Scandal - COMPLETED

Chapter Thirty

It was worse than I'd predicted. The gossip rags had fallen over themselves to exaggerate my exploits from the night before. I'd read through ten so far, and my mood was now as dark as the storm clouds that hung low and angry over the city. Not even the buttery yellow of my favorite sitting room or the first flush of daffodils blooming in the garden just beyond the window could brighten my outlook.

The Duchess of H______ was seen to be enjoying the company of one of the younger sons of the Duke of G____ last night. The Queen was in attendance, and this paper can't determine whether her censure of the duchess was due to the rakish company she kept, the amount of champagne she drank, or the scene she created on her way out the door.

I dropped the paper I held and rose from my seat. Our enemy didn't need spies amongst the ton to report on my behavior. I'd done their work for them last night.

Many of my peers sold secrets to the gossip mongers just to spite those they didn't like. It seemed I'd earned a lot of ire amongst the aristocracy. A veritable horde of them must have contributed to this morning's slander. There was even a piece about my interaction with my father in there. The writer had depicted him as some sort of savior who'd only been intervening to keep his daughter from embarrassing herself any further. My stomach still churned to think of him painted as the hero. He would love that. And knowing him, he'd find some way to either throw it in my face or use it to his advantage the next time I saw him.

I still had several more papers to go through, but I couldn't bring myself to look at them. Not now. If I had to read one more line about my alleged drunken debauchery, I was going to scream. For the second time in my adult life, I had acted out of character. The first had been in Amesbury's drawing room, and look where that had landed me. Last night I had refused to be publicly victimized by both my father and an agent of my blackmailer. And here was the result. My peers had damned my behavior, reported it to slanderous news rags, and those news rags, in turn, had splashed it all over London.

Women shouldn't speak out. Women shouldn't ask for help when being assaulted. Women weren't allowed to have any agency of their own. We were to be quiet, composed. A mirror of good breeding. There to do nothing but act as a complimentary reflection of our husbands. The fact that several of the articles hinted John needed to take a firmer hand with me proved that.

It made me feel helpless. Powerless. And desperate to reclaim some measure of control over my life.

I turned my back on the papers and strode from the room. Adnan was stationed outside the door, and he fell into step behind me and followed me up the stairs. The fact that he had dropped the act of a simple footman and was openly guarding me in my own home was meant to send a message to the traitor we harbored within it: we know about you.

This was Sherman's idea. People who felt as though they were close to exposure became distracted, careless. They slipped up in some small way that might be noticed, and our ex-spy of a butler sought to take advantage of that.

I prayed this plan worked swiftly and we could excise the traitor from our house. Knowing that there was someone stationed within these walls working against us made the space between my shoulder blades itch. Like I was being watched by unseen eyes at all times.

I paused at the top of the stairs and turned toward Adnan.

He raised a brow at me in question.

I stepped closer to him and lowered my voice. "Would you be willing to teach me how to wield a knife?"

A grin split his handsome face. His dark eyes sparkled even in the dim light of the hallway. "It would be my pleasure, Your Grace." He'd dropped the cockney accent and spoke now with a sibilant cadence that belied his native tongue. "Your handmaid too? Something tells me she'd be good with a blade."