A Most Scandalous Proposal (17 page)

“Ah.” Upperton took a swallow. “And who, pray tell, is the lucky lady?”

“No.” Ludlowe set down his glass and wagged an impeccably manicured finger in Upperton’s face. From the looks of things, he’d already had as much as was good for him. “No, no, no. If you don’t already know, I shan’t tell you.”

“Then, perhaps more to the point, has she consented to your suit?”

“Upperton,” Benedict growled. He really didn’t want to hear this. “I think it’s best if I leave.”

Upperton fixed him with a grin that boded no good at all and clamped a hand on his forearm.

Ludlowe tossed back another shot. “Not yet, she hasn’t, but it’s only a matter of time. I received word from the Lord Chancellor today. My petition has been accepted.”

Upperton gave an exaggerated bow of his head. “My lord. Or might I say my condolences to your bachelorhood. For if you don’t soon have every young miss and her mother on your heels, I’ll eat my hat.”

“Ha! A fate worse than death,” added his friend.

Clivesden, for it was thus that Benedict must now think of him, swallowed another few fingers of brandy. “Precisely why I’ve taken steps to remove myself from the marriage mart posthaste. Before too long, I should
manage to get back to the peaceful existence I enjoyed before all this dropped into my lap.”

Benedict gripped the bottle, his fingers tightening about the glass as he imagined crushing it in his fist before jamming said fist into Clivesden’s overly abundant teeth.

He glanced at Upperton, whose face bore every sign of a man thoroughly enjoying himself. Why’d he invite Clivesden over here? Simply to create mayhem, or did he have a more concrete reason? Watchful and silent, Clivesden’s friend continued to fiddle with his cards.

No matter, Benedict was not having any more of this nonsense. He made to stand. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”

Upperton reached out an insistent hand and pressed down on his shoulders. “Not going so soon, are you? Not when it’s just getting interesting?”

Benedict no longer held a clear notion of the time, but it must be nearing midnight. “I’ve had all the interest I can take tonight. Any more and I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

“Humor me, would you?” Then Upperton turned back to his quarry. “Not letting the small matter of marriage change anything about your life, I see.”

“Well, why should it?” the nameless friend remarked.

Clivesden let out a shout of laughter. “I do not see that it’s made a difference in the lives of most men of the
ton
. It’s a small enough matter to bed one’s wife until she gives him an heir and a spare, but after that?” He tipped back his glass and stood. “I fully intend to enjoy myself as I always have.”

Once Clivesden and his companion had sauntered off, no doubt in search of an easy mark, Upperton smiled. “There’s a true friend for you. As gossip would have it, Ludlowe’s swiving his pal’s intended on a regular basis.”

“What?”

“Keaton. Ludlowe’s had biblical knowledge of the man’s betrothed.”

Benedict fixed his friend with a glare. “Why did you force me to listen to that drivel? I’d just as soon knock the idiot’s block off.”

Upperton grinned. “Just shoring up my bets.”

CHAPTER TEN

“I
S IT
true what I’ve been hearing?” Watery eyes narrowed, Lady Epperley surveyed Julia from behind her lorgnette.

Blast it all. She was trapped in the corridor that led to the ladies’ retiring room. Of all the times to tread on her hem and require a quick repair. She’d had the chiffon resewn so often already, she doubted there was much material left to work with.

Julia tapped her fingers against her fan. Between Lord Chuddleigh making a nuisance of himself once again and gossip-mongering dragons, she should have stayed far away from the Pendleton ball. Not that she had a real choice, tonight of all nights.

“That depends on what you’ve been hearing, my lady.”

The dowager’s frown deepened. “Don’t give me such nonsense. You must know. It was all anyone could talk about at the opera last night.”

“I’m afraid we did not attend the opera. Too many family matters.”

“Humph.” Lady Epperley’s jowls twitched in cadence with the feathers on her headdress.

Julia cast about for any possible subject of gossip. “Did it have to do with Princess Charlotte’s upcoming nuptials?”

“Of course not. Anyone who matters is thoroughly tired of discussing who might be invited to the wedding
and whether her royal highness is actually planning on wearing gold.”

“I’m afraid I cannot answer your question, then.” Julia took a hopeful step in the direction of the retiring room.

“Don’t be silly, gel. You most certainly shall.”

Did the old dragon intend to infuriate her? “Perhaps if you were a bit more specific.”

The dowager leaned so close, the peacock feathers on her fan tickled Julia’s nose. “Didn’t I have a chat with you at the Posselthwaites’?”

Thoroughly confused, Julia fought off the urge to scream. “A bit of a chat. I believe you had more to say to my sister.”

“Your sister, yes. I daresay—”

“Oh, Julia, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Face flushed, Sophia came striding down the corridor as fast as her tightly laced stays allowed. “Mama says you must come to the ballroom quickly. They’re waiting for you.”

“Who is?”
Not Benedict. Please, not Benedict
. Although a few days had passed since their ill-advised kiss, she still was not prepared to face him. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. The mere thought of him turned her palms moist.

“Mama and Papa and Highgate and his sister, of course. They’re ready to make the announcement.”

Snap!
Out came the lorgnette. “Highgate, is it? You’ll be the one I want to talk to.”

“My lady?”

Julia couldn’t blame Sophia for the note of caution in her voice. The dowager’s tone carried all the subtlety of a rampaging bull.

“Have you gone and betrothed yourself to the likes of him? Well, gel, speak up. Have you?”

Sophia paled and retreated a pace. “Yes,” she squeaked.

“The way I heard it, you did not have a choice but to accept his offer,” Lady Epperley went on. “In my day, young ladies approached marriage with a great deal more circumspection.”

Sophia stared at the dowager with wide eyes.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Julia said, “I believe our mother needs us.”

Like the figurehead on a warship, Lady Epperley advanced on her quarry. “I am not finished. You young chits. Clearly, you’re in need of a better education. Running about, refusing decent proposals and then flinging yourselves on such men as Highgate.”

Julia slanted a glance at her sister. Sophia’s lower lip trembled, and she sucked it between her teeth.

“What of such men as Highgate?” Julia asked, although she dreaded the reply.

“Please don’t,” Sophia whispered.

Julia fixed her sister with a hard stare. Why stem the tide of this conversation? By her own admission, Sophia was planning to cry off. Lady Epperley’s gossip might well give her the excuse she needed. Unless … unless Sophia already knew something.

“Don’t what? What have you heard about Highgate?”

Lady Epperley lowered her lorgnette and leaned closer.

“It was something Mr. Ludlowe said.” Sophia eyed the dowager. “Please do not make me repeat it.”

“Mr. Ludlowe?” Lady Epperley frowned. “Heard he’s to be called Clivesden now. At any rate, I would not put stock in anything he has to say about Highgate.” She stepped closer, mischief dancing in her eyes. “They have a history together, you see.”

Sophia blinked once and then again. “They do?”

“Yes, my dear. I should not believe anything one says about the other.” Without warning, she snapped her fan
closed and took herself off, leaving Julia speechless for a moment.

“What was that all about?”

Sophia’s head turned as she surveyed the dowager’s progress back toward the ballroom. “I don’t know.” Her words carried an odd mixture of distraction and relief.

“You have an idea.”

“Beyond the fact she’s going feebleminded in her old age?”

A feeble mind was likely the least of Lady Epperley’s faults. More likely, she acted that way a-purpose to provoke. “If it was mere feeblemindedness, you wouldn’t have reacted so strongly.”

“There’s no time for that now. Mama—”

“Can wait. I need someone to sew my hem.” Julia headed toward the ladies’ retiring room once more. “You can tell me while the maids fix it.”

“I will not repeat what William told me in front of a servant.”

Julia stopped in her tracks. “If it’s that bad, why haven’t you leaped on the excuse to get out of your betrothal before now?”

“I don’t suppose I really believed it deep down. William tried to warn me off Highgate the day he came to call on you, but then at dinner, he never spoke a word against the betrothal. If what he told me was true, he would have said something, surely.”

Julia paused in front of the door to the retiring room. “And what did he tell you?”

Sophia stared at the toes of her beaded slippers. “He hinted Highgate is responsible for the death of his first wife.”

Julia bit back a screech. “Sophia, you knew this before Highgate proposed, and you still accepted?”

“I can’t explain, exactly. I did not quite believe it to begin with, and then Highgate was quite persuasive.”

Julia opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, the door opened, and a pretty young brunette emerged. On spotting Julia, she stopped short. Her face twisted itself into such an expression of loathing, Julia felt its impact in her gut. Without a word, the brunette turned the full force of her hatred on Julia, eyeing her from head to toe. She then pushed past Sophia and flounced off down the corridor.

Accustomed to the snub from certain sticklers due to her mother’s antecedents, although perhaps not with this level of venom, Julia stared after her. “And who was that, I wonder?”

“The strumpet,” Sophia murmured.

Julia gaped. “Sophia! If Mama heard you using such language about a lady of quality, why … I don’t know what she’d do.”

“That is no lady of quality. I tell you, she’s no better than a common trollop.”

“What makes you say so?”

“At the Posselthwaites’, Ludlowe tossed me aside to flirt with her. She carries on so, when she’s supposed to be engaged to young Keaton.”

“Then why did she look at
me
as if I were some beggar woman dressed in rags?” Julia regretted the question immediately. It might well lead her sister to pose a few of her own—questions with no easy answers, at least if she wanted to preserve Sophia’s heart.

Fortunately, Sophia lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Who knows how the minds of such, ah, ladies operate? Come, we must hurry, or Mama will be along looking for us herself.”

She ushered Julia into the room and hailed a maid to see to her sister’s trailing hem. While the girl bent and
took needle and thread to the silk and chiffon confection, Julia turned the topic back to Highgate.

“Are you really in such a rush to go through with all this, considering what you’ve heard?”

Sophia cast a glance about the room before replying. Lady Epperley might have taken herself back to the ball, but she was not by any means the
ton
’s only gossip. “What am I going through with, exactly? It’s a temporary charade, and when it’s finished, we’ll part ways and have done.” She gave a sharp little nod that set her blond ringlets bobbing.

Julia pressed her lips together. Sophia’s scheme sounded like another one of her fancies. The reality was bound to be far different than her sister’s imaginings.

“There ye be, miss.” The maid pushed herself to her feet. “That ought to do ye until ye get home.”

Julia smiled at her absently and started for the door. Sophia clutched at her arm with trembling fingers as they made their way through the cream-paneled corridor and down the stairs. Music swelled from the lower story to greet them.

They met their mother at the entrance to the ballroom. “There you are. You’ve kept your father and Highgate waiting far too long as it is.”

Sophia’s nails dug into Julia’s arm.

“It was my fault, Mama,” Julia put in quickly. “My gown needed a repair.”

Mama’s brows lowered. “We must hurry. Lady Wexford will want to leave soon.”

“But it cannot be midnight yet,” Julia protested.

With a smile and nod, Mama angled past a pair of gossiping matrons. “Just so. She’s not used to keeping town hours, and I do not want her to miss the announcement.”

“I thought she was dead set against any sort of public announcement.”

A wicked glint sparkled in Mama’s eye—the very same sky blue as Sophia’s. “Which is precisely why I want her on hand to witness this.”

Sophia slowed her steps until she dragged at Julia like a dead weight. “I don’t know, Mama. You know how capable she is of creating a spectacle. Recall what I told you she said in the park.”

“Oh, she would not dare. Not in front of the entire
ton
.” Mama’s observation might not be such an exaggeration. The Pendleton ballroom was packed with guests. Ladies’ skirts swirled with color to the lively steps of a reel. Around the room’s perimeter, groups stood in conversation. “Besides, it’s not as if we’re going to stop the orchestra and announce it to the entire assembly. Only a select few will do.”