A Scandal at Midnight
Автор
Annie Burrows
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Chapter One
Lady Marguerite Patterdale pushed open the door of the library and breathed in deeply. The comforting smell of old leather and dust felt like a bosom friend, opening their arms and welcoming her home.
Home. Yes, even though she hadn’t felt glad about anything so far today, here in the library she felt welcome. Accepted. Safe.
Pausing only to close the door behind her, she went over to her favourite shelf, the one that extended from the floor almost to the ceiling, and rested her forehead against the second and third volumes of Clarissa. And then, thinking that it wasn’t fair to show such favouritism, she stretched out her arms along the shelf to embrace as many of her dear friends as she could.
How she loved them, all of them. Every single tome in this room had touched her very soul, in one way or another, and left something of themselves behind. Even the rather dull ones had taught her something of the world beyond Wattlesham Priory without her having to go to the discomfort of leaving her room.
But best of all, books didn’t judge her by her pedigree, or her looks, or her wealth. They would reveal their treasure to anyone who delved into their pages. People didn’t talk about ‘an open book’ for no reason. Books shared themselves freely, and transported their reader to a world of adventure, or learning, or imagination. They were the best companion any girl could have. Especially one who had no friends.
Oh, if only she could marry a book. No, a whole library. She couldn’t choose just one book above all others, any more than she’d been able to pick one man out of all the supposedly eligible bachelors she’d met during her Season. Not that she’d wanted to pick any of them. Perhaps, if she’d gone to London actually wanting to find a husband there, it might not have ended so disastrously.
Marguerite shuddered as she recalled the dreadful things Mother had said that last day, after Lord Martlesham had slammed his way out of the house. Mother’s disappointment had been hard to bear. But Marguerite simply hadn’t been able to bring herself to explain why, in the end, she’d hadn’t been able to accept his proposal.
Because Mother would have been even more disappointed than she already was. Because it would have meant explaining what she’d seen the night he’d been standing next to James, her oldest brother, which Mother would have taken badly. For Mother adored all five of her boys and would have been terribly upset if Marguerite had suggested...even hinted...that there could possibly be anything about their behaviour that had managed to give her an aversion to the entire male sex.
Mother would not understand why she couldn’t just accept the fact that her only value within the family was her potential for marrying well. Which was to say, to a man who could either help foster the ambitions of at least one of her brothers, or support Father in his political aims. Mother just thought she should be happy to...to...serve her family in that way.
But even if she had wanted to get married, choosing a husband was not like choosing a book to read. Men were not like books. Men all pretended to be something they were not. They said things that weren’t true. And, worst of all, they judged her for the way she looked, and the family from which she came, and the dowry she would bring to the union. And you could put a book back on the shelf when you were finished with it, or if you found it less interesting than you’d hoped. Whereas you were stuck with a husband for the rest of your life.
Still, her London season was over. And she was home. And she could...
The sound of booted feet, coming along the corridor made her raise her head. One of her brothers, no doubt. Accompanied by a few of his friends. For each of her brothers had contrived to round up a few friends while they’d been in London and invited them to spend the rest of the summer here.
As they always did.
Not that they’d come in here. The library was the one place she was safe. Not one of them could see the point of books, except perhaps for Ben Flinders, and that wasn’t for the purposes of reading. They must be on the way to the billiard room, she supposed...
But, drat it, instead of marching past, the feet slowed as they approached the doorway, and somebody set their hand to the doorknob.
There was no way she was going to let them see her hugging a shelf full of books. Quick as a flash, she hitched up her skirts and shinned up the sturdy shelves, which, she’d discovered several years ago, were as easy to climb as a ladder. Even though she was older, and heavier, she was pleased to learn that she had lost none of her agility, managing to reach the top shelf and scramble over the ornamental scrollwork that crowned it before the door was fully open.
‘We won’t be disturbed by any of the other guests in here,’ came the voice of Jasper, her second oldest brother. ‘Nobody ever comes into the library.’
Certainly not the maids, to dust. Marguerite was lying on a veritable cushion of it. She clamped one hand over her nose and mouth to stop herself sneezing. The last thing she wanted was for Jasper, and his pestilential friends, to find out that she was so...well, in such a state of...well, that she couldn’t cope with their brand of teasing, not today. If any of them said one thing about her coming home without a fiancé in tow, she’d...she’d...
Well, she hadn’t even been able to bear her mother and father’s presence in the carriage home, that was how sensitive she felt about her singular lack of success in securing a husband. She’d travelled in the smaller carriage with her maid, rather than spending two days cooped up with a mother looking at her with disappointment and a father with deep disdain. And neither of them, at any of the stops, during their excruciatingly polite interchanges in front of landlords and ostlers and waiters, had suggested her place was with the family, rather than the servants.
A surge of resentment swelled up against her brothers, all five of them. And their pestilential friends. They pursued her everywhere, ruining everything! Not only was she lying in a dust drift right now, but they had surrounded her like a pack of snarling, surly...guard dogs the entire time she was in London.
She’d done her best, in spite of her natural wariness when it came to the male sex, to fulfil the family’s hopes for her Season. But how on earth was she supposed to find a husband when they all hedged her about wherever she went, repelling all other males with the same kind of zeal they’d shown for their games of Christians and Saracens through the ruins in the grounds when they’d been schoolboys? And had Mother and Father taken any of that into account? Had one word of censure ever passed their lips about her brothers’ behaviour during her Season?
No. She was the one who had disappointed them. She was the failure who, in spite of all her advantages and the money expended on bringing her out, had, yet again, failed to live up to their expectations.
‘We’ll be private in here,’ she heard Jasper say, ‘and there’s something I want to say to you all particularly, which nobody else must ever know.’
She would have groaned if it wouldn’t have meant giving herself away. Not only was she stuck on top of a shelf but she was now about to overhear some sordid scrape Jasper needed to confide to his friends. And it had to be something bad for him not to go to James, the oldest of the brood, or even Father, who never seemed to bat an eyelid at anything his sons did, no matter how disgraceful she thought it. Instead, he’d just bail them out, with a few remarks about high spirits, or some such rot.
So much for finding safety in the library. There was nowhere, at the Priory, or London, where she would ever be free from her brothers. Which opinion was confirmed when the next words her brother spoke were: ‘It’s about Daisy.’
Daisy. Ooh, how she hated the nickname her brothers had given her. And not merely because it was a mocking reference to the flower after which she’d been christened. It was bad enough that they likened her to the common weed that was related to the beautiful, showy flower to which her mother had compared her mere moments after she’d given birth to her. Even though daisies were low-growing flowers, and her brothers kept on about how she shot up like a weed because she had the misfortune to take after Father’s side of the family, who were all tall and skinny.
No, it was the fact that everyone called her Daisy nowadays. Even Mother and Father, who would never dream of calling Jasper Gem, or Jeremy Germ, let alone Joshua the Trumpeter.
But there, that was the way things were in this family. The boys had all the respect. All the fun. All the freedom. While she was nothing more than the butt of everyone’s jokes.
Ben’s spirits sank. They hadn’t been here five minutes, and from the sound of it Gem was already planning to drag them all into some sort of folly that he’d describe as a lark, or a spree. And if Ben tried to say they were surely now all past the age for such folly, the others would accuse him of being a marplot. The best he could do would be to hear what Gem was planning, and then make sure that they didn’t all come to grief over it.
‘It’s about Daisy,’ said Gem.
At the mention of her name, the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck prickled, the way they did before a sortie. Surely Gem wasn’t going to suggest they all play some kind of practical joke on her, the way they used to when they’d been schoolboys? She didn’t deserve that. Well, she’d never deserved it. The only thing she’d done to make all her brothers pick on her so unmercifully, as far as he could tell, was to be the one girl in a family of boys.
And in the library, of all places. A place she thought of as a sanctuary. A place he identified with her so much that he swore he could smell her scent. That light, floral, summery scent he’d inhaled so deeply the night he’d secured a dance with her and had the privilege of being her partner for one tortured half-hour. No, he had to be honest with himself, if with nobody else. The torture had lasted far longer than that half-hour. Every night since then he’d lain awake, going over every moment, every fleeting expression on her face, the way the candles had made her hair glisten like gold, the way her movements had revealed her limbs through the delicate fabric of her gown, the way her scent had ebbed and flowed as she’d come near, then moved away...
That probably explained why he thought he could smell her scent. Gem had only to mention her name and Ben was picturing her, remembering her scent and the feel of her hand clasped in his, albeit briefly, whenever the dance had called for him to take it. The library just smelled of books. Which was another trigger for his memory, to be honest. The first time he’d met her, she’d had a book in her hand. And he’d soon learned that they were the love of her life. So much so that he couldn’t walk into a library, or a bookshop, without thinking of her. That must be why he was imagining he could smell her scent. It was a...a nose memory, if there was such a thing.
‘I’m worried about her,’ said Gem, heavily.
Horace and Walter made non-committal noises whilst striving, almost convincingly, to look interested. But all Ben’s senses went on the alert.
‘I don’t need to tell you what a disaster her Season was,’ Gem continued, walking over to a large desk and leaning back against it. ‘I never noticed before, but in society, well, she’s...’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Turns out she’s rather shy.’ He folded his arms across his chest and stared round the three of them, as though daring any of them to disagree. ‘We all know her as a...well, in many ways she’s full of pluck. But you wouldn’t know it to see the way she freezes up when in company. That’s why no man worthy of her saw what a gem she truly is.’
Walter sniggered. Gem glared at him. ‘Sorry, Gem,’ said Walter. ‘Just...you know, gem, and Gem, and all that...’
The grim cast of Gem’s mouth relaxed a bit. Someone had given him the nickname of Gem at Eton, because the name of Jasper was a kind of a jewel. He hadn’t liked it at one time, but he’d mellowed once his younger brothers had come up to school, one by one. The next in line, Jeremy, who might more properly have been nicknamed Jem, had acquired the even less flattering name of Germ, since Jem was already taken.
Daisy’s younger brothers had fared even worse. Joshua had gained the nickname of Trumpet, after both the biblical character’s famous battle at Jericho, and his tendency to produce wind at great volume. And the youngest of all, Julius, was known to one and all as the Fit, from the likeness of the name Julius Caesar to the word seizure. In the light of all that, Gem had not fared so badly in the nicknaming stakes. At least a gem was hard, which was a manly characteristic, rather than being compared to either a seed of disease or a debilitating illness. Or just a rasher of wind.
‘Anyway,’ said Gem sternly, in an attempt to restore some sort of order to the proceedings, ‘the thing is, for a girl it’s a bit of a disaster to come home from a season without a fiancé in tow. And, from watching how she behaved in London, I can’t see that she’d do any better in a second season, or, well, ever really. Which brings me to the point.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘I am asking that one of you, I don’t mind which, since you’re all good chaps, well, that one of you propose to her while you’re staying here this summer.’
The silence that followed this outrageous statement was almost deafening.
Gem gave a short laugh. ‘I can see I’ve shocked you. But, look, when you think about it, who better to marry her than a chap I’ve known practically all my life? A chap she’s known about as long as I have, what’s more, since you’ve spent so much time here in the school vacations. Chaps I have been glad to keep as friends even after we’ve gone our separate ways in life, which is more than I can say for some of the school chums I brought here, when they seemed like decent fellows but who turned out to be...’ he shook his head in disgust ‘...loose fish. But you fellows...’ he held his arms wide, as though embracing them all ‘...well, you’re the best of good chaps. I don’t mind which of you wins her. Know I can trust any of you to, er, cherish her, and whatnot.’
The response was, once again, stunned silence.
‘I’ll leave it up to you to decide which of you will propose first,’ said Gem, pushing himself off the desk and making for the door.
Nobody made a move to stop him, though all three swivelled on the spot, like clockwork toys, to watch him leave.
He might be unable to move, or speak, but Ben’s heart was pounding. Pounding as hard as it had the night he’d danced with her.
If only he could marry her. It would be like a dream come true.
But he couldn’t. He had nothing to offer any woman, let alone a beauty like Daisy. She was so...perfect. With her golden hair, and her blue eyes, and her perfect little nose, and her luscious, petal-soft lips that made his mouth water...
His hand half rose to his own mouth, which had never been his best feature, even before Salamanca. Now, with the scarring on his cheek, it stretched even further, giving him an almost permanent sneer.
But even if he wasn’t so dashed ugly to look at, he wasn’t the sort of man her parents hoped she’d marry. Because she wasn’t just beautiful, she was titled and wealthy, too. They’d expect her to make a brilliant match. And he had nothing of substance to offer, except his heart, which she already possessed without having the slightest suspicion. Because he didn’t want her to feel sorry for him. Which she would, the tender-hearted creature, if she ever got wind of how he felt about her.
But now Gem was...giving him permission...nay, encouraging him to...
He shook his head. It would never work. Apart from his unsuitability, his unworthiness, there was the far more practical matter of the likelihood that he’d never be able to get the words out. He only had to think how tongue-tied he’d been the night he’d asked her to dance. Hah! He hadn’t even managed that.
He’d asked Gem if he would permit him to dance with his sister, and Gem had been the one to lead him over to where she’d been standing and pretty much ordered her to take pity on him. Which she had done. At least, she hadn’t looked at him with any more exasperation than she’d looked at any other dance partner she’d had that night. In fact, she’d smiled at him when he’d led her into the set. A smile that had felt like a blessing, since she hadn’t bestowed them on many of her partners. He’d felt favoured, and honoured, and so damned aroused every time he’d taken her little hand in his that he’d been worried she would notice the effect she was having, or that everyone else in the ballroom would.
He’d had to think of cold baths, then sleeping outside in a snowstorm, and then marching across the Pyrenees in the dead of winter in order to regain control. By which time her smile had faded. And he’d been left with the sinking sensation that, once more, she’d slipped through his fingers...
‘Is there anything to drink in here?’ said Walter, looking around wildly before going to the far end of the library, where a few armchairs clustered round a small table, on which stood a decanter and a selection of glasses.
Horace followed him.
And Ben knew that he’d have to walk over there too. Or they might guess, from the way he was shaking, and gulping and, yes, sweating, that he felt as if he’d just been struck by a thunderbolt.
