the answer were obvious. “Because he insists upon me attending the Peagroves’ cotillion.”

To Burke’s utter astonishment, the young woman—this perfect stranger, this lunatic—accepted that statement as if it were completely understandable. Burke watched, thunderstruck, as the umbrella lowered from his heart, until the tip struck the ground.

“Good Lord,” the woman said. “You can’t possibly go there.”

Isabel reached out and tugged upon Burke’s coat sleeve, rather more forcefully than playfully. “You see, Papa?” she said. “I told you so.”

Burke was absolutely certain now that he was going to succumb to an apoplexy. He did not understand what was happening at all. Just seconds ago, the young woman in front of him had been threatening to go for the police. Now she was calmly discussing social engagements with his daughter, as if the two of them were sharing a gossip in a milliner’s shop, and not standing in the middle of Park Lane at nine o’clock in the evening on the foggiest spring night he could remember.

“It’s a crush,” the young woman was assuring his daughter. “Lady Peagrove invites twice as many people as can possibly fit into her house. It’s a nightmare just getting anywhere near the place. And no one who actually matters attends it. Hangers-on and country cousins, is all.”

“I knew it.” Isabel stamped a daintily slippered foot. It made no noise whatsoever on the soft pile of the carpet Perry had rolled out to keep her train from collecting mud as she climbed into the carriage. “I told him that. But he won’t listen to me.”

Burke, aware that he was being spoken about as if he were not even standing there, began to feel more annoyed than ever.

“He’ll only listen to Miss Pitt,” Isabel went on. “And Miss Pitt had some absurd notion that Peagroves’ was the place to go.”

“Who is Miss Pitt?” the stranger had the audacity to inquire.

And before Burke could say a word, Isabel was replying,