Simply Scandalous (3 page)

He blushed. "Don't be silly!"

"Not jealous husbands, not footpads," she murmured thoughtfully. "Not gambling debts. What then,
hired assassins?" She laughed briefly at the absurdity of the idea.

"Well... "

"Hired assassins! "Juliet cried. "Are you mad? Why
would you say such a thing?"

"I didn't say it, in point of fact," he said, beginning
to babble. "In point of fact, I haven't said anything.
You can't say I've told you anything because I haven't."

Juliet jumped to her feet. "And yet I heard you quite
distinctly! Someone has hired assassins to kill my
brother. And you say you know who is responsible? His
assailants must have said something when they were
beating him. What did they say?"

"Something about the broken arm being a gift
from Lord Swale," Stacy mumbled unhappily.

"Swale? I've never heard of him," she declared,
tossing her head. "He must be new. Ring for Parker,
will you?"

Since at that moment the butler was listening at the
door, he was not long in arriving.

"Parker, go and fetch the Peerage from her ladyship's sewing basket," the young lady commanded
him. "I want the history, if any, of a creature called
Lord Swale."

Parker was astonished. Obviously, Miss Juliet was not
thinking clearly. Fortunately, Mr. Calverstock spared
him the embarrassment of having to tell the young
lady that butlers do not fiddle with ladies' sewing
baskets.

"It's a courtesy title," Stacy explained. "Swale's
father is the Duke of Auckland."

Juliet gasped. "The Duke of Auckland! I danced
with his Grace twice last week at Almack's! An amiable
old gentleman. Indeed, I was terrified he might make
me an offer. Some older gentlemen do seem to prefer
the plainer girls, you know, especially when they are
in the market for a second wife. Well, perhaps they
don't prefer us exactly." She smiled ruefully. "Perhaps it's just that they have learned not to trust the really
pretty ones!"

Stacy, who ought to have been accustomed to such
frank talk from his best friend's sister, found himself
blushing. "My dear Juliet," he stammered, "you are
anything but plain."

"Thank you for your gallantry," she answered with
a faint smile. "But I know very well I am not a beauty
like your cousin Serena. All the same, I expect I shall
manage to find a nice, quiet, respectable husband.
Don't look so shocked," she teased him. "Someday,
someone will make me an offer, despite what you
might think, Mister Calverstock. I just hope it won't
be his Grace of Auckland-I absolutely refuse to
marry a man old enough to be my grandfather! I must
say," she continued in a more serious tone, "I can
scarcely believe that Auckland has a son capable of
such outrageous conduct! Why on earth would Lord
Swale want to harm my brother? Has ... has Cary
done something terrible to Lord Swale?"

Stacy snorted. "On the contrary, Cary has honored his lordship too much by challenging him to a
curricle race. Cary's chestnuts against his lordship's
grays. If it is any consolation, I ... I don't think Swale
wanted Cary dead."

`Just out of commission for the race," she retorted.
"The shameful coward! Someone should teach this
Swale a valuable lesson about good Ton and bad Ton."

"I intend to," said Stacy resolutely, inspired by her
flashing eyes and heightened color. "Tomorrow ..."
A glance at the pretty ormolu clock on the mantel
forced him to correct himself. "In a few hours, I shall
ride down to the yard of the Black Lantern Inn, where
everyone will be assembled for the race at the ungodly
hour of seven o'clock. My dear Julie, I mean to call him
out! "

"Call him out?" she scoffed. "Is that the best revenge
your feeble brain can invent? What good is a duel to
us? There will always be people who say that my brother
was the coward for forfeiting the race. And if you were
to shoot his lordship, you would have to leave England
forever, and I would miss you, Stacy." She regarded
him intently, her eyes dark with feeling.

"Would you-would you really miss me, Julie?" he
cried, the pain in his nose forgotten.

"Of course," she said briskly. "Quite awfully. What
a pity you never learned to drive properly! If you
had, you might take Cary's place and beat Lord Swale
at his own game."

"I'm afraid I would only disgrace myself," he said
ruefully. "Worse yet, I might damage your brother's
chestnuts. Then my crime would throw Swale's perfidy quite into the shade!"

Juliet smiled thinly. "Cary will owe a great deal of
money, I suppose. What was the wager?"

"Now, look here," he protested. "Leave all that
to me."

"How much?" she said, tapping her foot. "How
much, or I swear I shall never call you Stacy again!"

"Five hundred pounds," he said weakly.

"Good Lord!" she whispered, horrified. "Why are
men such fools? For five hundred pounds, I could
have a gown encrusted with diamonds and pearls. Encrusted, I tell you!"

"I should be happy to pay Lord Swale," he said
uncertainly.

"Indeed?" she murmured. "You must have a stomach lined with copper! The thought of paying him a
farthing, let alone a monkey, makes me positively ill.
Still, we must pay him his money, the nasty cheat." She
stood up abruptly, and he correctly interpreted this
as his dismissal. She extended her hand to him, and, to her surprise, he bent over it and kissed it. They had
always shaken hands before.

"I think you are quite fuddled, Stacy," she remarked
as she walked with him as far as the stairs. "Go home
and go to bed. And you needn't trouble yourself
about the money. I'll send Bernard 'round with it. The
Black Lantern Inn, you said? Seven o'clock? You can
see yourself out, can't you?"

Before he could answer, she was already dashing
toward the staircase that led to the third story of the
town house, where the bedrooms were located, leaving him to make his way down to the front door on
his own. "Good night, Julie," he called after her.

"'Night, Stacy," she called back carelessly, and Stacy
realized that, whatever had happened to his own
heart that night, her feelings for him remained
unchanged.

When the surgeon arrived shortly thereafter, he
found that not only was Cary's arm broken in two
places, but several ribs were cracked as well. "Mr.
Calverstock thinks they weren't trying to kill him,
Mr. Norton," Juliet told him, blinking back tears.
"What do you think?"

"I've seen better looking corpses, Miss Wayborn,"
the surgeon replied grimly. "But Mr. Cary won't give
in so easily," he added with an encouraging smile.
"He's a Wayborn, isn't he?"

When he had gone, Juliet dried her eyes and instructed the footman to ask Bernard, Gary's groom,
to come up from the stables.

Tom was shocked. "Oh, he wouldn't come into
the house, Miss Julie! He'd have to be dragged in
chains, and even then, he'd say it wasn't right for a
stableboy to set foot in the house."

"Nonsense," said Juliet. "Tell Bernard if he doesn't come to me at once, I shall be forced to go down to
the stables in my nightgown and bare feet."

This threat was enough to bring the reluctant
groom not only into the house, but up the stairs to
Miss Juliet's bedroom, where the young lady showed
him the battered body of his unconscious master.

"Good God almighty!" the Irishman breathed,
crossing himself. "I never thought I'd live to see the
young master lying so still and the breath of him rattling like the wind through the trees."

"Listen to me carefully, Bernard," she said. "A foul
insect called Lord Swale has done this to Master
Cary."

"You don't say, Miss-and he a lordship!"

"There was to have been a curricle race tomorrow. Our chestnuts, Bernard, against his lordship's
grays. Swale must have known he'd never beat my
brother honorably, so he hired two lowborn curs to
cripple him the night before the race. Now, would you
say that Lord Swale is a coward?"

"I would so, Miss Julie!" said Bernard stoutly. "And
a damned dirty coward besides, begging your pardon
for the strong language."

"Bernard," she said, her eyes gleaming, "I am going
to teach this dishonorable wretch a lesson about the
Wayborns that he will never forget. And you're going
to help me."

"Well now, Miss Julie," he said, scratching his shiny
bald head. "Sure I'd not advise a wee lass to be going
up against the likes of himself, and he the devil's
own limb."

"I don't care if he's Satan's hound," responded
the wee lass. "He's grist for the mill now, and I'm the
miller."

"More grist to his lordship than you'd think, Miss
Julie," said Bernard coolly. "Seven foot high, if he's an inch, with a blacker heart than Henry Tudor.
Sure, it's your own darling neck he'd be after breaking, Miss Julie, and never a pang of conscience."

`It's very simple, Bernard," Juliet said firmly, cutting
through this Gaelic digression. "If Cary doesn't show
up for that race tomorrow, he'll be the laughingstock of London."

Bernard sighed. "Faith, Miss Julie. Sure, it's only a

"Only a race! Bernard Corcoran, I want you to
look at your master lying there bandaged from head
to toe, and then tell me it's only a race! He could very
well be crippled for life. He could die!" She shook her
head vehemently. "No, Bernard. It was only a race, but
now it's a matter of honor. I may be a wee lass, but I'm
still a Wayborn; Lord Swale will rue the day he ever
wronged my family."

Bernard accepted the inevitability of trouble and
sorrow with a shrug. "Right you are, Miss Julie. But
what's to be done, short of murder?"

"There's only one thing that can be done, Bernard.
Cary has to show up for the race tomorrow, and he
has to win."

"Are you wise, Miss?" Bernard spluttered. "Begging your pardon, Miss Julie, but could it be that
you've taken leave of your senses? Sure, your brother's
half-killed with a broken arm."

"I shall have to go in his place, of course. Thank you
for pointing that out to me."

"Oh, now, Miss," Bernard protested. "His lordship
the Marquess would never consent to such a thing as
that, racing against a female. He's not what you'd call
modern."

"So,"Juliet said, smiling calmly, "you would advise me
not to tell his lordship that I'm a mere female? I should let him think that I'm Master Cary? What an excellent
plan. Bernard, you are an absolute mastermind."

Bernard guffawed. "Begging your pardon, Miss
Julie, but there's no mistaking your shape for the
young

"They'll think I'm Gary indeed," said Juliet reasonably, "if I have his hat, his coat, his spectacles, his
curricle, his horses ... and his groom."

"Oh, now, Miss," Bernard said softly, his eyes glowing, "that'd be a raking grand humiliation for his lordship, and no mistake. Though to be honest, I don't
know how you'd beat them grays atall."

Juliet stiffened. "I drive just as well as Cary. Indeed,
I've beaten him dozens of times when we've raced
in the country, thank you very much, Mr. Bernard
Corcoran."

Bernard shook his head regretfully. "Aye, but-"

"And Lord Swale obviously knew himself outmatched," she interrupted him to point out. "Why else
would he hire mercenaries to break Cary's arm? I will
win that race tomorrow, Bernard. I will win it because I have to. I will win it because the honor of the
Wayborns is at stake. I shall be like one of the Furies
of ancient myth."

"You'd not be content to roast him alive with your
eyes then?" he asked hopefully.

"No, Bernard, I wouldn't," she said firmly. "Like all
swine, his lordship deserves to be roasted properlyin a fire with the sharp end of a skewer up his backside!" She cleared her throat delicately. "Begging
your pardon for the strong language," she added
without a hint of contrition.

Geoffrey Ambler, Marquess of Swale, could not
help his looks, but even the Honorable Mr. Alexander Devize, Swale's closest friend, was forced to admit
that the Duke of Auckland's heir had done much to
deserve his reputation as a brutish lout. His lordship's palate could discern no appreciable difference between claret and Madeira; he stubbornly
maintained in the face of all evidence to the contrary
that Shakespeare was the horse that had won the
Lincolnshire in the year '03; and he had the uncanny habit of knocking flat anyone who irritated him,
though to his credit, his abuse had never yet extended to servants, animals, children, or females.

While admitting to his friend's many faults, Mr.
Devize steadfastly maintained that deep inside the
rough exterior of this undisciplined brawler, beat
the heart of an English gentleman. True, Swale was
ignorant, obstinate, and completely unable to control
his fiery temper, but this was entirely due to the fact
that his lordship had been cursed at birth with a
head of bright red hair. As a child, his natural cheerfulness and easy generosity of spirit had been crushed by constant teasing, and almost through no fault of
his own, the young Marquess had become that old
cliche, a redhead with a foul temper.