How to Disgrace a Lady

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Alixe stalked towards the long table in the centre of the room and pulled out a chair. She sat down and did her best to get to work. It was clear she’d have to try harder to avoid St Magnus. She had not fought her battles for the freedom to live her own life only to give up those victories to a pair of flirting blue eyes. Still, it was better to know the chinks in one’s own armour before one’s enemy did. She’d recognised that day at the pond St Magnus’s potent appeal and how she’d responded most wantonly. It would not do to keep putting such temptation in her path if it could be avoided.

She’d managed the bucks of the ton, but they didn’t unnerve her the way he did. St Magnus’s witty and overly personal conversation at dinner had made her feel unique, made her feel that she was beautiful enough on her own merits to attract the attentions of a handsome man without her dowry to speak for her. But he was a rake. Nothing good could come from an association with St Magnus. She was smart enough to know that from the start.

Her efforts to work lasted all of five minutes.

‘What are you working on?’

Alixe looked up from her books and papers. He’d turned his head to watch her. ‘I’m translating an old medieval manuscript about the history of Kent.’ That should bore him enough to stop asking questions. ‘The vicar is putting on an historic display about our area at the upcoming fair and this document is supposed to be part of it.’ She put an extra emphasis on ‘supposed’, to imply that interruptions were not welcome. Usually, such a hint did the trick. Usually there was no need to resort to that second level of defence. Men stopped being interested much earlier. The words ‘translating an old medieval manuscript’ were typically enough.

In this case, the effect was quite opposite. St Magnus uncrossed his long legs, set aside the French kings and strode towards the table with something akin to interest in his blue eyes. ‘How’s it going?’

‘How’s what going?’ Alixe clutched at the neck of her robe again out of reflex, her tone sharp.

‘Your translation? I take it the original isn’t in modern English.’ St Magnus gestured towards the papers.

It wasn’t going well at all. The old French was proving to be difficult, especially in places where the manuscript had worn away or been smudged. But she wasn’t going to admit that to this man who played havoc with her senses.

Three days of assiduously avoiding his company had not met with successful results. All her efforts, and he ended up in her—her—library anyway, the one room where she thought she’d be alone. Her avoidance strategies certainly hadn’t dulled her awareness of him either. Even at midnight, he still looked immaculate. His shoulders were just as broad, his legs just as long, his hips just as lean as she remembered them. She knew for a fact that well-hewn muscle lay beneath the layers of his clothes, providing the necessary infrastructure for that most excellent physique. But all that was merely window-dressing for the arresting blue eyes that had a way of looking at one as if they could see right through a person’s exterior, stripping away more than clothes, making one believe she was, for the moment, the centre of his universe.

She had to remind herself that plenty of women had been the centre of his universe. Jamie’s quiet caution ran through her head. St Magnus was a fine friend for a gentleman, but not for the sisters of gentlemen. She had no trouble believing it.

‘Perhaps I can help?’ He settled his long form beside her on the bench.

Alixe’s senses vibrated with warning. She could smell the remnants of his evening toilette before dinner, the scent of his washing soap mingling with a light cologne, a tantalizing mixture of oak and lavender, with something mysterious beneath.

‘I doubt it unless you have some familiarity with Old French.’ She meant to be rude, meant to drive him off with her high-handed manner. How dare he walk into her life unannounced and stir things up? And not even mean to do it. He was a stranger who knew nothing about her. He had no idea of what his mere presence had done. She’d just reached a point where she was happy with her choices, with devoting her life to her work. The very last thing she needed was to convince herself a man of St Magnus’s ilk appreciated her efforts and not her dowry. In the past, that road had been extremely dangerous, not to mention disappointing, to travel.

St Magnus’s next words stunned her. ‘It just so happens that I have more than a passing acquaintance with Old French.’

This flaxen-haired charmer with azure eyes was conversant in an obscure language? What he did next was even more astonishing. He shrugged out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He slid closer to her, oblivious to their thighs bumping beneath the table. She wasn’t oblivious, however. Every nerve in her body was acutely aware of each move he made.

‘The document isn’t that exciting.’ Alixe tried one last time to turn him away. ‘It’s just a farmer who writes about his livestock. He’s especially obsessed with his pigs.’

Merrick tilted his head and studied her. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Just a farmer who writes? In this case, it’s not what he writes about that is important, it’s that he writes at all.’

The import of it struck her with a shocking clarity. In her hurry to translate the document she’d forgotten to look beyond the words on the page and into the context of the times in which it had been written. ‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘A farmer who is literate most likely isn’t only a farmer or a tenant renting fields, he’s probably of some status in the community.’

Merrick smiled. It was a different smile this time, one full of enthusiasm. ‘What’s the date of the document?’

‘My guess is mid-thirteenth century, about 1230.’

‘Post-Magna Carta,’ Merrick mused more to himself than to her. ‘Perhaps he is a self-made man, an early instance of the gentry class, not a noble or beholden directly to a king, but a man who has determined his own worth.’ He sounded almost wistful as he voiced his thoughts.

‘In pigs.’ Alixe smiled. ‘Don’t forget the pigs.’

Merrick chuckled. ‘Show me the pigs. After all your mentions of them, I want to read about them for myself.’

Alixe passed him the pages on the pigs and he fell to reading them with surprising thoroughness, one long finger moving across the lines one word at a time, his eyes following. Within moments, he was completely absorbed in the reading and Alixe turned her thoughts to the pages in front of her, aware in the back of her mind that something astounding had occurred: she was working on her translation with Merrick St Magnus, London’s most talked-about male. More than that, he’d shown himself to be more than a handsome face. He’d been interested, intelligent and insightful. Amazing.

Truly, it was nothing short of miraculous. No one would believe her if she told them. She was starting to see why a friendship had sprung up between Merrick and Jamie at school. Like her, Jamie loved history and Merrick understood its sociological aspects.

Merrick laughed suddenly, breaking the compatible silence that had sprung up. ‘It’s not his pigs he writes about, Alixe.’ His eyes were dancing with good humour. ‘It’s his wife.’

Alixe furrowed her brow. ‘I don’t believe you.’ She reached across him without thinking for the page. ‘There …’ She pointed to a line. ‘That is very clearly the word for pig. More specifically, “sow”.’

Merrick nodded. ‘It is. But you’re forgetting the use of “like”. It’s a simile. I think you were reading it as “she is a big sow”. But we should be reading it as “she’s as big as the sow”.’ Merrick reached around her. ‘Show me the later pages. I want to bear out my hypothesis that his wife is expecting a child in the very near future.’

‘Yes!’ Merrick crowed a few moments later. ‘He’s writing about his wife. Have a look, Alixe.’ He pushed the page towards her and leaned close, one arm on the other side of her to brace himself as they studied the page together.

‘You’re right.’ Alixe enthused, her excitement evident. Her mind rushed forwards. ‘I wonder if there would be parish records. I wonder if we could find him. If we could, we might be able to determine where his land was. We could find out how the story ends, if his baby is born safely.’ Alixe bit her lip, realising what she’d done. She’d said ‘we’. ‘I’m sorry, I’m getting carried away. We’ll probably never know what happened to him.’

Merrick smiled. ‘Maybe we will. I’ll be here for two weeks. Surely that’s enough time to puzzle out how your farmer’s story ends.’ For all purposes, he looked as if he was genuinely enjoying himself. He looked as if he wanted to be here with her instead of downstairs playing billiards.

Alixe looked down at her hands, regretting some of her earlier thoughts about him. ‘I must apologise. I didn’t think it could be like this.’

He covered her hands with one of his own where they lay on the table. It was a gentle gesture and his hands were warm and firm. She didn’t think it was meant to be a seductive gesture, but that didn’t stop a frisson of warm heat from shooting through her arm at the contact.

‘It or me? You didn’t think it could be like this or that I couldn’t be like this?’ Merrick spoke in low tones, his gaze holding hers.

‘You,’ Alixe replied honestly, meeting his gaze. ‘I didn’t think you could be like this. I misjudged you.’

‘I’m glad to have surprised you,’ Merrick said softly, his voice igniting the tiny space between them with a sharp awareness of one another. Their eyes held and in the cocoon of the moment the briefest of thoughts occurred to Alixe: he’s going to kiss me.

That was exactly the same idea voiced seconds later when Archibald Redfield burst into the library with an angry, newly awoken Earl of Folkestone in his wake, still belting his robe and all but bellowing the traditional words of horrified fathers everywhere when discovering their daughters in compromising situations. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

To which Alixe managed the most unoriginal of answers, ‘It’s not what it looks like.’ But she knew what it looked like—Merrick sitting so very close to her, his sleeves rolled up, and she in her nightclothes.

To which Archibald Redfield countered unhelpfully with an arrogant smirk, ‘It’s precisely what it looks like. St Magnus wagered several gentlemen in the billiards room not an hour ago that he’d steal a kiss from a lady before the night was out’, then went on to add as if it would improve matters, ‘I have witnesses.’

Alixe groaned. He’d bet on stealing a kiss. She should have left the room when common sense had demanded it.

‘No, no witnesses, please.’ Her father held up the hand of authority. He had his robe belted now and was in full command of the situation. ‘We are all men of honour here,’ He looked pointedly at St Magnus as he said it. ‘We can sort this out and do what must be done in a quiet manner. There is no need to make an unnecessary fuss.’

Alixe had never seen her father so angry. No one else would guess the depths of his anger. He was one of those men whose voice became more controlled when angered. Then he spared a glance for her, taking in her completely inappropriate attire. There was more than anger in his gaze. There was disappointment, which was worse. She’d seen it before when he looked at her. It seemed she’d spent an inordinate amount of her life disappointing him. But this time would be the last time. She could see in his face he’d decided it would be so and that frightened her very much.

Her father jerked his head at her with a dismissing nod. ‘Go to your room and stay there. We’ll speak in the morning. As for you, St Magnus, I’ll settle with you right now. Put your jacket on and make yourself presentable.’

Alixe shot a parting glance at St Magnus, although what help she thought she’d find there she didn’t know. He’d never been truly interested in her or her work. She’d merely been his most convenient target. He would have kissed whoever walked into the library. He had no reason to help her and, right now, he’d be more worried about trying to help himself.

St Magnus had risen, arms folded, eyes narrowed and burning like hot blue coals. He was a formidable sight, but he spared not a glance for her departing form, she noted. All his attention was directed at Archibald Redfield.

Chapter Five

Who would have thought the road to nowhere in particular led straight to the Earl of Folkestone’s library? Granted the journey had taken the better part of ten years, but right now that only served to make matters worse.

Merrick shifted ever so slightly in his chair. It was one thing to be called on the proverbial carpet by a stuffy peer when one was a young buck about town. It was another when one was nearly thirty and an established rogue. Rogues didn’t get caught engaged in minor infractions. One could be caught in flagrante delicto with a lovely widow and live it down. But one could absolutely not be caught stealing kisses from an earl’s daughter. Yet it seemed he had been and it seemed he was going to pay. The terrible irony was that he hadn’t done anything. This time, everything was innocent. Admittedly it looked bad: her apparel, his shirt sleeves, the time of night, their close proximity at the table. Most of all the looming reality of the damning wager with Redfield. All the signs pointed to disaster. In another five minutes it might even have escalated to a real disaster; he might actually have claimed the kiss he was accused of stealing.

‘You were attempting to kiss my daughter,’ Folkestone spoke, his face a mask of icy contemplation.

‘Yes, the key word here is attempting. I had not yet achieved that goal.’ Merrick pointed out. Folkestone frowned, not appreciating the clarification.

‘I do not care if you were attempting to turn metal into gold. It does not change the fact that you were alone with her at midnight.’

‘In the library, sir,’ Merrick protested. He’d been about to say the library was the least amorous room in a house, but then he remembered what he’d got up to in the library at the Rowlands’ ball a few weeks ago with the lovely Mrs Dennable and thought better of it.

‘Thank goodness Redfield is the soul of discretion,’ Folkestone commented.

Assuming he has a soul. Merrick let a raised eyebrow convey his question of the assumption. Redfield had set it up, he was sure of that, if not the man’s motives. But saying as much would appear petty and it hardly sounded better to say ‘any girl would have done as well; it just so happened your daughter walked in first’.

‘You’ve compromised my daughter, but that does not make her an innocent in this. She could have walked out of the room once you made your presence known,’ Folkestone mused. His sharp dark eyes, the colour of Alixe’s, never left Merrick’s face.

‘Alixe has always been unconventional. A husband and family would go far, I suspect, in settling her and giving her life some stability.’ Merrick sensed Alixe would disagree with her father’s assessment, but discreetly kept it to himself.

Folkestone continued. ‘Alixe needs a husband.’

It took all of Merrick’s willpower to not cringe. He waited for the inevitable. After this evening, Folkestone would expect him to do the right thing and offer for her, a girl he hardly knew.

Folkestone leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘I am sure you are aware that in most situations of this nature, the gentleman would be expected to marry the lady in question. However, to be blunt, you are not precisely “husband material”, no matter who your father is. You have a reputation ten miles’ long for licentiousness and general mayhem. Here’s what I propose: make my daughter the Toast of the Season.’

Merrick sat a little straighter in his chair, not certain he’d heard correctly or that he’d been reprieved. This option might be worse. ‘Sir, it’s already June. There will only be six weeks left. I hardly think …’

‘Or marry her yourself at Season’s end as penance for your failure,’ Folkestone cut in. ‘You’re not the only gambling man in the room, St Magnus. I know all about your reputation. You have no desire to be leg-shackled. I’m willing to bet you love your freedom enough to see the job done. Goodness knows I’d prefer almost anyone else than you as a son-in-law. I think that’s one thing you and I just might agree upon. You no more want to be my son-in-law than I want to have you, no matter what Jamie thinks of you as a friend.’

Valiantly ignoring the insult, Merrick tried a different approach. ‘Sir, the people I know are not the best, I’m not sure …’

This too was easily dismissed. ‘You’re here, aren’t you?’ Yes, dammit, he hadn’t meant to insult the earl’s sterling reputation.

‘You do have connections when you choose to exert them, St Magnus. Exert them now or accept the consequences.’ Folkestone rose, signalling the end of the interview. ‘There’s really nothing else to discuss. This is not your decision to make. You made your choice when you engaged my daughter in the library for your silly wager. You have a little under two weeks here in the country to get her up to snuff and the rest of the Season to make her attractive to gentlemen or else align yourself with the fact that you will be taking a September bride.’

The study door opened, admitting Lady Folkestone, hastily dressed and followed by Redfield. ‘I’ve brought your wife,’ he said with a tragic flourish. ‘Sometimes a woman’s view can soften these things.’ Yes, definitely a tragic flourish. Surely a man as astute as Folkestone could see through Redfield’s façade of helpfulness.

Lady Folkestone was no shrinking violet. She sailed to her husband’s side and demanded an explanation, which Folkestone promptly gave. Afterwards, Lady Folkestone turned her thoughtful gaze in Merrick’s direction. ‘So, you’re to marry our daughter?’

‘Not necessarily, my lady.’ Merrick replied smoothly. ‘I hope to help her find a more suitable match.’

Lady Folkestone laughed. ‘There is no such thing as a suitable match for Alixe. We’ve tried for years now. When I say “we”, I mean London society collectively, not just her family. She’ll have none of the young men on offer.’ The bitterness surprised him. It wasn’t the attitude he expected a mother to have.

Lady Folkestone waved a dismissive hand. ‘She has no regard for the family’s wishes. After the last business with Viscount Mandley, all she wants is her manuscripts and her peace.’

Then why don’t you let her have it? Was that so much to ask? Folkestone had enough money to support one spinster daughter. The vehemence of his thoughts shocked Merrick.

‘Ah, Mandley. That was an unfortunate business indeed. She’ll not see a better offer,’ Redfield commiserated from the doorway where he hovered as some post-facto guard to their privacy.

‘Hardly,’ Merrick scoffed. ‘Mandley didn’t want a wife, he wanted a governess for his three daughters whom he didn’t have to pay.’ The man might be handsome for a fellow over forty and have plenty of blunt, but he was legendary in London’s clubs for his unnecessary penny-pinching. He’d once asked if his subscription to White’s could be reduced for the months he spent in the country.

‘There’s nothing wrong with frugality,’ Redfield retorted.

Ah, that reminded him. There was one score he could settle tonight. Merrick turned and shot Redfield a hard stare. He couldn’t do anything more for his own situation at present, but he could still salvage Ashe’s. He rose and approached Lady Folkestone. ‘I deeply apologise for the untoward actions which have taken place here tonight. I will do my utmost to see that Lady Alixe’s reputation emerges from this thoughtless escapade unscathed.’ With that, he bent over her hand with all the charm he possessed and kissed her knuckles. ‘If you will excuse me? I will look forward to meeting with Lady Alixe in the morning.’

Merrick brushed past Redfield on his way to the door, stopping long enough to murmur, ‘I believe you owe me. I’ll be waiting outside and expecting payment.’

Merrick found Ashe and Riordan alone in the deserted billiards room, each of them slumped in their chairs. Crisis always had a way of thinning out the crowd. He tossed down a substantial roll of pound notes on the billiards table. ‘There’s your portion of the winnings.’

Ashe sat up a bit straighter. ‘How did you manage this? Were you faster than Redfield?’

Merrick grinned. Besting Redfield was about the only good thing to have happened tonight. ‘I kissed Lady Folkestone’s hand right in front of him. He had to be the witness to his own dare.’

Ashe visibly relaxed and reached for the winnings. ‘Redfield had it planned all along. After you left, he was bragging he knew a certain lady had been visiting the library the last few nights.’

Merrick stiffened at that. ‘Was he careless enough to share her name?’ Folkestone was counting on discretion, on the fact that no one but he and Redfield knew Alixe had been caught with him in the library.

Ashe shook his head. ‘No, no names, just that he knew.’

Merrick nodded. Good. But it didn’t make sense he’d deliberately set up a wager he’d lose. Unless he thought Alixe wouldn’t succumb.

‘But I can surmise from the presence of Lady Folkestone at the interview that the lady in question was Lady Alixe. Jamie will not be pleased,’ Ashe said quietly.

‘Jamie is not to know.’

‘Are wedding bells in your future?’ Riordan slurred, offering Merrick his flask.

Merrick waved it a way with a rueful smile. ‘Sort of.’ He explained the agreement to hush up the indiscretion if he ‘helped’ Lady Alixe become the Toast of London.

‘Then you have truly become a cicisbeo, a man whose status and welfare in society rests on his ability to please a lady,’ Riordan slurred, unmistakably well into his cups. ‘You know, in Italy it works this way, too. Usually it’s the husband who picks a cicisbeo for his wife, but in this case, her father has picked you to bring her out into society.’

‘I don’t think it’s an apt comparison at all,’ Merrick snapped, eager to cut off Riordan’s rambling. He was showing all the characteristic signs of launching into a full-blown lecture on Italian culture.

Ashe idly twirled the stem of an empty snifter. ‘Do you remember that night at Oxford when we formed the cicisbei club?’

Merrick nodded, losing himself for a moment in the reminiscences of a long-ago time. They’d been foolhardy and a bit naïve. It had seemed a wicked thrill to commit themselves to a lifestyle of ‘love’, to devote themselves to the pursuit of beauty in all its feminine forms.

‘I suppose I’ve been a cicisbeo long before tonight,’ Merrick sighed in response to Riordan’s comment. He’d made a large part of his living based on charm and romance. He might not be a ‘kept’ man who was obviously dependent on a woman’s gifts to him, but if he looked closely enough at his life, he was dependent in other ways, not that the honesty made him proud to admit it.

A ‘life of love’ wasn’t as glamorous as they’d imagined it all those years ago sitting in a student-populated tavern. Then, the road to the future had been long and untravelled—anything was possible. They’d toasted the fact that they were second sons with no expectations placed upon them. There was nothing to inherit but a future they’d carve for themselves. They’d make great reputations as London’s finest lovers. It had seemed like jolly good fun at the time.