Regency Scandal: Some Like It Wicked / Some Like to Shock

‘Pandora?’ Rupert’s hands tightened about hers. ‘Tell me who is responsible and I will see that they are punished accordingly,’ he assured grimly.

‘I— Why should you imagine I might have any idea who was responsible?’ She shook her head even as she pulled her hand free of his to stand up and move across the room to begin picking up the things scattered or broken on top of her dressing table.

Rupert frowned as he slowly straightened. ‘Possibly because it has happened before?’

Pandora spun about sharply, her eyes wide. ‘Why do you say that?’

Rupert had not known that for certain. Until now. Pandora’s reaction to his question had just confirmed his earlier suspicions. ‘I’ve told you, you were not surprised or distressed enough earlier. And Bentley looked to you when I questioned why he had not called in the authorities. Is it—could it be that someone has done this out of a malicious need to hurt you?’

Some of the tension eased from her shoulders. ‘A jealous wife, perhaps?’ she challenged scornfully.

Rupert drew in a sharp and steadying breath. ‘It is not so out of the question, is it? Stanley had a wife, I believe?’

Pandora closed her eyes. Oh, yes, Sir Thomas Stanley, the man who had died whilst engaged in that same duel which had killed Barnaby, had most certainly had a wife. And two young children. Which was the very reason that Pandora had not, and never would, publicly reveal the complete truth about the events of a year ago.

She raised her lids, her gaze steady. ‘Yes, he did,’ she acknowledged wearily.

The Duke nodded tersely. ‘That being the case, it’s not such a leap to suspect she may be the one responsible for—’

‘She is not,’ Pandora cut in firmly. ‘Clara Stanley moved to live in Cornwall with her two children not long after—after attending her husband’s funeral.’

‘Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t paid someone—’

‘For heaven’s sake! She has not and did not, Rupert.’ Pandora was losing all patience with this conversation.

Rupert looked at her closely, noting the strain in those violet-coloured eyes, the slight trembling to Pandora’s bottom lip, the shaking of her hands as she bent to pick something up from the floor and set it back upon her dressing table.

She raised that same weary hand to her brow. ‘It’s very late, Rupert, and surely you must realise how improper it is for you to linger in this way in my bedchamber.’

‘You are quite right—in that it is far too late for either of us to be concerned about our reputations. And with that in mind, I believe it best if you don’t remain in this house alone tonight.’

‘But I’m not alone—’

‘I beg to differ,’ Rupert cut in crisply.

‘There are the servants—’

‘An elderly man, two flighty young maids, a plump cook and her slightly addled-looking and very young assistant, and an hysterical lady’s maid—’

‘Bentley is not so elderly,’ she defended in offended tones. ‘Those two young maids are his granddaughters for whom he has been responsible since the death of their parents three years ago. Mrs Chivers is cheerfully rotund, and that very young assistant is her daughter, Maisie, who, although slightly … slow, is certainly not addled. As for Henley—I would far rather have her overabundance of emotion, than be forced to suffer the company of my previous maid.’ Pandora’s chin was raised stubbornly as she met his gaze in challenge.

‘And why were you forced to suffer her company?’ Rupert eyed her frowningly.

Her cheeks became slightly flushed. ‘My husband previously engaged all the household staff.’

And left to her own devices this past year, Rupert realised that Pandora had chosen to employ an elderly butler because he was responsible for his two young granddaughters, a cook and her no doubt illegitimate—and ‘slightly slow’—daughter, and a lady’s maid who went into hysterics at the slightest provocation.

All of them servants who had no doubt previously found it difficult to attain employment. And yet Pandora had engaged all of them. Yet another contradiction to that reputation she had as being flighty and self-centred, as well as unfaithful …

Rupert sighed heavily. ‘Pandora, can’t you see that whoever came into this house earlier this evening may decide to come back again?’

‘They never have in the past—’ Pandora broke off, an expression of consternation on her face as she looked across at him accusingly. ‘You said that deliberately in order to trick me!’

Yes, he had, and he would do it again, if it succeeded in leading him to the truth. Or, as much of the truth as Pandora was willing to share with him at this moment … ‘I was right then, this has happened before?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many times?’

‘Three in the last year—and, no, that does not mean that Clara Stanley must be the one responsible.’ She glared her annoyance. ‘Will you not leave that poor woman alone? Has she not suffered enough?’

Again, strange sentiments from the woman who was supposedly responsible for causing most, if not all, of Clara Stanley’s suffering …

There was so much here which did not add up. So many questions that Rupert instinctively knew Pandora would not answer as yet. Truthfully, at least. Not that he had any reason to believe she had ever answered him untruthfully, she just had a way of avoiding the truth when it suited her to do so.

Rupert had heard the gentlemen in his clubs discussing the beauty of Pandora Maybury during the past four years, of her infidelity during her marriage, and it had been impossible not to learn of the gossip of the scandal surrounding the death of both her husband and the man accused of being her lover. But there had been little gossip of note about her since that scandal. No mention of her having taken a new lover. Or lovers. No gentlemen at his clubs having boasted of bedding the beautiful but deadly Duchess.

Of course it could just be that she was too scandalous, too notorious, for any of those gentlemen to wish to become involved with her, even privately, but somehow Rupert didn’t think so; Sugdon, for one, had certainly not seemed to suffer from any such reluctance to bed her!

Rupert’s mouth tightened, nostrils flaring, just at the memory of the scene he had interrupted the previous evening, of Pandora’s gown ripped, her breasts all but visible through the thin material of her chemise. ‘Is there anything missing that you can tell?’

She gave a shake of her head. ‘Obviously I won’t be able to say exactly until after things have been put back to rights, but I don’t think so, no.’

Rupert’s eyes narrowed. ‘Was anything taken those other three times?’

‘Not that I’m aware, no.’

‘Not that you are aware? How can you not know for sure?’

Pandora sighed at his obvious incredulity. ‘My marriage contract stated that if Barnaby should die before me and our marriage was childless, I should be left a house of my own in which to live and funds to support myself. This house was never a part of the Wyndwood estate; in fact, I had no knowledge of its existence until Barnaby bequeathed it to me in his will. It came to me already furnished and I’ve changed very little since I moved here a year ago. But I believe all the furnishings are the same, and that the original paintings still hang upon the walls.’

In Rupert’s experience there was usually only one reason for a gentleman to own a property in London of which his wife had no knowledge. Was it possible that, before his untimely death, Barnaby Maybury had kept a mistress here, in the very same house he had bequeathed to his wife in his will? If that was indeed the case, then Rupert could imagine no greater insult to that wife. However, the clearness of Pandora’s gaze and expression would seem to imply she remained totally in ignorance of the insult …

Yet another indication—if Rupert had needed one—that she wasn’t at all the sophisticated and experienced woman the gossips expected her to be. Indeed, her soft-heartedness, even with regard to the employment of her household servants, gave every impression she was anything but those two things!

Could it be that Maybury’s mistress had since returned to this house three—no, four times, in order to try to retrieve something of hers she had inadvertently left behind when she no doubt hastily removed her things from the premises? It was certainly one explanation, and one that Rupert intended to privately pursue.

If Pandora was in ignorance as to her husband’s use for this house, then it was perhaps best, for the moment, if she remained that way.

Only the vulnerability of her nape and the back of her shoulders was now visible to him as she once again busied herself tidying the things upon her dressing table. A vulnerability which stirred Rupert’s protective feelings in spite of himself.

He carefully stepped over the silk undergarments scattered upon the floor as he silently crossed the bedchamber to stand behind her. ‘Pandora—what have you done?’ he prompted sharply as she gave a gasp at the same time as she swiftly drew back her gloved hand from arranging the things on the dressing table.

‘A sliver of glass just pierced my finger.’ Pandora kept her face averted as she now held her injured hand against her breasts, fully aware that it was the realisation of Rupert’s close proximity which had startled her, as much as the sudden pain of the glass entering her finger.

The more so, because until that moment, having been preoccupied in her own thoughts concerning all the events of this evening, she had been totally unaware of his disturbing presence standing so close behind her …

‘Let me see.’

Pandora’s back stiffened instinctively as he took a firm hold of her bare shoulders before turning her to face him, that golden head now bent as he took a gentle hold of her injured hand with the obvious intention of inspecting the damage.

‘As there is blood oozing all over your glove you’ll need to remove it,’ he advised gruffly.

Pandora, having been staring, mesmerized, at that bent golden head, now gave a startled glance down at her hand, surprised to see there was indeed blood seeping through the lace. ‘Oh, dear!’ She freed her hand to peel the glove down her arm before carefully removing it. ‘It doesn’t look so bad …’ There appeared to be only the smallest of puncture wounds in the soft pad of her index finger.

‘Let me see.’ The Duke once again took a firm grasp of her hand, frowning darkly as he looked down intently at the blood still oozing from the wound. ‘Is the glass still inside?’

‘I don’t think so, no.’ Pandora was no longer bothered quite so much by the shock of the accident as she was by having Rupert cradling her hand in his much larger one. Her breath hitched in her throat, her senses alert to every nuance of the touch of those long, slender fingers that so gently cupped her own.

‘Perhaps it would be as well if I …’ He did not finish his sentence as he raised her hand to his parted lips to take her injured finger into the moist heat of his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ Pandora gasped at the intimacy of such an action, the cut to her finger completely forgotten as she felt the moist lap of his tongue against her flesh before he began to suck upon it gently. ‘Rupert!’ she exclaimed, her breathing becoming shallow.

Long golden lashes rose until that glittering silver gaze met and held hers even as he continued his tender ministrations.

Pandora ceased to breathe at all, totally ensnared, both by those mesmerising eyes gazing so deeply into her own, and the shocking intimacy of feeling what he was doing to her finger. It felt so … sensuous, forbidden and of such intimacy that she was helplessly aware of her breasts swelling beneath her gown, the tips hardening, and causing an aching warmth between her thighs. She felt herself totally unable to find the strength to look away from the perfectly chiselled lips around her finger.

It was, at one and the same time, the most caring, and yet erotically charged, moment of her life, that gentle suckling of her flesh causing the tips of her breasts to tingle, as if the softness of Rupert’s lips were touching her there rather than her finger. The heat increased inside her core, dampening the delicacy of her folds and making her press her trembling thighs together in a vain attempt to suppress it.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ There was a shocked gasp from across the bedchamber as Henley entered the room without warning. ‘I had no idea! I would not have— I believed his Grace to have already left …’ She trailed off awkwardly.

Rupert ignored the flustered lady’s maid as he moved so that his body shielded Pandora from the other woman’s curiosity. His fingers tightened as she would have instantly snatched her hand away, his silver gaze brooding as he continued to look down into her now-stricken one as he slowly sucked upon her injured finger once more, twice, before releasing that digit from his mouth with a soft popping noise, the whole length of that tiny finger now moist from his ministrations. ‘I don’t think there’s any glass still embedded in your finger,’ he rasped.

Her cheeks were flushed, her breasts softly rising and falling in her agitation. ‘Release me,’ she hissed softly when her attempts to pull her hand from within the strength of his proved fruitless.

Rupert’s lips curved into a mocking smile even as he placed those same lips one last time upon her injured finger before releasing her. ‘My nanny was a great believer in kissing a hurt better as a healing method.’

Kissing a hurt better?

Pandora now ached in parts of her body she had not known could ache! But not in an unpleasant way. No, what she now felt, in her breasts and between her thighs, was all too pleasurable …

Chapter Seven

Pandora swallowed to ease the dryness in her throat before answering him waspishly. ‘In that case, I believe I must be completely cured, your Grace!’ She shot him a censorious glare before turning to look across the bedchamber at her maid. ‘What is it, Henley?’

That poor lady looked completely undone by this added stress upon her already frayed nerves. ‘I came to help—that is, I thought to—Perhaps I should come back later …?’ Henley shot Rupert a nervous glance.

‘I—’

‘Do that,’ the Duke cut in haughtily.

Pandora scowled at him before answering her maid. ‘That won’t be necessary, Henley. His Grace was just leaving,’ she added pointedly.

Rupert raised lazily arrogant brows. ‘I don’t believe our present … conversation is over just yet, Pandora.’

A blush heated her cheeks, whether with embarrassment or anger she was unsure. ‘Oh, I think we’ve said all that needs to be said on the subject for one evening, your Grace.’

‘Indeed?’ he drawled.

‘Indeed.’ Her mouth firmed. ‘Henley, perhaps you would care to show his Grace out?’

‘I—’

‘I shall see myself out, thank you, Pandora.’ The ice now literally dripped from his voice.

Then do so—now! Pandora wished to say. She knew it was ungrateful of her to feel that way. Rupert had been kindness itself to her since they had entered the house and found the whole of her household in uproar. Well … perhaps he had not been merely kind to her for all of that time—as the tingling of her breasts and thighs still testified!

‘When—and if,’ the Duke continued inexorably, ‘I deem it necessary.’

When and if he deemed it necessary that he leave? He was unbelievably arrogant!

As far as she was concerned it would have been better by far if he had left some time ago! ‘Leave us, would you, Henley?’ She made the request gently, even as her flashing gaze was fixed immovably upon the arrogant idiot in front of her.

‘Yes, your Grace.’ Henley bobbed a curtsy. ‘Of course, your Grace. Would you like me to—’

‘For heaven’s sake, just go, will you?’ Rupert instructed. ‘How on earth do you stand that woman’s presence about you every day?’ he demanded the moment Henley had closed the door of the bedchamber behind her. ‘I’m sure I should be driven to madness by her nervous twitchings and hesitations!’

‘Then it’s as well you don’t have to suffer them any further,’ Pandora returned tersely. ‘And how dare you give her the impression that you and I … Imply that you and I— I believe you should leave now!’ She eyed him in utter frustration.

‘So I ascertained some minutes ago.’ He nodded unconcernedly.

‘Well?’ Pandora prompted some tense seconds later as he still gave no indication of leaving.

He raised those arrogant brows as he looked down at her with cool grey eyes. ‘There was something of import I had intended to discuss with you this evening.’

Pandora stiffened warily. ‘Oh?’

Rupert smiled ruefully as he saw that wariness. ‘Obviously, the situation we found upon our return here has deemed that now is not the right time for us to have that discussion.’

‘Obviously.’

His smile widened at the dryness of her tone. ‘In which case I will return here tomorrow and we shall have our conversation then.’

Pandora tapped a foot in exasperation. ‘You know, Rupert, you might find my mood to be far more accommodating if you were to ask rather than use such arrogant phrases as “I had intended” and “I will”!’

‘Touché.’ Rupert smiled as she turned his earlier comment back upon him. Proving her sharp intelligence once again, but also that she was not in the least the ordinary type of woman of his acquaintance, who gushed and fawned over the Duke of Stratton.

Just as the physical evidence of Pandora’s response to him a few minutes ago—a flush to her cheeks, the swelling of her breasts, the unevenness of her breathing—proved that neither was she immune to the physical intimacy fast developing between the two of them …

But would Pandora’s physical awareness of him make what Rupert wished to say to her more, or less, acceptable?

Their conversation tomorrow would, he hoped, provide him with an answer to that question.

‘Do sit down, Pandora, and tell me all that has happened to you since we last met,’ Genevieve Forster encouraged avidly the moment the two of them were left alone in that lady’s private parlour the following afternoon. ‘And don’t attempt to claim that nothing has happened, because several of my visitors this morning could talk of nothing else but your visit to the theatre yesterday evening in the company of Devil Stirling!’ The reproving frown she gave Pandora was obviously on account of her not having informed Genevieve of it herself.

Devil Stirling …

Pandora had come to realise how well that name suited Rupert! He might have the golden looks of a fallen angel, but he was indeed a devil and one who enjoyed nothing more than tormenting her.

Or tempting her …?

Pandora was suffused with heat every time she so much as thought about those few moments of intimacy between them in her bedchamber the evening before. Although why she should feel so hot and bothered, just having Rupert Stirling kiss her finger, was beyond her comprehension. Which was one of the reasons she had called upon her friend today, in the hope that Genevieve, hopefully more understanding of such things, would be able to explain this strangeness of feelings to her.

She sat forwards in the chair to take the cup of tea Genevieve had just poured for her. ‘The Earl and Countess of Heyborough were also there. In fact, I was their guest for the evening, not Rupert Stirling’s.’

Genevieve raised russet brows. ‘But at Stratton’s urging, no doubt?’

Pandora felt the blush in her cheeks. ‘I believe he did prompt his aunt into making the invitation, yes …’

‘Well, of course he did! And?’

‘And the opera was particularly tedious—’

‘I have no interest in hearing about the opera, Pandora!’ her friend admonished ruefully. ‘But I do want to know everything else,’ she added eagerly. ‘Such as how you came to be so well acquainted with Devil Stirling in the first place that he prompted his aunt into inviting you to the opera. And, more to the point, what happened after he drove you home at the end of the evening!’ Genevieve’s blue eyes twinkled merrily.

The warmth increased in Pandora’s cheeks, her pulse leaping, just thinking about the rasp of Rupert’s tongue stroking against her injured finger, of his sucking that finger into the heated moisture of his mouth, of the way his devilish silver eyes had held her gaze captive as he did so … It was an act so stirringly intimate that for some minutes Pandora had completely forgotten the surrounding disarray of her bedchamber.

She moistened her lips before speaking. ‘We met on the terrace the evening of Sophia’s ball. Quite by chance,’ Pandora added hastily; she had preferred not to confide in Genevieve and Sophia that an unknown person, or persons, had broken into her home several times this past year and she did not now intend to recount to Genevieve the details of Lord Sugdon’s unpleasant attentions towards her the evening of Sophia’s ball, either. Pandora deeply appreciated the friendship Genevieve and Sophia had given her this past month and she wasn’t going to bother either of those ladies with the less acceptable details of her life. ‘Talking of which … have you seen or spoken to Sophia since that evening?’

Genevieve’s curls gleamed deeply red as she shook her head. ‘Both of you have left me quite bereft of your company this past two days. Why?’ Her interest quickened. ‘Has something happened to her, too, which I should know about?’

It would perhaps be indiscreet of Pandora to mention the comments she had overheard the evening of the ball indicating Dante Carfax’s long-term interest in Sophia. ‘I merely wondered if she had been pleased with the success of her ball,’ she said lightly.

‘And I believe you are merely trying to distract my attention from telling me of this new friendship of yours with Devil Stirling.’ Genevieve pouted prettily.

‘Not at all,’ Pandora assured with a soft laugh. ‘Indeed, I am as surprised by that gentleman’s … attentions towards me, as you appear to be.’

‘I don’t see why. You are beautiful, and charming—’

‘And surrounded by such scandal that most gentlemen tend to give me a wide berth in company and attempt to bed me in private!’

Genevieve gave an indelicate snort. ‘That particular gentleman is no stranger to scandal himself!’

‘Well … no.’ Pandora frowned slightly at mention of Rupert’s less-than-pristine reputation even before he began living so openly with his stepmother. A relationship he had seemed to completely disregard in Pandora’s bedchamber the evening before! ‘But it is not the same for a gentleman as it is for a lady.’

‘Nothing in life ever is.’ Genevieve grimaced.

Pandora eyed her curiously. ‘You’ve not told me of your own progress in taking a lover.’

‘Because there is nothing to tell as yet.’ Genevieve looked deeply aggrieved by the fact. ‘Now for heaven’s sake, cease your delaying, Pandora, and tell me all!’

Pandora didn’t tell her friend quite all of her acquaintance with Rupert, preferring to omit the reason for their initial conversation, as well as those moments of intimacy in her bedchamber. But she did relate everything else to the eagerly listening Genevieve.

That lady’s blue eyes were wide with excitement by the time Pandora had finished her tale. ‘And have the two of you had chance to speak again today?’

‘Not as yet, no.’ But Pandora knew that Rupert had called this morning, whilst she was out at the shops, leaving his card and promising to return this afternoon. Which was the very reason Pandora had chosen to pay a visit to Genevieve. Although she seriously doubted she would be able to avoid him for ever. ‘What do you think it can be that he wishes to discuss with me?’

‘Can you not guess?’ Genevieve’s eyes glowed with mischief.

During the hours since Pandora had last seen Rupert Stirling she had taken several guesses as to what the subject of that conversation might be—each of them more fantastic than the first!—which was why she had sought counsel of one of her friends.