Six Degrees of Scandal (25 page)

“Yes, I see,” he said testily. Her changes were minor and they both knew it. “Well, I certainly will act astonished if anyone accuses me, and Olivia can deny it with complete honesty. But then we're all agreed?”

Daniel nodded, Bathsheba pursed up her lips but didn't demur, and Olivia declared a stout “Yes.”

“We need a partner,” he repeated. “Someone who understands the need for secrecy, someone who might even revel in it. And of course someone who grasps the reward associated with success.”

“I could hire an illiterate boy,” said Daniel after a moment. “He'd only be able to work the press, not set the type.”

“The pamphlets look distinctive,” Bathsheba pointed out. “Even an illiterate boy would notice. Besides, one boy won't speed us up very much.”

“No, we need someone who knows his way around a press.” Jamie frowned in thought.

“A newspaper printer,” said Olivia. The other three looked at her. She nodded. “Newspapers know how to print quickly.”

“They also don't know how to keep a secret,” replied Bathsheba.

“Well, there must be some who can. The
London Intelligencer
has anonymous reporters. The lady who writes the scandal page for them has never been identified.”

“How do you know it's a lady who writes that page?” asked Daniel in surprise.

Olivia looked startled. “Oh! I thought it was obvious. She must attend all the parties, to hear the things she writes of, and men never listen to gossip the way women do . . .”

Jamie raised his head. The
London Intelligencer
. He knew that name. He knew that paper. He also knew the man who printed it, Liam MacGregor, was a bold and ambitious Scot with nerves of polished steel. And Olivia's words made him recall one curious fact he'd learned
over the last year. Every week MacGregor had an appointment at Wharton's Bank. Jamie did some business there, and more than once he'd seen the man arrive and be shown into a private office. And on one occasion earlier this year, MacGregor's appointment had been with Mrs. Madeline Wilde.

The lady who had been publicly accused just a few months ago of being Constance.

Waiting idly while a bank partner fetched the papers he needed, Jamie had seen both of them arrive and go into the same office. That didn't prove anything, but Mrs. Wilde had been the subject of rumor and fascination even before the scandalous accusation . . . because she moved in the very best society circles but cultivated an air of aloofness. Or she had, until accepting Douglas Bennet's marriage proposal in front of one hundred and fifty guests at Lady Cartwright's midsummer ball.

Jamie, knowing the truth, had found the entire thing wildly amusing. Mrs. Wilde didn't seem perturbed by the uproar—in fact, she gave every appearance of being blindingly happy with her new fiancé—and after Mr. Bennet thrashed a couple of fellows who called her Lady Constance, even that rumor died down.

But Liam MacGregor . . .

It might be pure coincidence, but if anyone would employ a female writer, it would be MacGregor. And the man who accused Mrs. Wilde must have had some reason to suspect her. She was well-known for attending society events, after all, where she must hear all the gossip. And
either way, MacGregor had managed to keep his scandal page author a complete secret.

“I'll find someone to help run the press,” he said abruptly. “We're going to meet this schedule, and Lord Clary will be reviled across London by the time we're done.”

J
amie set to work with a vengeance. He moved all his writing to his bedroom and told the servants he wasn't to be disturbed. Olivia soon learned to stay out of his way, too. He would sit for an hour, staring out the window with a small frown knitting his brow, then reach for his pen and cover pages and pages. Sometimes he stopped halfway through and cursed, wadding up the paper and throwing it onto the fire. Other times he would cross out a word or a paragraph and write on without pause.

At night he still came to her. She supposed he waited until the servants had gone to bed, but every night, often very late, he would let himself into her bedroom and slide beneath the blankets and draw her close. Many of the regular servants had gone to Richmond with the elder Westons, which made it easier on Olivia's conscience. Jamie seemed as comfortable doing for himself as she was, so they were left in peace unless they rang for someone. The house in Grosvenor Square became a small private world, where Olivia at times felt nearer to being married than she had ever felt
with Henry. She and Henry had inhabited the same house but never shared a life. Even when Jamie spent hours working in the next room, she felt close to him.

In part, she knew, it was because they were both working on the same cause. While Jamie was writing, Olivia made lists of Clary's habits, tastes, and foibles for use in the stories. They both wanted everyone who knew Clary, in any degree at all, to recognize him immediately. And when a shudder of fear or disgust rolled over her, as she thought about the man who had terrified her for the last year, she thought of him being humiliated and scorned by the very society he took refuge in, and the words came easily.

One night Jamie came in as she was getting ready for bed. “Here,” he said, handing her a stack of paper.

Intrigued, Olivia turned up the lamp on her dressing table. So far he hadn't let her read anything, even though he'd told her bits and pieces of what he planned to write.

He sank down on the nearby chaise as she read. Within minutes he was stretched out, one arm hanging off the side and one hand behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling, looking exhausted. Olivia stole a glance at him over the pages. “Has Constance worn you out?” she teased quietly.

One corner of his mouth quirked. “It's a fine line to walk: too much about Clary and it will lose all appeal. Too little and it won't serve our purpose.”

She laughed and read on. Within a few lines
she was able to forget that Jamie had written every word, and let herself become absorbed in the story. He had handed her not one but four issues, a third of the total left, and she read straight through to the end.

In the first one, Lord Brarely, a dark and imposing man with powerful connections and a very advantageous marriage, began paying Constance attention. She refused him, as she had refused all other married men, and instead turned her favor on a distinguished gentleman of some scientific renown. Olivia shivered at the delicate way he “scientifically” probed Constance's skin for points of particular pleasure.

The second story saw Constance stop for a cooling swim in a secluded pond during a trip, only to be discovered by Lord Brarely. She accused him of following her and he replied that no one would believe she hadn't enticed him. Fortunately, a handsome country squire passed by, and Constance explored the pleasures of making love in the water after Brarely went on his way.

The third story featured letters from Brarely, trying to coerce Constance into being his mistress. Constance, who had long since avowed that she would never belong to one man, burned them, but the specter was already clearly shaped. The fourth issue took place at a ball, where Brarely did nothing more than stare at Constance the entire evening. Even though Constance landed in the arms of a notorious rake who was only too pleased to spirit her away to a secluded and secure bedroom, Olivia felt her own stomach knot at the description of Brarely's dark, hawkish eyes
following Constance around the room. Jamie had perfectly woven that unease, as well as the urge to dismiss it as womanish fear, into Constance's words.

“Well?” asked Jamie when she lowered the pages, her heart thudding.

“It's good.” She cleared her throat to rid her voice of its husky quality. “Very good.”

“Excellent. Now come here.”

She moved to sit on the end of the chaise. Jamie sat up and slid one arm around her waist. “I don't want to disappoint my loyal readers,” he murmured, tugging down her nightgown and brushing his lips against her bare shoulder.

Olivia smiled. “As one of those readers, I can safely promise you have not.” In spite of Lord Brarely's ominous presence, Constance still indulged in her customary erotic interludes, all the sharper for diverting her mind from him.

“As the most important reader, yours is the most important opinion.” He caught the end of the ribbon that tied her nightgown closed. “Which one did you enjoy especially?”

She inhaled as he pulled the ribbon. There was no doubt the issue set at the pond struck deep, and roused a hundred memories. “There's something to recommend them all . . .” She looked down at the pages in her hands. “How do you think of this?”

“A gentleman shouldn't say.”

She very much wanted this gentleman to say. She wanted to know what inspired his ideas. He'd said Bathsheba offered suggestions from time to time, but Jamie hadn't spoken to Bath
sheba in days; he'd been closed up in his room, writing. Everything on these pages sprang from his own imagination, and Olivia was desperate to know more about that. Did he imagine similar encounters between himself and other women? Was this interlude of theirs doomed to end, once he'd had his fill of her? Olivia could not ignore the fact that Jamie had been a healthy, virile man during her marriage. He hadn't married anyone else, but she was keenly aware that he had had several affairs. Thankfully Penelope and Abigail had only mentioned such things in passing—the beautiful French vicomtesse being the most notable instance—but it would have astonished Olivia more if Jamie hadn't had lovers.

“Is Constance based on a particular woman?” she asked.

He stopped kissing her shoulder, and his hand, now nestled inside her nightgown around her breast, went still. “No.”

She wet her lips. “More than one person has remarked that Constance goes through lovers like a dedicated rake might. Is—is she based on you?”

He didn't reply for a long time. Olivia smoothed the pages of his draft and let them drop to the floor. “I never thought you lived like a monk,” she said, trying to explain. “I could hardly blame you if you did have numerous lovers. I
don't
blame you, in fact. I . . . I am just curious. You know what my life was like with Henry, but I only know of you what your sisters told me.” That sounded dreadful, and she cringed. “Never mind. You don't owe me an explanation.”

“There were other women,” he said in a low
voice. “Yes. In the first years of your marriage. More than one, although I wouldn't say numerous. It drove me a little mad, thinking of you with Henry. I wanted to scrub you from my mind and forget how you felt in my arms—I wanted to forget
you
, even though I knew that was impossible. But it didn't work.” He sighed. “Every time I took another woman to bed, I wished she could be you, or enough like you to fool me for a night. It never worked. Finally I gave it up as a hopeless cause and stopped trying.”

Her breath caught. “Stopped trying?”

He lifted one shoulder awkwardly, not meeting her gaze as she twisted to see his face. “I haven't had a woman in almost two years.”

“Oh.” She felt her heart give a little leap, then suddenly wrinkled her nose. “Only two! That leaves eight years of other women!”

His mouth curved. “Well, it took me a while to realize the truth.” He paused. “Some of them lasted a while, some only a few nights. I knew none of them would last longer, or be more than a brief liaison. I was no good for any woman then, Livie. But I did learn something from all of them.”

She knew he didn't mean erotic acts, although she had a feeling that was also true. “I don't doubt it.”

“But as to what inspired Constance . . .” He shifted his weight, angling closer to her. “I thought of you.”

Olivia jerked. “I never—!”

He touched one finger to her lips. “No, not in that way. I know you better than that. But in other ways . . .” His finger trailed down her chin and
skimmed her throat, pausing on the point where her pulse pounded. “I imagined a woman able to explore her deepest desires, even those she thought dark or unseemly. I wondered what she might do, if she were freed from any worry about scandal.”

Her heart was slamming into her ribs. Hadn't she done just that? From the moment she first told the innkeeper that Jamie was her husband, Olivia had given in to more and more of her deepest desires. She wanted everything from him—every smile, every secret, every shattering climax. She wanted him to know that she was his, completely, and always would be.

“And I think you've proven me right,” Jamie breathed against her neck, his lips teasing the skin below her ear. “There is a far more sensual woman inside you than you even realize, Olivia, and the thought of drawing her out drives me wild.” His finger traced loops and whorls across her bosom, as softly as a butterfly's wing, before catching the gaping neckline of her garment. “Tell me you agree . . .”

“Yes,” she whispered as he slid the sleeve down her arm. “With you I am . . .”

“And you like what Constance does.” The other sleeve fell away from her shoulder, leaving her bare to the waist.

“Yes . . .”

“What did you like best?” One by one he tugged her arms free of the nightgown. “Was it the whip? Was it the blindfold? Do you long to tie me up while you make love to me?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her face burned. “What are you suggesting?”

“Have you ever thought of doing that?” he asked again. “Or of being tied up? It can be quite arousing.”

She sat like a wide-eyed statue, barely breathing. “Tied . . . with what?”

He raised her hand and brushed his lips over the fluttering pulse in her wrist. “For you? Silk ribbons. As blue as your eyes and soft enough not to mar your skin, even as they hold you exposed and defenseless against a lover's ravishment.”

“Tied to what?” she asked faintly.

His teeth nipped her shoulder, and her whole body spasmed. “My bed. Completely open and vulnerable, hiding nothing . . . denying nothing.”

Her throat worked as she swallowed hard. “I haven't denied you . . .”

“It's the ultimate trust, to give yourself into your lover's hands and cede all power to him. Or to her,” he added. “All pleasures go both ways. Would you prefer to tie me?”

Olivia gulped for air. It was one thing to read about such a thing, and another to do it herself. But the image of Jamie bound and in her power . . . “No.”

He growled in satisfaction. “Not at all?” He unknotted his cravat. “Not even a little?”

Olivia watched in dazed disbelief as he pulled the linen loose, unwinding the long cloth as if to deliberately show off the length of it. He wanted to tie her up and ravish her. Or for her to tie him up and ravish him. She should be shocked, and yet her pulse throbbed and she had to press her knees together to keep from sliding off the chaise.
She should not find this arousing or exciting, but God help her, she did.

It was all Jamie's fault, too. Olivia rued the day she'd ever begun reading
50 Ways to Sin
. Everyone had been talking about it, and the way it recounted one very loose lady's erotic adventures with various gentlemen of London. It was completely ridiculous and yet . . . well, widowhood was lonely. Discreetly, feeling somewhat embarrassed by her own unhealthy interest in them, Olivia read every one. And now she was reaping a full penance, as sinful images and ideas bloomed in her mind while Jamie whispered provocative things to her. Even worse, they were
his
images and ideas . . . inspired by her.

“Do it,” he murmured, dropping the cravat in her lap. “Tie me.” Calmly, deliberately, he unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up his sleeve before extending his arm, wrist bared and fist clenched.

She stared. Slowly she plucked the cravat from her lap and wound a loop around his wrist. At his sharp intake of breath she paused. Jamie's face was set in stark lines and his eyes blazed with hunger. He didn't say a word.

She wound another loop.

You're mine
, she vowed silently.
Mine to seduce, mine to love, mine to hold. I will do everything to persuade you of it.
Her heart raced and she felt wild and powerful. She twisted the cloth around his wrist again, but when he raised his other hand and held it to the first, inviting her to bind his wrists together, she pushed it away.

“This way,” she whispered, clasping her own fingers through his. Jamie's eyes widened but he
made no protest as she coiled the cloth around their entwined hands, binding her hand to his. One-handed, she couldn't make a knot, so she pulled the loose end down between their wrists.

“Now what?” His voice was deep and guttural.

She put her free hand on his chest and pushed him until he sprawled back into the pillows on the chaise behind him. “You're mine.”

His eyes drifted closed as she worked at the buttons on his trousers. “I always have been, Livie . . .”

It took longer than it should have, working with only one hand, but finally she pushed the tail of his shirt out of her way. His abdomen flinched as she ran her palm down the length of his erection, circling her fingers around the head and taking his measure in a firm grip. Jamie swore under his breath but he stayed still and taut. The hand bound to hers trembled as she lowered her head. Olivia stole a glance at his face and saw him watching her through half-closed eyes. “Mine,” she said again, feeling as reckless and wicked as Constance.