Page 4 of Lady Farah Creates a Scandal (The Season of Secrets #2)
“W here are you going?”
Blast. Farah turned to face her brother, the Duke of Blackstone. “I’m going to Lady Tiffany’s house with the other ladies to welcome her home from her honeymoon.” She held her breath.
“Didn’t you accomplish that at the ball last night?
Just because I’m going to my hunting estate for the next few weeks doesn’t mean I’ll allow you to play carte blanche with your reputation.
You know how I feel about you associating with Lady Ashley Ware.
You know I don’t want you at Lord Wolfarth’s home. ”
How could she explain that she wanted to attend the investment club meeting?
If her brother knew how much money she had to her name…
Tiffany ran the investment club for the ladies, and it was this group that had challenged her brother to an anonymous investment challenge.
In twelve months, whoever made the largest return would be crowned the investment champion and keep all the money made.
Her brother would be stunned to learn he’d been beaten by women.
“You can’t expect me to avoid it now that Tiffany has married Ashley’s brother, Lord Wolfarth. It’s totally respectable. Besides, she’s a good friend.” And she is helping me invest my pin money so I can escape you, she wanted to add.
“Will that scandalous hussy be there?”
“I expect so. She does live there.” Her brother was talking about Lady Ashley Ware, Tiffany’s sister-in-law.
“Then I forbid it.”
“But all the other ladies will be there.”
“I don’t care. You are my sister, and I am responsible for you and your reputation. You are not going. What would Lord Franklin think?”
Her mouth ran dry and her heartbeat rapidly.
Why couldn’t she get the words out of her mouth to say, “I’m going anyway.
Try and stop me.” Because he bloody well would.
He’d carry her upstairs and lock her in her bedchamber as he’d done many times before.
She had learned it was better to submit and then sneak out.
He was so arrogant, he’d never suspect that she’d disobey him.
Sometimes it paid to remain silent and let him think he’d won.
“I’ve instructed Mrs. Thompson to ensure you act appropriately while I’m away. She will alert me to any misbehavior. If I must return from my hunting trip, I will not be pleased.”
“I am not a child, Stone. One day, you’ll have no choice but to see it.”
He stood watching her as she turned without further argument and made her way back up the stairs, taking her hat off as she went.
She sat in her room fuming, waiting for her brother to leave.
She looked at the clock on the mantle. This game was such a waste of time because she always found a way to do what she wanted.
Though he had an arrangement with Mrs. Thompson and Cook, it wasn’t infallible.
And even though they risked everything in disobeying her brother, they felt sorry for her, and gave her some freedom.
As long as they had deniability, they turned a blind eye.
At last she heard the carriage draw up and her brother finally left for his trip. The entire house breathed a sigh of relief.
With that, she put her bonnet back on her head and snuck out the servants’ entrance.
She and Cook had come up with a plan to thwart her brother.
Farah would fall ill at Lady Tiffany’s and say she had to stay for a few days.
Nothing too serious that would require a missive sent to Stone, but enough to give her a few days away from spying eyes.
What freedom that would be, even if only for a few days.
The meeting at Lord Wolfarth’s house was the perfect chance for Farah to reassess her plan. Rockwell hadn’t returned to his bachelor apartments. He was staying at his brother’s townhouse, in a bedchamber upstairs, or so Tiffany had informed them. She needed to learn where he was going and why.
The ladies collectively sighed with relief as they safely received their stolen funds from the bank in Ireland.
Last month, Tiffany’s evil stockjobber had not only stolen the money they had invested, but they’d learned that several years ago, he’d killed Tiffany’s parents.
But Rockwell had caught Sprat and saw him hanged, retrieving their stolen money.
This meant Farah had the money to travel. She could simply run away. If she knew where Rockwell was going, could she follow and rely on his help?
Last night the worst had happened. Lord Franklin had offered for her hand in marriage. Unless she developed a completely new personality in two days, one that had a backbone, Farah just knew her ducal brother would force her into accepting Franklin’s proposal.
None of her friends understood why she just didn’t tell her brother to go to hell, but that had never worked.
Even when she did try to hold her ground, Blackstone inevitably wore her down and got his way.
Perhaps dukes were born with that skill—the ability to rule with an iron fist and accept no outcome other than the one they wanted.
What her brother didn’t understand was that years of his overbearingness had strengthened her backbone and on this point she would not bend. There would be no marriage to Franklin.
“You’re especially quiet, Farah,” Ashley said in her ear as she leaned closer. “I heard from Wolf that Franklin offered for you last night.” Her friend squeezed her hand. “Don’t let Blackstone push you into a marriage you’ll regret. Marriage is for life.”
“Why did it have to be Franklin?”
Farah took comfort in the fact Ashley had survived, if somewhat tattered, her scandal.
She didn’t know what terrible faux pas surrounded her friend, but Ashley refused to let society’s scorn define her.
She moved within society as if unaware that the ladies all looked down their noses at her, and the men licked their lips, as if Ashley were fair game.
It helped that the sisterhood, as they referred to themselves, had stood by her, as had, of course, her powerful brother, the Marquess of Wolfarth.
Farah would rather spend the rest of her days hidden away in the countryside than face the disapproval of the elite ton , and becoming Lady Franklin was even less appealing. If only she were braver… But she would be brave in this. Too much was at stake.
A scandal would be the only thing to put Lord Franklin off and make him withdraw his offer. But could Farah live her life with talk of impropriety hanging over her? She bit her lip. She knew what a scandal could cost her, but a life with Lord Franklin would cost her more.
“If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I just need…”
“Use my bathing chamber,” Tiffany called out to her. “Wolf and Rockwell are out.”
Farah hated lying to her friends, but asking to visit the necessary was the only way she could sneak upstairs and push forward with her plan without alerting her friends.
They would not approve, nor likely understand.
They would try to talk her out of taking such drastic action, but there was no other choice. Her brother had seen to that.
She took a deep breath before she pushed open Rockwell’s bedchamber door.
Her nose crinkled at the waft of sandalwood mixed with dirty clothes.
Farah had been in Lord Rockwell Ware’s bedchamber before.
She remembered him catching her dancing around the room wearing one of his huge Hessians with her skirts rucked up around her waist. She should have been embarrassed, but the heat in his eyes made her feel something totally unfamiliar—desired.
Now here she was, once again sneaking into his room to plant another note.
But where to leave it? His room was a mess.
There were trunks and dirty clothes everywhere.
Men were so unreliable. Rockwell returned six weeks later than expected and now she faced complete failure because he was leaving again.
She had so little time in which to create a scandal.
She walked to the enormous bed in the middle of the room and ran her hand over the rumpled sheets, battling the urge to bend and sniff them.
She wasn’t out to trap Rockwell into marriage.
She just wanted him to help her avoid marriage to a man who made her skin crawl.
If her plan worked, Rockwell would sail off to Africa before the scandal erupted, and by the time he learned of his part in her downfall, and returned, it would be too late to do anything noble like fall on his sword and offer her his hand in marriage.
The snag was, deep in her heart, she wondered what it would be like to be married to a man like Rockwell. But by making him an unwilling accomplice in her plan, she’d likely kill any chance of a relationship—friend, lover, or wife.
Still, even losing the respect of a decent man was not too high a price to pay for her freedom. That was how seriously she took her situation.
As she moved around the room, a pile of journals caught her eye.
She really shouldn’t… Her fingers didn’t listen.
She gingerly lifted the cover of one and with one eye closed, as if that made it acceptable, she read, “Norwegian Coast June 1806—the sea is calm and the color of the water is the purest turquoise. We’ve been anchored in the bay for four days as we take on supplies.
I must admit, I’m getting a tad tired of all fish meals.
A nice juicy piece of meat would be worth a bar of gold. ”
Farah smiled. It looked as if Rockwell kept a diary of his explorations.
She kept reading, almost laughing out loud at his tale of a husky who got overly friendly with his sheepskin boots, to the point that she almost missed the heavy thump of Hessians on the wooden floorboards and Wolf’s voice in a stern argument with someone who could only be Rockwell.