It Started with a Scandal (6 page)

An enormous rectangle of sunlight lay over the carpet. The curtains had clearly been taken down and the dust shaken from them, and were now tethered away from the windows by their golden cords. They were at least a shade brighter than they had been yesterday. The carpets had been beaten within an inch of their lives. The scrolling browns and creams and oxblood were rich again, and his feet sank into them as he prowled his environs, both hopeful and suspicious as a cat.

But another scent mingled with the lemon and linseed and burning wood.

A peculiarly disorienting smell, which, for a moment, made him think that this was certainly all a dream, from the giggling outside his door to the preternaturally bright room. Sometimes at sea he’d awaken with a smile on his face, that scent just drifting away from his awareness.

And then he saw it.

There, on the mantel, was a jar bursting with a profusion of lavender and hyacinth.

In other words, the flowers of Provence.

He gave a short, stunned laugh.

He drew another mark in the air for Mrs. Fountain.

He strolled over and touched them gingerly. They were just a little wilted, as if they’d been clutched in a hot fist for some time before being transported to the study and arranged neatly in the jar. Or perhaps the bountiful fire was doing its part to hasten their demise.

Still, they were beautiful.

Something in him eased. As if one item, the size and weight of a lavender and hyacinth bouquet, had lifted from his invisible burden.

He rotated slowly again, scanning the rest of the room for any other little surprises.

The brandy decanter was full and gleaming.

And tempting.

He turned his back on it as if it was a doxy crooking her finger, then rang for Mrs. Fountain.

Chapter 6

M
RS.
F
OUNTAIN STILL LOOKED
untenably fresh and guileless, given that she had clearly risen well before dawn to flog the worthless serving staff into cleaning.

“Good morning again, Mrs. Fountain. I would like you to retrieve my correspondence from Postlethwaite’s Emporium in town today. The mail coach should have been in.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Is there anything in particular you would like for dinners this week? I will do the shopping in town today.”

“I should like boeuf Bourgignon, but I will be content with recognizable meat, served perhaps alongside peas, or some other recognizable vegetable. And wine. And perhaps bread. Surprise me, Mrs. Fountain.”

“The meat pie last night . . .”

“Was edible. In the absence of an excellent chef, I infinitely prefer simpler food prepared well rather than awkward attempts at complexity.”

“Thank you for your clarification,” she said evenly. “I will inform the cook.”

She didn’t say
You rude bastard
aloud. But the air pulsed with it.

He was almost amused.

“And I feel I must give you my verdict on the apple tart,” he said gravely.

“Very well.” She straightened her spine and folded her hands before her like a penitent.

“And as you know, I feel strongly that one ought not to lie if it can be avoided.”

“You made that clear, sir, yes.”

And now her breath was clearly held.

He was not a sadist. He did, however, possess a sense of drama. So he allowed the silence to continue for a beat or two.

“It was Heaven on a plate, Mrs. Fountain. Thank you.”

Her face went slowly luminous.

She was as radiant as . . . as radiant as . . .

Well, as radiant as the furniture in this room.

How had he forgotten the simple pleasure of making someone else happy?

“I’m very pleased you are pleased,” she said somberly. But her eyes were fairly dancing.

“I should like my days to begin just that way from now on if I don’t rise before dawn. With perhaps the exception of the assault of sunlight. Perhaps a more gradual introduction of light in the room would be more merciful.”

“Very well, my lord.”

“That is all,” he said and turned from her, toward the correspondence he would once again attempt to answer. And likely fail.

When she didn’t move, he turned, a quizzical brow cocked.

“Lord Lavay” came her voice, tentatively. “If I may ask another question.”

He sighed. “I must request again that you issue questions with great economy, Mrs. Fountain, as my patience is not infinite.”

Another silence, of the mustering-nerve sort.

“I should like to outfit the footmen in livery.”

He stared at her blankly.

“Livery?”

“Yes.” Her spine had gotten straighter, as if she were a tree preparing to withstand a storm.

“Livery,” he repeated flatly, his tone suggesting that he was giving her one more chance to apologize for a grave insult before he challenged her to a duel.

“Yes.”

He was stunned silent.

“Next you’ll be asking me to supply them with whores and liquor.”

“Well, no,” she said.

“Why on earth do the footmen need to be more decorative than they are? They are merely functional, and barely that. I scarcely even need two of them. This is not the ark. We are not about to embark on a journey requiring a matched set of every kind of servant.”

“Because people who take pride in their work will do a better job for you, and livery will help them take pride in their work.”

His temper began to sizzle. “Thank you, Mrs. Fountain, no one knows this better than I. I was the first mate of the
Fortuna
, and I have employed staff. Besides, God only knows the rewards I’ve received for the things I’ve bought for mist . . .”

. . .
resses
remained unsaid, but it was another syllable that pulsed silently in the morning air.

An infinitesimal nonplussed silence followed.

But the momentum of indignation and zeal for her mission carried Mrs. Fountain forward. “Yes, sir. Which is why I am puzzled you
required
an explanation for the livery.”

His eyebrows shot up in warning.

He had a sense the words had slipped on through the frayed hammock of her control.

Because in the silence that followed, he could almost hear her silent
bloody hell.

“ . . . given that someone of your prestige and rank, and the house, deserves to be served and represented in elegance and style, as do your guests,” she concluded adroitly. “And if you begin by providing the footmen with livery, they’ll think you think they matter to you, and it is very difficult to put a price on loyalty. Though perhaps you know its price. I did not see ‘loyalty’ in your budget.”

He ought to be furious. It was perilously close to insubordination.

But damned if he didn’t rather admire it quite a bit.

And at least it wasn’t dull.

Some trees toppled when continually battered by storms. Others just grew deeper, stronger roots.

He suspected he knew which kind of tree Mrs. Fountain would be.

“Nicely saved, Mrs. Fountain.”

She smiled a tight, demure smile.

He sighed. “Very well. You may decorate the footmen. In fact, your arguments are so persuasive I now request that you decorate the footmen. But I will not release additional funds in order for you to do it, if that’s the reason you’ve come to see me. Consider it a test of your ingenuity.”

He watched her face, which was more expressive than she probably hoped or realized, as realization set in. Rather the way an anvil sets in when you drop it on your foot.

“Thank you, Lord Lavay. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a test of my ingenuity.”

“And God only knows, I shouldn’t be able to sleep nights if you didn’t
enjoy
yourself, Mrs. Fountain,” he said softly.

In truth, he was rather perversely enjoying
himself.

A feeling that lasted all of twenty seconds, eradicated by a single mistimed glance at the table at the unanswered letter from Marie-Helene, and one from his solicitor in Paris that he’d perhaps been dreading most, and one from his grandfather.

He felt his spirits darken as surely as if another of those thunderclouds had rolled through.

She saw the glance and cleared her throat.

“If you’d like to throw something, Lord Lavay, I will send in Mary to sweep up the wreckage. But I feel I must tell you that it would require approximately fifteen minutes of her time, including searching out little shards that may cling to the carpet or draperies, and given her salary, the cost to you would be . . .” She tipped her head back to think. “ . . . a shilling ha’pence.”

He stared at her, astounded. “I see you’ve familiarized yourself with my budget.”

“It is truly a thing of beauty,” she said with every appearance of sincerity.

“And you performed those calculations rather quickly in your head.”

“As I claimed in my original interview, I have a very good brain. I wouldn’t dream of lying, Lord Lavay, as I know how you dislike liars,” she said gravely.

“Oh, I do,” he said just as gravely. “I do.”

While the rest of her face was very solemn and deferential, serene as a nun’s, her eyes gave her away. That shine might very well be caused by the light coming in the window, but as he hadn’t been born yesterday, he recognized wicked humor when he saw it.

He wondered how long he’d tolerate this exchange if those soft eyes weren’t aimed at him.

This was a woman capable of immense charm, he suspected. But it was pinned in as tightly as her hair. She fair crackled with the effort of restraint.

She was, in fact, an altogether pleasing study in contrasts: the dark, dark eyes, the pale, pale complexion, her lips red and rather plush, her brows slim black slashes, like punctuation marks.

She
had
been a schoolteacher, after all.

He saw that her dress had been turned and restitched, skillfully, but the faintest faded line remained at the hem. He noticed those kinds of things. And because he thought he was coming to know his housekeeper, he was certain she would prefer he didn’t notice those kinds of things. She was proud.

“I do like the flowers,” he said, almost gently.

She swiveled toward them, then swiveled back to him, flushed and pleased.

“I’m so very glad, my lord. I must point out you haven’t room in your most excellent budget for flowers. Since doubtless fresh flowers cannot be obtained when one is at sea on a ship, you did not consider them. Although, I feel I must point out we are not precisely at sea here.”

He was perilously close to being amused by how
ingeniously
Mrs. Fountain was conducting what amounted to an epic power struggle in the most passive manner conceivable. She was, in fact, attempting to take the piss out of him without him realizing it.

Except that he was fairly certain she was aware that he did realize it.

“So many things you feel the need to point out, Mrs. Fountain,” he murmured.

She looked uncertain at that.

“How
were
they obtained?” He was genuinely curious.

“Ingenuity, my Lord.”

“Is that so, Fountain? You must be positively savoring your new position, then. So many opportunities for ingenuity.”

He fancied he could hear the wheels of her very good brain rotating in search of just the right response.

“My position is everything I’d hoped for,” she said bravely at last.

And this seemed sincere, too.

He sighed. The familiar ache had begun to sink its claws into him, and he sucked in a sharp breath. He glanced at the brandy snifter. One glass, surely? Even though it was only midday.

He didn’t want to become that sort of man.

“Very well. Obtain livery for the footmen. And if that is all, Mrs. Fountain, you are dismissed.”

“Thank you, Lord Lavay.”

He watched her go. The swift way she moved and the line of her—slim shoulders, slender waist swelling into what appeared to be a neat little arse, a sliver of pale skin between what he suspected was a turned lace collar of her dove-colored dress—reminded him of a little songbird.

She stopped and pivoted, as if she knew his gaze had been transferred momentarily to her derriere.

He lifted his eyes swiftly but unapologetically.

For a confusing instant their gazes met and held.

She cleared her throat. “If you will allow me to ask—”

He sighed gustily. “It seems she has more questions,” he said with theatrically taxed patience and outward flung hands to the room at large.

“Do forgive me,” she persisted, apparently inured to theatrics. She was nothing if not persistent. “The footmen, Lord Lavay . . . what color would you like to dress them in?”

“You’d like me to choose a
color
?”

“Color
s
,” she revised. “Plural.”

He raised a hand irritably, prepared to wave her away dismissively.

His hand froze midair when his eye caught the bouquet of lavender and hyacinth.

It was just. . . . these were the things . . . hothouse flowers, the intricate turns in the legs of his chairs, the heft of a beautifully crafted silver spoon. Ormolu and Gonçalo alves, marble from Carrera, Sevres porcelain, Savonnerie carpets. Grace notes, emblematic of privilege and a way of life that stretched back centuries. He would be damned if everything that made him who he was, everything his ancestors had fought and died for, would be lost, even though it had been violently taken from them. He would not be the one to allow it to vanish.

And why quibble, when he always knew what he wanted?

“Blue, Mrs. Fountain. A rich, deep shade. Picture a clear midnight sky over Pennyroyal Green. Perhaps silver trim, for a bit of dash.”

They were the colors of his family livery at Les Pierres d’Argent.

He said this almost impatiently. As if this should have been the most obvious thing in the world.

“Blue and silver . . . it will be like stars in a midnight sky.” She almost breathed it. As if she was enchanted by this vision.

He rather liked how the notion lit up her face and made her eyes dreamy. Imagine a woman who was easy to please.

“If you wish,” he said shortly.

The light in her face faded when realization set in. “It’s a very particular color, my lord.”

“I’m a very particular man. That will be all, Mrs. Fountain.”

T
HAT NI
GHT,
E
LISE
plopped down on the bed next to Jack and looped her arm around him.

“What did you learn today at the vicarage, Jack?”

“When I hang from the bell rope, nothing happens. I don’t weigh enough. So Liam has to hold onto my legs while I’m up there to get the bell to go. And then when he did hang on my legs, my trousers came off.”

Like every little boy his age, his trousers were usually buttoned to his jacket, so she would probably need to do some buttonhole repairs.

“Well, I suppose there’s a physics lesson somewhere in there,” she said dubiously, imagining with some alarm the two of them swinging from the bell like a huge clapper.

“I got my trousers back on.”

“Clearly.”

“You have to kick out to get the bell to swing,” he said authoritatively. “The vicar said something about force and mass and vocity. I need to grow faster, Mama,” he said plaintively. “Oh, and I learned Greek, a lot of prefixes.
Ab-
means ‘against.’
Pre-
means ‘before.’ ”

The vicar had gone to Oxford and had had a rigorous classical education. It was evident that he wasn’t going to spare his students the same thing.

“Well, that’s all well and good then, if you learned something as useful as that today. And it will be, my love, mark my words. And the word is ‘velocity,’ Jack.”

“Velocity,” he repeated dutifully. “There were seed cakes with lunch from Mrs. Sylvaine. This was ‘’pre’’ the bell ringing. I was ‘ab’ the marmalade, though. Henny made the seed cakes. I like Henny, she’s funny.”