Saved by Scandal (2 page)

A whole page of the betting book at White’s—nay, a whole chapter—was devoted to Mademoiselle Margot, to who would win her favors and how much blunt it would take. Perhaps the most beautiful woman in all of London, the willowy singer was certainly the most elusive. No one had yet to claim the title of her protector, although scores of admirers had offered and been refused. They beseeched her in the Green Room, tossed her bouquets and baubles as she made her bows on stage, and waited outside the theater for a glimpse of the blond beauty. She always smiled, waved, and went home alone, leading speculation to run rampant as to a secret husband in France, a married lover in the country, a teasing game to drive her price higher. Galen had lots of money, whatever it took. He even had Florrie’s dowry, by George.

The viscount had not been among the legions of Miss Montclaire’s devotees. He admired her, of course, but only from his box at the theater. What man wouldn’t lust after the golden-haired beauty, with her slim but gracefully rounded figure and come-hither voice? A dead one. Lord Woodbridge was very much alive, but he’d been an engaged man, a gentleman who would not betray his bride-to-be. He’d had women in Spain, of course, and the occasional paid companion, but so near to the wedding he would not dishonor Florrie, for all the good it did him. Thunderation, he could have been keeping a harem for all she cared. While he was taking cold baths, Lady Floria was likely taking Lytell to her bed. Galen emptied another bottle, then pushed the glass aside. No, he needed a clear head for the coming negotiations. He lit a cigarillo instead and blew smoke rings overhead. He thought of wedding rings, like the one in his pocket. Miss Montclaire’s price could be as high as Prinny’s debts, but Galen Woodrow, Viscount Woodbridge, had something a lot richer to offer.

Chapter Two

Whoever said that dog was man’s best friend had never encountered Mademoiselle Margot’s mongrel. The rack-ribbed cur stood waist-high, with tufts of hair here and there on its reddish-colored body, as if a greyhound had mated with a shaving brush, with a bit of moth-eaten fox thrown in. The huge mutt’s teeth were as long and white as a pirate’s ivory peg leg, and those leathery lips were not curled up in a smile. The bare floor under Galen’s boots was vibrating, shaking from the rumbling growl that issued from the dog’s cavernous maw.

Galen liked dogs. He held out his gloved hand to be sniffed, to make friends. His glove disappeared down the overgrown beast’s gullet. Better bare hands than bare bones, he considered, putting his other hand in the pocket of his hooded cloak, fingering the loaded pistol he’d put there before venturing into London’s less luxurious neighborhoods at nighttime. He could not suppose Miss Montclaire would be amenable to his offer if he shot her pet, however, so he addressed himself to the woman holding the dog’s collar. She was nearly as homely as the mongrel, and just as surly.

“I don’t care what you want,
mademoiselle
ain’t receiving this evening. An’ she ain’t receiving the likes of you any time.”

Waiting till dark, Galen had crept out of his own house with the hood of his cloak pulled up to hide his face, then hurried down the street, keeping to the shadows, until he could hire a hackney carriage to drive him to Drury Lane. The theater was closed on this Sunday night, but the manager was there, counting receipts. The dastard demanded half of Florrie’s dowry, it seemed, just to reveal the singer’s direction.

“
Mademoiselle
ain’t no light-skirt to be giving her address to every jumped-up jackanapes, you know,” the manager declared.

If she were, Galen wouldn’t be here. He put another stack of coins on the man’s cluttered desk.

“An’ she better be here to work tomorrow night. I have a contract, I do.”

More coins had changed owners, until an address was scribbled on the back of a playbill. Nichol Road was just a few blocks away from the theater, so Galen walked. The streets grew narrower and darker, with more filth in the gutter. Some of the filth scuttled away when he passed, some held out emaciated hands for a coin, and some offered their bodies for the night. Miss Montclaire would be happy to leave such a neighborhood.

Galen kept walking until he reached Number Ten, which was slightly more prepossessing than its neighbors. At least this building did not have boards where windows should have been, nor drunks huddled in its doorstep. A neat sign in the front window proclaimed ROOMS TO LET, LADIES ONLY. Ladies of the night, Viscount Woodbridge assumed. He raised the polished brass knocker, wondering that it had not been filched ages ago, and let it rap against the door. The resulting roar told him why the house was not burgled or overrun by beggars. A bark that could make the thick wooden door tremble ought to discourage most criminal intent. Since Galen was not bent on any mischief, he stood his ground and rapped the knocker again.

The door was finally pulled open, though only a crack, by a stooped female draped in black. “No gentlemen callers after dark,” she rasped. “House rules.” The hag would have closed the door in his face, if Galen hadn’t had his foot in the way.

He hid his disbelief—and his pain—with a nod, handing
over another king’s ransom in coins. “Could you please take my card to Miss Montclaire, anyway? I am sure she will see me.”

Then again, he’d been sure Florrie would be at the church this morning to say her vows. He tried to look unconcerned and inconspicuous as he waited outside Number Ten, Nichol Road, as if a tall, broad-shouldered, well-dressed viscount could fade into such a derelict neighborhood.

A different woman opened the door a few minutes later. This one was not so old, not so stooped, but she had the same man-hating sneer on her hard-lined face. She held his card in one hand, ripped in two, and the slavering dog’s collar in the other. “
Mademoiselle
ain’t in. She’ll have a thing or two to say to that weasel of a manager for giving out her address, asides. Now get.”

“But I have a proposition to put to Miss Montclaire,” Galen protested, not anxious to force his way past the dragon or the dog.

“I’m sure you do, just like all the other randy young bucks, and the randy old goats, too.
Mademoiselle
don’t entertain gentleman callers, ’specially at her house, after dark, and she don’t entertain lewd offers, never. Now go on with you, or I’ll set the dog loose.”

Galen doubted the dog would let him pass, and he couldn’t shoot the beast for doing his job, so he backed away. “But I will be returning, you can tell your mistress that. With an offer she’ll want to hear.”

He was glad, in a way, that he’d been turned aside, for his dismissal meant that Miss Montclaire was no ripe plum, ready to fall into any man’s hands. Of course, she might have a man upstairs already, but he could not think about that now. He had too much to do to convince her to see him and to listen to his offer. More firmly convinced than ever that he was on the right course, that Miss Montclaire was his salvation, Galen hurried back into the night. The walk through the cool, dank air to find a hackney, rare in this neighborhood, did not bring about a change of heart or
mind. He might be above par, Galen confessed to himself, but he was not so castaway that any of his other options appealed in the least. His liquor-laced logic might be saying he needed Miss Montclaire, but his loins were, too.

There was nothing for it, then, but to pay a call on his old schoolmate, Skippy, “Skip the lecture,” Skidmore. Since he and Skippy had been out celebrating the end to Galen’s bachelorhood last evening, right into this morning, the viscount was fairly confident Skippy would be at home, making an early night of it. Galen knew for a fact that Skippy’d been up betimes this morning, for his old friend had been standing right there in his robes, next to the bishop, ready to assist at the wedding that wasn’t.

Lud, he still had a hard time thinking of old Skipper in orders. In jail, perhaps; in the arms of some doxy, likely; in Dun Territory, always. But in holy orders? The Lord most decidedly worked in mysterious ways, choosing such an addle-pated apostle. Of course, the Lord hadn’t precisely chosen young Skidmore, nor had Skippy willingly taken the cloth. The cloth was all that was being offered, however, by a family out of patience with such a debt-ridden, decadent dunderhead. He wasn’t even the second son, the spare heir, who got to go into the Army. Galen silently thanked Baron Skidmore. They’d all be speaking French by now if Skippy had taken colors instead of clerical collars.

The rattlepate had barely made it through university, but his powerful father had bought him a position as aide to the bishop. No one let him minister to the congregation, thank God. Galen supposed God should be thanking the bishop for not inflicting Skippy on His innocent believers. Still, Skippy looked a treat in his flowing robes, until one smelled the liquor on his breath, and he had not been arrested once since joining the Church. The brother who had signed up with Wellesley returned missing a limb or two; all Skippy missed were a few, a very few, parties when the bishop needed his assistance. He might be a man of the cloth, but he was still
a gentleman of fashion, and he had wits enough to figure betting odds.

Galen reached for the key nailed to the bishop’s back door and headed toward the servants’ stairwell. He was fully familiar with the house, having dragged a stuporous, senseless Skippy up those same back stairs to his rooms many a time. Galen scratched softly on the door, then pushed it open. Skippy leaped out of his armchair and snatched up the Bible from the table next to it.

“Put that thing down, old man. I know you’ve got the racing forms glued to the inside pages anyway.”

Skippy staggered over to the sideboard and poked around until he found a bottle and two glasses. Then he held one of the glasses, the unchipped one, out to Galen, saying, “Gads, do I look as awful as you?” He settled his lanky frame back into the worn chair, leaving the equally dilapidated sofa for Galen, and dragged his other hand through his sandy-colored hair, managing to make his thinning windswept look more tornado-tossed. “Devil take it, I must have been so drunk I slept through your wedding. I am truly sorry, old chap, you know I am. But if you think I’ve dishonored your bride or betrayed our friendship, you can skip the lecture and just hit me.”

Galen gritted his teeth, shoving a pair of gloves and a garter to the floor so he could sit. “There was no wedding, Skippy.”

“No wedding? That wasn’t a whiskey dream then, you sending everyone to the earl’s for an unwedding breakfast?”

“It was a nightmare, all right, but it didn’t come from any bottle. Floria flew the coop, did a flit, fled to Gretna Green with a feckless fortune hunter.” Saying the words out loud didn’t hurt quite as much as Galen expected, most likely because his old friend was madly searching through some scraps of paper on the table, the mantel, and the floor, and not listening.

“Damn, I know it’s here somewhere.” He finally found the slip of paper he was looking for, then cursed again.

“Blast, you just cost me a quarter’s wage. That’s what I get for standing by you. Couldn’t bet against m’old friend, could I, not when they were giving such good odds against that flighty filly coming up to scratch?”

“Confound it, you were betting about my marriage?”

“I was betting
for
it, old boy. I figured I couldn’t lose, not with your fortune and title and elegant phiz. And her father pushing for the match. Why, chits have been dropping their handkerchiefs at your feet since we were in short pants. What more does that peagoose Lady Floria want? Uh, sorry, old chap, if I’ve struck a sore spot.”

Galen brushed that aside. Labeling Florrie a peagoose was mild compared to what he’d been calling her. “I suppose she wanted adventure and excitement. You know, high drama like those ridiculous novels females are always reading.”

Skippy kicked a purple-covered book under the sofa. “Yes, well, if you’re here for advice and consolation, I know a new house that just opened near Covent Garden. We could—”

“No, I am here for a favor.”

“Oh?” Skippy fingered the gambling vowels and tried to look innocent. He failed, but Galen took the chit anyway.

“I’ll make good on this, and pay off the rest of your debts, too, if you can get me a special license.”

Skippy grabbed the paper back. “If you were to marry the chit, then I won and you won’t have to pay it off. I wagered on the marriage coming off, not the wedding.”

“I am not going to marry Lady Floria Cleary, you nodcock. She is halfway to Scotland by now, anyway.”

“Didn’t think you needed a license for getting hitched over the border. Don’t know if the fellows at White’s will accept that.”

“Dash it, Skippy, will you listen! I would not marry Lady Floria on a dare, much less over an anvil. Nor am I haring off to Scotland after her. You lost the bet, fair and square,
because we were both fools, but I will make it up to you if you can get me the blasted special license.”

Skippy stroked his unshaven chin, thinking, an exercise in futility as Galen well knew. “But if she ain’t here and you ain’t there…?”

Galen took a sip of his drink. “I am going to offer for—No, I am going to marry Miss Margot Montclaire.”

Skippy fell off his chair. Picking himself up, he drank straight from the bottle. “Sorry, I thought you said you were going to marry the Magnificent Margot.”

“I did. And do not say a word about the dust-up the marriage will cause. For once you can skip the lecture, for I’ve thought it all out. M’father can’t fly too far up in the boughs, because he married the neighbor’s governess. My sister can stay with Aunt Matty in Bath till all the gossip dies down. It’s the least Aunt Matty can do, after bringing Cousin Harold into the world. As for everyone else, they were going to chew me up over morning chocolate anyway. I’d rather they choked on this morsel.”