Buch lesen: «A Scandalous Proposal»

PROLOGUE

COOPER TOWNSEND STOOD facing the tall dressing table, looking at his expression in the attached mirror, watching as he saw his usually clear green eyes going dark. He had to control himself, get past his anger, or else he wouldn’t be able to think clearly.

He’d also run out of neck clothes, as this was the third he’d managed to mangle since his friend Darby showed up in his dressing room waving a copy of Volume Two of what was becoming known as The Chronicles of a Hero.

As if the first one hadn’t been enough: The Daring and Amorous Exploits of His Lordship Cooper McGinley Townsend, Compleat with Firsthand Accounts of His Extraordinary Missions Against the Frogs in England’s Glorious Victory Over the Devil Bonaparte: Volume One.

Indeed, Volume One had been sufficient to send him off within a fortnight to the supposed safety of his newly acquired estate, where he’d hoped sanity might rule the day (even considering that his mother was in residence).

He’d returned to London only at the behest of his friend Gabriel Sinclair, and that was for only a week, at which point the delivery of a copy of the soon-to-be published Volume Two had sent him to his estate once more. But this time it was only to pack up the majority of his new wardrobe, fail to talk his mother out of returning with him and head back to the Little Season, where he would find himself a wife. He didn’t want a wife—who did? Except Gabriel, and contrary to all that was rational, his friend seemed deliriously happy contemplating the loss of his freedom.

A hasty betrothal might not solve all his problems, but it would be a start. The matchmaking mamas were getting much too clever, and at least this way his wife would be of his own choosing, and not the result of waking up one morning with a giggling debutante tucked up beside him in his bed, her mother ready to burst in—with witnesses—to cry, “You cad! We post the banns yet today!”

Which would seem silly and self-serving to consider...except for the fact that one ambitious damsel had already made it all the way into the bedchamber in his hotel suite before Ames could scoop her up and deposit her back in the lobby, where her infuriated mama grabbed her by the ear and harangued her incompetence, presumably all the way back to her coach.

Yes, he would take himself off the market. Only then would he be able to concentrate on the rest of it.

“Did you read this? I only saw it this morning, so maybe you haven’t yet had the pleasure,” Darby Travers, also Viscount Nailbourne when he chose to impress, asked, tearing himself away from the printed page in order to wave the chapbook at him.

“Yes, I’ve read it. The perpetrator—I won’t call him author—was kind enough to send me an early copy when I was in town last week. For God’s sake, Darby, put it down.”

“Not quite yet. It’s obvious you’re going to wrest the fair maiden from a fate worse than death, hero that you are. Just let me read the ending.”

“All right, since it’s unfortunately important. Go on. Damn, Darby—I didn’t say for you to read it aloud.”

But the viscount continued in his pleasant baritone, now heavily laden with amused emphasis.

“The most Beauteous and Grateful young lady, her name always to be a mystery, her Cornflower Blue Eyes awash in Diamond-Bright tears, turned to our Modest and Abashed Hero and, quite to his Astonished Surprise, flung her soft round body straight at his chest, so that he was Without Recourse save to Hold Her Close as He could feel the Frantic Beating of her Virgin Heart, the rapid rise and fall of her Perfect Bosoms, as she extolled his Virtues, his immense Bravery and indeed, Overcome by her Emotions, she cried out in Near Ecstasy as she grasped his strong shoulders, claiming the world could safely rest on their Broad Expanse, just as her fate had so lately done, and Never Fear for her honor, that which she then so Earnestly Offered Him.”

“It’s even worse than I remember,” Cooper grumbled. “And did the man never hear about the glories of a period? You almost ran out of breath there, Darby, unless you were being ‘overcome by your emotions.’”

“A little of both, I believe. You lucky dog, you.” Darby struggled to turn the last page of the cheaply made chapbook, and frowned.

“Coming soon, Volume Three: The Further Adventures and Exploits of Baron Cooper McGinley Townsend, Hero, Wherein All Is Revealed as to His Character and Private Nature, Whether Be He Devil or Saint.”

He looked up at his friend. “That’s it? There’s nothing more? My God, Coop, and with all the ripping retorts that have come rushing into my head reluctantly pushed to one side, this isn’t good. Anyone with a drop of imagination would think you took advantage of her virtue, and Lord knows what the ton lacks in intelligence it more than makes up for in lurid imagination.”

“I’m aware of that, yes, thank you.” Coop stripped off the abused neck cloth and tossed it to Sergeant Major Ames, who had been his aide-de-camp during the final defeat of Bonaparte at Waterloo, and who could now lay claim to being the most burly, most foulmouthed and most sartorially bankrupt valet in all of England.

“Man needs his digits hacked off, that’s what he needs,” Ames said, tossing a new neck cloth Coop’s way. “And then stuffed up his arse.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, Ames,” Darby drawled as he stepped forward and snatched the fresh linen out of midair. “He’s usually bearably adequate, but clearly he’s overset at the moment. Here, Coop, let me do it for you, or else we’ll be spending the remainder of our lives here in your dressing room.”

Two tall, handsome but very different men were now reflected in the mirror. Coop could have been the angel, with his blond good looks, and Darby the dark-haired devil, somehow made even more attractive with the black satin eye patch covering his left eye.

“Ames meant my anonymous good friend,” Coop pointed out, grinning as he raised his chin and allowed Darby to position the neck cloth around his raised shirt points. “And he was being kind, if not civil. It’s quite another part of the scribbler’s anatomy Ames truly has designs on, don’t you, Ames?”

“First have to find them, my lord, and I doubt the rascal has the least trouble fitting into his breeches, if you take my meaning.”

“Give me that before you choke me,” Coop said, grabbing one end of the linen strip as Darby’s bark of laughter blasted in his ear. “I returned to the city for assistance from my friends, and not only is Gabe gone to his estate, but he left you behind, which is less than helpful in any circumstance. I’ve got enough going upside down in my life as it is, and you have all the makings of a menace.”

“I’d be bereft, did I not choose to take that as a compliment. But please, a menace that can tie the Waterfall with his eyes—pardon me, eye—closed. Very well, make your own mess. We’ll even name it. The Hero’s Knot. Good choice, Sergeant Major, wouldn’t you say, because I think he’s fashioned a noose.”

“You’re quite the wit, Darby,” Cooper said as Ames helped him into his jacket. “I don’t know how you ever stop laughing. You really think this whole thing is hilariously funny, don’t you?” he asked as Darby replaced his handkerchief after lifting the black patch over his left eye and dabbing at a nonexistent tear of amusement.

“In most cases, no, I suppose not, but to see the calm, never-ruffled Cooper so flummoxed? Yes, I admit to enjoying myself. Really, is it so very terrible, Sobersides, being cast in the role of a hero? Damsels must be sighing and swooning over their hot chocolate all over Mayfair right now, their tiny pink toes curling in delight. I repeat, you lucky dog.”

Coop and Ames exchanged glances, and the valet retrieved a folded sheet of paper from the desk in the bedchamber Coop occupied at the Pulteney Hotel. “This arrived earlier, shoved under the door just as messages are in all inferior novels. Take it down to the lobby with you, read it and decide for yourself. I’ll just say a quick good-morning to my mother and join you there shortly.”

“Am I going to be amused?” Darby asked, sliding the paper inside his jacket. “Never mind, I can see I’m not. And does it explain the neck cloth, and your jolly good humor? I suppose so. Very well, ten minutes, or else I’ll be back.”

With Darby out of the room, Coop picked up his silver-backed brushes and concentrated on taming his thick thatch of annoyingly unruly dark blond hair, or

...his Glorious Crown of sun-Kissed locks reminiscent of a Veritable Halo of Goodness even while he ran his long, straight fingers through the Mass as he stepped over the Broken Body of the Wretched Attacker and shyly smiled at the Unknown Damsel he’d Rescued from a Fate Worse Than Death.

Fate worse than death. Just what Darby had said in jest. It only went to prove anyone could write a chapbook—as long as one didn’t bother stretching his imagination beyond the trite and prurient. “Oh, God, now I’m poking sticks at one of my best friends.” Cooper sighed as he put down the brushes and spoke to the air. “‘Is it so terrible being cast in the role of a hero?’ Darby, my friend, you have no idea.”

Admittedly, at first it hadn’t been that awful. He’d served his country not once, but twice, donning the colors again after being invalided back to England in 1814 with his friends Darby, Gabriel and Jeremiah Rigby, baronet. He’d gone on to become quite the celebrity after a small yet fierce battle just outside Quatre Bras, just before Wellington’s final victory at Waterloo.

The world would never know the full truth of what had transpired that day, which was pointed out to Cooper quite forcefully by His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent himself, before he presented the hero with a small estate, a comfortably heavy purse and the title of baron. It was a magnificent reward...although some might call it a bribe, or even the hint of a threat. In any event, Cooper quickly realized he would be wise, and perhaps safer, to accept it.

But the world didn’t know any of that.

Of most interest to the average John Bull and the newspapers had been Cooper’s daring rescue of several towheaded tots (the number varied from three to a full dozen, depending on who told the story), who had wandered into the midst of what was soon to be a battlefield. Some versions included a beauteous older cousin who had been most grateful for their rescue...but then, there were romantics everywhere, weren’t there?

Three or twelve, lovely and anonymous, profoundly grateful blonde beauty or not, on his return to London Cooper found himself more popular than Christmas pudding. In the months since Waterloo he had not been able to take more than a few steps in any direction without someone calling out, “It’s him—Townsend! There he is!”

Everyone clapped him on the back. Everyone stood him up for a bottle or two. Everyone treated this son of a genteel but never more than comfortably well-off family as if he was the best of good fellows, and he’d been invited to so many house parties and boxing matches and the like that it would have taken a squadron of heroes to accept all of the invitations.

Still, the whole thing was fairly enjoyable.

But then Volume One was handed out free on the street corners, and everything changed.

Coop remembered waking one morning to have Ames present him with it. There he was on the cover of the cheap chapbook, or at least Ames told him the garish print was supposed to represent him. He was pictured as tall and lean, which he was, but with a highly exaggerated shock of unruly blond hair and vividly green eyes that had him peeking into a pier glass to check on the intensity of his own. They were green—he’d give the artist that—but certainly not that green.

The streets were flooded with the damned book that was complete with a notice on its back cover that the next in the series would reveal

The Further Adventures of Our Glorious Baron Returned from the War, Secretly Performing Heroic Acts in England, Champion of the People and Rescuer of Delicate Females in Dire Straits and Needful of His Valiant Assistance.

Now mamas wanted him for their daughters. Fathers wanted him because he was a hero, and wouldn’t “M’son-in-law the hero, yes, indeed” sound all the crack in the clubs? Married women wanted him because—good Lord, who knew why married women wanted anything...and sweet young damsels considered Coop the catch of the year.

“And now this. So much for my plan of throwing myself into the Little Season and finding a wife in order to put an end to the nonsense.”

“My lord? I didn’t quite catch all of that?”

“Never mind, Ames. I was thinking about that damn note again.”

He had already committed that to memory, as well.

Ten thousand pounds or the next volume will be Our Hero Falls from Grace as the True Identity of the Supposed Innocents Rescued at Quatre Bras is Revealed, Much to the Shame That Rises to the Highest Reaches of the Crown Itself. Yes, my hero, this is blackmail, and I’m quite good at it. Remain in London, Baron Townsend, no more dashing to hide yourself at your estate. I will be in touch.

“Ah, Ames. So much for brilliant ideas, not to mention the size of the cow Prinny will birth if the truth were to become known. We can only hope to God Darby has had his fill of poking fun and is about to offer his help,” he said now, accepting his gloves and curly brimmed beaver from Ames before heading for the stairs leading to the lobby.

“You didn’t want to get bracketed, anyway,” his man reminded him.

“True enough, but if I can’t find our underendowed bastard of a biographer, we can probably wave goodbye to the estate and you can stop addressing me as ‘my lord.’ I don’t even want to think what my mother would say.”

Ames screwed his face into a grimace. “That could be the worst, my lord, I agree. She says more than enough as it is, don’t she?”

Coop laughed. “Thank you, Ames, for that reminder. Please tell her I was called away and will see her at dinner tonight. I go forth now with doubled determination, and twice the haste.”

The sergeant major sharply saluted. “Just as a hero should, sir.”

“I’m quite fond of you, Ames, but I could still sack you,” Coop warned him as the other man quickly hid his grin beneath his prodigiously large mustache.

Darby was waiting, pacing, in the lobby. “You get yourself into the damnedest predicaments, don’t you?” he said, handing back the folded paper.

“You mistake the matter. That’s you, along with Gabe and Rigby. I’m the sensible one, remember, always there to pull you three free of the briars at every turn.”

“Point taken. And what does your sensible self plan to do now that the thorns are sticking into your own backside? I hope it includes finding this bastard and wringing his scrawny neck.”

Darby’s outrage soothed Coop somewhat. “Yes, that was the plan, as a matter of fact. How did you know?”

“I didn’t know, not with you. You’re too damn civilized. You’re not going to tell me the lady’s name, are you? The fair damsel who could or, perhaps, could not have been there the day of your daring rescue.”

“Why, Darby, I do believe I’ve forgotten it. Imagine that.” Then he flinched, knowing his friend had tricked him. How could he have forgotten, even for a moment, that his friend could pry a secret from a clam.

“Aha! Then there was a woman. At least I’ve gotten that out of you. You are a hero, you know, pure of heart and straight as the best-carved arrow. That, and a damn fool, now that I know our own fat Florizel is somehow involved. Baron? Seems to me you could have held out for earl. Shall we get started?”