Free Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) by Pearl Darling Page A

in hot water. What had she called it? Stupidly scandalous. Goodness she was a fool. Where had she gone so badly wrong?
    Slumping, she shivered in the cool air that whistled through the carriage. She would agree with anyone that listened that she had been flattered by Charles’ attention. Her head had been turned slightly by the man, blown her off her scientific stride. She should have remembered her conclusions. The way in which he had taken advantage of her, the way in which he had forced her to kiss him, had shown him for the disgusting man he really was. It had dropped her estimation of him back neatly into the set of despicable male specimens she’d encountered over the years.
    Shuddering with revulsion, Agatha shook her head. When it came to love and making love, she was still a novice. Any man who pushed her to the brink and took only what he wanted would not be the man for her.
    Victoria chattered incessantly in the other corner of the carriage to cover up the silence, but Agatha didn’t care, shivers racking her body more and more frequently. Henry should have protected her, as both her brother’s friend, and as her friend’s brother. In fact he had thrown her to the wolves, hah. What else did she expect? Heartless Henry .
    The house was ablaze was light as they drew up outside. Henry cursed audibly and stepped out of the carriage, and then stopped as his hat blew from his head. Bending sideways, he pointed upwards.
    “It’s gone!” he shouted.
    Agatha shook her head and descended from the carriage, catching onto it as the vehicle veered sideways in the high winds. Small branches hurtled past her, leaves sticking in her hair. She gasped as she forced her head upwards. The huge hornbeam in the back garden had fallen in the wind, crashing down against the roof, crushing the timbers.
    “My house!” Henry pressed a hand hard to his forehead and ran a hand through his hair before noticing Agatha teetering at the edge of the carriage. With a curse, he caught at her waist and put a hand out for Victoria. “We are safer inside.”
     
    The wind howled for many hours. After a sleepless night, Agatha watched from her window as Charles appeared the next morning at the house in Mount Street, his cravat askew, clearly wearing the clothes in which he had attended the ball. Even his walk was unsteady, his handsome face the color of paste. It was hard to remember what she had seen in him. She shrank back from the bedroom window as he wove his way up the smart steps to the stucco-fronted house. For a moment he stared upwards at the roof and grinned. As the door opened to let him inside, she turned and sat on her bed, her stomach churning.
    Work on the roof had started early that morning. Men with huge saws had woken her with their shouts, treating the poor hornbeam in sections, pulling it away from the mansion and dropping it in the garden from where dray horses pulled the magnificent trunk through the stables and out onto the back street. Only the stump of the tree was left.
    The conversation between Charles and Henry seemed to last forever. In fact she didn’t even see Charles. All she saw was a disheveled behind falling into a hack. She had been too preoccupied with the contents of her stomach and studying the incongruous rose buds that lined the edges of her empty, but ready, chamber pot. On another day she might have consulted Mrs. B. on how they put together the bright hues of the paint, or glazed the porcelain to a sheen, but today all she could do was hold her midriff and wait for the sickness in her stomach to subside. Besides, Conversations on Science had been relegated to Henry’s study. She’d seen its leather spine high up upon the book lined shelves of the dark room.
    Luncheon was awful. Henry didn’t say a word about the meeting, and she still felt heartily sick. He sat at the end of the table like an idol in a dark forbidding tomb holding Agatha’s future in his hands. Numbly, she felt his gaze on her