Once Upon a Scandal (11 page)

“Flirtation is a game, my dear. The trick to it is finding which action will draw a man to you. It might be the tilt of your chin. The way you hold your head. How you laugh. Even your eyelashes batting, although that is dreadfully overdone.”

“I can’t see Marworth being taken in by such tricks.” The words had spilled out before she could stop them.

“Marworth is a man like any other, Jane. But he steers clear of entanglement, for reasons entirely his own.”

“If one believes the rumors, he’s had liaisons with half of the ladies in London.” She hoped she sounded nonchalant rather than morbidly curious.

“Half of them have probably tried. However, he doesn’t poach on other men’s wives, and he certainly doesn’t go after innocents.”

Which she was. Emphatically. But that didn’t mean that during five Seasons, she hadn’t wondered what it would feel like to have her lips claimed by a man, their bodies so close, their breaths intermingled.

She took her place once more by the doorway, trying to remember this was a new beginning and that she could be anyone she dared to be. Biting on her lower lip, she straightened her shoulders, lifting her chin and fan.

This time, she imagined he sat before her, his eyes alight with interest as they fell on the swell of her bodice. The nape of her neck. Even her ankles, if not the arches of her feet. Lowering her fan, she brushed the top of it across her lips, imagining it was Benjamin’s mouth touching hers.

A sharp clatter interrupted her reverie. The sound of clapping. “That was marvelous, my dear!” Sophia exclaimed. “Every movement, every glance was a flirtation. Tell me, what were you thinking of as you performed? We must make it your near constant focus.”

How mortifying. At least she was saved from an immediate reply by Maybanks, who’d just entered the room, approaching Sophia with a note. After reading it, the countess smiled broadly, her earlier question seemingly forgotten. “No more lessons for today. Your new wardrobe has arrived. I suspect men won’t be able to keep their eyes off you. And that includes Marworth,” she said with a wink. “Just in case you were wondering.”

• • •

“Oh my,” Banning said.

Jane could only nod in silent agreement, more than a little awed by the reflection staring back at her in the mirror. She’d never worn anything like this glorious dress in emerald green, the precise shade of it shifting in the play of light from the window.

Of course, she’d worn very lovely things in the past, but nothing so extravagantly fashionable. So shockingly daring. The bodice was far lower than she was accustomed to, despite its raised lace collar, and the waist was higher, tucked practically beneath her breasts. The skirt was shorter than English fashion, revealing an almost scandalous flash of ankle beneath the trim of an ivory silk slip. But it was the exquisite embroidery dancing across the dress that rendered her speechless. Silver threads, twisted with gold, had been stitched with the delicacy of an artist’s brush, fashioned into woodland creatures and forest sprites, set amidst a profusion of vines and flowers.

“You look like Diana, goddess of the hunt,” Sophia said from her chair across the room. “Which strikes me as appropriate.”

“The needlework alone is a marvel,” Oakley said, lifting yet another exquisite creation out of its packing. “It’s a good thing the woman these were made for might have been your twin. It would be a crime to alter a single stitch.”

“Not quite my twin,” Jane said, looking down at her bodice. “Are you certain this isn’t too revealing? Perhaps a fichu, strategically placed?”

“Absolutely not,” Sophia replied. “Remember when we spoke of natural assets? You have them in abundance. Indeed, how you’ve disguised them to this point, I have no idea.”

They’d been at this for more than two hours, unwrapping dozens of dresses for every occasion, from morning rides to the grandest of balls. There were also feathered and beribboned hats. Hand-painted silk and ivory fans. Gloves for both day and evening. Cashmere shawls and scarves. Embroidered and beaded purses. Delicate silk slippers and undergarments. They covered every surface in Jane’s bedroom, with more boxes waiting out in the hall.

“Really, this is too much,” she said, turning away from her reflection. “I’m certain I can hear that poor woman crying all the way from Paris. This was outright thievery.”

“Nonsense, my dear,” Sophia said as she inspected a particularly fetching hat. “If the theft was anyone’s, it was LeRoy’s. His prices are exorbitant.”

There was no gainsaying his genius, however. Smoothing her fingers over the silk of her gown, marveling at its softness, she’d never felt prettier. Even if her transformation was only a temporary one. “I needed to voice at least a token note of regret.” She turned to Banning, who was refolding a lavender cashmere wrap, lined with silk and trimmed with a wide cream ribbon. “That would be beautiful with your coloring. I wish you would take it. Spread the guilt around, as it were.”

“I’m afraid I have little use for such an extravagance,” Banning said quietly. But it was easy to see the longing in her eyes.

“Please do take it. Each of us should find something among this to remember the occasion. Perhaps years hence, we can meet up, like a secret society, and discuss the day we unpacked a wardrobe fit for a princess. I can’t quite digest it all by myself.”

“Look at this one,” Oakley said, her voice soft with something like reverence, and when they all turned as one, she understood why.

“That is the one you must wear when you first appear in Society,” Sophia declared. “Given the color, people will think you had it fashioned to honor Jane Fitzsimmons. It will cause a sensation.”

“But there’s nothing to it,” she exclaimed. “I can’t wear that out in public.”

“It’s made for warm weather, Jane. It’s light, airy, evanescent … ”

“Not to mention transparent.”

“Only the top layer. See how the gauze plays with the color of the dress itself?”

“It’s unlike anything I’d ever allow myself to be seen in.”

Sophia winked at her. “Precisely.”

• • •

“I can’t thank you enough for my beautiful shawl,” Banning said later that evening as they sat together on the flat roof of Painshill Park, an odd habit they’d taken up on balmy evenings. It was a vast expanse, easily accessed by a door from the attic, with a magnificent view stretching all the way to the sea.

“And thank you for my hat,” Oakley added. “My son, Arthur, says it makes me look like a peacock, although how he knows anything about peacocks, I can’t say.”

“I overheard Lord Marworth telling him about the ones that stroll the grounds of the Brighton Royal Pavilion,” Banning replied. “He made quite an act of it, flapping his arms about, jutting his head back and forth with every step. Arthur was roaring with laughter.”

Of course Benjamin would take the time to amuse the son of a housemaid. He had opened his home to an assortment of outcasts, herself included, when she would not have done the same. And that realization was an uncomfortable one. For all of her so-called charitable work among the lower orders, she had always held firmly to the distinctions of class, to the misguided belief that people had a preordained place in the social order. And yet here she was, enjoying the company of a housekeeper and a housemaid on a starlit night. How many times had she been tempted to join Thompson and Bess below stairs, because she could hear their laughter and was lonely? And yet she hadn’t joined them. Not once.

“I’m the one who should be thanking you both. For rescuing me that day at Vauxhall and for tending to me when I was so sick.”

“I’m just glad you’re not as starchy as you first seemed,” Oakley said. “I couldn’t possibly change in a carriage!” she mimicked. “You can’t have been long in service. You’re too impertinent!”

“Well, you are impertinent,” Jane admitted, “but that is part of what makes you an enjoyable companion. Still, I am sorry if I gave offense.”

“Think nothing of it. The honest truth is I haven’t been long in service. It’s not … ” Oakley paused, looking down at her hands, flat against the roof. “It’s not the life I thought I would live.”

“Is it something you wish to speak about?” Jane asked as Banning put an arm around the housemaid’s shoulder.

“I grew up among the gentry not far from here,” Oakley said. “I was expected to make a good marriage, perhaps even to marry into the aristocracy. But I was an independent sort, headstrong if you will, and I was drawn to someone who was completely inappropriate. We were discovered in an indiscretion. A painfully public one. And I was cast off.”

It was easy enough to sketch in the rest. “I am sorry,” Jane said, careful to keep the pity from her voice. She supposed she ought to be shocked, but Oakley’s tale was not an unfamiliar one. “At least you have the gift of your son.”

“Arthur came later,” Oakley replied, her voice leaden now. “After I went into service and learned that a housemaid is considered fair game.”

“And that many men are beasts.” This from Banning, staring out into the darkness.

Dear God. What both women had suffered. She couldn’t begin to comprehend it.

“But my son is a beautiful boy. And Lord Marworth took us in when no one would. For that, I’m grateful.”

“Me too,” Banning said. “He brought me here when everyone else believed me damaged beyond repair.”

“Why do you think he does it?” Jane asked. “With his looks and position, why should he exert himself?”

She couldn’t miss the glance that passed between the other two, hesitant and questioning.

“He’s a very good man,” Banning said after a long pause. “But I think there is guilt there, as well.”

“Guilt because his blessings are so munificent?” If she had the same, she’d revel in them.

“Guilt over his brother, I think,” Oakley said. “I heard stories about it in the village when I was a child. The boy was born with some kind of disease—he suffered from terrible spasms and seizures—and was all but housebound at a young age.”

She’d not known he had any siblings. And that fact could mean only one thing. She, too, had lost a brother. She’d held his tiny, unmoving body in her arms, weeping for his loss and for their mother’s death. All while Father refused to spare him a second glance. Such a pale infant with an unlikely thatch of red hair. What would it have been like to know him as a child and then lose him?

“How tragic,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Rumor has it he wanted to get his brother some fresh air,” Oakley continued. “Against his father’s wishes, he snuck them both out of the house, to a little punt kept near the shore of the lake here at Painshill. But he was only twelve, his brother ten. They were in the middle of the lake when something happened, and the boat overturned. Their father saw them from his study and raced with Maybanks towards the shore.” Oakley’s voice faltered here. “But only Lord Marworth could be saved.”

Jane’s throat closed up, making it difficult to breathe. He’d said he’d lost someone close to him in a boating accident. She’d not known how close. And she’d assumed he had fond memories at Painshill. That he’d reopened the house years after his family had left for just that reason. That he’d enjoyed swimming in the lake she could see from her bedroom window, the lake she could see now, glistening in the moonlight, seductively calm. Why would he subject himself to the sight of it? Why would he choose to return time and again?

She was not accustomed to crying. Other than that miserable incident when she’d gotten drunk on Father’s cognac, she kept a tight rein on her emotions. Things were neater that way. But as tears started to trail down her cheeks, she did not bother to fight them. Because she suddenly understood. Acting as both judge and jury, he’d sentenced himself to this. Surrounded himself with people who were as imperfect and damaged as his brother had apparently been.

Benjamin was doing penance for the little boy who’d died in his stead.

There are a thousand tracks leading to sin and woe, besides that infamous road to which the hand of public censure is pointed.—
Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women

Benjamin removed his topcoat and hat, each of them dripping with the late afternoon rain, and handed them to a steward waiting just inside the door. At White’s Gentleman’s Club on St. James Street in London, one could always rely upon two things: a satisfying lunch and the latest news in gambling and gossip. Hopefully on this day, he’d have the opportunity to indulge in the first before engaging in the second. He’d been up since dawn, meeting with Greystoke and the others.

As he made his way towards the private dining rooms, however, he saw an opportunity he could not miss. Gerard Montford, puffed up in one of the club’s capacious chairs. With his unruly shock of brown hair, eyes that bulged faintly, and a weak chin, Montford was not an impressive specimen. He’d hovered on the fringes of Society for years, tolerated for his connections, first to Fitzsimmons and then to Rempley upon his marriage. But now, of course, he’d inherited a title, and he was clearly enjoying the perks of his newly acquired membership, despite the black band of mourning he wore.

“Fitzsimmons,” Benjamin called out. “Glad to see you under happier circumstances.” They’d last met at Jane’s “funeral,” after all.

“Lord Marworth!” Montford smiled fatuously as he jumped to his feet, seemingly surprised to be addressed at all. “Still getting used to the new moniker, I’m afraid.”

“That’s understandable.” Jane’s father was less than three weeks gone. “How is Lady Fitzsimmons faring?”

“Charlotte’s over the moon. Has been since her new cards arrived. Once this mourning business is done with, she’ll be paying calls all over town.”

“It can be difficult on the women in particular, can’t it?” Benjamin asked, trying to infuse his voice with sympathy instead of annoyance. “No socializing, no amusements of any kind for months on end.”

“Oh, it’s not as bad as that. Charlotte says only a week is expected for a distant cousin. She’ll be dipping her toes into Society in no time.”

Only a week grieving for the woman who’d restored their fortunes and their name. And Old Fitzsimmons, not to be mourned at all. “Will you be taking up your seat in the House of Lords then?”