Page 6 of Heart of Decadence

“Well, you were, of course, right about her beauty. So it’s no surprise that, not long after you left, she was snapped up by Lord Carrington.” Settling back in the chair once more, Haversham took up his drink again. “The most fashionable couple of the Season. They seemed very happy together…and very affectionate. Until Carrington suddenly fell gravely ill.”

“Deucedly bad luck.” Nathan couldn’t help but think how Miss Burrowes must’ve been mad with worry. He remembered her as being very tenderhearted.

“In more ways than one.” A pinched expression came over Haversham’s face. “Lord Carrington lingered for some weeks so that eventually Miss Burrowes and her family requested that the marriage go forward despite the gentleman’s infirmity. To ensure, they said, that the lady would be provided for. And had they married, she would, even now, be the wealthy widow of an earl. But Carrington died before the nuptials could be arranged, and so she remained Miss Burrowes.”

An unexceptional story, so far. Certainly not one that would produce a scandal of the magnitude Haversham alluded to. Something else must have caused Miss Burrowes to become a pariah in Society. He wished very badly that he’d known of her unmarried state when he’d returned from his tour. A renewal of their acquaintance then might’ve led to a continuance of their courtship.

Frowning, Nathan poured another tot of spirits into his glass. “I do not see the point, Haversham. She was betrothed and the man died. If she was not suspected of poisoning him, I do not see how scandal came into it.”

Swirling his libation slowly, Haversham kept his gaze on his glass. “That came afterward, Ainsley. Miss Burrowes was prostrate with grief at Carrington’s death. She and her family retired to their estate in Dorset where she fell ill herself for a time.”

“I still see no hint of scandal here, Haversham. A woman’s grief is no reason for her to be disgraced.” Was this a storm in a cream pot after all?

Casting a look of disbelief at Nathan, his friend sat forward in his chair. “Perhaps none of your family or friends has become betrothed in the last ten or so years?”

Nathan shook his head. What was Haversham getting at?

“Are you not aware then that from almost the moment couples agree to marry, they feel it is permitted to anticipate the wedding night?”

“Well, yes, of course I know that.” Then with dawning realization… “So the ton believed that Miss Burrowes and Lord Carrington…?”

“Exactly. It would explain her family’s frantic desire to have them marry before he died. And her illness afterward.”

“Her illness?”

Haversham paused. “The on-dit at the time put it about that she had either birthed or lost a child.”

“Good God.” As though a rug had been pulled from beneath his feet, Nathan’s world shifted. The Miss Burrowes he had known would never have done such a thing.

His traitorous memory, however, suggested otherwise.

He was back under the cherry tree, in Lady Hamilton’s garden, moonlight streaming around him and the lady with a thousand stars shining down on them. They’d danced a spirited reel and afterward he’d suggested that some fresh air on the veranda would revive them both. She’d agreed, although they’d both understood it could be dangerous to her reputation.

They’d been introduced at Lady Somerville’s ball the week before where Nathan had been immediately struck by Miss Burrowes’s grace and beauty. Her witty conversation had been an unexpected boon when he’d asked for and been granted the privilege of the supper dance. Every night that week he’d partnered her, at every chance had taken her for a carriage ride or called upon her. In that very short week, he’d come to have very affectionate feelings for the lady, and at Lady Hamilton’s, he’d suddenly craved more.

The soft breeze had made her ballgown billow out over the new grass as they stood behind the trunk of the largest cherry tree, hopefully hidden from sight. He’d gently stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers, the smooth skin inciting a riot of desire throughout him. She’d tipped her head back, her eyelids half closed, her lips poised in a perfect bow. Passion had raged in him as he sank his mouth onto hers, her lips warm and welcoming as he pressed himself to her and sought to deepen the kiss. To his surprise, she opened like the petals of a flower, and he plunged in, delirious with the taste and feel of her.

When at last he’d broken the kiss, they stood together in the glorious night air, a whole new world within his grasp. “I will speak to your father,” he’d told her, and she’d smiled and taken his arm as they returned to the house.

“Ainsley? Ainsley.”

Haversham’s insistent voice brought him out of his reverie. “What?” He blinked several times to clear the vision of that night from his head.

“You seem stunned. You’d never heard this rumor before? About Miss Burrowes?” His friend looked at him askance.

“No, never. When I left for Italy, she’d just come out. My father wrote to me that she’d become betrothed to Lord Carrington shortly after I left, and I inquired about her no more.” And some time later, finally made peace with his heart. “When I returned a little over two years later, I had no cause to ask after her, assuming that she’d married. Only last night did I discover that the gentleman had died before they could do so.”

“I suppose the scandal had died down by the time you returned, but it was on everyone’s tongues for months.” Haversham stared frankly at him. “And now she has returned to Society. I wonder why?”

“She is to be married to a Mr. Burke from Derbyshire, it seems.”

“Then perhaps they are testing the waters of respectability.” Haversham nodded. “Such a marriage might help repair her reputation.”

“That seems likely.” And would explain much about last night. The embrace he’d interrupted, Burke’s overly affectionate treatment of Miss Burrowes, and her lack of affection for him. An arranged marriage to help bring her back into Society. “Though why now, after all these years, is a mystery.”

“And one we will simply have to ponder until the gossips inform us, as they most assuredly will.” His friend laughed, drained his glass, and rose. “I’ll wager—or rather would wager had I the funds—that there is already an on-dit in some news sheet about her presence at Lady Hamilton’s last night. I wonder the lady would even invite her.”

“That I can shed some light on.” Nathan rose as well. “Lady Hamilton is her aunt. I remember Miss Burrowes telling me that all those years ago. Perhaps she’s trying to assist the woman on her way back to respectability.”

“Better she than you or I. Nothing good can come of such a scheme. Getting embroiled in such unpleasantness would be disastrous to one’s own reputation, I’m certain.” Haversham looked at Nathan and stopped dead. “You haven’t… Ainsley, tell me you didn’t get ensnared in this business somehow?”

“I’m taking Miss Burrowes for a ride in my curricle this afternoon.” He tried to mitigate the defiance in his voice, but not much. It had occurred to Nathan that he might be, in part, responsible for Miss Burrowes’s downfall.

“Are you mad, Ainsley?” The anguish on the earl’s face spoke of genuine concern for him. “For God’s sake, cry off. Plead illness or business that cannot wait. Do not allow your name to be linked to this woman’s. Mark my words, you will either be pulled down with her or quash her hopes for a chance at respectability.”

“Do you think she did it, Haversham?” The question had been eating a hole in his heart ever since the revelation. “Do you think she allowed herself to be ruined because she was in love with the man?”

His question brought his friend up short. Haversham’s lips drew in, his brows down in a scowl. “As I do not know the lady well, I cannot hazard a guess. She and Carrington were, as I said earlier, very affectionate in their address in public. How that resolved itself in private, only she knows. But it matters not what I think, or what you think, or, God help us, what the truth of the matter actually is. Society has decreed her guilty, and unless that opinion can be changed, she may as well be.”