That Scandalous Evening Page 3

  The instructions echoed in Blackburn’s brain, and he swept the chamber with his gaze. He tried to focus clearly. He could not. The shrapnel to the eye had destroyed more than his faultless features. He could see; oh, yes, he could see. But he’d lost the keenness of his vision. No longer could he squint down a barrel to aim a gun. Never again would he hunt deer on his estate in Scotland.

  Never again would he stalk across the Iberian Peninsula and with faultless accuracy bring down one of Napoleon’s soldiers.

  So now, like a race horse forced to the bridle, he worked for Mr. Thomas Smith.

  He spied for Mr. Thomas Smith.

  What a bitter taste that left in his mouth, that a member of one of England’s oldest and most patrician families would lower himself to such ignoble deception. Yet he could not say no. Not and keep the promise he had made to that lad who had died in his arms.

  “Matchmaking mama off to the left,” Fitz warned.

  Blackburn glanced over. Lady Kinnard, formerly Miss Fairchild, was bearing down on them. Her he could see—Lady Kinnard’s broad beam rolled behind her like a ship at sea. She towed another one of her beautiful, wide-eyed, man-eating daughters, and Blackburn said, “Move on.”

  Fitz lingered, a merry cast to his mouth. “But why? Kinnard’s daughter would do you well.”

  They were getting uncomfortably close. “Well for what?”

  “For that bride you’re seeking.”

  Blackburn gave Fitz a push, and the incorrigible bastard fled down the stairs, laughing all the way. When they reached the bottom, Fitz dug an elbow into his ribs. “I meant to tell you, Blackburn, there’s another tale making the rounds.”

  “What?” Blackburn asked in an ominous tone.

  “That if it’s not spies you’re after, but a leg-shackle.”

  “Damn!” Blackburn hadn’t expected this.

  “Any appearance of furtiveness must be avoided. Instead, you must crash into society. Draw attention to yourself, like you did all those years ago. Create another scandal. That certainly gave the ton something to talk about. Or if you will not, tell them you’re hanging out for a wife.”

  Fitz’s features were a comical blend of indignation, dismay and wicked delight. “Never say it’s true, man!”

  Mr. Smith had chosen to start that rumor. Blackburn knew it would be impossible to halt.

  Fitz interpreted his silence as he wished. “B’God, it is true. The great Blackburn is going to fall at last.”

  Better a rumor than another scandal, so Blackburn agreed, “So it would appear.”

  “At least you’ll have no trouble plucking the heiress of your dreams.” Fitz leavened his speech with a hint of brogue picked up from his Irish father. “But what am I thinking? You don’t need another fortune. You should flush out the heiresses, then should leave them for those of us who do.”

  “So you’re after a wife, too?” Blackburn mocked.

  Fitz caught a passing footman, snatched a glass of brandy from his tray, and drank it down. “Suffering, I mean matrimony, is a man’s lot in life.”

  Before, Fitz had sworn he did not care how much the pockets pinched, he would not marry. “Creditors giving you a chase?” Blackburn asked.

  “As always.” Fitz grimaced with a little more derision than usual. “Parasites.” He handed the glass back. “So we’re hunting the softest, sweetest game of all,” he mused.

  “This is not a hunt.” Blackburn clipped off the words. “It’s nothing but a bunch of mares being paraded past stallions. When the stallion scents the right mare, he paws the ground and the stable master cobbles them together until they get the job done.”

  “Cynical, yet accurate.” Fitz had heard it before. “But if you feel that way, why are you doing it?”

  Others might question his sudden seeking of a wife, and Blackburn had to offer some reasonable explanation. “Got a bit too close to death over there. Occurred to me my sister was right. Life is short, and the Quincy name precious. I need an heir.”

  “The Quincy name. I should have known.” Fitz laughed, then sobered. “Yes. The war has changed us all.”

  Startled, Ransom stared at his friend. He didn’t look any different, except…perhaps Fitz displayed a niggle of discontent.

  Then Fitz’s countenance changed to merry dismay. “Oh, blast, everything you do becomes all the kick. That means every gentleman will marry this year. The pickings will be thin.”

  Ransom never meant anything so sincerely as when he said, “I have no interest in what others do.”

  “Which is why they copy you so assiduously. You do as you like and don’t care what anyone thinks. Like your sister.” Fitz gestured toward the cardroom, where men sat on well-cushioned chairs of pink—Lady Goodridge’s favorite color. Catching sight of a maiden, he said, “There’s your type. The blushing one with the ivory headdress.”

  Ransom closed his eyes in pain. He hadn’t had a woman for a long time. Yet these pink and white girls left him cold. They had no passion, no depth. They were untried, spoiled, rendered useless by a system that required nothing of them—much as he had been before the war.

  Someone used an elbow to move him aside, and he opened his eyes. “No.”

  “You used to like the ones with the generous…” Fitz gestured.

  “No.” Blackburn walked away.

  Fitz caught up with him. “Listen. I need your prestige to keep myself at the forefront of London society, and I can’t do it if you walk away from me.”

  Blackburn slowed. How could he disparage so cheerfully insouciant a man? “Susan is right when she calls you a scoundrel.”

  Fitz preened. “But she said it affectionately, didn’t she?”

  “Very affectionately, although God knows why.”

  “Because she’s a lonely widow. She appreciates a charming man, I’m a charmer. When a man is poor, he has to be, not like you glowering lords who have women fawn all over you.” Fitz squinted through the haze created by a thousand candles. “There’s a crowd over there.”

  Blackburn had never had patience with the simpering debutantes, the worshiping beaux, the downright dangerous mamas. But being with them, conversing with them, had become his duty. “A crowd.”

  Fitz picked up on Blackburn’s hesitation, and read it as yielding. “Yes, a crowd, with a woman in their midst, a beautiful woman worthy even of the Marquess of Blackburn.”

  His damnable duty.

  He scanned the throng as the crush became greater. Making his decision, he seized Fitz by the padding on his shoulders. “Come on then, man.”

  Fitz gave him a grin, then shoved his way into the crowd. He performed the service of breaker very efficiently, and Blackburn followed in his wake, ignoring the called greetings with the disdain for which he was well known. If he wanted to talk to someone, he would; there was no need to try and engage his attention.

  “You’re taller than I am. Can you see the newest belle?” Fitz asked.

  Blackburn studied two younger sons, both better dressed than they had any right to be for their income.

  “He’s hiding in society where the only sin is unfashionable dress or a lack of blunt. And what better way to earn that blunt than to spy for the French?”

  “Why do you keep ogling the men?” Fitz jostled him. “The women are over here! Women, Blackburn, women. Remember them? Smooth, scented, with all those interesting parts.” Fitz gestured with both hands, illustrating a curve of hip and waist. “Wonderful, wily creatures who flee before the skillful hunter.”

  Listening to the delectation in Fitz’s voice, Blackburn experienced a pang of envy. He had never felt that way about a woman. They’d always been easy for him, and once he had realized they were easy for every man blessed with a fortune, he had gained in contempt what he lost in gullibility.

  Had any of them been different? Had he overlooked the one who was special?

  But no, that could not be. For that to be true, he would have to admit he had been a blind fool. These women all lo
oked the same, sounded the same, said the same things. “There’s nothing worth having there.”

  “You’ll find a diamond if you’d just search. A diamond, Blackburn!” Fitz paused in his onward charge. “Look at that bunch of slobbering hulks. They’re huddled together, shoulder to shoulder, positively pawing the ground.”

  “Stallions,” Blackburn reminded him.

  Fitz called, “Let us through. There you go, lads. You can’t keep her for yourselves.” The constriction eased as the men turned, and Fitz slipped through the crowd, slighting each man as he spoke. “Southwick, does your wife know you’re romancing a girl? Lord Mallery, you’re not witty enough for this exalted group.”

  Blackburn followed close on Fitz’s heels, protecting his friend’s back and wondering why.

  “Brockway, you old wigsby, you’re too hoary for this game. No woman of taste would want”—the way parted, and Fitz stopped cold—“you.”

  He barely exhaled the last word, and Blackburn trod on his heels. “Beg pardon, old man, but—”

  “Your servant, ma’am!” Fitz snapped to attention, then bowed, leaving Blackburn a clear view of, not the diamond, but the profile of a tall, dignified lady. The fashionable lines of her green gown accentuated her excessive height. A lacy shawl covered only a modest bosom, and she held her gloved hands clasped at her waist like a singer waiting for a cue that never came. She wore a spinster’s cap like a decoration of war, perched on the dark hair that had been cut to frame her face in wisps. Her composed mouth had never greeted a man invitingly. She was obviously an old maid. The chaperone.

  Blackburn began to turn away.

  Then she smiled at the woman beside her, a blond debutante with an exultant bosom. Filled with pride and pleasure, the smile lit the spinster’s plain features and brought out the spark of jade in her fine eyes—and he’d seen those eyes before.

  He jerked to a stop. He stared. It couldn’t be her. She had to be a figment of his wary, suspicious mind.

  He blinked and looked again.

  Damn, it was her. Miss Jane Higgenbothem, the Scandal herself, risen from the depths of the past—to make his life hell once more.

  Chapter 4

  Eleven years before…

  It was he, Jane thought with feverish pleasure.

  Ransom Quincy, the Marquess of Blackburn, strode through the elite reception looking like a god who deigned to flatter unworthy mortals with his presence. He stood tall and proud, dwarfing the other gentlemen who minced between the ballroom and the cardroom. His blond hair was cut to perfection, each strand glowing like molten topaz flowing from Vulcan’s furnace. His noble jaw jutted up at precisely the right angle; this god was arrogant and impatient with the perambulations of the marriage-minded mamas who shoved their daughters his way.

  Jane hadn’t expected to see him; he attended so few of these events. Though she always hoped she would. Ever since she’d first sighted him, she looked for him everywhere.

  “Stop staring at him.” Her sister, Melba, took Jane’s drooping black ringlet and tried to coax curl back into the determinedly straight strand. “He’s not for you.”

  “I know that,” Jane answered. Of course she did. A god such as Blackburn deserved a goddess to match him. She ached to sketch him.

  She surveyed the scene around her, despising the twittering debutantes. None of them was worthy to serve as his handmaiden, or even as a virgin sacrifice. Thus far in her first London season, she had seen no female worthy of him. Least of all herself, The Honorable Jane Higgenbothem, daughter of the impecunious and deceased Viscount Bavridge.

  Blackburn lifted his silver quizzing glass. He scrutinized the white-gowned girls who stood along the wall, and they watched him anxiously, moths awaiting their call to the flame. One mother even gave her daughter a little push that sent her stumbling forward. He caught the chit, then carefully placed her back against the wall.

  No one would make the selection for Blackburn. His glance fell on one of the Fairchilds, a Miss Redmond, and although she was beautiful, she clearly lacked character. He bowed to her, a sensuous exercise of muscle. Although Jane was too far away to hear him speak, she watched his beautiful lips move and knew they must be warm and soft, not at all like the cold clay with which she sculpted. He offered his arm; the chosen debutante giggled and covered her mouth with her gloved hand. He indicated his impatience with a sardonic lift of his brows, and Jane knew the girl would not be the recipient of another offer of a dance from Blackburn. Wiggling her smooth, white arms, she pranced off at his side.

  She wasn’t even cognizant of the honor done her.

  Melba jiggled Jane’s elbow. “Stop staring at Blackburn. Stand up straight. You’re a lovely, tall girl and you deserve to stand above all the rest.”

  Jane straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.

  “And pay attention. Lord Athowe has arrived. He likes you, Jane. For pity’s sake, make an effort to secure his suit.”

  Jane barely glanced at the handsome earl as he made his way through the crowd. “But I don’t want to wed him. Besides”—she picked at the pearl button that closed her glove—“Miss Frederica Harpum has made it known that he is her beau.”

  “Miss Frederica Harpum has not yet received an offer, and that makes Lord Athowe fair game,” Melba said, pragmatic in spite of her astounding beauty.

  “But she’s been friendly to me. Friendlier than anyone else in London.”

  “Friendly?” The word hovered, redolent with disapproval.

  “Quite.” Jane thought back on the girlish confidences exchanged over tea.

  Melba snapped her ivory-handled fan shut. “Jane, you are remarkably naive. Frederica Harpum is about as friendly as a cobra in the zoo. Stay away from her. Don’t discuss your unbecoming ambitions with her.”

  Jane opened her mouth to confess she already had.

  “And do try to attach Lord Athowe.” Melba must have seen the expression of mulish stubbornness for which Jane was famous, for she said softly, “Please, Jane, won’t you at least try?”

  Hearing the weary tone in her sister’s voice, Jane said, “You’re tired again. You’ve been tired a lot lately. Are you breeding at last?”

  Melba placed her arm around Jane’s shoulders. “No, I am not breeding. Eleazer would not have allowed me to come had I been so.”

  “Too bad,” Jane muttered. She adored her seven-year-old niece, Adorna, and would have liked more.

  “But you are not to make such blunt observations. Young women are not even supposed to know what that means.”

  She sounded severe, but Jane could see the dimple that blinked in and out of Melba’s cheek. She had always amused Melba; Melba had always loved her. It was a good arrangement for two females with no supporting family.

  “How silly.” She tucked her arm around Melba’s slim waist and hugged her close. “I am young, but I’m not stupid. Why, a woman who wishes to follow my calling must to the greatest of her ability seek to understand physical characteristics.”

  “Dearest.” Melba picked her words carefully. “I know I’ve encouraged you with your little hobby, but I never meant that you should think it as anything but a pastime like needlework.”

  Offended to the core, Jane said hotly. “It’s nothing like needlework! It’s so much more. It’s a God-given talent.”

  “It’s unsuitable.” Melba was ruthlessly practical.

  “I must use it or the fates will destroy me.”

  “Don’t be dramatic, dear.” Turning Jane’s face to her own, Melba said, “You’re the daughter of a viscount, an impoverished one, so don’t talk about your calling.” She squeezed Jane hard and used the tone Jane would heed. “Especially not here!”

  Athowe was approaching, Melba meant. Greeting the bowing earl, she said, “My lord, how good to see you! Have you once again come to whisk away my darling sister?”

  “Yes, but what I found is even better.” Stepping back, he lifted his thumb and studied them. “Two sister goddesses embrac
ing! What a picture you make.”

  Immediately a portrait sprang to Jane’s inner eye. Melba, truly a goddess and so brightly blond and fair, she shone with a nimbus. And Jane, a mortal, but taller, hardier, dark, with the big, strong hands that betrayed her vocation. It would be a magnificent painting, and Jane would do it for Melba as thanks for the years of insistent mothering.

  “You have the most peculiar expression on your face, Miss Higgenbothem.” Lord Athowe watched her with an indulgent, diverted expression. “I sometimes wonder if you even know where you are.”

  Jane blinked at him. “I do know. I simply don’t always wish to be here.”

  “Jane!”

  Chuckling, Lord Athowe raised his hand. “No, no, don’t chide her. It’s her delicious bluntness that has relieved the tedium of this endless season.”

  Jane didn’t know about her delicious bluntness, but she certainly agreed about the tedium. How did the ton bear this? Year after year of fretting about the latest fashions, the newest dances, the design of one’s jacket or a cut direct from a leader of society. Living in constant fear of being ostracized, yet avariciously waiting for someone to commit the least infraction of deportment, thus providing fodder for the gossip mill.

  Jane hated it. She hated it all, and she had not been a success at first. Quite the opposite, for tall, capable women who looked a man in the eye were not modish. Then Lord Athowe had had his now famous quarrel with Miss Harpum, and had turned his attention to Jane. It had started out in a fit of pique to the stylish Miss Harpum, Jane was sure, but it was not that any longer. Lord Athowe liked Jane for her honesty, and his attention had engendered more attention until she found she was a small sensation among Athowe’s contemporaries.

  A distinct disadvantage for a woman who wished only to worship her hero—her inspiration—from afar. She glanced out on the dance floor and saw him, Lord Blackburn, preparing to perform a country dance with yet another undeserving twit.

  Lord Athowe bowed before her, disrupting her view. “Miss Higgenbothem, would you please do me the honor of saving me a dance?”