A Proper Scandal (Ravensdale Family Book 2) Read online

  The opera wasn’t spectacular, though to be fair, Alex never appreciated the opera. His attention was elsewhere, anyway.

  Minnie handled the group in the box with a finessed skill acquired over time. No more the girl pretending to be a paramour in a dodgy London casino. She didn’t falter now. She was unreservedly charming. They adored her. Hell, Alex adored her, wearing that brilliant dress of hers. He lifted his glass up to her in salute from across the box. The truth was, a girl like Minnie Ravensdale was irresistible.

  And just as suddenly, he could not stomach watching her entertain everyone else. He wanted to be in her company. Alone. He wanted her smile and her laughs. She was being served up as if some rich dessert to Peprin.

  He shot up from his seat, neglecting to make apologies, and exited the box. It wasn’t possible to stand by and watch Minnie without that strange primal feeling tugging at him.

  Alex leaned against the cool marble wall in the hallway and bowed his head.

  “Are you upset with me?”

  Her voice was a poor mask. Of course she would play it as though he was to blame. Was he? Was he being unreasonable?

  “No.” His own answer was a lie, evident by the way he had to force out each letter on a hard exhale. He closed his eyes as she walked around to face him. The rustle of silk gliding over the marble tiled floor was all that filled the space around them.

  Beyond the curtains, the orchestra struck up, building to an aria’s crescendo, yet all he focused on was the way he tensed when her body stood in front of his. She stepped closer, her skirt covering his shoes, her rose perfume clouding his mind. His eyes opened and he pinned his gaze to hers. In one moment, he dove headfirst into madness, dragging her against him, his lips kissing the hollow of her throat.

  Minnie braced herself over Alex, her hands pinned on either side of his head. Her hands slipped farther down the wall, drawing her closer. Alex framed her tiny waist with his hands as her mouth parted on a sigh. She took his mouth, her tongue moving over his lips in a wicked flutter. With a burning graze of one finger, Minnie ignited his want.

  She leaned closer to his ear. “You’re mad with me.” Her fingers slid higher into his hair and tugged.

  Alex should have put a respectable distance between them, but he didn’t care. Let them be discovered.

  “You can’t kiss me here.” Her hands traveled down the buttons of his waistcoat until she gave a playful push and backed away.

  “No?”

  She bit her bottom lip as she backed further out of his reach.

  He scanned the hallways and found that they were mostly empty, the audience still seated as the opera continued, the music filling up the building like a heartbeat. Or perhaps that was just the sound of his own heartbeat filling his ears as he stalked her down the hall. “Here?” he asked, as they approached the staircase.

  Her eyebrows drew up into a peak, her smile widening. Minnie whirled around, her skirts billowing over the floor in a wave of red. He allowed her only a few more steps before he reached out and pulled her back behind a curtained room, thankfully vacant.

  “Here should do I thi—”

  Maybe he had leaned closer or maybe it was Minnie, but it didn’t really matter because they were kissing again, hidden away from prying eyes.

  Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck as his lips moved from her mouth to her jaw to the line of her throat. He was so hungry for her and that damn red dress. If she wanted a scandal, then let them be caught and they could be married in the morning. He wouldn’t feel bad for wanting her when she kissed him back, eagerly and passionately.

  “I don’t like pretending,” he said on a rushed breath.

  She nipped at his earlobe. “They can’t know, Alex. He can’t.”

  Alex drew back enough to gaze at her face in the darkened room as they both caught their breath, awakening to the reality that awaited them both on the other side of the curtain.

  “It will ruin everything.” She leaned in again and kissed him as if it was as natural for her as breathing, but it was spoiled now, his head spinning with the truth.

  He slowly lowered her to the ground, taking a small step back so he could put himself together and face her like a man instead of a besotted boy. He had half of the London underground at his control, but put Minnie in front of him and everything was shot to hell.

  “Why are you in Paris?” she asked.

  It was funny to hear, when he had several of his own questions. Namely, why she was living in a house owned by Peprin? He held his tongue again for the millionth time that evening and took another step back.

  “I’m here on business for Ainsworth from Millay’s. I see that debts are settled.”

  She let out a sigh, her gaze shifting uncomfortably to the floor before looking back at him, her face now serious, the teasing erased. He remained still as she closed the little distance he had carved between them, two soft footfalls as the orchestra struck up in the background.

  “You’ve changed and remained the same all at once. How is it that I know you but feel like we are strangers who must start over?”

  His circumstances had certainly changed and his mind, however fickle, seemed to be in order as of late. But one thing remained constant. The world could rise and fall, but he would always feel the same for the woman standing in front of him.

  “You should return,” he said, realizing that they had been with a group of people who would notice their lengthy disappearance. If they had to pretend, then they could start now in the dark room where he could not see her clearly.

  The back of her hand skimmed his cheek, back and forth in an easy sway, her eyes fixed to his.

  He thought, however foolishly, that for one small moment they understood each other. “You look beautiful tonight,” he whispered, feeling the need to tell her what no one else had.

  Her mouth stretched into a smile, but her eyes were filled with sadness as she said, “Thank you.”

  Minnie rested her forehead against his lips, her other hand curling around the nape of his neck. He had just worked at unwinding their bodies and already she was surrounding him.

  “Go on, darling,” he whispered, taking her hand and pushing her back into a spin. She gave a small gleeful laugh as she twirled around him, her skirts tangling around his legs. He pulled her in for one last kiss. That was all—one more kiss so he could have the nerve to keep up their charade.

  She licked her lips as she backed up against the curtain, a grin on her face. “Mr. Marwick.” Minnie dipped into that clumsy curtsey of hers before pushing out into the hallway.

  Alex slumped back against the wall, tugging at his cuffs as he tried wiping the smug smile off his face. “Mrs. Marwick.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “This could be a terrible idea,” Chantal said nervously.

  Minnie glanced up from unlacing her boot and nodded. She was close to tossing up her stomach on the dressing room floor.

  “Maybe we should recon—”

  “No.” She yanked off her boot and hurled it at the adjacent wall to drive home her meaning. There was no going back now. Chantal had agreed and this was their chance—Minnie’s chance, to be on that stage in front of everyone. She would have their attention. Standing in the window of Maxim’s was one thing, what she was about to do would cause gossip to ripple throughout the city. “Help me with my stays.”

  Chantal unlaced Minnie, tapping her feet and humming over the refrain of their song.

  “We’ve rehearsed enough. It is a performance for a bordello, Chantal, not the Paris Opera House. Flash the audience some skin and they will be forgiving of any mistakes.”

  “This is a terrible idea,” Chantal repeated, pacing in front of the mirror.

  Minnie held up her costume, examining the fine material with a grimace. This could be a terrible mistake but she refused to give anyone the impression she thought otherwise. She shimmied the fabric down her naked body, swaying from side to side until it pooled around her bare feet.r />
  Chantal bowed over the vanity, reciting the lyrics until Minnie could take no more. She was about to interrupt as a knock rapt at the door.

  “Our turn,” Minnie said with a mischievous smile. Chantal looked up at her through the mirror, her eyes large and filled with fear. “They’re going to love us, chéri.” She took a healthy swig from the wine bottle and passed it over. “Drink up. We have hearts to capture and Paris to seize.”

  *

  It was growing late, even for Alex. It was time that he found his way back to his hotel if he could still put one foot in front of the other. Peprin’s friends partied hard, and Alex’s self-will had not been at its strongest that evening.

  Minnie had been like a ghost. He had caught glimpses of her and heard his fair share of praise from patrons, but they hadn’t spoken. While he wished they had, it was easier to exist outside her realm. If their paths were to intercept here, he was not sure he could pretend he didn’t know her. This was no place for a born lady, whether Minnie would own up to that fact or not. She deserved to be treated better than some chit with nice legs and loose morals.

  The problem was she thought otherwise.

  No, the problem was that she had just stepped out onto stage wearing little more than a sheet.

  His knuckles whitened as he gripped the table. The room erupted into rowdy calls before the music started and her voice drew silence from the crowd.

  There on stage, under the glow of the electric lights, Minnie danced something more erotic than the normal repertoire of a ballerina. The room was silent as she moved across the stage in a way that demanded attention. Alex drained his drink, then fumbled around the table for another bottle, his eyes still pinned to her as arms gracefully cut through the air and her hips swayed.

  This was absurd. This was ridiculous. This was—

  Good God, but she was beautiful.

  Minnie twirled around the arms of the other dancer, the girl Chantal who always followed her around. The pair spun together and kissed.

  The room erupted into chaos.

  The crowd was a mix of boos and cheers as the two continued their routine. But when bottles started hurling through the air and it seemed there was more objection than approval, Alex shot to his feet. Once he saw her safe, he would throttle her for being so damned foolish.

  He pushed through those rushing the stage. Alex would lay them all flat if they so much as touched a hair on her head.

  One of Peprin’s henchmen tried blocking him from following the women behind stage, Alex he was too quick and avoided the first. It was the second and third that stopped him temporarily with fists even as he shouted his connections. They didn’t seem to care and Alex didn’t seem to have control of his fists. He brought them both to the ground and continued after Minnie. He was no longer the boy who couldn’t fight, but a man who learned to brawl to bring order to the dark chaos within himself.

  She was in a small dressing room with a crowd laughing and smiling when he found her.

  “Out,” he ordered.

  The other women looked at him, curious to know who just ordered them away as if he had any right to claim the company of their Evie.

  He grabbed the nearest thing he could reach and threw it at Minnie. “Cover yourself up.” Then he turned to the audience again, pointing his hand toward the door as if they needed further instruction. “Out.”

  “What were you thinking?” he demanded as the last of them filed out. He slammed the door shut. “Her eyes narrowed as she balled the robe he had thrown into her arms.

  “There is a riot out there because of you!”

  Minnie braced her arms on the table’s edge. “Why are you here?”

  He took a step forward, his temper flaring at her quiet indifference.

  “I survive because of Monsieur Peprin’s favor. That means—,” She rushed forward with a finger pointed at his face, “—that you’re not allowed to come barging in to ruin everything!”

  “Oh, that’s grand, Min, just grand. I’m ruining everything?” He tossed his arm up, waving it angrily toward the door. “The police are going to have you arrested. You just kissed another woman on stage. Wearing a sheet.”

  “I’m certainly not ruining everything.” She drew back, her eyes dropping to the floor. “And it’s a very fine robe. Oriental, actually.” Minnie ran her fingers over the silk as if they were not in the middle of an argument.

  Oh, she was infuriating. “What. The hell. Are you doing here?”

  Her face must have changed a hundred times before she said in a soft whisper, “I’m surviving.”

  The tension dropped from his shoulders. “You’re a fool,” he whispered back. “A beautiful fool who’s too afraid to live the life she set out for herself. You’re not brave. You’re acting like a selfish coward. The girl who changed my life four years ago wanted more than to kick up her skirts for some man with a large purse.”

  She remained silent at his ugly words.

  That was to be it between them then. A short reunion and another reminder that their lives were not meant for mixing.

  Alex turned to leave.

  “I haven’t seen you in years. You know nothing of me or my life here in Paris. You don’t have the right…no, the privilege, to order me about as if you know better.” He turned around as she finished, “And you’re one to speak. You rely on Peprin as much as I do.”

  She waited for a response but he had none. Nothing worth wasting his breath over anyway.

  Minnie rushed forward, closing the small distance between them and stripped naked.

  “It makes you a hypocrite,” she hissed, tossing the thin veil of fabric at his face. “If you believe me a prostitute, then open your purse and have me or so help me God—”

  Alex threw the fabric to the floor and edged forward. He hated that somehow during their years apart she had come to believe she could only be bought. He hated himself for saying what he had said. He hated the dejected look in her eyes as she stared back.

  A dry laugh escaped him that filled the room, mocking her attempt at frightening him away. Minnie was precious to Alex, even as she brought on disaster after disaster. He would always be there waiting when the dust settled.

  “I thought so,” she said, her voice laden with bitterness. “Leave.”

  He slipped out of his jacket and draped it around her naked body, her eyes closing as its residual heat wrapped around her skin. It must have felt as terrible as the room’s cold suddenly felt to him, as if they both had been pushed away an impossible distance from one another.

  “I hate you, Alex Marwick.” Her eyes welled with tears she would never shed. She would wipe them away or deny their existence, but she would never cry.

  He hated himself a bit then too for causing her tears.

  “Well, I don’t hate you. Whoever you are. Whoever you decide to be.”

  She drew in a sharp breath as if his words had stabbed her. Maybe that had been his intention, though his anger had ebbed away to another confusing emotion altogether.

  “What happened?” She reached out her hand to his swollen cheek.

  He didn’t care about the state of his face when she only wore his jacket. Not when there was a building full of people who could hurt her.

  Maybe he should pick her up and haul her away. They could return to London and be happy there. Forget everything. They could have a comfortable life with what he had saved.

  “Nothing,” he said, unable to break their stare.

  “Alex, I—”

  “Am I interrupting?” Chantal entered the room, but she didn’t close the door. Whoever was on the other side could see everything.

  Alex looked to Minnie, pleading with her silently to stop being so stubborn and to leave with him, to do anything other than look at him with a sickening blank stare.

  “No,” she said finally, her voice flat. Minnie dropped her hand away from his face and stepped away. “Mr. Marwick was just leaving.”

  *

  It was
two in the afternoon when Alex called on Minnie. The footman insisted she wasn’t accepting calls, then promptly closed the door in his face. But that answer wasn’t satisfactory. Alex knew Minnie would be accepting calls from visitors today. He was going to see her if he had to scale the walls and slip into her bloody window.

  He knocked again, and when the footman answered the door, Alex pushed by the timid man and smiled cunningly at the maid rushing up the stairs to alert her mistress.

  Sure, it was untoward of Alex to call on a single lady in the afternoon. But the woman had her own house. This was the same woman who just two nights prior wore nothing but a silk sheet and kissed a woman on a Parisian stage. Propriety was lost on a wild woman like Minnie Ravensdale. It was more of a suggestion than ordinance. And he had lost his head that night as the club erupted into a riot. He’d said some nasty things.

  He followed on the heels of the maid, who was determined to warn her mistress of his unannounced invasion.

  “Mademoiselle,” she cried, as she swung the door open. “Mademoiselle!”

  “Allow me,” Alex said, brushing past the shocked maid.

  Minnie lay toppled over from her vanity chair, lost in a sea of pink tulle, wearing a crooked tiara of paste diamonds. “Ho! A-Alex,” she slurred with a merry smile on her face.

  “Having some trouble with your chair?”

  “Why, yes!” She moved her hand up to straighten her misplaced crown. It looked as if she had just been deposited home after an outlandish party.

  The sad sight of her reminded him of the young girl longing to be a ballerina. With a self-possessed sigh, he took another step into the room. “Leave us,” he said, ignoring the maid’s protest.

  “Go, go,” Minnie echoed, waving her hand as if she were shooing a stubborn pest.

  The door clicked shut and he was left standing alone with Minnie.

  “Hello!” she bellowed again.