Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) Read online

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

  “I would not enter if I were you,” Agatha said, her throat tightening sharply. She coughed. “Go away and no harm will come to you.”

  A low laugh resounded in the hallway. The intruder thrust a confident highly-polished booted foot through the doorway. He paid no attention to her threat. Agatha’s eyes travelled upward, 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 face dominated by a sharp nose.

  “I said, don’t come any further. Turn round and go away!” Her voice began to squeak slightly but she could not take her eyes away from the man.

  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. It did not reassure her.

  “Please just go. I don’t want to do this!”

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

  “Ow.” He 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.

  “Aagh. What are you doing?” The man sucked at his fingers and backed behind the door.

  Damn, she had miscalculated. Really she should have waited for him to move his fingers away before hitting him.

  For a few seconds there was silence. Agatha clutched the bowl to her skirts. The man lurched half-in and half-out of the doorway. Still sucking his fingers, he felt at his head with his free hand and then rubbed them against his coat. A red stain emerged stickily against his coat, rather as if he’d rubbed jam on the pristine wool.

  “Goddamn it!” he cursed, taking 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. “Wh… who are you?” she stammered. Scuttling backwards, she fell back into her chair. “What do you want?”

  He looked up at her and bowed shallowly. “Lord Henry Anglethorpe at your service. Your brother sent me.” The blood on his head shone brightly against his long blond hair.

  Agatha slumped in her seat, a rising heat burning at the tips of her ears. Lord Henry Anglethorpe. Peter had written to her of a Henry he had become friends with at Oxford whom Peter had regarded as a genius and the brother he had never had. He was one of the only people who encouraged Peter in his art, and his earliest patron. He hadn’t mentioned that this Henry was a lord.

  Curling her hand round the fallen potato knife, Agatha damned Peter in her mind. Just like a bloody man. Firstly he had left her in this farmstead with nowhere to go, and now it was his fault that she had nearly brained a lord. Oh dear. This was much worse than the discovery of one of her failed experiments.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lord Henry Anglethorpe shook his head slowly from side to side. The room still rolled slightly as the pain from the wound on his head pulsed through his skull. Devil take it—how had she known he was there?

  “Are you alright, my lord?” The 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. She hadn’t apologized, or greeted him. He blinked. Not many people managed to surprise him.

  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. “There’s no need to be afraid.”

  Agatha stood up gracefully, revealing a small knife in her hand. Holding it outstretched, she motioned him back with a jerk of her head. Raising his eyebrows, he stepped lightly backwards once, and stopped. Interesting.

  “I repeat,” she said briskly. “What do you want?”

  Henry folded his arms. “Your brother asked me to give you a season. I was on my way back from business in Exeter and thought I would collect you myself.”

  “Collect me?” The disbelief in her voice was palpable.

  “Look out of the window.” The beginnings of impatience tugged at him. He needed to leave before darkness fell. It was a long way back to London and he had already delayed the journey longer than he had planned.

  Agatha backed to the window and looked out. Henry had left his carriage outside the front gate. The tiger had been cleaning his nails with a knife when he had dismounted and the coachman had been examining the trigger mechanism on his blunderbuss. He hoped they had put them away.

  “A season? But why? You do not know me!”

  Henry sighed, his earlier amusement gone. They really did need to leave; although they had driven southwards post haste, his previous stop in Wales had taken longer than he had anticipated. There had been certain issues that he had had to take care of personally.

  “I promised your brother in exchange for some of his paintings.”

  He waited as Agatha furrowed her brow and scratched her drawn white face with a free hand, her outdated worn black dress rustling as she moved.

  Surely she knew that a season was more expensive than an unknown painter’s scribbles? He resisted the urge to draw his pocket watch out from underneath his waistcoat—he didn’t want to frighten Agatha. Given the past fifteen minutes, he wouldn’t put it past the little kitten to attempt to throw her vegetable peeler at him.

  He wiggled a cramped toe inside one of his boots. “Besides, my sister makes her come out this season, and I think it would be better if she had someone to share it with. She tells me she is lonely.” He made no mention of his sister’s worrying melancholies.

  Agatha gasped.

  “So will you come with me, or not?”

  “I will think on it.”

  For the life of him, Henry couldn’t understand what there was to think of. He’d seen the state of the house as he’d walked through it, the ransacked cupboards and the lack of servants.

  Smoothing down his coat one last time, he folded his arms and waited. “I have brought you a maid. There is no need to be concerned in relation to propriety. You have ten minutes.” He paused, his eyes still on the knife. “And you can bring the carrot peeler with you.”

  Agatha stared at him for a few seconds and then slowly pushed herself out of the chair. Without taking her eyes off him, she put out a foot that revealed the unmistakable round toes of a large boot that still carried a crust of mud around the rim.

  Standing on one leg, she made a swinging motion and, grimacing, nearly toppled to the floor. Henry unfolded his arms. What on earth was she doing? He took a step forward but Agatha waved her knife at him. Again she put out a ginger foot, and after much see sawing back and forth, connected with the open trunk that lay at her feet. With the tip of her boot she pushed the trunk to one side, shuffled three paces and knelt on the floor.

  At no point had she blinked or broken his gaze. Henry resumed jiggling his toe in his boot. Despite himself he was beginning to enjoy the situation.

  Agatha slumped and blinked. “Oh bloody hell.” She rubbed at her eyes.

  He frowned; he’d have to break her of that habit. Young ladies did not swear in polite company. Especially those ones associated with the Anglethorpes. And if he was to have any chance of getting a good match for Victoria he would need to prevent any hint of scandal attaching itself to their name. Perhaps she wasn’t a good idea as a companion after all.

  His frown grew deeper as Agatha bent over the floor, the soft silk of her dress whispering over the boards.

  The floorboards creaked as Agatha slid the blade of her potato knife into a crevice between
the floorboards. Pushing down on the handle, she levered up a small length of the polished wood. She lifted it out and placed it to one side beside the knife. Looking back at Henry, she tensed and drew her knife closer.

  Lying on the floor, she pushed her arm into the hole and groped in the small space. Henry looked at the ceiling. Dear Lord.

  “I’m ready. What are you waiting for?”

  Henry glanced from side to side. Where in the blazes had she and the knife gone?

  “I thought you were in a hurry?” The clinking of metallic objects thumped in the hall.

  Striding out through the door, he caught a glimpse of Agatha’s skirt as she clumped down the stairs. Her hand shoved something in her pocket, a large weighty something that chinked slightly as she stepped downwards.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, he hurried after her. He couldn’t let her escape now. But she wasn’t trying to get away. She stood outside his coach waiting for him, an old cloak around her shoulders, back straight and an expectant air on her face. Despite her stillness, her nose twitched. Opening her mouth, Agatha inhaled, and coughed, spluttering and clutching at her cloak.

  Henry stopped, his foot coming down hard in a muddy puddle. Despite the stains that covered her attire it was like a scene from the past, his mother laughing herself into a coughing fit by the coach, tapping her feet, whilst his father fiddled around in the hall.

  He pulled at his cuffs. “Bags?” he said tersely.

  Agatha clutched at her cloak and gasped before letting out a large huff. “The staff took everything. Including my clothes.”

  Henry nodded to the tiger, who opened the door for her. The lithe man showed no emotion, although his eyes flicked between Agatha and Henry. Henry shook his head as the tiger jumped back onto the carriage, holding on to the wig that Henry had given him that morning. The waiting maid who had been sitting in the middle of the seat in the carriage shifted to the other side. Agatha seemed to hesitate for an instant, and then, putting a decisive hand out, gathered up her cape and climbed in.

  Drawing in a breath, Henry pulled himself in after her and slammed the door shut. The horses leapt into motion even before the door was closed. He studied Agatha as they left her home. She stared resolutely forward at the velvet seats of the coach, neither watching the house through the window nor giving him a second glance.

  Henry drew in a sharp breath. He hated Devon too.

  Settling back into the corner, he rested his head against the cushioned side of the carriage and reviewed the scene from the cold bedroom in his mind’s eye. She had nearly killed him, the first person to come close in years. If the pot that she had thrust so forcefully down on his head had been made out of stone instead of soft copper she’d have broken his skull.

  He rubbed at his nose. “How did you know I was there?”

  Agatha stopped staring at the upholstery and met Henry’s gaze slowly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “How did you know I was in the house?”

  “The third step on the stairs squeaked and then the sixth step,” she said as she stared back at him. “Why didn’t you knock at the front door?”

  Henry frowned. She was far too forward. Ton misses usually waited to be spoken to and certainly did not speak in such assertive tones.

  “It was open,” he said shortly. “And it looked as if thieves had broken in. I did not want to disturb them.” Once again she had him on the back foot. “You knew which steps I was on?”

  “Hmm yes. Quite an interesting principle really. Water absorbed into a piece of wood will cause it to expand in proportion to the amount poured on it. That will in turn affect how much it rubs against the joists.” Agatha made a tipping motion with her hands. Fumbling under her skirts, she withdrew a small notebook and the stub of a pencil.

  Henry nodded. “And hence the different pitch of the wood. I assume you were the one to pour the water on the floorboards?” Good god.

  “Exactly. Potato juice actually. Took a very long time.” Agatha frowned and opened the notebook, pencil poised in the air. “If you thought thieves had broken in, how did you know I was there?”

  She was still asking questions. And what was she expecting to write in her book? An involuntary smile spread slowly across his face. “Oh I knew you were there. I always know where people are. You’ll find that out soon enough when we reach London.”

  Agatha closed the notebook with a snap. “Bloody hell,” she said again.

  CHAPTER 3

  Goodness. Agatha sighed and counted the hairs on the upholstery for the sixth time that day. It seemed she was never to be rid of overbearing males with high opinions of themselves.

  “And one last thing, Miss Beauregard. I would ask you kindly not to use cant phrases in front of my sister. She is easily led and it will not do her any favors.” Henry took a bite of the apple that he held in a large hand and stared at her.

  Hmm. Surely he should have said ‘one first thing.’ After all this was the first time she could remember Henry speaking to her directly in the last three days.

  Agatha looked out of the window and sat a little straighter. Each night the coach had stopped at a different inn and they were shown to the grandest rooms. She had bounced, laughing, on the feather beds. It was obvious the maid had never seen such behavior before. It seemed she was lucky the maid hadn’t told tales to Horrible Henry.

  She sniffed and covered her nose as the odor of rotting cabbages and smoke filled the carriage. London was very different to the bleak and salty Hope Sands. She had never seen so many people in one place. The smells even carried a different kind of pungent quality. The houses crowded around narrow streets that were thronged with people. Parks surrounded by iron railings sat cheek to cheek with enormous mansions. As they passed through one particularly green square, Agatha sat forward and gazed round-eyed at the sight of a gaily striped tent with jugglers outside. Hope Sands had certainly never been visited by anything so cheerful looking as that.

  Henry coughed beside her. With a sigh, she sat back in her chair. Putting out a furtive hand, she felt at the solid mass of golden sovereigns trapped below her skirts. The servants might have taken everything, but they had missed the coins that she had hidden beneath the floorboards.

  Agatha took a deep breath and rubbed at her eye. “Smokey isn’t it?”

  Henry grunted but passed no comment. Clenching her hands in her lap, she counted the jolts of the carriage over the cobbles. If the average cobble was three inches wide and there were twenty jolts each second that meant that the coach was travelling at around hmmm, sixteen miles an hour, gosh, that really was fast—

  The coach stopped throwing her forward. An enormous villa with stuccoed pillars and large steps up to the front door loomed outside, yet despite its height, the mansion was dwarfed by the leaves of an enormous hornbeam tree that shed its leaves across the roof.

  “My house,” Henry said, leaning over and pushing open the coach door.

  Agatha inhaled, staring upwards as the large black door to the house opened and an army of smartly dressed staff poured out. Henry drew back and gave her a level look; he smelled of soap and spicy smoke. As the intoxicating mix filtered through her senses, a small ball of tension lodged itself in her chest. She clenched her hands; self-interest, remember—she was here to be a companion to his sister. He was not looking after her. No one was. And that was the way she wanted it. No interference, no constrictions.

  Pushing past her, Henry leapt out of the carriage and, without looking at her, held out a hand for her to hold. Agatha shivered and stayed where she was.

  She watched as a smartly dressed man hurried down the steps and greeted Henry.

  “Your letter arrived by mail coach, sir,” the butler said, taking up a prominent position on the pavement as the footmen bustled around him. He was a large paunchy man with a watchful face. “Everything has been made ready.” He looked pointedly at Henry’s hand. “Can we help you with anything else, my lord?”

  Agatha sighed. It
couldn’t be any worse than Hope Sands. Ignoring Henry’s hand, she stepped lightly to the pavement, intrigued. She lifted her chin as Henry made a growling noise in his throat beside her.

  “Henry! Henry, you’re back.” A dainty young lady tripped lightly down the front steps and reached up to kiss Henry on the cheek. “Is this her?”

  Agatha bristled slightly as she took in the peaches and cream complexion and blonde hair.

  “I am she,” she said in a clipped manner.

  The blonde angel laughed delightedly. “Henry, isn’t she wonderful?”

  Henry nodded, dropping his hand to his side. Agatha raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m Victoria, Henry’s sister. He has told you of me, hasn’t he?” Victoria looked worried. Agatha softened and nodded. She did not need to recount what Henry had said.

  “Good! Madame Dupont comes tomorrow to measure us up, Monsieur Bertrand starts his first dance lesson the day after—”

  “Stop prattling, Victoria, and take Miss Beauregard inside.” Henry signaled to one of the footmen to take the last case.

  “Ooh yes, come and have tea and cake and we’ll get to know each other.” Victoria’s eyes travelled over Agatha’s black dress. “You might want to change first.”

  Agatha gulped, her skin tingling where the garment touched her skin. She had tried hard to make the black dress last for the three days of the journey. Each night she had shut the maid out of the room as she had contorted herself to shed the tight garment. Having sponged herself down with cold water, she had slept in the bed naked so as to preserve the dress and her undergarments.

  Unwillingly she threw a pleadingly look at Henry. His eyes narrowed as he glanced at her.

  “Agatha was robbed before I could reach her. She has no clothes with her.”

  Bloody man.

  Victoria gasped. “Henry! You didn’t make her wear the same clothes for the entire journey? Why didn’t you stop in Salisbury?”