Chapter 25 #2
She smiled at him, and without warning, he dragged her against him and kissed her long and deep. When he released her, she stared up at him dazed. “What was that for?”
“For luck.”
“Luck?” she said loftily. “I don’t need luck. I’ll have you know I’m the Viscountess St. Clair, soon to be the most notorious female writer of gossip in London. If I can’t turn rumor to my advantage, who can?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to question your capabilities.” He offered her his arm. “Shall we go in and face the snakes, my lady?”
She tilted her chin up proudly as she hooked her hand in his elbow. “By all means, my lord.”
Jordan awaited them at the top of the stairs. The three of them entered Lord Stratton’s town house together and were shown to the ballroom by a footman. When she and Ian were announced, there was a general stir in the room.
She swallowed. This wasn’t like the time she’d fled through a ballroom after Ian’s kiss.
This time, the gossip could ruin her in society.
And Ian. Indeed, if her plan failed, she might leave her husband worse off than before.
She glanced up at Ian, then took strength from his arrogant expression.
If he could face down this crowd with defiance, then so could she.
As they walked inside, Emily and Sara joined them, looking anxious. But before she could say anything to allay their worries, she spotted Lady Brumley heading toward her with half the gossips in tow. Her hands grew clammy.
Turning to Ian, she whispered, “Why don’t you and Jordan go off somewhere and talk? I can handle this better without you standing there frowning at everyone and convincing them that you are indeed the Devil Incarnate.”
That brought a smile to his lips. “Was I frowning?”
“Glowering, more like.” She drew her hand from his elbow. “Go on now. Talk to your friend. You’ll feel better afterwards. I’ll be fine.”
His gaze bore into hers, serious again. “I love you.”
“Good. Keep that thought in mind.” Because after what she was about to do, he might want to strangle her. Especially if it didn’t work.
Jordan and Ian had scarcely left her for one of the card rooms when Lady Brumley and her entourage were upon them. It was now or never.
“My dear girl!” Lady Brumley exclaimed, eyes bright with pleasure. “So glad to see you here! And married, too! What a shock! We’ve been hearing the most amazing stories, but as I’ve told everyone, it’s all nonsense.”
“Stories? About me?” Felicity asked in her most innocent tone, wondering if she could pull this off.
Sara and Emily shook their heads as if to warn her, but she ignored them. She had to try this. Otherwise, Ian would continue to suffer at the hands of the gossips.
“Some trouble-making creature insists that you’re Lord X.” Lady Brumley kissed the air on either side of Felicity’s cheeks. “I told them it couldn’t be true.”
“But it is true, my dear Lady Brumley,” Felicity replied. “Now that I’m married, I see no reason to keep it a secret.”
That clearly took everyone by surprise, not so much because it confirmed the gossip, but because she didn’t seem disturbed that her identity had been revealed.
“Is Lord St. Clair forcing you to end the column?” someone asked.
“No, indeed.” She forced a bright smile to her face.
“My husband likes my column, you know. In fact, we discussed it on our way here. I’m thinking of calling it ‘Secrets of a Viscountess.’ Ian says the title’s misleading, since it’s not supposed to be my secrets, but I think it has a lovely ring. What do you think?”
Lord Jameson, who’d always treated her like a daughter, said hesitantly, “Your husband doesn’t disapprove of your writing?”
“Heavens, no. Why should he?”
The older man looked uncomfortable. “You must admit that you’ve been rather critical of him in previous columns.”
“He’s quite forgiven me for that. After all, if it hadn’t been for my columns about him, we would never have met and fallen in love.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Lady Brumley came to her rescue. “These fools have some notion that love had nothing to do with it. That St. Clair blackmailed you into marrying him.”
She widened her eyes in bewilderment. “Blackmailed me?”
“Yes. I told them it was utter nonsense, but they’d heard that you found out all your husband’s secrets and he married you to keep you silent about them. Some idiot claims that his lordship threatened to ruin you if you didn’t marry him.”
Ian’s uncle had certainly hit close to the truth, hadn’t he? Well, she wouldn’t let him succeed in this. Felicity looked at Lord Jameson and the others, who avoided her gaze. Then she burst into deliberate laughter. “It’s true, every word of it.”
She had their attention now. Shock was written on their faces. Lady Brumley, Emily, and Sara eyed her as if she’d gone mad.
She continued in a dramatic tone, though her knees were knocking beneath her gown.
“Lord St. Clair found out I was Lord X, came to my house, and demanded that I stop writing about him. I refused, of course. So he gave me an ultimatum—either marry him or he would ruin me.” She paused for effect.
“It was a very difficult decision. I mean, what woman wants to marry a rich viscount when she can be a poor nobody writing columns for the newspaper?”
When Sara smiled and Emily joined her, Felicity felt more confident.
She tapped her finger against her chin. “I thought about it for ... oh ... nearly half a minute. And I decided that while being ruined by a man with such obvious assets could be enjoyable, I’d much prefer to be a wealthy viscountess.
That way I could have all his assets, if you know what I mean. ”
For a moment, when her audience continued to gaze at her as if she were mad, she thought she’d made a huge mistake. Please, God, she prayed, let them have a sense of humor.
Suddenly Lady Brumley chuckled, and a few others tittered as well.
Pressing her advantage, she sighed with great exaggeration. “So here I am, locked into marriage with an attractive and wealthy young man of rank. It’s awful, don’t you think? Now I can’t marry an old lecher or penniless barrister! And I did so have my heart set on that.”
There were laughs now. Loud ones.
“He’s such a troublesome husband, too,” she went on quickly while she had them on her side.
“He insists that I buy things, and he knows I hate to shop. Who wants all that jewelry and silks and furs cluttering up one’s bedchamber?
It’s really too vexing. And the way he treats my brothers—” She rolled her eyes.
“I keep telling him not to spoil them, but he won’t listen!
He’s sending my eldest brother off to a very expensive school, and he constantly buys presents for the other three.
I swear, I won’t be able to do a thing with them if he doesn’t stop it! ”
She’d gathered a crowd by now, most of whom were either laughing or asking their neighbors to recount what she was saying.
“What about in the bedroom?” one of the outrageously plain-spoken March sisters called out. “Has your husband proven ‘troublesome’ there as well?”
She didn’t have to fake her blush. “Very much so. I mean, would you want a man like that in your bed? So tall, virile, and well-built? Here I was, hoping for a short bald man with a paunch, and instead I got that!” She added with a wink, “And I must complain that when he demands his husbandly rights, he makes me want to behave most improperly ... ”
There wasn’t a soul left in the audience who wasn’t smiling, and most were laughing. Lady Brumley guffawed so hard she actually had tears in her eyes. And Sara and Emily beamed at her approvingly.
Felicity could even hear a few whispers of, “I knew it all along” and “Don’t they make an adorable couple?”
Suddenly all laughter died and all conversation halted. A woman with a haughty bearing came toward Felicity, the crowd parting before her in awed interest.
The Duchess of Pelham herself.
She stopped before Felicity and swept her with the contemptuous glance Felicity remembered all too well.
“This is all very entertaining, Lady St. Clair.” She spoke Felicity’s title with a sneer.
“But you don’t fool me with this talk of your husband’s good qualities.
I’ve heard he has a history of forcing himself on helpless women.
You mentioned one such woman in your column, as I recall.
And his own uncle claims that the viscount fled England after abusing his aunt. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
A silence fell on the crowd. They knew, as did Felicity, that the duchess was being deliberately cruel. No woman with an ounce of feeling would mention such a terrible thing to a man’s wife.
For a second, she cringed, carried back to that awful day in the Pelham library when the duchess had put her in her place with the vilest accusations to Papa. Her humiliation was as complete now as it had been then.
But she thought of Ian and stiffened her spine.
It was one thing for her to feel humiliated.
It was another for him to feel it. The duchess sought to use Ian to degrade Felicity publicly.
The bitter old witch hated all the women her husband had ever lusted after, whether those women had returned his lust or not.
Well, if the duchess thought she could use Ian’s pain in this horrible manner, she was much mistaken. Felicity would see the woman dead first.
She fixed the duchess with a cool gaze. “Ian’s uncle? You mean Mr. Lennard?”
“You know who I mean.”
Felicity pasted a sympathetic look on her face.
“The poor man. Is he still repeating that tale after all these years? It’s so sad.
He never recovered after his wife’s death, you know.
I think he blames himself, although it was purely accidental.
She fell and hit her head while in his bedchamber.
They were arguing—or so his mistress told me. ”
That took the duchess by surprise. “His mistress?”