One Night of Scandal by Nicola Cornick

where Richard had laid aside his book when she had erupted into the room.
    ‘Were you reading when I came in?’ she enquired, failing to keep a slight note of disbelief from her voice.
    Richard laughed. ‘I was. I find it a useful accomplishment. My tutor taught me when I was a boy, you know.’

    Deb’s eyes narrowed at his teasing. She craned her neck to see the title of the book.
    ‘It is The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius ,’ Richard said obligingly.
    Deb nodded sagely. The Meditations , indeed! She was certain that he had plucked it at random from the shelves.
    ‘I see,’ she said. ‘And what do you think of his writings?’
    ‘Bleakly stoical,’ Richard said. ‘He has a dark view of human life and an obsession with the approach of death. What is your opinion, Mrs Stratton?’
    There was a tiny pause. ‘I have not read his writings,’ Deb admitted.
    Richard burst out laughing. ‘I see. You were seeking to test me!’
    Deb had the grace to look a little shame-faced. ‘I thought…That is, I did not think—’ She broke off in confusion.
    ‘You did not think that I was given much to reading?’ Lord Richard finished for her, a hint of irony in his tone. ‘My dear Mrs Stratton, is it possible for you to have a lower opinion of me than the one you already possess?’
    ‘Infinitely,’ Deb said sweetly.
    Richard’s smile deepened. ‘And now that you know I read the stoic philosophers, have I gone up at all in your estimation?’
    ‘Oh,’ Deb said, ‘naturally I am most impressed. However, I do not think that I shall be reading The Meditations now that you have told me their style. There is enough to be miserable about in real life.’
    Richard conceded the point. ‘Perhaps poetry is more to your taste?’ he enquired.
    ‘I enjoy that, certainly,’ Deb agreed. ‘And you, my lord?’
    Richard shifted slightly in his chair. ‘Yes, I enjoy poetry too.’ His gaze met hers very directly. ‘I know that you thinkme an intellectual lightweight, ma’am, and a man with no propensity towards hard work, but I must correct your perception by saying that the only reason I had the chance to study poetry in the first place was because I was at sea. I read scraps of it in between naval actions.’
    Deb smiled. She found that she rather liked the idea of Lord Richard Kestrel standing on the bridge of his ship with a book of poetry tucked in his pocket. She fancied that he would have looked rather good in the austere Navy uniform and found herself wishing that she had had the chance to see it.
    ‘I had forgotten that you were in the Navy,’ she said, feeling a little ashamed of herself for dismissing him as an idle gentleman of leisure. ‘Why did you give it up?’
    There was a hair’s breadth of a pause in which she had the feeling that she had asked a question of great import.
    ‘I took an injury at the Battle of the Nile and they did not want me on active service any more,’ Richard said, after a moment.
    ‘I am sorry,’ Deb said. She repressed an impulse to touch his hand. Just for a second she had seen a bleakness, beyond anything she had expected, reflected in his dark eyes. She felt as though the bottom had dropped out of her heart. He had looked so lonely and remote in that moment, a far cry from the society rake of her imaginings.
    Then he smiled at her and the image was gone. ‘Thank you for your sympathy, Mrs Stratton,’ he said. ‘It was difficult at the time to abandon something that had given purpose to my life, but…’ he shrugged ‘…there are always other things to do.’
    Deb wondered. It could not be easy for a man accustomed to so active and adventurous a life to accept the restrictions of a circumscribed existence. She was unsure how much of what he said was true—and how much a defence.

    Richard looked at her and the lines about his eyes crinkled. ‘Do not look so stricken, ma’am. I am very well these days and am happy to show you my collection of naval memorabilia any