Page 1 of The Lady Loves A Scandal

Prologue

10 February 1815

After nearly a year of courtship, I, Lady X, am fairly confident in announcing the betrothal of one Viscount Galway of Barrow Burn, Northumberland to Lady Sybil Anson, most recently of London, by way of Paris, France and sister to the newly entitled Eighth Earl of Lichfield. As you, my dear readers, may remember, Lady Sybil is new to town after spending her childhood in the city of love. This author can do naught but imagine the draw between the stoic, reserved Lord Galway, and the young, impish foreigner, Lady Sybil. I am certain all of society will agree, both Lady Sybil and Lord Galway come with sordid pasts.

~ Lady X

London, England

February 1815

Lady Sybil Anson crouched ever lower until her rounded bottom nearly touched the rough, wooden slats of the floor of the hackney, her elbow resting precariously near a grease-covered metal piece. The constant jostle of the ramshackle conveyance as it moved leisurely through the crowded London streets was enough to loosen the pins securing her long tresses and sent shooting pains up her back to her neck. Certainly, a proper lady of the ton would never have used extreme trickery on her maid, fled her home under cover of night, traversed the dangerous alleys of London until she reached a well-traveled area of Regent Street, and hailed the first hack she spotted…all while keeping her hood pulled low, and the hem of her gown pulled high off the filth littering the streets.

Though no one claiming even a speck of good sense would ever describe Lady Sybil as proper.

Peculiar, maybe.

Entrusted with an odd sense of humor, commonly.

A lover of scandal, certainly.

However, it wasn’t that she was any more unusual than other debutantes, or in possession of a dryer wit than many men of her acquaintance. The main difference was that she saw no need to mask her true self.

Cast the blame on her upbringing in France; her finicky, absentminded mother; or the fact that her older brother raised her. Whatever the reason, Sybil stood silently by as others used her past as fodder during her first Season.

Little did any of them know that Lady Sybil Anson did not give a bloody fig about their staunchly held beliefs on the ways a proper English miss should conduct herself while in polite company.

The hack turned a sharp corner, sending her sprawling to the far side, her wrist and knee slamming against the high, wooden rail.

“Damnation and hellfire,” she muttered. She flexed her fingers and rotated her wrist to test the damage.

Pushing back to her seat, Sybil was encouraged to see they’d finally entered Grosvenor Square, where the roads were not riddled with potholes, and the evening traffic was sparse. Unfortunately, with the affluent neighborhood also came increased illumination from the row of townhouses flanking her on both sides of the street. Before departing her home, Sybil had made certain her hood shielded her from view and hid her long, dark hair. Even the sleeves of her cloak hung past her fingertips, the hem likewise long.

The guise was not to stay above scandalous gossip.

It was not her name—or that of her brothers—she worried over.

Blessedly, the hack slowed and turned once more, this time into a well-manicured circular drive, shadowed from above by the looming stone edifice of the Galway Townhouse.

“Stop here, sir,” Sybil called. The command earned her a questioning glance from the driver. “I have no plans to draw you into any unsavory dealings, I promise you.”

She knew the townhouse before her very well. Far better than any unwed lady should know a lord’s London home. If anyone were to ask, she’d deny ever stepping foot into Galway Townhouse without her aunt or another relation as her chaperone.

That Lady Sybil proclaimed herself in love with Gideon Lyndon, Viscount Galway, meant little to the gossips about London. That she was certain he held a tender for her as well was also of little import—at least until the betrothal contracts were signed.

It made little sense that her being outside Gideon’s home after dusk with no chaperone would be taken as proof of her ruined status and have scandalous repercussions on her family’s already tarnished name. But in less than a day’s time, after the contracts were duly signed and witnessed, a minor indiscretion between betrothed couples could be overlooked. And people thought her peculiar.

It made Sybil miss her time in Paris all the more. Days and nights spent free from worry over societal ridicule. People, young women included, given the opportunity to explore themselves and the city without fear of scandal. There were still rules to be followed, of course, but nothing as crushing and oppressive as her British counterparts.

She shook her head at the thought. No, not her British counterparts. Her country, her home, her future.

“Ye get’n down, miss?” the driver hissed in a hushed whisper. “I got me other fares ta earn.”

“I need you to wait for me.” Sybil smoothed her cloak over her gown, made certain her hood was high, and checked the driveway for onlookers—it was abandoned, at least for the moment. “I will not be overlong—” At the driver’s hesitant stare, she continued. “And I shall pay triple your usual rate.”

She’d known the man would agree long before he nodded in concurrence.

Another lesson she’d learned during her time in London.