A Dash of Scandal (21 page)

Chandler sat on the rag, his arms on his knees and looked up at her, clearly stunned. “That's not what I was thinking.”

“Good. I wasn't looking to be your wife before this happened and I'm not expecting it now. You need not worry that I will demand your hand in marriage when dawn turns to day.”

Frowning, he shook his head and said, “I didn't expect you to demand anything.”

“I'm glad we're clear on that.” She stepped into her drawers and pulled them up.

“No.” While still seated, Chandler grabbed his breeches and shoved his legs into them one leg at a time. “You are not clear on anything, Miss Blair.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” she said in a huff of breath as she tied the waistband of her drawers.

“Damnation, Millicent, you make it sound like you came in here and took advantage of me, and I had no say in what happened between us.”

“Yes, that's exactly right.”

He glared at her with an incredulous expression on his face. “No, that isn't right.”

“What we just shared was all my doing, sir. I asked you to make love to me, remember?”

Chandler picked up one of his shoes and rose from the rug. “You can't take credit for that. And don't pretend you had to twist my arm to get me to agree. I've been wanting to make love to you since I first saw you. When I didn't even know your name, I wanted you.”

“I don't remember you ever mentioning anything of the sort to me.”

“A gentleman wouldn't come right out and tell a lady he wanted to make love to her.”

She pulled the capped sleeves of her dress back onto her shoulders and straightened the front of her gown over her corset. “A gentleman you say? You have behaved like a rake from the moment we met.”

“No, not in all things. I keep telling you I do know how to be a gentleman at times, and not telling you that I wanted to take you to my bed was one of those times. Furthermore, it just so happens I want to marry you.”

Millicent stopped fiddling with her sleeves and looked up at him. Her worst fear had come true. He felt guilt over what they had done.

Her heart pounded slow, hard, and sure. Chandler was a gentleman after all. If only he had said that before tonight things would have been so different.

She couldn't bear him thinking she had planned tonight just to force him to propose. That thought chilled her.

“You don't know what you are saying,” she managed in a hoarse whisper.

“Of course I do.”

“Tell me truthfully, if we hadn't just made love would you be proposing to me right now?”

Chandler hesitated for a second too long and that told her all she needed to know long before he said, “Truthfully? Right this moment? No.”

Millicent let out a shaky breath. “That's what I thought. My point is proven.”

“You have no case to prove. I only meant I would have asked for your hand in the proper manner, soliciting your guardian first.”

“You can't want to marry me. You don't even know me,” she whispered.

He looked pointedly, knowingly into Millicent's eyes. Very quietly he said, “I know every inch of you, my dear.”

“Oh! How dare you be so crass about—” She stopped.

“Making love to you?” he asked with a frown settled deep between his eyes as he hopped on one foot while trying to get his bare foot into his other shoe.

“You're hopeless.” Millicent looked around for her gloves. Chandler was being deliberately obtuse. “I meant that you don't know anything about my family or the true reason I'm in London.”

He stopped trying to step into his shoe and just held it. “That's right, because you have seen fit to deny me that important bit of information even though I have asked about it more than once.”

She reached down and picked up one of her gloves, then looked back at Chandler. She opened her mouth to tell him the whole story of her mother's debacle in London's Society and her aunt's double life as Lord Truefitt, but she stopped. If Chandler knew, would it make him love her? Would it make him forget she had spied on his peers and written for the scandal sheets? If none of that would change, then why expose her aunt to ruination?

“I can't tell you because it involves someone else. There's too much at stake.”

“What? Why, if no one is forcing you to do this gossip column? Did you lie to me when you said you weren't doing it for the money?”

“No, no. I haven't lied to you.”

“Trust me with what you know. Trust me with what you are doing. You can trust me, Millicent.”

Millicent looked at Chandler, with his chest bare, his breeches unfastened, and only one shoe on. Oh yes, she loved him with all her heart. She wanted to confide in him. And her heart would be overjoyed if she knew he wanted to marry her because he felt for her what she was feeling for him.

When her gaze met his, she knew she had to leave immediately. If not she would give in to his demands and tell him everything. “Don't ruin what just happened between us, Chandler. I want nothing more from you than the sweet memory of being in your arms tonight.”

She turned and rushed out of the room.

“Millicent, come back.”

She heard him call her name, then a sound like he had stumbled over something and tripped. She didn't stop to find out. She ran to the front door and slung it open. She dashed out into the night, running as fast as she could to the coach that was waiting.

The driver jumped down and opened the door for her. She gave him her address and as she climbed inside said, “Don't stop for Lord Dunraven. I must get away.”

As the coach pulled away she looked out the window. Chandler was running down the street after them, his shirt in one hand and a shoe in the other.

“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it,” and so it is with great relief London says farewell to the wily Mad Ton Thief. What a disagreeable ending to such a delightful piece of gossip. It would have been far better for the thief to have been Lord Pinkwater's ghost than one of our own.

—Lord Truefitt,
Society's Daily Column

As soon as Millicent stepped down from the carriage, the front door of her aunt's town house jerked open. Millicent took a deep breath and headed for the open doorway, where her aunt's maid stood waiting for her. She'd refused to allow herself to think about Chandler on the way home. Instead she concentrated on how she would tell her aunt about the sad turn of events involving Lady Heathecoute.

“Where have you been, miss?” Emery said. “Her ladyship has sent Phillips out looking for you. You've had us all worried sick.”

Millicent lifted her shoulders and her chin, trying to act as if nothing was wrong as she neared the doorway. “I'm not so late, am I, Emery?”

“Much too late according to my lady,” the maid said with a disapproving glare on her face. “And what happened to you? I see now you've a cut on your forehead and there's blood on your dress. Are you all right?”

“I'm quite all right. I'll explain everything to Aunt Beatrice,” Millicent said, walking into the house past Emery. “But I could use a cup of tea, if you don't mind.”

“Of course not. I'll be up with it right away.”

“Thank you.” Millicent went straight to the upper floor. Hamlet barked, and she stopped on the landing and leaned against the rail. There would be so many things about London that she would miss when she went back home.

“Is that you, Millicent?” Aunt Beatrice called from her bedchamber.

“Yes, Aunt, it's me.”

“Good heavens! Where have you been? I've been worried sick. Come in right away.”

Millicent paused outside the door and took a deep breath. The dream of being in Chandler's arms was over. As she'd traveled the streets to her aunt's house, dawn had arrived and now so had reality.

She walked into the bedchamber talking. “I'm sorry I'm so late, Aunt Beatrice, but you'll understand once I explain everything.”

“Well I should hope so.” Her eyes rounded in shock as Millicent neared her bed. “My goodness, dear girl, what happened to you? You're hurt and your dress is a rumpled mess. Heaven's gate! Did someone accost you? Oh, your mother will never let me hear the end of it. Don't just stand there, Millicent. Say something.”

Her aunt's frantic voice startled Hamlet and he barked several times before Aunt Beatrice was able to quiet him.

“Please don't worry about me. I'm fine,” Millicent said as she walked closer to the bed. “I wasn't attacked. Well… not exactly.”

“What does not exactly mean? Something happened? Did you fall? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, no. Really, I'm perfect except for the cut, which doesn't pain me at all, but it has been such an eventful evening my head is spinning at the moment.” She sat down in the chair by her aunt's bed.

Millicent touched her forehead and realized it was tender. She had completely forgotten about the cut when she was with Chandler. There was a dull ache inside her, but it didn't come from her wound.

She looked at her aunt, sitting up in the bed, waiting for her to speak. “I find I don't really know where to begin.”

“Nonsense! At the beginning, of course,” Aunt Beatrice huffed.

“Yes, well you see, I've been trying to help Lord—” she stopped. No, she didn't want to tell her aunt she'd been trying to help Lord Dunraven find the Mad Ton Thief. That would take too much explaining, and it wasn't something her aunt really needed to know.

“That is, I was standing with Lord Dunraven tonight when he—when I noticed he kept looking at Lady Heathecoute with a quizzical expression on his face. So I made a point of unobtrusively glancing at her, too. I noticed that the front of her skirt looked very odd.”

“She is very plump, my dear. It is to be expected. What has that got to do with the cut on your head and the unforgivable lateness of the hour? Forget starting at the beginning, I'll need smelling salts before you get to the ending. Give me the high points and you can fill in the details later.”

As carefully and as quickly as possible Millicent relayed the events of the evening to her aunt, starting from the time she and Lord Dunraven went with the viscountess out to the carriage. She left out the hour she'd spent at Chandler's house, accounting the story as if she had spent all the time with the authorities, telling them how she and Chandler had pressed Lady Heathecoute to show what was beneath her skirt.

Beatrice pulled Hamlet up to her chest and lay back against her pillows when Millicent finished. “Merciful heavens. This is an unbelievable story. The poor woman a thief? The Mad Ton Thief? I keep thinking it's impossible.”

“I assure you it is all true.”

“And you say the authorities took her away.”

“I watched them put her in the carriage. Her husband went with them, too, but I do feel he knew nothing about what she had been doing.”

Aunt Beatrice brushed Hamlet's coat with her hand. “I knew she wanted to take over the column, but I thought it was for the excitement and control of it, not because she needed to obtain money to live.”

Something tugged at Millicent. “But that's why you do it, isn't it, Aunt? For the money, to help with your living expenses?”

Beatrice's eyes widened and she hurriedly said, “Oh, yes, my dear, yes. I've said so, haven't I?”

Millicent studied her aunt. She wasn't so sure she believed her anymore.

“Forget that. Tell me what Lord Heathecoute had to say.”

“He suggested to the authorities that it might be a sickness with her, and that it was quite possible she was unable to stop herself from doing it.”

“Hmm. I have heard of such a thing. No doubt the authorities will sort it out.”

“How did it come about that you took her into your confidence?” Millicent asked.

“Oh, it was Mr. Greenbrier from
The Daily Reader
who introduced us. Apparently she had intimated to someone at the newspaper that she was available to obtain information if there was a need. He felt it would be good if I had an assistant, so naturally I was obliged to take her into my confidence when he approached me with the idea.”

“Her reputation is ruined and she will no doubt end up in prison. Do you think she will tattle that you are Lord Truefitt?”

Beatrice screwed up her face in a worried frown. “There is that possibility. When Phillips delivers the column this morning, I'll have him give a letter to Mr. Greenbrier and ask him to call on me. Perhaps he can speak to the authorities and the viscountess and work something out to help her so that she would have good reason to stay quiet about me.”

“I'll make sure Phillips gets the letter delivered.”

“Oh, get your quill, Millicent, we've so much to do and no time to waste. We must get our column to the newspaper and be the first to tell Society that the Mad Ton Thief has been captured.”

***

When her maid brought Millicent tea that afternoon, she had a note on the tray from Lord Dunraven saying that he wanted to call on her later that day. She hastily wrote a note back telling him she was unavailable and to please not disturb her again.

It hurt her greatly to refuse him, but she must make sure he knew that she had no intentions of marrying him just because she took him as a lover. It was best they end their affair as quickly as it had begun. Millicent couldn't bear the thought that he would marry her because of duty and honor or because he believed she'd tricked him.

As much as it devastated her to reject his appeal to see her, Millicent had to deny his request. They must go their separate ways. Their partnership was dissolved because the Mad Ton Thief had been caught. She had all hope that the raven would be found unharmed and returned to him without further delay.

She also refused a call from Lady Lynette. She knew her friend wanted to gossip about the events of the previous evening and find out all Millicent knew about the capture of the Mad Ton Thief, but she wasn't ready to start talking with anyone about what had happened. She sent Lynette a note suggesting that she call on her later in the week.

Late that afternoon, unable to stop herself, Millicent walked out into the back garden, hoping that Chandler had not listened to her request to be left alone. She wanted him to burst through the hedge and announce his undying love for her and ask her once again to marry him.

Millicent stayed out in the garden until dusk. Chandler never showed.

Lady Beatrice agreed that Millicent shouldn't attend any of the parties that evening. Her wound didn't look that bad, but her aunt had to have time to arrange a new chaperone for Millicent. Thankfully, they had enough gossip for a couple of days with the capture of the Mad Ton Thief, and they could always write about one of the Terrible Threesome.

The next afternoon Millicent once again retreated to the garden hoping Chandler would steal through the hedge to see her. The gray sky seemed fitting as she sat on the base of the statue where she'd frolicked with Chandler and remembered their hour together in his home.

Twilight came. Chandler didn't come, and there was no further note from him.

When she went back inside, the latest copy of
The Daily Reader
had arrived. As always, she opened it first to Lord Truefitt's column to have a look at it.

Millicent blinked, then gasped. She turned the pages of the newspaper. Something was wrong. It was Lord Truefitt's column, but it wasn't her writings. What had happened?

She read the words carefully.

“Beware the ides of March” might be Lord Dunraven's motto, for it seems he may be caught at last by a pretty maiden. It is on good authority this column reports a young lady new to Town, who has danced with the earl at the best parties, was seen fleeing his home in the wee hours of morning, without benefit of a chaperone. The earl himself was said to have been chasing after her carriage in a state of dishabille. Hmm, one wonders what was going on. Do tell, if you know more.

—Lord Truefitt,
Society's Daily Column

For a moment Millicent was shocked into disbelief. How could her article have been switched with the one about her and Chandler? Who could have seen her leave Lord Dunraven's house so early in the morning?

Only Chandler and the coachman. Could Chandler have replaced her column with one of his own? No, he was a rake and not to be trusted, but she couldn't believe that of him. She had no idea who might have seen her leave his house, but she was certain Chandler would not have done this.

Why would anyone have written about it?

Her hands made fists as she held the newspaper, crinkling the pages tight. She didn't have to ask why. She knew. It was for the gossip. The very thing she had promised herself and her mother that wouldn't happen had happened.

Millicent was the object of scandal!

She dropped the paper and rushed up the stairs to her bedchamber. She would leave immediately. She would run away, so she wouldn't have to look anyone in the eyes. If she were lucky her mother would never find out about this. Millicent hated the thought of trying to explain to her mother, or hurting her. But what could she say to her aunt? How could she explain that being with Chandler was more important than her reputation? She couldn't. Aunt Beatrice wouldn't understand.

There were no words to justify her involvement with Chandler. Millicent went to her wardrobe and jerked down her gowns and threw them on the bed. When she turned back to the wardrobe for the rest of her things, she saw Hamlet standing in the doorway watching her. He wagged his tail and looked at her with doleful, expectant eyes. In the weeks she'd been here, the dog had never ventured into her bedchamber. Did he realize what the clothes on the bed meant?

He continued to look at her and wag his tail. Did he want her to pat him? She knelt down and reached out her hand. He walked over to her and sniffed her fingers, then licked them. Millicent smiled. She rubbed his warm body and allowed him to lick her cheek affectionately.

“Oh, you smart little dog.” Millicent sat down on the floor and pulled Hamlet into her lap so she could brush his coat with her hand.

What a sweetheart he was to come to her when she most needed a friend. Her world had come crashing down around her and somehow Hamlet had known and he had come to comfort her.

No, she was not her mother. Millicent wouldn't flee London, or hide, or be forced into marriage with a man who didn't love her just to save her reputation. She would stay in Town and do her best to finish the job she'd started for her aunt.

There was no way she would be allowed at any of the parties now, but maybe Lady Lynette wouldn't desert her. If Millicent could talk to Lady Lynette once or twice a week, she would be able to get sufficient gossip until her aunt was ready to resume her duties. At that time, Millicent would feel she had fulfilled her commitment to her father's sister.

But first she had to tell her aunt about the column, and she had to do it now. And if her mother, by chance, found out about her liaison with Lord Dunraven, Millicent was sure she would understand. After all, her mother had once been in love with a rake, too.

There was a knock on her bedchamber door. She looked up and saw Emery standing in the doorway, regarding the dog in Millicent's lap.

“So the master of the house has finally come around,” Emery said.

“So it seems. Today, Hamlet and I have a new relationship.”

“It's about time.” Emery paused for a moment, then with a curious expression asked, “Is there a problem with your clothing, miss?”

Millicent looked at her open wardrobe and her dresses slung across the bed. She smiled at the maid. “No, everything is all right.”