Married to the Rogue (Season of Scandal #3) - Mary Lancaster

Chapter One

Deborah stepped down from the chaise with a flood of relief. The village of Coggleton had never been so welcome a sight. She paid the post boy with almost the last of her money and walked up the path to the house her mother insisted on calling a cottage.

The front door flew open before she reached it, and her siblings spilled out, seeming to drag their mother along in their midst, like a whirlwind collecting debris.

“Oh, my goodness, Deb, what is amiss?” her mother demanded. “Why are you home so soon? Please tell me Her Highness did not dismiss you!”

“Of course not,” Deborah said hurriedly, hugging her sisters and brothers. “At least, not exactly. Shall we go inside?”

Absorbing Deborah and her bag, the whirlwind swept indoors, and Deborah soon found herself sitting in the parlor, divested of cloak and hat while her family clustered about her in expectation.

Her mother and Lucy, her younger sister nearest in age at nineteen summers, stood together by the mantelpiece, radiating an excitement that told her there was more news. She hoped it was better than hers.

“We just had a letter from your grandmother this morning,” her mother exclaimed. “Saying you had been called to the princess. We assumed you were going abroad with her as you hoped.”

“She went without me,” Deborah said, gazing at her hands and speaking in a low, deliberately calm voice. “The summons was a mistake. Three other ladies and I, all young and unmarried, arrived around the same time to find, as we thought, that the princess was entertaining guests. She wasn’t. No one had invited them, but there they were. We discovered in the morning that Her Highness had left the day before and that we had spent the night unchaperoned in the house.” She swallowed and raised her eyes to her mother’s shocked face. “While a party of…questionable taste raged below us.”

“Oh, Deborah!” Lucy wailed.

“Hush, hush.” Her mother waved this aside, staring hard at Deborah. “You were part of this? In the midst of such a…”

“No, of course not. We hid in our own sitting room next to the princess’s chambers.”

Her mother frowned. “What was the point of that when she wasn’t there? Why did you not simply leave again? Go back to your grandmother?”

“We thought she was in her bedchamber,” Deborah said flatly.

“Not at her own party?” her brother Giles exclaimed. “Sounds a bit shabby to me.”

“We thought she was saying private farewells to a friend—friends—before leaving the country,” Deborah said diplomatically, though judging by her mother’s expression of outrage, she understood perfectly. “But obviously, we were wrong, for she had already left London.”

“Oh, why did I let you take such a place with that woman?” her mother wailed.

“Because it provided a little prestige and money enough to keep the house for a little longer,” Deborah said tiredly. “But I doubt there will be any more money now.”

“Still, it is not so bad,” Lucy said encouragingly. “After all, we shouldn’t need the money now, and surely no one saw you there, Deb, if you were shut up away from everyone else?”

Deborah glanced from her to her mother. “I don’t know. We might have been seen, making occasional forays to look for the princess or someone else with authority to throw out the guests. It’s probable the guests were in no state to recognize us that night, though someone might have seen us leave in the morning.”

Her mother and Lucy stared at her in horror. The younger children, clearly not understanding what the fuss was about, began to lose interest and squabble over some plan for the afternoon.

“You mean you are ruined,” Lucy said in horror. “Oh, Deborah, how could you have let this happen now?”

“I don’t seem to have had much to do with it,” Deborah replied wearily. “But all is not yet lost. Lady Juliet and Lady Meg were also there, and it’s possible their families will be able to quash any rumors that might arise.”

“Well, let us hope so, Deb!” Lucy exclaimed. “For otherwise, you will have destroyed everything!”

Deborah met her sister’s turbulent gaze. “Hardly everything. What in particular do you mean?”

“We have every reason to hope,” her mother answered, “that Lucy is about to receive an offer from Sir Edmund Letchworth.”

Deborah’s eyes widened. “But that would be wonderful! Providing you like him, Lucy?”

“There will be no point in my liking him if he hears about you,” Lucy muttered. “His family would never permit it then.”

“Nonsense, if he is more than one-and-twenty, he may judge

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