The Perks of Loving a Scoundrel Read online

  Dedication

  To my readers, for your enthusiasm and unwavering belief I can do anything.

  It isn’t true . . . but you make me believe it is possible.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 1

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 2

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 14

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 19

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 29

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  By Jennifer McQuiston

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  From the Diary of Miss Mary Channing

  May 24, 1858

  Eleanor wrote today. I should have been glad to hear from her, given that she is my twin sister and I love her dearly, but it would be untruthful to say the contents of her letter pleased me. Her new husband, Lord Ashington, has been called away on business and she’s asked me to come to London to keep her company during the last two months of her confinement.

  Can you imagine? Me, in London?

  My family says I must get my nose out of my books and begin to live in the world around me. It is true I’ve never been further afield than a day trip from home, and that I have never slept a night outside my own bed. But why would I ever want to leave, when I have my books to keep me company? And a trip to London is not without its perils. I could very well end up like one of the characters in my beloved stories, snubbed by the popular crowd. Whispered about behind lace fans. Or worse . . . led astray by a handsome villain and then abandoned to my fate.

  Yet, how could I not go? Eleanor is my sister, and she needs me. So I shall put on a brave face. Pack a trunk. Smile, if I must. But I can’t help but wonder . . . which worries me more?

  The many things that could happen in London?

  Or the thought of seeing Eleanor, with her handsome new husband, and her shining, lovely life, and everything I am afraid of wanting?

  Chapter 1

  London, May 29, 1858

  The smell should have been worse.

  She’d expected something foul, air made surly by the summer heat. Just last week she’d read about the Thames, that great, roiling river that carried with it the filth of the entire city and choked its inhabitants to tears. Her rampant imagination, spurred on by countless books and newspaper articles, had conjured a city of fetid smells, each more terrible than the last. But as Miss Mary Channing opened her bedroom window and breathed in her first London morning, her nose filled with nothing more offensive than the fragrance of . . .

  Flowers.

  Disconcerted, she peeked out over the sill. Dawn was just breaking over the back of Grosvenor Square. The gaslights were still burning and the windows of the other houses were dark. By eight o’clock, she imagined industrious housemaids would be down on their knees, whiting their masters’ stoops. The central garden would fill with nurses and their charges, heading west toward Hyde Park.

  But for now the city—and its smells—belonged solely to her.

  She breathed in again. Was she dreaming? Imagining things, as she was often wont to do? She was well over two hundred miles from home, but it smelled very much like her family’s ornamental garden in Yorkshire. She didn’t remember seeing a garden last night, but then, she had arrived quite late, the gaslight shadows obscuring all but the front steps. She’d been too weary to think, so sickened by the ceaseless motion of the train that she’d not even been able to read a book, much less ponder the underpinnings of the air she breathed.

  She supposed she might have missed a garden. Good heavens, she probably would have missed a funeral parade, complete with an eight-horse coach and a brass band.

  After the long, tiresome journey, she’d only wanted to find a bed.

  And yet now . . . at five o’clock in the morning . . . she couldn’t sleep.

  Not on a mattress that felt so strange, and not in a bedroom that wasn’t her own.

  Pulling her head back inside, she eyed the four-poster bed, with its rumpled covers and profusion of pretty pillows. It was a perfectly nice bed. Her sister, Eleanor, had clearly put some thought into the choice of fabrics and furniture. Most women would love such a room. And most women would love such an opportunity—two whole months in London, with shops and shows and distractions of every flavor at their fingertips.

  But Mary wasn’t most women. She preferred her distractions in the form of a good book, not shopping on Regent Street. And these two looming months felt like prison, not paradise.

  The scent of roses lingered in the air, and as she breathed in, her mind settled on a new hope. If there was a flower garden she might escape to—a place where she might read her books and write in her journal—perhaps it would not be so terrible?

  Picking up the novel she had not been able to read on the train, Mary slipped out of the strange bedroom, her bare feet silent on the stairs. She had always been an early riser, waking before even the most industrious servants back home in Yorkshire. At home, the cook knew to leave her out a bit of breakfast—bread and cheese wrapped in a napkin—but no one here would know to do that for her yet.

  Ever since she’d been a young girl, morning had been her own time, quiet hours spent curled up on a garden bench with a book in her lap, nibbling on her pocket repast, the day lightening around her. The notion that she might still keep to such a routine in a place like London gave her hope for the coming two months.

  She drifted down the hallway until she found a doorway that looked promising, solid oak, with a key still in the lock. With a deep breath, she turned the key and pulled it open. She braced herself for knife-wielding brigands. Herds of ragged street urchins, hands rifling through her pockets. The sort of London dangers she’d always read about.

  Instead, the scent of flowers washed over her like a lovely, welcome tide.

  Oh, thank goodness.

  She hadn’t been imagining things after all.

  Something hopeful nudged her over the threshold of the door, then bade her to take one step, then another. In the thin light of dawn, she saw flowers in every color and fashion: bloodred rose blooms, a cascade of yellow flowers dripping down the wrought iron fence. Her fingers loosened over the cover of her book. Oh, but it would be lovely to read here. She could even hear the l
ight patter of a fountain, beckoning her deeper.

  But then she heard something else above those pleasant, tinkling notes.

  An almost inhuman groan of pleasure.

  With a startled gasp, she spun around. Her eyes swam through the early morning light to settle on a gentleman on the street, some ten feet or so away on the other side of the wrought iron fence. But the fact of their separation did little to relieve her anxiety, because the street light illuminated him in unfortunate, horrific clarity.

  He was urinating.

  Through the fence.

  Onto one of her sister’s rosebushes.

  The book fell from Mary’s hand. In all her imaginings of what dreadful things she might encounter on the streets of London, she’d never envisioned anything like this. She ought to bolt. She ought to scream. She ought to . . . well . . . she ought to at least look away.

  But as if he was made of words on a page, her eyes insisted on staying for a proper read. His eyes were closed, his mouth open in a grimace of relief. Objectively, he was a handsome mess, lean and long-limbed, a shock of disheveled blond hair peeking out from his top hat. But handsome was always matter of opinion, and this one had “villain” stamped on his skin.

  As if he could hear her flailing thoughts, one eye cracked open, then the other. “Oh, ho, would you look at that, Grant? I’ve an audience, it seems.”

  Somewhere down the street, another voice rang out. “Piss off!” A snigger followed. “Oh, wait, you already are.”

  “Cork it, you sodding fool!” the blond villain shouted back. “Can’t you see we’re in the presence of a lady?” He grinned. “Apologies for such language, luv. Though . . . given the way you are staring, perhaps you don’t mind?” He rocked back on his heels, striking a jaunty pose even as the urine rained down. “If you come a little closer, I’d be happy to give you a better peek.”

  Mary’s heart scrambled against her ribs. She might be a naive thing, fresh from the country, and she might now be regretting her presumption that it was permissible to read a book in a London garden in her bare feet, but she wasn’t so unworldly that she didn’t know this one pertinent fact: she was not—under any circumstances—coming a little closer.

  Or getting a better peek.

  Mortified, she wrapped her arms about her middle. “I . . . that is . . . couldn’t you manage to hold it?” she somehow choked out. There. She’d managed a phrase, and it was a properly scathing one, too. As good as any of her books’ heroines might have done.

  A grin spread across his face. Much like the puddle at the base of the rosebush. “Well, luv, the thing is, I’m thinking I’d rather let you hold it.” The stream trickled to a stop, though he added a few more drips for good measure. He shook himself off and began to button his trousers. “But alas, it seems you’ve waited too long for the pleasure.” He tipped a finger to the brim of his top hat in a sort of salute. “My friend awaits. Perhaps another time?”

  Mary gasped. Or rather, she squeaked.

  She could manage little else.

  He chuckled. “It seems I’ve got a shy little mouse on my hands. Well, squeak squeak, run along then.” He set off down the street, swaying a bit. “But I’ll leave you with a word of advice, Miss Mouse,” he tossed back over one shoulder. “You’re a right tempting sight, standing there in your unutterables. But you might want to wear shoes the next time you ogle a gentleman’s prick. Never know when you’ll need to run.”

  Geoffrey Westmore—“West” to his friends, and “that damned Westmore” to his enemies—sauntered down the sidewalk, still chuckling over the brown-haired mouse of a woman he’d frightened back into her house.

  West hadn’t recognized her, but then, Lord Ashington had only established his household there a few short months ago. West tended to sleep during the hours domesticated souls roamed the streets, which meant he had no idea who she was. Certainly not Lady Ashington, who was reported to be somewhat increasing. Although, could anyone be somewhat increasing?

  It was really rather an all or nothing phenomenon.

  This woman had most definitely not been increasing. He might still be drunk from last night’s misadventures, but he wasn’t so deep into his cups he had overlooked the lithe little form lurking beneath that virginal white cotton. Lady Ashington’s maid, most likely, given the early hour. Probably charged with filling the vases with fresh flowers before her mistress awoke. No one who could reasonably avoid it would be up at this hour.

  No one except him, that was.

  He had yet to find his bed.

  He sidestepped a lamplighter extinguishing the gas light flames along the square, then followed the vocal trail of his good friend, Charles Grant, who was singing loud enough to wake the dead, not to mention the good citizens of Mayfair.

  “Ye Rakehells so jolly, who hate melancholy,

  and love a full flask and a doxy!”

  He found Grant standing in front of Cardwell House, pissing on an azalea bush. “Damn it, have a care where you aim,” West growled, shaking his head in disgust.

  “Who ne’er from Love’s feats,

  like a coward retreats . . .”

  “Grant!”

  But Grant was swinging into his favorite part of the chorus now, no matter that he sounded like a wounded dog. He lifted his face to howl at the now-absent moon.

  “Afraid that the harlot shall pox ye.”

  Annoyed for reasons that had little to do with either of their gloriously drunken arses, West careened into him, sending Grant staggering straight into his puddle of piss.

  “What was that for?” Grant cried, shaking off his shoes.

  “That is my family’s bush you are pissing on.”

  “Well, then consider yourself fortunate I didn’t crap on it instead.” Grant grinned. “Although speaking of bushes . . .” He craned his neck down the street, squinting against the new sun. “What was that you were saying about a lady?”

  West frowned. Usually, he found his friend’s drunken antics and irreverently foul mouth amusing. A side effect, he supposed, of having survived their Harrow boarding school bullies and an ill-advised turn in the Royal British Navy together. One tended to bond over months spent on board a ship in the Crimea, commiserating about the bloody purpose of that terrible war. With a friend like Grant, you learned to enjoy your amusements where you could find them.

  This, however, was not one of those times.

  “She’s not interested in either of us, you stupid sod.” Whoever she was, West hoped she would learn from this little experience and make sure she was properly dressed for her next turn about the garden. He’d done her a favor, teasing her like that. Not every drunken soul she met on the street could be counted on to act the gentleman.

  Grant took a reeling step backward, in the direction of Lord Ashington’s house. “I reckon I could change her mind.”

  “Christ, haven’t you had enough of women tonight?” West squinted at his friend. “You’ve just spent six hours in one of the most exclusive brothels in London. You didn’t come out of that last room for three hours. I should know, given that I was forced to wait for you.”

  Grant swept his top hat from his head, revealing tangled black hair in need of a barber’s shears. “Ah, yes. The fair Vivian.” He placed his hat across his chest and raised his eyes in a parody of prayer. “Lovely feet, she had.”

  West snorted. He might be a bit torched himself, but it wasn’t a woman’s feet that usually interested him. Perhaps Grant was drunker than he thought. “So surely you are sated by now.” He took Grant’s arm and pointed him toward home. “Off you go then. Time to sleep, my friend. Tomorrow’s another day.”

  “You’re a good chap, West.” Grant nodded, as if coming to this conclusion for the first time—though in truth, it was an oft-repeated soliloquy, usually launched from the bottom of a bottle. “The very best. You deserve better than a friend like me.”

  “So you keep saying.” West grinned in spite of his annoyance. “Friends forever, eh?�
�

  “Friends forever.” Grant pulled a rolled cigarette from his jacket pocket and waved it about. “But just in case forever ends too soon . . . before I go, do you think you could give me another light?”

  West dutifully reached into his jacket pocket and produced the small silver case that contained his matches. He rarely smoked himself—not that anyone knew it, reeking of Grant’s cigarettes as he so often did. His sisters were always haranguing him about the habit, one he and Grant had picked up in Crimea. But an occasional cigarette with Grant was a welcome source of camaraderie when his demons closed in. Grant was one of the few people who understood West. They knew each other’s faults and tolerated each other’s vices. Each owed the other his very life.

  One couldn’t ask for a better friend.

  Unless, that was, it was a friend who remembered to carry his own matches.

  Then again, he supposed he took enough swigs from the hip flask Grant always carried about to call it an even trade.

  Grant lit his cigarette and took a long, enthusiastic pull, then tipped his head back, exhaling a gray stream of smoke. “Shall we meet up at White’s later this evening?”

  “Of course.” West hesitated. “But we’ll have to fit two nights of carousing into one. Tomorrow night I’ve promised my sister Clare . . . something.” Something important, to do with the hospital charity she and her physician husband, Daniel, supported.

  And as soon as he sobered up, he felt sure he would remember what it was, too.

  “Seems to me we always fit two nights of carousing into one.” Grant laughed like a maniac. “Then again, we’ve our fulsome reputations to maintain.” He staggered on his merry way down the sidewalk, a fine trail of smoke lingering behind him.

  West climbed the front steps of Cardwell House, weariness dragging him by the stones. He fumbled in his pocket for his house key, but before he could unlock the door, it swung open. Wilson, the Cardwell family butler, loomed in the doorway, an old-fashioned candlestick in one hand. “Wilson, old chap!” West leaned against the door frame. “You are up bloody early.”