One Touch of Scandal Read Free

aunt’s.”
    â€œTonight?”
    â€œYes, mademoiselle.” His finger still stroked the leather of his folio. “Tonight.”
    And at last Grace heard what was not being said. This was not about grief, or about sympathy, or even about what she might have seen. This man did not trust her. She might even be—God help her—a suspect.
    With a hand that shook, Grace drained the rest of the brandy.
    The frisson of fear had returned.
    Â 
    As the morning sun rose high over Westminster, Adrian Forsythe, Lord Ruthveyn, tipped back his head to allow his valet to scrape the last swath of black bristle up his throat, half-hoping that this time the fellow’s wrist might twitch and slit his jugular vein.
    This prospect was followed, however, by the ring of Fricke’s drawing the blade clean across the rim of his basin.
    Alas, not today.
    Ruthveyn straightened in his chair and took the steaming-hot towel Fricke offered. “Well, get on with it, Claytor,” he grumbled to his waiting secretary as he wiped the last of the soap from his face. “What else has gone wrong in the last twelve hours—other than the two shattered windows, Teddy’s concussion, and that little contretemps with the bailiff?”
    Claytor stood in the open door of his bedchamber, still clutching his hat, his expression colorless. “What else ?” the secretary echoed. “I daresay that’s enough, isn’t it?”
    â€œThen you are dismissed.” Ruthveyn tossed down the towel and uncoiled his lean frame from the chair. “Tell Anisha I shall hope to be home for dinner. I’ll look in on Teddy then.”
    â€œVery well.” Claytor seemed to wring his hat brim. “B-But the bailiff came round yesterday afternoon, sir. And today is…well, today. ”
    The marquess stripped off his dressing gown. Naked to the waist, the fall of his trousers but half–done up, he stretched across the bed for the fresh shirt Fricke had just laid out. He knew what the man was getting at, and it would not do.
    â€œHave you a point, Claytor?” he finally asked.
    The secretary’s eyes widened. “I’ve done what I can,sir. I told Ballard to call the glazier, and little Teddy’s stitched up, but what ever am I to do, sir, about the other? About Lord Lucan?”
    â€œLet him rot,” Ruthveyn suggested, dragging the shirt over his head.
    â€œB-But in a sponging house?” sputtered Claytor.
    â€œEvery young man must learn to live within his income,” said the marquess, adjusting his collar and cuffs. “I merely prefer that my brother should do it sooner rather than later.”
    â€œBut sir, your sister was quite beside herself! Indeed, Lady Anisha was in tears! You cannot think what it was like, sir! You weren’t there. ”
    You weren’t there.
    The phrase hung in the air but a moment, laced ever so lightly with accusation—but it was only a hint. Claytor knew better. Ruthveyn paid well—very, very well—and his black moods were notorious. And yes, he was almost always away from home nowadays.
    â€œThe boy got himself into debt, Claytor,” Ruthveyn answered. “He can bloody well get himself out again.”
    But it would not, of course, be easy. Lord Lucan Forsythe received a quarterly allowance from the estate, with the next payment due at Michaelmas—which would be just long enough, Ruthveyn hoped, to learn a lesson. But not so long as to contract blood poisoning from bedbugs, keel over dead from dysentery, or worse, fall in with an even lower class of associates than those he’d already befriended since arriving in Town. Ruthveyn sensed none of this would happen, but even he could be wrong—and sponging houses were vile, iniquitous places.
    A little ruthlessly, the marquess stabbed in his starched shirttails, then hitched up the rest of his buttons. Perhaps he should have watched Lucan more carefully,