Jade Lee - Wedded in Scandal

“Well, he is a charming fellow. Loves a good bit of brandy, a cigar, and his friends. Some say I resemble him in looks.” He gestured to his hair. “Brown hair, broad forehead, and we are nearly the same height.”

She nodded, obviously confused by his wandering thoughts. “Then your father must be a handsome man.”

He took the compliment as his due. Many thought his entire family had been inappropriately blessed in their looks. “Yes, well, there is something else about my father that everyone knows.” He waited a moment for her to ask the obvious question. She did so with a touch of irritation.

“I am simply breathless with wonder, my lord. What could it be that everyone knows?”

“That my father is the greatest gull on earth. Yes, truly, the man could be snookered by a mentally deficient bootblack. In fact, I believe he was, just last year. Bought some magic blacking cloth, I believe. Thought he’d make a fortune with it.”

A spark of interest did indeed light in Mrs. Mortimer’s eyes. “Magic blacking cloth?”

“Yes. I believe it was cheesecloth soaked in the boy’s spit.”

She gasped. “You cannot be serious!”

“I most certainly am. My father bought it for a shilling.” Then he sighed. “To be fair, the boy had been chewing tobacco and so the cloth was rather thick and black. It did look like a blacking cloth.”

She laughed. Not a full laugh. Indeed, because she suppressed it, it sounded more like a horse’s snort than a lady’s laugh.

“That story cannot be true.”

“I assure you it is.”

Then she tilted her head while her eyes danced in merriment. “I cry foul, my lord. I believe you are lying to me. And I believe I shall prove it to you.”

“Really? Pray, how?”

“I shall make a wager with you, my lord. If I can prove that you are lying, then you will pay my bill. If not, then I shall leave without further ado.”

He wasn’t so sure he wanted her to leave just yet, but he was a gentleman and so he nodded. “Very well. If the bill is honest, then you shall be paid immediately.”

She nodded slowly, obviously taking that as the best bargain she could make. “Very well, my lord. You say the story is true, that it happened exactly as you said.”

“I do.”

“Well, then, I submit to you that either the bootblack was not mentally deficient in that he gulled an earl. Or that the earl was aware of the true nature of the magic cloth and was merely being kind to a handicapped boy.”

Robert frowned, wondering which could be true. Given that his father had been quite proud of his purchase, he thought it more likely that the bootblack was not nearly as deficient as he claimed. Nor, he supposed, did the boy have an ailing mother and four younger siblings to feed. Thankfully, he did not oversee his father’s staff, as the man lived in rooms at his club. So long as the earl kept within his quarterly allowance, Robert didn’t care if he purchased a dozen magic blacking cloths.

“Have I won our bargain, my lord?”

He smiled. “Yes, I suppose you have.”

“Excellent,” she said with a grin. “Then if you would—”

“I said if the bill was honest, Mrs. Mortimer. You have yet to describe this ball gown to me. Unless, of course, there is some reason why you would not.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I will describe it.”

He smiled and shot her own words right back. “I am simply breathless with wonder.”

She grimaced, her nose wrinkling in a delightful manner. “It is blue, my lord, with Belgium lace crisscrossed over the bodice. Shoulders bare, as she will be a married woman by then and can reveal a great deal more than before, and with a shawl of gauze such as will preserve her modesty if she wants or that can be draped in a variety of tantalizing poses should she not.”

He blinked. My God, did she think he wished to know of his sister in tantalizing poses? “You are speaking of my baby sister,” he said in irritation. “The one who wore pigtails and sported ink stains on her nose.”

“No, my lord,” she said gently. “I am speaking of your fully grown sister who will be a married woman within a month. And quite possibly increasing soon after that.”

He shuddered at that. His baby sister with a babe of her own. He knew it was possible. Probable, even. That is what married women did, was it not? But in his mind, she was still so young.

“It is the way of young girls, you know. They grow up and start families of their own.” Then Mrs. Mortimer did something wholly unexpected. She rose in a single lithe movement and crossed to the brandy snifter. Then she poured him a glass, swirling it for him just as it ought to be done, and brought it to him. But she didn’t just cross to his side; she set it in his hand, then sank to the floor before him. She looked up at him just as his sister had once done, back when she was still a hoyden running wild throughout the house. And Mrs. Mortimer smiled up at him in exactly the same way.

“Change is hard, especially when it is inevitable. But you should be proud of the woman she has become, my lord. Not fighting the purchase of her trousseau.”

He swallowed. She was right. And when she sat like that before him, he could deny her nothing. Except for one thing.

“Mrs. Mortimer,” he said as he reached out and stroked her cheek just as he had done with Gwen so many years ago. “I cry foul.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Gwen does not have a ball gown such as you describe. It has not been made and you and your bill are false.” She made to leap to her feet, but he was faster than she. Within a second, he had clamped a hand down on her arm, preventing her escape. “Oh, do remain right where you are, Mrs. Mortimer. It will no doubt take a few moments for the constable to arrive.”

“No, no, wait!” cried Helaine, as she desperately tried to free herself. She might as easily tilt with an oak tree. “I am not lying!”

Lord Redhill’s dark eyes glittered down at her. “You know why I told you that story about my father and his bootblack?”

She shook her head. She had no idea except that it had lulled her into flirting with the man. Flirting! She hadn’t done that since she’d been a respectable earl’s daughter and not Mrs. Mortimer. She licked her lips. “My lord…,” she began, but he cut her off.

“Because in this one aspect, Mrs. Mortimer, I am nothing like my father. I cannot abide a thief no matter how charming. And you, my dear, are obviously one of the best.”

“I am not!” she cried, horrified that tears were welling up. With one simple exchange, she had been transported right back to five years before, when she protested her innocence to no avail. She’d been honest her entire life, then her father committed one drunken, thieving stupidity, and she was tarred with the same feather. The humiliation of that memory pushed her to a strength she did not normally possess. She shoved him off, though her arm was nearly wrenched from its socket, and stumbled backward.

“Call your sister!” she cried. Then she did not wait for his high and mighty lordship to do it. She whirled around and bellowed. “Dribbs! Call Lady Gwen down here immediately!”

She could tell that surprised Lord Redhill. It also seemed to stun Dribbs, who opened the door with his mouth hanging ajar.

“My lord?” he asked.

“Call Lady Gwen,” she ordered even though the question had not been directed at her.

Dribbs glanced anxiously between his employer and Helaine. “Lady Gwen has left with the other ladies. They have decided to buy a flock of sheep for the porcelain shepherdess.”

Helaine took a moment to comprehend that statement. Then she decided there was no profit to figuring it out. The point was that Gwen was not here to help her. Meanwhile, Lord Redhill took it as another sign of her perfidy.