The Book Of Scandal (2 page)

“I rather think you must,” Lindsey said, his voice calm, his demeanor sober, “but speak.”

“There is some…speculation…that Lady Lindsey is involved with Lord Dunhill—”

“Who?”

“Dunhill. Young and new to London, but a close acquaintance of the prince and his inner circle.”

Lindsey’s expression darkened.

Grayson tensed. He didn’t want to open old wounds—everyone knew of the chasm between the Greys. He glanced at his hands. “Nathan…some advisors to Caroline believe that as a result of Lady Lindsey’s…association, she has been privy to the unlawful conduct of the prince. She has been in his company at Carlton House, and at the country races, and at Buckingham and perhaps St. James’s. She might be called to testify in a public trial, and certainly the details of her association would become public as well.”

“Well,” he said, folding his arms. “I suppose I can hardly feign surprise, can I? But I rather imagine Evelyn can fend for herself.”

“Your reputation would be ruined. And indeed, anything granted your family or your title by the crown could be called into question if your wife is implicated in a scandal against a royal. It is best—for your sake—that she be removed from London. It is best if it appears that the Earl and Countess of Lindsey have been reconciled, as the king will look more favorably on you, should anything come to light.”

Lindsey stood and walked to the bank of windows that overlooked the deer park. “Is it true?” he asked. “Does she know something?”

“Personally, I have no knowledge,” Grayson said, and that was true. But he’d heard enough to suspect she might know something. She was a frequent guest at the prince’s apartments at Carlton House, and he’d heard what went on in the prince’s private apartments—ribald pageants, even orgies. It was impossible to say what she might have seen or heard. “But it is rumored rather fervently among the ton.”

“Then I will send her to her mother—”

“That will appear to all the world as if you believe the rumors. If the king believes you believe your wife’s innocence, he will try and help you. But if he does not believe it…”

“If he does not?”

Grayson frowned. “Eastchurch Abbey is granted to you on a lease from the crown, is it not?”

Lindsey nodded. “For almost three hundred years.”

“Think of it, Nathan. If it appears that your wife was involved in a treasonous offense against the Princess of Wales, or privy in any way to treason against the crown, that lease may very well be revoked. For your sake, you must appear to believe in your wife…and remove her from London.”

Lindsey bowed his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Bloody hell,” he muttered at last. “It would seem the witch must come back to roost at Eastchurch.” He glanced at Grayson and smiled a little lopsidedly. “You have done me a great service, old friend.”

Grayson shrugged. It was no more or less than Lindsey would do for him.

Lindsey sighed. “This calls for several tots of Declan’s poison,” he said, picking up the decanter of whiskey.

Nathan could not believe he was about to leave for London to bring Evelyn back to Eastchurch. He’d rather have a bone broken and reset. Or be speared and roasted on a spit.

He and Evelyn had not parted on good terms three years ago. He could now admit to himself that perhaps he’d not been a proper husband, but it didn’t change the fact that the rift between them was deep. They had hardly communicated in three years, and even then, only through letters. He remembered only an angry woman who found fault with everything he did.

But here he was, waiting for the coach to be loaded so he could go and fetch her.

If he was going to London, he was going to at least make it worth his while. He had some business, and he had promised young Frances Brady, the son of his gamekeeper, that he would show him the city.

Nathan had stumbled upon Frances last year when he had been playing in the gardener’s shed without permission. He was eight years old, and after a good scolding, Frances had followed Nathan about the estate like a puppy. Nathan had taken an instant liking to him, with his moppish brown hair and bright brown eyes. The boy’s father was a widower, and while his grandmother often looked after him during the day, the lad had run wild. He was a ruddy child with a thirst for life, and with his father’s permission, Nathan had taken it upon himself to show the lad as much of life as he could.

Privately, Nathan wished for a son like Frances Brady. But as he would never have his own son—not with the chasm that stretched between him and his wife—he could at least be a decent godfather of sorts.

He was taking Frances to London to be fitted for proper clothing.

Benton walked out to the coach with him and handed the coachman a leather satchel to include with the luggage.

“Have a care with things while I’m away, Benton, or I will see you sowing winter crops in the fields,” Nathan said as he fastened his cloak at his neck.

“Yes, my lord,” Benton said, without missing a step.

“My lord!”

Nathan turned toward the sound of Frances’s voice. The boy bounded across the lawn, waving a red hat in his hand. A warm smile lit Nathan’s face as the lad reached his side.

“My lord, one of our plants is sick!” Frances exclaimed breathlessly, referring to some lavender he’d helped Nathan plant. “It is turning brown and Mr. Milburn said it’s not taking root properly.”

“Oh my,” Nathan said.

“My lord?” the coachman said, opening the door to the coach.

Frances looked anxiously at the coach, then at Nathan.

Nathan put his arm around Frances’s shoulders. “Hold the team,” he said to the driver. “We’ve a sick plant to attend to.” He winked at Frances. “We best have a look, eh?”

What was one more hour after three long years?

A fter only a few days in London, Nathan felt the undercurrent of scandal—the city was a little more ruthless, a little more jaded. The morning newspapers were full of innuendo and speculation from the most important issues to the most inane. How much ale Princess Caroline might supposedly drink in a night was put up against the amount of whiskey Prince George might imbibe. It seemed that everyone had taken sides in the dispute between the Prince and Princess of Wales. There was also a good deal of speculation as to what the scandal might do to the king’s precarious health—the madness he’d suffered several years ago had not returned, but there were many who seemed to think he was on the precipice, and this scandal was precisely the sort of thing that would push him over the edge. Some snidely claimed that the madness had already returned, for it was well known that the king favored Caroline over George.

Even more unsettling, Nathan learned, influential people from both the Whig and Tory parties were banking on the prince becoming king sooner rather than later. The result was a fiendish jockeying for position and favor, depending upon one’s view of how the scandal would play out.

Because of the rumors and innuendoes swirling around him, Nathan did not call on Evelyn at Buckingham House, where she served as a lady of the bedchamber to the queen and her daughters. He preferred to apprise himself of the lay of the land before he spoke to his wife for the first time in three years.

Now, as he entered Carlton House to attend a ball, Nathan observed that the scandal had done nothing to dim the Prince of Wales’s taste for social frolicking. He guessed there were at least six hundred intrepid souls crowded into the mansion’s ballroom. Hanging just below the dozen chandeliers that illuminated the dance floor were gilded cages, the symbol for a prince who felt caged by his marriage.

No expense had been spared for the ball; champagne flowed from fountains, chocolate sculptures of women in Greek dress stood on pedestals with paring knives nearby. Predictably, the breasts of the sculptures had been carved away and presumably eaten.

But it seemed to Nathan as if everyone was looking over their shoulder. He moved through the crush, smiling and speaking to acquaintances.

He spotted a familiar face in the crowd—Lady Fiona Haines, the younger sister of Jack Haines, the Earl of Lambourne. She was in the company of two young women, the three of them whispering urgently about something. The moment Fiona saw Nathan, her face broke into a lovely smile. “My lord Lindsey!” she exclaimed, dropping into an elegant curtsy. “I’d no’ heard you’d come to London.”

“As I am in town only for a few days, it did not bear mentioning.”

Fiona introduced him to the two young women, Miss Clark and Lady Martha Higginbotham. They eyed him closely, smiling coyly over the tops of their fans.

“Mind you have a care, ladies,” Fiona said. “My lord Lindsey has quite a reputation, he does.”

“Pardon?” Nathan asked playfully, taking Fiona’s hand. “Why, that is purely conjecture and rumor, my lady, for I am lost in the hope of you,” he said, bowing gallantly over her hand.

One of the young women tittered, but Fiona smoothly removed her hand from his grasp. “You are married, my lord.”

He smiled. “A mere distraction, I assure you.”

Now both young ladies tittered with delight.

“You are worse than my bonny brother.” Fiona laughed. “How does he fare? I’ve no’ seen him in a fortnight.”

“He is well, indeed.”

“I am glad to hear it. Now you must tell us, sir—who do you side with?”

“Side with?”

Fiona exchanged a glance with her companions and leaned forward to whisper, “Who do you side with, Lindsey? Your friend the prince? Or the princess?”

“Ah,” he said, and laughed. “I am on the side that best suits me,” he whispered back.

“Aye?” Fiona reared back. “And which side would that be, precisely?”

“I’ve not the foggiest notion.”

The three ladies laughed.

He chatted a bit longer with them before moving on through a crowd that seemed to be growing. He happened to bump into Lord Fawcett, who expressed surprise to see Nathan in London. “Why ever should you come here to this bloody mess? I’ve heard Eastchurch is filled to the rafters with women and horseflesh.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Nathan said. “It holds only as many women and horses as a mortal man can handle.”

“And how many might a mortal man handle, my lord?” Fawcett laughed.

“As many horses as I have stables, but only one woman at a time. It takes all my energies to pursue the one thing I desire while she pursues my purse.”

Fawcett laughed heartily. “Good to see you, Lindsey. I hope you aren’t mired in this awful to-do between George and Caroline.”

“Not in the least,” he lied. Yet he sensed the entire ballroom was mired in it, and the sooner he could be done with his business and gone, the better. Unfortunately, finding his wife was not unlike finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

It was, therefore, something of a small miracle that he managed to spot his wife a quarter of an hour later, under the glittering light of what seemed like a thousand beeswax candles. She was moving through the crowd, talking and smiling. He watched the familiar sway of her hips, how her hands fluttered like little birds when she spoke. Her golden hair seemed to glow in the candlelight, her smile was angelic, and her countenance as lovely as he’d remembered it—no, cherished it—in his mind’s eye these last three years.

She was beautiful. He’d always thought so, but tonight she seemed especially so.

Nathan followed her meandering path through the crowd, trying to catch up. He saw her pause to speak to a gentleman, and something the man said made her laugh. Nathan’s heart lifted a little; he moved without thought, as naturally drawn to her as any man would be to his wife.

But as he progressed through that crowd, he watched her lean in to the man as if confiding something, and it slowly dawned on him that she was engaged in an intimate tête-à-tête.

His heart sank back into the cold darkness from which it had dared to rise.

By the time he reached her, Nathan felt nothing but a numbing distance. He stood at her slender back, admired the way it curved into her hip, and said, “Evelyn.”

His voice was alarmingly rough; it was a moment before she turned toward him, but when her eyes met his, he could sense the tension in her body. “My lord?” she said uncertainly.

His gaze moved over the top of her head and the thick, blonde, wavy hair he used to liken to honey, to remarkably expressive eyes, to her lush mouth, and down, to the low décolletage of her gown.

Evelyn’s skin pinkened at his scrutiny.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but the lady is engaged in conversation,” the gentleman said coldly.

Nathan did not spare the man a glance—he could not take his eyes from his wife. Nor could she take her eyes from him, eyes gone wide with surprise and filled with dread.

“Lady Lindsey? Are you all right?” the gentleman demanded, putting his hand on her arm.

Nathan looked at that hand and imagined breaking each finger, one by one. “Perhaps you should introduce us,” he suggested.

“I…I…Yes, of course. Where are my manners?” Evelyn said, and nervously cleared her throat. Without taking her gaze from Nathan, she said, “My lord Dunhill, may I introduce…May I introduce m-my…”

She couldn’t say the word.

“Husband,” Nathan finished for her, and looked at her lover. “I am her husband, the Earl of Lindsey. If you would be so good as to remove your hand from my wife, I should like a word with her.”

Dunhill eyed Nathan as if he didn’t quite know what to make of him.

Nathan, on the other hand, knew precisely what to make of this ass. He stepped forward, forcing Evelyn to step away from Dunhill’s side. “Perhaps I was not clear,” he said coldly. “I should like a private word with my wife.”

Dunhill looked at Evelyn, whose cheeks had turned crimson. “Lady Lindsey?”

“I had not…I did not know,” she stammered.

“Sir,” Nathan said, drawing the man’s attention back to him. “Allow me to speak plainly. Walk away now, or I will dispense with the formality of calling you out and happily break your neck here and now.”

Evelyn gasped. “My lord!”

Dunhill at least had the grace to recognize there was no easy out for him. He pressed his lips together and exchanged a look with Evelyn before giving Nathan a curt nod and turning on his heel.