Simply Scandalous (4 page)

The Swale-Devize alliance had begun at Eton College, where they had roomed together. For many
months, Alexander Devize had regarded this arrangement as one of life's unfortunate incidents, but in the
Michaelmas Term of 1805, his opinion changed
abruptly when an upperclassman had attempted, innocently enough, to attach the nickname of Ginger
to the red-haired Marquess. Despite being half the
boy's size and three years younger, Swale had knocked
him flat. No one had ever dared to Ginger his lordship after that, and Alex Devize began to find him an
interesting object.

Because of their friendship and despite the certainty
of Swale losing this morning's race to Cary Wayborn's
magnificent chestnuts, Alex had bet Stacy Calverstock
five hundred pounds that his friend would be
victorious.

Swale, who had bet the same amount on himself,
likewise was under no illusion that he would win. "I
don't say I'll win, Alex," he kept saying as they waited
for Cary Wayborn to appear in the yard of the Black
Lantern Inn, "but, by God, I shall make a damned fine
showing! "

"It was a great compliment to be challenged this
year," Alex reminded him, holding his bay mare steady
next to his friend's curricle. 'Win or lose, old man, you
are now one of the Select."

Swale reddened with pleasure. High spirits had
made his face tolerably pleasant this morning, but
even his friends agreed that under no circumstances,
was the Swale countenance ever worth looking at.
There was too much of the bulldog in his short nose and fighting chin for him ever to be called handsome,
and more often than not, he was not in high spirits
anyway. He was usually found with an ugly scowl on
his face, as though being born rich and titled were an
injustice he could scarcely bear.

"I'm betting on you, Geoffrey," Alex said, slapping
the Marquess on his broad, strong back. "If any man
in England can beat Wayborn, it's you."

Swale grinned. "You like my chances then?"

"He's won eight races in a row," Alex pointed out.
"No one can win all the time, not even Cary Wayborn.
Today he falls."

"Damned peculiar, ain't it, that he never bets more
than five hundred pounds? Fellow could be rich as
Midas if he'd learn to lay a proper wager."

"Apparently, there was a vow to his Mamma on
her deathbed," Alex explained with a shrug. "Can't
be helped. Economy seems to be catching on with
younger sons in this our Silver Age. My own brother
never bets at all."

Swale was appalled. "What, never?"

"We're all thoroughly ashamed of him. You don't
have a brother, do you?"

"No."

"Bloody nuisances," Alex said with the air of a
learned doctor establishing an absolute fact. "Mine's
raison d'etre seems to be pointing out all my flaws to
our father. He rather breathes down my neck, if you
see what I mean. Really, younger sons ought to be
strangled at birth."

"I'm rather fond of my sister," said Swale a little
stiffly, not being an advocate of strangling one's relatives at birth or, indeed, at any time thereafter.
Abruptly, he took out his watch again. "I just hope I acquit myself creditably in the next two hours. God
knows I don't expect to win."

"My dear Geoffrey, we've all lost to him. There's no
shame in it. But, by God, I hope you beat him! " Alex
added with feeling.

Swale grinned irrepressibly. "By God, so do I. I
should dearly love to fling that hideous purple hat of
his into the dust."

Alex took out his timepiece and studied it carefully.
"My watch must be losing time," he remarked, frowning. "Wayborn is never late."

"There's Calverstock," said Swale, catching sight of
his opponent's friend arriving mounted on a tall
roan. "Where the devil is Wayborn?" he called irritably
as Stacy Calverstock approached his curricle. "Not
going to be late, I hope?"

"Why should my friend be late?" Stacy demanded
in cold fury. Unfortunately, cold fury made his voice
high and wavering, almost shrill. "Why should my
friend, Mr. Cary Wayborn, be late, my lord? Is there
some particular reason why your lordship would think
Mr. Wayborn should be late?"

Swale scowled at him. The fellow was talking nonsense. Swale had little enough patience for people
who talked sense. For a man of his temperament,
there could be no enduring people who talked nonsense. "What the devil are you blathering on about,
Calverstock?" he bellowed, his gingery brows coming
together in a fierce scowl. "He bloody well had better
not be late; that's all I have to say!"

"Your lordship seems certain that my friend will be
late," Stacy shrilled at him. "Pray, why is that, my lord?"

Swale was unable to put a finger on what it was exactly, but something in Calverstock's address made him want to pull the other man off his horse and
knock him flat.

But before he could act on his impulse, a cheer rose
from the assembly. Gary Wayborn's chestnuts cut
through the yard just as the bells of St. Martin's
began to peal. Stacy gave a start and swung his horse
around to get a better look at the tall, slim figure in
the curricle. It wore the bizarre purple tricorn; the
purple greatcoat, still damp from Tom's not entirely
successful efforts to remove the bloodstains; and the
lavender spectacles, but there was no evidence of a
broken arm.

Stacy's mouth fell open. "What the devil-" he
murmured.

Juliet Wayborn had never been so frightened in her
life, and that she would, at some point very soon, disgorge
her breakfast of tea and toast seemed inevitable. Gentlemen, many of whom she knew at least slightly, were
wedged into the yard in startling numbers, and all of them
seemed to be drinking ale from hideous pewter tankards.
Drunken laughter and the odor of tobacco filled the air.
Men, she decided, should never be permitted out of
doors without the supervision of some respectable
female. Away from their mothers, wives, sisters, and
daughters, they apparently threw off all the restraints of
civilized society and became no better than the savages
of Borneo. It depressed her spirits beyond description
to know that her future husband-her nice, quiet, respectable husband-very likely was among the crowd assembled in the yard of the Black Lantern Inn, for these
gentlemen were, she was to understand, the cream of English manhood. Many of the drunken brutes were on
horseback and clearly intended to follow the two curricles all the way to-

A wave of fresh fear washed over her, and she felt a burst of cold perspiration in her armpits. For the
love of God, she had no idea where they were racing
to! This tidbit of information, which she had never
bothered her head about before, now seemed rather
a necessity, and her failure to procure it was a glaring
flaw in an otherwise magnificent plan. Brighton, she
knew, was her brother's favorite destination, but the
Black Lantern Inn was on the Colchester Road, which
ran northeast out of London into Essex. Could they
actually be racing to Colchester?

"Bernard!" she croaked to the groom standing on
the board behind her seat, brandishing his whip like
any good petit tigre. "Bernard, where do I go?"

The Irishman misunderstood the question. `Just
you line up alongside himself the lordship there, Miss
Julie," he called over her shoulder in a low voice that
made the chestnuts prick up their ears attentively.
Before she could ask him again, he had already turned
to the crowd and begun employing his whip to keep
the chestnuts' heads clear of the traffic, and there was
nothing she could do but bring her brother's curricle alongside his lordship's grays.

She forced her nerves to steady. Of course, Bernard
would be with her to handle the exchanges at the turnpikes. He would be able to guide her to the finish.

She took her first look at Lord Swale, the man she
hated above all else on earth. Her acquaintance with
the Duke of Auckland ill-prepared her for the appearance of his son. The Marquess had the most exceptional hair she had ever seen, so exceptional, in
fact, that she could not quite believe she was seeing
it now. The fiery red stuff hung shaggy and unkempt
almost to his shoulders, and, with equally red sideburns
lining his cheeks, he looked rather like a cartoon of
a lion, she thought. And his clothes-! Rumpled, ill fitting homespun unless she was mistaken. His coat
was so dusty she could only guess at its color. Indeed,
his general appearance might lead one to believe he
had just finished the long, grueling race.

As she drew alongside him, he grinned at her. Despite the smile being lopsided and rather too full of
crooked teeth, it was not without boyish charm.

At the sight of him, her courage, which could have
withstood the fiery gaze of a mad monk or even the
sneers of the most supercilious aristocrat, faltered in
a manner inconsistent with the code of the Wayborns. Could this grinning mistake of Nature really
be the sinister Lord Swale, mastermind of the cowardly attack upon her brother? It seemed impossible.
The man looked like a country bumpkin!

But then she remembered her Shakespeare, as
many an English soul does in a moment of crisis:
"There's no art to find the mind's construction in the
face." Undoubtedly, Lord Swale had deceived many
with his idiotic grin, but he would not deceive Miss
Wayborn. Miss Wayborn's eye pierced the unprepossessing facade and saw the black soul of the man.

Stacy approached, crying indiscreetly, "Cary! Good
God, man! "

Juliet put a finger to her lips. As he drew alongside
the curricle on his roan, she was able to speak to him
in a low voice. "Stacy, it is I, Juliet. Please don't give
me away."

His pale eyes started from his head. `Juliet! Have
you gone mad?" he gargled.

"Probably. Do not betray me," she pleaded, all the
while attempting to appear shrug-shouldered and
nonchalant. It was difficult as her stomach seemed
ready to convulse at any minute. The tricorn, fixed to
her head with no less than six hatpins, still felt wobbly to her, and she feared that at any moment it would fall,
exposing her coiffure of tightly braided hair.

"You'll break your neck, you little fool," Stacy said
through gritted teeth.

"If I do, remember me kindly," she said, laughing
nervously.

"I was just on the verge of calling him out, you
half-wit," he hissed at her.

"Well, it's done now!" she snapped back at him.

"It certainly is!"

"Quickly, Stacy," she whispered urgently, "you must
tell me where-"

"Hurry! " he said. "The bells-the last toll of the
bells is the signal!"

Stacy was absorbed by the excited crowd, and Juliet
heard the boisterous voices counting all around her
as the bells of a nearby church tolled the hour. "Four!
Five! Six!"

Bernard suddenly jumped down from the back of
the curricle, and the way before her magically cleared.
Juliet's heart was in her mouth as she saw Lord Swale's
groom jump down from his curricle as well. They were
to race without grooms then, and she had no idea
where they were going.

Incredibly, the abominable Lord Swale shouted to
her, "Good luck, Wayborn!"

She gave him a curt nod and pushed the lavender
spectacles back up the bridge of her nose.

"Seven!" roared the crowd, and Gary's chestnuts
leaped forward, two lengths ahead of his lordship's
grays, their eyes alight with love of the race. This
would never do, Juliet quickly realized. With no idea
of the race's destination, she would have no hope of
choosing the correct road when they came to a crossing or a fork. She would have to amend her plan to win the race, she supposed. Lord Swale would have
to take the lead so that she could follow him to the
proper destination. She would have to lose, but, she
reflected, as long as she acquitted herself creditably
and got away without being discovered, Cary would
not be disgraced.

It required all her strength to slow the chestnuts
even a little. After the first shock, when they understood that they actually were being asked to slow
down, they hardened their crests angrily and, it
seemed to her, redoubled their speed. They, at least,
had no intention of losing. Her muscles could not sustain the effort, and she was forced to give them their
way. She would simply stay on the Colchester Road,
she decided, until they reached a fork in the road, and
then she would figure out what to do.

She had often teased her brother about the mirrors
he had placed facing backwards on either side of his
curricle, but now she saw that they were actually
quite practical for racing. In them, she could see
that Lord Swale had pulled within a length of her and
that he was obviously maneuvering to pass. She could
take steps to prevent him or not, exactly as she chose.
She chose to prevent him. She would be forced to give
him the race in the end, but she saw no reason for him
to annihilate her. She would give him the lead at the
fork in the road. In the meantime, she would save her
strength-she would need every ounce of it to slow
the chestnuts enough to let his lordship pass.

The wind battered her face, making her grateful for
the protection afforded her eyes by her brother's
lavender spectacles. Her mouth and nostrils were soon
caked with dust. Her back ached from the constant pull
of the reins. The prospect of continuing in this manner
for several miles did not appeal to her at all.

Swale, on the other hand, was having the time of his
life. It seemed to him that every moment of his twentyfive years had been preparing him for this day. He was
racing the great Cary Wayborn on a beautiful morning late in March, and he was acquitting himself creditably. He even began to feel that he might surpass the
famed chestnuts if he could only find an advantage.
Wayborn moved continuously from one side of the
road to the other like a demon, anticipating his every
move and cutting him off mercilessly.

Juliet had never known the chestnuts to go more
than six miles an hour, but now it seemed to her as
if they were going ten. One moment, they were leaving North London, and the next, or so it seemed to
her, they were nearing the great fork at Brentwood.
At this point, one might continue northeast to Colchester or turn right onto the Southend Road. It
suddenly occurred to her as she approached the fork
that Lord Swale almost certainly would attempt to gain
the inside advantage. If their destination was
Southend, he would try to shoot inside on her right;
if Colchester, he would veer to her left. She would be
able to see his move in the rear-facing mirrors.