Love and the Shameless Lady (Scandalous Kisses Book 3) Read online

  She recognized no one and headed quickly toward the bank. Quite possibly, Colin had set someone to keep an eye on her whilst he was in Ireland, or arranged for Mr. Bennett to have someone do so. Annoying, in fact, infuriating, but they both meant well.

  She went into the bank and met briefly with the manager, a dear old man who might easily have told Colin about the publisher’s payments deposited to her account. Hopefully, the cookery book project explained that, because kind as Colin was, he wouldn’t approve of her scandalous novels.

  On her way out, the same sensation of being watched assailed her. She turned, but there was only the doorman, hurrying to open it for her.

  She went out into the sunshine, still uneasy. This wasn’t like her at all. She’d never been the nervous sort. She was used to going about unescorted, even in the town.

  Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she should stop by the bakery. Sally and Ned at the inn always appreciated a treat from Liverpool.

  No, today she would go directly home. She hastened to the livery stable to retrieve Snappish. A groom sauntered away to saddle him up. As she waited, she had plenty of opportunity to gaze about and reassure herself. This uneasiness was sheer folly. She shook it off and, for something to do, opened the other letter.

  Under pain of DEATH, do not publish The Lady’s Revenge.

  Chapter 2

  From behind the stable door, Sir Julian Kerr watched.

  Daisy Warren read the letter she’d just opened and gave a little gasp. The paper fluttered to the ground. She went utterly white, and swayed.

  Julian leapt into the yard and put out his hands to catch her, but she didn’t fall.

  “Are you unwell, Miss Warren?” He bent to retrieve the letter.

  She squeaked and snatched it from him. “I’m—I’m perfectly fine, thank you.” She wasn’t. Her voice trembled, and so did her hand as she clutched the letter to her breast.

  “I beg your pardon, but you seem unwell.” He wished he’d had a chance to glance at the contents of the letter. It was none of his business, but he couldn’t ignore her chalk-white face and wide, frightened eyes. “Perhaps you should sit. Give yourself time to recover from the shock.”

  She gaped at him, eyes even wider. “Wh-What shock?”

  “The bad news, I assume. In that letter.”

  She hugged it closer to her breast. “I received no bad news.”

  Not a convincing lie. “I’m relieved to hear that. Nevertheless, you seem unwell. Allow me to help you to that bench by the stable wall.”

  “Thank you, but no.” Her voice still quivered. “I’m perfectly all right.” She took another deep breath, struggling to calm herself.

  “I’ll escort you home, as I’m headed that way.”

  She glared, more herself now. It was almost a relief to see that familiar scowl. “Thank you, but that’s not necessary.”

  “I would consider it a privilege, Miss Warren.”

  “I’m not going home just yet. I must go to the bakery.”

  This wasn’t true. She’d just called for her horse, and the only nearby bakery was quite a way down the street, past the bank from which she’d emerged and not on the way home. She would have gone there first, before coming to the stable, if she’d really intended it.

  She stuffed the letter into her reticule. Her hands no longer shook, much. “Good day, Sir Julian.” She set off toward the bakery.

  “I’ll accompany you,” Julian insisted, matching her firm stride step for step.

  She hesitated, then suddenly gave in. “Oh, very well. If you must.”

  Thank God for that. He’d been watching her for some time now. Foolish of him, but he quite simply enjoyed looking at her. He’d first noticed her from across the street as she walked from a milliner’s shop to the receiving office. He wasn’t entirely comfortable about a gentlewoman walking alone, but she’d seemed confident enough, going directly from receiving office to bank to stable, although once or twice she hesitated and glanced about her, making him wonder if she’d noticed him.

  Evidently not. She would certainly have accused him outright.

  He offered her his arm. She eyed it for a long moment and then, wonder of wonders, she laid her hand delicately upon it.

  A hint of nostalgia wafted over Daisy. She hadn’t strolled with a gentleman for . . . how long? About six years.

  Since she was such a pariah, Sir Julian must have an ulterior motive.

  Which would get him absolutely nowhere, but he was strong and male and relatively safe. She would far rather be accosted by a lecherous man than dead.

  Oh, Lord! She’d received a death threat. So absurd as to be unbelievable, and yet there it was in ink on paper. So incredible that she wanted to read it again, over and over, trying to make it mean something else. Why would anyone threaten her? It made no sense at all.

  She hoped Sir Julian hadn’t seen those words as he picked the letter up. She thought not. He’d merely assumed it was bad news. A shock.

  Indeed.

  He was saying something. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to listen. Who would want to kill her because of a silly book?

  “This is a delightful opportunity to get to know you better, Miss Warren,” Sir Julian said.

  What a lie that was! No decent man wanted to get to know her, unless in the biblical way. That must be his motive, although she found that surprising. After that first night, he’d scarcely seemed to notice her.

  Regardless, Sir Julian wasn’t a stupid man. Surely he must know she wouldn’t be taken in by such nonsense.

  “Do you often ride to Liverpool?” he asked.

  “Now and then.” She hurried forward, practically dragging him, and they reached the bakery. She wanted to get home, to read that letter again, to think and think.

  She chose little cakes and pastries at random. She’d lost her appetite completely. Sir Julian paid before she could open her reticule, took the box wrapped in twine, and steered her willy-nilly outdoors again.

  “Why did you pay for it?” she demanded. “That was my purchase.”

  He shrugged. “I’m accustomed to paying. It never occurred to me not to.”

  “Humph.” What utter nonsense. You won’t get anything in return.

  “It was my pleasure,” he said.

  Julian could see she didn’t believe him. She must think he wanted to go to bed with her.

  Which he did, but he didn’t intend to do anything about it. She probably anticipated a carte blanche. She had no doubt hardened herself to such approaches. How many years had she been a social pariah? Since the age of eighteen, Bennett had said. Julian judged her to be in her mid-twenties now.

  He’d had to control the urge to speak to her during the last two days of his visit to Mr. Bennett. The old smuggler had explained to him that Daisy didn’t want her story recounted to every stranger that entered the inn. As far as most visitors were concerned, she was just Daisy, a barmaid.

  Therefore, Julian was obliged to treat her as such, when they were at the inn. Here in Liverpool, he could do as he pleased. Soon enough, they would be back at the Diving Duck, and he would have to concentrate on assessing the two Frenchmen, who had been seen in the area again.

  At the livery stable, he deposited the bakery box in the basket that was strapped to her white stallion, which did its best to bite him.

  “Snappish is unfriendly,” Daisy said, adding after a pause, “like me.” She mounted gracefully from the block.

  He mounted his mare, who showed as little interest in Snappish as Miss Warren did in Julian, and they set off. “I don’t think you’re unfriendly, Miss Warren. You’re simply in the habit of rejecting people before they have a chance to reject you.”

  She gave him an astonished glare. “How dare you mak
e such a comment? That is none of your business!”

  “No, but you opened the subject. I am merely pursuing it.”

  She tossed her head and urged her brute of a stallion ahead, but this wasn’t the Diving Duck. She couldn’t escape into the kitchen to avoid him. Once they were on the outskirts of the town, he moved alongside her.

  “I don’t care about your past,” he said. “I won’t reject you.”

  She made a rude noise. “Until you’re forced to choose between shunning me or being shunned by someone more important.”

  “Is that what you’ve experienced? If so, I’m sorry, but I’m not such a hypocrite.”

  She shrugged. “How commendable, but it makes no difference to me.”

  What a lie, thought Daisy bitterly. Of course it made a difference, and under ordinary circumstances she might even allow herself to converse with him, but all she could think about was that letter.

  Perhaps it was a cruel jest. She’d experienced a number of those. They were part and parcel of being ruined.

  They rode along in silence for several miles, while she mulled over this conclusion and decided it made perfect sense, in which case she should burn the letter and forget about it.

  She should exert herself to converse. Even if Sir Julian had an ulterior motive, it was pleasant to speak with a rational man other than her brother or Mr. Bennett, and such an opportunity might not recur.

  “I’m surprised to see you in the area again. I thought you were off to see Roman ruins.” She couldn’t help a reminiscent sigh. “My father took me to see some as a small child. I still have his copy of Camden’s Britannia.”

  “Do you indeed? I carry mine with me wherever I go.”

  He had a truly charming smile. The warmth in his eyes unnerved her. She looked away.

  “Your father was a scholarly sort of man?” he asked.

  “I suppose he may have been. He used visits to ancient sites as an excuse to go whoring, or so my mother told me.”

  Sir Julian didn’t bat an eye. Well, he’d heard her singing vulgar songs, so why would he?

  “By that time he was dead, so I don’t know for sure. But she hated him, so it may have been a lie or hysteria on her part. She became quite unbalanced after my sister drowned.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It was long ago. An unfortunate accident, but she blamed my brother and never spoke to him again. I, on the other hand—” Why, she wondered, was she blurting her family’s sordid history to this man she scarcely knew?

  “You, on the other hand?” he prompted.

  She’d come perilously close to confiding in him. Instead, she should use this conversation as an opportunity to drive him away.

  “I sometimes wonder if I seduced Reggie, the smuggler, not because I fancied myself in love with him, but to get my mother to stop talking to me, too.” To stop lamenting how tedious life was in Lancashire, how she dared not bring Daisy to London for fear of Colin’s influence, how much happier she would have been if the dead, sainted Emma were alive and the living, boring Daisy had been the one to drown.

  She thrust those thoughts away. She knew better than to care.

  “One’s relations can certainly be trying,” he said calmly. “I wasn’t much acquainted with my own parents.” Without the slightest sign of unease, he returned to their earlier subject. “I walked much of Hadrian’s Wall not long ago and spent a few days in York, but the weather has been so fair that this past week I went to the seaside instead.”

  “How-How delightful that must be.” She couldn’t contain a tiny sigh. “Did you go bathing?”

  “Indeed I did. Do you enjoy sea-bathing?”

  “I’ve never been and most likely never shall.”

  “Why ever not? There are plenty of bathing machines for the ladies.”

  “Yes, with dunkers to put one in the water! Not for me, thank you. I know how to swim, but public bathing would not do at all.”

  “Where do you swim, then?”

  “I haven’t for years, but as a child I spent part of every summer at Garrison House, where there’s a lake.”

  “Ah yes, Lord Garrison is your cousin. I knew his wife before her marriage, but I’m barely acquainted with him.”

  “Are you one of those who shunned him?”

  A crease appeared between his brows. She shouldn’t have said that. He'd been remarkably polite about her own peccadilloes, and now she’d as good as insulted him.

  That’s what she did nowadays, threw insults right and left to see who cared and who didn’t.

  “I’ve never shunned anyone that I recall. I met him at Tattersall’s once or twice, that’s all. He was rather stiff at first, but agreeable enough once we got to discussing horseflesh.”

  “Because at first he expected to be given the cut direct.”

  “I don’t listen to slander, Miss Warren, nor do I pass judgement based on it.”

  “How frightfully upright of you,” she snapped. “But in my case, it’s not slander. It’s the truth.” They reached the crossroads at last. “Here we must part ways, as I keep Snappish in my brother’s stable.”

  That frown again. “And then you’ll return to the Diving Duck?”

  Ulterior motives again? “Yes, in the gig. I don’t need an escort. Good-bye.”

  She thought he would insist, as he’d done in Liverpool, but he merely bowed.

  “Au revoir, then.” He turned his mare and cantered away.

  She watched him for a moment, feeling like a fool both for sending him away and for wishing she hadn’t. But she didn’t want to be seen with him at the Hollow, for the servants already gossiped too much. Besides that, he seemed perfectly content to leave her. Perhaps he’d satisfied his curiosity. This shouldn’t pique her interest.

  Snappish sidled and danced, eager for his stable, so she gave him his head, thankful that in this instance her horse had more sense than she.

  At the Hollow, she passed him to the stable boy and ordered the gig. She went indoors to use the necessary. While there, she took out the threatening letter and read it again. Nothing had changed. She folded it and put it away again.

  On her way out, a footman appeared. “A letter came for you in the post, Miss Daisy.”

  She thanked him with a sudden thudding of her heart. Another threat? But no, the letter came from her only correspondent in the Polite World. She broke open the seal on the way to the stable yard. She’d known Andrea Beaumont at school years ago, and Andrea had continued their correspondence in spite of Daisy’s disgrace.

  Dearest Daisy, it began. The most exciting thing! I’m sure you’ve read The Lady’s Ruin. It must have reached the provinces by now.

  This was typical of Andrea. She’d grown up in Northumberland, but since her marriage she spent most of the time in London, and anywhere north of St Alban’s was the middle of nowhere.

  It’s a tremendously exciting novel.

  Daisy couldn’t help a happy little leap of the heart at that.

  But even more exciting, it has caused a scandal. Lady Bilchester—oh, of course, you haven’t even heard of her, I assume, living as you do at the back of beyond. She’s the wife of a respectable baron, and I thought of her as another boring matron until I heard the gossip. The Lady’s Ruin is actually about Lady B’s scandalous past!!!

  What complete nonsense.

  “The gig is ready, Miss Daisy.”

  She glanced up, realizing the stable boy had been standing there for a while. He’d loaded the gig with her box of pastries from Liverpool, as well as two baskets of vegetables—the last of the spring spinach, some lettuces, radishes, and marrows from the kitchen garden, and the first unforced tomatoes. “In a moment, Harry.” She returned to the letter.

  Years ago, before her ma
rriage to Lord B, she was abducted by a smuggler, which is exactly what happens to Narcissa, the wanton heroine of The Lady’s Ruin! It was all hushed up, of course, and it was more than twenty years ago, so everyone had forgotten, but the book brought it all to light again.

  This was exactly what Daisy had striven to avoid, writing a story which could be construed as true! It was why she read all the scandal sheets and kept up her correspondence with Andrea. She had sworn never to harm another woman’s reputation. How could she possibly have known about a scandal from when she was little more than a baby?

  Old Lord B died ages ago, and everyone knows Lady B has had several lovers since then, so clearly she’s the wanton sort!! I believe she was ravished by the smuggler, just as in the novel, and that she enjoyed it, too. That she married a good man at the end of the story, Lord B in real life, only serves as more proof.

  Drat. But it was too late to change the book. Lady Bilchester would just have to live it down.

  None of this would matter if it were not for her daughter Diana, my dearest, dearest friend in the world (apart from you, Daisy darling, as my continued correspondence with you proves). Everyone is on tenterhooks about the author’s next book, The Lady’s Revenge, which will be published any day now. If the heroine of The Lady’s Revenge (whose name is Dianthus, which is very similar to Diana!!) proves to be as wanton as her mother in The Lady’s Ruin, no decent man will touch my dearest friend.

  Daisy had never heard anything more ridiculous. She, for one, wouldn’t want to marry a man who was so stupid as to be swayed by gossip about a novel.

  It was all a horrid coincidence. Daisy had chosen uncommon names for her characters on purpose. Dianthus was simply the name of a flower. Still, poor Miss Bilchester! Daisy’s heart twisted at the thought of the mortification she must be suffering.