A Hint of Scandal (31 page)

He stood with his old friends, watching the others as another dance began almost immediately. His eyes shone with pride and tenderness as he watched Arabella, his bride of almost six months, dancing with the Duke of Malverton. They were attempting a new dance. Both were obviously having a wonderful time, laughing and teasing each other over their missteps and mistakes.

At that moment Hollings approached him, bearing a silver salver with a sealed note resting upon it.

Westlake took it with a curious frown, excusing himself from his friends to read it by the fireplace.

He read the note again before folding it and putting it in the pocket of his waistcoat. Turning, he went back to join his houseguests.

*       *       *

At one minute to midnight, Westlake strolled into his candlelit atrium. Glancing around, he at first thought he was alone. But as he walked farther into the room, he saw a familiar figure at the other end, partially shielded by the lush greenery.

Slowly he approached the young beauty, enjoying her silhouette in repose. A moment before she turned to him, Westlake caught a dreamy, half-smiling expression on her face.

As he drew near, she greeted him with love and laughter in her gaze. He swept her into his arms in a passionate embrace that caused her body to melt familiarly against his.

“What were you thinking, minx, just before you saw me?”

Bella looked up at her husband with frankly adoring eyes. She raised herself on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I was just thinking that Autley is the most wonderful place in the world. I do not know why I ever thought otherwise. And I was also thinking that an atrium is a perfect place to meet one’s husband.”

With a rich laugh, the duke pulled her closer. “I could not agree more, my love,” Westlake said the instant before his lips met hers.

1815

O
 n the corner of a very fashionable street in London stood five of the highest flying Corinthians the
ton
could boast. To a man, their attention was fixed on a simply dressed, yet exceedingly beautiful, young lady standing on the sidewalk across the street. They watched her with the same intensity she was giving a coach and four lumbering by.

“Damn, Kel, you cannot mean to fulfill the bet with that chit? It is only three of the clock! What if you see a prettier wench at four?” questioned a dashing buck in the steadiest of voices. The others knew this very precise enunciation meant that their friend was quite foxed.

“Dash it, Alton, put a shtopper in it! If Kelbourne shez sheesh the prettyisht gel he has sheen today, then let be. It is between Kel and Dame Fortune anyway,” stated the fair-haired Viscount Mattonly, who was not as adroit at hiding his condition as the previous speaker.

The other blades murmured in agreement and vigorously encouraged the tall gentleman standing in their midst to go to it and fulfill his vow.

His Grace, the Duke of Kelbourne, known to his intimates as Kel, ignored his bickering friends, and continued to study the young lady.

A cool sun shone down upon her as she gazed at her surroundings with large, curious gray eyes.

With a decisive movement, he doffed his beaver hat and strode across the street. Dodging stylish high-perch phaetons and closed carriages, he moved quickly lest his quarry disappear.

Miss Julia Allard was enjoying her first visit to London with the real but detached interest of a tourist. As she looked around, she thought again that her childhood home of Chippenham had not prepared her for the cosmopolitan splendor of London.

Presently, she was supposed to be helping her cousin Caroline and Aunt Hyacinth choose bonnet trimmings, but the view from the milliner’s shopwindow had proved too much of an enticement. Julia found the bustle exhilarating after living so quietly in the country. At first, the noise, the closeness of the buildings, even the gas lampposts had seemed almost foreign to her.

But now, standing on the sidewalk, she observed all the beautifully dressed people enjoying the fine spring day with pleasure evident on her features. The fascinating scene before her was so captivating, she took no notice of the attention she herself was receiving.

A shiny black coach with a groom riding postilion rolled by. Julia wished Caro had come out; her cousin could identify the owners of the conveyances with only a glance at the heraldic device painted on the doors.

Sighing with satisfaction, Julia reluctantly turned to reenter the shop. She stopped short as a very tall gentleman stepped directly into her path.

Pausing for a moment, she looked up in surprise, before taking a step to the side to pass him.

He stepped to the side also.

Beneath her bonnet, one finely arched brow rose over stormy gray eyes. Julia surveyed the man who was obviously blocking her progress on purpose.

Though he was dressed in perfectly tailored clothing of exquisite fabric, she noted that there was nothing of the fop about him. His deep blue coat fit his broad shoulders as if painted on, and his doeskin breeches and polished Hessian boots accented his powerfully muscled legs.

Her critical gaze traveled up again. He was not classically handsome, but his angled features combined to form a compelling and attractive face. His dark brown hair was styled a little shorter than what was currently fashionable among the beau monde. A straight, rather long nose and bluntly square chin gave him a rakish, formidable air.

A frisson of something that was not quite fear, not quite anger, raced up Julia’s spine as she lifted her chin to address the stranger.

“Kindly move, sir. As you can see, you are blocking my path.” Her tone was firm, despite her nervousness.

His only response was a slight smile. His assessing gaze continued to sweep her features.

For his part, Kel was greatly pleased to see, upon closer inspection, that her charms exceeded his expectations. It also pleased him that she was so tall—the top of her head came to his chin. A profusion of thick, pale golden ringlets framed a classically sculpted face beneath an attractive bonnet. Her complexion was flawless, smooth ivory tinted with a drop of honey.

He saw large gray eyes, slightly tilted up at the
corners and fringed with thick brown lashes. They were staring angrily back at him.

His gaze settled on her mouth—the goal of his vow. It was full, yet finely defined, competing with her eyes as her loveliest feature.

Once more, he swept her figure with experienced regard. She was slim, but with an understated voluptuousness that would cause men to stare.

Disturbed by this unwanted attention, Julia once more tried to pass him.

Again, he blocked her way.

Panic touched her and she looked around in desperation, noticing that passersby were beginning to stop and stare.

Her uncle had warned her of the debauchery that the beauty of London often hid. Though surely, ladies were not customarily accosted the moment they stepped from a milliner’s shop, she thought as her heart began to hammer rapidly.

She took another quick sidestep, and he moved with her. Julia’s temper flared. It was time to put a stop to this nonsense.

“Why won’t you move?” she demanded.

The man said nothing, only stood there gazing at her with a slightly crooked, raffish smile.

The Duke of Kelbourne was not as disguised as his friends were. He had only imbibed enough spirits at his club earlier that day to destroy his gentlemanly inhibitions, and heighten his already overactive sense of daring.

Nevertheless, the lovely lady’s anger was lost upon his dulled senses as he inclined his head in a slight bow.

“I cannot leave you, fair maiden, because of a vow I have made.”

“A vow?” This was passing strange. Julia suddenly wondered if this man had escaped his keeper.

“Yes, a vow,” he said, and Julia could not help noting how deep and well-modulated his voice was.

“A vow I made last eve to Dame Fortune. I must salute with a kiss the prettiest lady I see today.” Turning to the four men who had followed him across the street, he continued, “And this is not only the prettiest lady I have seen today, but the most lovely I have seen in many a Season.”

Julia had listened as far as “salute with a kiss” when she decided to turn the other way and quit this ridiculous scene.

She took two full steps before his strong hand caught her arm and pulled her around against his solid body.

“You are mad!” she cried, staring up at him with alarmed gray eyes, shocked as she had never been in the whole of her life.

“Oh no, fair maid, you cannot leave me yet. A gentleman must never break a vow.”

Frantic, she struggled, pushing against his chest. She heard one of the other men chortle and say, “I believe Kelbourne is confusing the word
vow
with
wager.
”

To Julia’s growing horror, a crowd was beginning to gather on the busy street. Besides the men who seemed to be with her assailant, there was a smartly dressed young couple, a few people who appeared to be servants carrying large boxes, and a landau carrying two ladies had just pulled up.

Redoubling her efforts to get away, Julia demanded in a breathless voice to be released.

She also tried to kick his shins, but her skirts and his well-muscled arms clasped around her proved too great a hindrance.

With ease of strength, he dipped her to the side, offsetting her balance so that she had to abandon her struggle.

Julia squeezed her eyes shut, held her body rigid with her hands curled into fists at her sides. His head descended toward hers.

As his lips touched hers she tried to struggle again, but her efforts were fruitless. His arms felt like bands of steel around her straining body. The part of her brain that could think past her mortification wished fervently that she were strong enough to break her attacker’s arms.

With his lips on her tightly compressed mouth, Kelbourne was beginning to wonder why the young beauty he held was behaving like a broomstick.

His fogged brain told him something was not right. No woman had ever been anything but eager to be in his arms. In fact, if he could be forgiven for being so immodest, he was usually the pursued, instead of the pursuer.

With masculine determination, he marshaled his considerable personal forces against her defenses.

Julia immediately felt the change in his demeanor.

Suddenly, the kiss became infinitely gentle, the hand on the back of her neck caressed instead of held.

Julia was a mass of jumbled emotions. Rage, fear, humiliation, and something she could not identify, swirled through her senses as she remained rigid in his embrace.

The Duke of Kelbourne raised his head slightly to look at the beauty in his arms. The rage blazing in her gray eyes startled him.

After a sleepless night of revelry and lingering inebriation, he could only wonder at her fury. He hazily considered the possibility that he had trod upon her toes. Confused, he set her upright and released her.

Shaking with outrage and humiliation, Julia rasped in a voice only those closest could hear, “If I were a man, I’d knock you flat.”

She then drew her arm back and slapped him so hard across his face, her palm stung with the force of the blow.

Turning, she cut through the gawking little crowd with a breathless “excuse me” and marched back into the milliner’s shop, where Aunt Hyacinth and Caroline were still discussing ribbons.