A Dash of Scandal

Chapter Twenty

“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it,” and so it is with great relief London says farewell to the wily Mad Ton Thief. What a disagreeable ending to such a delightful piece of gossip. It would have been far better for the thief to have been Lord Pinkwater’s ghost than one of our own.

—Lord Truefitt, Society’s Daily Column

As soon as Millicent stepped down from the carriage, the front door of her aunt’s town house jerked open. Millicent took a deep breath and headed for the open doorway, where her aunt’s maid stood waiting for her. She’d refused to allow herself to think about Chandler on the way home. Instead she concentrated on how she would tell her aunt about the sad turn of events involving Lady Heathecoute.

“Where have you been, miss?” Emery said. “Her ladyship has sent Phillips out looking for you. You’ve had us all worried sick.”

Millicent lifted her shoulders and her chin, trying to act as if nothing was wrong as she neared the doorway. “I’m not so late, am I, Emery?”

“Much too late according to my lady,” the maid said with a disapproving glare on her face. “And what happened to you? I see now you’ve a cut on your forehead and there’s blood on your dress. Are you all right?”

“I’m quite all right. I’ll explain everything to Aunt Beatrice,” Millicent said, walking into the house past Emery. “But I could use a cup of tea, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I’ll be up with it right away.”

“Thank you.” Millicent went straight to the upper floor. Hamlet barked, and she stopped on the landing and leaned against the rail. There would be so many things about London that she would miss when she went back home.

“Is that you, Millicent?” Aunt Beatrice called from her bedchamber.

“Yes, Aunt, it’s me.”

“Good heavens! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. Come in right away.”

Millicent paused outside the door and took a deep breath. The dream of being in Chandler’s arms was over. As she’d traveled the streets to her aunt’s house, dawn had arrived and now so had reality.

She walked into the bedchamber talking. “I’m sorry I’m so late, Aunt Beatrice, but you’ll understand once I explain everything.”

“Well I should hope so.” Her eyes rounded in shock as Millicent neared her bed. “My goodness, dear girl, what happened to you? You’re hurt and your dress is a rumpled mess. Heaven’s gate! Did someone accost you? Oh, your mother will never let me hear the end of it. Don’t just stand there, Millicent. Say something.”

Her aunt’s frantic voice startled Hamlet and he barked several times before Aunt Beatrice was able to quiet him.

“Please don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” Millicent said as she walked closer to the bed. “I wasn’t attacked. Well… not exactly.”

“What does not exactly mean? Something happened? Did you fall? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, no. Really, I’m perfect except for the cut, which doesn’t pain me at all, but it has been such an eventful evening my head is spinning at the moment.” She sat down in the chair by her aunt’s bed.

Millicent touched her forehead and realized it was tender. She had completely forgotten about the cut when she was with Chandler. There was a dull ache inside her, but it didn’t come from her wound.

She looked at her aunt, sitting up in the bed, waiting for her to speak. “I find I don’t really know where to begin.”

“Nonsense! At the beginning, of course,” Aunt Beatrice huffed.

“Yes, well you see, I’ve been trying to help Lord—” she stopped. No, she didn’t want to tell her aunt she’d been trying to help Lord Dunraven find the Mad Ton Thief. That would take too much explaining, and it wasn’t something her aunt really needed to know.

“That is, I was standing with Lord Dunraven tonight when he—when I noticed he kept looking at Lady Heathecoute with a quizzical expression on his face. So I made a point of unobtrusively glancing at her, too. I noticed that the front of her skirt looked very odd.”

“She is very plump, my dear. It is to be expected. What has that got to do with the cut on your head and the unforgivable lateness of the hour? Forget starting at the beginning, I’ll need smelling salts before you get to the ending. Give me the high points and you can fill in the details later.”

As carefully and as quickly as possible Millicent relayed the events of the evening to her aunt, starting from the time she and Lord Dunraven went with the viscountess out to the carriage. She left out the hour she’d spent at Chandler’s house, accounting the story as if she had spent all the time with the authorities, telling them how she and Chandler had pressed Lady Heathecoute to show what was beneath her skirt.

Beatrice pulled Hamlet up to her chest and lay back against her pillows when Millicent finished. “Merciful heavens. This is an unbelievable story. The poor woman a thief? The Mad Ton Thief? I keep thinking it’s impossible.”

“I assure you it is all true.”

“And you say the authorities took her away.”

“I watched them put her in the carriage. Her husband went with them, too, but I do feel he knew nothing about what she had been doing.”

Aunt Beatrice brushed Hamlet’s coat with her hand. “I knew she wanted to take over the column, but I thought it was for the excitement and control of it, not because she needed to obtain money to live.”

Something tugged at Millicent. “But that’s why you do it, isn’t it, Aunt? For the money, to help with your living expenses?”

Beatrice’s eyes widened and she hurriedly said, “Oh, yes, my dear, yes. I’ve said so, haven’t I?”

Millicent studied her aunt. She wasn’t so sure she believed her anymore.

“Forget that. Tell me what Lord Heathecoute had to say.”

“He suggested to the authorities that it might be a sickness with her, and that it was quite possible she was unable to stop herself from doing it.”

“Hmm. I have heard of such a thing. No doubt the authorities will sort it out.”

“How did it come about that you took her into your confidence?” Millicent asked.

“Oh, it was Mr. Greenbrier from The Daily Reader who introduced us. Apparently she had intimated to someone at the newspaper that she was available to obtain information if there was a need. He felt it would be good if I had an assistant, so naturally I was obliged to take her into my confidence when he approached me with the idea.”

“Her reputation is ruined and she will no doubt end up in prison. Do you think she will tattle that you are Lord Truefitt?”

Beatrice screwed up her face in a worried frown. “There is that possibility. When Phillips delivers the column this morning, I’ll have him give a letter to Mr. Greenbrier and ask him to call on me. Perhaps he can speak to the authorities and the viscountess and work something out to help her so that she would have good reason to stay quiet about me.”

“I’ll make sure Phillips gets the letter delivered.”

“Oh, get your quill, Millicent, we’ve so much to do and no time to waste. We must get our column to the newspaper and be the first to tell Society that the Mad Ton Thief has been captured.”

***

When her maid brought Millicent tea that afternoon, she had a note on the tray from Lord Dunraven saying that he wanted to call on her later that day. She hastily wrote a note back telling him she was unavailable and to please not disturb her again.

It hurt her greatly to refuse him, but she must make sure he knew that she had no intentions of marrying him just because she took him as a lover. It was best they end their affair as quickly as it had begun. Millicent couldn’t bear the thought that he would marry her because of duty and honor or because he believed she’d tricked him.

As much as it devastated her to reject his appeal to see her, Millicent had to deny his request. They must go their separate ways. Their partnership was dissolved because the Mad Ton Thief had been caught. She had all hope that the raven would be found unharmed and returned to him without further delay.

She also refused a call from Lady Lynette. She knew her friend wanted to gossip about the events of the previous evening and find out all Millicent knew about the capture of the Mad Ton Thief, but she wasn’t ready to start talking with anyone about what had happened. She sent Lynette a note suggesting that she call on her later in the week.

Late that afternoon, unable to stop herself, Millicent walked out into the back garden, hoping that Chandler had not listened to her request to be left alone. She wanted him to burst through the hedge and announce his undying love for her and ask her once again to marry him.

Millicent stayed out in the garden until dusk. Chandler never showed.

Lady Beatrice agreed that Millicent shouldn’t attend any of the parties that evening. Her wound didn’t look that bad, but her aunt had to have time to arrange a new chaperone for Millicent. Thankfully, they had enough gossip for a couple of days with the capture of the Mad Ton Thief, and they could always write about one of the Terrible Threesome.

The next afternoon Millicent once again retreated to the garden hoping Chandler would steal through the hedge to see her. The gray sky seemed fitting as she sat on the base of the statue where she’d frolicked with Chandler and remembered their hour together in his home.

Twilight came. Chandler didn’t come, and there was no further note from him.

When she went back inside, the latest copy of The Daily Reader had arrived. As always, she opened it first to Lord Truefitt’s column to have a look at it.

Millicent blinked, then gasped. She turned the pages of the newspaper. Something was wrong. It was Lord Truefitt’s column, but it wasn’t her writings. What had happened?

She read the words carefully.

“Beware the ides of March” might be Lord Dunraven’s motto, for it seems he may be caught at last by a pretty maiden. It is on good authority this column reports a young lady new to Town, who has danced with the earl at the best parties, was seen fleeing his home in the wee hours of morning, without benefit of a chaperone. The earl himself was said to have been chasing after her carriage in a state of dishabille. Hmm, one wonders what was going on. Do tell, if you know more.

—Lord Truefitt, Society’s Daily Column

For a moment Millicent was shocked into disbelief. How could her article have been switched with the one about her and Chandler? Who could have seen her leave Lord Dunraven’s house so early in the morning?

Only Chandler and the coachman. Could Chandler have replaced her column with one of his own? No, he was a rake and not to be trusted, but she couldn’t believe that of him. She had no idea who might have seen her leave his house, but she was certain Chandler would not have done this.

Why would anyone have written about it?

Her hands made fists as she held the newspaper, crinkling the pages tight. She didn’t have to ask why. She knew. It was for the gossip. The very thing she had promised herself and her mother that wouldn’t happen had happened.

Millicent was the object of scandal!

She dropped the paper and rushed up the stairs to her bedchamber. She would leave immediately. She would run away, so she wouldn’t have to look anyone in the eyes. If she were lucky her mother would never find out about this. Millicent hated the thought of trying to explain to her mother, or hurting her. But what could she say to her aunt? How could she explain that being with Chandler was more important than her reputation? She couldn’t. Aunt Beatrice wouldn’t understand.

There were no words to justify her involvement with Chandler. Millicent went to her wardrobe and jerked down her gowns and threw them on the bed. When she turned back to the wardrobe for the rest of her things, she saw Hamlet standing in the doorway watching her. He wagged his tail and looked at her with doleful, expectant eyes. In the weeks she’d been here, the dog had never ventured into her bedchamber. Did he realize what the clothes on the bed meant?

He continued to look at her and wag his tail. Did he want her to pat him? She knelt down and reached out her hand. He walked over to her and sniffed her fingers, then licked them. Millicent smiled. She rubbed his warm body and allowed him to lick her cheek affectionately.

“Oh, you smart little dog.” Millicent sat down on the floor and pulled Hamlet into her lap so she could brush his coat with her hand.

What a sweetheart he was to come to her when she most needed a friend. Her world had come crashing down around her and somehow Hamlet had known and he had come to comfort her.

No, she was not her mother. Millicent wouldn’t flee London, or hide, or be forced into marriage with a man who didn’t love her just to save her reputation. She would stay in Town and do her best to finish the job she’d started for her aunt.

There was no way she would be allowed at any of the parties now, but maybe Lady Lynette wouldn’t desert her. If Millicent could talk to Lady Lynette once or twice a week, she would be able to get sufficient gossip until her aunt was ready to resume her duties. At that time, Millicent would feel she had fulfilled her commitment to her father’s sister.

But first she had to tell her aunt about the column, and she had to do it now. And if her mother, by chance, found out about her liaison with Lord Dunraven, Millicent was sure she would understand. After all, her mother had once been in love with a rake, too.

There was a knock on her bedchamber door. She looked up and saw Emery standing in the doorway, regarding the dog in Millicent’s lap.

“So the master of the house has finally come around,” Emery said.

“So it seems. Today, Hamlet and I have a new relationship.”

“It’s about time.” Emery paused for a moment, then with a curious expression asked, “Is there a problem with your clothing, miss?”

Millicent looked at her open wardrobe and her dresses slung across the bed. She smiled at the maid. “No, everything is all right.”

“Lady Beatrice would like to see you.”

Millicent tensed. Oh dear, she must have already seen the column, and Millicent hadn’t had time to formulate what to say, how to explain.

She pulled Hamlet closer for a moment and felt his heart beating solidly against his warm chest. “Tell her I’ll be along shortly.”

“Yes, miss. She’s in the front parlor.”

Millicent looked back to Emery. “What?”

Emery smiled. “Yes, miss. She said she was tired of her bedchamber. Between Phillips and me, we carried her down the stairs so she could sit in the parlor for an hour or two. She’s so pleased.”

“I’m sure she is. Tell her I’ll be right down.”

“Yes, miss. Should I send Glenda up to help you with your clothing?”

“Thank you, but I’ll speak to her later.”

Emery walked away and Millicent hugged Hamlet once more before setting him away from her. She rose and looked down at him and said, “I think this means your mistress is on the mend. No doubt I won’t be here much longer.”

Hamlet barked once.

“Does that mean you will be glad or sad?” she asked the spaniel.

He barked twice.

Millicent smiled. “I’ll take that to mean sad.”

A couple of minutes later, Millicent walked into the parlor. Aunt Beatrice sat on the settee, looking splendidly healthy and happy in a dark green dress. The swelling in her face was completely gone and her bruises had faded to where not even a shadow showed. Sitting so straight in the settee, no one would know that she still couldn’t walk without aid.

“Aunt Beatrice, you look wonderful.”

“Thank you, dearie. I couldn’t spend another full day in bed. For the first time in a long time, I feel good. I’ve missed so much this Season. I’m ready to get back to my duties. I plan to be down here every day until I’m ready to go out in Society on my own.”

“That is good news. By the looks of you, it won’t be long.” Millicent noticed the paper she’d crumpled and thrown to the floor now lay folded on her aunt’s lap. It was clear from the pleasant expression on her aunt’s face that she had not yet read the column.

“Aunt Beatrice, I’m afraid I also have some not so good news, too.”

“What’s this? Have you learned more about what has happened to Lady Heathecoute?”

“No. It’s about me.”

She picked up the newspaper and turned it to the column and handed the paper to Beatrice. “Read this.”

Stunned, her aunt looked up at her after scanning the print. “What is this? I didn’t approve this.”

Calmly Millicent said, “And I didn’t write it.”

“I should think not. Someone might think this young lady fleeing Lord Dunraven’s house was you.” Aunt Beatrice looked over the paper to Millicent. Her eyes widened. “It wouldn’t be you, would it? Tell me you were not in Lord Dunraven’s house in the wee hours of the morning.”

“Yes, I was.”

“Millicent!” Her aunt threw her hands up in the air and the paper went flying over the back of the sofa.

“Aunt Beatrice, I can explain.”

“How? You can’t. Nothing would be acceptable. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Please tell me this is not true.”

Millicent remained quiet but not upset. She had no regrets about what she’d done, and no doubts that she would do it all again.

“Well say something.”

“It’s true that it was me.”

“Heaven above!” Beatrice fanned her chest with her hand.

“Lord Dunraven wanted to clean my cut before bringing me home and I agreed.” Thankfully that was the truth and that was all her aunt needed to know.

“Oh, my, oh my no! Your mother will never forgive me. Didn’t I tell you not to allow Lord Dunraven to compromise you? Well, no matter. I know what we must do. He’ll have to marry you. It’s the only thing.”

“No, Aunt Beatrice. That is not necessary.”

“Of course it is.”

“I won’t hear of it. I haven’t had time to work everything out but—”

A loud knock on the front door silenced Millicent but caused Hamlet to run to the front of the house barking.

“Good heavens, I don’t know who that is, but we’re not accepting calls right now. Oh, dear. I should have known you were too young and innocent to handle the London blades, especially Lord Dunraven. It’s all my fault.”

“Aunt Beatrice, please don’t be upset for me. I’m not.”

When Phillips walked into the room, Millicent walked over to the window and waited for him to present the card of the caller to her aunt. She had to find the words to make her aunt realize she would not be forced into a marriage, not even to the man she loved.

But instead of walking over to her aunt, Phillips walked over to Millicent, and said, “I’m sorry, miss. Lord Dunraven says he hasn’t a card with him, but he must speak with you immediately.”

Millicent’s legs went weak. Her breath caught.

Chandler had come.

After she’d rejected him, refused to see him, he’d come. Her heart lifted and swelled in her chest. But no, she couldn’t see him. She wouldn’t force him to marry her.

“Send him in,” Beatrice declared.

“No. Wait, Aunt Beatrice. I don’t want to see him.”

“Well, I do.”

“I don’t want to hear what he has to say. Phillips, tell him that I’m unavailable.”

Not waiting to be announced, Chandler strolled through the doorway into the parlor with his hat and gloves in his hand. He looked so confident, so dashing, Millicent’s heart skipped in her chest.

“Lady Beatrice.” He bowed and kissed her hand. “You’re looking well.”

“Thank you, my lord,” she said tightly. “I do believe you are just the person I wanted to see.”

Millicent remained by the window, unable to make her watery legs move closer to Chandler. She was elated, thankful he’d come to see her, and she wanted nothing more than to ran into his arms, but she had to remain firm in her decision not to force him to marry her.

Chandler turned to her. “Miss Blair.”

“Lord Dunraven.”

“I apologize for the intrusion, but I have a special reason for calling upon you this evening.”

“I should think so,” Aunt Beatrice said.

Millicent took a step toward him. “Don’t speak further, Chandler. I meant what I said to you the other night. We have nothing left to say to each other. I think it would be best if you left.”

His eyes remained solidly on her face. “And I meant what I said to you, Millicent. We have many things to discuss, but I must take care of first things first. I’ve brought someone with me who wants to see you.”

“Really, Lord Dunraven, you presume too much to come without making arrangements and to bring a guest,” Lady Beatrice said. “This is beyond the pale.”

“Yes,” Millicent added her voice to her aunt’s reprimand. “I’m afraid this isn’t a good time to receive anyone.”

A smile stretched across his face and lit his eyes as if sunshine was sparkling in them. “I think this is one caller you will not wish to turn away.”

He strode over to the doorway and reached out his hand.

Millicent’s mother walked into the room.