Page 10 of The Lady Loves A Scandal

Gideon glanced up from the drying wax on the folded paper before him, long enough to nod at the servant standing at the edge of his desk, before turning his focus back to the note. Another moment, and the black wax with the Galway crest prominently displayed would be hardened and the missive ready for delivery. A large part of him was surprised that it had come to this, while a nagging thought remained that it was exactly as he deserved.

Holding the note out to the servant, Gideon instructed, “Deliver this to Oliver’s Bookshoppe off Bond Street. Hand it directly to Mr. Oliver and no one else. Understood?”

His servant collected the note and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “Of course, my lord.”

When the servant fled the room, closing the door soundlessly behind him, Gideon reclined in his seat, rubbing his face with both hands.

Two days.

Two bloody long days.

He’d promised to call on Sybil the day following Lady Lichfield’s birthday celebration.

What Gideon hadn’t counted on was Lord Lichfield, Sybil’s brother, turning him away.

And now, he was forced to send a note by way of Sybil’s favorite bookseller. Gideon wasn’t even certain the man would remember what to do when the servant arrived at his shop.

Gideon had failed Sybil. Again. At least this time, it wasn’t his fault, though that made it no less reprehensible. Perhaps he should have appeared on Lichfield’s stoop and pounded on the door instead of sending word requesting an audience with the earl.

Scanning his desk, he grabbed Lady X’s gossip sheet and skimmed down the page until he spotted the vile woman’s latest on dit. Someone had indeed taken note of his and Sybil’s meeting two nights prior, and they’d been kind enough to report it directly to London’s most notorious scandalmonger. It wasn’t the story on his and Sybil’s intimate moments in the hall that angered him most, however, it was the fact that Lady X knew something Gideon didn’t…something he never would have guessed.

Sybil was all but betrothed to another man.

A bloody duke, no less.

She hadn’t breathed a word of it the other night. Not that he’d given her a chance to tell him. He read the name again, the Duke of Garwood. Gideon didn’t know the lord, had never made his acquaintance and knew naught of him in general. Yet, he already disliked the man.

Perhaps he was unfairly judging the duke.

He certainly had superb taste in women if he’d set his sights on Lady Sybil.

He pushed to his feet, the chair beneath him groaning in protest as Gideon walked to the hearth and tossed the scandal sheet into the flames. Satisfaction filled him as he watched the words disappear as the paper burned, the edges curling in as the cream parchment turned black and then gray as it dissolved to ash. The words were not so easily forgotten, however, nor would the duke be banished just because Gideon threw the paper into the fire.

Everything had become clear once Gideon read the scandal sheet.

Lord Lichfield had no reason and, as a matter of fact, had a very good motive for turning Gideon away and denying him an audience. Sybil was all but betrothed to another. And Lichfield was likely quite pleased with his sister’s ability to secure the notice of a duke as opposed to a mere viscount. Gideon had been foolish enough to think it had something to do with his disappearance before the contracts were signed for his and Sybil’s betrothal.

Did Sybil love the duke?

If she did, Gideon would not stand in the way of what she wanted for her future or her happiness.

Yet, neither would he end his pursuit to gain back her affection so easily.

He’d slept in the hull of a pirated merchant vessel, eaten table scraps collected on the streets of Dover, and barely escaped before the hunters overtook him, Giles, and Charles in a tavern on the outskirts of Manchester. He had never been one to give up easily without a fight.

And Lady Sybil Anson was worth a thousand battles.

She was the one thing that had kept him going all those months as they pushed from one place to the next. Outrunning the men who searched for them had been paramount, and he’d like to believe he did it to keep Charles safe, but the truth was, he kept going each day, knowing the time would come when he’d be able to return to London…and Sybil.

That day had come, but was he too late?

If their brief time together at the ball was any indication, he wasn’t too late.

After he’d left the ball, he developed a plan. He would speak privately with Lichfield and tell him as much as he could without putting the earl in danger, and then he’d spend the rest of his life making amends for his disappearance.

Was it too much to hope that Lady X’s latest gossip sheet would put an end to the Duke of Garwood’s courtship?

Gideon hoped it would; however, he would only blame himself if it were at the expense of Sybil’s reputation.