A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World Read Free

have steered her to a better path.”
     
    “She had a husband,” he pointed out.
     
    “Who was not up to the task. What details have you gleaned?”
     
    “At this hour, very little. I spoke with the men below. According to Kellew, his second, it happened last night at a tavern. There’d been a race and they were in their cups when Vance sneered at Maybury’s driving skills. Maybury threw his wine in Vance’s face and the duel was on. Dickon Maybury was a dolt of a driver, but I’d have said he was too easy natured to go to swords over it.”
     
    “Quite,” Lady Hernescroft said. “Which is dung that will enable this weed to grow. Trivialities are often used to protect a lady’s name in a duel, and what lady could be the cause here but Maybury’s flighty wife?”
     
    “The cats who envy Georgia’s beauty and charm will delight in this. Wives have fled abroad in such situations.”
     
    “No Perriam will become an outcast. About yourwork. Ensure that the right story greets the beau monde when it wakes today. I’ll make sure the gentlemen below see her in all her raw grief and carry that tale to the clubs. Tell her maid to bring her robe.”
     
    She went forward to draw her weeping daughter up from the bed. “Come now, you must want to see him.”
     
    “Must I?” The wide, reddened eyes seemed like those of a child—a shocked child, bewildered by fate.
     
    “You must. No need to dress. See, here’s your maid with your robe.” She herself helped her daughter to put on the pink silk. “No, don’t attempt to tidy her hair. Come along, daughter. I will be with you.”
     
    Perry had gone to his allocated task, and she could trust him there. Lady Hernescroft thanked God her husband was at a race meeting. He was inclined to thunder, but this required a more subtle touch.
     
    A mere two months ago Lady Lowestoft had fled after a similar duel, but all the world had known that she was the killer’s mistress and that she’d run off with him. There was no true similarity, but vicious tongues would find one. Would it be best to take Georgia away from Town or compel her to face the world to put paid to any comparisons?
     
    She guided her trembling daughter along the corridor and down the stairs of the fashionable Mayfair house to where Maybury’s body lay on a chaise. His bloodstained shirt had been changed for a fresh one and his body covered to the neck with a red brocade coverlet. His eyes had been closed, but he did not look as if he slept.
     
    At sight of him, Georgia made a choking sound, and Lady Hernescroft wondered if she would vomit and whether that would have good or bad effect.
     
    Instead her daughter stumbled over, hands outstretched. “Dickon? Oh, Dickon, why?” She brushed brown hair from his temples but then flinched back. “Already cold. Cold!” She collapsed down, pink robe and Titian red hair spread over the crimson brocade. Lady Hernescroft was not poetical, but it was a striking effect.
     
    “Oh, why, Dickon, my darling, why?”
     
    Lady Hernescroft slowly let out a breath. Without any artifice, her daughter was putting on just the right show. Two of the four men were dabbing their eyes, and Kellew was sobbing.
     
    After a few moments, Lady Hernescroft gently drew her daughter up and into her arms. “You must leave him now, my dear. Come with me. We’ll get you a sleeping draught.”
     
    She guided Georgia back upstairs and helped the maid settle her in her bed.
     
    Lady Hernescroft couldn’t help but notice what a deplorable frivolity that bed was. The whole thing was painted white, with details picked out in gold. Cupids supported the four posts, and nymphs and shepherds frolicked on the headboard. Part and parcel with her youngest daughter’s extravagant, frivolous life.
     
    She and Hernescroft had expected the young couple to live most of the year at Maybury Castle, which lay close
to their seat, Herne in Worcestershire. Even when they weren’t at Herne to