Lady Scandal (18 page)

"Enough of what?
Enough passion?
Enough
honestly?
How can you have enough of those qualities in life?" He
stepped closer and she glanced around them, wishing they had to
move back into the dance or that someone would rescue her.
But he
did not touch her.
He stood before her, so close that it appeared
as if they were in deep, intimate conversation.
"When I first saw
you, do you know what I thought?"

She should not ask.
But curiosity stirred.
She lifted her chin.
"What—that I should be an easy conquest for
you?"

"I thought, there is a beautiful woman dying
of boredom."

The absurdity of it struck her.
Absurd, and
accurate.
She laughed.
Others glanced at her and she put her
fingertips to her lips to stifle her amusement.

His eyes smiled down at her.
"How long has
it been since you laughed?"

She looked away.

"It's been too long, has it not?"

Desperate now, she glanced at him.
"Please.
I am a married woman.
I cannot—"

"I don't care." He took her hand again.
Tugging gently, he led her from the dance.

She let him.
He had made her laugh and she
wondered if he might do so again.
Nervous, trying desperately to
hold onto the appearance of composure, she followed him, guilt
making her glance behind them even as he pulled her along.
What
would she do if he took her into the garden?

"I...I...." she said, stumbling for a
reasonable argument to make to him.

He smiled at her.
"Finding more
excuses?"

"I wish I could.
You are outrageous!"

"So my relatives tell me."

Instead of taking her to the garden, he
simply pulled her into a curtained alcove.
One step, one tug on her
hand and he had behind the blue velvet curtain.
The fabric screened
them, but panic tightened in her chest.
Anyone could find them just
by parting the thick fabric.
Footsteps and voices drifted past on
the other side.

She looked up at him, heart thudding and
breath shallow.
He could not possibly think of kissing her here.
Could he?

He stood before her, slowly pulling white
gloves from his long, elegant fingers.
He had wide palms and strong
wrists.
With one bare fingertip, he traced the line of her throat,
down through the center hollow and lower, to between her breasts.
Heat pooled inside her.
Why had she not worn a necklace, or some
lace, or something to stop this?

Please do not stop.

Closing her eyes, she let her head tilt
back.
Longing caught in her throat.
Had anyone ever touched her
so?

Voices drifted past the
curtain and her eyes sprang open.
This is
mad!
I cannot do this.
I do not even know him!
Her senses returned and she started to protest, but she made
the mistake of looking into his eyes.

"
Ma biche,
" he whispered to her.
"My
doe, I did warn you."

"But you cannot—not here.
What if—"

His lips stopped her words.
The hunger in
his open mouth loosed raw desire from her.
She pulled in a breath.
His arms came around her.
He pressed her against the wall, his
mouth hot on hers.
She gave to him—gave because she could do
nothing else.
Because she wanted nothing else.
Heat boiled inside
her, melting thoughts and resistance.

Madness.

A part of her mind screamed the word.

She arched to him, and her
hands clawed into his back.
Sweet, sweet
madness.

His mouth moved from her lips to her throat
and she struggled to save herself—to save them both.

"You cannot...please." Was that last a plea
for him to stop or to go on?
"This is mad!"

He pulled away, his breathing ragged, his
eyes dark beyond anything she had ever seen, and he took her face
between his hands.
"I can.
To say I cannot is to say my heart
cannot beat.
Come—be mad with me!
Or do you want to die knowing
that you turned love away?"

Alexandria had put her arms around him years
ago.
She had kissed him when they first meet.

She did so again now, as she had before.
Desperate for him.
Her body stretched to breaking with need.
She
had, she realized now, never really believed such love possible.
Yet, as his arms wrapped tight around her in the swirling, loud
fair—so unlike that sedate ballroom of a decade ago, and yet still
an echo of it—she knew she had found something rare with him.
He
had fallen in love with her at once.
Had she ever said those words
to him?
Could she now?
Did she dare?

His clever mouth and tongue teased away such
thoughts, leaving her with only sensations.
Fever swept into her,
and the sweet ache for him.
She gave to the pleasure of it with a
soft moan and his arms tightened around her, dragging her against
him, pressing her hips to his, crushing her breasts to the broad,
hard flatness of his chest.

Diana's bright voice, her French loud,
interrupted.
"Is the play not due to start soon?"

Paxten pulled away with an abrupt start, and
it took Alexandria a moment to steady herself.
She stared at Diana.
The girl stood next to them, a forced smile in place.
Alexandria
glanced at Paxten.
He seemed amused, and he looked not the least
dazed by that kiss.

Putting a hand to her hair, she remembered
that she had worn it down already down.
She had no pinned curls to
tidy this time, unlike so many years earlier.
Thoughts and feelings
tumbled as if tossed loose into the ocean.
She glanced at Paxten
again.
The man could turn her inside out it seemed.

Is that what he wanted from her?
To put her
under his spell again.
Did he love her still?
Or was she now merely
an amusement?
Her head spun and she knew she could not make sense
of anything.
But still she wondered: Was he still the man who had
fallen so instantly, so passionately in love with her?

Only how could he be after she had hurt him
so deeply?

One thing remained clear to her.
She would
be a fool not to try now for that love he had once offered her.

But what if he had really had changed from
the man she had once loved into someone far different—what would
that mean for them trying again for something between them?

She had no time to think for Diana dragged
them towards the other end of the square where a makeshift stage
had been raised.
Still dazed, Alexandria allowed it.

They sat on the ground.
Paxten brought them
wine and left to return in a few moments with apple tartlets and
thick slices of soft cheese.

The food distracted Diana enough that Paxten
had time to seat himself next to her aunt.
Diana looked up to see
him leaning close to her aunt, saying something—perhaps translating
the play that had started.

Color bloomed in her aunt's cheeks, and her
eyes sparkled.
Diana frowned even more.

It would not do.
No, it simply would not do
for this Mr.
Marsett to seduce her aunt in this shameless
fashion—he had kissed Aunt Alexandria again, and had said not a
word as to marriage!
That alone showed him to be a rogue.
Even
worse, he had been involved with another woman only a few days ago.
And Aunt Alexandria seemed not even to recall such a thing.

Of course, that might be due to those
kisses.

Diana scowled at him.

The play—a farce about the usual
misunderstanding between lovers—did not improve her mood.
Her aunt
laughed aloud at several parts—due, Diana suspected, to Mr.
Marsett
whispering a translation in her ear.
Certainly he whispered
something that had her aunt smiling at him as if infatuated.

She thought about pretending illness so that
they must return to the inn.
Only she had a disgustingly healthy
constitution.
And her aunt knew it.
She tried yawning and
pretending to be sleepy, but her aunt seemed so caught up with Mr.
Marsett that she did not even notice.

Alarm tightened inside Diana.

She knew the signs—she had seen them often
enough in her sister, Henrietta, who wore her heart for all to see.
But she had thought her aunt past the years of folly—and beyond the
age of losing her heart.

It must be a passing infatuation.
Or the
wine and the gaiety around them.
Yes, that would account for
it.

Forehead bunched tight, she glanced at Mr.
Marsett, at his strong profile bent close to her aunt again.
If
only she had the reassurance that he would act a gentleman, that he
had only honorable intentions.
But she had caught him now twice
with his arms around her aunt, and he had not said a word as to
what he intended.
What gentleman acted so callously?
None she
knew.

And there had been that awful scene she had
witnessed between them, where they had sliced at each other like
two duelist with sabers.
Bring them into and adventure was one
thing, but she could not allow Mr.
Marsett to drag her aunt into
heartache.

Her determination to do something deepened.
And she saw her chance.

The flickering torchlight that lit the stage
pulled a flashed gold from those who stood at the edge of the
square, watching.
Turning to her aunt and Mr.
Marsett, Diana
whispered, her tone urgent, "Soldiers!"

Paxten stiffened and his hand instinctively
moved to grip Alexandria's.
He glanced in the direction that Diana
had indicated and saw nothing more than men standing in shadows
near the stage.
Then the first act ended, applause rang out, and
one man stepped from the shadows.

Gold braid glinted from a uniform.
Paxten
let out his breath.

"They have found us?" Alexandria asked, her
voice barely audible over the clapping and whistles of the
crowd.

He shook his head, the tension easing from
him.
"No.
He's infantry, by the looks of him.
Not cavalry."

This did not seem to reassure Alexandria.
"Perhaps we ought to retire?" she suggested.

Paxten glanced at her.
He stood to help her
and Diana to their feet, and he saw them back to the inn, finding
ways to slip easily thought the crowd.
But on the steps to the inn,
he paused and leaned closer to Alexandria.
"Go on up.
And you need
not wait for me."

He had started to turn away, but she reached
out and caught his sleeve.
"Just what do you intend?"

He smiled at her and
brushed a finger across her cheek.
"Only to have a drink or two.
Do
not worry,
ma chére
."

Alexandria knew exactly what he intended and
she did not let go of his sleeve.
"We spent the last few nights
sleeping on the ground and the days driving in a donkey cart, and
now you plan to go off drinking with the very men we have been
avoiding!
Have you lost your reason?"

"Yes, years ago.
And if I stand those brave
fellows to enough ale, they will lose theirs and I might find out
where they are posted and if there is any such thing as a port in
the north of France that is not overrun by too many uniforms."

"This is not—"

"Woman, you argue too much!" With a smile,
he pulled from her grip.
He spun her so that she faced the inn and
his hand slapped across her rump.
She whirled around again, only to
find that he had disappeared into the crowed.

For a moment, she thought of going after
him.
But she would not abandon Diana—nor could she trust that her
niece might not follow.

Shaking her head, she took Diana's arm and
started into the inn and up the stairs.

"I suppose one must admire his bravery, but
he is rather reckless," Diana said when they stepped into their
room.

Alexandria moved to strike
a flint and light the single oil lamp.
When she had the wick
burning, she turned it low and said, "
Reckless
rather implies that he gives
no thought to his actions.
I suspect he calculates them, actually,
and then settles on the most dangerous course possible."

Diana sat down on the bed and picked at the
partly embroidered shawl.
"You sound as if you admire that trait—a
little at least."

With a sigh, Alexandria sat on the bed next
to her niece.
"Admire?
Yes, I suppose I do.
There is something
attractive about the notion of taking life in bold strides."

"But you do that."

Alexandria shook her head.
"No, I am someone
who thinks and calculates, and then settles for prudence.
Which has
its own satisfaction, I suppose.
But perhaps it can become too
comfortable to take the safe route."

"Well, do not start to tell me that you are
dull!
Father is dull, but not you."

Alexandria smiled at her.
"Thank you, dear.
But I am afraid I am, and I come by it rightly.
Do you know, I do
not think your grandmother, my mother, ever once raised her voice
in her life.
Never.
She was the most terrifyingly perfect lady.
She
used to call her husband—your grandfather—Mr.
Edgcot.
Always.
I
never saw them so much as touch each other.
And I must have been
nine before I realized my father actually had a first name—some
relative explained to me then that I had been named for him and
that his Christian name was Alexander."

"Is that why you—why you allow Mr.
Marsett
to kiss you?
Because you want to be bold?"

Alexandria shook her head.
"No.
If I were to
be as bold as I'd like, I would—" she broke off, and smiled.
"It is
not that.
It is just that, well...it is just that with him I cannot
seem to help myself.
He swept into my life once.
And though I did
my best to avoid him, fleeing to the countryside even, he still
came after me.
However, looking back upon it, I do not think I made
it that difficult for him."

Curling her feet up on the bed, Diana asked,
"And then what did he do—after he found you?"

"Oh, he courted me.
As if I was a girl and
he...well, I had never known anything like it.
Or like him.
It did
not matter to him that I had a husband, or a family, or that his
own family disapproved of him.
He was like...like facing a force of
nature.
One might resist, but eventually one had no choice.
And I
do not think I really wanted one."

She glanced at her niece.
"He insisted when
we met again, that second time in the countryside, that we must
start over.
So he wanted us to live the day backwards." She smiled
at the memory.
They had started again with a kiss, and dancing, and
then dinner, and so on.
She stared at the steady flame of the lamp,
but her vision focused on other memories.
"And there was the time
that he insisted we finish our croquet game in the rain.
And the
time he spent hours collecting wildflowers for me, only to have his
horse eat them as he stood with his bouquet behind his back.
And
then that time in the upstairs picture gallery when he—"

She broke off that recollection, for she
could hardly recount to her niece the full story of just what had
gone on in the upstairs picture gallery.

"He started to call me his Lady Scandal, and
he teased that knowing him would teach me how to be as boldly
scandalous as he.
And then I heard that name floating about London
when I returned.
I have no idea how gossips seem to know
everything, servants talk perhaps, but they do find out."

"You care for him, don't you?" Diana
asked.

Alexandria drew in a breath, then she
nodded.
"More so than I have for any man I have known."

"Do you love him?
Does he love you still?
Will you marry him?"

Rising, Alexandria kissed her niece on the
forehead.
She wished she had the answers.
Instead, she had a
hundred more questions herself.
However, she smiled at her niece.
"Dear one, I have learned one thing over the years, and that is
that questions answer themselves if given enough time.
For now, we
have a soft bed and I say we make ourselves comfortable and leave
Mr.
Marsett to find his own way back."