Almost a Scandal (41 page)

The others who wrote included her brothers, on various stations, and her father in the West Indies, still oblivious to her former absence from the house, and the changes that the time apart had wrought.

The navy itself even wrote to inform her that the Courts of Admiralty had adjudicated the prizes owed to
Audacious
and that Richard Kent could collect his monies from them. But of course, she was no longer Richard Kent, and she could summon no authority, moral or otherwise, within herself to impersonate him again. The devil could take it all, for the devil was most assuredly in the details.

Of Richard, she knew little and heard less, only that he had written to the Jenkinses in the autumn, asking that his clothing and books be forwarded to an address in Cambridgeshire, which proved to be, when Jenkins had gone to deliver the cart himself, a coffeehouse whose proprietor could provide him no further information.

She was alone. She ate alone. She walked alone. She slept alone. She lived almost entirely in the lonely privacy of her own head, curled up for hours in the safe harbor of the deep, shuttered, padded window seats in the drawing room, from which she could watch the early winter rains lash the garden.

She didn’t even hear the commotion in the hall above the nattering patter of the rain.

“Ahoy,” a stentorian voice rang out across the house. “Is there no one here?”

“Owen?”

“Sal! Get you out here, I’ve someone I want you to meet.”

Sally sprang up, and ran into the entry hall, only to find it deserted, and the door wide open to the dripping rain. She took up an umbrella, and called back to the kitchens, “Mrs. Jenkins, Owen is home! And he’s…”

Out the door and across the gravel of the drive, the most elegant carriage she’d ever seen was disgorging the single most elegant female Sally had ever had occasion to see. Her brother Owen, whose shock of vividly orange hair contrasted superbly with his uniform coat—complete with epaulettes!—was handing out the most beautiful, most glamorously dressed woman ever to grace Cliff House. Every inch of her petite frame was covered in fashionable sky blue silk and lace, from her pale oval face and perfectly coiffed, mahogany hair to the tips of her jewel-encrusted shoes. She was exquisite. A tiny china doll of a young woman.

Sally skidded her gangly, oversized frame to a noisy halt in the gravel and handed her brother the umbrella. And said the only thing she could think of. “Owen, you’ve been made post.”

“I have,” he agreed cheerfully, as he took the umbrella. “But let me get my darling out of the rain, and inside before I’m overcome with congratulations.”

He held the umbrella high over the doll and her exquisite face that had silently watched the exchange, and swept “his darling” into the house.

Sally followed, but at a slower pace, feeling as if her pockets were weighted with stone.

Because the look that had slipped into the young lady’s eyes at the sight of Sally was enough to set her well back on her heels. It was enough to make her want to run howling to the quiet of her bedchamber and smother herself to death with one of the pillows. It had been nothing more than a momentary widening of the corners of the girl’s eyes and a shocked tightness around her mouth before it was masked behind manners as fine as the Madeira lace dripping from her silken sleeves. But still, the rejection stung like an entire hive full of hornets.

Owen, being a Kent, and singularly obtuse, saw nothing. “Sally! You naughty dog!” he chastised her as she crossed the threshold. “I’ve been sent to take you in hand. Give your brother a kiss, there’s a good girl.”

“I’m hardly a girl anymore, Owen,” Sally muttered even as she complied, for there was nothing else to say that wouldn’t make her seem the veriest shrew in front of the extraordinary, beautiful young woman who regarded her from behind impossibly thick, dark lashes. And she had so, so missed the camaraderie and noisy comfort of her brothers.

“Welcome home, Owen.” She hugged him until he set her back down on the flagstones, though her insides felt as if they were being pulled as tight as a backstay, and her throat felt suspiciously dry and hot.
Taken in hand
. Devil take Owen. And his
darling
.

“Lord, what a scare you gave us, Sal. I had no idea it was you, and not Richard, in
Audacious,
the whole time. I would have seen
you
before, or sent word or some such, or at least visited at Gibraltar, except that I was already gone, back to England with the news of the battle.”

“You were there? At Trafalgar?”

“In
Pickle
. Fast cutter. Left immediately with Collingwood’s dispatches for the Admiralty. I understand you had quite a blow.”

She had in more ways than one. Leave it to Owen to so typically understate a hurricane as to call it a blow. And all that time. All that time her family had been so close at hand and she didn’t know. “But how did you hear about me?”

“Had a letter from Pater. All spelled out. Well, most of it, anyway—I’m still all-fire to find out what the hell happened to Richard.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.” And that still didn’t tell her how her father had found out.

“Oh, well, Pater will be home soon and put it all to rights.”

“Father is coming home? When? When, Owen?”

“Soon I should think, and the others as well, as I’m sure he wrote to them, same as me. And it’s just as well. For they can all come home to celebrate and wish me happy for getting married.”

“Married?” she echoed stupidly, too astonished to absorb any more of his blows. But he wasn’t done yet.

“That’s right. I’ve brought you a new sister.” Owen gestured happily to the elegant young lady standing so quietly and patiently by his side. “To live with you, and keep you company, and keep you from getting old and lonely.”

He meant to be his usual, blustery, brotherly self, but every word stung, every intended kindness brought fresh pain, as if her brother had given his swarm of hornets pikes and knives. There was nothing she could do to protect herself. And Owen, damn his leathery hide, just sailed on despite a desperate shushing noise from his wife.

“Oh, she doesn’t need to be cozened, do you, Sally? The truth is that Pater sent me to have a good look at you, and let him know what’s what. So let me see.” He took up Sally’s chin in the ruthlessly frank grip only a brother could, and had a good long stare at her, as if she were a rudder gudgeon he was considering replacing.

“Not that bad,” was his assessment.

It was too much, however, for Sally.

She did what only a younger sister of delicate sensibility could do. She swore violently, smashed her boot into her brother’s shin, and fled.

Chapter Twenty-four

Her new sister-in-law found Sally at her breakfast the next morning. A glance at the tall case clock by the door told her it was seven o’clock in the morning. Devil take the girl. It was too early for such an exquisite creature to even be awake, let alone looking like she had just walked off the pages of a fashion plate.

Sally had quite purposely hidden herself at the back of the house, in the many-windowed garden room her mother had loved so much. But still the girl found her, tracking her down like a well-groomed scent hound.

“Good morning,” the silken creature said with the breezy certainty of a woman who is quite sure the world will do its utmost to please her. “What a lovely room. This is a charming home. From Owen’s description, I thought it should be a dark, poky old house with no comfort or taste. But I can see that he’s too influenced by what he’s used to aboard ship to take any notice of the finer aspects of decoration. This is absolutely lovely. I’d like to join you, if I may. We didn’t have an opportunity to be introduced last afternoon. I’m Grace. Lady Grace Burroughs, as was. Lady Grace Kent now, I suppose, wife of Captain Kent.”

The creature had hardly drawn a breath, letting her words tumble merrily out, like a little tinkling brook. And her smile was full of her own pleasure at her newest incarnation of her title, as if she had spent days wasting ink in the margin of her schoolbook—for she looked to Sally no more than sixteen—trying out variations of her married name.

“How do you do?” Sally rose, mostly because Lady Grace had remained standing through her breathless speech, and seemed to expect that sort of courtesy. And it made it devilishly easy to look down upon her from Sally’s height.

Lady Grace, however, was not intimidated. She rewarded Sally’s feeble attempt at politeness with a bright smile. “Very well, I thank you. But please, you must sit. And may I join you?”

“Of course,” Sally answered, because she did not know what else to say that would not be either rude or ridiculous.

But when Grace sat, and gave Sally a smile of sunny expectancy—all bright eyes and delicately arched brows—Sally felt she had no choice but to fill the awkward silence. “I must apologize for my behavior yesterday. I don’t want you to think I don’t wish you very happy, or that you’re not welcome here. You are. Most welcome.”

Sally hated her awkwardness and resentment. She knew how to act in a gunroom upon a ship. Devil take her, she had mastered trigonometric navigation and dealt with—even poisoned—Mr. Gamage. Why should it be so hard for her to speak easily to this silly creature? “I hope Mrs. Jenkins saw to your needs and made you comfortable.”

“Oh, yes, very. Though I have my own maid with me as well.” Lady Grace gestured to the girl who at that moment entered the room with a well-laden breakfast tray. “I’m sure you will think me a silly thing to elope with my maid, but—”

“Elope!” Sally couldn’t hope to hide her surprise and shock.

“Well,” Grace hedged, with a smile of delighted, twinkling mischief, as she waited for the maid to leave. “Thank you, Dawkins. Not really eloped, as my Captain Kent made sure we were married by special license. We were married in London, at the home of Sir Charles Middleton—do you know him?” But Lady Grace did not wait to hear if her question was to be answered, and went on with her happy tale. “My parents had no objections. Indeed, they were quite pleased with Captain Kent. And they are a great deal older and quite used to letting me have my way.”

The nasty twinge twisting up Sally’s innards went beyond resentment. It was most assuredly jealousy. For the first time in her life, Sally could almost want to change places with this girl—the kind of girl she had always dismissed as shallow and pampered, and far too insulated from the real world for her own good.

But what would it be like, just for once, to feel the world at one’s feet? To be
used
to having one’s way?

“I suppose it only felt like an elopement,” Grace continued, “because we came away so suddenly. But we were coming to see you, just as we ought.” She turned her candle-bright smile back on Sally. “To make sure you were quite well.”

Sally bridled at being so patronized. “As you see.”

Grace was not put off by her cool tone. “Yes, and I am glad. Though I am sorry he was so … rough with you yesterday. I do know my dear captain can seem hard, almost too brusque and decisive for some people, but I will tell you, from the moment he received that letter, he thought of almost nothing else but you.”

It was strange, and certainly off-putting, to be the focus of such well-meaning pity.

“I am sure you mean to be kind.” She spoke firmly and quietly, just like Col would have, never raising his voice. “But I know my brother of old, and if he thought of nothing but me on the first days of his honeymoon, then I think perhaps something may be wrong with
him
.”

Instead of taking offense, Grace laughed, the kind of sparkling, delightful laugh that reminded listeners of little silver bells. Sally did not know how she could hate her any more.

“I said
almost
nothing. Of course, he has been everything attentive. I don’t mind telling you that the moment I made up my mind that we should come and see you, your brother put all his energy into making it so.”

“Does he always do exactly what you want?”

“Nearly always. Shouldn’t he?”

Sally put down her teacup with a clatter. “Are you very spoiled?”

“Oh, terribly! It is my very finest accomplishment and skill,” Grace said, wide-eyed with all possible frankness, “to make people do what I want.”

Despite herself, Sally was amused. And impressed. She had not thought it possible for the creature to be so honestly self-aware. “Can you teach me?”

If Grace’s smile had been wide and bright before, it now became blinding. “Oh, most assuredly. I should like nothing more! But I will warn you, in the process, I shall be trying to get what I want from you.”

“From me? What could you possibly want from me?”

“I want to live here with you.”

No. It was the first word into her brain, and Sally actually put her hand across her lips to prevent it from leaking out of her mouth. “Are you in your right mind? Here? In this old house? With me? This is practically the end of the world, and I hope you won’t mind my saying so, since we’re being frank, but you hardly seem the kind of woman who can exist apart from a place like London. I mean, look at you. I’m sure you’re best viewed in candlelight.”

“Actually, morning light is best, as it brings out the contrast of my complexion and my hair. But that’s not important. The thing of it is, when my darling Owen goes back to sea—for I am quite convinced he will get a ship in no time—I will be desperately lonely. Desperately. I’ve waited all my life to find the one man whom I could love enough to make my husband. And I have done so. But he’s to go away, out to sea, and no one else in London will understand that loss. They will want me to go to parties and be gay, and not care about how he’s gone. They won’t understand. But Owen says you do. He says that you’re as used to it as anyone could be, from your family all going away all the time. So I thought I should like to be here with you.”

Devil take Owen. Devil take them both. The problem was she
wasn’t
used to it, no matter how often they had gone away. She didn’t think she would
ever
get used to it.