Ten Kisses to Scandal Read online

  Dedication

  For my sisters

  We have a special bond, forged by more than blood but by our history. We even have our own lexicon of knowing looks, certain laughs, and single words that can tell an entire story. We’ve misunderstood and plagued each other, but we’ve also found solace in shared tears, memories, and long talks. And in every moment, there has always been love.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Misadventures in Matchmaking

  About the Author

  By Vivienne Lorret

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  “There could be no harm in a scheme, a mere passive scheme. It was no more than a wish.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  Autumn, 1825

  Today was the day.

  Briar Bourne knew it the instant her feet slipped into the cool confines of her lucky ivory slippers and a zing of breathless exhilaration scurried through her.

  In a matter of an hour, she would have single-handedly launched the family business into greatness. The ton would soon be buzzing with excitement, beating a parasol-armed path to the doors of the Bourne Matrimonial Agency. And all because Briar was about to secure the most elusive bachelor in London as their premier client.

  But first, she needed to look like a capable and confident woman of the world, and not a debutante sneaking out of her family’s rented townhouse.

  One could never underestimate the power of the proper attire. The right garments could alter the course of one’s life, turn a beggar into a shop clerk, a servant into the lady of the house, or—in Briar’s case—an underestimated youngest sister into a genuine matchmaker.

  Since the agency opened two weeks ago, Uncle Ernest, Ainsley, and Jacinda were the only ones with the important occupations. They interviewed the applicants, discovered their interests and beliefs, their hopes and dreams of happily-ever-after.

  Briar’s tasks, on the other hand, were essentially useless. She served tea and filed papers like any trained monkey. She didn’t even have her own office. At least, not yet.

  That was the reason for her predawn errand. She was determined to prove that she could sling Cupid’s arrow as well as anyone else. Perhaps even better.

  After all, Uncle Ernest spent his time wooing nearly every woman he interviewed. Because of him, they had to establish a rule at the agency—never fall in love with the client.

  As for Ainsley, she was far too pragmatic. All of her facts about the clients were on paper, comparing one list to another. She was blind to the soulful yearning in the eyes of the few people who’d dared to cross their threshold.

  And Jacinda was far too skeptical. She investigated every client to ensure they were telling the truth, and not hiding dark secrets that could potentially destroy a marriage and family. But not everyone was like their father.

  The problem with her family was that they were so caught up in their own agendas they didn’t realize that a vital component was missing from the agency—excitement.

  Wasn’t falling in love supposed to be the most thrilling of all experiences in one’s life? It should be celebrated with wine, showered with rose petals, and glorified with cascades on harp strings.

  Briar flung herself back onto the bed with a sigh, arms wide, imagining it. She would be the best matchmaker in all of London—no, all of England. Perhaps even the world!

  “They simply cannot understand how difficult it is to have such a wild, romantic heart beneath my breast without any opportunity to unleash it,” Briar said to the book propped up on the pillow beside her.

  The red leather tome of Emma—the second volume of three—had been a gift from Mother before her untimely death ten years ago. Mother had adored the story of Miss Emma Woodhouse and her matchmaking endeavors, often wishing that she’d had someone so clever to look out for her. Instead, she’d suffered years of betrayal.

  In the end, the heartbreak and agony had been too much to bear. And because of that, the Bourne family set out to make the right sort of matches for people based on love, trust, and respect, and to keep others from suffering her fate.

  “I am determined to do my part as well,” Briar said, pressing a kiss to the cover before she stood and fastened a fawn cloak over her shoulders. At the door, she looked back once more and grinned. “Wish me luck.”

  In the ashen light of early morning, she quietly wended down the marble stairs, the soles of her slippers issuing the softest of whispers. Then, crossing the foyer, she stole outside into the thick autumn air, careful to leave the door on the latch. By the time she rushed down the whitewashed steps and onto the pavement, she was vibrating with excitement.

  She’d swallowed ten thousand stars, whole, and they were shimmering inside her. Never mind the frothy layer of fog hovering inches above their street in St. James’s. She was a light. A force. Nothing could stop her.

  The disembodied clip clop of horse hooves and the telltale crunch of stone beneath iron wheels told her that there were, indeed, a few carriages about at this early hour. She only hoped one of them was a hackney cab.

  Though, in truth, she’d never hailed one before. They’d arrived in London only a few weeks ago, and before that she’d spent her life in a small Hampshire village. She was twenty years old but had yet to experience much of life’s delights. Mostly because her sisters were under the delusion that they had to protect her from the rest of the world. They claimed she was too romantic, too purehearted—as if those were inferior characteristics.

  Briar scoffed. She would show them.

  And honestly, how difficult could it be to hire a cab?

  In the next few moments, however, she realized it wasn’t as simple as she’d thought. With the fog as thick as cotton batting, she was more likely to hail a foul-smelling, offal-brimmed scavenger cart by mistake. Of the two carriages that had passed by, neither had been for hire, but were owned by those who preferred to keep the shades drawn.

  Briar had overheard whispers about those kinds of people, the ones intent on gambling and carousing until dawn. She wasn’t entirely certain what manner of activity was involved in carousing but, since the word was always spoken in low behind-the-fan susurrations, she was sure it was decidedly scandalous.

  The very thought caused a frisson of wanton fascination to skitter through her. Whatever it was, she wanted to experience it at least once in her life. After all, in order to become a successful matchmaker, she needed a full understanding of . . . well, everything.

  Hearing the deafening jangle of rigging and a shouted gee—o echo off the surrounding stone façades, Briar knew this was her chance. And suddenly, a pair of grizzled horses broke through th
e fog, their heads bent low as they hurried around the corner. Lifting her arm in a quick gesture, she hailed the blue-coated hackney driver.

  This was happening just as she had planned! Soon, she thought with a grin, she would be the one the ton hired to help the Fates along.

  Yet, as she waited, she watched in puzzlement as the driver came to an abrupt halt across the street in front of Sterling’s, an elite gaming hell.

  She lowered her arm. Strange, but she’d watched others make the same gesture and it usually brought the driver directly to them. Hmm . . . she wondered if there was a trick to it. A flick of the wrist. A waggle of fingers, perhaps.

  Whatever it was, she was determined to learn it. Once this morning’s venture was successful, surely she would need to perform many errands for the agency. Briar Bourne—matchmaker of the ton’s elite.

  With very little traffic to impede her progress, and not a single other hackney cab in sight, she lifted her skirts to rush across the cobblestones. Yet, spying the rank foulness in the gutter, she realized that her lucky slippers weren’t designed for haste. And since the last thing she would ever do was meet a future client in soiled attire, she slowed her progress.

  “My good sir,” she called out, but the jarvey did not answer. His head was turned in the opposite direction, his attention caught by something toward the pavement on the other side. Repeating herself, she added a forceful push of authority to her usual breathy voice.

  “Aw shove off, why don’t—” He stopped the instant he saw her, jaw slackening. Quickly doffing his weathered hat, he pressed it against the center of his chest and blinked. Brows arching high, a slow smile revealed a few stained, narrow teeth between the gaps. “Beg pardon, miss, sometimes I think without speakin’.”

  Briar believed he meant to say it the other way around. But by the age of sixteen she’d learned that drawing attention to such a slip tended to tongue-tie a man even more, so she did not mention it. Though, realizing that her hood had dipped to her shoulders, she lifted it over her pale blond hair as she continued. It would do her no favors for someone to see her without a chaperone. “I should like to hire your cab, if you please.”

  “Blast me, but the gent already tossed up his coin,” he said with obvious regret and a jerk of his head to the other side of the carriage.

  Oh. Apparently, one had to be quick with the coin to hail a hackney. She would remember that for the future. As for now, however, she fully intended to see if the “gent” might be willing to relinquish his claim over this one.

  Wasn’t that precisely what a resolute matchmaker would do in this situation?

  Offering a nod to the driver, she walked around the carriage toward the footpath, minding the hazards of horse dung. The copious quantity was likely due to the near constant flow of eventide traffic that stopped in front of the gaming hell.

  Even now at this early hour, another carriage—a fine, glossy black with gilded coronets on the corners and wheels trimmed in red—lined up behind this one. A wealthy patron, to be sure. If only the Bourne Matrimonial Agency had such problems.

  Soon, she thought.

  Stepping onto the pavement, she was ready to address the gent. But Briar stumbled to a halt instead. Now, she understood why the hackney driver was stalled in this spot.

  His fare was otherwise engaged. Or more to the point, he was in the throes of . . . of kissing.

  At least, she presumed it was kissing. Though, to her, it appeared as if the raven-haired man was slowly devouring the plump brunette in his arms with open-mouthed bites of her lips, feeding on the sounds of her moans. His hands—and rather large, ungloved hands, at that—molded over the woman’s curves as if he were mapping every inch of her terrain. But a cartographer, he was not.

  Since they were in front of the gaming hell—where Briar had overheard mention of private rooms for their clientele—she believed he was another type of man altogether. A rake.

  Cheeks scorching, she turned away, her breath coming up short. She closed her eyes to . . . to what? To allow the couple privacy? To pretend she hadn’t seen their passionate interlude? She wasn’t sure. The truth was, she could still see those hands in her mind, long-fingered and dusted with dark hair near the wrists, and she couldn’t help but wonder what they were doing now.

  All she had to do was look, of course. It wasn’t as if her sisters were there to clap a hand over her eyes as they had done countless times before. But wait . . . By turning away, Briar had just done the same dratted thing to herself!

  Irritated by her own unconscious act, she faced the pair of lovers again.

  But that was a mistake. Her presence had not gone unnoticed. The man was now watching Briar, and while he was still feasting on the woman.

  Briar should look away this time, surely. Shouldn’t she? It was rude to stare, after all. It should not matter that his eyes were captivatingly dark, his irises the color of polished ebony wood, rich, exotic, and filled with a lifetime of experiences she could not even fathom.

  Still, she should definitely look away. And she would, most assuredly. As soon as he stopped looking at her.

  The fringe of his black lashes lowered as his gaze roamed the length of her, following the parted fabric of her cloak to the azure blue sash tied beneath her breasts and down the pleats of cream-colored muslin. A rush of heat traveled through her, taking the same path with the flickering burn of a candleflame.

  Once he reached the tips of her slippers peeking out from beneath her ruffled hem, she expelled a tight breath, feeling as though she’d endured a trial by fire.

  But he wasn’t finished.

  His gaze reversed direction. Unhurried and thorough, he gave a sense that he could see through her skirts well enough to trace the scalloped pattern embroidered along her stockings. Her pulse followed, leaping in staggered places like fireflies winking in the night. And when his gaze locked on hers, something heavy and taut shifted in the pit of her stomach, tilting.

  She pressed a hand over her midriff, and warmth simmered in his erudite expression as if he knew precisely what was happening beneath her skin. Better than she knew herself.

  His lean, angular cheek lifted enough to reveal a fissure, bracketing one side of his mouth. Indeed, that smirk said. I could teach you all sorts of things—wondrously wicked things.

  She wanted to be appalled by him. Outraged. Yet, she was trapped between mortification and being wholly mystified. After all, she’d never had a front row seat to debauchery before. It was quite fascinating. Oh and scandalous, of course.

  “Oy, see here!” the driver called down. “This ain’t no private, at-your-leisure coach, sir. I’ve got another fare waitin’ if you ain’t leavin’.”

  Briar startled, a fresh wave of embarrassment flooding her cheeks. Thankfully, her hood concealed her rapt countenance from the driver of the hackney, leaving the rakish man watching her as the only witness to her inexcusable ogling.

  “Yes, as . . . as a m-matter of fact,” she stammered, her tongue oddly thick, “I require the use of this carriage. Clearly, you are not in need of it. Quite yet.”

  The man arched a brow, the crease beside his mouth deepening as he broke the kiss, but not before settling a crimson hood over his companion’s head, securing her anonymity. In turn, the woman fell silent, averting her face toward the waiting carriage. Reaching into his pocket, he then passed a handkerchief over his damp, arrogantly cocked lips before he gave it to the woman.

  Straightening, he was much taller than Briar first imagined, his lean frame outlined seamlessly in the fit of his clothes—a black evening coat with brushed lapels, a gray silk waistcoat, and snow-white cravat with a smear of scarlet lip rouge near the angled ridge of his jaw. He was older, too, her senior by at least ten or twelve years.

  The sharp precision of his features and the emphatic wealth of his aquiline nose kept him from being handsome, at least by any classical standards. And yet, he was arresting and fascinating in a way she didn’t comprehend.

 
But she wished she did. Such an understanding, she was sure, would only aid her in her ultimate plan. It could be argued that one could not make matches for perfect strangers when one possessed only a rudimentary knowledge of her own nature.

  “From my perspective,” he said to Briar, “you did not seem in a great frenzy to depart.”

  The sonorous timbre of his voice tunneled through her in a series of low vibrations, one after the other. Against her midriff, her hand curled over the muslin. Yet she wasn’t certain if she meant to quell this foreign sensation or to savor it.

  “Well, I was,” she said crisply, not appreciating the intimation that she’d enjoyed watching his amorous exploits. When those ebony eyes glinted with amused disbelief, she realized that she’d spoken in the past tense and quickly amended with, “I am still.”

  She even went so far as to take a step toward the door. But he did the same, a challenge in the arch of a single brow. Unfortunately, he was on the correct side, and his companion stood in Briar’s path.

  “That may be true. However, I’m afraid she requires this particular carriage and cannot share it. She is, without question, in a rush.”

  “No more than I—”

  Before Briar could finish, he opened the door and guided the woman up the folding step and into the dark interior with such efficient expertise it might have been his occupation. Or perhaps, he was so accustomed to sending women away at dawn that the gesture came to him by rote.

  Ignoring Briar’s outraged gasp, he closed the door succinctly. Then, stepping around her, he tossed another coin up to the jarvey. “The lady will give you directions.”

  Without argument, hesitation, or even a by-your-leave to Briar, the driver snapped the reins and set off.

  “I saw him first.” The inane, immature statement tumbled forth before Briar could take hold of her annoyance. Drat! She hated being treated like a child and yet here she was sounding like one. But she despised unfairness in any guise and being the victim of it tended to bring out her less-than-favorable characteristics.

  The rogue’s unrepentant gaze raked down the length of her once more, making her conscious of the fact that she’d set her hands on her hips, her cloak parting like a display curtain in a shop window. Instantly, she huffed and lowered her arms, letting him know that she was not offering up her wares. No, indeed!