Somewhat Scandalous

By Pearl Darling

Sometimes hiding is the best way of being found...
Miss Agatha Beauregard has a theory about men. In fact she has a theory about almost everything. Rescued from the dreary confines of Hope Sands by the powerful Lord Henry Anglethorpe, and launched onto the ton as his sister’s companion, Agatha is determined to make use of her new found freedom by letting loose her scientific tendencies.
But Henry makes it clear he does not want the attention Agatha’s scandalous activities bring. As spymaster for the British government, he has been charged with tracking down the latest foreign agent to infiltrate London. However when the War Office also command him to take a bride, he finds he has only one lady in mind.
As Agatha hides from the results that her latest experiments have brought, Henry pursues her from one scandalous event to another. But before he can pounce, it becomes explosively clear that his future bride’s affections are engaged elsewhere, and she may not be all she claimed to be...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pearl Darling
• Release date: Aug 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781911536093

Pearl Darling

Pearl Darling is a lifelong Romance reader and caffeine addict. In between watching NCIS, avoiding gardening, and drinking lots of Earl Grey, she writes romantic suspense fiction and wonders when she will next go on holiday. She has published six books, all in the Brambridge Novels series. Her next book is a Brambridge Novella called ‘Wondrous Web’, and will be free when it is published to anyone that signs up her newsletter at www.pearldarling.com/free-book

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The stale air in the marital bedroom of Berale House hung uncomfortably still. Heavy drapes pulled lankly across the windows closed the large room from the weak Devon sunshine. A four-poster bed stood squarely in the center of the room. The occupant within did not move, or stretch or speak, her bony hands lightly thrown across the covers. She faced away, towards the curtained windows, as if she could see through them to Longman’s Barrow that crested the Brambridge cliffs beyond.

Lord Henry Anglethorpe paused at the entrance to the room and nodded to the doctor who returned to the bedside. Closing the door softly behind him, Henry walked heavily across the patterned hall rug and jolted with leaden steps down the central stairs of the house, trailing his hand on the warm wooden banister.

Halfway down, he stopped and gazed at the wall where a small portrait hung lopsidedly in a simple dusty wooden frame. A hatless blond-haired man towered over his female companion whose sharp nose pointed knowingly out of the canvas. The man held the woman’s hand and looked at her with an intensity that burned, whilst with his other hand he grasped a gold pocket watch lightly by its chain.

Henry reached out with a finger and tilted the frame to hang level, before tentatively touching the raised paint on the curves of the brush strokes with which his friend Peter Beauregard had painstakingly covered the canvas.

She’s gone, Father, he said softly to himself, but in part to the painting, his eyes unwillingly following his father’s gaze to meet those of his mother. Her bright blue eyes brimmed with life, laughing with his father, laughing at them all.

Those eyes were gone now, belonging to the thin shade he had left in the upstairs room. He closed his own eyes briefly, so similar to those in the canvas. Mama should be with you now.

Turning away, Henry pulled the watch he had inherited from his father out of his pocket and flipped open the casement lid. One of the o’clock on Friday the 1st of February. He closed his hand over the scratched gold casing of the watch and thrust it back into his waistcoat pocket, taking a sharp intake of breath as his knuckles grazed against the cold metal of his mother’s rings that the doctor had given him before he left the upstairs room.

Henry took a step forward to descend the stairs again, but paused. He looked back at the man in the portrait, catching the eternal outward stare. I still have the watch, Henry muttered directly to the unmoving form. And I remember what you said, Father. I will look after Victoria. He didn’t wait for the response that would never come. Hunching his shoulders, he turned again and started back down the stairs.

The door to the drawing room stood open, the air within almost as close as it had been upstairs. Henry’s sister lay prone on the sofa, hands under her head, staring into the fire which overheated the already warm room.

Henry took a deep breath as he entered. Victoria, you have to stop… He ground to a halt not knowing how to continue. Without bothering to flip out his tail coat, he sank onto the sofa next to her. I am afraid it is bad news, he said simply. Mama is dead.

Victoria turned her gaze to him, a gaze that stared right into his eyes, but somehow did not connect. Mama is dead, she repeated.

Henry nodded. She slipped away peacefully not half an hour ago. The doctor said she went in her sleep.

Peacefully? Victoria shifted a hand onto her side and turned back to staring into the fire.

Henry rubbed tiredly at his eyes. It’s for the best.

It’s for the best to die of a broken heart? Victoria still did not meet his eyes. For six months she wouldn’t let us see her. What is the point in falling in love if all you have left in the end is yourself?

Henry ran a hand roughly through his overlong hair. His sister’s words thrust through him with a burn. They echoed his own thoughts. What was the point if in the end you pushed away everyone you loved for the sake of another who would never come back? When you could stay as you were, an autonomous island, unaffected by the passions of others, not relied upon for succor or relying on others in turn? That way you never let anyone down. He looked back at his sister on the sofa. We should be thankful that Mother and Father had very little time without each other.

Victoria rubbed her nose slowly against the remaining hand beneath her head but still would not look at him. Why couldn’t it have been someone else’s father that died? To be murdered in broad daylight, surrounded by strangers— she stifled a sob. Lord Stanton enjoyed telling me all the details.

Henry gritted his teeth. Despite his large house, our Brambridge neighbor is a drunk and a fool. He knows nothing, Victoria.

But she wasn’t listening to him. And now we are alone.

Henry picked up Victoria’s free hand and held it in his large palm. I know.

She pulled her hand away and pushed it roughly back underneath her head with the other. Drawing her knees up, almost to her elbows, she tightly closed her eyes. And you’ve decided to pick up where Father left off.

I—

For the first time she straightened and opened her eyes and turned to look at him. Don’t think I didn’t notice Lord Granwich leaving the house in London two weeks ago. I know who he is. I know Father worked for him too.

I had to—

He was probably the reason Father died. Working for Granwich. Working for the Crown. And now you are going to join them. She turned away from him. "Why did it happen? Why us?"

Henry shook his head and sighed. I don’t know. He grasped his fingers to his father’s pocket watch again, and rubbed at its casing with his thumb, feeling the scratches on its lid where the watch had fallen to the ground as his father had lain next to it, bleeding to death, surrounded by a crowd of anonymous passersby.

Despite not knowing, he was going to find out why his father was murdered—and what his father was looking for when he died—if it was the last thing he did.

CHAPTER 1

A few years later…

Miss Agatha Beauregard folded and refolded the obligatory handkerchief she held lightly in her hands and dabbed at the edges of her dry eyes as a shovelful of dirt fell on her grandfather’s coffin with a thud. The vicar’s voice droned of pity and piety.

No one cried.

No one could have cried, for Agatha was the only mourner at the graveside. The household staff—what was left of them—were finding themselves other positions. They certainly didn’t care for the last menial vestiges of Lantham Beauregard’s life.

Agatha clenched her fist around the handkerchief. And neither did she.

Would you like to say a few words? The vicar smiled tentatively at her across the grave.

She relaxed her grip on the handkerchief and looked down at the soil piled on her grandfather’s coffin. No. Her gaze lifted to the headstone that lay in the grass at the side of the plot, mechanically reading the words her grandfather had dictated himself before he died, ‘In loving memory…’ Quickly she turned her head away to stare at the lychgate where they’d rested her grandfather’s heavy coffin for an instant before dropping him in the dark earth. Loving wasn’t something that she would have associated with the man who had shown neither she nor her brother affection since they had arrived in the bleak and desolate Hope Sands years before.

Her own abiding memory of the lonely village on the windswept coast of North Devon would be of her cold, long, thin room, and the hours she had spent in it in punishment.

The vicar bobbed his head and peered through his spectacles earnestly, rubbing a hand over his Bible. He was a God-fearing man. He didn’t give Agatha time to respond. I understand that the will has been read. A note of hope tinged his voice.

Yes.

The vicar raised his head piously to the sky. The church roof is leaking, dangerously near to your family pew. Of course God provides…

Agatha folded her arms. Gracious. What terrible news. She watched as the vicar brought his head back down to pin her with a beady gaze. His bushy eyebrows twitched a little as he rearranged his face into a semblance of avuncular charm.

You know, I am getting older, and I have no wife. The vicar coughed onto his Bible and continued. You have no husband and if you were to drop some of your novel ways I’m sure we might do well together. After all, I hear you are well versed with running a household—

Agatha unfolded her arms and stared at the portly man. That is a very kind offer, she said with reluctance. Of course it was kind. To take in a woman such as her, a woman that no other man would have. Although he might have waited until after the funeral to broach the subject. She stared at the gold brocade of his rounded cassock. It was advantageous, of course, that she was the granddaughter of the prosperous Lantham Beauregard, and the money that she would inherit could prop up the vicar and his lavish spending.

She would be dropped like a hot stone, however, once he found out that there was no money.

Agatha wrapped her arms around her body and shivered. The descent into poverty had been gradual. Nothing had changed for her, except that in addition to her normal punishments of blacking the grates and taking out the slops, she peeled endless potatoes and vegetables for the household table and the dinner parties that her grandfather would hold for his ‘friends’.

Can I offer you some tea? The vicar started to walk around the grave, carefully staying away from its crumbling sides.

Agatha edged away. No, thank you. I must get back to the house. There are many items to sort out, as you can imagine. Actually there weren’t. They’d already cleared the house and attics of anything valuable. She had no idea what she was going to do next. But there was her very interesting latest experiment to attend to, the recreation of a clepsydra—an ancient Egyptian water clock. She’d set it up at the back of the house against the water butt where no one could see it. And after that—Agatha gulped back a small hysterical laugh. Grandfather’s death and funeral had been rather untimely.

The vicar nodded. I understand. Very difficult when someone dies. Is your brother coming back to help you? Perhaps we could discuss our union with him when he arrives?

Agatha nodded as her hands clutched at her notebook in the pocket below her skirts. She’d left Peter’s letter within it, his writing scrawled across the crumpled, paint spattered page.

Dearest Agatha, I am afraid you cannot come and visit us as I am currently painting for a grand exhibition. You will understand this has been my dream. I have already sent some paintings to London, but I have so many more to finish. You can come soon. I wish you to meet your niece. She reminds me of you, though her curiosity extends more to what it feels like to be a bird, rather than how a bird flies. Unfortunately we are also coping with her other grandfather dying. We’ve buried him in a small village called Brambridge under the name John Smith. He said that he’d always wanted to be a plain old English man. Claire exploded in a flurry of French when she read his wishes. Anyway, I realize it has been many years since you saw me, but I have made arrangements in the meantime—

The gravediggers stopped shoveling wet soil onto the grave, and started throwing clods of turf on top of the mound as it started to rain. Agatha’s jaw set in a straight line. Never mind his utterly self-centered outpourings. Frustrating, capricious and entirely predictable Peter hadn’t said what arrangements.

Of course it was likely there were no arrangements at all. In the years since her brother had deposited her at Hope Sands, stayed a short while and left, she had only seen him once with his wife and child. His initial letters had been full of tales of when he was going to come and get her and release her from their grandfather’s tyranny. Later his promises had reduced to fantasies of visits. And after he had arrived once, and been chased away by Lantham, then his letters mentioned only his family, his priorities evidently superseded by the immediate need to care for those closest to him.

Agatha watched as puddles of water trickled down the newly turned earth. Damn. The rain really would foul up her experiment.

Opposite her the vicar shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, great droplets slapping loudly against the hard cover of his heavy Bible, obviously waiting for a response.

Sedately Agatha gave him a nod. I will arrange to visit you when my brother arrives. She turned on her heel, and walked slowly back through the cemetery towards the road.

Outside, her bedraggled horse leaned against the flint churchyard wall, its back bowed from years of use. Agatha threw a final glance to the graveyard as she passed under the lychgate. The vicar had already disappeared into the church. The gravediggers rested on their spades smoking well-worn pipes from the side of their mouths as they talked.

Letting out a breath, she slumped, her shoulders falling onto the top of her corset that was laced so tightly that she was hardly able to breathe. It had been her tribute to the passing of Lantham Beauregard. Wearing her mother’s dress that she had found two days before in a neatly packed trunk in the attic.

Her hands clenched against her skirts as she stepped out from the shelter of the lychgate. Despite leaving her trunk behind, it was evident her mother had escaped, and now, with her grandfather’s death, she was going to do the very same. For buried between the sparkling clothes and elegant shoes, Agatha had found a small leather pouch of sovereigns.

She really didn’t trust Peter’s idea of arrangements. In fact in true artistic fashion, the reality was that she fully expected him to have forgotten his much younger sister, as he had conveniently done for the last ten years or so. And just for that she was going to visit him, only for a short while. For after all, after him, despite their large age difference, she had nothing left. Her mother had died of typhus and her father of war wounds, not long after she was born. In reality her grandfather, Lantham Beauregard had raised her. Raised her as a convenient servant in his household. She certainly was not going to marry the vicar and become someone else’s slave again, this time under the guise of being a wife. 

Her horse mournfully raised its head as she approached, the slowing rain running down its mane and falling with small splashes to the ground. Hitching up her skirts, Agatha trudged across the muddy road, the pair of large, serviceable men’s boots tied daintily to her ankles sloshing heavily through the puddles.

The horse nickered as she reached him, shaking his bridle with a quick flick of his head and tossing the reins and saddle set for a woman to ride sidesaddle to and fro. Agatha glanced back over the flint wall and unhooked the horse from the tethering post. The gravediggers had finished their talking and now slouched away from her towards their shed in the corner of the cemetery. 

Grabbing the pommel of the saddle, she vaulted upwards. With one fluid movement, she threw her legs astride the horse’s back. Giving a quick nudge to its ribs, Agatha persuaded the surprised horse into a trot, marveling at the leaden skies that were so reminiscent of the little she had seen of her brother’s canvases.

An old, familiar sharp pain burned across Agatha’s hand, causing her to lean forward, clutching and grabbing into the horse’s mane. She knew, though, that there was nothing there to show the occasional beatings that had started on the day that Lantham had burned Peter’s canvases and thrown him out of Hope Sands, and continued for many long years after, till the few weeks before Lantham had died. Brat, thwack, hoyden, thwack, hopeless, thwack, thwack, spinster, useless old maid.

As Agatha regained her seat on the decrepit horse she tightened her hands on the reins. She had never set out to be a hoyden, but it had just happened. Just like being an old maid. In truth, she did have an insatiable curiosity that no beating had been able to quell. For example, she had to try riding a horse astride because mathematically it seemed like a much better point of balance than the silly legs-on-one-side and lean-to-the-right saddle that society forced women into. Then there was that interesting little book on mechanical principles she had found. It had passed many a dark day for her, holed up in her room using her brother’s pristine old Greek primer to decipher all the symbols on the diagrams. Fortunately she had finished the book before Grandfather had burned it.

And beaten her again.

Agatha straightened in the saddle, unheeding of the rain driving into her face. Men had little if any redeeming features. The evidence was clear. They were all completely self-interested, her brother, her grandfather, the footmen, the vicar…

Agatha sighed. Just another reason why she was now on the shelf. No man from Hope Sands wanted a woman that could actually think. Despite her efforts to appear otherwise.

A raindrop slid down Agatha’s nose. She nudged the horse into a faster trot with a firm knee and wiped the droplet from her face, rocking with the horse’s gait as it wearily sped up.

The shower abated as she arrived back at the house, a small farmstead on the edge of Hope Sands. Its dour windows looked down on her forbiddingly. A weight settled in her middle. It hadn’t even been worth hurrying back. Judging by the enormous puddles on the ground, the clepsydra in the backyard would be measuring at least five hours more than it should have done.

Dismounting from the horse, Agatha slowly sloshed up the muddy path to the front door which stood slightly ajar. No one welcomed her into the hall. Within, the doors to each bare room stood open and the fire in the kitchen had gone out. A note on the large oak table explained that the cook, the maid and the footman had found work at the nearby manor. They were terribly sorry, but they had taken the last of the food with them.

That wasn’t the only thing they had taken. Standing shivering on the cold black and white tiles of the kitchen floor, it was evident that all the pots and pans were missing. The jars of preserves had also vanished. With a sinking feeling, Agatha peered into the cupboard where they’d been kept, pushing her arm in, feeling to its edges. Nothing remained. Agatha rocked back on her heels. Packed within the glass pots the servants had taken with them would be one jar, so old that the blue furry mold coating the sugary preserve within was crawling up the side of the glass. It had been her fifth attempt at observing the rate of mold growth on jam. She had been about to take her last measurements. She gripped on to the cupboard bottom and hung her head, before pushing herself back upright. It was only jam.

Slowly Agatha turned and paced back past the front door, and onwards through the cold, ground-floor rooms. The dresser in the parlor stood bare of the usual blue and white plates, and a dark stain on the floor showed where an armchair had disappeared.

Oh gods. What else had they taken? She backed slowly into the hall before clattering quickly up the creaking stairs in her outsize boots, tripping on the top step, falling to her knees on the rough boards of the hallway.

Her lonely, familiar room loomed in front of her. The door which she had left closed that morning was open, propped in place by the broken remains of her mother’s trunk. Where before a mound of clothing had packed the sturdy box, now there was merely an empty space. 

Two tears, the only ones she had shed that day, rolled smoothly down her nose. Agatha crawled across the floor of the hall, and pushed the trunk into her bedroom, leaving the door to slam shut behind her. Her throat burned with silent sobs as she pulled herself into a lone, broken chair that stood at the foot of the small cot she had called her bed. She stared sightlessly at the pockmarked wall at the far end of her miserable room. They were only dresses. Today was for celebrating. She had her freedom at last.

Stoically, Agatha counted the divots in the plaster of the end wall, again and again, and waited for her breathing to calm. The pockmarks were irregular, and radiated out from a central point, the height of a man’s chest. The height of Lantham Beauregard’s chest. She hiccupped and rubbed at her eyes. Unfortunately it was yet another experiment she hadn’t yet got quite right. But that didn’t matter anymore. She hadn’t needed to use it. Lantham Beauregard was dead. Dead of flu for all things holy.

She stopped mid-motion, a hand still fisted to her left eye. A faint squeaking noise vibrated outside the room, but inside the house. Straightening in the chair, Agatha withdrew her hand and cocked her head, freezing as it happened again.

A sickness rose in her stomach. She bit her lip as the third step on the stairs squeaked, and then the sixth step let out a low groan.

Who was it? Surely the vicar wasn’t so keen on their union that he had followed her home? No, surely he wasn’t that sort of man—

The seventh step of the hall stairs moaned. Agatha glanced down at the bedroom floor to the left of her chair. The staff had missed the bowl and potato knife she used to peel vegetables as they cleared the house of goods to sell. Bending sharply over the arm of the chair, she picked up the bowl, placed it in her lap and laid her right hand inside, lightly holding the bone handle of the knife in her palm. The bone was sticky against her skin. She drew the knife out in one fluid motion and pointed it down the bedroom, towards the door.

No. She glanced at the end wall where the pockmarks had formed from the prolonged embedding of a small knife flying at high speed through the air. As if he was still alive her grandfather’s voice rustled in her head. Think you can harm a man by throwing knives? That’s a circus trick for skilled people. Not for unwanted spinsters such as yourself. She huddled in the chair. She hadn’t been able to do it. Throw the knife before he had been able to enter her room, and lash her through the thin cotton of her dress. Despite her avid reading of the book on mechanical principals, she’d never managed to get the action quite right to hit any target three times in a row.

Standing quietly, Agatha pushed the knife into the pocket beneath her skirts and, gripping the solid bowl, shuffled to the bedroom door. Her heart thumped loudly in her ears as she waited. The handle on the door twisted slightly and paused.

It stayed motionless. But then a glint of light sparkled as it moved slowly around again. Agatha straightened and breathed in quietly. She shifted her grip slightly on the bowl and raised it above her head. Good God. Who was there?

The door opened inwardly on its hinges, propelled by a sharp push. But no one stepped through.

I wouldn’t come in if I were you, Agatha said, her throat tightening sharply. She coughed, trying to deepen her voice. Go away and no harm will come to you.

A low laugh resounded in the hallway. The intruder thrust a confident, highly-polished boot through the doorway paying no attention to her paltry threat. Agatha’s eyes traveled unwillingly upwards, as more of the figure revealed itself, taking in the pristine, white breeches encasing muscular thighs, and the expensive-looking tailored coat that hung on broad shoulders. Bright blond hair hung around a forbidding, undeniably male face, dominated by a sharp nose.

I said, don’t come any further. Turn around and go away! Her voice began to shake slightly but she could not take her eyes away from him.

Blue eyes turned to observe her, pinning her to her frozen position. The man took another step in and slowly turned to face her. He smiled slightly, dangerously. It didn’t reassure her.

This man was no vicar.

Agatha wrenched her gaze away and clenched at her skirts with her free hand. Please just go!

The handsome man frowned and lifted a foot. In one deft movement Agatha swung her arm hidden behind the door, and slammed the peelings bowl down on the intruder’s head.

Good God. The man put a hand to his head and tottered slightly. What the…?

Not hard enough. Agatha lifted the copper bowl again and, with two hands, whipped it down faster.

The man let out a low curse and sucked at his fingers. What in the hell are you doing? he said in a deep voice. He backed away behind the door, out of sight.

Damn. Agatha clutched the bowl to her skirts. She should have waited for him to move his fingers away before hitting him again.

For a few seconds there was silence as the man stepped back into the bedroom again, half-in and half-out of the doorway. Agatha watched as he felt at his head with his free hand and then rubbed his fingers against his coat. A red stain emerged stickily on the fine cloth.

Goddamn it! The man took his hand out of his mouth. That was the first time I’ve worn this coat. Ames will be heartily displeased. He paused and grimaced. Actually, I rather think he’ll laugh. Bloody hell, my head hurts.

Agatha stared open-mouthed, the unsettled feeling from earlier coming back in full force. He showed no signs of leaving. Wh… who are you? she stammered. Who was Ames? Scuttling backwards, she fell into her chair. "What do you want?"

He looked at her and bowed shallowly. Lord Henry Anglethorpe, at your service. The blood on his head shone brightly against his long blond hair as he straightened again. Your brother sent me.

Good God. Agatha slumped in the chair. Peter really had made arrangements for her. Oh bloody hell. She’d nearly brained a lord. This was much worse than the discovery of another one of her failed experiments.

CHAPTER 2

Henry shook his head slowly from side to side. The dark bedroom still rolled slightly as the pain from the wound on his head pulsed through his skull. By God—how had the woman known he was there? This was Peter’s sister for God’s sake. The Peter who wouldn’t have noticed if a gun had fired next to his head if he had been in the throes of painting.

Are you all right, my lord? Agatha’s voice was clear, precise and not at all remorseful.

Henry took in a quick breath and nodded, and then cursed. Holding his head stiffly, he turned to observe the small figure that sat immobile at the other end of the room, more than ten paces away. The light from a meagre window reflected against red tints in her brown hair, her sallow skin, and the dress that was thirty years out of fashion. Despite the unprepossessing impressions, Agatha hadn’t apologized, or greeted him when he had introduced himself. He blinked. That was more like the Peter he knew. Without turning his back on her again, he examined the small bowl that lay on the floor. Potato peelings lay scattered at the base of the door. She’d hit him with a cooking pot?

He advanced a few paces towards her and put his hands out in a non-threatening manner. There’s no need to be afraid. God that sounded trite. Why the hell was he doing this? His sister. That was it. He could barely think straight. His head was still full of the man that he had just killed in Wales. I was the one that killed your father, he’d