Lady Scandal Read online

  Polly covered her only slightly rounded stomach and nodded.

  Sophia patted her hand. “You won’t be able to hide it much longer.”

  “I know,” Polly said glumly.

  Sophia touched Polly’s cheek. “Be quick, be stealthy, be brave. Your fortune is about to change.”

  “Thank you, my lady.”

  As Sophia watched Polly weave her way back into the small town, she removed her mobcap and the padding around her waist. As Polly disappeared, she opened a jar of fine ash and talc, and doused her hair.

  Skinny, elderly “Meg Cook” had a private coach to catch.

  …

  Earl Baneham’s Rules for Winning

  “Master the art of interrogation.”

  “I told you, Sir. A nice lady gave me money and then told me to go to the home of the Dowager Duchess of Wynchester.”

  Randolph kept his feet planted hip-width apart. He clasped his hands behind his back to keep from strangling the young woman. Which would be unfair, of course. Not just because he was larger, stronger, and male, but because his men had tied her hands.

  Still, his sympathy had limits. The little chit had cost him hours. He would not allow her wide eyes and shaking limbs to deter him from gaining something from this exercise.

  “You left behind a pouch embroidered with the initials of Lady Sophia Baneham. You hired a hack using her clothes and her coin. What do you think the magistrate is going to do with you when I tell him you stole from, and then impersonated, a peeress?”

  The young girl took a shuddering inhale.

  He leaned down and looked her in the eye. “Have you ever been to a gaol, my dear?”

  She broke into tears. Tears laden with fear, and hunger, and weary confusion. She shook her head from side to side.

  Damn. Too far. Clearly, he had scared the miss out of her wits.

  “Pull yourself together, girl,” he said, frowning.

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. With a sigh, he handed her the fine fabric. She eyed the cloth, then him, and then the cloth.

  “You,” she sniffed, “can keep your fancy things.”

  “You will take from my wife,” he refolded the handkerchief and returned it to his coat, “but you will not take from me?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “If you are her husband, you must be a very bad man to have scared her so.”

  “She is not scared,” Randolph said, though she should have a healthier fear of Kasai. “She is angry.”

  The girl snorted. “I seen scared and I seen angry, and the color she turned when she saw you meant scared. Ye’ll get nothin’ more.” She shook her head emphatically. “If I go to a gaol, I go to a gaol. I’ve been in worse. I’m not helpin’ you kill the nice lady.”

  Randolph took a step back. “Kill her?”

  “Why else would she be so scared?”

  He scowled. Sophia could not possibly think he was after her life? No. She ran because she was angry. Ran because she wanted to watch him suffer. Ran because she had some dubious plan to confront Kasai on her own. Ran because… because…

  …Because she thought he was out to harm her.

  Shit-smeared spur.

  A sharpened sense of fear sliced him through. Had he given her any reason not to believe such a thing?

  She had spoken her father’s name in hatred, and just an association with the man had made her furious. Baneham had been a brilliant strategist.

  And suspicious. And conniving. And brutal. And ruthless.

  All things that had won his admiration, but all things that would have been anathema to a gently bred young lady. A young lady who set surprisingly conventional moral standards for herself.

  What if she had hated her father’s work enough to dismiss its value to crown and Company—and had seen Baneham only as someone who would do anything to get what he wanted?

  If so, she would believe the same of him.

  He frowned. Yes, he intended to use her as bait, but very protected bait. He would never hurt Sophia. To his shock, it cut him to the core that she would believe such a thing. He used those rules to maintain a controlled response to a world of chaos—not to create chaos.

  Then again—he looked down at the shivering young miss, who looked as if she was going to faint—he had not exactly been acting himself lately.

  He pulled opened the door to the private parlor the innkeeper had allowed him to rent, called for a servant, and requested water. When the servant returned, he took the glass. He reentered the room. Behind him, he quietly closed the door.

  “Tell me your name,” he said to the young woman.

  She looked up. “No.”

  “There has been a misunderstanding.” He pulled over a second chair and sat opposite the young woman. “I would like to talk to you. And, to make our conversation more, shall we say, cordial, I am going to untie you. First, you must promise to remain in the chair.”

  “What will you promise me?” she asked.

  He snorted. The chit had grit.

  “I will promise one of my men will see you to the Dowager Duchess of Wynchester—just as your friend Lady Ran—” he stopped and cleared his throat. “Lady Sophia wished.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  And in her words he heard Sophia’s voice. Why indeed. “I swear I would never do a thing to harm Lady Sophia.”

  “Why does she think you would?”

  He doubted because she has gone mad would endear him to Polly. He looked more closely at the girl. “Because there have been many bad men in her life. There have been a few bad men in your life, too, no?”

  Polly nodded slowly. “I will not run,” she said, lifting her hands so he could untie her wrists. “My name is Polly. Miss Pollyanna Jakes.”

  “Well, Miss Jakes,” he said as he worked the knot, “I suggest we begin again.”

  He freed her wrists. She rubbed them while her gaze remained pinned to his face. If she gave him any information at all, it would be a matter of pure luck. What had he been thinking? She was little more than a girl—not a Newgate-hardened criminal.

  “For you,” he said, handing her the water.

  Polly drank, and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Obliged,” she said.

  He stood to pace.

  “Let us go over what happened again.” So far, each time she had told her story, she had added another small detail. She was hiding something, he could feel her resistance.

  Polly took a deep breath. “After four days hungry, I earned meself a bit of coin helping out with the planting. I bought meself a bun. I was about to eat it when this fancy miss sat opposite my bench. She pulled out a right fine spoon to eat her meat pie and I told her it was the nicest I ever seen. She said women must stick together.”

  That sounded like Sophia.

  “What else did she say?” Randolph prompted.

  “She gave me the spoon and told me to eat her pie. In return, I gave her me bun. Then, you burst in like Lucifer’s servant.”

  He almost smirked. Her characterization of him was the only thing in her story that had not undergone slight alteration.

  Polly continued, “She looked terrible affright, so I took her back into the kitchens and out the side door. She said she needed time to escape. She gave me her pouch, told me to dress like she had been dressed and to use the coin in her bag to hire a hack to take me to London.”

  “Are you sure you have told me everything?” he asked.

  Polly blinked and looked away. “Yes.”

  He placed his hands on his knees and crouched. “What aren’t you telling me, Miss Jakes?”

  Her blush deepened. “Please do not send me to the gaol. Please.”

  “Not if you tell me the truth.”

  Polly reached into her stocking and pulled out a spoon. The edge was carved with a beautiful scrolling letter—not B for Baneham but S for Sophia.

  “I didn’t mean to steal, Sir. I swear,” Polly stammered. “I forgot to give her the spoon and
she forgot to ask me for it.”

  A spoon.

  He stared at the piece of silver feeling his hope disintegrate like paper in flame.

  He had spent an hour questioning Miss Pollyanna Jakes only to recover Sophia’s spoon. He ran his hand through his hair.

  “You have no idea what happened to the lady?”

  “No. She disappeared just like a ghost.”

  A ghost. Which was what she would become if he couldn’t find her before Eustace and Helena. His only lead—wasted. Now he had to begin again—combing through all those who had entered and left the village. His only consolation was, if he could not find her, Kasai’s agents could not find her, either.

  After giving Polly a curt and uncomfortable farewell, he arranged to have one of his men take her to the dowager. Once she was on her way, he trudged up to the welcoming solace of his rented room. He settled into the bed and rested his head against the simple wood backing.

  How had things so right gone so very wrong?

  Behind his closed lids he saw Sophia as she had been the night they had made the wedding wager. She had been in her study, counting and recording the night’s gain. Her hair had come loose and one lock had drifted perilously close to the inkwell as she’d scratched numbers into her ledger.

  …“You are a bit too cavalier with the blunt you collect,” Randolph said.

  “Are you offering me your brutish protection?” she asked without looking up.

  Tenderly, he lifted a lock of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. “I know you find this hard to believe, but most men find me intimidating.”

  “If you say so,” she replied.

  Candlelight made shadows on her soft cheeks. She bit the side of her lip as she concentrated on her ledgers. Randolph wanted her with a lust impossible for him to deny.

  “Why do you call everyone dearest—” he started.

  She closed her ledger and scrutinized him. Her gaze made him harden.

  “—but me?”

  He did not know what she thought she read in his expression, but she smiled. A small, satisfied upturn of those plump and strawberry-red lips.

  “That is all the answer I get?” he asked. “A smirk?”

  Her expression remained unchanged. “Would you rather a grin?”

  “Ladies do not grin,” he replied.

  “A shame, truly,” she sighed, disappointed. “I have a winning grin.”

  The devil within him stirred. “I would rather a fuck.”

  She laughed out loud. “I have just come to a realization.”

  “That I make you wet between your legs?”

  “That,” her eyes sparkled, “and, apparently, I love to be shocked.”

  He raised his brow. “Is that a ‘yes’ to the fuck?”

  She shook her head and the loose lock again fell against her cheek. “I do not bed my guests.”

  Her answer altered—slightly. Interesting. “What if I stopped attending?”

  “Tsk.” She waved her finger back and forth with a governess’s pinched lips. “You just promised to use your talent for intimidation for my protection.”

  “Scold me again and I will happily lay other talents at your feet.”

  She raised her brows. “I do not doubt your talent—especially after the imaginary tryst you described the other night. But”—Her gaze raked him, slow and with deliberate purpose. Temptation danced in her eyes for a brief but extraordinary moment. “I am not interested in a cicisbeo.”

  He sat on the edge of her desk, draping himself in front of her ledgers. “How about a wager?”

  The little smirk returned. “I would be mad to agree to such a challenge.”

  “Ah, but you like to run mad, don’t you?” He ran the errant lock of hair between his fingers. “You like to live life sliding as close as possible to the edge of a sharpened knife.”

  “In certain things,” she replied. “What do you propose?”

  He squinted, knowing a simple wager would never satisfy the infamous Lady Scandal. He inhaled and her scent, like wine, made him reckless.

  “A series of ten games. The terms would be private, the games public.” he forced himself to release her hair and look away from her hunger-laden, noonday-blue gaze. He examined his fingernails. “Imagine the crowd such a sensation would draw. Imagine the numbers you could scratch into your ledger.”

  She laughed low in her throat. Randolph glanced up, knowing he had hit her mark.

  “If you win,” she stated, “you would expect a fuck.”

  “Something of that nature.” The word on her lips nearly unmanned him.

  “Randolph,” she leaned forward, “I am going to tell you a secret.”

  Her breath fanned his lips. “Good thing, then, I am discretion’s very soul.”

  “Well,” she said, “when it comes to the body beneath this costly, low-cut gown, I am shockingly conventional. I have thoroughly enjoyed, as you would say, a good fuck, but within the marriage bond.” She pulled back. “I am many things, Randolph, but I will not be your whore.”

  Her confession left him unable to breathe. She had turned the tables. If he wanted her, he would have to propose. He forced a coldly rational analysis.

  The idea of marriage to Sophia had some merit beyond the slaking of his lust. As her husband, he could keep her close. He could search for Baneham’s papers while continuing to earn her trust. And once married, her fortune would be beyond Kasai’s direct reach.

  He admired the way she charmed her guests. He respected the skillful way she managed London’s most dangerous men. She was young enough to provide an heir but with enough experience to display a woman’s polish and presence.

  Despite her notoriety, she would make as good a countess as any…and certainly far more satisfying in the bedchamber than the chits his mother and sisters had suggested so far. He liked the idea of transforming Lady Sophia Baneham into Sophia, Lady Randolph—and not only for the reason visually obvious beneath his breeches.

  “My wager stands in the light of your revelation.” The feeling between them charged, becoming a living thing. “If I win, I will humbly ask you to become my countess.”

  She hit the back of her chair with a thunk. “You have shocked me again, Randolph.”

  “And since you love to be shocked, I will count that a point in my favor.”

  “And if I win?”

  “What could I grant a woman who has everything?”

  Her delightful button of a nose scrunched. “I do, don’t I?”

  “Although, I imagine a lady can never have enough silk.”

  “Mmmm,” she murmured, “silk.”

  “I will buy out a whole shipment—enough silk for you to throw away if you wish. Imagine a bedroom awash in silk. Silk bed curtains. Silk bed coverings. Silk dressing gowns. Silk night rails. Perhaps a silk nightgown.”

  Her eyes widened. “Silk nightgown? Unheard of…and quite possibly delightful.”

  “I take it I have earned another point?”

  “Perhaps. But then again,” she said, “I could lose.”

  “Would being my countess truly be a loss?” he asked.

  Her gaze dipped to his casual display. She bit her lip and a shrewd light entered her eyes.

  “Before the games,” she looked him in the eye, “You will draw and execute a contract allowing my fortune to remain under my control. I have loyal trustees I would like to retain.”

  “Of course,” he said. “I do not need your wealth.”

  “I would want acknowledgment in writing that the soirees may continue, as long as Lavinia and Thea have need of funds.”

  “It will be done.”

  “And I would want enough pin money to set tongues wagging,” she said, clearly believing her last demand would make him balk. “I have no need of your funds, either, of course, but what fun is being a wife if one cannot have her wardrobe billed to her husband?”

  The thought of her dressed in clothing paid for by his coin increased the heaviness in his
groin.

  “You can have whatever you wish…” He leaned forward. “…so long as, anytime I wish, you let me set my tongue to your mound.”

  She pinked and her breath hitched. “A boon I could be persuaded to grant, provided we are alone.”

  He raised a brow. “I never share.”

  Her shoulders settled. “I will take on your wager. Our games will end the soiree—best of 21, I think.”

  “Best of 5, and a kiss to seal the deal.”

  “Best of 15,” she countered.

  “Best of 9, and you include the kiss.”

  She grinned and held out her hand. “Agreed.”

  Instead of shaking her hand, he lifted it to his lips. Her palm had been warm in his, and though her movements were slow and languid, her fingers quaked.

  “You are aroused, sweetness.”

  “Anticipation of my silk, of course.”

  “Forget the silk.”

  He slid off the desk, cupped her cheeks, and took her lips. He kissed her until she rose to her toes and entwined her hands in his hair. Then, somehow, they were both atop her desk, with her beneath him, pinned and panting.

  “How was that?” he asked.

  “That will do for now.” She looked at him from under her lashes. “You can do better.”

  “You are infuriating.”

  “Do you really think so?” she asked as if he had called her stunning.

  “Completely.”

  “How marvelous,” she mused.

  “Call me dearest,” he demanded.

  Her eyes twinkled. “Not yet.”

  Randolph groaned and turned on his side. He hoped he could somehow prevent not yet from transforming into not ever.

  Chapter Five

  Earl Baneham’s Rules for Winning

  “Regret is for the losing side.”

  Sophia scratched her chest through her high-collared dress. Her high-collared, woolen dress—not finely woven wool dyed with pleasing color, but coarse, grey wool. Worse still, the dress fit her with as much grace as a sheet fit a chair.

  She groaned.

  Ah, but she was safe from Randolph and Kasai’s men, and for that, she must be grateful. A working farm run by a former Quaker was not among the places they would search for Lady Scandal.