Carole Mortimer - Regency Scandal

Including her reluctant rescuer?

Yes, that did indeed include the Duke, Pandora acknowledged as she now seemed unable to stop her trembling. There had been something in Rupert Stirling’s eyes when he had looked upon her in the candlelight just now, an expression of purely male assessment on his austere and aristocratic features, as he had seemed to take in everything about her in a single glacial glance. Followed by his swift exit from the library just now, as indication, no doubt, that having looked his fill, he was now in a hurry to be rid of her.

No doubt the Duke would have already made his planned excuses to leave if this obviously unwanted sense of responsibility towards Pandora had not delayed him.

Her legs began to shake in earnest as the full horror of what had almost transpired earlier once again washed over her. Indeed, if Rupert Stirling had not interceded, then she was certain that Lord Sugdon would have succeeded in his obvious intention of ravishing her. With or without her permission. And, in the case of Lord Sugdon, it would most certainly have been without!

Oh, she was well aware of what society thought and said about her, of the belief that she had cuckolded her husband with Sir Thomas Stanley, which had resulted in a pistols-at-dawn duel, which minutes later had left both gentlemen lying dead upon the ground.

All, and every part of it, a lie.

But it was a lie which the ton had wanted to believe a year ago, when Pandora had attempted to claim her innocence of any wrongdoing in her marriage. Unfortunately, tonight’s events proved they did not believe in her lack of guilt now, either.

From the conversation she had overheard earlier between Rupert and Dante, it was obvious that they had also heard, and believed, the rumours that had been rife a year ago.

Before her marriage to Barnaby four years ago, Pandora had been the naïve and trusting Miss Pandora Simpson, the only child of the impoverished landowner and Greek scholar from Worcestershire, Sir Walter Simpson, and his wife, Lady Sarah.

With Pandora’s first successful Season behind her, during which she had received several offers of marriage from gentlemen she liked but whom her father considered unsuitable, she had later come to realise that none of those gentlemen had been wealthy enough for her father to tap for the funds necessary to alleviate the family’s impoverished state due to Sir Walter’s complete incompetence as a landowner; her father had always preferred his books to the running of his estate.

Then had come the offer during her second Season, from the young, handsome and extremely wealthy Barnaby Maybury, Duke of Wyndwood, an offer which Sir Walter had grasped greedily with both hands.

Perhaps Pandora was being a little unfair in laying the blame for her marriage upon her father, when he was no longer alive to defend himself, Sir Walter having succumbed to the influenza three winters ago, her mother following him only weeks later. After all, Pandora had been equally as flattered by the attentions of such a handsome and wealthy gentleman as Barnaby Maybury and excited at the prospect of becoming his Duchess.

Neither had there been any indication, during those heady days of her short betrothal to the Duke of Wyndwood, when he had been both charming and attentive towards her, of the nightmare her life would become once the two of them became husband and wife.

A nightmare which had refused to end following the scandal which had dogged her every footstep since her husband’s death in a duel supposedly over her honour and culminating in the final and humiliating indignity of Lord Sugdon’s attack on her earlier this evening.

Final—because this evening had shown Pandora that it would be better for everyone—but most especially herself—if she were to seriously consider withdrawing completely from society.

The majority of Barnaby’s wealth had been left to a distant cousin, his male heir, upon his death, but her marriage contract had ensured that Pandora was left with some funds of her own, along with a property in London which was not entailed in the Duke’s estate. Not in a particularly fashionable part of London, admittedly, but certainly a house she had been able to occupy in quiet seclusion during her year of mourning. But with the money she already had, added to what she might expect to receive from the sale of that house in London, she would surely be able to buy a suitable property and retire to the country, where hopefully she might be allowed to live out the rest of her days in peace and solitude?

She knew that Sophia and Genevieve would both decry such a course of action on her part. Both women had been kindness itself since declaring, when they’d first befriended Pandora, the one with kindness, the other with vehemence, that what wife had not, on occasion, wished to cuckold her husband and possibly even dispatch him?

Close as Sophia and Genevieve now were to her, Pandora could not reveal even to them that she was not guilty of doing either of those things. There were reasons, and others even more innocent than she who could be seriously wounded by the truth.

But after the unpleasant events of this evening, much as Pandora valued the other ladies’ friendship, she now felt sure that the only future left to her if she stayed in London was to become prey to opportunists such as Lord Sugdon. A fate that was wholly unacceptable to her.

‘You may safely unlock the door now, Pandora.’ A brisk knock accompanied the Duke of Stratton’s terse instruction.

Rupert knew at a glance, as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, that Pandora was a little more composed now than she had been earlier. She was very pale still, of course, that pallor giving a haunted depth to the deep violet of her eyes, but the expression on the delicate beauty of her face was one of resigned dignity rather than the emotional upset she had been verging on before he left the library just minutes ago.

Hers was a beauty of such delicacy—ivory skin, high and intelligent forehead, those incredible violet-coloured eyes, a short straight nose above the perfect bow of her full and sensuous lips, with a slightly stubborn tilt to her small and pointed chin—that Rupert found he was not in the least surprised that two gentlemen, her husband and her lover, had challenged each other to a duel in order to claim sole rights to that beauty.

His mouth thinned. ‘Our hostess has been informed of your departure and the carriage is now waiting outside to take you to your home. I have brought this for you to wear.’ He held up the black cloak he had requested from the Duchess of Clayborne’s butler. ‘It has the advantage of returning my jacket to its rightful place, as well as covering your own … damaged gown.’

‘Thank you.’ Her voice was husky and she kept her lashes lowered over those violet-coloured eyes as they exchanged Rupert’s jacket for one of the Duchess of Clayborne’s own evening cloaks.

Rupert pulled on his own jacket and straightened the cuffs before looking down at her with disapproving eyes. ‘What on earth possessed you to walk outside with a man like Sugdon in the first place?’

Thick lashes surrounded those violet-coloured eyes as they widened indignantly at the accusation in his tone. ‘I did not go outside with Lord Sugdon! I had been standing outside on the terrace alone for some time when he found me—’ She broke off her protest abruptly, the colour deepening in her cheeks, as she obviously realised she had just revealed her presence on the terrace directly outside the library whilst Rupert and Dante conversed privately.

How much of their conversation had she overheard? Rupert wondered ruefully. Certainly the latter comments concerning herself, if the deepening of that blush in her cheeks was any indication!