Outrageously Yours by Allison Chase

matters much worse. Gradually, the coughing subsided. The laughter behind her did not. Turning, she perched on the wide stone sill, caught her breath, straightened her coat, and attempted to regain her dignity.
    “Here, sip this.” The host of the party, Jasper Lowbry, a handsome young man with intelligent eyes and a ready smile, pressed a snifter into her hand.
    Bitter fumes spiraled upward to burn her nose. She would have much preferred water, but something told her such an option would never have crossed the minds of these raucous students.
    “Go on,” Jasper urged. “It’ll help. And don’t mind them. Making you the butt of their jokes merely means they like you.”
    Ivy nodded her gratitude and took the tiniest sip. Jasper returned to his half dozen other guests, who continued to gulp down spirits and shovel an assortment of hors d’oeuvres into their mouths. Their boorish table manners made Ivy cringe. Their uproarious conversation increased in volume while steadily decreasing in coherence, but thank goodness for that. A good portion of their language tended to scorch her ears.
    Just as with the Marquess of Harrow, these Cambridge men had met none of her expectations. She had supposed university students to be well mannered and scholarly, making use of every spare moment to study, contemplate, and debate. Ha! But for their costly attire, their apparent heedlessness when it came to their coin, and the opulence of Jasper Lowbry’s rooms—which put Ivy’s modest London town house to shame—they might have been brigands at any dockside tavern.
    Still and all, these particular brigands, all fellow residents of St. John’s College, had eagerly opened their doors to young “Ned Ivers,” along with their liquor bottles, humidors, and snuffboxes. Ivy was finding that being a man taxed the body in ways she had never before considered. Blinking, she attempted to clear her throat but only ended up coughing again.
    “I can tell you what’s wrong with him,” slurred Preston Ascot, the pock-faced son of a Foreign Office diplomat. Mr. Ascot had bulldog features and the heavyset bulk to match, offset by an affable sense of humor. With a slovenly grin he thrust an unsteady finger in Ivy’s direction. “Poor sot’s been poisoned. The Mad Marquess no doubt slipped him something lethal.”
    A gangly, bespectacled chap named Spencer Yates drew on his cheroot until the burning end crackled softly. In a billow of smoke he called out, “Wouldn’t be the first time, from what I hear.”
    Another among the group murmured, “You’re speaking of his wife, aren’t you?”
    “No, no,” Jasper Lowbry interceded with a roll of his hazel eyes. “Pure rubbish, that. Harrow didn’t do her in. But ...” Still standing by the head of the table, he leaned in closer. The others went quiet and craned their necks to hear what he would say. Curious herself, Ivy hopped off the windowsill and rejoined the group.
    “They say he’s keeping her body somewhere in that manor of his.”
    The diplomat’s son frowned at Lowbry’s words. “What the devil do you mean, keeping her? Keeping her how ?”
    “Not sure, quite. Preserved somehow.”
    Revulsion rippled across Ivy’s back and raised the shorn hairs on her nape. The others around her reacted with similar repugnance, swearing, quaffing mouthfuls of brandy or whiskey, and shaking their heads in disbelief.
    “You needn’t take my word for it,” said Lowbry with a casual shrug. “It’s common knowledge among the upperclassmen.” Hunching, he propped his hands on the table and leaned low. “Generations of de Burghs are buried in Holy Trinity churchyard, but you won’t find her there.”
    “Oh, but that’s ridiculous,” Ivy blurted. “She must have been buried with her own family, then.”
    Lowbry shook his head. “The Quincys are all buried at Holy Trinity as well. Her father is a don of physics here.”
    “What on earth would the marquess want with his wife’s