Do You Want to Start a Scandal EPB Page 8

Delia just shook her head.

  “Really, I’ll do it. Devil’s spittle and everything.” She tilted her head back and dangled the berry above her mouth. “Last chance to stop me.”

  “I would never attempt to stop you,” said Delia. “Trying to stop you is the surest way to encourage you.”

  Quite true. Delia knew her all too well.

  Charlotte popped the berry into her mouth and gave it a thoughtful chew. “It is rather mealy,” she said, swallowing and throwing the rest to the ground. “Perhaps the goodwives were on to something after all.”

  “We should be going.”

  “Wait.” Charlotte pressed a hand to her stomach and doubled over. “I . . . I suddenly feel so strange.”

  “Are you well?” Delia asked.

  “It hurts. Like something’s burning me from the inside. I taste sulfur.” She clutched at her throat and made a gagging sound. “I . . . I think it’s . . . Satan spit!”

  Charlotte reeled in a circle and collapsed behind the bushes, limp and lifeless. She waited for Delia to laugh.

  Instead of laughing, Delia whispered, “Charlotte, get up. Lord Granville is coming.”

  “No, he isn’t,” Charlotte said. Delia was just trying to repay her teasing.

  “Yes,” Delia hissed. “He is.”

  “Really, I’m not that easily fooled.” Charlotte rose to her knees and peered through the bushes. “Oh, no.”

  Piers was approaching. Devouring the distance between them in long, purposeful strides.

  She scrambled to her feet, brushing the grass from her skirts. “What could he want?”

  “Whatever it is he wants,” Delia murmured, “he looks quite determined to get it.”

  Yes. Yes, he did.

  Heavens, he was so handsome. His handsomeness was not a new development, of course—but it had begun to affect her in new ways. She felt a strange sense of possessiveness welling in her breast. As if he—in all his strong, sensual desirability—belonged to her.

  The sensation unnerved her. She attempted desperately to quash it.

  Her attempts didn’t succeed.

  He bowed to them. “Miss Delia. Miss Highwood.”

  Charlotte and Delia curtsied in response. It was all very proper in appearances, despite all the improper thoughts simmering inside her.

  “Are you on your way to the village, Lord Granville?” Delia asked.

  “No, I came in search of you.”

  His gaze fell on Charlotte, dark and intent. Hungry. What with the wooded setting, she felt like Red Riding Hood confronting the wolf.

  There’d been too much talk of folklore for one day.

  “I do hope you’re well this morning, Miss Highwood.”

  “I . . .” Could he sense her inner turmoil? Was it that obvious? “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Aside from flailing about, clutching your throat just now? You were ill last evening.”

  “Oh, yes. That.”

  At his mention of last evening, the breeze seemed to die. The air about her grew sluggish and warm.

  “Come to mention it, you left the ball early the other night, too,” Delia said.

  “It’s a concerning pattern,” he said. “Have you consulted a physician about these episodes, Miss Highwood?”

  “They aren’t episodes.” Charlotte spoke through a smile that was composed of gritted teeth. “And I don’t need a doctor.”

  “I will brook no argument,” he said. “If your condition recurs, causing you to miss even one more outing or dinner, I will send for my personal physician. He’s remarkably skilled with leeches and purgatives.”

  Delia stifled a laugh. “How very good of you to offer, Lord Granville.”

  Oh, yes. How very good of him indeed. Compelling her to appear at the dinner table under threat of leeches.

  If Piers thought he could inhibit her investigations, Charlotte would prove him wrong. It wasn’t as though she enjoyed feigning illness, lying to Delia and her hosts. She was doing this for his own good, as well as hers.

  “Shouldn’t the gentlemen be shooting or coursing or something?” she asked. “I thought this was a sporting holiday.”

  “We had a bit of fishing early this morning, but now Sir Vernon is with his steward. I have business in town. It was suggested the ladies might like to visit the shops.”

  Charlotte would bet sovereigns to pennies that her mother had been the source of that suggestion. Mama was likely tying her bonnet strings and gathering her reticule as they spoke. She would invent any excuse to put Piers and Charlotte in the same place.

  “You and Frances should go, Delia. I’ll stay behind. There’ll be too many of us otherwise, and we wouldn’t want to make His Lordship’s coach cramped.”

  “Have no worry on that score,” he said. “My carriage is more than large enough to accommodate our group.”

  Indeed it was.

  They emerged from the path onto the drive. In front of Parkhurst Manor sat the grandest, most elegant barouche-landau Charlotte had ever seen. A glossy, obsidian-black carriage emblazoned with a golden crest on the door. It was drawn by a team of four ebony-maned warmbloods—horses so perfectly matched they might have been struck from a mold.

  Frances and Delia climbed in first, handed up by Lord Granville himself. Charlotte squeezed next to them on the front-facing bench.

  Then it was Mama’s turn. “Charlotte, you must move. You know very well I cannot sit facing backward.”

  “Actually, Mama, I can’t recall you ever saying that before.”

  “It interferes with my digestion. Go on, then. Move to the other side.”

  She was so terribly, painfully obvious.

  Rather than cause even more of a scene, Charlotte moved to the rear-facing seat. Which meant, of course, that Piers sat next to her.

  As expected, Frances glowered at her. At least Delia had the kindness to send her a sympathetic smile. It was nice to have one friend who didn’t believe her to be an audacious hussy.

  Then again, perhaps she was an audacious hussy.

  With Piers next to her, she couldn’t help but remember the night before. How his hair had felt sliding through her fingers. How he’d leaned into her touch and murmured such entrancing, indecent words.

  The coach bounced off a rut, and Charlotte went momentarily airborne.

  Piers caught her, drawing her to his side. Her insides cartwheeled in response.

  What to make of this man? He was proper. He was passionate. He had the public demeanor of an iceberg, but he kissed her as if she were his oasis in a vast, arid desert.

  What are you doing to me? he’d whispered.

  Charlotte had no idea.

  But whatever it was, he was doing it back.

  In the draper’s shop, Mama went straight to a display of dreadful lace caps. “Come here, Charlotte. Tell me, which do you think is best?”

  Charlotte grimaced. The fashion of married ladies wearing ugly lace caps composed at least one-third of her determination not to wed young. “None of them.”

  “Let’s ask His Lordship.”

  “Mama, no.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Remember? Silence.”

  “Pish. We’re only discussing caps.” Her mother raised her arm and waved, calling across the shop. “Lord Granville! Oh, Lord Granville! Do come to our aid. Over here, by the lace.”

  Piers lifted his head—slowly, as if hearing his name called from some far-off land of fantasy. Because surely, no one in this mortal realm would have the unspeakably bad manners to shout at a marquess as though she were hailing a hackney cab.

  No one, that was, save Mama.

  Charlotte wanted to hide behind the ostrich plumes, but it was useless. Oh, well. If Piers was truly considering marrying her, he ought to know what he was in for.

  The dire truth seemed to be dawning on him as he approached.

  “Now, Lord Granville,” Mama said. “A certain newly betrothed young lady of my acquaintance is debating which style of caps to wear once she is
married. Which would you choose?”

  Piers regarded the array of lace caps before him. “I don’t think any of them would suit me.”

  Mama laughed, a bit too enthusiastically to be credible. “Not for yourself, my lord. What would you choose for your bride?”

  “I would still have no opinion.”

  Mama’s impatience began to show. “Surely you would wish for the future Lady Granville to be admired.”

  “I fully expect she will be. However, I will have already entrusted her with the management of my households, the comfort of my guests, and the upbringing of my children. I would not presume to choose her caps.”

  Her mother persisted. “Some might say it is the husband’s role to advise his wife on all matters.”

  “Some might say that,” he replied evenly. “I would ignore them.” With a slight bow, he turned away.

  Mama was left alone with her fan and her flustered sensibilities.

  Charlotte, on the other hand, wanted to cheer.

  Well, Mama. Do you still want me to marry a marquess?

  Piers Brandon was not a gentleman who could be nudged, persuaded, implored, or gainsaid. A man of his stature would be entirely out of her mother’s depth to manage.

  Out of Charlotte’s depth, as well.

  No doubt he had begun to realize the magnitude of the gulf between them. Even if he could stomach the notion of acquiring such a mother-in-law . . . Imagine, trusting Charlotte to manage five households—after he’d seen the state of her bedchamber. Madness.

  Delia clasped Charlotte’s hand. “Do let’s go into the side room. They have spools and spools of ribbons.”

  “You go ahead,” Charlotte said. “I’ll be right there.”

  She wandered to the window and peered out into the street, looking down the row of shops. She didn’t need lace, or ribbons, or gloves today.

  She needed to find answers. Clues. Anything that could lead her to the mystery lovers.

  Her gaze snagged on a small, dark shopfront with an engraved placard. The sign proclaimed, in print she had to squint to make out: “Finest French Perfumes.”

  Perfumes!

  Yes.

  Her pulse raced with excitement. She waited for a moment when no one was paying attention, and then she slipped out of the draper’s shop and scurried down the street.

  The perfume shop was empty, save for a shopkeeper with wispy hair and a brown cutaway coat that belonged in the previous century.

  He looked at her over his spectacles. “Might I help you, miss?”

  “Yes, if you please. I’m shopping for a new scent.”

  “Excellent.” The shopkeeper rubbed his hands, then produced a tray from beneath the counter. The tray was lined with tiny vials, each fashioned from glass in a different color or shape.

  “The ones in front are florals, mostly.” The shopkeeper drew a touch down the vials in the first row. “Then the musks. As you move back, you will find the scents to be more earthy. Woodsy.”

  Charlotte hadn’t the faintest clue what perfume she was looking for. Whether the scent could be described as floral or woodsy or musky or something different altogether. She could only hope she would know it when she smelled it.

  “I want something unique,” she said. “Luxurious. Not the usual orange-flower water or lavender sprigs.”

  “You’ve come to just the shop,” the wizened man said proudly. “My cousin brings the latest wares from Paris. I’ve scents here you can’t even find in London.”

  That sounded promising. “What can you recommend?”

  “If you’re after something truly special, I’d suggest you start here.” The shopkeeper unstoppered a vial from the center of the tray and handed it to her.

  Charlotte held it by the glass neck and gently waved it under her nose. Rich scent teased her senses, mysterious and exotic.

  “Dab it on your wrist, m’dear. You can’t tell the true scent of it from the vial.” He took the vial and nodded at her gloved hand. “May I?”

  She unbuttoned the cuff of her glove and extended her arm. The shopkeeper drew the glass stopper over her pulse, leaving the thinnest film of perfume cooling on her skin.

  “Now,” he said. “Try that.”

  Charlotte sniffed at her wrist. Once, and then again. He was right, the perfume opened in the heat of her skin, revealing layers and shades. It was the difference between sniffing a flower bud and a full-blown hothouse bloom.

  “What’s in it?” she asked.

  “That’s a rare blend, miss. Lilies and ambergris, with hints of cedar.”

  “Ambergris? What’s ambergris?”

  He looked shocked by her ignorance. “Only one of the most rare and valuable substances in the world of perfume. It’s secreted in the bellies of whales.”

  “Whales?” Charlotte looked at her wrist and wrinkled her nose. “They cut open the bellies of whales to make this?”

  “No, no. The whales vomit it out in a lump, you see. Then it bobs about the ocean for several years, curing.” He made a wavy gesture with his hand, pantomiming the voyage. “Eventually it washes ashore as a chalky, grayish stone. Ambergris. A treasure worth its weight in gold.”

  “Fascinating,” she said.

  Nauseating, she thought.

  She was wearing dried-up, sea-logged whale vomit on her wrist. And if she wanted to dab it on her wrists at home, she would pay—she discreetly checked the tag—one pound, eight shillings for the privilege.

  Amazing.

  “Perhaps you could show me something else? Something a touch less . . . marine.”

  “I have just the thing. This one’s ideal for a younger lady of good taste.” He plucked an elegant vial of blue glass from the tray and prompted Charlotte to extend her other wrist for dabbing. “There. See what you make of that one.”

  She lifted her wrist to her nose, more cautiously this time. As she inhaled, bright, sunny scents set her imagination at ease. “Oh, I do like this one.”

  “I thought you might. All the young ladies do. It’s fresh and grassy, isn’t it? Lemon verbena and gardenia blossoms. But the secret is in the fixative. A touch of castoreum is what makes the summery scents take hold, rather than fade.”

  “Castoreum. That’s not from whales, is it?”

  “Not at all.” He chuckled.

  Charlotte laughed, too. “Oh, good. What a relief.”

  “It’s from beavers.”

  She stopped laughing. “Surely you didn’t say—”

  “Canadian beavers.” His eyes grew wide with excitement again. “They produce the stuff in a special gland tucked just under their tails.” He held up his hands, as if preparing for another vivid demonstration. “When the trappers gut the—”

  The bell above the door rang, signaling the arrival of a new customer.

  Charlotte had never been so thankful for an interruption.

  With a smiled apology and Charlotte’s enthusiastic blessing, the shopkeeper turned to help a pair of aging ladies replenish their supply of toilet water.

  While he did so, she took the opportunity to sniff her way through the entire tray of samples. Heaven only knew what bestial secretions and nether-glands might be represented therein, but she didn’t have the stomach to ask.

  Within a few minutes, she’d worked her way through the entire tray. No luck. None of them was the distinctive perfume she’d smelled in the library at Parkhurst Manor.

  “Here you are. I’ve been searching for you.”

  The words, spoken in a smooth, deep—and familiar—voice, startled her. She wheeled about, nearly upsetting the entire tray of samples.

  “Lord Granville. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I didn’t see you walk away.”

  “Everyone seemed occupied. I decided to duck in here for a bit of shopping.”

  “Looks more like a bit of snooping to me.”

  Charlotte decided to change the subject. “You wouldn’t believe what goes in these things.” She offered her perfumed wris
ts. “Here, tell me which scent you prefer. Lilies and whale vomit, or lemon balm and beaver’s arse.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked. He took her right hand in his, lifted her wrist, bent his head, and inhaled deep.

  Then he repeated the same with her left wrist.

  All the while, his penetrating gaze never left hers. The exchange was intimate, sensual. Despite the nearby conversation of the elderly ladies and shopkeeper, it felt almost indecent.

  “Well?” she prompted, her mouth suddenly dry.

  He lowered her hands but did not release them. His gloved thumbs worked under the undone cuffs at her wrists, sliding back and forth across the exposed skin—leather sliding over her tender flesh. Her pulse quickened beneath his touch, pounded in her ears.

  She went hot all over.

  He stepped closer, closing the distance between them, and inclined his head until he hovered just inches from her neck. Then he inhaled.

  Charlotte’s breath sucked in, as well.

  “I think,” he murmured, “I prefer this one.”

  She swallowed hard. “I’m not wearing any scent there.”

  “Are you certain?” He lifted one hand to her hair, pushing the carefully arranged ringlets behind her ear and tilting her head to expose the slope of her neck. Then he breathed deeply again.

  This time, a small sound rose in his throat.

  A masculine sound.

  A sensual sound.

  A satisfied sound.

  She nearly whimpered in response.

  “Sun-dried linen,” he murmured, “ironed smooth. A lavender and rose-petal pomander in the cabinet. Sips of chocolate at breakfast. Beneath it all, warm skin—washed with jasmine soap.” He straightened. “Yes. That’s the scent I favor.”

  The muscles of her inner thighs quivered.

  How did he do this to her? His skin had barely brushed hers. Not six paces away, a pair of elderly women stood discussing the inflated prices of toilet water. And despite it all, Charlotte was . . .

  Aflame. She worried her clothing would incinerate. Vanish into smoke, leaving her bare and trembling. Exposed to the world. No flirtation had ever affected her with one hundredth of this power.

  She was being made love to, in plain view. That was how it felt. Illicit, exciting, dangerous.

  Anything but proper.