Saved by Scandal (10 page)

Chapter Ten

Whoever said he who hesitates is lost could have had a lovely chat with whoever said patience is a virtue. They’d both be wasting their breaths, as Galen was already packing for the trip to Penrose Hall, Rossington, Sussex.

Galen was packing, his valet was packing, Margot was packing, and the new chef, Eduard, was packing. The first three were readying for Galen’s journey. The cook was ready for a new position. He’d declared, with a raised carving knife, that no dogs were permitted in his domain. The dog had declared his opinion with a raised leg.

At least Eduard had made breakfast before tendering his resignation. Margot had the rest of the kitchen staff pack up the fresh bread, some cheese, sliced ham, boiled eggs. What was left after Ruff finished, she put in a hamper for the viscount’s carriage ride, since he intended to make as few stops as necessary.

Fenning directed her to the old nursery, where she found books and a box of toy soldiers. Galen did not mind her borrowing them for Ansel; they’d been his sister’s, anyway. He did not mind the extra trunk of blankets and sheets and sickroom supplies she packed, nor the box of charcoal and block of paper she unearthed from his study, even though he’d need an extra pair of horses to pull the carriage if she found one more thing to stuff inside. He did, however, take offense at the pages of instructions Margot was trying to press upon him.

“Dash it, woman, you’d think I was evacuating one of the
Peninsular field hospitals. He’s just a small boy with, what? Weak lungs? An uncertain stomach? Headaches?”

“He gets nightmares,” was all Margot said.

Nightmares? All youngsters got nightmares. Why, Galen had told his sister more than one ghost story at bedtime, just to hear her shriek in the middle of the night. Of course he’d been punished when the brat cried rope on him, but nightmares were no big problem. “I can deal with bad dreams, Margot. Don’t fret. I am more concerned with leaving you here alone.”

Alone? He’d hired extra footmen, extra night watchmen, and extra security guards for the theater. Margot wouldn’t be surprised if a Bow Street Runner were sleeping in front of her door at night. “I cannot imagine why you are so concerned about leaving me. Ella and I managed on our own for almost two years, you know.”

“Yes, but you were not my wife then. I guard what is mine. If your admirers find you without protection, heaven knows what they might think.”

“That I would welcome their advances?” Margot put down the child-sized nightshirt she was folding into yet another valise. She looked at him through clouded eyes. “You do not trust me, do you?”

Galen stopped tossing books and agricultural pamphlets into a satchel. “Well, I do not think you’d run away while I am gone, not with your brother due back here.” Of course, that was precisely what he did fear, that she’d find some handsome devil whom she could love, not feel indebted to. “I trust you,” he insisted. “It’s the dashed rakes and libertines I don’t trust. Lud knows the city is teeming with loose screws. You will make sure not to accept any invitations to Carlton House, won’t you?”

She nodded. “I will not accept any invitations whatsoever until you return. I will have Fenning deny me to any callers except your friend Skippy Skidmore. I will not visit Hyde Park,” she recited from memory. “I’ll be too busy for any of those things anyway, what with refurbishing the nursery and
hiring staff and ordering invitations and such for the dinner party, in addition to my time at the theater.”

“Remember Madame Duavalier is calling tomorrow about your wardrobe. Ella won’t have time to sew you all the gowns you need.”

“Yes, my lord, I remember,” Margot snapped back. “How could I forget when you keep reminding me that I should wear blue, not too low cut, that will match the family sapphires you swear your father will bring from Cheshire.”

Margot was still hurt at what she saw as Galen’s lack of faith. After all, she was not warning him against willing tavern wenches and saucy serving girls. She knew how a certain type of female fawned over a gentleman with looks and polish and full pockets, bachelor or not. All the girls at the theater were that type, all the girls except Margot. She raised her chin. “I am not a strumpet, Galen. I will not embarrass you with dampened skirts or nearly invisible bodices. I will not flirt with the flea-wits who proposition married women, and I will not get up an affair three days after our marriage! Why, if you were not leaving this afternoon, I wouldn’t be on speaking terms with you right now, I am so insulted by your suspicions.”

The viscount gathered her into his arms, stroking the long blond hair out of the ribbon Ella had just fussed over. “Lud, I am sorry, my dear. I never gave a groat over Fl—That is, I suppose I am just too new at this caring business. Can you forgive me?”

Surrounded by his strength and his lemony scent, secure in his embrace and, she hoped, his affections, Margot could forgive him anything. Caring was good, for now. She held him as close as she could and raised her lips to his. Trust would come.

And the servants would come, finding them like that an hour later, only more disordered. The viscount decided to wait until the following morning to set out on his journey.

Galen’s instructions to his friend Skippy were more explicit that night as they waited in the viscount’s box for Margot’s appearance on stage. He repeated everything twice, in fact, hoping to make some impression in the blockhead’s brainbox. Skippy was to escort Margot to the theater, and directly home. He was supposed to sit in the box and remember the rose. No, Fenning would remember the rose. Skippy was to tell everyone that Galen was gone to ask his baronial brother-in-law’s belated blessings on the union. Most important of all, Skippy was to keep a list of anyone who approached Margot with anything less than reverence; Galen would have their heads when he got back.

“Give over with your worrying, old man,” Skippy told him, using his borrowed opera glasses to look down the décolletage of a demi-rep in the pit. “No one is going to insult your lady, not with you hovering over her like a hen with one chick, and not with Prinny singing her praises. The Beau gave her the nod, too, you know. Said Lady Woodbridge was a rose in the desert or some such. I never could understand that chap. Everyone knows flowers don’t grow in the desert. Still, his approval means no one will give Lady W. the cut direct.”

Galen had to stop himself from pulling the petals off the rose he held. Dash it, now he was getting stage fright for her. Or was he just anxious about leaving Margot? Lud, if she were a Covent Garden convenient, he’d have had her this afternoon in his library. Did he say six months? The few days he’d be gone seemed an eternity, and he hadn’t even left yet. He turned back to Skippy without hearing a word of the drama on the stage. “You’re sure no one is blackening her reputation?”

Skippy tossed the flower he held down to the Cyprian. “Thunderation, Galen, the gel never had a reputation, except for being standoffish. Now everyone’s saying that was because of you, so that’s aces, too. A few of the muslin trade are disappointed you got hitched, but the only person trying
to keep the scandal broth about your marriage stirred up is Earl Cleary, and no one’s listening to him anyway.”

“Florrie’s father? Why the devil is he cutting up stiff about
my
marriage? I wasn’t the one who eloped from the church steps. Besides, I thought he went to Scotland after the she-devil.”

“He did, but his carriage broke an axle. He knew he’d never catch up to them by nightfall by the time it was fixed, so he turned back. He did send his groom on ahead crosscountry to try to head them off, but the rider ain’t back yet.”

“Well, that’s not my fault either.”

“No, but he’s saying if you’d treated the chit better, she wouldn’t have run off with that Lytell chap. No one believes a word of it, a’course, at least no one who knows what a widgeon she is. The earl’s just mad as hornets that you stepped into parson’s mousetrap without her. Seems he was counting on you to wed the gel when his groom dragged her back.”

“Why the deuce would he think such a thing? I told him I wouldn’t have her to save my soul.”

“But he thought you’d have her to save the chit’s reputation. She’ll be ruined otherwise, don’t you know. Cleary was banking on appealing to that streak of chivalry you wear like a suit of armor. Sir Galahad and all that.” Skippy bit into a piece of fruit he’d had from a pretty little orange seller. He spit the seeds over the railing, into the pit. “You would have done it.”

Shaken, Galen admitted to himself that he might have. He would have hated her, but he’d most likely have married Florrie.

“Lucky escape, what?” Skippy echoed his sentiments exactly. “Have I mentioned that?”

“Innumerably.”

“And then marrying Mademoiselle Margot. It was like…like finding a flower in the desert.”

“Why, Skippy, I never knew you had such a poetical bent.”

Skippy sat up taller. “Got good posture. Even the bishop says so. Think she’d know any others?”

Galen had trouble following his friend’s train of thought, a not uncommon occurrence with the Reverend Mr. Skidmore. “Margot? Know any other bishops? Flowers?”

“Ladies, man, ladies. Only not the kind what titter. Can’t stand a female what titters. Your lady’s got a nice laugh.”

She did at that, the few times Galen had heard it. When he got back, he’d see about making her laugh more often. Then he realized what Skippy had been trying to say. “What, are you thinking of taking on leg shackles?”

“Why not? Seems to suit you. You’re as fidgety as a flea, but at least you’re not bored. Can’t wait to get back—said so yourself. And you’re going to fetch a tadpole from a muddy ditch for her. If that don’t spell devotion, nothing does.”

Skippy never could spell. What this journey proved was that he was a moonstruck moron, that’s all, Galen thought. He frowned. “And you’d like to find a woman to turn your life upside down?”

“Don’t seem so awful anymore, with you turning Benedict. Been thinking I’d look for a widow, don’t you know. I’ve got no title, of course, no property, not much in the way of brains, but I like children.”

“You’ve been thinking?” Galen frowned back at the disapproving matron in the box next door. He did lower his voice a shade. “I mean, you like children? I didn’t know you knew any.”

“I’ve got nieces and nevvies by the score. Cute little buggers.”

“Dash it, I should have stayed here and sent you after the boy.”

“Here’s a secret, since you’re trusting me with your lady: I’m not really cut out for the Church.”

“No! I would never have guessed. So you think a young widow with a tidy jointure, perhaps a bit of property, would suit you, eh? It just might. If you help Margot draw up a list of whom to invite to the dinner we are holding, I’m sure
she’ll include anyone you want. Now hush, it’s almost her turn to sing.”

Margot had to wait a long time for the applause to die down before she could start her first selection. She sang a popular ditty that had the audience singing the hey-nonny-nonny chorus with her, a French rondel, and yet another Italian aria. This time the heroine killed her lover before turning the knife on herself. Then, while everyone waited, she walked to Galen’s box and reached for her rose. She held it to her nose, inhaling the sweet perfume, and then she tossed him the pasteboard knife she’d used to inflict the mortal wound.

“A hit, a palpable hit!” Skippy exclaimed. “You see, I knew you’d been heart-pierced.”

She sang “My Lover Goes A-Roving” to him: “Alas, I am left here all forlorn. And I shall weep one hundred tears, for every day he’s gone.”

Chapter Eleven

Whoever said that money is the root of all evil must have seen Manfred Penrose grubbing around the roots of his family tree. He even looked like something that would crawl out of a hollow log: sharp-nosed, beady-eyed, buck-toothed, with gray hair and grayish complexion. He had dirt under his fingernails, coffee stains on his cravat, and ink on his hands from the newspaper he was clutching when an equally slovenly butler showed Galen into the musty book room.

Galen hated him on sight. Of course he was predisposed to loathe the man for Margot’s sake, and the long drive into Sussex had not tempered his opinion. The viscount had taken his turns driving the carriage so they could make better time without waiting for Jem Coachman to rest, but he still felt queasy half the time, long rides over bumpy roads being too similar to sailing on the sea. He was tired, the inns they’d passed had indifferent service and worse cattle for hire, and Clegg, his valet, snored.

The nearer he got to Penrose Hall, the less Galen liked Margot’s uncle. The surrounding fields were green with crops and recently shorn sheep grazed on the hills, yet the cottages of his tenants had sagging roofs, sewage in the yards, and missing windows. The meanest, most useless residents of Woburton lived better than these Rossington villagers. The hogs of Woburton lived better than this.

Penrose Hall itself was a modest brick edifice, but the drive was unkempt, roof tiles were missing, and no one came to take the horses or show the viscount’s driver the
way to the stables. Galen wouldn’t have let his cattle suffer that dilapidated structure anyway, not even these woeful nags hired at the last change.

“Walk them,” he directed the coachman. “I won’t be long.”

Clegg decided to get down and stroll around to the kitchen entrance, to stretch his legs after the journey and to gather what information he could. A fellow could learn a lot about conditions by the mood of the servants, the quality of the food, and the welcome a stranger got.