Chapter One
The recent death of a certain Earl has unleashed a torrent of scandal that not even this publication has seen before. This is not the usual gossip which hints at mistresses or debts, but of something much darker. It seems this gentleman was guilty of robbing his own friends and neighbors of prized possessions. Many items have been returned since the dreadful news got out, but we must wonder how these terrible acts will affect his remaining heirs, from the nephew who now inherits his title to the daughters who will be forced to live with his humiliation. We shall see if the Robbing Earl has done more harm than can ever be fixed, even by time itself.
Marianne stared at the paper before her, the words swimming across the page as she read them over and over. Her stomach turned, and she nearly heaved up what little breakfast she had choked down already.
The Scandal Sheetwas a paper that was delivered weekly to the most influential houses in London. Its blind items of gossip about those with titles and power were often cruel. Marianne had always flinched as her father read them out loud, his laughter booming.
And now here was one about him. A few lines so obvious that no one would doubt for a moment to whom it referred. What he had done was bad enough. Discovering the cache of stolen items in his personal effects after he died had been the worst moment of her life. She still went dizzy and her hands went clammy when she thought of it.
What she’d done about it made her nausea increase. She’d called the watch in the hopes they could handle the matter with discretion.
They had not. One grasping captain—one who looked at her like she was guilty just for sharing her father’s name—one bastard of the highest order—had seen to that. Captain Black clearly viewed returning the items with much fanfare was a way to further his own relationships with those of power. In doing so, he had destroyed her.
Within hours, the truth had begun to spread throughout Society. There had been whispers, rescinded invitations. Her father’s funeral had been poorly attended, and even the vicar had sniffed down his nose at the earl’s gravesite.
And nowthis. This public final nail in her father’s very recently buried coffin. Only it didn’t only bury him. As the paragraph about him implied, it also crushed her in its wake. And her younger sister.
“Mari!”
She jolted as the very person she had been contemplating flew into the room. Marianne forced a smile and flipped overThe Scandal Sheetso it was face down on the table, for she didn’t want Juliet to see her pain. At ten, she didn’t deserve the burden of adult problems.
“Poppin,” Marianne said, opening her arms so Juliet could hug her and press a kiss on her cheek. “I didn’t realize you would be back from Nora’s until after lunch.”
Juliet had spent the night at a friend’s and Marianne expected her to leap into a spirited description of everything the two girls had done during their special night. Instead Juliet’s face fell.
“I…” Juliet’s eyes filled with tears. “They sent me home. And I heard Nora’s mother whispering that I should not be invited again.”
“Why?” Marianne said, her heart sinking, for she already guessed the reason.
Juliet’s gaze flitted to the paper next to Marianne’s hand and slowly moved to turn it right side up. She nodded toward it. “This.”
Marianne ducked her head. She had tried to keep her sister from the truth, but now…well, there was nothing to do now. All illusions were shattered. As were both their lives.
“You read it?” Marianne asked softly.
Juliet nodded, and Marianne sighed and motioned to the chair beside hers. Her sister took it and stared up at her with wide eyes that were the exact color of their late father’s. Odd to see his eyes again when he had been buried a week already.
“Did Papatrulysteal?” Juliet whispered.
“Oh, poppin,” Marianne said, trying hard to find words to explain the unexplainable. “How do you know this nasty thing in that rag of a paper is about him?”
Juliet lifted both eyebrows. “I’m not stupid, Mari. And I’m not a little girl. Please don’t hide things from me. I know you have been, and I don’t want there to be secrets between us.Pleasetell me.”
Marianne worried her lip. If Juliet’s friendships were already being affected by the truth, if they would soon suffer other consequences of their father’s actions, she supposed she owed Juliet the facts.
“Papa had a compulsion,” she began softly. “I think he always had it. He took things. Little things, but also big things. Mama tried to break him of it, but he didn’t seem to be able to stop, even when he promised he would. Her death only made it worse, it seems.”
Juliet’s face crumpled, and Marianne hated herself for shattering her younger sister’s illusions. She hated her father for giving her cause to shatter them.
“But…but can’t we just give them back?” Juliet pressed. “After all, you and I didn’t take anything. If we give everything back, perhaps Nora’s mother will see I’m not like him and let me play with her again.”
Marianne bent her head, pain swelling in her. “Well, darling, you see, Ididgive the things back. As soon as I found the piles and piles of stolen items, I arranged to have them all returned. But…but it didn’t matter. In fact, it only made things worse.” She clenched a fist in her lap. “I should have just kept them hidden or burned them. My better instincts have caused nothing but heartache.”
Juliet’s eyes went wide. “Mari, you don’t mean that!” she gasped. “Stealing iswrong. And if you’d just kept whatever he took or destroyed it, wouldn’t that have been stealing just as he did? You gave things back, that was the right thing to do.”
Marianne sighed. Trust sweet Juliet to see the world as black and white. It was a child’s prerogative to do so, she supposed. And in truth, she rather agreed with her sister. Perhaps holding her tongue about what she’d found would have saved her and her sister some grief, but living with that might very well have killed her. She’d never been good at lying.
That was something shehadn’tinherited from her father.
