Gentlemen Prefer Scandal - Chapter 7

Saturday, December 20, 1823

I saw the most beautiful robin on my walk this afternoon. Vibrant red breast feathers. It landed on the branch of a tree just above me. This is the most exciting thing I can think to write.

Rupert is probably on to his next adventure already. Or if not, he is learning his lines for some new and fascinating role. I imagine his theatre friends are quite interesting. I imagine, when you ask about their days, they have more to report than just the sight of a lovely bird.

Tuesday, December 23, 1823

I am in the country spending Christmas with my family. All they want to talk about is the story, but I don’t tell it as well on my own as I did with Rupert by my side. I forget key details and I have to backtrack, or I mix up what happened on which day. I am not a very good storyteller, and Rupert is probably surrounded by people who regale him with excellent stories all the time.

All I want to talk about is him.

Thursday, December 25, 1823

The Christmas ham was delicious this year.

Monday, December 29, 1823

I had a dream about Rupert last night. We were back in the circular room, but it was just him and me, and we weren’t in disguise. I tried to speak to him, but he couldn’t hear me. I moved around the space searching for that spot where my voice would be amplified, but I couldn’t find it. Rupert, I said. Rupert, Rupert. But he couldn’t hear. Finally I tried walking toward him, and just as I reached out my hand, I woke up.

This is how Rupert has been filling my thoughts all week.

My heart is a whispering gallery.

He finds me no matter where I am.

Friday, January 2, 1824

I am not boring.

But I am also not not boring.

I am Nathaniel Fletcher. I like my routines, and I like when those routines are blown up by a gorgeous and mischievous actor pretending to be a French dignitary. My favourite sound in the whole world is still the quiet clink of a teacup finding its place on a saucer, but the full-bodied laugh of Rupert Wynn is proving to be a worthy competitor.

After my last journal entry, I had grown increasingly restless. My life returned to normal, but the comfort of that normalcy was woefully inadequate. I did, of course, enjoy the restoration of my steady sleep schedule. And I did enjoy finding time for peaceful strolls and good books. But I could not escape the persistent feeling that something was missing.

That someone was missing.

I told myself I had fallen in love with the thrill of my one-time adventure, that the novelty of solving a mystery had gotten wrapped up with that handsome, humorous, charming man until the two were inseparable, and once the mystery was resolved, my feelings for Rupert would fade. Much like a flower that withers when removed from the sun, I believed—I knew, even—that our romance would wither when removed from adventure.

And yet, that stubborn flower kept on growing.

So I went to the theatre. I sat in my usual box and expected to feel nothing when he marched on-stage as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. But instead, my heart leapt from its chest. I inhaled so sharply I fear the whole theatre heard me. He brought a playfulness and charisma to the role that grabbed my attention with both hands and would not let go.

I almost stayed to see him after the show. But what could the man who’s played a hundred parts, the man who’s lived a thousand lives, possibly want from me?

I went back the next night, then again the night after that. I had practically memorised his lines by the time Charlotte arrived in town, and I thought helping her settle in would be just the distraction I needed.

As if anything could ever distract me from that bushel of dark red hair, from the lingering traces of Rupert’s hands on my face, my shoulders, my hips.

I was a fool to think Charlotte would want to talk about anything other than Rupert.

‘How’s Imogen?’ I had asked when she received me in her studio and we’d exchanged the usual pleasantries. I was eager to keep her exploits the focus of conversation.

‘Stop changing the subject’ was her reply. We hadn’t even been talking yet! There was no subject to change!

‘Have you been seeing her more often?’ I continued stubbornly.

‘Imogen? Never. We like our sporadic weekend nights. But I want to talk about your Rupert Wynn.’ She smirked at me. ‘The way you wrote about that man was utterly indecent.’

‘That is done with, Charlotte. Over. A passing fancy.’

Her smirk fell away.

I tutted dramatically. ‘Can’t I have something sporadic? It was a…a brief adventure, nothing more.’

But she argued on. ‘He seems kind and decent and gentle and—’

I smiled despite myself. ‘How can you possibly know all of that? You’ve never met him!’

‘Yes, but I’ve read your letters. And I’m an excellent judge of character. And I know that he makes you happy.’

‘Really?’

‘Indeed. You never smiled like that discussing any of the other suave, self-righteous door-knobs you’ve courted,’ said Charlotte. ‘Most of them only wanted to see you after dark.’

‘Charlotte, that’s…that’s literally how you court people!’

She shrugged. ‘But you are far sweeter than I am, Nathaniel. You deserve better.’

I sighed. And I sigh again now. Oh, how exasperated this woman makes me. She is going to be next, I swear it—she is going to find love next, and I am not going to let her run from it. She will know she is worthy of being loved.

But that is a task for the upcoming season, which begins in earnest just days from now. Today, I am putting quill to paper in testimony of what’s happened since I spoke to Charlotte that morning.

After I tried, and tried, and failed to chase her words from my head.

‘I am here to prove a point.’ These were the first words out of my mouth when Rupert had opened the door.

I knew the look on his face before it had finished forming: that amused half-grin, the one that forms the slightest dimple in his left cheek. The one that raises an eyebrow and tilts his head. He crossed his arms and nodded. ‘Good to see you too, Nathaniel. I’m listening.’

‘I’m here to prove that the Nathaniel you fancy is a product of our adventure, and that if we were to see each other in real life, you wouldn’t last a day before dying of boredom.’

His eyebrow lifted even higher, somehow. ‘The great Rupert Wynn will surely die of something more interesting and dangerous than boredom.’

I chuckled but kept my face serious. I was there for business.

He continued, ‘And you don’t think our adventure was real life?’

I must admit I was caught off guard by this question. ‘I mean…of course it was real…’ I must have said, or something like it. ‘But it’s not usual, at least not for me. So if you come to spend a day with me, then we will know for certain you would hate it, and we will never have to wonder about what could have been.’

He eyed me up and down, and his smile grew. ‘Glad to know you’ve been wondering about me. Let me fetch my coat.’

Infuriating. Every conversation, he has the upper hand.

‘Where do we begin?’ he said on his way out the door. So I brought him back to my flat and handed him a cup of tea, then gestured to my bookshelf. We each sat in one of my forest-green armchairs and settled in for a morning of quiet entertainment.

The sweet aroma of citrus and cinnamon filled the room.

Every few pages, one of us would laugh or sigh or otherwise react to whichever story we were reading. Then, without fail, the other would ask, What is it? We would share our thoughts, then return to our reading, then the whole thing would happen again. The conversation was always intriguing and never dull.

This was the first time I had ever shared the rhythms of my solitude with another person. I assumed he would be impatient with the silent slowness of my mornings and immediately bolt from the room, but no—he entered into that silent slowness and filled it with his laugh, his questions, his literary commentary.

But surely, I thought, surely a stroll through the park will show him just how unimpressively ordinary my days are.

That, too, became an opportunity for conversation, for jokes, for games. We invented backstories for the people we walked by, and fancy-sounding names for the flowers we saw. We shared stories of our childhoods. My hand ached to reach out and grab his. Every time we passed a lady and gentleman walking arm-in-arm, my heart cracked with jealousy.

I brought Rupert to lunch with some cousins who had just returned to London, and we regaled them with our tales of the past few weeks—by now all of Great Britain knew the story, but we were the primary source. We had the most exciting version to tell, and we eyed each other with childish glee whenever one of us noticed the other was embellishing some key detail, exaggerating the danger for dramatic effect.

And so went the rest of the day. He joined me back at the flat as I went through my ledger and tidied my desk; he dined with me at Barrett’s for an early dinner; we played chess, we drank more tea, we returned to the park to sit on a bench and watch the ducks swim beneath the setting sun, the pond reflecting the pink-orange sky.

We were quiet then, for perhaps the first time all day. I still remember the way my stomach twisted into knots thinking about how sweet the hours I had spent with him were, and how bitter the next few hours would be with him gone, and gone, and gone forever. There on the bench he would tell me I was too boring after all. There on the bench he would reveal he had fallen in love with a poet.

‘I don’t mean to rush you,’ he said finally, ‘but when exactly will you be getting around to proving your point?’

I cleared my throat. ‘I’ve been proving it all day.’

Rupert shrugged. ‘When does the boring part begin?’

‘We didn’t bring any corrupt magistrates to justice today. We didn’t wear disguises or hide out in a stable.’

And then he laughed, loud enough that the nearest duck flew away. ‘Nathaniel, do you imagine I do things like that every day?’

‘Well, no, of course not…’ I could feel my face growing red with embarrassment. I straightened my posture and cleared my throat once more. ‘But also, yes. When you’re on-stage, you…you get into sword fights, you make deals with the devil, you are enchanted by fairies in midsummer forests. I cannot compete with that.’

I will never forget how much bewilderment was in his eyes when he spoke next. ‘You attend the fanciest balls. Your family writes legislation in parliament. You’re fooling the entire city into thinking you’re a genius painter. That sounds like the kind of play I’d audition for.’

I asked him why he hadn’t come looking for me after he moved into the manor with Sarah. ‘You were so convinced you weren’t enough for me,’ he answered. And then he shifted into that sly smile I had come to know so well. ‘And no one can stay away from Rupert Wynn for long.’

The laugh that followed released all the tension I’d been storing in my body. ‘You think you’re that irresistible.’

‘I know I’m that irresistible.’

‘But I…’ I just couldn’t let it go, not yet. ‘I don’t live the kind of life that poets write about.’

He looked confused. I hadn’t told him about George. I didn’t want to believe I was still driven by what George had said to me, and how his words had made me feel.

Rupert’s reply was simple. ‘Good thing I’m not a poet.’

We went back to the song and supper club that night, and it wasn’t terrible. He had spent the day in my world, and now I was spending the night in his. I listened to him sing and I knew there was room in my schedule for this, that there would always be room in my schedule for this, that no routine is so fixed it can’t be bent to accommodate the lovely, lilting, angelic voice of Rupert Wynn.

We retired to the manor at the edge of London and made a mess of his room. I’ve been avoiding being alone with Charlotte—she’ll want the details, and I’m simply no good at speaking such impropriety out loud without tripping over my words. I can’t even bear to immortalise the memory on paper, but I will say…that night, and many of the nights since, I have been set ablaze with a rare and unequaled passion and heat. Rupert is the source of all that is warm—the sun itself seems to burn more brightly when he is around. I’m surprised the wicks of candles don’t burst into flames just from being in his presence.

This morning, we took breakfast with Charlotte together. She told us all about the vexing new woman her brother is courting. Afterward I walked with Rupert through the park, and we talked about The Tempest, about his final performance that weekend.

‘What role might you want to play next?’ I asked. ‘Who do you want to be?’

His face lit up with recognition. He knew what I meant, to be asking this question now, after all the time we had spent together.

‘Yours,’ he said warmly. Then, after a pause, ‘If you’ll cast me in the role, that is.’

‘Hmm…’ I played along. ‘Auditions have been quite busy. It’s a much sought-after part, after all.’

‘Shouldn’t you be worrying about your own audition?’

‘Oh? And for what role?’

We had come to a bend in the path that obscured the rest of the park from view. A large bush kept us concealed, and Rupert looked all around before planting a sudden kiss on my cheek.

‘Mine,’ he said.

Tuesday, March 30, 1824

I have found my next adventure:

Charlotte Sterlington is in love. And she is far too stubborn to admit I’m right.

If you loved Gentlemen Prefer Scandal, be sure to read Emma-Claire Sunday’s debut novel, The Duke’s Sister and I.
Available In September!