Love and Scandal, page 1
Nothing sells like love scandal…
Collette Jardiniere writes of passion and seduction but has experienced neither. Her pseudonymous novel, The Last Days of a Rake, has shocked Victorian society and become a runaway bestseller. Infamous roué Charles Jameson is “revealed” as the author, and Collette is outraged when the cad does little to curtail the gossip.
Intrigued by the book the tabloids claim is his thinly veiled autobiography, Jameson tries to find the real author. Returning to London after an unsuccessful hunt, he is pleasantly distracted by a plain country miss reading the wicked book.
Collette is dismayed when she learns the identity of the devastatingly handsome man who kissed her senseless. And Jameson cannot believe that she wrote The Last Days of a Rake. As Collette tries to convince him of the truth, their mutual attraction reaches a fever pitch, and soon they find themselves in a real-life scandal!
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At Carina Press, we’re committed to bringing readers great voices and great stories, and we hope you’ll find these books as compelling as we do. In this first month, you’ll find a broad range of genres that showcase our promise to Carina Press fans to publish a diversity of content. In the coming months, we’ll add additional genres and continue to bring you a wide range of stories we believe will keep you coming back for more.
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Love and Scandal
Donna Lea Simpson
To my readers: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for ten years of wonderful letters, lovely compliments and unending support. I raise a glass and toast to the next ten years!
With love and appreciation,
Donna Lea Simpson
Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
About the Author
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
Henry Fielding – from Love in Several Masques – IV.xi
One
Collette Jardiniere, swaying from side to side with the rhythm of the train, pushed up her wire-framed spectacles, struck a match and tried to touch it to the wick of her candle. Professor Stiltson’s invention, a candle holder with a spring-loaded clip, should have made it easy, but to clip it to the arm of the train seat would put it too low to read her book by, and so she was holding the awkward little metal holder and trying again to strike a match. Infernal inventions, both of them! To be successful seemed to require the many arms of Kali, a Hindu goddess she had read of in a fascinating book on the Indian colonies. Kali embodied destruction and rebirth, and thus the power of the feminine capacity for giving life. Collette contrarily felt the urge for destruction in that moment as she struggled with the idiotic candle.
“May I be of assistance?”
The deep voice at her elbow startled her and her match went out. “Oh, carruthers and botheration!” she cried, nursing the burnt tip of her finger.
“I beg your pardon, miss?”
Collette lit another match and glanced up, intending to send the impertinent fellow on his way and then make another attempt to light the wick. But her gaze caught and held. She found she could not look away. At her shoulder stood a gentleman of impeccable dress and dashing looks. In her mind she was scribbling madly—
He had the powerful good looks of any man about town, but there was something more elemental in the deep charcoal gray of his eyes and the intensity of his gaze. He was a man one could not overlook, a man of such masculine vigor and subtle—
“Miss?”
She snapped back to attention as the match burned down and touched her fingers with blistering heat yet again. “Carruthers and botheration!” she exclaimed, tossing the match down hastily and touching her burnt finger to her tongue to soothe it.
“Allow me.”
The handsome stranger reached for her other hand and Collette experienced a tingle of anticipation as he touched her. She went perfectly still in the dim light. Well, how fascinating! It was true after all, what all the other women writers wrote! There were some men who exuded a powerful aura of magnetism, and this was one of them. He took the candle from her, lit a match and touched it to the wick. Light flared between them. He extinguished the match. Every movement was elegant and controlled, exquisitely composed, perfectly planned.
As she gazed at him in the flickering candlelight, Collette could see she had not been mistaken. Not only was he good-looking, there was something in the set of his broad shoulders and incredible eyes that made a woman want to reach out and touch his face, caress his hand, perhaps even… Yes, well, some things were better left unthought. Her heart thumped an erratic beat. What an opportunity! Never had she been this close to a man of such charisma and commanding force. She had only ever imagined him and she was beginning to feel that the creation of her imagination might be just a pallid shadow of the real thing.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, with all the composure she could muster. “Such a long trip becomes boring and one needs a distraction.” She spoke quietly, as the others seated nearby in the train carriage were asleep or at least resting.
There was no one in the seats directly across from her, but behind her was a worn-looking matron with two little boys in short pants who, after plaguing their black-veiled mother for the last several hours, were finally dozing. The poor woman, now deeply asleep at long last, must be a widow, Collette had thought earlier, judging from her black bombazine gown and jet jewelry, and left with two little boys both under the age of six! In front of her was an elderly couple, the woman, who was not well, Collette thought, resting her head on the man’s shoulder, both their eyes closed, snuffling softly in their rest. At the last stop the husband had gallantly rushed from the train and purchased fruit for his wife.
There were not many more people around her, really, as most people crowded onto the “parliamentaries”, one train on each route in each direction that was required by Parliament to charge no more than a penny a mile. This trip was such a monumental undertaking to Collette that she had gladly paid for a first class ticket.
The stranger smiled and indicated the empty seat beside her with a sweep of a strong hand and an uplifted eyebrow. He was being terribly forward. She should tell him to leave her alone or she would tell the attendant he was bothering her.
“Please, have a seat,” she said. A little trill of excitement made her heart beat faster.
He sat down and said, “I could not agree more, you know, that such a long trip becomes monotonous. I was just thinking that, in fact, when I saw you trying to bring light to the darkness. Yes, certainly one needs a…distraction. You are a delightful one.”
His slow teasing smile riveted her attention on well-shaped lips beneath a neat mustache. Unlike most men he did not sport bushy sidewhiskers; it was as if he disdained the artifice seemed designed to hide a weak jawline or receding chin. And since he had no need of them for that reason, being blessed with a strong jaw and a chin with a devilish cleft—
A blush of mortification rose to her cheeks when she realized the import of his words. “Oh, no, sir, I didn’t mean that kind of—that is, I meant to read! That is my distraction.”
“What exactly did you think I was implying?”
Collette, confused by his tantalizingly wicked smile, ignored his question and merely lifted her book from her lap.
He glanced at the title. His fine gray eyes widened and his eyebrows went up. “My, my, aren’t you a naughty young lady! The Last Days of a Rake, hmm? I had not thought a young unmarried lady would be interested in a novel some in London society have condemned as wicked and lewd.”
“Wicked? Lewd?” Collette felt her ire rise and she bridled. “If that is what they say then it has been defamed. And I’m not naughty. Good heavens, you make me sound like a child. I merely think for myself, sir! It is time women
She trailed off when she saw the patent amusement on his face. Vexed that this man, with whom she had felt some instant kinship, was just like other men, she determined not to amuse him with her “prattle”. Men! The minute a woman began to talk, they assumed that indulgent air, that patronizing, condescending—
“Why did you stop, miss?” he said, raising one thick eyebrow. “I would be fascinated to hear your thoughts on the women’s suffrage movement.”
She glanced over at him in the flickering candlelight with suspicion. “I do not believe I caught your name, sir.”
He hesitated, glanced at her eyes, then down at the book in her lap. “I am called Jamie by friends. I think that is informal enough for the manner of our meeting. Formal introductions are for the salon or ballroom. Do you not agree, Miss…?”
Collette’s thoughts raced in time to the clack-clack-clack of the rail car. This was the genuine article; for once she had met a real rake, she was sure of it. Everything from his impeccable tailoring to his audacious manners shouted it to her. What did he think? How did he act? What would he talk about? Did he have a mistress in keeping? Or two, or even three? Did he drink until dawn, moving from one den of iniquity to another, or was his life more prosaic? She would never have another opportunity to find out, perhaps, what inspired a rake, and so she would take this chance, this gift of opportunity. As a woman traveling alone she should certainly have discouraged his attentions.
But she wouldn’t. “I think Collette is informal enough for this manner of meeting, do you not agree?” She smiled up at him.
What on earth had driven him to use his childhood nickname instead of his real name, he wondered. Perhaps it was the book on her lap and the recent article in Wilson’s Gazette. He did not want to talk about his authorship of The Last Days of a Rake, and certainly not with this intriguing, spinsterish country-woman, who gazed at him so seriously from behind spectacles that glinted in the candlelight, occasionally obscuring her eyes from his vision.
Who was she that she read scandalous novels openly on the train to London? Even those few women he knew who did read serious books read them in secret. Who was she going to meet? She surely did not live in London. The English countryside was bred into her bones and she carried with her the scent of hedgerow and meadow, primrose and night-scented stocks. He had not even noticed her at first, having spent hours reading while it was light. But when darkness fell, he looked up and saw her trying to light her candle against the swaying motion of the train, and had thought she looked…interesting. And now, having spoken to her, he thought she was delightfully absurd, but winsome in an unexpected way. The remaining miles to the city could be entertaining.
“And so you are going to London,” he said, gazing down at her with more curiosity than he could reasonably explain.
“I am. I need to straighten out a little error on the part of gentlemen with whom I do business.”
“Business?” What business could this young woman have? He looked her over with a critical gaze. She was thin, one might even say frail, without the deep bosom and luscious curves that adorned his usual flirts. And yet her slenderness had an interesting quality, as though constant thought and unstoppable activity had worn her to a wraith. She was quick of movement, and perhaps even of mind, too. That was one attribute his lady friends did not possess. An intelligent mind in a woman’s body was a waste, in his thinking. One did not want one’s mistress to be constantly talking. There were far better things for a man and woman to do than talk politics or literature.
“Yes, business. You speak, sir, as if you had never heard the word.”
He chuckled, amused by her forthright manner. She spoke as if possessed of an original mind, though if pressed he would say that not only was intelligence not to be desired in a woman, he had rarely found it there. In his considerable experience, though some women exhibited an apparent quickness of thought—this young lady belonged to that group—most were merely parroting the opinions of the men in their lives with no more originality than a mynah bird saying “hello.”
Yet for a half hour on a dark train, perhaps this little country bird would do for an unusual flirtation, as refreshing to the jaded palate as a long draught of water from a well in the woods. He looked her over with more interest, intrigued by the thought of what her plain dress might conceal. The delicacy of her slenderness might be a piquant contrast to the overblown beauty of his usual London roses. Her body was confined by a corset, certainly, but her waist would have been tiny even without it. She was willowy, of average height, mousy at first glance, with steel-framed spectacles that glinted in the candlelight.
Ah, but behind those spectacles were eyes of a deliciously cool pale green, like moss, and her hair glinted in the wavering candlelight, a rich wavy auburn with gold lights that danced. She wore a drab brown dress of outdated style, and at her neatly booted feet was a black valise, enormous and bulging. Jamie doubted he had ever spent so much time examining a woman of her type in his life. Staring so long was impolite, though she had made no demur, nor had she so much as colored, as she should have under such frank scrutiny. She was examining him just as he was taking in her figure, and her gaze was bolder than most of the covert examinations women conducted. Did she like what she saw? He smiled down at her and crossed one leg over the other. “Business,” he said, again. “What business, may I ask?”
“You may ask, but I need not answer.” Her tart reply was not hesitant and seemed practiced, almost.
He was amused. This was much better than sitting in idleness in the dark rail car that rocked from side to side in dreary rhythm. “True. Let us talk of other things, then, such as…of what would a young lady like yourself enjoy speaking? Perhaps the women’s suffrage movement?”
She gave him a surprised look, her green eyes wide in the flickering light of her candle. “What discussion would we have on that subject, sir?”
Yes, he had thought that topic would engage her interest. “First, do you agree with the tenets of the movement?”
Her swift glance was as incisive as a surgeon’s scalpel. “I do. It seems to me mere logic that women should have the same rights as men when our minds are just as strong and our reason somewhat better.”
“Better? Your reason is better?” Oh, this was delicious. There was nothing more stimulating than finding a woman who thought herself the equal of a man. “Do you mean to imply that men are illogical?”
“I do not imply it, sir, I state it outright. Only men could entertain the notion that fighting would solve anything, as in the current conflict in the Crimea. You can force people to give you land or acquiesce to your demands, but it doesn’t solve anything at all. It only creates a whole new set of difficulties, which following male generations will attempt to solve with more violence. Men create war, and women must solve the problems left by it.”
“That is surely an over-simplification of the worst kind!” he exclaimed, stung by her absurd air of contempt. It was one thing for women to spout such nonsense, but when they truly believed it—
“Perhaps, sir, but I have learned through experience that gentlemen sometimes need things stated simply for them to grasp a concept.”
He gasped in outrage and was ready to demolish her absurd statement with a well-reasoned argument but then caught a wicked little grin on her narrow, bespectacled face. Was she having him on, or was she serious? She had said almost the exact thing that men often claimed about women.
“I shall disregard that blatant attempt to bait me,” he said, intrigued now as he had not been before, “and merely ask how you can say what I think you are saying, that it is left to women to clean up the problems created by men?”
“That is an adequate interpretation of my statement,” she said with an air of contemplation, “given your probable inexperience at listening with attention to a woman’s views.”
