Three Times the Scandal (Georgian Rakehells) Read online

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  Three Times the Scandal

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Copyright © 2011 Madelynne Ellis

  Edited by Allison Jacobson

  Photography and cover art by Les Byerley

  Electronic book Publication THREE TIMES THE SCANDAL April 2011

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ai Press, 10435 Green Trail Drive N, Boynton Beach, FL 33436

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/)

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Three Times the Scandal

  Madelynne Ellis

  Dedication

  To all at Romance Divas—for supporting me through the lows and highs of the publishing world.

  Author Note

  Giles & Fortuna first appear in Phantasmagoria.

  Chapter One

  31st January 1801 – Darleston House, Knightsbridge, London.

  “Isn’t it marvellous?”

  Fortuna Allenthorpe forced a benign smile for her younger sibling, and wished she felt half her sister’s delight. “It’s grand,” she remarked. “Truly, grand.” Indeed, the ballroom was a fantastical paradise, dressed with vast swathes of silken fabrics of emerald and gold, and enormous potted ferns. Their hostess, the Countess of Onnerley, wore a turquoise silken turban, decorated with a single star-like jewel and six enormous ostrich plumes. With a little imagination Fortuna could easily imagine the ballroom as part of a vast Persian palace. The moon outside blazing over a desert city in a cloudless sky, instead of inadequately lighting the churned up slush they’d driven through to get here.

  “Shall we go in?” Alicia, the closest of her seven sisters to her in age, gently squeezed her hand.

  Fortuna nodded, though she felt sick to her stomach. “I rather suppose we must.”

  Alicia gripped her hand a little tighter. “You know you do look awfully pale, perhaps you oughtn’t to have come out.”

  “Nonsense, Alicia.” Their mother, a short stout woman, bustled between them, breaking them apart. “It’s merely anticipatory nerves, and well her stomach might flutter. It’s not every day a girl can expect to be engaged, nor a mother so delighted. I’m quite aflutter myself.”

  Fortuna flicked open her fan and tried to waft away her misgivings along with the colour in her rapidly heating cheeks. Beneath her rigidly laced stays and narrow petticoats, perspiration slicked her skin. Why had nobody listened to her protests? Even Aunt Beatrice, their chaperone, had approved the match before she took her annual Christmas visit to her family in Norfolk. Why couldn’t they see that it would be a terrible marriage?

  If only there were a way to flee into the night, avoid the proposal altogether.

  “It won’t be long now, darling. I expect we’ll hear him announced.”

  Fortuna peered at her mother over the flounced edge of her fan. She hoped Sir Hector’s carriage got stuck in snowdrift and never arrived.

  Was it wrong to wish for a husband who excited her, whose very presence made her tingle with excitement? She pursed her lips. Sir Hector Macleane was not, and never would be that man. Twice her age, over large and a dreadful bore, the only reaction he provoked in her was disgust.

  His title and impressive estate had swayed her parents’ hearts far more than her protests, which they dismissed as natural maidenly reservations, but then, as she’d repeatedly said to herself in the mirror, they didn’t have to live with him.

  “Ah! Girls.” Mrs. Allenthorpe nudged her five attending daughters to attention, before swirling gracefully on the spot. “Good evening, Sir Hector.” She extended her hand for him to take, and dropped into a low curtsey. A formality quickly replicated by her four younger daughters. Fortuna remained rigidly upright, a wave of nausea almost choking her as Sir Hector diligently turned towards her.

  “Miss Allenthorpe, I’m enchanted as always.”

  Gracious, but the man was huge. Built like a wild boar. Her nose barely reached his chest, which put her on the same level as his collection of gaudy brooches, each an exquisite example of what not to do with an array of precious gems.

  The heat drained from Fortuna’s skin as Sir Hector brushed his dry lips across her knuckles. She tried to smile, but it was no use, the thought of him heaving himself over her in bed, touching her with his club-like hands filled her with horror. Aghast, she cast her gaze downwards, hoping he would mistakenly think her demure.

  Sir Hector coughed to clear his throat. “Miss Allenthorpe, I’ve a gift. If you’ll forgive the impudence.”

  No, not here, not now. It would be a deal more difficult to refuse him in front of her expectant family. Luckily, when she squinted at her palm, the object was a delicate mother-of-pearl comb and not a betrothal ring. Fortuna stared at the shiny waves of pearlescent pink and felt relief wash through her limbs like a drug.

  “Sir, it’s exquisite, but I can’t possibly accept this.”

  “Nonsense.” Mrs. Allenthorpe snatched the comb from Fortuna’s hand and with a sharp stab pushed it into her daughter’s elaborate hair arrangement. “My daughter is extremely flattered by your generosity, Sir Hector.”

  “Oh, Tunie, it’s lovely,” Mercy, the plainest of the five girls, announced. “The very palest pink and a perfect match for your sash. How clever of you, Sir Hector.”

  “Very pretty,” said Mae, the youngest, her lips jealously pursed and her arms folded across her ample breasts. Her huff lasted no more than a second.

  Fortuna gently eased the comb away from her scalp as her sisters continued to twitter. As beautiful as the gift was, she wished she could pass it on to one of them and Sir Hector with it. Mercy at least found his lapidary monologues interesting. They’d have suited far more as a couple.

  Sir Hector gave another of his intrusive coughs. “Perhaps you’d oblige me with a turn about the room, Miss Allenthorpe.”

  “Of course.” Given the extravagant present and her mother’s expectations, she could hardly refuse.

  Sir Hector laid her hand upon his sleeve, and with her tucked against his side, plunged them into the crowd.

  * * * * *

  “Remind me why I’m here.”

  Giles Dovecote prowled the line of wallflowers sitting along the edge of the ballroom with his head bowed and a snarl upon his lips. Fashionable London might like these assemblies, but he was done with them. He had no intention of finding himself a wife; in fact the very thought was abhorrent.

  “You’re here,” remarked his flame-haired companion, allowing a smile to slide across his expressive lips, “because the Countess insisted upon it, and it’s not done to refuse my mother.”

  “Step-mother, please.” Giles turned his blistering glare upon his companion in time to see Robert, Lord Darleston hide his smile. They were all still getting used to the new arrangement. The previous Countess of Onnerley had sadly passed away three years ago, allowing for three blissful years of masculine pursuits. Alas, no more.

  “She’s determined to make an impression, Giles. So you’d best gird yourself for several more evenings of being inconvenienced.”

  “Hmph!” Giles reached the end of the row of maidens and intercepted the d
rinks tray. Having relieved the footman of two glasses and knocked back the contents of both, he found a perch on the arm of a vacant chaise. “I have to say, I preferred your ‘mother’ when her parties involved masks and naught much else. All this simpering frippery sets my stomach off.”

  “Likely it’s the drink causing that upset. Slow down, my friend.” Darleston patted him on the back. “Else I may have to roll you down the steps later, and I’m in the mood for some sport, not a night in the gutter.”

  “Buttonhole lane?” Giles quirked an eyebrow.

  “Aye, if nothing finer presents. I need to get away from here. It’s not easy sitting down to dinner every night knowing that both you and your brother have split mutton with your new mama. I swear I almost had an apoplexy when the old roué brought her home.”

  “A shock all round, I imagine.” A memory came to Giles of the Darleston twins entwined around the body of the nude and sultry countess in her former domain on Great Russell Street, at Mrs. Hutchins House of Beguilement. Hell, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been there too, along with just about every other young blood in London.

  “Actually, I’m not sure what the old goat’s done to her, but forcing us to watch them merry-make is damned outrageous.”

  Giles dropped onto his feet and they began to stroll again, ignoring the crowd, which now pressed in around them. ‘How is your brother taking it?’

  “You know Neddy. He couldn’t give a rat’s arse, and she’s persuaded my father to increase his allowance.”

  The remark provoked a laugh, and several scandalized tuts from those around them. Darleston muttered a hasty apology to one of society’s famous old harridans, and tugged Giles away from the ladies and towards a group of younger men.

  “You can’t fault her tactics,” Giles remarked. They passed the footman again, and he helped himself to another glass. Neddy had always been the knave of their little group, but since the Marquis of Pennerley’s departure from London at the start of October, Neddy had been determinedly trying to succeed him as society’s most eminent rakehell, an altogether costly enterprise. Alas, the young fool hadn’t grasped that Pennerley’s personal magnetism and wit had assured his position, as much as any reputation for vice or misdeed.

  “And how is Lucy taking it?” Giles asked. He couldn’t imagine Lady Darleston responding at all well to being ousted from her position of power in the household.

  Darleston’s expression remained studiously fixed, although Giles detected a slight tightening of his friend’s brows.

  “I’ve hardly thought to enquire. I’ve been doing my damnedest to avoid her. You know there’s no love lost between us, Giles.”

  “Aye. I know it.” It never ceased to amaze him how cruel fate had been in bringing the pair together.

  “Oh, piss!” Darleston clamped a hand to his face. Startled by the outburst, Giles looked about, expecting to find Neddy compromising some girl, or Lady Darleston almost upon them, only to discover a far worse reality bearing towards them. Clemencè Morton, skin like porcelain, hair a glorious shade of burnished chestnut, and a pretty little nose that completed her doll-like perfection, was tacking determinedly through the crowd.

  “Giles, I swear I had no idea they’d been invited.”

  “Bloody marriage marts!’ Besides Clemencè Morton there was only one person he was less inclined to meet, her brother Andrew, who happened to be right behind his sister.

  ‘I’ll head them off,’ said Darleston. He squeezed Giles’s arm. “Make yourself scarce for a while. Try the summer parlour.”

  * * * * *

  The thick sweet aroma of meats and jellies wafted up off the heavily laden supper tables in the deserted dining room. Fortuna’s heart gave a frightful little jump as Sir Hector closed the door. He turned to face her, and clasped her hands tight within his sweaty palms. The last time he’d adopted this position, he’d tried to kiss her, and she’d fainted dead away. A ploy she suspected wouldn’t work a second time. Really, she should have saved the swoon for this occasion.

  “Miss Allenthorpe,” he began.

  Fortuna stared at the dark hairs that curled over the back of his hands, and prayed for strength. He had on too many rings, she thought. Six quite ludicrous rocks that forced his fingers wide apart, making them seem pudgy and even larger than they already were.

  “Fortuna.” The intimate use of her first name sent a lick of anguish through her belly. Only one means of escape remained to her. She’d have to go against her family’s wishes. “I wonder if you’d grant me the honour of becoming my wife?”

  After the first burn of revolt, she felt surprisingly little, certainly not the soul-wrenching upset she’d anticipated. “I’m sorry, Sir Hector, but I find I can’t possibly,” she said quite calmly.

  “But, my dear, Miss Allenthorpe. I think you misunderstand.”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m offering you all that I have. We’ll host the finest balls, and you shall have all the pretty things you desire.”

  “No. I cannot.” Having raised her voice simply to be heard, Fortuna took a wary step backwards at the lack of acceptance in his beetle-black eyes. It was as if her response counted for nothing. Pausing only for breath, he continued to placate her with meaningless endearments.

  He blinked slowly, when she continued to shake her head. “Perhaps you misunderstand me, Miss Allenthorpe.”

  “No, indeed.”

  His deep-set eyes further blackened with rage. “I think you should know that your father has already given his consent. He won’t be at all pleased with this. We have a gentleman’s accord.”

  “But it’s not my father’s promise you need to obtain, but mine.”

  “And I should have thought you were wise enough to give it. You’re a sensible girl, or so I’ve been led to believe.” His look suggested he doubted the truth of it. “You must realize this is a good match. Better than any other you’re likely to receive. So what have you against it? I trust you’ve not set your eye on some upstart dandy.”

  “Indeed, no. I simply find that we are incompatible.”

  “Incompatible,” he bellowed.

  Fortuna flinched as he pulled back his shoulders and stuck out his enormous chest. There’d be no more presents from him, no more persuasion. Coercion was what she could expect if she married him.

  A sneer contorted his ruddy face. “Tell me, Miss Allenthorpe, as I am a man and I desire you as a woman, in what way does that make us incompatible?”

  She closed her eyes. Please let the floor swallow me up. “I don’t feel the same way,” she whispered.

  “I should pray not,” he spluttered.

  A shudder ran down her spine.

  “Ladies don’t express base desires. They experience only the purest form of familial love.”

  Too stunned to respond, Fortuna gaped at him. She was under no illusion that he was serious, and indeed his definition of what it was to be a lady wholly matched her mama’s. Still, she knew it to be a lie, and one she couldn’t perpetuate. Base desire. Oh heavens, yes! She’d felt it. Had revelled in it. She’d stupidly thrown herself at the Marquis of Pennerley for that very reason. Why hadn’t he loved her back? He would have made her content, complete. The memory of him, his muscular abdomen pressed against her, the scent of his body, sent a fizzle of arousal through her overly tensed body. She’d been naïve. Pennerley had taken what he wanted and discarded her. It was a secret no one could ever know. Waves of loss and anger swept over her.

  Sir Hector, his face pulled into a horrific attempt at benevolence, reached out to her. “A simple misunderstanding,” he said, clearly misinterpreting the glitter of tears in her eyes. “You’re young, and have undoubtedly had your head filled with the romantic nonsense that fills our novels. Don’t despair. Such pure love will grow in your heart, particularly as your belly swells with our children.”

  “No!” The tears spilled, but Fortuna rapidly blinked them away. She arched away from him. Every word he uttered further co
nvinced her that her decision was the right one. He was an unbearable tyrant. She wanted passion at least, if not love. “I won’t marry you,” she swore. “Not ever.”

  Her face blotchy with tears, Fortuna ploughed into the crowded ballroom, seeking only to distance herself from Sir Hector. She aimed first for the restroom, only to realize that it would be full of gossiping ladies, who would secretly crow in delight at her distress, while pretending to help.

  A little closer than the restroom, she found refuge behind a row of potted ferns, which concealed a glass door leading into a darkened room.

  Fortuna let herself into the chilly parlour, to find the furniture draped in dustsheets. At least she wouldn’t be disturbed. She slumped onto one of the sofas and gave a loud sniffle, before dabbing away her tears. There wasn’t time to cry. She needed to compose herself, prepare for the next assault, which would surely come. She doubted many people said no to Sir Hector, and he wouldn’t accept it from her. He’d march straight to her father and demanded he talk sense into his ninny of a daughter. Mr. Allenthorpe would acquiesce and then defer to her mother, which meant she could shortly expect a lecture.

  Too tense to remain seated, Fortuna paced to the French windows and found that they led onto a small roof terrace. Arms crossed to ward her against the cold she paced to the heart of the ivy-shrouded sanctuary, then closed her eyes and willed herself still. The clamour of the musicians was faint here, the chattering voices like the buzz of insects on a summer’s eve.

  Fortuna searched her fingers over her hair and removed the comb Sir Hector had presented to her. She turned the fragile piece over and over, aware that she should have given it back immediately. There were some who’d wrongly assume from her keeping the present that she simply meant to test his constancy by refusing him, and that she would accept at a later date.