Don't Tempt Me (Fallen Women 2)

That was no joke. Marchmont knew his former guardian better than Lexham’s own children did. The man was no fool.

Yet this young woman had bamboozled him—as well as Winterton, apparently.

It made no sense.

The Duke of Marchmont, however, was never at a loss. If he felt uneasy or doubtful or confused or—as was the case at present—utterly confounded, he ignored it. He certainly didn’t show it.

“As a member of the family, I declare that this girl, whoever she is, cannot be Lexham’s youngest,” Marchmont said. “Zoe in a harem for twelve years? If they chained her to a very thick wall, perhaps.”

“She was a hoyden, as I recall,” said Adderwood. More than once he’d joined Marchmont during those long-ago summer holidays with the Lexhams.

“A bolter,” said Marchmont.

He saw her too clearly in his mind’s eye.

I want to play, Lucien. Tell them to let me.

Girls don’t play cricket. Go back to your dolls and nursemaids, brat.

He shoved the memory back into the mental cupboard it had escaped from and slammed the door shut.

“I hope for Lexham’s sake the woman isn’t his daughter,” Alvanley said. “‘Bolter’ would be the kindest of epithets Society will bestow upon her.”

“Twelve years in a harem,” said Berkeley. “Might as well say twelve years in a brothel.”

“It isn’t the same thing,” said Adderwood. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

“No one cares whether it is or it isn’t,” said Marchmont. “No one’s going to let facts get in the way of a good scandal.”

And this situation was the sort scandalmongers dreamed of, as alchemists dreamt of the philosopher’s stone. The tale—of an English girl, a peer’s daughter, lost for twelve years in the exotic East among heathens and polygamists—was a feast for the dirty-minded.

“Wait until you see the prints,” said Worcester. “Wait until you see the mob outside Lexham House.”

“They’d already gathered when I was going home at dawn today,” said Berkeley. “Place looked like Bartholomew Fair.”

“Clerks, milkmaids, shopgirls, peddlers, pickpockets, and drunkards, all wanting a look at the Harem Girl,” said Worcester.

“I heard they summoned troops to disperse the crowd,” said Yarwood.

Marchmont would have laughed at this latest example of human absurdity if Lexham hadn’t been at the center of it.

It was Lexham whose good name the scandal and notoriety would besmirch. It was Lexham, one of the House of Lords’ most dedicated and hardworking members, whose judgment would be questioned. It was Lexham who’d be ridiculed.

The Duke of Marchmont cared about little in this world, and the little began and ended with Lord Lexham. What the duke owed his former guardian could hardly be put into words and certainly could never be repaid.

This nonsense had to be stopped. Immediately. And, as had used to be the case in a Zoe-related crisis, Marchmont was the one who had to do it.

“Put me down for a thousand pounds, Adderwood,” he said. “I don’t know who she is, but she isn’t Zoe Lexham. And I’ll prove it before the day’s over.”

An hour and more after he’d made his bet, the Duke of Marchmont regarded the sea of people in once-peaceful Berkeley Square. Above their heads thick grey clouds mounted, bringing an early darkness to the day.

No one cared about the weather. An earthquake wouldn’t drive off this lot, he knew. Waiting for a glimpse of the principals in the latest high-society drama was quite as good entertainment as a public hanging.

Only someone who’d lived in a hermit cave for the past year would find the uproar surprising.

The nation had spent the winter grieving for its beloved Princess of Wales. To ordinary folk, the Princess Charlotte had been one bright, happy image in the depressing lot that constituted the present royal family. The tale of the Harem Girl couldn’t have appealed more to their mood and taste if it had been made up special: Spunky English girl (like the late princess) overcomes impossible odds and outsmarts a lot of heathen villains. Better yet, Zoe Lexham’s tale was not only heroic but titillating. Visions of Salome danced in their heads.

By this time His Grace was more fully armed with information, as well as better lubricated with alcohol. Over a bottle or two or three, his friends had repeated all the tales they’d heard. Before coming here, he’d stopped at Humphrey’s Print Shop in St. James’s Street. He’d had to push through the mob gawking at the pictures in the windows.

One caricature showed a well-endowed Zoe Lexham, arrayed in nothing but a large snake, performing a salacious contortion meant to represent oriental dancing. In another, she gyrated lewdly in transparent veils while a turbaned fellow with the prime minister’s face offered her the Prince Regent’s head on a platter.

Though His Grace lingered over these, he didn’t neglect the less obscene pictures wherein, for instance, Lexham featured as a deluded old fool and Winterton was shown smuggling the girl out of Egypt in a rug, like Shakespeare’s Cleopatra. Several other prints made reference to an incident last year, when a woman led some trusting souls in Gloucestershire to believe she was the Princess Caraboo of Javasu. She turned out to be a nobody named Mary Wilcocks of Witheridge, Devonshire.

Marchmont had no idea who the young woman in Lexham’s house might be, and didn’t particularly care. All he knew was that he had not looked forward recently to anything so much as he looked forward to unmasking her.

He began to make his way through the crowd, “accidentally” knocking out of his way those who failed to move quickly enough. He didn’t have to do this often. The Duke of Marchmont’s sleepily ethereal countenance had been caricatured on numerous occasions. It had adorned print shop windows and print sellers’ umbrellas. The world knew—or thought it did—all about him. When they saw him coming, sensible people got out of the way.

Meanwhile, in the small drawing room of Lexham House, the object of all the excitement sat at a small table near one of the windows, studying the fashion plates in the latest edition of La Belle Assemblée.

As she had learned to do in the harem, Zoe made herself the calm in the eye of the storm.

All seven of her siblings had descended upon Lexham House this morning.

All seven had been closeted with her and her parents in the small drawing room since then. All seven had spent the time ranting and raving. The numbers, if not the noise, had dwindled in the last few minutes, however.

Her eldest brother, Roderick, had been the last of the brothers to stomp out. A moment ago, he’d followed Samuel and Henry downstairs to the billiard room. There, beyond a doubt, they were all sulking, because Papa had told them they were behaving like hysterical women.

Zoe knew they’d rather remain at Lexham House sulking than go home and face their wives. If all of her siblings were angry with her for disrupting their lives, what could she expect from their women?

It was obvious, too, that her brothers were counting on her four older sisters to wear Papa down.

Augusta, Gertrude, Dorothea, and Priscilla remained at the large central table. There they consumed great quantities of tea and cakes, to keep their energy up for the endless complaints, reproaches, and recriminations they deemed necessary on the occasion. The younger pair, Dorothea and Priscilla, having reached advanced states of pregnancy, tended more to tears, sudden changes of sentiment, and occasional swoons than the elder two.

The storm, which had briefly abated with the brothers’ departure, broke out again. Zoe let it rage about her, gathering her wits and saving her energy for the crucial moment.

“She cannot remain in London, Papa.”

“You’ve seen the newspapers.”

“If you could see the prints—”

“Lewd, disgusting things.”

“Snake charmers and such.”

“We are a joke, a circus entertainment for the mob.”

“I was obliged to skulk through Town like a

common criminal, and sneak here through the garden.”

“We had to cover the crests on the carriage.”

“Not that there’s any point to leaving the house, when one’s ashamed to show one’s face in public.”

“One certainly cannot visit friends. One hasn’t any.”

“Three hostesses have rescinded their invitations.”

“Seven have declined mine.”

“We may be sure that’s only the beginning.”

“One cannot blame them. Who wants the London mob on the doorstep?”

“All of the neighbors in Berkeley Square hate us, except Gunter’s. They’re doing a brisk trade in pastries and ices, I don’t doubt. But the Devonshires will cut us, you may be sure. The Lansdownes, too. And the Jerseys.”

“You know what will happen next.”

“Riots, I don’t doubt.”

“Lady Jersey—one of Almack’s patronesses—only think what that means. We’ll be taken off the list!”

A stunned silence, then:

“Good grief! What’s to become of my Amy’s birthday ball?”

“Call it off. No one will come.”

“Parker says we must remove to the country. Can you credit it? Now! At the height of the Season!”

By this time, Mama, easily blown by every emotional wind, had given up trying to decide whose side she was on. She’d taken to the chaise longue, where she lay with her eyes closed. Every so often she let out a moan.

Different language, Zoe thought. Different clothing. Different furnishings. Yet so like the harem.

Papa stood at the fire, his back to them all. “Indeed, I can think of no greater catastrophe than to be denied entrance to Almack’s,” he said to the fire. “Two nights ago you sobbed because the little sister you believed dead had turned out to be alive. Two nights ago you marveled at her courage. Now you can’t wait to be rid of her.”

Zoe wasn’t sure whether her sisters had wept with happiness or shock or outrage.

She’d entered the house and found them all—parents, siblings, and siblings’ spouses—in the entrance hall, like an army braced to repel an invader.

What if they don’t know me? she’d thought. What if they don’t believe it’s me?

But all she’d had to do was look up and meet her father’s cold, suspicious gaze while she let the hood of her cloak slide from her hair. Papa had stared at her for a moment. Then he’d closed his eyes and opened them again. She’d watched them fill with tears. Then he’d opened his arms and she’d run into them.

“My dear girl.” Emotion had clogged his voice, but she’d understood every precious word. “Oh, my dear, dear girl. I knew you’d come back.” He’d wept, and Zoe had sobbed, too. She was home at last.

Though she’d come back a woman, not a girl, though she’d been gone for so long, he’d known her. They’d all known her, like it or not. Like all of her sisters, she had her mother’s dark gold curling hair. But she was the only one who’d inherited Grandmama Lexham’s profile and her deep blue eyes.

They couldn’t deny she was their own Zoe Octavia.