SCANDAL THREE
Devious behavior never benefits anyone.
Although sometimes…
—How To Avoid A Scandal,
Moreland’s Original Manuscript
The 12th of May
Evening
DARK, DARK TIMES had descended upon the Kingdom of Poland. Yet again. For upon this day, the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias had officially crowned himself the Tsar of Poland and all of its people. And here she was, countries away, banished to fester in some town house in London, unable to so much as spit upon the man’s boot or leave the house.
But that would soon change.
Although Countess Zosia Urszula Kwiatkowska was being bullied into marrying an Englishman by the end of what the British called the Season, she wasn’t about to marry just any Englishman, despite what His Majesty thought. It was all about playing the right pawn on the board at the right time, when one’s opponents weren’t looking. If there was anyone who could single-handedly win at any game, be it chess, piquet, loo, whist, pope or charades, it most certainly was her.
Despite His Majesty’s growing agitation, she refused to marry any of the strange men he kept sending to her door. Aside from none of them having a personality or any real influence on London society, they all treated her like she was some feral animal in need of restraint.
There were only so many things she was willing to sacrifice in the name of avoiding the monastery, and dignity most certainly was not one of them. She needed to marry an intelligent, progressive and influential man willing to accept her for what she was. Not whatever he expected her to be.
Of course, finding such a man was an involved process that was making His Majesty think she was overly ambitious and completely daft. Though she wasn’t really too worried what His Majesty thought. After all, she could always blame any lapse of judgment on her laudanum.
Locking her bedchamber door with a quick turn of the key so her nurse wouldn’t interrupt, Zosia wheeled herself around the bed toward the window on the other side of the room. Maneuvering her wicker chair before the drawn curtains, she gathered them up and buried herself and the chair within the vast material, allowing them to fall down around her and onto the wooden floor.
She edged the large wheels closer to the window, until the tip of her slippered foot, which was set upon the padded footrest, was propped against the wall below the sill. Readjusting the embroidered curtains around her, she secured them more firmly together to ensure no candlelight filtered out into the night beyond, to better keep her hidden from the outside world.
Well satisfied, she snatched up her spyglass from the sill of the window and extended its brass length, determined to stay privy to all the goings-on with her oh-so-dashing British neighbor, the Marquis of Moreland. The one with the mysterious dark eyes and brooding features.
Although she’d planned to coordinate an introduction between them with the assistance of His Majesty, she was astounded to find him standing beneath her window late one night, observing her in the manner she’d been observing him through her spyglass all along. Lunging at the opportunity to meet him, she discovered he was far more impressive in full size than he was palm size.
Everything about him, from his appearance, to his prospects, to his respectability, to his political seat, to his wit, intellect, demeanor and even his dialect was perfect. Too perfect. It made him untouchable to a one-legged Polish Catholic such as herself. But no man could be that perfect. He had to be hiding something beneath that cultivated, regal facade. But what?
Annoyingly, instead of calling on her, as she had invited him to do, his footman had merely delivered a red leather-bound book about British etiquette. It made her wonder if the man was onto her ostentatious scheme. Though it was unlikely. A man only considered a woman to be a threat to his money or his heart. Neither of which she wanted or needed. Wealth she had, and her heart…her heart was already spoken for by something far more important than a man.
With the delivery of that etiquette book—which she’d tossed after briefly skimming—she was beginning to think he was simply too respectable to crack. Until he’d rounded his coach past her home one afternoon, peering in through all of her windows. That was when she knew he wasn’t as civil minded as he was leading her and the rest of the world to believe.
A movement on the cobblestone street below made her pause and glance down toward it. Her fingers tightened on the spyglass, the cool brass pressing against her moistened palm, upon seeing a broad-shouldered figure saddled upon a snowy stallion, dressed from head to boot in dark military attire. Lingering beside the lamppost, he was strategically aligned beneath her window.