Once Upon a Scandal

Avon, Massachusetts

Copyright © 2015 by Julianne LeMense Crispin.
All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

Crimson Romance

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.crimsonromance.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-8664-0

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8664-4

eISBN 10: 1-4405-8665-9

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8665-1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Cover art © 123RF/jovannig; iStockphoto.com/captblack76.

After the debut of my first novel,
Once Upon A Wager
, I was surprised and thrilled to receive letters asking for Jane’s story. And Benjamin’s story. Or best of all, a story that found the two of them together. So, to everyone who wrote, emailed, sent a note through social media, or left a message on my web page, thank you so much! This book is for you.

This is one of those books where you have to suspend your disbelief and hop along for the ride, hopefully an enjoyable one! Thanks to my wonderful editor, Julie Sturgeon, for not laughing out loud when I first proposed the plot. To my husband and family for suffering through late nights, cranky moods, and a complete absence of home cooking as my deadline approached. To my son Benjamin, who wanted to be in my first book but was a bit dismayed to find himself the hero in my second (since kissing was bound to happen). To Sophia Grimsley, for letting Aunt Sophia show up again. To Jessica Oakley, because she liked
Wager
so much, I wanted to put her in
Scandal
. And lastly, to Miss Violet Coates, who doesn’t get to read this for another decade at least.

A side note … As with
Once Upon A Wager
, the majority of the secondary characters and settings in
Once Upon A Scandal
are drawn from Regency-era history. The people, of course, have passed, but many of the settings remain.

Next time I’m in England, I’m going to Painshill Park!

• Title Page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• Acknowledgments
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Chapter 33
  
• Chapter 34
  
• Chapter 35
  
• More from This Author
  
• Also Available
  

London, England

June 16, 1813

One young lady, going astray, will subject her relations to such discredit and distress as the united good conduct of all her brothers and sisters.

—
Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women

It was a miserable day by anyone’s measure, unseasonably cold, with rain just beginning to fall and thunder rolling across a darkening sky. As Jane burrowed deeper into her black, woolen cloak, a sigh escaping the tight line of her lips, she decided the weather was well-suited to the occasion. That was her father, after all, boxed up in a casket and being lowered into the ground. At least her veil hid the fact that she wasn’t crying.

Not that anyone was there to notice. Despite having passed only two days ago, Lord Reginald Fitzsimmons had been dead to the world these past nine months, an outcast in Society, a scandal. The wages of sin and all of that. When you maligned a war hero and tried to compromise the girl he loved in the process, you were not well-liked. And his passing had made him all the more shameful. He’d died in a pool of his own blood outside London’s most hardened gaming hell, either murdered for his winnings or set upon for sport. The Bow Street Runners hadn’t even mounted an investigation. As if she’d needed a reminder he would not be missed.

Nor would she be, if some unfortunate accident happened to befall her. She was all but invisible now, just like her father, a pariah in the Society that had once prized her. Such a paragon she’d been, no less than the founding patron of The Ladies Auxiliary to Improve Manners and Morals. How amusing to remember a time when friends did not cross to the opposite side of a street as she neared.

She shook her head to clear it. She was not only being maudlin, but also unfair. Not all of them crossed the street. Nor was she entirely alone. Sir Aldus Rempley, Father’s only remaining friend, was here at the graveyard too, a small act of kindness, even if he was a good distance away. Beside another grave entirely, as a matter of fact. Far enough away that no one would see him offering his last respects to a rogue.

Just yesterday, he’d sent a note promising to call, along with a bank draft to settle the burial’s expenses. She should have refused it, of course, but she could no longer afford her pride. The reading of Father’s will had made that abundantly clear. He’d gambled away almost everything in the long, final months of his disgrace.

A cough sounded, recalling her attention to the two men waiting with shovels nearby, the grave diggers, clearly restless. Waiting for the minister to finish, so they too could finish, covering Father’s casket with the dirt piled beside it. Returning him to the earth, and ultimately to dust.

She wished the cleric would get on with it. What was the point of praying for absolution when there was none to be had? Besides, the rain was starting to come down in earnest now, pooling in the dirt, sending streams of muddy water into the pit where Father lay. She could feel it seeping into her cloak and through the leather of her serviceable boots. How she envied the enclosed carriage that had just stopped at the edge of the graveyard. The walk home would be interminable. Perhaps the loneliest she’d ever undertaken.

With a dull sense of detachment, she watched as a postilion jumped down, umbrella in hand, to open the carriage door. A man with a multi-tiered greatcoat stepped out, though she couldn’t make out his features at this distance. He took the umbrella and turned towards her, coming forward with long strides, moving like a shadow through the descending darkness.

Was he here for someone else? She looked behind her, but even Sir Aldus had departed now. Turning back, she lifted her veil, the better to see the stranger’s approach, and her breath caught. How quickly he had come upon her. Benjamin Alden, the Viscount Marworth. It made no sense he was here.

“I am sorry I did not arrive for the start, Miss Fitzsimmons,” he said, his voice hushed. “Please accept my sympathies for your loss.”

For a moment, she didn’t know what to say. He had come here, in the pouring rain, to pay his respects when they were only acquaintances. She ought to be touched—moved even—but instead, she was suspicious. Because Marworth was one of those other people, the kind who’d been born under a perfect alignment of the stars. Parties in Society weren’t counted a success until his arrival. When he wore a new style of waistcoat, men raced to their tailors for the same. And he was almost painfully handsome—blond, with the bluest of eyes and classically sculpted, symmetrical features. The man moved seamlessly through life, encased in a nimbus of perfection. Even the minister had stopped his droning, struck no doubt by the appearance of a seemingly celestial being.

“Thank you for coming, Lord Marworth, and for the protection of your umbrella. A moment later, and I would have turned my back on this whole sorry affair and swum my way home.”

And what incredibly poor taste she had, to jest at a funeral, to disrespect the dead. She felt so far away now from the woman she’d been just nine months ago. Was that why he’d come? For a moment’s amusement, to see a lesser being laid low? To marvel at the depths to which mere mortals could plummet? Didn’t he have a party to attend or an innocent to seduce? According to rumor, he excelled at that, too.

But he merely gave her a sad smile and said, “I am sure it is the rain that has kept others away.”

“I am sure it is not, but how polite you are to say so.”

The minister cleared his throat then, apparently freed from his Marworth-induced bemusement. “May he rest in peace,” he said, before ducking away and heading for cover. Determined to move quickly, the gravediggers punched their shovels into the dirt—thick mud now—slopping it into the pit, her father’s final resting place, where she doubted there was any peace to be had. Marworth clasped her gently by the elbow, perhaps to move her from the sad scene and towards the carriage.

“You needn’t witness this.”

But she would not move till it was done. She stood firm until he released his hold. Then she reached down and took a fistful of the mud, and then another, throwing them onto the simple pine casket, which was rapidly vanishing beneath the muck. “My father left me alone to clean up the mess he made of things,” she said, hearing the bitterness in her voice. “This is as good a place as any to start.”

• • •

Much later, Jane was once more in the home that was no longer to be hers. Gerard, her cousin and Father’s heir, had sent a note that his family would be moving into the house on Curzon Street by the month’s end. Supposedly, little Violet, his daughter, loved the view from Jane’s bedroom window, with its small, enclosed garden filled with roses. So, quite simply, she would have it, along with the bedroom Jane had slept in since she was a child. They would tolerate her as a guest, but not for long. It was the way of things. No matter how unfair.

The house felt so empty now. When they’d been consigned here together, Father had at least been company, despite his misery. She was eternally grateful to Thompson, their longstanding butler, for staying on despite the fact that his wages were overdue. And also to his wife, Bess, who served as cook and housekeeper. Jane was struck again by the irony of it. She was gently bred, of course, but as poor now—if not poorer—than the pair of them. If anything, she should be the one cooking and cleaning. But it was not the way of things, so they would not hear of it.

Really, there was so little she was suited for now. She was more than well-enough educated to be a governess, but who in Society would hire her? And while she could probably give a lecture on Britain’s parliamentary system, having learned it at her father’s knee, she had no other discernible talents. She painted watercolors insipidly, desecrated any tune, and couldn’t stitch a straight line, despite her best efforts. She’d never be hired at a dressmaker’s, that much was certain. The one thing she excelled at was being a lady in the strictest sense. But that did not feed you. And how she loathed her self-pity, even though she couldn’t seem to suppress it.

All of a sudden, however, a solution presented itself. Thompson entered Father’s study and announced a visitor. Sir Aldus Rempley.

Willing away the indigestion the announcement prompted, she took several calming breaths. Because there could only be one reason he was here. She’d turned down his previous proposals of marriage, but she no longer had the luxury of choice. And really, she should be thankful for his offer. He’d come to rescue her from a fate unknown—and likely terrifying.