Lady Scandal Read Free Page A

scruples drummed into one from infanthood. A man to inspire all manner of explicit, illicit dreams.
    The cumbersome screen now had a new purpose, Juliet realized, lowering her hand and wiping surprisingly damp palms on the layers of skirt and petticoat gathered in her lap: that of allowing her to look her fill, to stare at and ogle this manly specimen in a way no maiden would ever be permitted.
    To hope…
    Maybe, just maybe, applicant twenty-four would prove to be
the
one.

    The condition of the room appalled Zeus; it matched that of the whole abysmal house, at least the few ghastly portions he’d been privy to. Two blinks away from decrepitude, it somehow seemed wrong to be meeting the infamous Lady Scandal in such a desolate atmosphere. Agonizingly wrong, given how he’d anticipated their meeting occurring at Amherst and not this rachitic ruin.
    And after what he’d just seen her footman do, the prior candidate’s shouts of outrage at being manhandled by a manservant sufficient inducement to lure both Zeus and the lone remaining applicant into the hallway for the show, Zeus wasn’t so sure he
wanted
his turn in these unsavory surroundings. Wasn’t so sure his relinquished hat would be spared mangling from the beefy hands he’d just witnessed trouncing the foul-mouthed sod who’d gone directly before him—and been swiftly evicted from the premises.
    Zeus glanced again into the room he was expected to enter, so dingy and pathetic he suspected even moths and mice would pass it by.
    Remember why you’re here. What she can give you.
    Prompted, as always, by the overwhelming goal that continued to guide his every action, even now, years and lifetimes later, Zeus nodded his thanks toward the burly fellow who, after wiping blood and “bad spirits” off his hands and person, had deferentially escorted Zeus through the gloomy maze.
    A fortifying breath and Zeus stepped over the threshold. For good or ill, he was committed to his course.
    And ill it just might be, given the way his nose prickled at the sour hint of stale smoke that hung in the air. But unlike the crypt of a study he’d been stashed in all day, along with other expectant contenders, where he’d forbore puffing tobacco or drumming fingertips—and outwardly expressing his anxiety—this particular room, upon closer inspection he was delighted to note, exhibited several rays of sunshine to brighten its dreary reality.
    Rays of sunshine that proved a balm to his weary soul. A number of them streamed in from the unboarded windows facing west, several splashed about in the form of wild-cut flowers bunched in disreputable vases, and one presided regally before him, her dress every bit as yellow and sunny as the sporadic unfaded rectangles on the walls, bright patches of paper and plaster, loudly proclaiming the paintings she’d been forced to sell off.
    She. Lady Scandal, sitting patiently behind her desk, a look of wary resignation on her face.
    One glance put him in mind of a fetchingly plump and eminently beddable tavern wench. The kind he’d feasted on in his youth, the kind he’d avoided of late. The anti-lady.
    Over the last weeks, he’d built Lady Scandal up in his mind as a genteel, dainty creature, desperate enough for funds to overlook his disreputable birth. Though his blighted beginnings certainly matched the state of her home, the regal daffodil looked anything but desperate.
    Although appealing in an earthy, buxom way, she was not what Zeus had primed himself for, and he couldn’t stop the dual pings of disappointment—that she didn’t resemble the elegant “lady” his deuced imaginings had conjured, and that he wasn’t attracted to her as he ought to be his
wife
, the one woman he’d forsake all others on behalf of until death did they part.
    His primed poker wilted a bit, expressing its dismay. In opposition, Zeus stiffened his legs, and shoved any dirk disappointment aside. He wasn’t here for
her
, he reminded himself; he was here