Ten Kisses to Scandal Read online

  She offered him a wan smile before she stepped out of the carriage. “That’s right. Perhaps there was a little luck left in my slippers after all.”

  Chapter 3

  “. . . she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken—more in error—more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could the effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  London

  Spring, 1826

  “You cannot tell a soul, not even your mother. Actually . . . especially not your mother, for she would lose all faith in me.” Briar darted a fretful glance through the fronds of a potted palm. Lady Waldenfield’s candlelit ballroom was practically brimming with guests for this evening’s musicale. All the more reason to remain in this stuffy corner behind a wide column.

  The secluded spot was essential for the moment. She refused to reveal her matchmaking debacle where someone might overhear.

  Beside her, Temperance Prescott shifted impatiently, her topknot of dark golden curls swaying with the motion. “For someone who claimed to be unable to hold in this news any longer, you sure have been taking your time telling it. Briar, I am about to burst.”

  “Oh, very well.” Briar looked into her dearest friend’s tea-colored irises, hoping to hear that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. “As you know, today I introduced my very first clients to each other.”

  The agency had been open for nine months now, and she’d finally been given an opportunity to become a genuine matchmaker. However . . . not everything had gone to plan.

  “Did you hire that harpist I recommended?”

  “Yes.”

  “And lined the garden path with rose petals?”

  “Yes.” Briar held back a groan. She’d done everything to make it perfect. “Temperance, you’re not making this any easier.”

  “Sorry, I won’t interrupt anymore.” Reaching up with her gloved hand, she pantomimed turning a key to her lips and tossed it over her shoulder.

  “I won’t mention the particulars for privacy reasons, but I will say that one was a widow, looking for a younger man, and the other was a younger man, looking for an older woman.”

  “Scandalous! Ah, sorry. I must have used the wrong key before.” Temperance repeated the locking gesture, this time pretending to slide the new key down her décolletage.

  Briar glanced through the palm fronds again, stalling more than hiding. “I was shocked as well, of course, but still determined not to let it block the path of true love. I gave the applications careful consideration and discovered that they had quite a bit in common as well. Naturally, I thought they were perfect for each other.”

  Temperance made a point of unlocking her lips. “Well, what happened? Did they fall madly in love?”

  “There was a degree of love involved, yes. But that was due to the fact that they were already acquainted. In fact, they might have been”—Briar winced—“related.”

  “Hmm . . . how related, exactly? Cousins?”

  Briar shook her head, her stomach rolling over. “Closer than cousins. Much closer, unfortunately. But in my own defense, the lady had used a nom de guerre when filling out her application, so there was no way to know.”

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. If Briar hadn’t been so eager to make her first match, she might have taken the time to perform a cursory investigation. And then this entire debacle could have been avoided.

  Temperance pressed her white-gloved fingertips to her mouth as if she were mulling over the complexities of existence. Then, in the next instant, her cheeks lifted, the almond shape of her eyes turning into crescent moons. Her shoulders began to shake. “Tell me that you did not introduce a mother to her son.”

  Briar wobbled her head in a humiliated nod. The episode had been completely awful. She could still hear their shocked voices ringing in her head.

  “Sebastian?”

  “. . . Mother?”

  Dreadful. Briar had been waiting a veritable lifetime for this opportunity, only to have the worst outcome imaginable. “You’re supposed to tell me that it won’t make too much of a splash in the rumor pond.”

  Eyes watering with barely suppressed amusement, Temperance issued a brief snort, and then giggles erupted.

  Bother.

  Worst of all, her sisters would never let her forget this.

  Ainsley had coolly regarded the situation. Then, without speaking directly to Briar, had accused Jacinda of allowing this to happen. As if Briar wasn’t even capable of making her own mistakes.

  Jacinda, too deliriously happy after her recent wedding to the Duke of Rydstrom, hadn’t chastised her, but simply stated that the Bourne Matrimonial Agency could recover from this. However, there had been a measure of doubt in her eyes and in the placating pat on Briar’s shoulder.

  “Well . . .” Temperance hemmed. Half a head taller than Briar, she peered over the long fronds near the top, toward the guests shuffling through rows of fiddleback chairs in preparation for the musicale. “It is possible that the ones who are whispering behind their fans and glancing back this way are only admiring the curtains.”

  Briar sagged against the column and stared at the empty dark corner. “I’ve ruined my family’s business. The agency will fail. We’ll lose the patronage of the Duchess of Holliford, who’s been so kind to us all these years. Then Uncle Ernest, Ainsley, and I will become homeless, turning into the poor relations that Jacinda and Rydstrom must support.”

  “Nonsense,” Temperance said with a cluck of her tongue. “Even if a rumor starts today, there will likely be a new one to replace it tomorrow. I should know because my cousin, Nicholas, has been at the center of so many that I’ve lost count.”

  Having been close friends with Temperance these past months, Briar had heard about many of Cousin Nicholas’s scandalous exploits. He was an unrepentant rascal, to be sure.

  Still the news did not cheer her. “But with your cousin away, we have no guarantee that a new rumor will start with the required expedience.”

  “Fret not, for we received a missive last week with the news that he and my brother will be returning any day. In the meantime, there is always Lord Hulworth—unmarried and as elusive as ever, whetting the ton’s appetite for matrimony. You could still make a match for him.”

  “True. But it would be so much easier to marry him off if I could meet him first.” Yet after that fateful morning last fall, she’d given up the notion of a solitary, chance encounter. Considering the fact that her actions had shocked the rogue who’d lent her his carriage, she’d come to realize that she could have suffered a worse fate.

  Lesson learned, and she’d swallowed it like bitter medicine. “I’m beginning to think that Lord Hulworth is more myth than man.”

  “If your family would permit you to attend something other than two of the most mundane events per week, perhaps you might meet him.”

  It was true. Ever since Jacinda’s accident and temporary amnesia earlier this spring, Ainsley had become excessively overprotective. Frankly, Briar was surprised she’d been trusted with her very own clients at all.

  And just look how swimmingly that had gone. Drat!

  “Regardless,” Temperance continued, “I have the utmost confidence that you will be the one who finds him a bride. You were born to be a matchmaker, far more than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

  Briar nodded. She could not let today’s episode stop the Fates from working through her.

  “Furthermore, without you, I will be rudderless in a sea of men with no one to direct me away from the wrong sort. My future husband may very well be taking his seat right this instant. And you are going to help me find him.”

  Temperance’s declaration was just the boost Briar needed.

  Yet as they stepped out from behind the column, several heads turned. Whispers began. A slow hum of laughter mingled with the discordant notes of the quartet warming up for the program.

  Briar’s confidence slipped like a garter
less stocking. “Where is your cousin when we need him?”

  * * *

  When his carriage came to an abrupt halt, Nicholas peered out the window to find a chaos of coaches clogging the lamplit street. After endless months at his country estate, the one thing he did not miss was London traffic during the height of the Season.

  “Looks to be a row between drivers up ahead, my lord,” Adams called down, his voice rising with the excitement of a cockfight den. “The barouche just tore the landau’s livery coat.”

  In other words, the resolution was going to take a while.

  Nicholas stirred on the velvet seat, too restless to wait it out. He was ready to shake the country dust from his boots and immerse himself in a much-needed night of hedonistic pursuits.

  “I’ll walk from here, Adams.” The hell was near enough. “But I’ll wager a crown on the landau.”

  Adams grinned, greedily chafing his hands together. “Make it two. I’ve got a grand feeling about the barouche.”

  Nicholas touched a finger to the brim of his top hat in agreement, then set off. Alighting from the vehicles around him, society matrons and their protégés were dressed in finery and feathers, scurrying over the cobblestones to the pavement. Apparently, there was an assembly in Waldenfield’s house on the corner, every window lit, every room likely packed full of society’s darlings.

  “Lord Edgemont, as I live and breathe.”

  Nicholas jolted to a halt, staring hard at the brunette moving away from the crowd entering the house and walking toward him. The first time he saw her, she’d merely been an anonymous woman in scarlet.

  More than anything, he wished that their association had ended the morning he’d sent her away in a hackney in front of Sterling’s. Unfortunately, it hadn’t.

  She grinned slyly at him. “Once again, the Fates have put me in your path.”

  He gritted his teeth, pretending to be unaffected here on the street with so many people milling about. To stem the curiosity of those already sliding glances in his direction, he even moved closer to bow over her hand. Only his voice, dark with warning, revealed the anger brewing inside him. “The Furies would be a closer match.”

  If only they’d never met. For then he might have avoided all the pain his family had endured these past months. But how was he to know he would see her again within a fortnight of their hapless tryst, and discover that she was not who she’d pretended to be?

  She was not a young widow as she’d told him. No, Miss Smithson was actually an unmarried debutante. And when he’d had the misfortune of introducing her to his unworldly cousin, she’d played the part of an innocent like a finely trained actress. Of course, Nicholas—and doubtless others—knew better. His cousin, however, did not. Daniel had been smitten at first sight.

  “Oh, come now, I thought we left all that animosity behind us when you paid my father an exorbitant sum to make certain I did not marry your cousin.” She laughed, the sound as brittle as ice breaking over a pond after a hard freeze.

  “You never intended to marry Daniel.”

  Unaffected, she smoothed the cascade of dark brown ringlets away from her cheek. “Can you blame me? Marriage to a vicar’s son would hardly have been an improvement from the match my father intended. And a young woman in her fourth Season must think of herself. Should she resign herself to an odious marriage to an old man? Or should she take matters into her own hands and find a husband who shares her particular appetites?”

  “Or perhaps she should have listened when the gentleman she sought out explained—and from the very first moment—that he had no intention of marrying. Now or ever.”

  She heaved a resigned sigh. “We could have been happy together, Nicholas.”

  He did not bother to argue the erroneous declaration. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder to see that the line of guests had all ascended the stairs. Even the carriages were starting to wend their way through the street. Absently, he wondered if the landau won the fight, or if it was the barouche.

  “It appears to be time to bid adieu, Miss Smithson.” He turned, gesturing for her to proceed toward the stairs.

  “Tut. Tut. It’s Lady Comstock now, as you are well aware.” She flashed the emerald on her left hand. Then her lips pursed sourly as she twisted it on her gloved finger. “But tell me, how is poor Daniel? From what I hear, he has become a recluse, pining over a love he cannot forget. I must say, it is quite flattering to know that I ruined him for any other woman.”

  Nicholas refused to validate that statement, or to reveal the turmoil Daniel had suffered from the day she’d left. He’d fallen into a state of melancholy from which he had yet to recover. “Once he finds a bride, you will be nothing more than an unfortunate event in his past.”

  “Well, if he’s anything like his sister, it will take him years. It’s so sad, really. With you sequestered in the country for most of this Season, I’ve heard Temperance had to resort to employing an agency to find a husband.”

  His teeth grated together as she walked beside him. “Now that I’ve returned, I will ensure that both of my cousins are married by the end of the Season.”

  He hadn’t the first clue on how he would achieve his goal. All he knew was that he would stop at nothing to see his cousins settled at last.

  “The Earl of Edgemont, perusing the marriage mart? What fun! But be careful that you do not incite the interest of debutantes looking to marry you instead. They can be rather scheming, or so I’ve heard.”

  “I’m certain none could hold a candle to you, Lady Comstock.”

  At the base of the stairs, he inclined his head in farewell.

  “One never knows. There are some very clever girls amongst our set.” She curtsied, eyes glinting like a serpent’s before the strike. “Perhaps one of them might find a way to drag London’s most irredeemable rake to the altar.”

  This was far from the worst threat he’d ever received, but it sent a cold chill all the way to the soles of his feet, nonetheless.

  Chapter 4

  “She knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than she could perform with credit . . .”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  Briar slipped quietly out of the gallery in the middle of Haydn’s Surprise. The trills of the oboe blended too well with the titters of haughty laughter for her tastes. She’d had enough of sideways glances, too.

  No one in that room, aside from Temperance, knew how much pressure Briar had put on herself to make the perfect match. Since it had been her first one, Ainsley had offered to assist her, which was an insult in and of itself. She may as well have said, You’re not up to snuff, dearest. Why don’t you fetch another pot of tea from the kitchens, instead?

  Abhorring the thought, Briar shut the door to the retiring room and leaned against it, shutting out the jarring roar of instruments. Then closing her eyes, she chanted a mantra. “I am more than the bringer of oolong. More than the presenter of scones. More than the carrier of—”

  “If you say cakes, I’m going to start eating my gloves. I’m famished as it is.”

  Briar’s eyes flew open to see a petite brunette saunter around the corner and into the antechamber. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize there would be anyone else in here.”

  “I arrived late.” The young woman flitted her fingers in the air as if the matter were of little consequence. In the mirror, she cast an appraising glance at Briar, her green gaze squinting. “Say, I know you, do I not?”

  The faint scent of hyacinth and gardenia tickled Briar’s nose as she drew a step closer. There was something vaguely familiar about the woman, but she could not place her. “If you are one of my uncle’s clients, then perhaps we are acquainted. Have you applied to the Bourne Matrimonial Agency?”

  The woman laughed instantly, the high tittering sound rising to the coffered ceiling. “No. This is too rich! Surely you’re not one of the helpful nieces I heard rumor about a few moments ago—the ones who tried to marry off an old woman to her own son
?”

  Briar bristled but did not cower behind a lie. “That was my own error. Neither my uncle nor sisters had a part in it. At the time, I did not realize that the lady was already . . . acquainted with the gentleman.”

  “I’d say.”

  “This solitary occurrence does not reflect on the agency’s ability to make proper matches, in the least.” Briar huffed, a rant flowing past her lips before she could stop it. “My uncle’s establishment is highly revered by much of society, including the estimable Duchess of Holliford. As a matter of fact, she is our patroness. We even live in one of her own houses, in a premier, undeniably respectable part of St. James’s . . . if you overlook Sterling’s gaming hell across the street, and um . . .”

  Briar pressed her lips together. She realized she wasn’t presenting a very good case in her own favor when the woman’s eyes widened in the mirror.

  Slowly, she turned to face Briar with decided scrutiny. The woman drew in a breath as if she had remembered how they were acquainted, but she did not share it. Instead, a peculiar glint of avarice lit her expression, like a person standing in a confectionary shop, deciding whether or not to purchase one comfit, or all of them.

  “A premier location for success, to be sure. Doubtless, hundreds of potential clients travel by your door each day,” she said, then tsked. “Which makes your blunder all the more tragic.”

  Briar’s hackles rose and she crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “We will recover.”

  “Of course you will. I meant no offense,” she said, not unkindly. “However, unless you do something daring, and quickly, this unfortunate event will be cemented in society’s collective viewpoints. They will be jeering about the Bourne Matrimonial Agency for years.”

  “We take pride in our matches, believing that every person deserves to find their perfect counterpart. And we have an excellent record of success.”

  “That’s splendid, then. But tell me, have you made any matches among the nobility?”