The Rake's Scandal

Chapter 1

One

Miss Genevieve Moreland saw the crisis the moment she stepped into Lady Penworth’s drawing room and knew at once how to improve it.

Lady Penworth’s drawing room had descended into elegant distress.

Three footmen crossed paths with flower boxes, a maid stood near the pianoforte as though she might dissolve into tears, and Mrs. Wexley, who chaired the Ladies’ Committee for the Penworth Spring Fête with the grim solemnity of a general arranging a campaign, whispered in mounting horror over a stack of place cards.

The air smelled of roses, sealing wax, and impending social ruin.

Sunlight poured through the tall front windows, bright against polished mahogany and pale silk upholstery.

Genny had only just arrived. No one had asked for her opinion, which was a pity, because the trouble lay plainly on the table between the place cards and the subscription lists.

The Penworth Spring Fête was not merely an afternoon of flowers, music, and ladies pretending not to care about precedence.

Its auction and subscriptions funded the Widows’ Relief Fund and Children’s School that Lady Penworth championed with more feeling than efficiency.

If the arrangements failed publicly, wounded pride would not be the only casualty.

Too many ladies. Too little forethought. And, most alarming of all, Lady Dorring and Mrs. Vale assigned to preside together over the strawberry tables.

One did not arrange refreshment by pairing those two. One might as well strike a match and have a footman stand ready with sand.

She set down her reticule, smiled at the nearest panicked maid until the girl stopped wringing her apron, and stepped into the breach.

“My dear Mrs. Wexley,” Genny said, skimming forward in a wash of primrose muslin and optimism, “you must not look so stricken. No one has died, and if they do, it ought not to be before luncheon, for that would be frightfully inconvenient and ruin the table.”

Mrs. Wexley gave a startled blink. “Miss Moreland, I had not realized…”

“That I was here? Most people do not until I have already become useful.”

Genny leaned over the table, scanned the rows of neatly inked cards, and found the offending names at once.

Relief stirred in her. This, at least, was simple.

Lady Dorring could not bear to play second to anyone, while Mrs. Vale could organize cream, berries, spoons, and frightened servants with the ruthless satisfaction of a woman born to command dessert.

It merely required someone to notice what sort of women they were rather than what names had been written on which card.

“Ah. Yes. There we are. That will never do.”

Lady Louisa Foxmere, seated nearby with a lap desk and a list of subscription acknowledgments, bit the inside of her cheek in a heroic effort not to laugh.

Across from her, Alexandra, Countess of Langley, formerly Miss Alexandra Peregrine and now looking intolerably, glowingly content in marriage, lifted her brows in fond resignation. “Genny.”

“It is a simple matter,” Genny declared, which was often how her most complicated involvements began.

“Lady Dorring must be given the flower pavilion. She prefers being admired to being obeyed. Mrs. Vale may have the strawberry tables, where she may tyrannize the cream arrangements to her heart’s content.

They will both believe themselves triumphant, and no one need be bludgeoned with a silver ladle. ”

Mrs. Wexley pressed a hand to her bosom. “The cards have already been written.”

“Then we shall write new ones,” Genny said.

“Mr. Bellamy has just gone with the delivery papers.”

Genny reached for the stack of lists before anyone could stop her. “Then we shall catch him before he goes too far. Truly, you all do make everything sound impossible when it is merely inconvenient.”

“Genny,” Louisa said, in the tone of a dear friend who knew perfectly well disaster had begun to stir, “perhaps you ought…”

But Genny was already moving.

She crossed the room, skirt swishing around her ankles, and intercepted a young footman on his way toward the hall. He looked startled enough to drop the packet in his hands.

“Not that one,” she said kindly, rescuing the sealed bundle before it slid to the carpet. “You must take this revised list instead.”

“But, miss, Mrs. Wexley said…”

“Yes, and Mrs. Wexley is a lady of excellent intentions, but this version will spare her a headache. Come back directly.”

She returned to the writing table, swept aside a spray of ribbons, and took up a pen.

Her handwriting was not as steady as Alexandra’s or as fine as Louisa’s, but it possessed an energetic decisiveness that had served her well enough in letters, invitations, and occasional notes to friends.

Within a few minutes she had amended the key names, re-sorted two smaller bundles of instructions, and redirected the footman with a satisfied nod.

“There,” she said. “Saved.”

The pause that followed held the shared uncertainty of whether to laugh, pray, or hide the evidence.

Alexandra set down her teacup. “Have you altered only the assignment cards?”

Genny looked up. “The assignment cards, the route papers, and the order of acknowledgments. Also the musicale sequence, because Mrs. Vale cannot possibly be placed just before Mrs. Hartle’s niece sings Italian. She despises Italian.”

Louisa closed her eyes.

Mrs. Wexley made a sound very like a strangled prayer.

Genny frowned faintly. “What?”

Alexandra spoke with careful gentleness, the way one might address a beloved friend standing upon a weak patch of ice.

“My love, the route papers were meant for the florists. The musicale sequence was for Lady Penworth’s secretary.

And the announcements were to be sent to Lord Penworth’s man of business. ”

Genny stared at the remaining sheets in her hand.

“Oh.”

As if summoned by that tiny syllable, a crash sounded in the hall.

Everyone turned. A footman appeared in the doorway holding a crate of hothouse roses at a violent angle, while behind him another servant called that the musicians had arrived at the tradesmen’s entrance and refused to come in through the kitchens.

From somewhere upstairs came the distinct, offended bark of Lady Penworth’s pug.

Mrs. Wexley sat down abruptly.

Genny crossed to her at once and pressed the nearest teacup into her hands before the poor woman could slide fully into despair.

“Breathe first,” Genny said. “Panic after, if you must, but do not waste a good faint before we know whether it is deserved.”

Mrs. Wexley stared at the teacup. “I am not fainting.”

“Excellent. Then we are already improving.” Genny lifted her chin. “This is still recoverable.”

Louisa made a helpless sound of laughter. “Of course it is.”

“It is,” Genny insisted, though her certainty had lost a shade of polish. “It merely requires…”

The butler entered then, grave as judgment.

“Mr. Bellamy has departed with the revised papers, miss,” he said.

Genny smiled weakly. “Excellent.”

“Unfortunately,” the butler continued, “he was met at the front steps by Lady Dorring’s maid, who had come for the original instructions.

There appears to have been some confusion.

The maid took the packet intended for the florists, the florist’s boy departed with the musicale sequence, and Lord Penworth’s man of business is at present in possession of an order for six additional lemon cakes. ”

Another hush fell, sharper than the last.

Heat rose in her throat. Her stays seemed suddenly too tight. She lifted her chin before any of it could show, arranged her mouth into the sort of smile that usually made people forgive her, and refused to look too closely at the feeling she would not name.

“Well,” she said. “That is less excellent.”

Louisa put down her pen altogether and began to laugh in earnest.

“Do not laugh,” Genny told her, though she was fighting one herself. “This is serious.”

“That,” Alexandra said, not even pretending severity, “is precisely why I am laughing. Serious disasters should always be treated respectfully, and laughter is the only respect I have left.”

Mrs. Wexley rose. “Someone must set this to rights at once. Lord Penworth is expecting Lord Woodmere within the quarter hour, and if the arrangements are not in order—”

Genny groaned before she could stop herself. “Esme’s brother?”

“Viscount Woodmere,” Louisa supplied, unnecessarily. “He is overseeing the auction accounts and subscription placements for Lord Penworth. Evidently he possesses a talent for organization so legendary that half the ton speaks of it in reverent tones.”

Niall Foxmere, leaning in the open doorway as though he had strolled in merely to enjoy whatever absurdity marriage had lately brought into his life, said, “And the other half speaks of it in fear.”

Louisa turned. “You are not helping.”

“My dear wife, I am never more helpful than when I stand back and admire the damage.”

He crossed to Louisa, bent to brush a kiss near her temple, and then grinned at Genny. “You look pleased with yourself, Miss Moreland. That generally means someone else ought to be alarmed.”

“I was pleased with myself,” Genny corrected. “Now I am simply committed.”

“To what?” Alexandra asked.

“To not being the cause of a disaster before Viscount Woodmere arrives.”

Niall’s grin widened. “That seems ambitious.”

Genny narrowed her eyes at him. “I dislike you excessively when you are correct.”

The room had only just resumed its bustle, more frantic now, with servants rushing in divergent directions and Mrs. Wexley issuing orders she did not entirely trust would be obeyed, when the butler reappeared.

His expression was so grave that even the footman with the roses stopped moving.

“Lord Penworth’s carriage has drawn up,” he announced. “Lord Penworth and Viscount Woodmere have arrived.”