Scandal of the Year Read Free Page A

Paul, bless him, overruled his mother, and I am firmly ensconced in Berkeley Square.”
    “Excellent. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to my ball tonight?”
    With those words, Julia was struck by a ghastly possibility, one that contradicted all her own information. “Yardley’s not here, is he?” she asked, glancing around.
    “Heavens, no! You think I’d offer that man a voucher to a charity ball of mine? Never! Not even for the hospitals.”
    They both laughed at that, but then Maria’s face took on a more somber expression. “I heard Yardley’s not in town, but many people don’t come for the season until after Whitsuntide. He might come then.”
    “I doubt it,” she answered, relieved that her information about her former husband’s impending holiday seemed to be accurate after all. “He’s not a sociable man, as you may have noticed, and besides, I heard he’s off to Africa. On safari, I’m told. Sorry I didn’t tell you I was coming tonight,” she added, desperate to change the subject. “I know crashing a ball is the height of bad taste, but I didn’t want my name appearing on the printed guest list.” She gave her friend an impudent wink. “Hospitals need all the funds they can get, and if people knew I was coming, London society might develop a mass epidemic of the sniffles.”
    “Nonsense!” Maria turned, hooking her arm through Julia’s to pull her more firmly into the room. “I told you, your friends are working hard on your behalf. That’s why I wish you’d written ahead, so I could reassure you. The stand we’re taking is that you and Yardley had an open arrangement, you both knew the score, and it was quite bad form for him to come storming into that cottage the way he did.”
    Julia couldn’t help a laugh. “So his sin is that he opened us both to scandal by barging in on my love nest with Trathen, queering the pitch and then going public with the story? The absurdities of English etiquette! It’s all right for couples living apart to commit infidelity upon each other, but one simply must be discreet about it!”
    “I know, it seems silly, but it’s the only way to frame the situation. Yardley has enemies, you know, some of them powerful men willing to condemn him. You’d have more sympathy, of course, if—” She stopped, but Julia knew what she’d almost said.
    “If I’d given my husband a son or two before having affairs?” Julia’s hand tightened around the stem of her champagne glass, but with an effort, she kept her voice light. “Simply not possible, darling. I’d have had to throw myself off a cliff.”
    “Oh, Julie!” Maria stared at her in wide-eyed horror. “Don’t say things like that! You don’t mean it.”
    She did mean it, but she didn’t argue the point. After all, her former life was not the sort of thing one talked about, particularly at parties. “Maria, dearest, don’t look so stricken!” she said, forcing a laugh. “It’s all over, I’m free of that beastly man, and it doesn’t matter to me in the least that I am not received at court or welcomed in the high circles because he divorced me. I’ve always preferred the bohemians anyway. Although,” she added, feeling another pang of conscience, “it’s different for the rest of the family. I do wish they didn’t have to suffer by association.”
    “We’re doing what we can to change that. Your friends are standing by you, and now that Danbury has thrown his support behind you as well by having you to stay, even better.”
    “Don’t have any illusions my cousin did this for me,” Julia said, laughing, striving to keep her carefree air intact. “Paul’s welcoming me back with open arms because he’s in desperate need of meaningful conversation. His wife has gone back to the States, his brother Geoff is at Oxford, and our cousin Beatrix is in Egypt. He’s all alone with his mother in that house, and having only my Aunt Eugenia for company would drive any sane man off