Lords of Scandal: The Beleaguered Lord Bourne / The Enterprising Lord Edward

LORD BOURNE had been at Maitlands only a few minutes—just long enough to be introduced to his host and dinner partner, be asked his preference as to liquid refreshment, have his antecedents inquired about, and his personal history vetted—all accomplished in the politest of ways and with a thoroughness a member of the Inquisition would envy.

Miss Abigail Latchwood, a spinster of some indeterminate years and, Kit assumed, a frequent visitor at Maitlands, was quite the noisiest person Kit had heretofore chanced to encounter, and he had encountered quite a few in his time. Obviously her presence tonight was Sir Cedric’s way of assuring himself that news of his coup—being the first of his circle to host the new earl under his roof—would reach even the farthest corners of the neighborhood with all possible speed.

All in all, Kit found himself to be incredibly bored with the whole affair, and took rapid inventory of his brain, searching for a plausible excuse that would get him shed of Sir Cedric and his inquisitive guest immediately after brandy and cigars. The benighted countryside around Bourne was a far cry from the frenetic activity of a Spanish battlefield, and the soldier in Kit was not so easily mellowed that the boring duties of his new title could yet be borne with any real grace.

If only the so-estimable Renfrew had been more helpful in the matter of Jennie, the teacher’s daughter—that normally helpful man having disclaimed any knowledge of either father or offspring residing in the area. There were two Jessies in the village, and the blacksmith had a niece named Jackie visiting this month or more—although that damsel had hair as dark as pitch and weighed half again as much as the smithy—but nary hide nor hair could be found of any blond wench named Jennie.

Ah well, thought the earl, smiling politely as Sir Cedric described in great detail his latest triumph on the hunting field, he’d be leaving for London within another week and Jennie’s bucolic beauty would soon fade from his memory, to be replaced by one or more of the many comely opera dancers he intended to honor with his favor.

Kit allowed a half smile to soften his features as he swirled his drink and thought his private thoughts. Boring dinner partners and a nonexistent social life were a small price to pay for the opportunity to call Bourne Manor his own. For a certainty it beat wallowing in the mud of Ciudad Rodrigo all to sticks—and the rank of earl brought with it benefits no mere major could dream to command.

While the aging Miss Latchwood preened delightedly, the proud Sir Cedric recounted his brilliant outmaneuvering of some hapless fox, and Lord Bourne smugly contemplated a season of wallowing in the fleshpots of London, Miss Jane Maitland stood outside the drawing-room doors enduring her companion’s last-minute adjustments to her charge’s perfectly draped skirts.

“Papa will demand to know the reason for my tardiness, Bundy,” Jane warned her companion, just now fussing over a loose thread daring to peek below the hem of the blue gown, “and demand an explanation for it. I shall be forced—for you know I would not be so mean as to implicate you voluntarily—to explain that my companion delayed my appearance by some fifteen minutes while she searched out nonexistent flaws in my toilette.” Jane heaved her shoulders in a heavy sigh. “And then Papa will rant and bluster, and I will have recourse to tears, and you will be called for and roundly scolded for your impudence in thinking there existed even a single flaw on the person of his only daughter, and then you will be cast posthaste out into the snow—”

“It hasn’t snowed in Bourne for three years,” Miss Bundy was moved to point out, placing her hands on Jane’s shoulders and pushing her in a circle as her shrewd eyes made one last appraisal. “You are to dine with the new Earl of Bourne, missy,” she went on, heedless of Jane’s sudden harsh intake of breath, “and I am under strict instructions that you are to look your very best for the gentleman. Your papa is aiming rather high, if you ask me, which he certainly did not, but I must admit Lord Bourne would have to look far and wide to find a countess as fair as you, my dear.’ Giving one last unnecessary pat to Jane’s coiffure, Miss Bundy stood back, surveyed her handiwork, and exclaimed, “There! No mere man could ask for more.”

Jane wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Are you sure, Bundy? Perhaps my price tag is showing. Tell me, dearest Ernestine, is the marriage settlement to match my dowry, or will Papa throw in Mama’s diamonds to sweeten the pot?” A slight flush lending even more lively animation to her features, Jane goaded further. “Dearest, sweetest Bundy. First you served as nanny, then governess, then companion. I had not realized your real calling was that of procuress.”

Miss Bundy did not have an immediate spasm at her charge’s audacity. Indeed, she did not so much as blink her pale gray eyes. All Miss Bundy, that long-suffering servant, did was to pinch Jane’s cheeks to give them color, step back out of sight of the double doors to the drawing room, signal the snickering footman to step lively and announce his mistress to the company, and retire upstairs to the small brown bottle she kept concealed beneath her knitting. Life at Maitlands had long ago taught the woman the best way of dealing with either Sir Cedric or his audacious daughter was by prudent withdrawal. Jane would apologize, as she always did whenever her tongue ran away with her—not that the poor girl hadn’t cause enough for anger, being paraded about for the new earl like a prize calf—and in the end Miss Bundy would allow her sensibilities to be mollified by the way of Jane’s pretty pleas for forgiveness. It was a game they played, the two of them, with Jane tugging more and more at the leash of obedience every year as she grew from submissive girl to self-sufficient young woman.

Jane waited until Miss Bundy’s receding back disappeared around the curve in the stairs and then, her softly rounded chin held high, she took a deep breath, sent up a quick prayer that Lord Bourne wasn’t any more of a fool than he could help, and allowed herself to be announced.

The first person she saw when she entered the candle-lit chamber was Miss Latchwood. So, she thought wryly, Papa is leaving nothing to chance. If the poor earl so much as smiles in my direction that old biddy will have the entire countryside believing we have posted the banns. Nodding pleasantly to the older woman, who winked conspiratorially back at her, Jane turned her gaze in the direction of her father, just then posing at the mantelpiece under an obscure (for good reason) artist’s rendering of one of Sir Cedric’s epic exploits with the Mowbray men. “Good evening to you, Papa,” she intoned sweetly, dropping the man a curtsy. “Please forgive my tardiness, but the time just seemed to run away with me.”

Sir Cedric, seeing before him the reincarnation of his beloved deceased wife allowed himself to be charmed into forgiving Jane for keeping him from his dinner. Taking one of her small hands into one of his own huge paws, he turned her slightly so that he could introduce her to their guest of honor.

“Lord Bourne,” the proud father began, “allow me to introduce my daughter—”

“You!” loudly exclaimed the earl, fairly goggling at the girl as the very air between them suddenly began to crackle.

“So much for prayers,” Jane muttered disgustedly under her breath as she glared at the fashionably dressed young man with the gaping jaw.

Abigail Latchwood leaned forward in her chair, her powers of intuition telling her she had chanced to secure herself a front-row seat at what should prove to be a most interesting spectacle.

“I WOULD BE MORE THAN HAPPY to listen to your suggestions as to a solution to our problem, my lord, but I do not wish a dismal retelling of the problem itself. Do I make myself clear?”

“You do not wish! I do not wish, damn it, and since it is my feelings that concern me and I am forced to dismiss them I see no gentlemanly need to trifle over your paltry sensibilities.”

Jane paused to mull Kit’s words over a moment or two, and decided that she may have been looking at him in the wrong light entirely. Perhaps he was not the enemy. Perhaps she had been in the process of berating the only ally she had in the entire world—what with her father, Bundy, and even Goldie firmly listed among her adversaries in this matter.

“You are against this marriage plan of Papa’s?” Jane asked the man now standing across from her in the herb garden, his ebony hair gleaming in the bright morning sunlight. He nodded his head in the affirmative. “Then why,” she asked with a sudden return of heat, “didn’t you stop Papa when he first proposed the idea last night? You don’t strike me as a man who is usually at a loss for words.”

Kit shook his head in astonished disbelief. “Please don’t tell me you’re that much of a clothhead. After your ridiculous hysterical outburst last night when we were introduced there was deuced little I could do to rescue the situation.”

“My outburst?” Jane sniffed indelicately, correcting him. “I merely muttered a small involuntary verbalization prompted, my lord, by your inelegant bellow!”

Kit had the decency to admit to a slight lapse of his own, caused, undoubtedly, by his surprise at seeing his wild-haired Jennie parading about as the so-proper Miss Maitland. “But,” he rallied quickly, “it was not I who then fell apart like soggy tissue paper in the rain and confessed to every tiny detail of our meeting at Bourne Manor—right down to that truly sickening, simpering recital of what in fact had amounted to nothing more than a simple stolen kiss. Miss Latchwood nearly swooned dead away.”

“No she didn’t. She wouldn’t do anything so self-defeating—it might cause her to miss some juicy bit of gossip. Lord!” Jane shuddered at the memory. “I was hard-pressed not to offer her the loan of my handkerchief, she was drooling so copiously.”

“So you instead offered her the notion that poor, innocent Miss Jane Maitland might just have been compromised by that nasty Lord Bourne,” Kit sneered. “Lord!” he pressed, aping Jane’s exclamation. “You may as well have gone traipsing over the countryside ringing a bell, calling: ‘Kit Wilde kissed me in the Home Wood; Kit Wilde kissed me in—’”

“Don’t!” Jane begged, clapping her hands over her ears. “Papa never told me the names of our guests, you see, and I didn’t ask, as our dinner guests tend to be limited to Miss Latchwood, Squire Handley and his sister, or the vicar, and knowing beforehand just whom I shall be facing across the table does nothing to enliven my appetite. I only found out you were to be present a moment before I was announced. Under the circumstances I believe I did my best—”

Kit, plucked a stray thread off his sleeve as he interrupted wearily, “Your best? How very sad. Please, Miss Maitland, I beg you to refrain from bringing my attention to your shortcomings, as I am depressed enough as it is without—”

“When I am saying something, Lord Bourne,” Jane cut in with some heat, “you will oblige me by restraining your lamentable tendency to interrupt!”

With his head still lowered, Kit raised his eyebrows and peered at his adversary. “Welcome back, my little tiger cat. I was wondering how long it would take for Jennie to loose her claws on me.” Temper definitely became the chit, Kit mused to himself, admiring the flush on Jennie’s cheeks and the way the slight breeze set the blond curls around her face to dancing as her agitated movements caused her casual topknot to come half undone.

Jane looked back at him in disgust. She had requested this meeting with him this morning in the hope that together they would be able to find a way out of the muddle they had bumbled into the night before, but it was obvious now that she might just as well have saved herself the bother of eluding Bundy and engaging in what that very proper lady would only construe as yet another “tryst.”

“If you are quite done salving your wounded ego at my expense, I suggest we either put our heads together to find a way out of this ridiculous coil or else terminate our meeting so that you can return to Bourne Manor and barricade the doors against Papa’s wrath.”

If Sir Cedric’s wrath were all that was to be faced, Kit would have been more than capable of dealing with it in short order. But no. Once Jennie (he refused to call her Jane) had been escorted to her room by the soproperly outraged Miss Bundy and Miss Latchwood had been sequestered in the morning room with a half decanter of her favorite cherry brandy, Sir Cedric had confessed to Lord Bourne that he suffered from a “disky heart,” and any scandal surrounding his dear old child would as surely put him underground as would a bullet through the brain.

Kit was prompted to wonder aloud about how such a hearty-looking specimen—a man who rode to hounds with such vigor—could possibly be in ill health, a tactical error that sent Sir Cedric tottering posthaste to a nearby chair, a hand clutching at his ample bosom as he called weakly for his manservant. While Kit looked on, his face still showing his skepticism, Sir Cedric’s solicitous valet administered a draught to the panting gentleman and, with the help of two sturdy footmen, had his employer hoisted aloft in his chair and carted off to his bed—a move that put quite an effective period to any hope of rational discussion.

Galloping home, sans one promised dinner, the earl had barked out orders for food and drink to an astonished Renfrew only to react in a most violent manner when the platter of succulent rabbit smothered in spring onions was placed before him, rudely tossing the rabbit, platter and all, smack against the nearest wall. Hours later, just before the quantity of port he had ingested lulled the young earl into heavy slumber, Renfrew heard his master proclaim sorrowfully: “Rabbits are the root of all that is evil in this world. If I were king there would not be one of the fuzzy-tailed monsters left on this whole bloody isle. Damned if there would.”

Upon awakening the next morning Kit did not remember this particular profound statement, a punishing hangover being his only lingering souvenir of a truly forgettable evening; but Jennie’s note served to bring his dilemma into sharp focus and he had rallied sufficiently to agree to the meeting now taking place in the Maitland herb garden. Not that their discussion had so far produced anything more tangible than a mutual agreement as to the total unsuitability of both parties for the roles of husband and wife.

And yet, his head still pounding as if a blacksmith had set up shop between his ears, and his ears ringing with Jennie’s condemning accusations, Kit found himself coming to the reluctant conclusion that his carefree bachelor days could be numbered on the fingers of one hand. There was no retreat for a man of honor, no possible avenue of escape without bidding his good name a permanent adieu. Between them, the naively candid Jennie and her determined Papa had trussed him up all right and tight and delivered him neatly into the parson’s mousetrap. All that remained now was to convince his “intended” of the futility of resisting the inevitable.

“Well?” Jennie demanded, breaking into Kit’s thoughts. “Have you been struck dumb?”

“While I will admit to feeling slightly less than my usual intelligent self,” Kit replied, a note of bitter self-mockery in his tone, “I am not about to oblige you by descending into imbecility, as even being forced to wed you, my dear Jennie, cannot make me forget I am a Wilde, and as such above any such cowardly dodge. Not that the idea is entirely without appeal, you understand.”

“Then you are going to simply knuckle under, marry a woman you obviously detest—making the both of us totally miserable in the process—rather than make the least push at settling the matter another way?” Jennie’s huge eyes were staring at him incredulously.

“What other way would you suggest?” Kit asked politely, taking Jennie’s hand and placing it on his arm before guiding her in a leisurely stroll along the garden path.

Jennie’s brow creased in concentration as she cudgeled her brain in a quest for some splendid burst of inspiration. Sadly, none was forthcoming, and upon reaching the gate at the bottom of the path, she admitted she hadn’t a clue as to where to search for salvation.

“I’d be inclined to suggest prayer,” Lord Bourne said, tongue in cheek, “but I doubt the Lord grants entreaties that have to do with transporting earls to the far side of the moon.” Turning so that they faced each other fully before he uttered the fateful words, Kit then intoned solemnly, “Miss Maitland, I have admired you from the moment of our first meeting and can only hope that you have come to return my esteem at least in part. Please, Miss Maitland, do me the honor of making me the happiest man on earth by consenting to become my bride.”

As a proposal of marriage it lacked nothing in composition, although condemned men must have sounded more cheerfully animated speaking their final words before mounting the scaffold. And if his mention of their first meeting was taken at face value, devoid of any intentional double meaning, Jennie supposed it was a much nicer proposal than she could have expected under the circumstances. It was not, however, the proposal she had dreamed of ever since reading her first Minerva Press romance.

If her heart beat faster, it was with the frantic flutterings of a trapped animal, and not the accelerated rhythm all romantic heroines experienced at the very sight of their beloved. If her breathing was swift and shallow, it was panic, not passion, that set her young breast to heaving rapidly up and down. And if her milky English complexion was very prettily set off by a sudden blush of dusky rose suffusing her cheeks, it should be remembered that agitation should not automatically be construed as excitement.

Jennie looked searchingly into Kit’s blue eyes, searching in vain for some carefully concealed humorous glint that would assure her he had spoken in jest. She found none. He was serious, she concluded at last, deadly serious. Earls may not steal kisses from baronets’ daughters, even if they thought they were merely indulging in a bit of a lark with some little nobody of no consequence. Violators, this unwritten law decreed, will forfeit either their honor or their freedom.

Lord Bourne had made his choice. He would marry her to satisfy the conventions. And to save her good name, she reminded herself nastily, she shouldn’t forget that little favor—not that Bundy would ever let her.

“Well,” she said at last, just when Kit was beginning to think she would turn him down flat and wildly wondering just why this particular notion should distress him as much as it did, “you aren’t fat. There’s that at least.”

Kit smiled broadly, clasping her hands in his as something tightly coiled deep inside his chest obligingly relaxed. “I’m not bad either,” he pointed out cheerfully, amused by her youthful bluntness.

Jennie returned his smile, shyly at first, and then expanding the smile into a wide grin. “Or ancient, full of prickles and complaints, and suffering with the gout.”

“Or foul-smelling, or afflicted with warts, or widowed with six bawling brats for you to mother, or hard of hearing, or missing half my teeth.”

“Or a dedicated gamester?”

“Not even on nodding acquaintance with the cent-per-centers, playing for sport but never too deep.”

“Or overfond of spirits?”

“Moderation—moderation in all things—that’s my motto!” he averred, conveniently dismissing his truly dedicated drinking of the night just past.

“Well then, a girl would be foolish beyond permission to turn her back on such an obvious catch as you, my lord, wouldn’t she?” Jennie declared, her smile faltering a bit before shining as before.

At last she could see the humor lurking in Lord Bourne’s twinkling eyes. “Foolish indeed, Miss Maitland,” he assured her, lightly squeezing her hands.

‘Then…then I accept your kind proposal, sir, and I thank you.” The fateful words spoken, Jennie allowed her smile to fade and dipped her head, no longer able to meet Kit’s all-seeing gaze.

As she stood there, doing her utmost not to tremble and thus betray her nervousness, Kit slipped his crooked index finger beneath her chin and lifted her face toward his descending head. “A betrothal must be sealed with a kiss,” he whispered solemnly before laying claim to Jennie’s lips with the velvet warmth of his mouth.

Remembering their first kiss—the way he had captured her in his embrace and exercised his considerable aptitude in the fine art of seduction—Kit deliberately kept this kiss gentle, undemanding; a tentative exploration rather than an attempt at conquest, and Jennie responded by allowing her lips to soften, molding themselves to fit against his in a highly pleasing manner.

He did not wish to wed Jennie. He did not wish to be married at all until at least a half-dozen more years of bachelor-oriented indulgence and high living were behind him. He resented being pushed into matrimony at, figuratively at least, the point of a gun, and to a mere child just out of the nursery, no less.

Jennie Maitland was the exact opposite of the sort of female he had hoped to surround himself with in London. She was much too young, for one thing, besides being woefully inexperienced—possessing none of the brittle sophistication required to survive in the haut ton—and to top it all, he decided glumly, the outside world would consider him responsible for her well-being and behavior.

Kit had just completed two grueling years of volunteer duty in Spain, and he was sick to death of responsibility—responsibility for the men who fought and died under him, and responsibility for the constant daily decisions of command. His wound and his lengthy convalescence had sorely tried his patience, with only the prospect of the gaiety promised in the coming London Season serving to keep a rein on his impatience until he was free to join his friends in an orgy of hell-raking and carousing that would set the metropolis on its heels.

A wife could only be viewed as a serious impediment to his plans. Husbands lacked the freedom of bachelors, especially brand-new, supposedly honeymooning husbands. He would marry the chit and leave her at Bourne Manor for the Season if he could, but his conscience overrode him on that score. Besides, he felt sure, Sir Cedric was not beneath another theatrical display of ill health just to force his son-in-law’s hand, and Kit didn’t think his constitution could bear another such performance. But going around London with a wife in train was going to be like trying to run with an anchor—or should he say “mantrap”—chained to his ankle, deuced difficult.

And yet…and yet, he thought as Jennie allowed him to take her more fully into his arms, the child wasn’t totally lacking in appeal. With proper tutoring, his tutoring, he could almost believe she’d eventually make a more than tolerable bed partner.

Suddenly Kit’s appetite for romance evaporated. Of course Jennie was a kissable wench—that’s how he had come to be in this damnable coil in the first place! Too much of this sort of thing and he’d not only be saddled with an unwanted wife, but he’d find himself a papa into the bargain.

Jennie looked up at him, puzzlement clouding her eyes. What was wrong? Didn’t he like kissing her? She had enjoyed it quite a little bit herself, although she’d rather swallow nails than admit any such thing, but from the pained look on Kit’s face he had found the entire experience distasteful. Well, she thought angrily, he had certainly taken his good sweet time making up his mind, seeing as how he had been kissing her for more than a full minute—she had counted to sixty-four, as a matter of fact, just to keep from doing something silly like throwing herself into his arms like some love-starved ninnyhammer.

“If everything is official now?” Jennie prompted, angry to hear a trace of huskiness in her voice.

“Hmm?” the earl murmured, still lost in his own depressing thoughts. “Yes, you insolent infant, everything is all right and tight,” he assured her much like a parent shushing a bothersome child. “You may go inside now and wait for your luncheon and I will return at the dinner hour to speak with your father about the final arrangements—if he has recovered from his indisposition of last evening, which I am somehow convinced he has.”