Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3

by Scott, Scarlett

  The dowager smiled, evidently pleased with her clandestine machinations. “He arrives in a fortnight, and he will stay until the following Saturday. More than enough time, I should think, to court you and ask your brother for your hand.”

  “No.” Bella shook her head, distraught. “I won’t marry him, Maman, and I do not wish for him to travel to Marleigh Manor. You should not have orchestrated this on my behalf.”

  “I am seeing to your well-being and securing your future. You will treat His Grace with all the welcome and kindness he deserves, my lady, and that is final.”

  With that parting directive, the dowager took her regal leave of the room.

  The trip from Buckinghamshire to London had proved monotonous but not nearly as much as the passage over the Atlantic. It was difficult to believe he was almost home. Of course, home had become something more of a murky dream and something less of a reality in the last fifteen years. Jesse winced. It was an irony indeed that a man who never put down his valise had made his fortune in the buying of property.

  Then again, perhaps not. It was the selling of it that had earned his way in the world. He could never abide to stay in one place for very long. He was a nomad by circumstance, and he had to admit there was no pleasure in his return. The hired conveyance swayed over familiar roads. This was no great homecoming. He had been summoned for a purpose, and it was a grim one indeed.

  His mind traveled again to Bella. God, how he missed her with a desperation that frightened him. She would have read his letter by now. She probably detested him after the way he’d disappeared. He wouldn’t blame her in the slightest. He’d been in a dark place the night he’d gone. His letter, he had no doubt, would not serve to ameliorate the confusion his abrupt departure would have caused her. What could he say for himself? What the hell had he been thinking? Perhaps that was the crux of it. He hadn’t been thinking at all. He had compromised his best friend’s sister and then walked away from her to chase old demons.

  If he could relive the night he’d received word from Lavinia, he would tear down every hall of Marleigh Manor until he found Bella. He should have simply tossed her over his shoulder and taken her with him. She hadn’t deserved his callous treatment of her. But he’d wanted to protect her, love her, keep her as sweet and innocent as ever. He hadn’t wanted to drag her into the labyrinth of his past. Ah, his past. Just the thought of seeing Lavinia again was enough to make his entire body feel like a tightly wound pocket watch.

  The carriage slowed outside a modest-looking townhouse. Richmond showed fewer signs now of the rampage that had reduced it to ruins. He could still recall the ravaged shells of grand buildings after the city fell in flames. The process of resurrection was, he suspected, as ongoing for the South as it was for the war’s soldiers.

  With a weary sigh for the upcoming interview, he stepped down from the carriage. After he thanked and paid the driver, he stood on the walk, remembering. It had been a long time. Suddenly, the onslaught of memories hit him with the precision of a minié ball. Though time could pass, the nightmares of battle would never fade.

  Nor would what had come after.

  But now was not the time for dwelling in the past’s heavy muck. He strode up the walk, uncertain of what he would find waiting for him inside. A servant greeted him at the door. He was expected. The home was furnished in a surprisingly elegant style. It appeared Lavinia had done well for herself despite the war’s toll.

  The servant led him up a staircase in complete silence. The only sound to be heard was their carpet-muffled footfalls and ticking clocks. All the drapes were drawn over the windows. It seemed to be a home in mourning, as if Lavinia had already passed.

  She had not. He entered an equally darkened chamber to find the youthful beauty he recalled had withered into a wan, pale creature. There was only the meager light of a gas lamp to illuminate the room. Lavinia lay in bed, her frail body propped up with what seemed to be dozens of pillows. Her once glossy black hair was dull, her skin ashen, her eyes flat. She looked like a corpse.

  “Jesse.” Even her voice sounded brittle. “You’ve come to me.”

  He stopped a few feet from her sickbed to look down upon her. “You knew I would. I’m amazed you were able to find me.”

  “I tracked you down by your man of business in New York, and from there, it was not terribly difficult at all.” A faint semblance of a smile curved her mouth. “It is your daughter you’ve come for, not me. I may be dying but I’m no fool.”

  “I’ve always credited you with being sly as a coyote.” He couldn’t hide the bitterness he felt toward her. It didn’t matter that she had been lowered to a husk of her former beautiful self. Her death wouldn’t expiate her sins. He suspected she knew as much.

  “You won’t grant me forgiveness? Not even now?” A racking cough punctuated her questions. She held a lace handkerchief to her mouth and when she pulled it away, blood bloomed over the pristine white of the fabric.

  If she wanted his pity, she would not receive it. Nor would she receive his mercy. He felt nothing for her except disdain. “Does it matter, Lavinia?”

  She fidgeted with the handkerchief. “Perhaps it does. I don’t wish to die with a burdened soul.”

  Jesse raised a brow. “I would swear you didn’t have a soul.”

  “I suppose I deserve your harsh words.” She closed her eyes.

  “You deserve worse, but I will leave you to the suffering God has imposed upon you.”

  “I didn’t know he was trying to send you to prison camp, Jesse.”

  The breath fled from his lungs. The mere words were enough to cause a visceral reaction in him. For the last decade and a half, he had done his damndest to forget the horrors of his final months of battle. He’d been shot by his fellow soldier, nearly killed in the process, and had just barely avoided being captured that day. Only luck had saved him. In her desperation to run away with her lover, Lavinia had proven herself the ultimate Judas. Her actions had cured him of any notion he’d ever loved her, nor she him.

  “Forgive me if I don’t believe a word you say,” he bit out. “I haven’t returned to reminisce. I’ve come to collect my daughter. Where is she?”

  She coughed again, this time more violently than the last. “Maybe I shall change my mind. If you insist on being nasty, you won’t have her.”

  It was to be a power struggle with her to the last. He wanted to throttle her. He clenched his fists and desperately fought to maintain a shred of calm. “Where the hell is she?”

  Lavinia, it seemed, wasn’t about to relinquish her control over him. She tilted her head, giving the impression of a drab sparrow when once she had been a vivid canary. “Have you ever thought of me, Jesse?”

  “Never,” he lied. The truth was, she had lived in his nightmares for some time. But he had never intentionally allowed his mind to stray to either her or her betrayal. Some things were best left buried in the past.

  “I never wanted you to be harmed, you know.”

  He suspected she suffered from a guilty conscience, but for him it was too little, too late. “You seem to think I can absolve your sins but you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “I don’t want an absolution.” She coughed again and dabbed at her mouth before proceeding, as though she were doing nothing more than holding afternoon tea. “I am sorry for your suffering, whether you believe it or not.”

  “Your contrition is suspect at this point.” He didn’t bother to hide his disgust for her. “I was almost killed.”

  There it was, the brutal reality. He’d taken a bullet to his back. The mere recollection brought the taste of blood to his mouth.

  “I didn’t want you dead.”

  “Lavinia, I’d sooner believe you could sprout wings and fly.”

  “I see you’re determined to be unpleasant.” She closed her eyes and her weariness was almost palpable. He knew she would soon pass. He’d seen death many times before. That she would no longer walk the earth didn’t give him as much plea
sure as he’d thought it would.

  He grew tired of their verbal sparring. “Let’s place our cards on the table. I didn’t travel across an ocean to have a match of words with you. I came because you had my child fifteen years ago and denied me the right to ever know her.”

  The fact that he had a daughter somewhere, beneath the same roof, seemed surreal. His daughter. He hadn’t allowed himself to contemplate her. What if Lavinia was lying? What if she were as cold a bitch as Lavinia? Far too many questions lingered, questions he’d come very far to answer.

  “James wouldn’t allow it of course,” Lavinia said matter-of-factly. “But he never loved her as a father. He always knew Clara wasn’t his.”

  Clara. His daughter had a name. An odd sensation trickled through his chest, slow and sticky as treacle. “Does the girl know?”

  “I told her after James died.” She paused. “It seemed right, but she didn’t take the news well.”

  “And what of now?” For God’s sake, he didn’t know what to do with a daughter, let alone a daughter who didn’t appreciate a new father in her life.

  “She’s had some time to acquaint herself with it.”

  An ugly thought occurred to him. He wouldn’t be surprised if Lavinia was guilty of it and worse. “Does she know I’ve come for her?”

  “Of course she does. I’m not entirely a monster. I do this for the good of our daughter. I haven’t any living family worthy of protecting her, and James’ family is little better.” She began another brutal series of coughing. “Would you please get me my laudanum?”

  He strode to the table where a collection of bottles was strewn about and took up the one she’d indicated. “I want to see her now.” He needed to be satisfied that Clara was truly his. It would have been like Lavinia to lie solely to gain a more comfortable existence for her daughter.

  “You don’t believe she’s yours,” Lavinia noted shrewdly. “I have no reason for prevarication. You were my only lover until I wed James.”

  Jesse was shocked as hell to hear that. The scheming seductress he’d known had not come to him as an innocent. “I will judge for myself.”

  “Very well.” She called for her servant, who had been hovering at the threshold. “Daisy, please fetch Miss Clara.”

  It seemed an eternity before the servant returned with a diminutive blonde girl. Her hair was worn in sweet ringlets around her angelic face. Her dress was a demure pale pink, its hem halfway up her calves as proper for a girl her age. She wore a locket at her neck but no other adornment. She met his gaze as she curtseyed. It was like looking into his own eyes.

  “Mama,” she greeted in a girlish voice. “Mr. Whitney.”

  Of course she did not call him “father” as he’d foolishly imagined she would. She was breathtaking, having the perfect combination of his blond features and her mother’s dark beauty. “Clara,” he offered in return, his voice hoarse with pent-up emotion. “It is a great pleasure to meet you at last.”

  She was his daughter. There was no question of it in his mind.

  “I wish I could say the same,” she murmured, startling him.

  Not that he had expected she would treat him like her father, but he had not anticipated disdain. “I regret that our first meeting is due to the unfortunate circumstance of your mother’s ill health, but I certainly do not regret our meeting. Had I known of your existence, I surely would have hastened here before now.”

  “My mother is dying,” she pronounced baldly.

  “I am sorry for that,” he told her, at a loss.

  “No you’re not,” she countered. “Mama says you hate her.”

  He looked to Lavinia, who was nodding off under the influence of her laudanum. She would be no help. “That isn’t precisely true,” he fibbed.

  “She said Papa nearly sent you to prison during the war.”

  “Clara,” Lavinia at last snapped. “You were taught comportment. Please show it.”

  It occurred to Jesse that he didn’t know the slightest thing about young girls. He had somehow envisioned a sweet, biddable girl overcome with happiness at finding her father. What an ass he’d been. The girl before him was as soft as the butt end of a carbine.

  His daughter clasped her hands together at her waist and studied him the way a young child studies strangers while clinging to her mother’s dress. She remained silent. Judgmental, he supposed. She had deemed him unworthy of her. She blamed him for his absence. He could see that much. The road ahead was undoubtedly fraught with treacherous terrain.

  “Apologize to your father, miss,” Lavinia commanded weakly. “At once.”

  Clara’s expression remained stubborn. “With utmost respect, Mama, I will not.”

  Yes indeed, it was going to be one hell of a road.

  Chapter Ten

  Bella had a knack for eavesdropping on conversations. As a girl, she’d caught more than her share of the naughty gossip adults only indulged in when they thought no small ears could hear. It was another thing entirely, however, to find herself the topic of the overheard conversation.

  “I’m afraid the blood loss was quite severe, my lady.” The masculine voice, low and mellow with age, unmistakably belonged to Dr. Redding, the country doctor her brother favored.

  “Oh dear heavens, I feared that was the case.” There was a pause in the feminine speech that garnered Bella enough time to discern the voice belonged to her sister-in-law, Cleo. “There was a frightful amount of it everywhere. I cannot fathom all that blood from the small gash on her head.”

  Blood. Gash on her head? Blessed angels’ sakes, what had occurred?

  Foggy images flitted through her mind. Her body was in as much pain as if it had been flattened by a locomotive. Remembrance surged over her in waves. The storm. She’d saddled her mare, needing to escape the falsehood she’d been living, determined to ride away the awful hurt despite the portent of a deluge on the horizon. She recalled the sensation of launching through the air, her bone-crunching landing in the mud.

  “Lady Thornton,” came Dr. Redding’s familiar voice once more, “I’m afraid this is a delicate matter.”

  “Blows to the head are, no doubt,” agreed Cleo. “What shall we do for her whilst she recovers?”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “You mistake me, my lady. The source of the blood was indeed, as you suggested, not Lady Bella’s head.”

  “Has she other wounds, then?”

  “Lady Bella was with child,” Dr. Redding explained, his tone hushed. “It was very early on, and the force of her fall was too much. I do, however, expect an eventual recovery. She will need to remain abed for a time.”

  “With child?” Cleo’s voice was incredulous. “Surely you must be mistaken.”

  “I fear I am not, Lady Thornton.”

  She had lost everything. Her fall from grace was complete, as was her devastation. Bella’s heart physically hurt in her breast. How could she have been so foolish, so careless? In her childish anger, she had only served to spite herself.

  Her sister-in-law’s voice grew hushed. “May I request your discretion, Doctor?”

  The doctor’s response was equally quiet and grave. “You need not ask.”

  Bella remained still while muffled sounds reached her ears, suggesting the doctor was taking his leave. She didn’t want to wake. She wanted to sleep again, sleep until all was well. If ever it could be.

  The thud of a closing door echoed in the silence of the chamber, then the steady return of footfalls. “Bella, my dear.”

  She weighed the prospect of feigning sleep. Truly, she did not want to see a soul at the moment. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts, her body a jumble of bumps and bruises. She wanted quiet and peace. She wanted to be left alone. She had never felt more miserable in her entire existence.

  “Bella, I know you’re awake so you may as well face me now.”

  Bella opened her eyes at Cleo’s stern directive, expecting to see a censorious expression upon her sister-in-law’s face. Instead, sh
e saw concern.

  “I suppose you expect an apology,” she murmured.

  “Nothing of the sort,” Cleo countered, worry tucking the corners of her mouth down. “You know as well as I that I’m no stranger to scandal. I can hardly hold the rest of the world to higher standards than those to which I held myself.”

  She knew Cleo spoke of the unconventional circumstances surrounding her marriage to Thornton. But her sister-in-law’s generosity of spirit was little comfort to her now. Her mind swirled with the awful truth of what she’d done and just how much she’d lost. Everything. Not only had Jesse left her, but now the babe as well. A wave of dizziness assailed her, but she forced herself to speak, attempt to make sense of what had happened.

  “I should say I am ashamed of myself, but the truth is I am not. I don’t regret any of my actions save riding my mare when I was not clearheaded enough to do so.” Bella closed her eyes for a moment as the sting of anguish renewed. “I will ever regret causing this until the day I die.” Sobs threatened to slip past her lips, but she did not want to show weakness now.

  “Are you in very much pain, my dear?” Cleo took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “Not nearly as much pain as my heart is in.” Her bones ached from her jarring spill from her horse. Her abdomen was very sore as well, the result, she suspected, of her miscarriage. But her body had fared much better than her mind.

  “In time, you shall make your peace with it. God’s plan is unfathomable at times, but it is always good.”

  Bella didn’t share Cleo’s opinion on that score. Losing first the man she loved and then his child was nearly enough to break her spirit completely. She would grieve both forever. “Forgive me if it does not seem so at this particular juncture.”

  “You’re far stronger than you think.” Cleo’s eyes reflected both pity and compassion. “Dr. Redding says you must rest and afterward you shall be your old self once more.”