Simply Scandalous Page 4

  "He is the laughingstock of the world," she told him proudly. "A duel with Stacy would have been too good for him, don't you think? But now he has been beaten by a female and exposed as a coward. I could tell his lordship dearly wanted to strangle me, but what could he do? The world was watching." She took his hand and kissed it. "When you are better, you may shoot him if you like, but I hardly think it necessary

  "Well done, Julie," Cary whispered. "You're so clever-I knew I could count on you."

  "At least someone appreciates me," she murmured, stroking his dark hair. "Stacy has been dunning me all the way home. He thinks that no one will marry me now and that he must do it himself or I shall die an old maid. How would you like him for a brother?"

  She laughed softly, but Cary had slipped away again.

  Like his brother and sister, Sir Benedict had been born with patrician features; rich, dark hair; and wide gray eyes, but as a boy, he had been maimed by one of his father's mastiffs. His lean face bore terrible scars, and the tendons of his right arm had been so badly damaged that the doctors had been forced to amputate just above the elbow. He had never married, and, since the death of his father, his sole purpose had been the restoration of the Wayborn family seat, which lay just ten miles west of London in Surrey. Considerably older than his siblings, Sir Benedict was, in fact, a half-brother to Cary and Juliet, and to that lively pair, he seemed more of an uncle than a brother. He had no taste for fashionable Society, and, therefore, he came to London only to attend Parliament, of which he was a Member.

  When her half-brother arrived in Park Lane the next morning, Juliet reluctantly left Cary with his nurse and went down to meet him, confident that, once Benedict knew all, he would take her part. Certainly, Benedict would scold her-her behavior was not to be wished for in a sister-but he must see that she had done the only thing possible under the circumstances. No one was more jealous of the family's honor than Sir Benedict.

  In the Apricot Salon, she found that he was not so much his usual sober self as a thundercloud of disapproval. She had never seen his feelings so exposed; of all the Wayborns, Sir Benedict knew best how to wear the mask, and she had often been frustrated by his evenhanded temper. Now he looked at her in a way that shocked her. His gray eyes, never warm, were hard and brilliant. It seemed almost as though she disgusted him. In very short order, she found that she could not meet his gaze. Her limbs began to tremble, not with fear exactly, but with mortification. She had not expected to be congratulated for her courage, not by Benedict, but she had not expected this. Before he had even spoken a word, she was a shrinking vessel of guilt.

  "They say you cut your hair for this notorious prank," he said abruptly. "I'm pleased to see it isn't so."

  He sounded anything but pleased. His tone was awful, and its effect on her was made worse by the fact that he so very rarely rebuked her and because their father never had. If Papa had thought her his angel, the more critical Benedict at least had found her above reproach, and she would have preferred to have been horsewhipped by Lord Swale than to feel Benedict's disappointment. To her dismay, she felt hot tears welling up in her eyes.

  "They say you wore breeches," said Benedict in the same awful tone.

  "That is a lie!" she cried, almost choking on a sob. Angrily, she ground the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I most certainly did not! I wore Cary's coat over my dress."

  "You greatly relieve my mind," said Benedict with bitter sarcasm.

  The tears threatened again. "How c-could you b-b-believe such a thing?"

  "Forgive me," he said harshly. "I am not accustomed to hearing my sister's name bandied about in the street! I am not accustomed to being slapped on the back by young men who I do not know and do not want to know as they congratulate me on my sister's high-flying exploits! "

  "I beg your pardon, Benedict, but-"

  "Really, Juliet!" he brutally interrupted. "I am accustomed to such reports of Cary as to make my hair turn white, but I had thought you had more conduct. They are saying you wore breeches, and they are saying a great deal worse than that."

  Juliet flung herself into a nearby chair and shamelessly began to cry. "What could I do?" she choked, aware that she was blubbering like a baby but unable to stop. "Cary could not go!" She became unintelligible after that, and all he could make out were the words "family honor."

  "I should have thought that even Gary would have more sense," said Benedict, "than to put his sister up to such behavior as must make her the object of universal disgust and ridicule."

  She flung up her head. "Do not blame Cary!" she cried. "It was my own idea to go in his place. What else could I do?"

  "My dear child," he said, exasperated by her display of raw emotion. "Don't tell me you sacrificed yourself merely to spare Cary the slight embarrassment of having missed a horse race?"

  "Slight embarrassment! He would have been ruined! "

  "Is that what my brother told you?"

  "You have always been hard on Gary, but this ill becomes you, Benedict," she said sharply. "Naturally, he said no such thing! Indeed, he could barely speak when Stacy brought him home."

  "Bah!" said Sir Benedict dispassionately. "A touch of influenza. I had not thought you capable of running into hysterics, my girl."

  "Influenza!" Her eyes widened, and she felt, for the first time, a bit of hope. "Then you do not know the truth."

  He frowned. "I think I do. My aunt was so obliging as to tell me. She has asked to retire to Wayborn Hall, and I see no reason why she should not go and take you with her, too."

  "Naturally, we could not tell Aunt Elinor the truth. How is it you know all about me, but you have heard nothing about Lord Swale?"

  Benedict arched a brow. "I take it his lordship was your opponent in this infamous race. He certainly will not thank you for handing him the greatest humiliation of his life. But tell me why a well-bred young lady should be unable to tell her aunt the truth. What has Cary done now?"

  "Cary has done nothing," she retorted hotly. "It is this odious, pestilential Lord Swale! I wish you had attended less to the lies told about me and more to the truths told about him. Cary don't have influenza. He was attacked! He was brutally attacked, and by Lord Swale's hirelings! Furthermore, if Stacy hadn't been there to frighten the villains away, they would have killed him! So there!"

  Sir Benedict paled at this news, but his expression became very guarded. "Cary? Attacked? I can hardly credit it."

  "I'm not such a fool as to lie to you, Benedict," she retorted. "You may see for yourself. He is resting upstairs now. His arm is broken in two places, and Mr. Norton is very fearful of an infection. He could lose his

  Benedict rose as if he meant to go upstairs at once, but instead, he began to pace the floor. "Cary?" he murmured in a bleak voice. "My brother attacked?"

  "If you had only seen him, Benedict, you would not blame me for what I did! If I were a man, I should have killed Lord Swale on the spot, and no one on earth would have blamed me if I had!"

  "It is a very bad thing," said Benedict slowly, "to accuse his lordship without proof. I hope-"

  "I have all the proof I need! " she flung at him. "Stacy heard the villains talking, and so did Cary! They were sent by Lord Swale to keep him from racing. They named their benefactor."

  "And you thought you must take your brother's curricle and go in his place?"

  She stared at him, her eyes red. "Do you think I did it to disoblige you, sir?"

  "I have never known you to do anything to disoblige me," he said gently, and she instantly was ashamed. "Who helped you? Mr. Calverstock, I suppose? I should like to box his ears!"

  "You must not blame Stacy," she said quickly. "He did not know until he saw me in Cary's clothes at the Black Lantern Inn, and he could not have exposed me there, you know."

  "The Black Lantern Inn! My God, Juliet! I expect Bernard helped you as well."

  "Don't be cross with Bernard," she begged. "He saw right away what had to be done."

  "Indeed! And I daresay Mr. Calverstock covered your brother's losses?"

  "Certainly not," she said. "I paid Lord Swale on the spot. I flung it in his face, Benedict. You would have been proud. Well," she amended, biting her lip, "if I were your brother instead of your sister, you would have been quite proud."

  "But you are not my brother," he snapped. "I expect Cary wagered his customary five hundred pounds?"

  "Yes, indeed!"

  "And where," demanded Sir Benedict, "did you get five hundred pounds?"

  Juliet lifted her chin defiantly. "From Bernard, of course," she said.

  "It is worse than I had thought," Benedict exclaimed. "Can it be that my sister has stooped to borrowing money from the servants?"

  "Bernard is rather a special case," she said dryly. "He does not know what to do with his fortune. Indeed, I sometimes wish that Papa had not been so generous; it embarrasses him so."

  "Generous! " said Benedict furiously. "That Sir Anthony Wayborn saw fit to leave his groom a sum equal to his own daughter's dower portion, I should think was rather more than generous of him!"

  Juliet flushed. "No one thinks of it in that vulgar way except you. Papa liked him, that's all. I am sure I've never begrudged Bernard a penny of it!"

  "No, indeed! If he is always willing, as I suspect he is, to frank your follies!"

  "Well, what else could I do?" she demanded. "Tell me that! The race was forfeited; the odious Swale saw to that! And he must be paid, the scaly fiend! "

  "You might have sent for me," he said quietly.

  "You were in Surrey," she said resentfully. "You are always at Wayborn Hall."

  "Yes, looking after our tenants and managing the estate."

  "Hiding from life," she insisted. "Oh, Benedict, can't you see that what I have done is so much better than anything you could have done?"

  "With but one arm, I should not have been of much use in a curricle race," he wearily agreed.

  The color drained from Juliet's face. "I did not mean that, "she cried in dismay. "Why must you take the worst possible meaning of all that I say?"

  He shrugged. "Very well, Juliet," he said. "You have humiliated Lord Swale. You have pricked him deeply, I daresay, but you have destroyed yourself in the process. You must know you will be shunned by all respectable society now."

  She tossed her head. "I do not care two straws for that, I assure you," she said. "Pray do not lecture me on that head for I have had all I can take from Stacy Calverstock."

  "No lectures," he agreed. "But you will have to leave London at once."

  "You cannot ask me to leave Cary!" she objected. "Anyway, I won't. Why should I? I know very well I am in disgrace. No one will visit me, and I shan't be asked anywhere. I shall be left alone, which is precisely what I like. And when Gary is better, he will defend my honor, and anyway, if it comes to it, Stacy has offered to marry me."

  "How very obliging of him," murmured Benedict. "You are certainly in disgrace, my dear, but you are quite wrong if you think you will be left alone. I daresay you will receive a great deal of attention, and not of the best kind."

  Juliet shuddered, remembering those highspirited rattles that had accompanied her chaise from Southend to her aunt's house. Undoubtedly, her company would be much in demand with them. "I don't care! You cannot induce me to leave Gary," she said stubbornly.

  "If I cannot induce you," he replied, "I will take you by the scruff of the neck and drag you."

  Juliet swallowed hard. It seemed to her that Benedict meant it.

  "Cary will be well looked after," he said in a more reassuring voice. "And it will scarcely speed his recovery to be having to defend your honor against every bold young ass who insults you."

  Though it chafed, Juliet could see the wisdom of this. Benedict was always maddeningly wise. "Very well, Benedict," she said. "Only tell me you are not angry with me," she pleaded. "Tell me you understand why I did it. I did not do it for my own amusement."

  "You must have been frightened and angry when you saw Cary," he said with more gentleness than before. "You lost your head, and you did something very foolish."

  "Benedict! "

  "You want me to tell you what you did was right and sensible. It wasn't," he said flatly. "You're very brave and very loyal but not very wise, my dear Juliet. I hope you won't be made too unhappy."

  "You mistake the matter," she said defiantly. "I shall be very happy. When you marry Cynthia, I'll live with you at Wayborn Hall, and you won't need to hire a governess for I shall teach my nephews and nieces very well!"

  "When I marry Cynthia!" he said, coloring up. "What nonsense."

  "Never mind," said Juliet, smiling. His admiration for her cousin Miss Cynthia Cary was well-known to her, and she enjoyed teasing him about it. "Cynthia is content to wait. Benedict!" she cried suddenly. `Would you not let me go to Cynthia instead? Tanglewood is only a little farther away than Wayborn, and I should like it better to be exiled there. Aunt Elkins is well enough in town with all its diversions, but at Wayborn, with nothing to occupy her mind, I should be obliged to hear all about her many acquaintances who have died of influenza. I had much rather dispense with all that and go to my cousins. I should be more than adequately chaperoned, I think, at the Vicarage. The Reverend Dr. Cary will not let me go far wrong, and you know it has been almost a year since I was among them, and Cary neither visits nor writes our Hertfordshire relations."

  "I have no objection to the scheme," said Benedict after some thought. "But at present, I am unable to escort you there-"

  "There is nothing easier in the world!" she assured him. "My cousin Captain Cary has been in London all this week. He told me himself he meant to go to Tanglewood Tuesday next. He won't mind going a few days sooner."

  Benedict did not like the idea. Horatio Gary, Cynthia's brother, was a very handsome young officer of the Royal Navy. With her reputation already in shreds, his sister could ill afford the ugly gossip that undoubtedly would attend her traveling alone with Captain Cary.

  "I shall have my maid with me in the chaise," said Juliet persuasively. "And Horatio can ride alongside for he has just bought the most splendid white mare!"

  Benedict, whose lack of a right arm prevented him from enjoying riding, had not considered that Captain Cary might do anything but ride in the chaise with Juliet. Naturally, if the Captain meant to ride his own horse, that put quite a different complexion on things. "I will write to Dr. Cary directly," he said. "If the Captain is in London, no doubt he has heard of our ... predicament."

  "Horatio will be anxious to assist me," she said confidently. "He has been most attentive since he came to London. He has even taken me aboard his ship, the Monarch."

  Benedict looked at her sharply. "Indeed?"

  Juliet went on in her lively manner. "She is docked at Tilbury, you know, and Cary and I dined there like real sailors, with our plates shuffling back and forth with the tide."

  He smiled faintly. "Astonishing!"

  "Horatio is much admired in London. He goes everywhere, and everyone is talking of him. In the last month of the war, he captured no less than five French frigates, and there is talk of elevating him to the knighthood. Serena Calverstock has dubbed him Phoebus and likes to think he is dangling after her, but, of course, I have warned him about her. "

  Upon writing to the Captain at his rooms in the Grillon, Benedict discovered that Juliet was right. Horatio was more than glad to assist his cousin, and the departure was fixed for the following morning after breakfast, which Benedict invited the Captain to take with them in Park Lane.

  When Captain Cary arrived, Benedict was again dismayed by his good looks. The Captain wore his dark gold hair cropped short in the latest fashion; his eyes were bright cornflower blue; and though he wore small whiskers, one felt it was not in order to hide any defect of his features. Beyond that, he was tall and trim; he had new clothes; and he carried himself like a gentleman.

  Juliet greeted him a little doubtfully. She had asked to go to Hertfordshire impetuously, thinking only of her own preferences. But perhaps she had been wrong to impose on her cousin and cause him to change his plans.

  Horatio at once put her scruples to rest. "You will not credit it, perhaps," he said as they sat down to breakfast, "but I was on the verge of calling to offer my assistance."

  Juliet, seated opposite him, forced a smile. "It's very good of you not to abandon me in my disgrace, Cousin. Benedict thinks I've damaged myself beyond all hope of repair."

  "I am sorry for you, Cousin," he said, shaking his head. "But I don't think it so black as that, Sir Benedict. After all, from what I understand, Lord Swale quite deserved his humiliation. Of course, some very old-fashioned tiresome people-"

  "Like Benedict!" said Juliet "Like Stacy Calverstock."

  Horatio lifted a brow. "Calverstock? What had he to say?"

  "He was chivalrous enough to ask for my hand!" she told him, laughing. "Did you ever hear anything so paltry?"

  Horatio's eyes twinkled at her. "And shall I wish you joy, Cousin?"

  "I wouldn't marry a man who offers for me out of some misguided pity," Juliet replied in scorn.

  "Even if you loved him?" Horatio teased her.

  "Especially not if I loved him," she said promptly. "That would be agony for me. In any case, I do not love Stacy Calverstock, I assure you."

  Benedict watched this exchange thoughtfully. He had seen the look on the Captain's face when Juliet had spoken of Calverstock's offer. The Captain had recovered quickly and had made a joke, but his first reaction had been intense displeasure. Could it be that Captain Cary was in love with Juliet? It seemed so, and, what was more, Juliet seemed to return his admiration. In many ways, Benedict reflected, it would be an ideal match, especially if the Captain had grown rich in the war. Such a circumstance would not be likely to move Juliet's heart, of course, but it went a long way toward making Benedict easy in his mind. He began to think of the Tanglewood scheme with greater complacency.

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