Simply Scandalous (6 page)

Like his brother and sister, Sir Benedict had been
born with patrician features; rich, dark hair; and
wide gray eyes, but as a boy, he had been maimed by
one of his father's mastiffs. His lean face bore terrible scars, and the tendons of his right arm had been
so badly damaged that the doctors had been forced
to amputate just above the elbow. He had never married, and, since the death of his father, his sole purpose had been the restoration of the Wayborn family
seat, which lay just ten miles west of London in Surrey.
Considerably older than his siblings, Sir Benedict
was, in fact, a half-brother to Cary and Juliet, and to
that lively pair, he seemed more of an uncle than a
brother. He had no taste for fashionable Society,
and, therefore, he came to London only to attend Parliament, of which he was a Member.

When her half-brother arrived in Park Lane the next
morning, Juliet reluctantly left Cary with his nurse and
went down to meet him, confident that, once Benedict knew all, he would take her part. Certainly, Benedict would scold her-her behavior was not to be
wished for in a sister-but he must see that she had done the only thing possible under the circumstances.
No one was more jealous of the family's honor than
Sir Benedict.

In the Apricot Salon, she found that he was not so
much his usual sober self as a thundercloud of disapproval. She had never seen his feelings so exposed;
of all the Wayborns, Sir Benedict knew best how to
wear the mask, and she had often been frustrated by
his evenhanded temper. Now he looked at her in a
way that shocked her. His gray eyes, never warm,
were hard and brilliant. It seemed almost as though
she disgusted him. In very short order, she found that
she could not meet his gaze. Her limbs began to
tremble, not with fear exactly, but with mortification. She had not expected to be congratulated for
her courage, not by Benedict, but she had not expected this. Before he had even spoken a word, she
was a shrinking vessel of guilt.

"They say you cut your hair for this notorious prank,"
he said abruptly. "I'm pleased to see it isn't so."

He sounded anything but pleased. His tone was
awful, and its effect on her was made worse by the fact
that he so very rarely rebuked her and because their
father never had. If Papa had thought her his angel,
the more critical Benedict at least had found her
above reproach, and she would have preferred to
have been horsewhipped by Lord Swale than to feel
Benedict's disappointment. To her dismay, she felt hot
tears welling up in her eyes.

"They say you wore breeches," said Benedict in
the same awful tone.

"That is a lie!" she cried, almost choking on a sob.
Angrily, she ground the tears from her eyes with the
heel of her hand. "I most certainly did not! I wore
Cary's coat over my dress."

"You greatly relieve my mind," said Benedict with
bitter sarcasm.

The tears threatened again. "How c-could you
b-b-believe such a thing?"

"Forgive me," he said harshly. "I am not accustomed to hearing my sister's name bandied about in
the street! I am not accustomed to being slapped on
the back by young men who I do not know and do not
want to know as they congratulate me on my sister's
high-flying exploits! "

"I beg your pardon, Benedict, but-"

"Really, Juliet!" he brutally interrupted. "I am accustomed to such reports of Cary as to make my hair
turn white, but I had thought you had more conduct.
They are saying you wore breeches, and they are
saying a great deal worse than that."

Juliet flung herself into a nearby chair and shamelessly began to cry. "What could I do?" she choked,
aware that she was blubbering like a baby but unable
to stop. "Cary could not go!" She became unintelligible after that, and all he could make out were the
words "family honor."

"I should have thought that even Gary would have
more sense," said Benedict, "than to put his sister up
to such behavior as must make her the object of universal disgust and ridicule."

She flung up her head. "Do not blame Cary!" she
cried. "It was my own idea to go in his place. What else
could I do?"

"My dear child," he said, exasperated by her display
of raw emotion. "Don't tell me you sacrificed yourself
merely to spare Cary the slight embarrassment of
having missed a horse race?"

"Slight embarrassment! He would have been ruined! "

"Is that what my brother told you?"

"You have always been hard on Gary, but this ill
becomes you, Benedict," she said sharply. "Naturally,
he said no such thing! Indeed, he could barely speak
when Stacy brought him home."

"Bah!" said Sir Benedict dispassionately. "A touch
of influenza. I had not thought you capable of running into hysterics, my girl."

"Influenza!" Her eyes widened, and she felt, for
the first time, a bit of hope. "Then you do not know
the truth."

He frowned. "I think I do. My aunt was so obliging
as to tell me. She has asked to retire to Wayborn
Hall, and I see no reason why she should not go and
take you with her, too."

"Naturally, we could not tell Aunt Elinor the truth.
How is it you know all about me, but you have heard
nothing about Lord Swale?"

Benedict arched a brow. "I take it his lordship was
your opponent in this infamous race. He certainly will
not thank you for handing him the greatest humiliation of his life. But tell me why a well-bred young lady
should be unable to tell her aunt the truth. What has
Cary done now?"

"Cary has done nothing," she retorted hotly. "It is
this odious, pestilential Lord Swale! I wish you had attended less to the lies told about me and more to the
truths told about him. Cary don't have influenza. He
was attacked! He was brutally attacked, and by Lord
Swale's hirelings! Furthermore, if Stacy hadn't been
there to frighten the villains away, they would have
killed him! So there!"

Sir Benedict paled at this news, but his expression
became very guarded. "Cary? Attacked? I can hardly
credit it."

"I'm not such a fool as to lie to you, Benedict," she retorted. "You may see for yourself. He is resting upstairs
now. His arm is broken in two places, and Mr. Norton
is very fearful of an infection. He could lose his

Benedict rose as if he meant to go upstairs at once,
but instead, he began to pace the floor. "Cary?" he
murmured in a bleak voice. "My brother attacked?"

"If you had only seen him, Benedict, you would not
blame me for what I did! If I were a man, I should
have killed Lord Swale on the spot, and no one on
earth would have blamed me if I had!"

"It is a very bad thing," said Benedict slowly, "to
accuse his lordship without proof. I hope-"

"I have all the proof I need! " she flung at him.
"Stacy heard the villains talking, and so did Cary!
They were sent by Lord Swale to keep him from
racing. They named their benefactor."

"And you thought you must take your brother's curricle and go in his place?"

She stared at him, her eyes red. "Do you think I did
it to disoblige you, sir?"

"I have never known you to do anything to disoblige me," he said gently, and she instantly was
ashamed. "Who helped you? Mr. Calverstock, I suppose? I should like to box his ears!"

"You must not blame Stacy," she said quickly. "He
did not know until he saw me in Cary's clothes at the
Black Lantern Inn, and he could not have exposed
me there, you know."

"The Black Lantern Inn! My God, Juliet! I expect
Bernard helped you as well."

"Don't be cross with Bernard," she begged. "He saw
right away what had to be done."

"Indeed! And I daresay Mr. Calverstock covered
your brother's losses?"

"Certainly not," she said. "I paid Lord Swale on the spot. I flung it in his face, Benedict. You would have
been proud. Well," she amended, biting her lip, "if I
were your brother instead of your sister, you would
have been quite proud."

"But you are not my brother," he snapped. "I expect
Cary wagered his customary five hundred pounds?"

"Yes, indeed!"

"And where," demanded Sir Benedict, "did you get
five hundred pounds?"

Juliet lifted her chin defiantly. "From Bernard, of
course," she said.

"It is worse than I had thought," Benedict exclaimed. "Can it be that my sister has stooped to borrowing money from the servants?"

"Bernard is rather a special case," she said dryly. "He
does not know what to do with his fortune. Indeed,
I sometimes wish that Papa had not been so generous; it embarrasses him so."

"Generous! " said Benedict furiously. "That Sir Anthony Wayborn saw fit to leave his groom a sum equal
to his own daughter's dower portion, I should think
was rather more than generous of him!"

Juliet flushed. "No one thinks of it in that vulgar way
except you. Papa liked him, that's all. I am sure I've
never begrudged Bernard a penny of it!"

"No, indeed! If he is always willing, as I suspect he
is, to frank your follies!"

"Well, what else could I do?" she demanded. "Tell
me that! The race was forfeited; the odious Swale saw
to that! And he must be paid, the scaly fiend! "

"You might have sent for me," he said quietly.

"You were in Surrey," she said resentfully. "You are
always at Wayborn Hall."

"Yes, looking after our tenants and managing the
estate."

"Hiding from life," she insisted. "Oh, Benedict,
can't you see that what I have done is so much better
than anything you could have done?"

"With but one arm, I should not have been of
much use in a curricle race," he wearily agreed.

The color drained from Juliet's face. "I did not
mean that, "she cried in dismay. "Why must you take
the worst possible meaning of all that I say?"

He shrugged. "Very well, Juliet," he said. "You have
humiliated Lord Swale. You have pricked him deeply,
I daresay, but you have destroyed yourself in the
process. You must know you will be shunned by all respectable society now."

She tossed her head. "I do not care two straws for
that, I assure you," she said. "Pray do not lecture me
on that head for I have had all I can take from Stacy
Calverstock."

"No lectures," he agreed. "But you will have to
leave London at once."

"You cannot ask me to leave Cary!" she objected.
"Anyway, I won't. Why should I? I know very well I am
in disgrace. No one will visit me, and I shan't be
asked anywhere. I shall be left alone, which is precisely
what I like. And when Gary is better, he will defend
my honor, and anyway, if it comes to it, Stacy has offered to marry me."

"How very obliging of him," murmured Benedict.
"You are certainly in disgrace, my dear, but you are
quite wrong if you think you will be left alone. I daresay you will receive a great deal of attention, and not
of the best kind."

Juliet shuddered, remembering those highspirited rattles that had accompanied her chaise
from Southend to her aunt's house. Undoubtedly, her
company would be much in demand with them. "I don't care! You cannot induce me to leave Gary,"
she said stubbornly.

"If I cannot induce you," he replied, "I will take you
by the scruff of the neck and drag you."

Juliet swallowed hard. It seemed to her that Benedict meant it.

"Cary will be well looked after," he said in a more
reassuring voice. "And it will scarcely speed his recovery to be having to defend your honor against
every bold young ass who insults you."

Though it chafed, Juliet could see the wisdom of
this. Benedict was always maddeningly wise. "Very
well, Benedict," she said. "Only tell me you are not
angry with me," she pleaded. "Tell me you understand
why I did it. I did not do it for my own amusement."

"You must have been frightened and angry when
you saw Cary," he said with more gentleness than
before. "You lost your head, and you did something
very foolish."

"Benedict! "

"You want me to tell you what you did was right and
sensible. It wasn't," he said flatly. "You're very brave
and very loyal but not very wise, my dear Juliet. I hope
you won't be made too unhappy."

"You mistake the matter," she said defiantly. "I
shall be very happy. When you marry Cynthia, I'll live
with you at Wayborn Hall, and you won't need to hire
a governess for I shall teach my nephews and nieces
very well!"

"When I marry Cynthia!" he said, coloring up.
"What nonsense."

"Never mind," said Juliet, smiling. His admiration
for her cousin Miss Cynthia Cary was well-known to
her, and she enjoyed teasing him about it. "Cynthia
is content to wait. Benedict!" she cried suddenly. `Would you not let me go to Cynthia instead? Tanglewood is only a little farther away than Wayborn, and
I should like it better to be exiled there. Aunt Elkins
is well enough in town with all its diversions, but at
Wayborn, with nothing to occupy her mind, I should
be obliged to hear all about her many acquaintances
who have died of influenza. I had much rather dispense with all that and go to my cousins. I should be
more than adequately chaperoned, I think, at the Vicarage. The Reverend Dr. Cary will not let me go far
wrong, and you know it has been almost a year since
I was among them, and Cary neither visits nor writes
our Hertfordshire relations."

"I have no objection to the scheme," said Benedict
after some thought. "But at present, I am unable to
escort you there-"

"There is nothing easier in the world!" she assured
him. "My cousin Captain Cary has been in London
all this week. He told me himself he meant to go to
Tanglewood Tuesday next. He won't mind going a few
days sooner."

Benedict did not like the idea. Horatio Gary, Cynthia's brother, was a very handsome young officer of
the Royal Navy. With her reputation already in shreds,
his sister could ill afford the ugly gossip that undoubtedly would attend her traveling alone with Captain Cary.

"I shall have my maid with me in the chaise," said
Juliet persuasively. "And Horatio can ride alongside
for he has just bought the most splendid white mare!"