How to Survive a Scandal

Book 1: Rebels With a Cause

by Samara Parish

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Regency Romance

Synopsis

In this whirlwind regency romance, perfect for fans of Netflix's Bridgerton, a near-death experience leads to a marriage of convenience for two unsuspecting strangers, but will their unusual meeting lead them to true love?

Lady Amelia was raised to be the perfect duchess, accomplished in embroidery, floral arrangement, and managing a massive household. But when an innocent mistake forces her and the uncouth, untitled Benedict Asterly into a marriage of convenience, all her training appears to be for naught. Even worse, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to this man no finishing school could have prepared her for.

Benedict Asterly never dreamed saving Amelia’s life would lead to him exchanging vows with the hoity society miss. Benedict was taught to distrust the aristocracy at a young age, so when news of his marriage endangers a business deal, Benedict is wary of Amelia’s offer to help. But his quick-witted, elegant bride defies all his expectations . . . and if he’s not careful, she’ll break down the walls around his guarded heart.

Release date: May 25, 2021

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

Chapter 1

Benedict Asterly kicked in the door to the Longmans’ empty farmhouse. Despite the crash of splintered wood, the chit slung over his shoulder was as silent as a sack of last season’s grain.

Lady Amelia Bloody Crofton. Half dead, soon to be all dead if he couldn’t warm her up.

He lowered her onto the cold, uneven stone floor before the fireplace.

Damnation. There was no fog of breath, no flicker of pulse, no sign of life at all.

He’d almost ridden past the snow-covered carriage in his effort to get out of the storm. He’d been an idiot for traveling in this kind of weather but apparently not the only idiot on the road.

Why the devil was an earl’s daughter alone in a carriage all the way out here?

He pressed two fingers against her neck. Nothing. He pressed harder.

Th-thump…th-thump. It was faint. It was slow and erratic. But it was there.

Thank God.

He sagged with relief. The ropes around his chest, that had drawn tight the moment he’d seen her pale and unconscious, loosened.

He turned to the hearth and struck flint into the brush with shaking fingers. The scrape, scrape, scrape of steel on stone faint against the howl of the wind.

It caught, and he began the methodical task of building a fire. With each carefully placed stack, his racing heartbeat slowed. Thank God, Aldrich had restocked the wood supply before taking his children to visit their grandparents. Benedict had no desire to reenter the tempest.

Behind him, Lady Amelia muttered.

“I’m here. I’m with you.” He turned back to the woman who’d previously declined to acknowledge his existence. After all, a man like him was beneath her notice.

He tossed aside the coarse traveling coat he’d thrown over her and removed her gloves and pelisse, struggling with the weight of her ragdoll body.

Bloody hell she was cold.

How long had she been trapped in that broken-down carriage? At least she’d had the good sense not to leave it.

He took her soft hands in his calloused ones, bringing them to his lips, but his breath did little to warm them.

Unbuttoning the cuffs of her sleeves and rolling the fabric up her arms, he exposed as much of her bare skin to the seeping warmth as he could. Her skin was more than pale. It had a blue pallor that caused his heart to skitter.

“Just stay with me. Please.”

In a cupboard by the bed, he found some blankets. He pulled a knife from his boot to cut a piece and wrap the ends of her sodden blond hair. The rest he tucked behind her head and shoulders.

He untied the laces on her ankle boots and pulled the boots off, pausing at the sight of her stockings.

They were cold and damp. They needed to come off too. But a footman’s son had no place touching a lady. And this particular lady? The ice princess would skewer him with the poker if she knew what he was contemplating.

He turned his head aside, giving her all the modesty he could as he reached his hands under her skirts, fumbling with the ribbon of her garter.

“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t hear him, but just saying the words made him feel less of a cad.

He tugged the dark wool off her toes. The skin was red and like wax to touch—but it was only frostnip, not yet frostbite.

“You mustn’t…giant calling.” Her words were so slurred he struggled to understand them.

“I’ll bear that in mind, princess.”

Of all the idiotic things he had done, tonight’s escapade was the worst. The carriage had barely made it to the posting house. Instead of thanking God for the solid roof and warm fire, Benedict had left the carriage and its driver to go the last mile home on horseback.

He’d promised his sister he’d be home tonight, after a month away. Instead, he was stuck.

Feeling was slowly returning to his body, if not warmth. He covered Lady Amelia in his coat and then staggered to the bench that ran along the edge of the room. There was a kettle filled with water, sloshy and semi-frozen.

He dumped a small amount of tea inside, grabbed two mugs with his other hand and staggered back to the fire.

The intensifying flame was the best damn thing he’d ever seen.

He hung the kettle from an iron hook and turned back to his biggest problem.

She couldn’t stay on the floor.

There was a large, worn armchair in the corner. He moved it in front of the hearth, as close as he dared. What she needed was heat—and fast—but the fire hadn’t taken a chink out of the bitter shroud of the room.

There was one thing he could do, but damn she was going to flay him alive when she woke. He took off his jacket, pulled his shirt over his head, and picked her up off the floor.

He settled into the armchair, holding her against his naked chest, his bare arms resting along the length of hers. His body heat had to work.

The cold air was whiplike against his skin, and goose bumps covered his arms.

Think warm thoughts. A steam engine furnace. A hot bath. A warm brick under his bedsheets. A warm woman under his bedsheets…

He looked down at the chit on his lap. Lady Amelia Crofton. Diamond of the ton. Leader of the fashionable set. Cold as the ice shards on the window. And Wildeforde’s bloody fiancée. Damn, this was a mess.

He exhaled hard, trying to steady his shivering through slow, even breaths.

“That’s not what I asked for.” Lady Amelia’s eyes flickered but failed to open. “I said blue.”

His laugh was shaky. “Well, tonight’s not what I asked for either. And I’m partial to grey.”

Her eyes fluttered open. The deep jade green caught the light of the fire.

“Put it under the horse.”

He snorted. Even half-dead, she was giving orders. But he would take them, if it meant she would live. Her eyes closed again, the long dark lashes resting against pale skin.

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

Her grunt was accompanied by a soft sigh—as innocent as a babe. If you were fool enough to believe it.

“Why the devil were you traveling alone?” The snow had been so deep around the broken-down carriage that only a glint of metal from the wheel had given any hint that someone might be in trouble.

There was no response, just a twitch of her nose.

After a long few minutes, warmth finally traveled up his legs. It was a superficial heat, not the bone-deep warmth that came from a hard day’s work, but hopefully it was enough to warm her.

“Lemonade.”

She put a hand on his thigh and pushed herself up, faltering on her weak legs toward the fire.

His heart leapt to his throat as he lurched up and grabbed her dress, jerking her backward before she could fall into the flames. A dozen buttons popped free and scattered across the floor.

“You will be the bloody death of me.” He maneuvered her back to the chair, slumping her over it, her limbs sprawled like a green boy’s after his first trip to the pub. Not taking any more chances, he dragged the chair farther from the flames.

“I’ll get you your damn lemonade,” he muttered, turning back to the boiling kettle. Using the tongs by the fire, he poured tea into the two mugs.

She was every bit as high-horsed as he remembered. Although at least she’d deigned to speak to him—an improvement upon their last encounter.

The first few gulps burned a satisfying trail down to his belly. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“I have your lemonade, princess.”

He turned and nearly dropped the mugs.

The bodice of Amelia’s dress had pooled at her waist, leaving her in nothing but stays and a chemise so fine it was nearly translucent. His mouth turned to coal dust.

“I’m hot, too hot.” She yanked at the neckline of her chemise.

Bloody hell. He picked up the coat he’d tossed on the floor and tried to wrap it around her shoulders as she struggled to escape.

“It’s for your own good.” Of course, she would refuse help. It didn’t come on a gilded plate.

He wrapped one arm around her, pinning her to him. With the other, he stuffed the coat between them and tucked it beneath her armpits.

The fewer layers between her and the heat the better, but she was going to strip his hide with her barbed tongue as it was. Heaven help him if she woke half-naked.

Her struggling subsided, and he managed to lower the two of them back onto the chair. Her ribs expanded and contracted against his chest with increasing force, and the vein on the side of her throat thrummed with more regularity in rhythm.

She was getting stronger. Color was creeping into her skin. Her cheeks began to flush, and her lips slowly changed from blue to white, to a light pink.

No longer looking like she’d been pulled dead from the Thames, she was every bit as beautiful as he remembered.

Confident that she was going to pull through, he closed his eyes.

The door crashed open.

“I’ll have your rutting neck, you rutting bastard.”

Chapter 2

Amelia woke with a ringing in her ears—a head-throbbing sound like a cymbal wielded by a mad chambermaid. There was distant yelling and a thudding crash accompanied by the rapid, uneven chatter of her own teeth. Last week’s Appleby debutante recital, which she’d foolishly attended, had been unrivaled wretchedness. Until tonight. Whatever this was, it was worse than six tone-deaf society hopefuls.

She sucked in a breath, pulling her knees closer to her chest. So. Cold.

The yelling continued. Maybe Lord Chester had finally been caught with Lord Macklebury’s wife? Maybe the simmering tension between Miss Hamilton and Miss Clarke had finally boiled over.

She would investigate. The second she could open her eyes.

Crockery smashed. “I will kill you, you rutting bastard.”

That was her father…Someone must have been serving the good brandy. Or any brandy, really.

She dragged her eyes open, struggling to focus. What in heaven’s name?

She’d never been in a room like this. It was large-ish, roughly the size of a small ballroom, but it seemed to be a bedroom, drawing room, and kitchen in one. The walls were unadorned and tinged black with soot, the floor frightfully uneven. The overturned chair beside her was heavily worn.

But the tableau of characters in front of her? That was the most bewildering of all.

Her father was straddling a half-naked man with a broken table leg, raised and ready to strike. And Edward—

Why was he in town?

He should have come to call.

You’d think he’d be a better fiancé by now. Her stomach rumbled. Roast pheasant would be so nice…

“Settle down, man,” Edward said in his duke-ish tone. He had one hand clenched around her father’s wrist, preventing him from murder, the other arm wrapped around her father’s chest.

The flames from the fire beside her created shifting patterns of light on the stone. Why was she lying on the floor?

It was time for answers. “Enff.” The word was thick, and her tongue wouldn’t make the shapes it needed. “Eee nwaaaf.” She ran her tongue around her mouth trying to remind it of what it was supposed to do. “Eee. Nuff.” Only one word, yet so much effort.

All three men stopped to stare at her.

Clumsily, she pushed herself into a seated position, the pins and needles in her arms making it barely possible. As she sat, a coarse blanket fell to her lap. She reached down, her fingers fumbling with the fabric. For the life of her, she couldn’t grasp it. Couldn’t even feel it. She looked down.

Her chest was bare but for her loosened stays and thin chemise. Her lungs tightened as though her lady’s maid was pulling at her laces in a fury.

What in heavens?

Panic got her fingers working. She clutched the wool and yanked it to her chin.

“W-w-what is h-happening?”

Her father’s face turned purple. Spittle burst from his mouth like little pellets. He shoved himself off the undressed stranger and bore down on her.

“You…” He jabbed his finger inches from her face. “You little whore.”

She flinched and looked around. Every movement felt sullen and slow, at complete odds with her heart, which beat overtime as if trying to spur the rest of her to flee. She tried to sift through her memories, but as soon as her brain grasped an image, it let it go.

“Step back from her.” It was a quiet warning that promised unpleasant consequences from anyone foolish enough to ignore it. And it didn’t come from Edward. The semi-naked man had made it to his feet and now, sensibly, was putting the rough-hewn table between him and everyone else.

He had her father pinned with a glare hard enough to cause actual damage. Hard enough to force the esteemed Earl of Crofton to take a few steps back from her.

She slowly exhaled.

The stranger leaned against the shack walls, and a blond lock of hair fell over his forehead. Deep blue eyes, the color of a twilight sky, stared into hers. He was not the sort of man she was acquainted with. He wasn’t pretty or refined; he was granite and rock. He looked rough—south side of Cheap Street kind of rough—an image intensified by his bloodied nose and sheer hulking size.

His chest, all brawn and sinew, bunched beneath his crossed arms, and her eyes dropped to the interlocking muscles at his waist, the dusting trail of hair that reached down past the waistband of his breeches.

So that was what men looked like beneath their finery.

Despite the cold, a red heat seared across her. She tore her gaze away from his naked torso and found him staring at her, his eyebrows raised as if he knew very well where her attention had been.

Her face grew hot with embarrassment.

“W-well?” she asked, trying to brazen it out. She’d sound more impressive if her words weren’t slurred. “Who are you?”

He gave a deep, weary, frustrated sigh. “Benedict Asterly.”

“And why am I here, like…” she gestured to the blanket covering her.

“You were in a coach, freezing to death.” His voice was flat and unsympathetic.

Yes. It had been cold. The hot bricks at her feet had cooled, and the cold outside had seeped in. Despite piling on every layer she could, she’d been freezing, and it had become harder and harder to stay awake.

“And I’m undressed because…?”

“That’s a darn good question.” Edward’s bearing mirrored the stranger’s—grim, autocratic, guarded.

The stranger—Benedict—sighed, raking his hands through his hair. The muscles of his chest stretched as he did so. “You disrobed yourself.”

“I did not!” The nerve of him. “It takes my maid half an hour to get me into this dress.”

Her father rounded on her again. “And took him half a second to get you out of it.” She was well acquainted with his temper, but never had he been so furious that he’d lost his composure in public.

The stranger pushed himself from the wall. His was a different species of anger. Where her father exploded like fuel-fed fire, the stranger was controlled, lethal.

Every inch of her was startlingly aware of him, of his immense size and the surprising fluidity of his movement.

“I said, step back.” He placed himself firmly between her and her father. “Rather than yelling at a girl, why don’t you tell me which of you idiots left her in a carriage alone?”

“She was supposed to be in London, minding her own bloody business,” her father said.

The shouting began again, all three men obstinate and determined to talk down the others. The noise was too much.

For heaven’s sake, stop beating your chests and pour me a hot bath.

She ignored the lot of them and wrapped her arms around her knees, focused on taming her shivers. Taking deep, measured breaths, she closed her eyes and let their words roll over her. Nine. Eight. Seven. She shuffled closer to the fire behind her. Six. Five. Four.

The frigid floor disappeared from under her as the stranger swooped her into his arms as if she weighed little more than a wisp of lace.

“You’re too close to the flames, princess. Wilde, drag that chair over here.”

Did he really just call Edward, Duke of Wildeforde, Wilde?

A muscle ticked along Edward’s jaw, but he did as the stranger asked.

“This argument is ridiculous,” the stranger—Oh, what was his name?—said, lowering her to the chair. “I’ve not compromised her, and you damn well know it.”

The words hit like a heavy reticule swung by a careless debutante. She sat back. Compromised?

Edward fixed the stranger with a frustrated stare. “Of course you didn’t. But you have made a mess of things.”

“I’ve made a mess of things? Why the devil was a lady traveling alone? Where was her chaperone? Where was her coachman? Where were the people who were supposed to be looking after her?”

Edward stared at her. Her father stared at her. The stranger stared at her. Heavens, she was tired.

“That’s not of any consequence.” The voice came from a dark corner of the room. It was loud and low-pitched and seemed to settle on the room like a copper snuffer extinguishing flame. An old man in an overly ornate, embroidered and fur-covered coat, clearly from the previous century, stepped into the light. She hadn’t noticed him earlier and was glad for it.

His lips were twisted into a sneer. “The chit has debased herself. The only question now is what’s to be done about it?”

A chill prickled across her neck. That didn’t bode well. Best to cut that line of conversation short. “I hardly see that anything needs to be done about it,” she said. “Whatever it might look like, we all know—”

“It looks like you are alone in a house, unchaperoned, with him half-naked and you…disheveled.”

The prickles spread as a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold coursed through her.

“Now wait just one minute. Perhaps we should give them a minute to explain.” Finally, her father had caught up to the potential ramifications of this ludicrous situation.

“What we’ve witnessed is explanation enough. We left the comfort of Lord Wildeforde’s library to rescue an innocent girl in peril. What we found was a harlot engaged in a wanton act of lust.” The man turned to Edward, who was rubbing the spot between his eyes. He rarely did that. Only when his mother was particularly trying. Or when Amelia was trying to lock him in to a wedding date.

The man continued. “You have responsibilities to the family name, to your title, and they include choosing a duchess who hasn’t tupped half the county.”

Her chest tightened, and she scrambled to catch the threads that were unraveling around her. “You wretched cur.” She turned to Edward. “How can you let him say these things? You know they’re untrue. I was unconscious, for goodness’ sake.”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I know that.” He sighed, as lost for words as she’d ever seen him. “This is all a confounded mess that looks a sight worse than the truth. But Lord Karstark is right. There’s my family’s reputation to consider.”

“Lord Karstark is a jackass.” He could not do this to her, dash it. After all these years. “We have been engaged since I was five.”

“Amelia.”

And there it was, the tone he used whenever he thought she was being irrational.

“Amelia, you need a Season before we wed. Be reasonable.”

“Amelia, we can’t possibly marry in the same year as the Duke of Rushford. Be reasonable.”

“Amelia, we can’t possibly wed at all because your carriage got stuck and you almost died. Be reasonable.”

“Don’t ‘Amelia’ me. I’ve been waiting for you for years.” She tried to stand, to go and shake some sense into him, but her legs crumpled.

He examined the pressed cuff of his coat, running a thumb over the embroidered edge. “You’ve always known the conditions. No scandals. It is in the contract we all signed.” His voice carried a tinge of disbelief, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying.

She squeezed her fingers into tight fists. Her nails dug into her palms. “There isn’t a bloody scandal if everyone in this room keeps their mouth shut.”

Edward’s eyes widened in shock, but if ever she should be permitted to use profanities, surely this was the time. They were quite surprisingly satisfying. No wonder men used them.

She looked over at the half-naked stranger. He was rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, strikingly similar to the way Edward did.

“Well?” she demanded.

“By noon, it’ll be all over the county.” The stranger looked pointedly at the ancient peacocking Lord Karstark, and she felt a sudden, all-consuming urge to rake her fingernails down those powdery, tissue-like wrinkles. Her entire life ruined by a gossipy centenarian.

Edward finally looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.” It was the first time she’d ever heard him apologize for anything. His tone was bleak, as though he knew full well the pain he was causing and regretted it.

Bile crawled up her throat, and she fought the urge to retch. She couldn’t breathe, and the ringing in her ears grew louder.

“I’ll be ruined,” she choked out. “Please.” Her voice caught. She’d never in her life thought she’d plead for anything, but she’d plead now.

His face twisted. He knew it to be true, yet the truth didn’t change his mind. “We’ll say you ended it. You threw me over. You got tired of waiting. I spent too much time in parliament and not enough time courting you.”

But that’s not what they would say. Not when this story got out.

Edward could confront a difficult and contentious parliament without hesitation, but if there was one thing that could bring him to his knees, it was the slightest hint of gossip. And tonight would be more than a hint. He would step away, stay out of the scandal, and she would have to defend herself.

She searched his countenance for something to give her hope, but there was nothing. “Are you actually doing this?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and he turned away, pulling his hands through his hair as he left.

And with his exit, a fissure appeared. She was Lady Amelia Crofton, daughter of an earl, diamond of the ton, third cousin to the King, and the future Duchess of Wildeforde. Or at least she had been.

Lord Karstark smirked and turned to her father. “If Wildeforde sends one of his men to Canterbury now, you could have a special license before Sunday’s Christmas service.”

A bubble of horrified laughter caught in her throat. The situation had spiraled from awful to borderline hysterical.

“Excuse me?” The stranger’s voice rose five octaves. “Now see here.”

“No. Now you see here,” her father said. “Someone is marrying my daughter, and if it isn’t the Duke of Wildeforde, it will be you, damn it. God knows no one else will have her now.”

She looked at the stranger—Benedict—waiting for him to say something. Do something. He just stared at the palms of his hands.

Useless men. “Father, I can’t marry him…I’ve never even seen him before tonight.” Her eyes pricked with tears.

The stranger rolled his eyes with a look of unadulterated scorn, which she was wholly unused to having sent in her direction. “We’ve been introduced, Lady Amelia.”

Had they? She searched his face, the unfashionably tanned skin, the harsh stubble on his jaw, the strong, broad nose with an unseemly bend where he’d clearly come out worst in a tavern brawl. Nothing about him was familiar. “We have?” Surely she’d remember a man of his lumbering size.

He shook his head, clearly disgusted.

Her father nodded. “We can do it after the Christmas service.”

  

By the time Amelia woke, the orange glow of the coals was battling with descending dark. By the time she was dressed, the day had fled.

The maid she’d been assigned by Edward’s housekeeper arrived with a tray. The toast was burnt, the eggs were cold, and the mushrooms she’d asked for were nonexistent.

“I realize I’m asking for breakfast during the early evening, but I was hoping for something that wasn’t actually cooked at breakfast time.”

The past twenty-four hours had been beyond humiliating. Never in her life had she felt less in control of a situation. And the cold, congealed mess before her was her mood manifested.

“Yes, ma’am,” the maid muttered.

Amelia raised her chin, thankful for her extra height. “My name is Lady Amelia Crofton.”

The only response was a clenched jaw.

“The correct term is my lady.”

“Yes, m’lady.” The words came through gritted teeth. The milksop chit scuttled out. No doubt the gossip below stairs was out of control.

As she choked down the rubbery eggs and tepid tea, Amelia assessed what was left of the hours ahead of her. Damage control was needed. It would take a nauseating amount of flattery, but there was no reason the situation couldn’t be rectified. It’s not like she was ac. . .