Page 29 of Lady Mariel’s Scandalous Love

Chapter Twelve

A week went by after the rather horrible dinner at Kirkwold Hall, with nothing to disturb the peace of their routine. Nothing, that is, except the fact that Mariel dreamt of Dash touching her, kissing her, every night, and spent every moment in his presence at a fever pitch of awareness, of desire. She did not understand herself, entirely – how had she come to feel so strongly for him? Whilst she had wanted to explore forbidden things for a very long time, every man who she had allowed to even kiss her, before Dash, had rather revolted her, even whilst the scandalous nature of those kisses had excited her.

Dash was different – she wanted to be near him, wanted to touch him, even when they could do nothing more than sit beside each other as she worked on the translation. And the way he looked at her… it made her suspect that he felt a similar need to be near her, to touch her. But since the dinner party, she had concentrated on the translation – the sooner it was done the better, for the time when she would have to travel to London for the Season was approaching at a rapid rate.

She did not, she knew, want to leave. But what choice would she have? This stay with Selina and Alex was like a holiday from real life, a chance to indulge in exploring all that was usually forbidden – well, almost all… she flushed as she remembered the moment when Dash had refused to let her give him pleasure, like he had given her. She wanted to take those last steps – with him, she realised, not with any other man.

This particular morning was no different. Dash had greeted them when they arrived at Longwood Peak, then gone to deal with his day’s correspondence, promising to return to assist Mariel with words, later. Selina was curled in her usual chair, reading, when Chalmers tapped at the door.

“This weeks London newspapers have arrived, Ladies – would you care to read them? Lord Longwood usually leaves them until late in the evening, but I thought that you might be interested.”

Selina looked up with a smile. “Thank you, Chalmers. Please just put them on this side table for now.”

The butler deposited the papers, and left the room. Selina put aside her book, and lifted the first one from the pile – it had been weeks since she’d seen news from London. Mariel continued with her work, ignoring the whole exchange, as usual, totally focussed on the words on the page. There was no sound in the room but the scratch of Mariel’s pen, and the rustle of the newssheet pages, for quite some time, until Selina broke the quiet.

“Mariel…” her voice was oddly uneven, “I think this is bad. Very bad.”

Mariel looked up. Selina’s face was rather white.

“What is bad?”

“This – look.” Selina held out the newspaper. Mariel set down her pen and went to look. “There are two letters here, on two consecutive days – and they each talk about ‘scandalous goings on in the countryside’ naming this district, and using initials which quite clearly allow people to work out that it refers to Dash… and us.”

Mariel dropped onto the couch beside her, with a feeling of horror sinking into her.

“Who would have done this? And why?”

“I don’t know… unless…” They looked at each other, and, at the same instant, spoke the rest of Selina’s sentence together “…unless Lady Phyllida has somehow learnt more, and this is her way of making good on her threat.”

Mariel shook her head.

“We can’t be sure of that. But I can’t imagine anyone else would…”

“We’ll have to tell Dash. If she has done this, who knows what else she might have done? And I wonder how many of the ton will have worked it out, already? How much scandal about us is already the gossip of the ton, even if they don’t know the truth of what Dash has here? Just when I thought that they might be starting to gossip less about us, after our Christmas Scandal wedding!”

“You will weather this, just as you have weathered the first scandal. But I am not sure what my mother will do…”

“We must find some way to make it less scandalous, somehow.”

Mariel laughed, and indicated the book beside Selina, and the ones on her desk.

“How, pray tell, does one make it less scandalous?”

“Make what less scandalous?” Dash spoke from behind her – so intent on the paper before them had they been, that they had not heard him enter the room. Mariel turned to him. There was no simple way to explain.

“This. In the London papers this week. It makes it seem that you almost have started a house of ill repute, right here, and we are all complicit, the way that these ‘anonymous letters’ are phrased – and the gossip mongers will lap it up.”

His face paled, and he came to sit beside them, Mariel having squashed across so that the three of them might all fit on the couch, and view the paper at the one time. Mariel felt the heat of him, so close. As he read, his face become paler still.

“It’s a good thing, then, that today I should have the last crate unpacked, and that in my morning’s correspondence, I have a letter from my man of business, with good news – he has secured the purchase of a suitable building in London, which will become the Museum of Human Eroticism. Very, very soon.”

“You are going to create a Museum? Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

He looked half embarrassed at Mariel’s words.

“Ah… because I wasn’t sure…”

“…how we would react?”