Regency Scandal: Some Like It Wicked / Some Like to Shock

‘Sit, Pandora.’ Rupert had lifted and righted the overturned bedroom chair and now indicated she should sit down upon it—before, in his opinion, she fell down.

Her eyes were deep pools of pained violet in the now deathly pallor of her face as she sank down gratefully on to the brocade-covered chair, the fingers shaking on the hand she now raised to cover her trembling lips.

Rupert moved down on to his haunches in front of her to take her other hand into both of his. ‘Who did this, Pandora?’ he prompted gruffly.

She blinked, the sweep of her long silky lashes brushing against the tears that had welled up in her eyes and causing them to fall down her cheeks as she looked at him blankly.

‘Pandora?’ Rupert’s hands tightened about hers. ‘Tell me who is responsible and I will see that they are punished accordingly,’ he assured grimly.

‘I— Why should you imagine I might have any idea who was responsible?’ She shook her head even as she pulled her hand free of his to stand up and move across the room to begin picking up the things scattered or broken on top of her dressing table.

Rupert frowned as he slowly straightened. ‘Possibly because it has happened before?’

Pandora spun about sharply, her eyes wide. ‘Why do you say that?’

Rupert had not known that for certain. Until now. Pandora’s reaction to his question had just confirmed his earlier suspicions. ‘I’ve told you, you were not surprised or distressed enough earlier. And Bentley looked to you when I questioned why he had not called in the authorities. Is it—could it be that someone has done this out of a malicious need to hurt you?’

Some of the tension eased from her shoulders. ‘A jealous wife, perhaps?’ she challenged scornfully.

Rupert drew in a sharp and steadying breath. ‘It is not so out of the question, is it? Stanley had a wife, I believe?’

Pandora closed her eyes. Oh, yes, Sir Thomas Stanley, the man who had died whilst engaged in that same duel which had killed Barnaby, had most certainly had a wife. And two young children. Which was the very reason that Pandora had not, and never would, publicly reveal the complete truth about the events of a year ago.

She raised her lids, her gaze steady. ‘Yes, he did,’ she acknowledged wearily.

The Duke nodded tersely. ‘That being the case, it’s not such a leap to suspect she may be the one responsible for—’

‘She is not,’ Pandora cut in firmly. ‘Clara Stanley moved to live in Cornwall with her two children not long after—after attending her husband’s funeral.’

‘Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t paid someone—’

‘For heaven’s sake! She has not and did not, Rupert.’ Pandora was losing all patience with this conversation.

Rupert looked at her closely, noting the strain in those violet-coloured eyes, the slight trembling to Pandora’s bottom lip, the shaking of her hands as she bent to pick something up from the floor and set it back upon her dressing table.

She raised that same weary hand to her brow. ‘It’s very late, Rupert, and surely you must realise how improper it is for you to linger in this way in my bedchamber.’

‘You are quite right—in that it is far too late for either of us to be concerned about our reputations. And with that in mind, I believe it best if you don’t remain in this house alone tonight.’

‘But I’m not alone—’

‘I beg to differ,’ Rupert cut in crisply.

‘There are the servants—’

‘An elderly man, two flighty young maids, a plump cook and her slightly addled-looking and very young assistant, and an hysterical lady’s maid—’

‘Bentley is not so elderly,’ she defended in offended tones. ‘Those two young maids are his granddaughters for whom he has been responsible since the death of their parents three years ago. Mrs Chivers is cheerfully rotund, and that very young assistant is her daughter, Maisie, who, although slightly … slow, is certainly not addled. As for Henley—I would far rather have her overabundance of emotion, than be forced to suffer the company of my previous maid.’ Pandora’s chin was raised stubbornly as she met his gaze in challenge.

‘And why were you forced to suffer her company?’ Rupert eyed her frowningly.

Her cheeks became slightly flushed. ‘My husband previously engaged all the household staff.’

And left to her own devices this past year, Rupert realised that Pandora had chosen to employ an elderly butler because he was responsible for his two young granddaughters, a cook and her no doubt illegitimate—and ‘slightly slow’—daughter, and a lady’s maid who went into hysterics at the slightest provocation.

All of them servants who had no doubt previously found it difficult to attain employment. And yet Pandora had engaged all of them. Yet another contradiction to that reputation she had as being flighty and self-centred, as well as unfaithful …

Rupert sighed heavily. ‘Pandora, can’t you see that whoever came into this house earlier this evening may decide to come back again?’

‘They never have in the past—’ Pandora broke off, an expression of consternation on her face as she looked across at him accusingly. ‘You said that deliberately in order to trick me!’

Yes, he had, and he would do it again, if it succeeded in leading him to the truth. Or, as much of the truth as Pandora was willing to share with him at this moment … ‘I was right then, this has happened before?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many times?’

‘Three in the last year—and, no, that does not mean that Clara Stanley must be the one responsible.’ She glared her annoyance. ‘Will you not leave that poor woman alone? Has she not suffered enough?’

Again, strange sentiments from the woman who was supposedly responsible for causing most, if not all, of Clara Stanley’s suffering …

There was so much here which did not add up. So many questions that Rupert instinctively knew Pandora would not answer as yet. Truthfully, at least. Not that he had any reason to believe she had ever answered him untruthfully, she just had a way of avoiding the truth when it suited her to do so.

Rupert had heard the gentlemen in his clubs discussing the beauty of Pandora Maybury during the past four years, of her infidelity during her marriage, and it had been impossible not to learn of the gossip of the scandal surrounding the death of both her husband and the man accused of being her lover. But there had been little gossip of note about her since that scandal. No mention of her having taken a new lover. Or lovers. No gentlemen at his clubs having boasted of bedding the beautiful but deadly Duchess.

Of course it could just be that she was too scandalous, too notorious, for any of those gentlemen to wish to become involved with her, even privately, but somehow Rupert didn’t think so; Sugdon, for one, had certainly not seemed to suffer from any such reluctance to bed her!

Rupert’s mouth tightened, nostrils flaring, just at the memory of the scene he had interrupted the previous evening, of Pandora’s gown ripped, her breasts all but visible through the thin material of her chemise. ‘Is there anything missing that you can tell?’

She gave a shake of her head. ‘Obviously I won’t be able to say exactly until after things have been put back to rights, but I don’t think so, no.’

Rupert’s eyes narrowed. ‘Was anything taken those other three times?’

‘Not that I’m aware, no.’

‘Not that you are aware? How can you not know for sure?’

Pandora sighed at his obvious incredulity. ‘My marriage contract stated that if Barnaby should die before me and our marriage was childless, I should be left a house of my own in which to live and funds to support myself. This house was never a part of the Wyndwood estate; in fact, I had no knowledge of its existence until Barnaby bequeathed it to me in his will. It came to me already furnished and I’ve changed very little since I moved here a year ago. But I believe all the furnishings are the same, and that the original paintings still hang upon the walls.’

In Rupert’s experience there was usually only one reason for a gentleman to own a property in London of which his wife had no knowledge. Was it possible that, before his untimely death, Barnaby Maybury had kept a mistress here, in the very same house he had bequeathed to his wife in his will? If that was indeed the case, then Rupert could imagine no greater insult to that wife. However, the clearness of Pandora’s gaze and expression would seem to imply she remained totally in ignorance of the insult …

Yet another indication—if Rupert had needed one—that she wasn’t at all the sophisticated and experienced woman the gossips expected her to be. Indeed, her soft-heartedness, even with regard to the employment of her household servants, gave every impression she was anything but those two things!

Could it be that Maybury’s mistress had since returned to this house three—no, four times, in order to try to retrieve something of hers she had inadvertently left behind when she no doubt hastily removed her things from the premises? It was certainly one explanation, and one that Rupert intended to privately pursue.

If Pandora was in ignorance as to her husband’s use for this house, then it was perhaps best, for the moment, if she remained that way.

Only the vulnerability of her nape and the back of her shoulders was now visible to him as she once again busied herself tidying the things upon her dressing table. A vulnerability which stirred Rupert’s protective feelings in spite of himself.