A Marriage Made in Scandal Read online

  The third was brown.

  Plain. Dull. Brown. With darker brown binding around a modest brim and black velvet ribbons to tie beneath the wearer’s chin.

  If a lady had a sudden need for half-mourning, Fancy Nancy’s handiwork was the answer.

  Genie raised her chin and tucked the purple plume inside a brocade band. Turning the bonnet this way and that, she tsked. “More color, I think. Ah, yes. I know just the thing.” She stood to fetch a length of red silk. Slanting a grin at Miss Knox, she returned to her chair and began folding ribbon into petals. Briefly, her eyes landed on the other woman’s piteous attempt at a yellow cap.

  “Lace?” she gasped. “Your boldness shocks my very senses, Miss Knox. Why, next thing you know, you’ll be dabbling in witchcraft.”

  Miss Knox’s glare flashed with anger. At least, Genie thought it was anger. Fancy Nancy’s eyes were both brown and dead—like mud, but with added spite.

  Another foul-smelling hiss floated her way. “The sack. Mark my words, you insolent—”

  Mrs. Pritchard entered with a swish of the striped curtain that separated workroom from storefront. “Mrs. Herbert requested five turbans by tomorrow morning,” she said, her smile at odds with her tight expression and tighter hair. “I suggest you retrieve the white plumes, Miss Huxley.”

  Long before Genie had arrived to plague her employer with rebellious red flowers, Mrs. Pritchard had been defeated by her own mediocrity. The wheat-haired milliner often smiled and tittered like a silly girl at Almack’s, but her pleasantness poorly compensated for what she lacked—talent and intelligence. To Genie’s eye, tight lips, scraped-back hair, and careworn creases bespoke two decades of disguised ineptitude. Mrs. Pritchard might smile like a society miss making her debut, but she was a dreadful milliner.

  Genie had no intention of suffering the same fate.

  “Scarlet, this time?” she quipped under her breath. “Or will it be jonquil?”

  Mrs. Pritchard’s smile flattened and pursed as though she’d swallowed a spoonful of vinegar. “You will make them precisely how she prefers.” A new smile emerged, bright and false. “Precisely.”

  Genie held the woman’s gaze for a moment then dropped her eyes to the red ribbon in her hands. “Of course. Gold with white plumes.”

  “Plume, Miss Huxley,” The response was low and vexed. “I shall not repeat it again. Add two as you did last time, and that will be that.”

  That will be that.

  Her stomach filled with cold lead.

  Fancy Nancy had been right. Genie was about to be dismissed. Given the sack from an east Oxford Street milliner. One who catered to miserly, middle-class matrons. One who had hired Fancy Nancy, of all the talentless wretches in London. One who, last week, had insisted the three of them take tea while fourteen orders remained unfinished.

  Because Mrs. Pritchard preferred things pleasant. Nothing was more pleasant than tea in the midst of a hectic workday, apparently, when one departed at six rather than ten. No, working into the wee hours was for assistants—junior assistants, to be precise.

  Genie examined Mrs. Pritchard’s expression, gauging her seriousness. Her coif was so severe, her brows arched in permanent surprise. Or alarm. Or wakefulness. Genie had never quite decided, but it forced the creases from her forehead, which was likely the point.

  Genie’s stomach grew heavier as an unlikely furrow formed between the woman’s brows. “Gold satin. One white plume,” Genie murmured, setting her red rose aside and plucking a white feather from the bottom of the basket. “Straight away, Mrs. Pritchard.”

  Acquiescence was not surrender, she assured herself, but tactical retreat. She needed this position. She needed to learn how to run a shop—or how not to run one, more to the point. She needed to know she could do this work and that her life was not over.

  The curtain swished as Mrs. Pritchard disappeared into the front of the shop, where she would wait for the barest trickle of customers to woo with Fancy Nancy’s plain, dull creations.

  “Told you, didn’t I?”

  Genie answered Miss Knox’s utterance with a taunt she knew would fall on uncomprehending ears—which only made it sweeter. “Ah, yes. A prophecy worthy of Macbeth. Witchcraft suits you, Miss Knox.”

  Two hours later, after the other two women had departed and the light through the tiny window had dimmed to a yellow haze, Genie fastened a single white plume into place on her fourth turban. All she could see when she blinked was gold satin, white feathers, and tiny stitches. Her fingers ached. Her back burned. Her stomach growled.

  And she had run out of gold satin.

  Rising, she groaned, rubbed her lower spine, and examined her work.

  Identical to the last three, it was an elegantly arranged series of silken folds. It begged for a band of pearls, perhaps a plaited cord, and at least two more plumes. But, because Genie wanted Fancy Nancy’s prophecy to be wrong, it was precisely as Mrs. Herbert preferred. She sighed and removed the turban from the hat block before placing it gently on a shelf alongside three others.

  Returning to the table, she sifted through tiny scraps of gold satin. She needed more. She didn’t have it.

  But Mrs. Pritchard’s husband did.

  Drat.

  A hat-maker far more skilled and far less pleasant than his wife, Mr. Pritchard ran the adjacent shop, Pritchard’s Fine Hats. The place served strictly male customers, of course, but men’s hats required lining. And she happened to know Pritchard favored the same gold silk Mrs. Herbert fancied.

  Genie tapped one fingertip against the table and another against her lip. She eyed the door connecting the two workrooms.

  She shouldn’t, of course. Mrs. Pritchard had forbidden her assistants from borrowing Mr. Pritchard’s supplies. But she had also declared, “That will be that.”

  Genie took such a threat as permission to do what was necessary.

  Before she could think better of it, she inched the door open and peeked inside. Then she rolled her eyes and cleared her throat.

  The portly young man currently hunched over a book jerked. Booted feet dropped from the table to the floor with a thud.

  “What have you there, Mr. Moody?” she teased.

  Rounded cheeks reddened and a sheepish smile came her way over Lewis Moody’s shoulder. “Only one of me stories, Miss Huxley.” He set the book beside his hat block. One freckled, pudgy hand stroked the cover before he stood and gave her a bashful nod. “What brings ye visitin’?”

  Mr. Moody was Pritchard’s assistant, and the hatter allowed him to manage the shop in the late afternoons when business slowed.

  She shot him her best grin, which made his color deepen, and pointed toward the bolt of gold silk on the table behind him.

  He swiveled. “Right. Mrs. Herbert again, is it?”

  “Fully five turbans this time.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue.

  “Identical to the last lot?”

  She nodded.

  “Puzzlin’.”

  She chuckled. “Heaven knows what she does with them.”

  “Some do favor things of a single kind.”

  Yes. Some did. Those who lacked vision. “Might you spare a bit of the gold silk? Mrs. Herbert requires her identical headdresses to be delivered promptly.”

  Mr. Moody laughed and nodded. “Certainly. I’m glad to give ye whatever ye require, Miss Huxley. More than glad.”

  The glint in his eyes spoke of a double meaning, but she ignored it, patting his elbow as she squeezed past him. “That is why you are my favorite of all Mr. Pritchard’s assistants,” she teased. The two other assistants were sourer than Fancy Nancy. By comparison, Lewis Moody was positively dashing.

  As she bent over to cut the silk, she thought she heard him squeak, but concluded it was the front door of Pritchard’s shop. Bells chimed. Boots rapped.

  “M-Miss Huxley, I must tell ye,” Mr. Moody began, “how much I admire your … that is, I been meanin’ to … “

  Hearing his tone�
��low and earnest—Genie’s hands slowed. Her heart sank.

  Drat. She hoped he was not about to—

  “Do ye suppose one day soon—not today, o’ course, but one day—that ye might … with me, I mean … perhaps we could—”

  A distinct rap from a boot heel striking plank floors echoed through the curtained doorway.

  Pretending nonchalance, Genie resettled the silk and smoothed it for cutting. “Sounds as though you are needed, Mr. Moody. Mustn’t tarry on my account.”

  A sigh. “Right.” The squeak of boots and the swish of a curtain signaled his departure.

  Genie straightened and bit her lip. Her eyes drifted to Mr. Moody’s abandoned book. Ivanhoe.

  Her second-oldest sister, Jane, was a reader, constantly nattering on about this novel and that. Genie rarely paid much mind, but even she had heard of Sir Walter Scott’s tale of medieval adventure. Given Lewis Moody’s lot in life, she imagined escaping into the past, picturing oneself as the hero of the piece, was a welcome diversion.

  Drat again. She liked Mr. Moody. He reminded her a bit of Jane, actually. Shy. Good-natured. Hoarding every spare farthing to spend at the circulating library.

  He’d likely object to the comparison. Jane was female, after all—a mother of five and wife to the formidable Duke of Blackmore. But apart from that, they might as well be twins. Cousins, at least.

  Genie must dissuade Lewis Moody from developing a tendre for her. She liked him entirely too much.

  With a sigh, she resumed cutting Mrs. Herbert’s silk, hoping to finish before he returned.

  “… did it take on such damage, m’lord? If ye don’t mind me askin’.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Genie froze, the shears half-open in her hand. That voice. Clipped. Patrician. Low and flinty.

  “Suppose not. I shall have it for yer lordship first thing tomorrow morn—”

  “Why can it not be repaired now?”

  Oh, yes. She recognized that voice. It had been years, but she knew it instantly.

  “The damage is … well, there is quite a lot of it, isn’t there? Nothin’ beyond repair, mind. But it might take an hour or more.”

  “I shall wait.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  Silence.

  Genie remembered those, too. Long, curious silences between brief, clipped sentences.

  Lewis Moody cleared his throat. She could almost hear the young man turning red. “As you like, sir. I mean, m’lord.”

  The curtain swished. As she’d surmised, Mr. Moody’s cheeks were crimson and his hands shook. He frantically gestured toward the doorway with a misshapen hat. It appeared to have teeth marks in the brim. “You’ll never believe it,” he whispered, eyes wide. “It’s—”

  The Earl of Holstoke. Yes, she would believe it. He’d almost been her brother-in-law.

  “—an earl, Miss Huxley. Never spoke to one of the quality before. Not more’n a ‘yes, sir’ or ‘pardon me, sir,’ at any rate.”

  In truth, he had spoken to one of the quality on numerous occasions. An earl’s daughter, in fact. But he didn’t know that, and she preferred to keep matters as they were.

  “Well,” he said, tilting the wrecked hat toward his worktable. “Best get to it.”

  She nodded, folding Mrs. Herbert’s gold silk and squeezing past Mr. Moody. On her way to the connecting door, she glanced at the curtained entrance, a curl of curiosity wending up her nape.

  “He elected to wait, I take it,” she said.

  “Hmm? Oh, aye.”

  “Bound to grow impatient.” She tapped a fingertip against the silk. “The quality often do.”

  A pause and a clink as one of Mr. Moody’s tools was exchanged for another. “Suppose so.”

  Curling curiosity wormed deeper. Dug in. Demanded.

  “I shall keep him occupied for a while,” she murmured, drifting toward the curtained doorway. “Give you time for the repairs.”

  “Oh, no. That is, certainly you may do as you like, Miss Huxley, but …”

  She was no longer listening. She’d shouldered past the curtain and entered Mr. Pritchard’s shop where few females ever set foot—even Mrs. Pritchard.

  Holstoke stood with his back to her, one hand clasping the opposite wrist behind him. A waning shaft of light gleamed a streak across black, short-cropped hair. He was tall—an inch or two above six feet. She recalled craning her neck to speak with him, though it had been years.

  “Lord Holstoke. It has been an age.”

  His shoulders stiffened. Were they broader than before? They were, she thought. Heavier, too, as though both muscle and bone had thickened.

  His head tilted and he began to turn. First came the cheekbone, high and prominent. Next the nose, long and straight. Finally, the eyes.

  Ah, the eyes. Like green ice, pale and piercing. She’d nearly forgotten how they made one shiver. Eerie, one of her sisters called them. Others termed them ghostly. Genie simply thought them an unusual shade of green.

  Genie was not one for poetry.

  “Lady Eugenia.” Low and deep, his voice resonated like metal. Unblinking eyes slid along her torso, pausing where she clasped the gold silk before returning to her face. “Six years.”

  She moved past the counter toward the window, where he stood as still and expressionless as she remembered. “Is it six? I had thought five.”

  “Six.”

  “No matter. It is splendid to see you again. My sister mentioned you were in town for the season.”

  “You have four sisters. Perhaps you could be more specific.”

  Her mouth quirked in a sympathetic smile. “Lady Dunston, of course.”

  Silence. And a long, green stare.

  Genie forgave the moment of awkwardness. A natural thing, really. He had courted her third-oldest sister, Maureen, ardently before having his marriage proposal rejected in favor of Maureen’s real and only love, Henry Thorpe, the Earl of Dunston.

  Turning, Genie laid her silk upon the counter and moved nearer the man many found intimidating if not frightening. His features had a spare quality Maureen had once called “ascetic.” Genie wasn’t certain what that meant, but the high cheekbones, bladed nose, and lean jaw enhanced the chill of his strange, expressionless eyes. And yet, he was tall. Trim. Wealthy. An earl. And, unless he had changed a great deal in the past six years, a man of stunning intellect.

  By all rights, Phineas Brand, the Earl of Holstoke, was a splendid catch. If one overlooked his peculiar nature.

  Curiosity—one of her abiding weaknesses—struck again. But she could not simply ask him the question burning in her head, so she began with an easier inquiry. “What happened to your hat?”

  He surveyed the empty shop as though wondering how she’d made her way there from Bedlam. “Lady Randall.”

  “Lady Randall ate your hat?”

  She’d said it to make him laugh. Or smile, at least. But she’d forgotten how rarely he did either.

  “Her dogs.”

  She grinned, chuckled, and rolled her eyes. “Little devils. She never could control her pugs. A shame, really. Yours was a very fine hat. Exquisite beaver.”

  He did not reply.

  “So,” she continued, feigning blitheness. In truth, curiosity was eating at her like one of Lady Randall’s pugs on a slice of ham. Or a very fine hat. “You are in town. After six years rusticating in your Dorsetshire castle.”

  Glancing down at his gray wool sleeve, he retorted dryly, “Observant of you.”

  “Oh, come now.” She stepped closer. “Do not play coy. How goes the search?”

  “My hat was damaged less than an hour ago. I have not yet sought a new one.”

  “You know very well I meant—”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I know.”

  Any other woman would have heeded the warning in his voice. Genie had never been any other woman. “Well? Tell me, then. We were friends once.”

  A hard light glinted inside icy green.

&
nbsp; “After a fashion,” she clarified.

  His expression remained stony.

  “Very well, acquaintances. My family is fond of you, Holstoke. We should like to know whether you have found a suitable bride.”

  “We?”

  She sighed, conceding his point. “I. I should like to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Matters were left … rather a mess.”

  His jaw hardened and tilted. “Quite the contrary. Lady Maureen became Lady Dunston. Matters were made extraordinarily clear.”

  Yes, she supposed that was true. And he had been hurt. Genie had hated it, for Holstoke was a fine man who had pursued her sister honorably. He’d even shown generosity to Maureen’s two fractious younger sisters, bringing Genie and Kate along on several excursions, including a lovely day at Astley’s Amphitheatre.

  “Regardless,” she said. “I should like to see you make a good match.” She raised a brow and eyed him teasingly from beneath her lashes. “A lady capable of coaxing a smile from those lips now and then.”

  Something strange flashed in Holstoke’s eyes—stranger than normal, that was. A kind of fire. Perhaps he was angry.

  Quicker than a blink, his gaze dropped to her mouth then came up again, cold as ever. “Six years is a long time. Whatever our prior connection, Lady Eugenia, my present circumstances needn’t concern—”

  She abandoned pretense. “Yes, but I am dying of curiosity. You must tell me.”

  His silence was long and probing. She wondered if he was remembering the time she had astutely advised him to wear an emerald pin with his silver cravat, or the time she’d wheedled a surprised chuckle out of him as they’d departed Astley’s. To her recollection, she had been quite helpful. Perhaps he would take pity upon her and satisfy her craving.

  After long seconds, he did. “I’ve yet to locate a suitable wife.”

  Just as she’d suspected. He’d run aground in the marriage mart. In this, at least, she might be useful. The marriage mart had proven rough waters for her, as well.

  “You are not unattractive,” she began, assessing level black brows and flat lips.