A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal Read online

  “Oh, my God,” Katherine said in a low voice. She threw herself toward the handle, seizing it, bracing herself against the paneling to hold the door shut. “Go away!” she cried.

  Shock prickled through Nell. “What are you doing?”

  A muffled voice from without shouted, “Katherine, are you all right?”

  “Go away,” Katherine said shrilly. “I’ve changed my mind! Go away!”

  Dread pulled Nell off the bench, put her into a crouch so she could see out the window. Two bobbies stepped into view and her heart banged into her ribs. “What have you done?” she whispered.

  White-faced, still holding the door closed, Katherine stared at her. “I didn’t know,” she said. “Or I didn’t—I was so confused—”

  The door burst open, and Katherine fell directly into Grimston’s arms.

  His dark eyes found Nell’s. “That’s her,” he said crisply.

  A policeman stepped into the doorway. He had a mean look to him, one familiar to Nell: lantern-jawed, heavy-browed, satisfied-looking, smug on his own authority. His beady eyes fixed on her as his thick lips formed a smirk.

  “Come down then like a good girl,” he said.

  Katherine twisted in Grimston’s grasp. “Leave her alone!” she screamed.

  Nell stepped back but there was nowhere to go. “You can’t take me,” she said as the bobby started into the coach after her. “You can’t.” The words tumbled from her in a rush. “I’m married now. I’m the Countess of Rushden. You can’t do this.”

  The bobby’s partner appeared below, a heavy baton in hand. As his thick hand closed on her wrist, the bobby said, “All I know is, you’re to come with us.”

  The inspector, Mr. Hunslow, was a slight, bald man whose sallow face shone in the gaslight as though he’d been dipped in oil. Every few seconds, he paused to lick his lips, which were badly chapped, cracking at the corners. “The police-magistrate does not sit again until ten tomorrow morning,” he said. “It would be better for you to speak frankly, while you remain comfortable.”

  Nell understood that for the threat it was. This room was small, the air stale, only a single high window to prove the outside world existed. But it was private. It wasn’t the usual prisoner’s lodgings.

  “I have told you,” she said, her voice flat. She felt somehow removed from this scene, disbelieving of it, disbelieving of her own stupidity. “I didn’t steal the spoon. I had it from a man named Michael Whitby.” She would not call him her stepbrother any longer. She would not think of Katherine as her sister, either. She would never spare a thought for either of them again.

  Hunslow’s jaw ticked side to side. Through the bare, whitewashed walls came the sound of ordinary justice being done: somebody wailed; a baby cried; two voices lifted in argument. He was in a quandary, the inspector. He believed her a pretender and a thief; he knew—and had mentioned straightaway—that she came from the part of town where people properly feared his kind. He’d read the newspaper accounts, he’d informed her with a thin smile.

  But he also knew she was married to a lord. He couldn’t lay a hand on her, and evidently he didn’t dare to raise his voice, either. Without the usual tactics, he had no idea how to browbeat her.

  She stared up at him, not blinking, until he hissed out a breath and said, “We’ll look for this man. Mind, though—should we happen not to find him, this story will do you more harm than good.”

  “Then go look for him,” she said. “I can’t do a thing but tell you the truth.”

  A knock came at the door. Hunslow tugged down his dark jacket and went to answer the summons.

  Nell returned her attention to the crack in the bare, whitewashed wall opposite. It seemed important to focus on that crack. That panic in the first moments after they’d nabbed her—that sick tide of betrayal as she’d looked into Katherine’s tear-stained face—had transmuted into a more comfortable numbness that she didn’t want to fade. She wouldn’t think about herself, about the circumstances, about the fact that Simon could have no idea where she was. She’d only focus on that crack in the wall.

  “Very good,” she heard Hunslow say, and the note of triumph in his voice made her stomach tremble. She swallowed hard. The walls needed a new coat of whitewash. Flakes of paint dusted the wooden floorboards where they met the walls. These sorts of walls, they rubbed off on your clothing when you leaned against them. A terrible pain, washing out those powdery white smears.

  The door closed. The hollow thump of footsteps announced Hunslow’s return. Only when she looked up, it wasn’t Hunslow before her but Sir Grimston, cadaverous in a black suit, the slightest smile on his thin lips.

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, taking up the chair last occupied by the inspector, folding himself into it as stiffly as though his gawky limbs had never bent before. “You do look at home here,” he said.

  She’d never seen a man so emaciated still able to walk. There was something fascinating and terrible about how clearly the bones of his face stood out beneath his sunken skin. His Adam’s apple protruded too distinctly; it looked like a ball stuck onto his throat.

  To imagine himself as Katherine’s husband, a man with these ugly looks would need to be possessed of a terrible arrogance—the sort that could excuse any manner of sin. “I reckon you gave Michael that spoon,” she said.

  “Conjecture,” he murmured. “Very difficult to prove. Nearly impossible, in fact.” He crossed his legs, his trousers whispering. His long fingers, clad in black leather, drummed once atop his knee. “Yon soldiers of the law will discover that he was on a holiday in Ramsgate the day the theft occurred. His friends, an innkeeper, and a barmaid will vouch for his alibi.”

  She kept breathing. She looked him right in his dark, cold eyes, set deep into his face like holes in a skull. You didn’t look away from fear; you didn’t back down. “You made a mistake,” she said. “You put your cards on a greedy drunk. That spoon came through somebody else, who will vouch for his possession of it before I ever saw it.”

  Grimston’s laugh sounded like the rustling of dry leaves. It raised goose bumps on her flesh; it seemed to skitter off to scrape along the walls. “You refer, I suppose, to Miss Crowley? Oh, yes, I do invite you to tell the inspector of her role in it. A woman who should be in Newgate for thieving—whose freedom was won not through the lawful channels of the courts, but a bribe. How interested they should be to learn of her collusion in yet another theft. Do tell them, Miss Whitby.”

  Her throat was closing. He’d done his research, all right. He’d seen the angles before she’d even thought to look for them. He was right: she’d never bring Hannah’s name into this. “What do you want?” she whispered.

  “Ah. Nothing too dreadful,” he said. “I wish you to go away, Miss Whitby. It needn’t be jail, however. You understand, with this new mark against your reputation …” He paused, looking struck. “Which, come to think of it, is not the first time you’ve committed a crime, is it? Why, my men have turned up not a few accounts of a certain meeting at some ladies’ society. I understand you ardently proclaimed your larcenous tendencies before company. Can that be?” He gave her a benign smile. “Tell me, what could have driven you to commit such a marvelous indiscretion?”

  She set her jaw hard. He’d talked to the ladies at the GFS. They’d told him of the day Hannah had been arrested, when she’d tried so loudly to draw the blame back where it belonged: on herself.

  She’d called those bints every nasty name she’d ever heard. Sure and certain they’d be glad to speak against her to a judge.

  “Well,” Grimston said, studying her curiously. “I see you have no defense at hand. Which is fitting: the witnesses to your earlier confession will not help your defense in court, should I choose to prosecute you for theft of the spoon.”

  “Get to the point,” she said through her teeth.

  “The point is merely this: your most recent crime surely ends all hope you may have had for claiming Lady Cornelia’s inheritance. If
I do not choose to withdraw my accusation against you, you will be tried as a thief and most likely convicted. Once that verdict is issued, I cannot think of a judge in the land who will be kindly disposed to call you Lady Katherine’s equal.

  “An imposter and a confidence artist,” he continued smoothly. “Those are the more likely names for you, and they carry heavy punishments of their own. Your lodgings”—he flicked a speaking glance around the small, rude room—”will make these look quite magnificent by comparison.”

  She took hold of the bench beneath her hard enough to draw a splinter. It was a very convincing picture he painted. She’d always known the courts would be set against elevating a girl from her background. They didn’t like to give poor folks ideas. And Michael’s wretched state on his release from prison showed clearly enough how the law dealt with people who dared reach above their station.

  But Simon wouldn’t let them jail her.

  Where was he?

  He would come. Her doubts were nothing compared to her trust in him in this matter. He’d free her. He’d do it very easily, just as he’d done for Hannah.

  But Hannah hadn’t had a fellow as powerful as Grimston angling to prosecute her.

  She couldn’t draw a full breath suddenly. Simon wouldn’t be able to make this problem disappear as easily as he’d done before. All the lessons, the deportment and speech, the fancy clothing, would be for nothing. On the dock nobody would see a countess. They’d see a factory girl who’d stolen a bloody spoon.

  She spoke slowly, her voice seeming to come from outside herself. “And if you choose to withdraw your accusation?”

  “Quick-witted,” Grimston said pleasantly. “Or perhaps only animal instinct: you scent the blood in this proposition. I am not a hard-hearted man, Miss Whitby. I understand your background is humble, your prospects—until recently—pitifully dim. I could hardly ask you to surrender your only chance at betterment, no matter how slim it now seems.

  “However,” he went on, “it is not your only chance. I am glad to offer you another path. I would be willing to gift you a not-inconsiderable sum with which you might return to your old haunts and live very comfortably. But you would have to return there. You would never set foot among your betters again, and you would admit, publicly, that you are only Nell Whitby, no one more. You would repudiate your claim to being the Aubyns’ lost daughter.”

  She let go of a breath. “That would be all but admitting to fraud.”

  “Or perhaps only confusion,” he said with a shrug. “You are female. Ignorant, uneducated, easily misled. Perhaps you were unduly influenced by the lies of an evil man who whispered in your ear for his own gain.” He smiled thinly. “Lord Rushden has been known to influence the opinions of those far more sophisticated than a factory girl. I do not think anyone would be too surprised if it transpired that he had swayed you.”

  Everything in her rebelled. “I will not do it,” she said. “Look elsewhere if you want to hurt him.”

  His lips flattened; for a moment, he visibly battled irritation. “You can’t be so foolish,” he said. “Never say you care for the man.”

  “I won’t do it,” she repeated.

  He expelled a hard breath through his nose, then shrugged again, less fluidly this time. “As you wish. Tell the world you had an episode of madness. Whatever you want, so long as you admit that you are nobody: only Nell Whitby, the daughter of a yeoman from Leicestershire. Do you follow me? I will ensure you aren’t prosecuted for fraud or any other matter. And for your pains, you’ll be granted your liberty and a thousand pounds to spend as you please. What do you say?”

  A thousand pounds.

  She’d not imagined he’d offer so substantial a sum. She wet her lips, unable to speak.

  He saw her amazement and leaned toward her slightly, as though the sight gratified him so intently that it merited closer inspection. “Exactly so,” he said softly. “A thousand pounds at no risk whatsoever. On the other hand: prison and penury. I should think your choice is clear.”

  She struggled to think clearly. He spoke as persuasively as the devil, but everything in her cried out against it. Her heart said, Simon will solve this.

  Her heart! What sound decision had ever been made by a heart? If there was one thing she’d learned in life, it was the danger of romantic notions, the poisonous work wrought by wishful thinking. She’d always looked for the brighter way, but every effort to hold out for hope had ultimately led to disaster. Instead of whoring she’d thieved, and Hannah had suffered for it and Mum had died anyway. Instead of keeping her mouth shut at the factory, she’d asked for improvements and been sacked. Simon had come along like a miracle and for a short, blissful time it had seemed that all her secret desires were coming true. Then she’d overheard Daughtry.

  History taught lessons to those who attended to it: why should she be surprised now to learn that all her hopes, once again, had been in vain?

  She searched herself for a solid objection that did not center around foolish dreams. She couldn’t bank on hope, on faith, on … on whatever she felt in her heart for her husband.

  But he was her husband. “I am married,” she said hoarsely—unspeakably relieved to realize that there was an objection. “Even if … you are right, and I will never be recognized as Cornelia, I cannot simply go back whence I came.”

  Grimston burst into a laugh. The surprise in his face struck her as the first genuine emotion she’d glimpsed since his entrance, and the sight closed around her heart like a cold fist. “You poor girl,” he said. “Marriages can be undone very easily these days.” She tried not to react, but his laughter trailed off as he leaned closer to her. “Oh yes,” he said, his voice oily. “I can see you do know this fact.”

  She stared at him. He poked squarely at a bruise that didn’t heal, that only seemed to grow sharper with each passing hour. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing it. “You should go,” she said.

  “Five thousand pounds.” He sighed. “But that is my final offer, Miss Whitby. You have a minute to decide.”

  Five thousand pounds.

  She swallowed a surge of bile and looked away from Grimston, fearful of what he might read in her expression. The small window set high into the far wall showed a patch of sky that grew steadily darker. Night was falling and Simon hadn’t come yet.

  If he knew what had happened, he must be horrified. It was the end of his hopes for the inheritance.

  Oh, of course he’d know she was innocent, but what difference would that make? He’d said the money didn’t matter … that he’d keep her, regardless … but if she truly wasn’t to be an heiress, she’d be naught to him but a terrible mistake—one he’d spend the rest of his life regretting.

  And now she’d be in prison to boot.

  She closed her eyes and pushed down the despair. She had to deal in facts. Simon would no more wish to have a wife in prison—a poor wife, like a millstone around his neck—than she’d wish to live and die there.

  It would mean his freedom to take this money Grimston offered. And her own, as well. Walk away free and clear of this mess. No courts or judges to concern her. No more agonizing nights pretending to be somebody she wasn’t, fearing of how she might disappoint somebody. How she might drive a man—her husband—to turn away from her, or worse yet, to regret his decision to stay by her side.

  Taking Grimston’s offer would be a favor to Simon, really. He needed money. He needed to profit by marriage.

  But taking Grimston’s money and walking away from Simon … Hadn’t another woman done the very same?

  Her stomach cramped; her eyes began to burn. She bit down on her cheek, dragging in a hard breath, resisting the tears. The woman he’d loved once—she had done this to him. She’d broken his heart. He hadn’t said much on the subject, but that song, that achingly sad song, had told her everything.

  “Time is up, Miss Whitby.”

  She opened her eyes and looked Grimston in the face. She’d be a fool not
to take his five thousand pounds. If she turned down his offer and her future fell to tatters, she’d never be able to blame anyone but herself. This moment, in retrospect, would have been her doom.

  “All right.” She managed a single nod. “I’ll accept your offer if it means I can leave this place right now.”

  He broke into a wide smile. “But of course. I’m very glad to hear that wisdom has prevailed.” He rose, flipping out the tails of his jacket, and then turned on his heel, snapping his fingers at her. “Follow me,” he said.

  She understood her part well enough. Head bowed, she trailed him into the hall, where he announced that there had been some mistake; the spoon had not been stolen, only lent unwisely. Dismissing the inspector’s blustering protest with cool efficiency, Grimston then took her by the elbow and escorted her in a hard grip out the door and into his coach.

  Increasingly she felt sick. Five thousand pounds: a bloody fortune and her freedom to boot.

  On the other hand … Simon.

  He’d lied to her, yes.

  But then he’d told her he’d never let her go.

  Could it be that she believed him? Now that her fears and doubts in him were put to the test, she couldn’t hold on to them. All she could think was how gravely this betrayal would strike him. The devil might have designed it. To do to him exactly what that other woman had done … even if the gain to her would be immeasurably great, her freedom and a fortune …

  God help her. God damn her. She couldn’t bear to lose her freedom but she couldn’t bear to buy it if her soul was the price.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, once they were closed into the dark little compartment and bouncing down the road. Her voice sounded properly shaky, as well it might. One moment she felt numb, the next, inclined to hysterical laughter. She couldn’t believe what she was about to do. She was a thrice-damned idiot.

  “I am taking you to my lawyers,” Grimston said, “where you will sign a document disavowing your former claim, and receive a bank check to reward your good sense.”