Page 6 of Bad Luck Bride (Scandal at the Savoy #3)

“Kay?” Josephine’s voice called behind her. “I’ve got a growler waiting for us. If we don’t go soon, we’ll be late meeting Mama. What on earth is taking you so—Heavens, it’s Pamela!”

That surprised exclamation bolstered Kay’s resolve even more. After all, like the couple in front of her, she too had moved on to a better life and future.

“What a nice surprise, isn’t it, Jo?” she said, almost wincing at the forced heartiness of her own voice as her sister came to a halt beside her. “Running into your friend Lady Pamela this way? And you’ll never believe who’s here with her! Mr. Devlin Sharpe.”

Faced so unexpectedly with the man who had ruined her sister, Jo couldn’t quite hide her shock, nor her resentment on Kay’s behalf. Her eyes widened, then narrowed.

“I’m sure you don’t remember Mr. Sharpe,” Kay said quickly. “He’s so much older than you, after all,” she added, getting a bit of her own back for Pamela’s earlier remark. “Why, I think you were only a toddler when he went away to Africa all those years ago.”

Devlin perceived her emphasis on the wide gulf between his age and Pamela’s, for a wry smile twisted one corner of his mouth.

Josephine, heaven bless her, recovered, taking Kay’s cue. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sharpe,” she said. “And Pamela, too. What an extraordinary surprise this is.”

“Lady Pamela and Mr. Sharpe are engaged to be married,” Kay went on, putting just the right amount of congratulatory pleasure into her voice. “Isn’t that wonderful news?”

In profile, she saw Jo’s lips part in astonishment, but again, Jo managed to play up beautifully. “Congratulations to both of you. Goodness, Kay,” she added, her voice taking on a lively tone, “it’s weddings, weddings everywhere this year, isn’t it?”

“What’s this?” Lady Pamela cried as Kay shot her sister a grateful glance. “Josephine, don’t tell me you’re getting married, too?”

“Me?” Jo laughed at that. “Good heavens, no. I’m out, I suppose, but it’s not official until I make my debut in May.”

“Didn’t you come out last year? I was away in Europe, but I thought you had. I know you didn’t come out with me the year before. Illness in the family, wasn’t it?”

“Our father, yes. I would have come out the following year, but then our father died.”

“Lord Raleigh’s dead?” Devlin asked Kay as Pamela left off clinging to him like a limpet and moved closer to Jo. “I’m sorry, Kay,” he added as Pamela murmured similar sympathies to Jo.

“Are you?” Kay murmured, her voice tight and too low for the two others to hear. “I don’t recall you being particularly fond of my father.”

“I barely knew him, but nonetheless, I’m sorry for your sake,” he answered quietly, a kind reply that stung because he sounded like he meant it. “I know how fond you were of him.”

He knew nothing of her complicated relationship with her late father, but either way, she didn’t want him to be kind. No, damn it all, she wanted him to be rude and uncivil and awful, which didn’t make any sense, especially given how necessary it was to maintain this charade of friendly politeness.

“Yes,” she said with quiet dignity, “I was very fond of him.”

“I almost envy you.”

Kay understood at once what he meant. “You and your father haven’t made amends, I take it?”

“Has the sun started rising in the west?”

She caught the bitter note behind the lighthearted question, but before she could think of how to reply, Lady Pamela broke off her conversation with Jo and returned her attention to Kay, offering the appropriate sympathies before reverting to the previous topic of conversation.

“But if Jo’s not getting married, then who is? ”

The possibility that Kay might be the bride in question had clearly not occurred to the girl, and she supposed that as a disgraced and ruined spinster, firmly on the shelf for more than a decade, she ought to be used to that sort of dismissal.

But nonetheless, it stung, particularly since the girl’s own fiancé had been the cause of Kay’s fall from grace.

“The one who’s getting married is me,” she said, savoring the news as she said it. “The wedding is in June.”

“You?” The younger woman blinked. “You’re getting married?”

Kay raised an eyebrow. “You seem surprised, Lady Pamela,” she purred sweetly.

Pamela’s skepticism was immediately concealed. “It’s only that I don’t recall seeing a wedding announcement in the papers.”

“My fiancé has been in New York, and we wanted to wait until his return before we made the announcement. You’ll see it within the next few days, I imagine.”

“Well, this news is just too, too wonderful,” Pamela said, turning to the man beside her. “Isn’t it wonderful, Devlin?”

“Yes, wonderful,” he said, his voice indifferent, his face impossible to read. “Who is he?”

“Oh, no one you know, I’m sure,” Kay replied. “His name is Wilson Rycroft.”

For some reason, that seemed to take him aback. “Rycroft?” he said, blinking. “You don’t mean the American millionaire?”

A slight frown drew his brows together, indicating that he wasn’t as indifferent to the news of her own engagement as he pretended to be, a fact that gave Kay immense satisfaction.

She was so glad now that a show of amiability had been required of her.

Until this moment, she’d never truly appreciated just how rewarding it could be to take the high road.

“The very same,” she said, her pretense of a smile widening into a genuine one. “It sounds as if you know him?”

“We’ve met.”

With that unmistakably terse reply, Kay decided this was the perfect time to make her exit.

“Indeed? How lovely,” she said with wicked, heartfelt sincerity. “And now, Josephine and I really must be going. If we don’t, we’ll be late meeting our mother for lunch. And then we’re off to the modiste. Wedding gowns need so many fittings to be just right, don’t they?”

Pamela expressed wholehearted agreement with that sentiment, then farewells were said all around. At last, with profound relief, Kay turned and ushered Josephine out the door.

As they crossed the lobby, all the chaotic emotions that had been swirling around within Kay from the moment she’d laid eyes on him began fading into a vague sense of unreality, as if the whole ghastly episode had been nothing but a dream.

“Goodness, that was awkward,” Josephine pronounced. “Of all the unexpected encounters. Too bad you couldn’t have ducked out of the shop before they saw you.”

“I would have done, believe me,” Kay assured her, “but there was no time. I came around a trellis and there he was. A moment later, he was introducing me to his fiancée.” As she spoke, her sense of unreality about the whole thing grew stronger, enveloping her in a strange numbness.

“How awful. What did you do?”

Kay shrugged. “In cases such as these, there’s only one thing one can do, really.”

“Which is?”

Kay waited until they had passed through the plate-glass door held open for them by a Savoy doorman before she replied. “Be civil, of course.”

“Bor-ing,” Jo said with obvious disappointment, falling in step beside her as they walked to the cab waiting for them in the courtyard. “Was it terribly hard?”

The question planted Kay’s smile back in place. “Why should it have been?”

“Well,” Jo began, but Kay forestalled her.

“Naturally, it was a bit of a shock, seeing him again after so many years. And meeting her, too, of course.” Kay paused as the driver opened the door. “But I got over all of that almost at once.”

“So you’re all right, then?”

All right? The question caught her off guard, and she nearly stumbled as she stepped into the carriage, but when she answered, her voice was firm. “I’m quite all right.”

Jo didn’t seem convinced. “Are you sure?” she asked as she followed Kay into the cab. “The fact that he’s engaged to be married doesn’t bother you? Not even a little?” she added as Kay shook her head.

“After fourteen years? Don’t be silly.” Kay bent down, hiding her face from her sister’s disbelieving stare, buying time as she settled her skirts around her feet. “Why should it bother me after all this time?”

“I can think of heaps of reasons,” Jo muttered.

“Abandoning you so abominably, for one thing. Telling people about your elopement nearly three years after it happened, spreading malicious rumors from thousands of miles away. And why? Out of spite and jealousy, that’s why.

He heard you were going to marry Giles, and he wanted to pay you out. ”

Kay couldn’t disagree, for what else was there to believe? But it served no purpose to rehash it all now, especially with her young, impressionable sister. “Perhaps, but—”

“The horrible part is that it worked,” Jo went on before Kay could redirect the conversation.

“Giles broke the engagement when the scandal broke. Oh, I know Sharpe publicly denied the elopement had taken place,” she added as Kay opened her mouth to reply.

“But it’s obvious that was just a belated, lame attempt to exonerate himself from being the cause of all your troubles.

And his own father disowned him right after, didn’t he?

I’ll wager Sharpe hadn’t expected that to happen. ”

Kay frowned. “How do you know all this? You were only six when I eloped and nine when the whole mess became public knowledge. You shouldn’t know all these sordid details. Who’s been talking?”

“No one. But I can read, can’t I? The scandal sheets still write about it even now, as we both saw only this morning.”

“Josephine, really!” As the elder sister by a substantial margin, Kay felt obliged to issue a reprimand. “You know that Mama has forbidden you to read the gossip rags on your own.”

Josephine made a sound of derision between her lips, showing what little effect their mother’s rules had on her.

“No one believed his denials about the elopement, of course,” she resumed.

“And why would they? He didn’t even bother to come home to deny it all in person.

He just sent that Delilah Dawlish a statement for her nasty little paper by letter, and that was all he did. The scoundrel.”

That was, no doubt, an accurate assessment of Devlin Sharpe’s character, but again, her responsibility as the elder sister held sway.

The fact that she’d been so reckless and foolish at Jo’s age obligated her all the more to be a good influence on her young sibling now.

“That was a long time ago, dearest. It’s all water under the bridge.

We’ve both gone on with our lives. And if he and Lady Pamela are happy, I’m happy for them. ”

Even as she spoke, she could hear the chirpy brightness of her voice and the sickening sweetness of her words.

Jo evidently heard it, too. “And everything in the garden is lovely?” she asked skeptically.

“Well, it is!” Kay insisted. “Because I’m quite happy, too. But,” she added, smiling as Jo continued to eye her with concern, “I do confess, I enjoyed it thoroughly when you pointed out that Lady Pamela wasn’t the only one getting married.”

Jo grinned back at her, appeased. “That was good, wasn’t it?”

“Rather. Are you really friends with her?”

“With Pamela? Who says so?”

“She did.”

“Did she?” Jo seemed vastly amused. “We weren’t what I’d ever call friends. We were in a few classes, of course, and we were on the fencing team together. That was about all. She could parry all right, but she couldn’t lunge for toffee.”

To Josephine, who was mad about fencing, the inability to lunge was a grievous sin indeed, but the girl’s fencing ability wasn’t what Kay wanted to know about.

“And what…” Kay paused, gave a cough, and then said diffidently, “What’s your opinion of her?”

“Of Pamela? Oh, she’s all right, I suppose. She can’t help being a perfect fool.”

Kay laughed merrily at that description.

“And if you really mean it that everything’s all right, then I’m glad,” Jo went on. “Even though it shows you’re a far nicer person than I am.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Kay gave her sister a rueful look, wrinkling up her nose. “For a second or two when I first saw him, I admit I was sorely tempted to slap him across the face or bash a bunch of carnations over his head.”

Jo laughed cheerfully at the prospect. “Either of those would have been something I’d have loved to see.”

“I resisted the impulse,” she said sternly.

“What a shame.”

“On the contrary, it’s a very good thing. We’re bound to run into Devlin and Lady Pamela again and again during the course of the season, so it’s best to be polite. Especially since in the eyes of the world, we have no reason not to be.”

As she spoke, her resentment and rage flickered up again, just as they had when she’d first seen the mockery in his face, and she wondered how she could keep up pretenses when everything in her wanted nothing but to heap on him the contempt and scorn he deserved.

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Jo said, breaking the sudden silence, reflecting her own thoughts. “Especially for Mama. She adores making scenes.”

At the mention of their overly dramatic mother, Kay once again snuffed out the old anger. It served no purpose to indulge it.

“Mama will have to restrain herself,” she said firmly.

“And she will. She knows what’s at stake.

The scandal rags still watch me like circling vultures, and I have no intention of giving them any meat to feed on.

All Mama’s machinations with Talk of the Town notwithstanding, my scandal won’t truly be over until I’m safely married to Wilson.

And with you coming out a month before that, we can’t afford to put a foot wrong. ”

“I know, I know,” Josephine conceded, giving in with a sigh. “It’s best all around if we can all be civil. Won’t be easy, though.”

“No,” Kay agreed with a sigh. “But this is how it has to be. We’ve no choice.”

Josephine eyed her with sympathy. “Maybe it will get easier as time goes on.”

“It will,” Kay replied, hoping that was true. “Now that the initial shock is over.”

“And who knows what might happen?” Jo said, settling back beside Kay as the cab jerked into motion, circled the fountain, and made its way out of the Savoy courtyard and onto the Strand. “You and Sharpe might even be able to bury the hatchet before it’s all over.”

“I’ll never be that nice,” Kay countered at once, giving a sniff as she settled back beside her sister. “I’ll be civil, because I must. I’ll be polite. But the only way I’ll ever truly bury the hatchet with Devlin Sharpe is if I can put the blade right into his despicable, deceitful heart.”