The Scandals Of An Innocent

“A pretty servant girl,” Celia snapped. She sounded put out at Gaines’s words. “Why, that is right up your street, Miles. What are we waiting for? Call the banns!”

Miles looked at the lawyers, who both looked back at him with very straight faces. “There is, as Mr. Gaines mentioned, a small difficulty,” he murmured.

“The conditions attached to the match?” Celia asked.

“Quite so,” Miles said. “Miss Lister’s trustees-” he inclined his head toward the lawyers “-have to agree that I am a worthy suitor. In fact, I believe I have to prove it to them over a period of three months.” He raised his brows interrogatively. “Gaines? Churchward? Do you think I stand the remotest chance?”

“You put me in a very difficult position, my lord,” Mr. Churchward said unhappily. “Very tricky indeed.” He shook his head. “Oh dear, oh dear. I hope you will not take offense when I say I wish that your choice had not alighted on Miss Lister, of all people.”

“I told you there was something wrong with the gel!” Lady Vickery said triumphantly.

“On the contrary, madam,” Churchward said, looking chagrined, “I am of the same mind as Mr. Gaines that Miss Lister is an utterly charming young woman.” He turned to Miles. “As your family lawyer I have to advise you to marry an heiress, my lord, but as Miss Lister’s trustee I have to say that you are an entirely inappropriate and unworthy suitor, and I would be very remiss in my duty to give my permission to the match.”

“Not an overwhelming endorsement, then,” Miles said. “Gaines.” He turned to the other man. “Are you of the same mind?”

“No, my lord,” the lawyer said. He met Miles’s gaze very squarely. “I would put the matter more starkly than Mr. Churchward has. I am of the mind that it would be well nigh impossible for you to convince me of your worth. You are a rake, a gamester and a blatant fortune hunter-”

“Oh, that is nonsense!” Lady Vickery interposed. “Miles does not gamble!”

“Lord Vickery has never made any secret of his affaires, madam,” Gaines said sharply. “He set up a notorious courtesan as his mistress-”

“Not in front of the boy!” Lady Vickery said, covering Philip’s ears again.

“The relationship between myself and Miss Caton is over,” Miles said. “I am quite reformed.”

Celia smothered a snort of disbelief and Gaines gave Miles a wintry smile. “That remains to be seen,” he murmured. “Then there was the matter of Miss Bell, the nabob’s daughter.”

“That was most unfortunate,” the dowager put in. “Unfortunate in that she jilted Miles, I mean. She was the biggest heiress in London. Ghastly parents, of course, but one must simply concentrate on the money.”

“I am aware of the circumstances, madam,” Mr. Gaines said, with cold courtesy. “Lord Vickery abandoned his earlier pursuit of Miss Lister in order to win the larger financial prize-”

“And then lost his gamble because at the time he was only a baron and Miss Bell preferred an earl,” Celia said, smiling. “She will be kicking herself now that Miles has inherited a marquisate.”

“Such accidents of fate overset even the most careful planning,” Lady Vickery said. “All the same, it serves the chit right.”

“I accept,” Miles said, “that the episode does not reflect well on me.” Under Frank Gaines’s chilly scrutiny he was starting to feel like a schoolboy hauled up in front of the headmaster at Eton.

“You are a cad,” Celia pointed out.

“Thank you, Celia,” Miles said. “Your help in this matter is much appreciated.”

“I believe your sister has summed up the situation very succinctly,” Gaines said.

“So,” Celia said, eyebrows raised, “no lawyerly approval, then?”

Churchward shuffled his papers again and avoided Miles’s gaze. Gaines met it head-on in a moment of tension.

“Mr. Gaines and Mr. Churchward cannot actually refuse me at this point,” Miles said softly. “If I fulfill Lady Membury’s conditions, which are that I prove myself an honest and worthy gentleman over a period of three months, then they must accede to Miss Lister’s wishes and agree to the match.”

“Three months!” the dowager said. “That might be a little ambitious for you, darling.”

“Well nigh impossible, as Mr. Gaines has said,” Celia opined.

“Not at all,” Miles said. “I have reformed in order to win Miss Lister’s hand.”

He saw Frank Gaines’s lips set in a line of grim disapproval. “Why Miss Lister would even consider you as a suitable husband is beyond me, my lord,” he said.

Miles smiled blandly. “Perhaps Miss Lister pities me, being doubly burdened with both a family debt and a family curse. Or perhaps she feels that I need to change my ways and she thinks she is the woman to reform me,” he said.

Churchward looked at Gaines, who shook his head in a gesture of exasperation.

“It is true that Miss Lister devotes herself to a variety of lost causes,” Mr. Churchward said with resignation, “but in this case…”

“You feel that she has overreached herself?” Miles murmured.

“I think, my lord,” Churchward said with asperity, “that Miss Lister is most misguided. Reform you indeed! A desperately unlikely state of affairs!”

“I can barely wait to meet her, Miles,” Celia said. “A devotee of lost causes, eh? She might be just the woman for you.”

“So I think,” Miles said smoothly. He turned back to the lawyers. “If I do somehow manage to meet the requirements of Lady Membury’s will and behave as an upright and worthy gentleman for three months,” he said, “you cannot refuse consent, can you, gentlemen?”

Once again Gaines and Churchward exchanged a look. “No, my lord,” Gaines admitted reluctantly, “we cannot. Not if you fulfill Lady Membury’s stipulations.” He gave Miles a particularly piercing look. “I take it that Miss Lister has at least had the sense to refuse an official announcement until you have fulfilled the conditions?”

“Sadly,” Miles said, “she has. And I have agreed.”

He saw Gaines relax infinitesimally. “Then perhaps she has not completely lost all sense,” he said grimly.

“I assure you that Miss Lister made her decision in full possession of her faculties,” Miles said. “She is an admirably strong and resolute woman.” He nodded politely to the lawyers. “I look forward to fulfilling the terms of Lady Membury’s will and making the official announcement in due course.” He smiled. “You will see, gentlemen, just how worthy I can be when there is a fortune at stake.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“IF THIS IS THE CREAM of Fortune’s Folly society,” Lizzie Scarlet said, flicking her fan crossly as she and Alice stood viewing the sparsely populated ballroom at the Granby Hotel that evening, “then I may as well resign myself to remaining a spinster. Fortune’s Folly in the winter is so dull! There is not a single gentleman here that pleases me, Alice, except for your brother, Lowell, and you will not let me flirt with him, so where is the fun?”

“You are only cross because Lord Waterhouse is dancing attendance on Miss Minchin,” Alice responded. It had been hard to ignore the fact that Lizzie had been in a foul temper all evening. If it came to that, Alice was in a foul temper, too, and was out of patience with herself because of it. She felt edgy and anxious. She had expected to see Miles and had found herself looking for him as soon as they entered the ballroom. When she had realized he was not present she had felt angry and slighted. It was typical of Miles’s breathtaking conceit to demand that she be there and that she save a dance for him, and then to be absent. She slapped her fan into the palm of her glove in a gesture of irritation.

Lizzie was still grumbling about Nat Waterhouse.

“You are quite unreasonable, you know, Lizzie,” Alice said, cutting her off, “for poor Lord Waterhouse must devote a little time to his affianced bride. You know he will come back to you in the end, for he enjoys your company too much to give you up.”

She did not miss the small, self-satisfied smile on Lizzie’s face as her friend contemplated her eventual triumph over poor Flora Minchin. No doubt Lizzie had not even spared one second’s thought for how Miss Minchin might feel to have a suitor who spent much of his time with another woman. Lady Elizabeth Scarlet was very sure of her