A Most Scandalous Proposal (31 page)

At the mention of the duel, Julia drummed her fingers against her reticule and bit down on her tongue. She would not say a word. No indeed. She was not speaking to any of them. Foolish men, resolving their differences with violence, if not with fists then at twenty paces. Next thing she knew, Papa would challenge Benedict.

“Who is more reprehensible, sir, the man who anticipates his wedding night or the man who sells his own daughter for five thousand?” Benedict pronounced each syllable with a careful, clipped precision, as if he were reporting to a superior officer.

Papa twisted his glove between stubby fingers—the same glove he’d used to strike Clivesden and which he’d yet to put back on. “Wedding night?”

Benedict flushed a dull red. “In spite of the way things appeared this morning, my intentions are honorable.”

Papa made an incoherent sound in his throat, halfway between a harrumph and a growl.

“I can prove it.” Benedict nudged Upperton. “Can’t I?”

Upperton tore his gaze away from the passing scenery. “What?”

“Do you have it?”

“Right here.” Upperton patted his breast. “Didn’t realize the Archbishop would come through quite so quickly.”

“Have what?” Blast. The words popped out before she could stop them. Useless words, for she knew very well what Benedict would have procured from the Archbishop.

“There was no time before we had to leave Town,” Benedict said, “so I asked Upperton to get me a special license.”

Julia studied her nails. “Looks as if his trip has been a total loss all round then. Perhaps I shall marry Clivesden, after all.”

Upperton broke into a violent fit of coughing, while Benedict fixed her with a frightening glare. She suspected he’d used that look to cow junior officers.

“Don’t even joke about that.” His words came low and lethal, undercutting Upperton’s hacking. A frisson passed down her spine. “Not after—”

He cut his thought short when Upperton’s coughing came to an abrupt halt. A tense silence fell as Benedict held her gaze, his blue eyes eloquent with rage and confusion. Julia suspected, but for the color, they mirrored her own.

“You will not be able to extract yourself from this marriage,” Papa pronounced. “You’ve determined that by your own actions.”

She could make no reply in her defense on that count. Word would get out. If not by the time they returned to Town, then certainly the duel would raise a veritable gale of
on-dits
.

The duel. Why had Papa seen fit to challenge Clivesden over the truth, all over some antiquated notion of honor? No matter the outcome, nothing good could result from the duel. Papa might well carry the blood of another man on his hands for the rest of his life, and that was at best. At worst, he’d die himself.

As if he’d guessed the tenor of her thoughts, Papa leaned forward, hands folded between his knees, and launched into a discussion of the details: weapons, location, ideal conditions.

Julia pressed her lips together and gazed out the window. Poplar trees lined the road. Interesting trees, poplars. Interesting enough, at least, to distract her from a diatribe against masculine idiocy that might rival a fishwife had she lent it voice.

At last, she could stand it no longer. “Papa, have you ever even shot a pistol?”

He settled back, and readjusted his spectacles. “Of course I have.”

“Oh?”

“I dueled Cheltenham over your mother.”

Julia blinked at her father as if seeing him for the first time. She studied the lines at the corners of his eyes, his furrowed forehead, and, in her mind, willed those marks away. She imagined a less fleshy version of his face and a head covered by more than a mere fringe of hair. She pictured him less as a friar who enjoyed his own ale rather too much and more as a man, still youthful, still full of hope for the future. She’d never before had occasion to think of him as ever being Benedict’s age, but he must have been, once.

“You and Cheltenham.”

“Shockingly enough, yes. I cannot abide certain words.”

His tone left Julia with no doubt what those words were. “He called Mama …” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Yes, when he jilted her. Someone had to defend her honor.” Papa spoke with finality, as if those few words sufficed to explain what must have been quite a scandal at the time. Then he expelled a great sigh that seemed to deflate him. “I couldn’t give her what she wanted most. Only Cheltenham could have done that. So I’ve tried to make up for it by giving her everything else.”

Everything else—a town house in Mayfair, ball gowns, parties, season after season for his daughters, titled sons-in-law.

“At least I’ll see you settled,” he went on, almost to himself. “That devil’s bargain I made with Clivesden was just a last, desperate effort. And now it’s failed. I’ve failed her. Whatever becomes of me, you’ll make sure you look after your mama.”

“A
ND WHERE
do you think you’re off to at such an hour?”

At his sister’s stentorian tones, Rufus released the brass handle to the front door, and turned on his heel. Damn it. He’d nearly made it to safety. “I am expected at the St. Claires’ to escort Miss Sophia to the theater.”

Mariah advanced, heels thudding dully on the parquet of the vestibule. “Nonsense! You shall do no such thing.”

He raised a brow. What good was a title if he let his sister bully him? God only knew he’d let her get away with it often enough when they were children. Mariah had always taken her role as the eldest to mean she decided the course of his life, even when that extended to such banalities as the disposition of his tin soldiers. “And what, pray tell, is your objection to the theater?”

“None whatsoever. Only you’ve no chaperone but me, and I have a decided objection to your alliance with that family.”

“Do you really? And since when? As I recall, you stood by knowing I had to offer for Miss St. Claire.”

Mariah’s graying curls swayed about her sagging cheeks. “Had I realized the potential for scandal, I would have objected more vehemently from the beginning. As things now stand, you’d besmirch your title by marrying into that family.”

He slapped his gloves against his palm. “As things stand now? What has changed?”

“You haven’t heard?”

Slap!
Any more of this and the first act would have started by the time they reached Drury Lane. “Listening to gossip again?”

“The younger sister has run off. Does that mean nothing to you?”

“Yes, I was aware.”

“Aware?”

“Naturally. Miss St. Claire has been worried sick over her sister’s disappearance.” He knew as much firsthand. He’d spent yesterday evening at the St. Claire town house, lending Sophia his shoulder, while they waited for her father to return with news. As of very late last night, he hadn’t. “I was hoping an outing might provide a distraction.”

The loose skin at Mariah’s neck trembled with rage. “You knew of this scandal and you did nothing? You did not even see fit to inform me.”

“Looks as if I did not have to, did I? It seems you’ve found out all on your own. I’d congratulate you on your adeptness at listening to the latest
on-dit
, but I’m afraid I’m running rather late.”

“And it means nothing to you that the sister’s tossed her betrothed aside to run off with some former cavalry officer? What’s more, they were caught.”

Rufus studied his sister. That last bit came as a surprise. He’d already worked out the rest of it on his own. Granted, the bit about being caught might not actually be true. That young shrew they’d run into might have spread all manner of rumor. On the other hand, St. Claire may well have returned to Town. “Well, that’s a charming piece of news. Now, if you don’t mind, I really must be off.”

“You cannot continue with this engagement.”

“I can, and I most certainly will. Even if I no longer wished to pursue a marriage with Miss St. Claire, a gentleman does not cry off.”

She advanced another step. “A gentleman can arrange matters so a lady cries off. But she’d never dream of it, would she? She had no hope of landing a title, in spite of her looks. Come to think of it, how can you be certain she really fainted that night at the Posselthwaites’?”

With a sigh, Rufus pulled his gloves on. “I plan to spend an evening at the theater with a young lady who, no matter what her background, I’ve decided suits me most ideally as a wife. To put things plainly, I do not give a tinker’s damn what the
ton
thinks of the match, as I plan to retire to my estates as soon as the vows are said. If my connection to her family is an embarrassment to you, that is no problem of mine.”

Mariah’s quivering turned into an outright tremor. “I shall make it your problem if you cannot choose a more suitable young lady.”

“Then you shall no longer be welcome on my estate.”

“You cannot expect me to spend the summers in Town with no society to speak of.”

He cast a glance about the vestibule. All imported Italian marble and gilt wallpaper, the entryway announced its inhabitants’ impeccable breeding. The town house had belonged to the late Lord Wexford, and had not been included in the entail. Mariah had never borne her husband an heir, and his holdings had passed to a distant cousin. If she wanted to escape the heat and grime of summer in London, she was beholden to her brother and whatever invitations she could manage.

Rufus jerked a leather glove over his hand. “As I see things, you have two alternatives. Tolerate my choice of spouse and, above all, treat her with respect or seek yourself a new husband.”

“What? At my age?”

He allowed himself a smile. She was in her early forties, endowed with no particular beauty and likely barren. “A husband might do something to improve your temper.”

“Husband indeed,” she harrumphed.

He recognized her near constant trembling for what it was. More than excess weight put on over the years, more than moral superiority. No, it was fear. Fear that if she lost her grip on the tiller of her standards, she might lose her heading, her purpose, her position altogether.

But he could never remark on such a thing. In the history of their interactions as siblings it was not the done thing, any more than it would have behooved him to propose marriage to the scullery maid. So he settled on the expected response—the kind that had ever characterized their relationship since their childhood when he discovered her fear of spiders and delighted in answering her screams by crushing the offending arachnid and tormenting her with the remains.

“You need a man to reform,” he needled. “I hear Lord Chuddleigh is in dire need of it.”

Her bosom expanded with an impending explosion.

“If you refuse to undertake such a daunting task, there’s a novel in the study.
Pride and Prejudice
, I believe the title is. You might find it edifying. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be late.”

He left her spluttering on the threshold and leapt into his waiting barouche. The horses’ hooves clopped loudly on wet cobblestones as he set off for Boulton Row. Bone-chilling wind accompanied another rainy evening.

As much as he hated to give Mariah credit, she was right about one thing. He couldn’t attend the theater tonight, with or without a chaperone. While the outing
might prove a welcome distraction for Sophia, he preferred not to expose her to the
ton
’s speculative glances.

His carriage rumbled to a halt outside the St. Claires’ town house. The moment the stairs were lowered, he bounded from the vehicle into a misty drizzle and up the front steps. In response to his knock, Billings whipped the door open almost immediately.

“I believe Miss St. Claire is expecting me,” he said when the butler remained in the doorway, blocking his entrance.

“I shall have to inquire to make sure her plans haven’t changed.”

“I see.” He didn’t, but he had no choice but to wait in the foyer while the butler made his inquiry.

After a few moments, a white-faced Sophia, still clad in a muslin day dress, drifted down the staircase. “I’m dreadfully sorry, my lord. I cannot possibly attend the theater tonight. Not after what’s happened.”

He tugged off a glove, finger by finger. “I’d drawn the same conclusion myself.”

“But you do not know the whole of it. Once Julia comes home, there’s going to be a horrible scandal.”

“Hadn’t we already worked that out?”

“I’m sure it will be far worse than expected. Julia will never be able to show her face in society again. Not after the kinds of rumors Eleanor is certain to spread.”

He stared for a beat. “Eleanor?”

“Yes, from the shop yesterday. Lady Whitby’s niece. I’m afraid that under the circumstances …”

The hair on the back of his neck rose as she trailed off and cast her eyes to the floor. “Under the circumstances what?”

With shaking fingers, she reached out and plucked at his sleeve. “You must see that our alliance is impossible now. Surely you do not wish to connect your title to … Well, the likes of the St. Claires.”

He hoisted a brow. “You’re crying off now? With no witness about to make it stick?”