An Invitation to Scandal (9 page)

“Shall I assume you will be attending Lord and Lady Doddington’s masquerade, Lord Roxton?” The baroness asked him the question. Caldwell rolled his eyes and Nicholas struggled to suppress a grin.

“I have not yet decided.” While he had promised he would be there, in retrospect, he’d been a fool to agree. He could not risk Miss Laytham discovering who he was. He certainly could not risk what the gossips would say if they were caught together. His father would pitch a fit.

A wry smile twisted his lips. That alone would almost make it worth it.

“You find indecision amusing?” Miss Caldwell folded her hands in her lap, her own generous mouth turning up at the corners, though Nicholas would never go so far as to call it a smile. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure he had ever seen her truly smile. Certainly not with the abandon Miss Laytham—he cleared his throat. No, better to stay off that particular road.

“Forgive me, Miss Caldwell. No. My mind merely entertained a thought that pleased me.”

“I see.”

This was not going well. Charming Miss Caldwell was akin to crossing frozen ice. One never knew if their next step would crack it and send them plunging into frigid water. Or if the ice would hold and see them safely to shore.

The thought of landing in water, brought forth another memory, one more recent, of a sodden Miss Laytham sitting at his feet staring up at him with a fiery anger that left little doubt in his mind as to what she thought. Though in truth, her thoughts were no more distracting than the soaked muslin clinging to her skin, or the plump lips pulled into a tight line of disapproval that begged to be kissed.

Lips he had kissed. Lips that tasted like an exotic fruit so sweet few words existed that could describe such a—

Nicholas slammed the door on the thought before evidence of what that kiss had done to him showed on his body, mortifying them all. He pulled his attention back to the situation at hand. He would not entertain thoughts of Miss Laytham. He no longer had that right. And if the late Lord Glenmor was to be believed, he never had.

He picked up the thread of their conversation. “What pleased me was the thought of seeing you at the masquerade. Your father tells me you and your sisters have been hard at work fashioning your costumes. I think that alone would be worth my attendance.”

“Oh how wonderful.” The baroness clapped her hands and saved Nicholas from the frigid waters with the arrival of a steaming pot of tea. He relaxed. Marriage to Miss Caldwell would never be a comfortable existence but he could not withdraw now. His family would never forgive him. And he had much to atone for.

“Yes, wonderful indeed.” He forced a smile.

Now he must attend this godforsaken masquerade, which he had dearly hoped to avoid, spend the evening doting on Miss Caldwell, while doing his best to avoid Miss Laytham.

But in truth, he would much rather avoid Miss Caldwell, and spend the evening with Miss Laytham, sampling one or more of her delectable kisses.

So much for simplicity.

* * *

“Abigail, you must reconsider this. It is madness. You are playing with fire and yes, it seems exciting now, but eventually you will get burned.”

Caelie followed Abigail around the room as she ferreted through her armoire. The masquerade fast approached and she wanted—no needed—to look spectacular. She had to stand out amongst all the others so he could find her.

He. Him. Her mystery lover. Of course, it had never gone so far as that, it had just been a kiss after all. But oh, what a kiss it had been. She had never thought something as simple as two pairs of lips meeting in the dark could create such a thrill through every inch of her body. It had almost made her forget why she had gone there in the first place.

Almost. She’d remembered herself at the last moment and managed to convince the stranger to meet her once again. Quite a brilliant piece of thinking, if she did say so herself.

“Have you even stopped to consider why this man attended
that
party in the first place?”

Indeed the thought had crossed her mind, but she chose not to explore it with any great depth. He’d been the perfect gentleman with her—well, almost. She smiled secretly as she pulled out a sage green silk that looked far better on Caelie than it ever had on her. In fact, when he’d warned her of what went on at such parties he had sounded almost…disgusted. Angry.

“Are you listening to a word I am saying?” Caelie rounded to Abigail’s left. She took the gown from her hands and tossed it back onto the bed.

Abigail shrugged. “Of course. Fire. Burning. Very bad things. I have heard you, Caelie. I simply choose to take a different viewpoint.”

“And that is?”

Abigail stopped for a moment and stared into space, trying to formulate something pithy that would convince her cousin she had not lost her mind. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

If Caelie found the humor in her flippancy it did not show. “You do not know what you are doing. How can you be so cavalier about your reputation? You think it is something to play with, but I assure it is not. Once it is lost, it is lost forever, much like your innocence. And you will wish it back, I promise you. But there will be no retrieving it.”

For an instant, Abigail thought Caelie spoke of herself, but she shook the idea away. Had Caelie ever done anything even remotely scandalous, Abigail would surely have heard of it. She and her cousin had no secrets between them. Besides, as spirited as Caelie had once been, she would never do anything to risk her reputation. Not that it had mattered in the end.

Poor Caelie. At only two and twenty the life she had planned had come to a screeching halt, all her hopes and dreams thrown into the wind and scattered to the four corners. What would she do now, reduced to living as a captive in a town she could not escape, surrounded by people who no longer acknowledged her existence?

She’d turned into a ghost.

Abigail turned and took Caelie’s hands in her own. “I promise you, I will take the utmost care to ensure nothing happens to damage my reputation. Or our family’s. It is in the hopes of repairing our reputation that I am even attending. Yes, I kissed this man and perhaps I shouldn’t have. And yes, it would be wonderful to be kissed like that again. But I am not going to court disaster. My purpose is to confront Lord Roxton. I simply need this man’s assistance to ferret him out from all the other masked gentlemen.”

“And this stranger you kissed? What do you hope from him once he has pointed out Lord Roxton to you?”

Abigail pursed her lips. Were her secret desires so obvious? Perhaps she shouldn’t have confided the kiss to Caelie, but it had been such an earth-shattering experience, she’d needed to tell someone, and she trusted no one as much as her cousin.

“I admit I would like to get to know the man behind the mask.” She held up a hand when Caelie moved to protest. “It is foolish, I know. I am all but promised to Lord Tarrington. But I cannot deny the thought of spending the rest of my life in a loveless marriage leaves me cold. If I allow a few stolen kisses, is that so bad? Won’t I need something to sustain me through the years?”

“You will have your children to sustain you.”

Abigail let go of Caelie’s hand and returned to the armoire. “Lord Tarrington has already outlived two wives, neither of whom bore him any children. What if the problem is with him? What if I too, remain barren? Then not only have I given up passion, but I will have no children to fill my days either. I need something.” She turned to face Caelie. “Can you not understand?”

Caelie bowed her head. A silken lock brushed against her cheek. “I do understand, Abigail. Believe me, I do. But I fear what you are wishing for will not come about the way you envision. You know nothing of this supposed gentleman, after all. What if he threatens to expose you?”

“Why would he? It is in his own best interests to keep it quiet unless he wants a hasty trip to the altar.”

Caelie shook her head. “I cannot help but feel there is more to this than we are seeing. Why would he care so much about getting you away from that party?”

Abigail had thought the same thing. “He said he could tell someone of such innocence did not belong there.”

“And how did he determine this? The dress you wore was a far cry from innocent.”

Abigail pointedly ignored the obvious. Caelie made a good argument; she just did not want to see it. She preferred the fantasy. That he had swooped in to keep her safe, to claim her for his own. And promised to help her confront Lord Roxton.

Granted, it hadn’t happened quite that way. He’d actually been rather arrogant and heavy-handed in his actions at first. Perhaps he hadn’t swooped so much as dragged her into the room like an errant child. And promised to help might be a bit of a stretch. More like been coerced, as a condition upon her leaving.

“It does not matter how he determined it,” Abigail said, holding up a cream-colored gown with dark brown stripes and looking to Caelie for approval. Her cousin shrugged. “The point is he did. And he agreed to help me.”

Caelie stood silent in the middle of the room for a moment before letting out a long sigh of defeat. “Then you should go with the sapphire gown you chose earlier. With the added ribbon it will look quite lovely, and the color brings out your eyes to their best advantage. If you are intent on ruining your future, the least you can do is look fabulous in the process.”

Chapter Six

“Tell me again why we are here,” Spence said, scratching at the mask he’d been forced to don for the masquerade. He had kicked up a stink about going, throwing out every excuse in the book until Nicholas had reminded Spence he owed him a favor.

Shortly before leaving for the Caribbean he’d help extricate Spence from a rather sticky situation with an unhappy duchess and an even unhappier duke who had caught his wife in a rather compromising position with an inebriated Spence. Had Nicholas not quickly intervened and pointed out the fact that Spence lacked the coherency to understand the gravity of cuckolding the duke, the evening might have had a much different outcome. The duke, after all, had a reputation for calling out young gentlemen who showed undue interest in his wayward wife.

“You are here because I need to keep a certain lady from doing something she will regret.” He planned on sending Spence to meet with Miss Laytham in his steed, hoping she would not know the difference. They were of similar height and build, or at least close enough that she should not notice. The room, after all, had been quite dark.

He loathed getting Spence involved. But he did not trust himself to be near her. Not after the kiss they had shared. Not after her passionate nature spurred desires within him he’d thought well under his control.

How wrong he had been.

“Why is this your responsibility? Who is she again?”

“Stop asking, I have told you I have no intention of revealing her identity. We met at Opal’s party the other night and—”

“Opal’s party? Why you old dog! I knew you wouldn’t stay—”

“It wasn’t like that. My only purpose for being there was to prevent—” Nicholas waved a hand. “Never mind. Suffice to say, I need your assistance.”

Spence scowled and tugged at the mask again. “How horribly chivalrous of you. Fine then, we shall call her Lady X. So explain again how you plan on playing the white knight when you already have another young maiden, one Miss Caldwell in case you have forgotten her name, to attend to this evening?”

Nicholas’s eyes drifted over to where Miss Caldwell and her mother stood. She had come dressed as a Grecian goddess, her white gown draped in threads of gold, accentuating her gentle curves. She was a beautiful sight.

Yet it stirred nothing in him. He’d thought he had finally squelched his baser instincts and conquered his demons. But one kiss from Miss Laytham had proved him wrong on that account. Now he could not get the taste of her out of his mind. Her generous mouth and eager lips haunted his memory, teasing his control until it threatened to snap.

“With your help, that’s how. All you need to do is make her aware you received word I had an urgent business matter come up at the last moment and will not be attending. Hopefully that will squelch her quest to find me.”

“What does it matter if Lady X finds you?”

“You will not wheedle any more information out of me. I told you, her identity must remain a secret.”

“Fine,” Spence agreed. His tone made it clear he cared little for the arrangement. A masquerade, he’d pointed out, was like a license to behave improperly without the consequences of doing so. Being forced to curb his own fun to chaperone an unknown young lady he was not allowed to dabble with hardly seemed like a good use of his time or skills.

“I don’t see why Bowen can’t do it.”

“Because,” Nicholas pointed out, “Bowen has a strict aversion to subterfuge. You on the other hand, excel at it. I need you to make her believe you are me.”

“I think Bowen pretends such an aversion for instances such as this so he will not be called upon to do such mundane tasks.”

“Bowen,” Nicholas reminded his friend, “is not the one who was found with his britches around his ankles at the Plankford soiree, servicing Her Grace while her husband played billiards in the next room.”

Spence cleared his throat and crossed his arms. His scowl deepened. “Hardly my fault. She seduced me.”

Nicholas opened his mouth to respond to Spence’s ridiculous assertion when a flash of deep blue caught his eye and held it.

She had arrived. As promised, she wore the same mask from a few nights previous. A royal blue silk ribbon had been threaded through the pearls and feathers. Her dress shone like sapphires and silver lace teased the swell of her breasts.

He flexed his fingers and wished he did not burn to feel her skin. He imagined she would be softer than the silk draping her body, and slide just as effortlessly against his own.

“I will assume from the ridiculous expression on your face that is the lady in question?”

Nicholas quickly schooled his emotions. “It is. Now remember, you are not to compromise her in any way. Simply tell her Lord Roxton is unavailable this evening and then leave. Understood?”