Simply Scandalous Page 26

  Lady Maria's landau arrived before Swale returned with Lady Elkins's barouche, and Juliet was forced to endure another of that lady's triumphant smiles. "I daresay my brother is reluctant to leave dear Serena in such a fragile state. He's very protective of her, you know. When a certain happy event takes place, I daresay he will never leave her side."

  She was pleased to see Miss Wayborn flinch. Sweetly, she offered to convey Juliet and her aunt back to Wayborn Hall. Lady Elkins, complaining of an evil pulse in her head, heart flutters, and shooting pains in her legs, readily accepted, but Juliet, with a toss of her head, declared her intention of walking home.

  Lady Elkins halfheartedly tried to persuade her niece that it was not at all the thing to be seen walking through the village without a hat, but her own suffering soon overcame any thought of Juliet, and she sank back onto the bleached leather cushions of the landau. Colonel Fitzwilliam made a more sustained effort, but Juliet, clutching her walking stick, started down the High Street in the opposite direction taken by Maria's carriage, all but daring anyone to say a word to her.

  Someone took the dare as she was passing the White Hart. The upper window was suddenly flung open, and a young man with a cropped, dark head stuck the upper half of his body out so far he was in danger of falling into the street. He was in his shirt, which was open at the throat. "Miss Wayborn, we have just been talking about you!"

  Juliet was startled, to say the least, never having been shouted at by a young man hanging out of the upper window of a country inn. With a great deal of embarrassment, she recognized Budgie St. John Jones, a London acquaintance and a nincompoop if ever there was one. She walked on.

  "Oh, I say!" he cried, slamming his head against the casement in his eagerness to withdraw. To Juliet's amazement, a few minutes later, he was on the street, pursuing her and struggling to put his coat on over his shirt. Another gentleman followed at a more sedate pace.

  Not wanting to quicken her pace to escape a mere flea like Budgie, Juliet walked steadfastly on, her eyes fixed ahead, preserving the icy, depressing silence of a lady as Budgie overtook her. She knew him from the drawing rooms of London, and she very quickly had determined he was too stupid even to be trusted to fetch lemonade at Almack's.

  "I say, don't rush off," said Budgie, but he then was overcome with giggling.

  "I understand you have an interest in racing, Miss Wayborn," said the other gentleman, drawing alongside Juliet. Without seeming to hurry half so much as Budgie, he had easily reached her side. He was unknown to her, but he bore the unmistakable London mark in his clothes and address, and his cool blue eyes moved up and down Juliet's figure in a speculative manner that made her dislike him instinctively. "I wanted to see for myself how fast you are, Miss Wayborn," he said warmly. He lifted his hat from his wellcoifed head, imbuing the respectful gesture with the most unflattering irony. "I am disappointed to find you so easily caught. Dare I hope you wanted to be caught? But perhaps I flatter myself?"

  Juliet gripped her stick tightly but made no reply. She was not going to be provoked into an argument with gentlemen who were determined to insult her, and she certainly would not run away from them in tears like-like some wretched, ignorant milkmaid. She was a gentlewoman, a fact that was well-known to Budgie. Her brother was a baronet and an MP; she was not in any real danger; and only a perfect wet goose would allow herself to be bullied.

  As they neared the little bridge arching over the brook, they were overtaken by a wagon. With relief, Juliet recognized Mr. Quince.

  "Drive on, man," said Budgie's friend with the impatient authority of a child used to getting his own way. "This is a private conversation."

  Farmer Quince seemed not to hear the fine gentleman from London. He halted his mule and raised his hat respectfully. "Good afternoon, Miss Julie," he said in his slow, stolid way.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Quince," she replied in what she hoped was her normal, steady voice.

  "I have it in my power to take you as far as your back gate, if you please, Miss."

  Juliet climbed up next to him gratefully, and Mr. Quince drove on, forcing Budgie and his friend to step aside. Mr. Quince drove over the bridge, then turned off the road onto the well-worn track leading through the woods. As they drew away from the village, Juliet glanced back. A third man had joined Budgie and his rude friend in the street. She had almost convinced herself that she could not possibly recognize him from such a distance when he suddenly reached up and, in Lord Swale's characteristic way, rubbed a hand across his head. His other hand, she could not help but notice, was holding a battered straw hat with green ribbons. She saw Budgie throw back his head and laugh, and she knew her face was burning.

  "How is your wife, Mr. Quince?" she inquired brightly. "And the new baby?"

  She scarcely heard that good man's answers. What she chiefly wanted was to sneak off somewhere and have a good, purifying cry. Mr. Quince talked on in a steady, even voice, almost a drone, as if he were soothing a disturbed animal. Juliet heard only snatches here and there until a name suddenly drew her complete attention. "Swale! What about him, Mr. Quince?"

  If Farmer Quince was surprised by the young lady's vehemence, he did not show it. "His lordship has asked me for two hundred cheeses, Miss. What could his nibs want with so much cheese? I didn't think the gentry ate a deal of cheese. I'd have to take on a few extra lads to fill the order, and even then ... where am I to get my hands on so much milk? He's the sort of man I'd never dare refuse anything, Miss Julie, but I honestly don't know how it's to be done."

  "You had better speak to Sir Benedict," Juliet advised him. "Two hundred cheeses! I daresay it is his lordship's idea of a joke. You know how these highstrung Hanoverian aristocrats can be."

  "Oh now, Miss Julie," he said mildly. "I'd say his lordship is a man who means what he says. But I'll speak to Sir Benedict, I will, about taking on the extra lads and maybe buying a few more milch cows."

  As he spoke, Juliet became aware that someone was running down the shady lane behind them and calling her name.

  "Well, I'm blowed," said Mr. Quince, whistling for his mule to stop. "'Tis the man himself."

  Juliet sat up very straight and looked ahead resolutely. "Your hat, Miss Wayborn," said a breathless Swale as he climbed up beside her. Juliet was obliged to squash up next to Farmer Quince to make room for him.

  "You weren't very gracious to Serena," he admonished her as he arranged the straw hat on her head. "I really expected better from you, my girl. Serena's not like you, Julie. She's delicate. She needs someone to look after her."

  "Oh!" said Juliet bitterly. "Oh, it only needed that! Why don't you go back to your friends, my lord? You seemed to be having such a merry time."

  "What? Oh, Budgie and Dulwich, you mean? Guess my surprise when I met them in the street. What do you suppose could have induced them to leave London?"

  "There was a bit of unpleasantness, milord," Mr. Quince said quietly.

  "What kind of unpleasantness?" Swale wanted to know.

  "Nothing to interest you, Ginger," Juliet snapped, tying the green ribbons together under her chin with trembling fingers. "And where, pray, is my aunt's barouche?"

  "Her footmen have taken it home," he answered. "I went to the church to fetch you, and they told me you were on foot with no hat."

  "What does it matter? I'm brown as a berry!"

  Swale frowned. "Did I say that? I meant nut. You're brown as a nut, Julie. A little color is good, but I think perhaps you overdo it. Serena's skin is like alabaster or mother of pearl."

  Juliet simmered in silence.

  Farmer Quince cleared his throat. "I was telling Miss Julie, please your lordship, that I'd have to take on extra labor to fill the order for the cheese."

  "Then do it," Swale replied carelessly.

  "You can't actually want two hundred cheeses," Juliet protested.

  "Oh, don't l?" he retorted, pulling something wrapped in brown paper from his waistcoat. "Taste this, Miss Wayborn, and tell me
I don't want two hundred wheels of it!" He unwrapped the cheese and cut off a hunk with his pocketknife.

  "Thank you," Juliet said coldly, "but I do not eat cheese."

  Farmer Quince confounded her by laughing. "There was a time when you liked it well enough, Miss Julie! When my mother was alive, milord, and this young lady was only a bit lass with pigtails braided down her back, she'd come clamoring at the back door of our cottage, and my mother would give her cheese until she was fit to pop!"

  "Now I'm a grown-up lady, Mr. Quince,"Juliet said primly. "And ladies don't eat cheese."

  `Julie!" said Swale in a voice filled with reproach. "Have you had it toasted on brown bread?"

  "Oh, she has, milord," said Mr. Quince. "And she's had it baked into an onion tart as well, and she used to especially enjoy it with fried slivered apples."

  "Now then, Mr. Quince," said Swale, laughing. "You mustn't tell all a lady's secrets."

  Eventually, the back gate was reached, and Mr. Quince drove on without them. Juliet had no key for the stout, iron-bound gate, so she was obliged to seek Swale's assistance in climbing over the wall into the orchard. "I can't think why Benedict keeps this locked," she exclaimed in disgust as he knelt down and allowed her to step up on his knee, then his shoulder, to reach the top of the wall. "No one wants to steal his nasty little apples."

  Swale was obliged to give her rump a helpful push, and she was over, falling unceremoniously into the shrubbery on the other side of the wall. Almost before she knew what was happening, her brother Cary was hauling her to her feet. `Julie, where the devil did you come from?" he demanded. Naked to the waist except for a pair of leather gloves, he was sweating profusely.

  She gaped at him, her straw hat now hanging under her chin by its ribbons. "What are you doing here?" she cried, pulling at the ribbons that were threatening to strangle her. "I thought you'd gone to look at a horse."

  "I did," he replied. "I've got a sweet little four-yearold half bought for you-I thought I would train her myself. When I got back, everyone was gone, so I thought I'd come out here and do some strengthening exercises." He picked an old sword up from the grass where he had dropped it and gave it a halfhearted swing with his right arm before dropping it in disgust.

  "Uncle George's rapier!" she exclaimed, picking it up. "So heavy!"

  "I haven't the strength of a baby," Cary said disgustedly, flexing his arm.

  "You mustn't try to do too much," Juliet urged, resting the flat of the blade against her shoulder. "I'll carry it back for you. Good heavens, you're sweating like a racehorse. Where is your shirt?"

  They were interrupted by a small cheese flying over the wall.

  "Excuse me," cried Swale from the other side. Jumping up, he caught the top of the wall and began struggling to throw his leg over.

  "What the bloody hell are you doing here, Swale?" Cary demanded as the Marquess was forced to relinquish his hold on the wall without making it over. "Mind your language in front of my sister! " he added as they heard Swale's muffled curses.

  In the next moment, Swale was again hanging from the wall, his chin planted on the top as he tried in vain to haul his leg over.

  "Cary, have you got a key to the gate?"Juliet asked, just as the brick wall rather dramatically gave way tinder Swale's weight. "Or ... he could just knock the wall down and walk through it, I suppose!"

  `Julie, I've cut my chin," Swale complained, holding a handkerchief to his jaw.

  "You've broken the wall, sir," said Cary. "And my sister's name, you ignominious oaf, is Miss Wayborn."

  "Oh, don't be such an ass, Cary! Ginger, my foolish brother has been exercising too much. You see how pale he is. Do you think you can carry him back to the house?"

  "I am perfectly capable of walking!" Cary protested, shaking violently.

  "Cary, do you feel light in the head?" Juliet inquired anxiously. "Oh, Ginger, I think he has a fever!" "I do not have a fever."

  "The silly ass has given himself a fever," said Juliet in fierce disgust, appealing to Swale. "You'll have to carry him. You will, won't you?"

  Cary snatched his shirt from the branches of a nearby tree. "Don't you dare!"

  "Go on up to the house, Julie," said Swale. "I'll get him home. Go on, girl! No red-blooded Englishman is going to allow his sister to watch him being carried home like a baby."

  Juliet bit her lip. "Very well," she said reluctantly. "But I hold you responsible, my lord. If anything happens to him-"

  "Run along, Julie!" said Cary, harshly.

  "All right, I'm going," she snapped back, marching off into the trees with the rapier over her shoulder.

  "Don't you dare," Cary said warningly.

  "I wouldn't dream of it, old chap," Swale coolly replied.

  Cary pulled his shirt over his head and reached for his coat. "As soon as my strength comes back to me, I am going to shoot you, Swale. You have but to name your second. And none of this Hyde Park nonsense. I will shoot you right here, dig a hole, and bury you."

  `Julie won't be very pleased if you shoot her husband-to-be," Swale replied. "And between you and me, the girl has a ruthless element to her personality that is more often found in people named Genghis, Attila, and Tamerlane."

  A vein pulsed in Cary's forehead. "You, Swale? You expect me to believe that you're engaged to my sister?" he sneered.

  "I have an understanding with your sister, yes."

  "Understanding? What the devil does that mean?" Cary scowled suspiciously. "What sort of understanding?"

  'Julie has given me leave to buy her a house in the country as a wedding gift," said Swale.

  "Miss Wayborn would never do that!"

  "I was rather surprised myself," Swale admitted, "but she did it all the same. I'm perfectly happy to buy her a house, you know. I have pots of money, and I simply adore the little monkey."

  "You're a damned liar, sir," said Cary. "My sister is engaged to Captain Horatio Cary. Captain Cary is going to buy Miss Wayborn a house in the country, namely Tanglewood, which is the one place in the world upon which you, for all your beastly money, will never get your scabby paws!"

  "I haven't seen an engagement notice in the papers," said Swale belligerently, "and believe me, I have been looking for it! Your sister is going to marry me, Wayborn. Accustom yourself to the idea. I may never get my scabby paws on Tanglewood Manor, but your sister Julie is her name, by the way-that's quite a different matter! "

  Cary swung a fist unwisely, missed his mark, and nearly fell.

  "Don't try to hit me again," Swale advised him. "I'm pretty handy with my fives."

  "So am I," said Cary. "And I warn you, I don't take cheques! You'll pay for that disgusting remark in blood."

  "I withdraw the remark," said Swale. "It was unworthy of Miss Wayborn's betrothed. I shall have to endeavor to be a better man from now on, for Julie's sake. I can see I'm going to have to put up with a great deal of nonsense from my brothers-in-law."

  "You'll marry Julie over my dead body," said Gary.

  "No, I won't," said Swale, turning toward the house. "I was thinking I'd marry her in the quaint little church in the village, and we'd release a few doves afterward as a symbol of our ... what in hell's name are doves a symbol of, anyway?"

  "You bastard!" Cary leaped onto the bigger man's back and tried to dig into his eyes with his fingers.

  "Oh, did you want me to carry you up to the house on my back, after all, Mr. Wayborn?" Swale inquired solicitously.

  Some time later, his lordship entered the house by the French windows on the terrace. Inside, the housekeeper was changing the flowers. "Miss Wayborn?" he inquired politely. "There is something particular I wish to ask her."

  At these magic words, Mrs. Spinner instantly directed him to a small room at the back of the house. There he found Juliet struggling to hang Uncle George's rapier back in place on the wall. It was but the work of a moment for him to do this for her.

  "Thank you," she said coolly, her patrician face red with exertion. She t
ried to step around him neatly, but Swale blocked her. "Your left eye is swollen," she remarked.

  "Your brother did a few strengthening exercises on my face."

  "You brute!" she exclaimed. "Did you hit him? I swear, if you hit Cary-! Is he all right?"

  "Is he all right?" Swale huffed. "What about me? And no, I didn't hit him. Turns out he didn't want me to carry him up to the house after all."

  "You left him out there in the wilderness!"

  "I tried to," he admitted, "but the cheeky fellow chased me all the way to the house. I have only just given him the slip."

  She shook her head in disgust. "You ran away."

  "He kept hitting me," Swale explained. "I have a great deal of restraint, as you know, but it is a finite amount. Sooner or later, I would have hit him back, sore arm or no sore arm."

  "Excuse me," she said coldly, "I must go to my brother."

  "Not so fast," he said, catching her by the arm. "I have a straight question for you, Miss Juliet. And I should like you to give me a straight answer."

  "Oh yes?" she asked politely, letting her arm go slack rather than struggle against his superior strength.

  `Julie," he said, letting her go. "You know my feelings. You know the real reason I came to Surrey. Do I have your permission to place an engagement notice in the newspaper?"

  If she had not been brown as a nut, Juliet's face would have been quite white. "W-what?" she stammered. "Why ask me?"

  "After everything that's happened between us, I should look a bloody fool if I put my notice in twenty minutes after Captain Horatio Cary puts his in, don't you think, Julie?" He looked at her intently. "Or, is that what you wanted all along, to make a bloody great fool of me?"

  Juliet took a deep, shuddering breath. "Is it so very important to you that your notice is put in before his?" she asked quietly.

  "You know that it is!" he answered furiously. "It means everything to me. It makes all the difference in the world!"

  "Then, by all means, make your preference for a certain lady known to all the world just as soon as you can, Ginger," she said with what she hoped was the coolest, barest, most indifferent shrug in the world. "Put in as many notices as you like, my lord. Put a hundred in the Morning Post-no, a thousand. Have monograms printed up on cream-colored, hot pressed paper embossed with your coat of arms. While you are about it, commission a few dozen commemorative plates from Mr. Spode. Hire men to walk around Hyde Park from dawn 'til dusk wearing giant sandwich boards. Never let it be said that my Lord Swale does things by halves."