Marriage Most Scandalous

by Johanna Lindsey

  “Quite right,” Giles said with a wince. “But you know, if I had known of all these repercussions—”

  “You would have done what? Shown up to prove you weren’t dead? I’ve news for you, friend. That wouldn’t have bridged the gap between my father and me. Your courage should have come before that duel, before you let your father tear so many lives apart.”

  “God, Sebastian, I’m sorry. But the only alternative I saw at the time was to let my father die. I couldn’t do that. I’m not proud of my part in this, and I’m ashamed that my father’s weakness has hurt so many people. He’s safe now, but you know I’ll never forgive him for what he set in motion. I really don’t care if I ever see him again.”

  “Just finish your story while I’m still willing to listen to it.”

  Giles sighed. “There isn’t much more to tell. The old woman died three years later, leaving me her farm. I was accustomed to the life of a farmer by then, even enjoyed it, if you must know. But I had begun to regret losing Eleanor, realized too late just how much I did love her. She was never far from my thoughts. I finally contacted Eleanor. I simply couldn’t help myself. She ran off to be with me. We were married in Scotland.”

  “So that note from her cousin about her death was a lie?”

  Giles turned away, said with a catch in his throat, “No—that was true. She wanted to stay in Scotland. She liked it there, didn’t take to the idea of being a farmer’s wife. So we stayed with her cousin, but Harriet lived so bloody far from any towns! Eleanor died in childbirth, before I could get back with a doctor. I came back to the farm here with my son, have been here ever since. Ironically, the farm isn’t too far south from here. I was selling my crop in a town nearby when I first heard of The Raven quite a few years ago.”

  “Is that why you’re here? To hire The Raven?”

  “Actually, if I’d known sooner that you were The Raven, I would have come to you sooner. And yes, I did think of hiring you, when I first heard about you. I was actually saving up for it. Didn’t think I could meet your price, though.”

  “To do what?”

  “To find you for me. I’ve wanted to make a clean breast of it for a long time now. Then when I saw you a few days ago in Le Havre and had it pointed out that you were him, well, that bowled me over, ’deed it did. And there you have it, all of it.”

  “And eleven years too late.”

  “But this will reinstate you with your father, won’t it?”

  “I think it’s too late for that. The rift between me and my father is too deep now. But before I find out for sure, I need the inconsistencies cleared up first.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as why Denton married your father’s accomplice and why she’s been making his life miserable ever since.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Nothing, but I bloody well don’t like loose ends. And I’ll never get the answers from her. I’ve already tried that, just to hear lies.”

  “I’ll leave in the morning,” John offered, “to find out what prison her brother is in. He appears to be our last—”

  “Pierre Poussin is in prison?” Giles cut in.

  Sebastian nodded. “According to Denton, Juliette arranged that. We’ll all leave in the morning.”

  “We?” Giles asked.

  “You don’t think I’m letting you out of my sight until this is over, do you? My last option still remains with you.”

  “Which is?”

  “Why, your death, of course. Having already paid the price for killing you, there isn’t much incentive for me not to kill you a second time, is there?”

  “Bloody hell,” Giles mumbled. “I can think of one. Your namesake. My son.”

  Sebastian threw the now empty brandy glass at Giles’s head. “You named your son after me?! Why?”

  “For the obvious reason. You may not like the way this has played out any more than I, but I still consider you my best—”

  “Don’t say it, don’t think it. If we are going to get through tomorrow without any bloodshed, don’t ever mention it again.”

  Chapter 51

  T HE PRISON LOOKED LIKE A MEDIEVAL FORTRESS in the middle of nowhere with a village grown up around it. As they rode closer, it merely looked like a dreary square stone edifice with no ornamentation, just two stories high. But high walls surrounded it, and guards stood at the only gate, barring entrance.

  Finding out that Pierre Poussin had been sent here had been easy. Getting in to visit him proved to be more difficult. Not because visitors were allowed in only at certain times, but because Pierre was ill.

  “You are welcome to wait,” the guard told them in a friendly manner. “There are rooms at the tavern. They will welcome the business. But, truthfully, the doctor does not expect Poussin to last the week.”

  “What bloody rotten luck,” John said as they nursed ales at a table in the tavern that night. And then he asked Sebastian, “Will you employ stealth or brute force?”

  “Eh?” Giles injected. “Did I miss something? Are we going to wait this out or not?”

  “Not,” Sebastian said. “I’m not going to let the man die without talking to him first.”

  “I see I did miss something,” Giles said. “If he doesn’t recover, how the deuce do you expect to get around that?”

  “By getting him out of there, of course.”

  “Oh, of course!” Giles exclaimed sarcastically. “Why didn’t I think of that? Perhaps because that implies—” Giles paused, abashed as he realized, “Oh, I see, stealth or force. You’re used to this sort of thing, are you?”

  Sebastian didn’t reply. While Giles had been behaving as if the last eleven years had been erased from their memories, Sebastian had erased nothing. So he spoke to his ex-friend as little as possible. Every time he tried to get beyond his own anger, to consider all the other circumstances, he couldn’t get past one glaring point. Giles had suffered not at all for what he’d allowed to happen, while everyone else involved had suffered too much. Deep down he might be glad Giles was alive, but that emotion was behind his shell, remaining there unexamined.

  John spoke up when it was apparent Sebastian wouldn’t. “We’ve done this a few times before, yes. Though those targets were able to assist in their own extraction.” And to Sebastian, “You’ve considered that? That you might have to carry Poussin out?”

  “Yes. I noticed the mortuary at the end of the village, though. I’d say they need a few new employees.”

  “Ahh, quite right. That will do it.”

  “Do what?” Giles wanted to know but was ignored.

  “We’ll wait until after the changing of the guard at midnight,” Sebastian continued. “That will give us the ‘notification’ that a body needs extracting, delivered by one of the guards on his way home, and the new watch won’t have heard yet that Pierre died.”

  John nodded. “Much cleaner than bashing in heads on the way in.”

  Giles sat back with a glower. “And what will I be doing while you two do whatever it is you’re talking about?”

  “John is sitting this one out,” Sebastian replied. “You’ll be coming with me. There is risk involved. If we’re caught, John will know what to do, whereas you’d just sit out here crying in your cups.”

  Giles flushed. “You really have a low opinion of me now, don’t you?”

  “You noticed?”

  Several hours later, Sebastian and Giles drove the mortuary wagon they’d confiscated up to the prison gate. As expected, the two guards there complained that the collection could wait until morning. The late night guards were lazy. Most of them slept through that post and didn’t like being disturbed. Surprisingly, Giles put on quite a performance of whining and insisting he’d lose his new job if he didn’t come back with the body he’d been sent for.

  Sebastian would have just started bashing heads together, but as it happened, having one of the guards escort them to the infirmary saved them the time and effort of having to search for it
, and got them past one other guard along the way. Unfortunately, there were four prisoners sleeping in the room where the sick were kept. No guards or medical staff there at that time of night, but their helpful escort was determined to find the body for them and started checking each occupied bed.

  Locating Pierre, the fellow exclaimed, “He is not dead! What—?”

  Giles probably thought he was being helpful again by grabbing a tin water pitcher next to Pierre’s bed and denting it on the guard’s head. All he managed from that feat was to get them all sloshed with water, and the guard turned in his direction with an angry snarl. Sebastian didn’t appreciate the damp clothes at this time of year, but it did turn out to be helpful inasmuch as the fellow drew his pistol and pointed it at Giles, leaving his back to Sebastian. So it was an easy matter to move up behind him, wrest the pistol from him, and bash his head properly with it.

  Fortunately, none of the other prisoners woke up during the commotion. The guard was dumped in the nearest empty bed to sleep off some of the headache he would have, and they quickly got Pierre onto the stretcher they’d brought in.

  “What if he wakes up on the way out?” Giles questioned. “I doubt the remaining guards will think he’s had a miraculous return from the dead if he starts making noises.”

  “If you didn’t feel it when you lifted him,” Sebastian replied, “he’s burning up. If he wakes up, it will be miraculous.”

  “Oh, I say, you don’t think what’s killing him is contagious, do you?”

  “He would have been isolated if it was,” Sebastian said simply. “And I’ll take the feet end of the stretcher. If I need to drop it to deal with anything threatening, make sure he doesn’t slide off.”

  Back in the hallway, the guard at the end of the passageway was diligent. He’d locked the door again after they came through it.

  “Where is Jean?” he demanded, referring to the chap they were leaving behind.

  Sebastian said with a shrug, “Seeing all those empty beds in there was too much temptation for him. He decided to take a little nap.”

  He didn’t expect that to be a sufficient excuse, and it wasn’t. “Wait here,” the guard said and started to head toward the infirmary.

  The feet end of the stretcher dropped. Sebastian’s foot tripped the man as he passed. He hit the floor, rolled, reaching for his pistol as he did. A hard right knocked his head against the floor. It took one more punch to put him out for the duration.

  “How are your knuckles holding up?” Giles asked.

  “There’s still some skin left on them for you,” Sebastian replied nonchalantly as he retrieved the key to open the passageway again.

  “What luck!”

  Sebastian almost smiled.

  Outside, their lack of escort prompted the remaining guard to meet them halfway to the gate. Sebastian didn’t give him a chance to ask where his friend was. The stretcher dropped again.

  “This was too easy,” Giles remarked as they put Pierre in the wagon they’d left outside the gate.

  “It wasn’t a normal prison.”

  “There are different kinds?”

  “According to John, who got a look at the records in Paris, no killers ever get sent here, which was why there weren’t that many guards, even in the daytime. No high risk, fewer guards needed, and a much more relaxed routine.”

  “You could have mentioned that sooner,” Giles mumbled and got the wagon moving back to the mortuary, where John was waiting for them with a coach.

  “Why? So you could treat this as a lark without risk? There was still risk, and it’s not over yet. We still have to vacate this area before one of those guards wakes up. And hope Pierre survives the trip.”

  “We’re a long way from that ruins you call home,” Giles mentioned. “As it happens, I believe my farm is only a few hours from here. I could be wrong. I’ve never traveled this far east on the coast. Didn’t know this place was here. But I have been to Paris before and we did take the same road south to get here that I use to get home.”

  “So?”

  “So my son’s tutor is a retired doctor,” Giles said. “Or were you planning on nursing a dying man back to health yourself?”

  “Lead the way. I just want answers from him. He’s welcome to die after I have them.”

  Chapter 52

  W HAT ABOUT THE PINK TULLE?” Edna asked as she rifled through Margaret’s wardrobe for a dress to replace her riding habit.

  “I’d prefer something dark. I suppose my mourning clothes are packed away?”

  “Of course they are,” Edna replied. “You aren’t in mourning.”

  “Odd, it certainly feels as if I am,” Margaret remarked with a sigh.

  “I take it your morning ride didn’t cheer you up?” Edna guessed.

  “Was it supposed to?”

  “Well, it used to.” Edna huffed, then, “What about this beige batiste with the—?”

  Margaret gave her maid a few moments to finish the description, then glanced behind her to see why she hadn’t, and caught sight of Edna scurrying out the door—around Sebastian. She went very still. She was struck with an unseemly giddiness over his presence, such joy, when she’d thought she’d never see him again, at least not in England, and certainly not this soon, a mere two weeks after he’d left.

  She’d already concluded that she would see him again, though. Even if she had to spend years tracking him down, she was going to find him just to tell him—well, she hadn’t got that far ahead in her resolve yet.

  Which was too bad, since there he stood, and she wasn’t sure what to say to him, bowled over as she was, other than to wonder aloud, “Did you leave something behind that you need to retrieve?”

  “Yes.”

  How bloody disappointing! But she didn’t have time to feel it. As soon as he said it, he began crossing the room toward her in a determined manner, and she simply didn’t know what to think until he reached her and immediately pulled her into his arms and began kissing her like a starving man.

  Well! That wasn’t disappointing a’tall! In fact, it satisfied the urge that she’d had to fly into his arms. She’d been starving, too, apparently, for the sight of him, the taste of him.

  She’d been standing next to her bed while changing her clothes, which made it too easy for Sebastian to drag her onto it with him. His knee thrust between her legs, her chemisette was yanked down. He buried his face between her breasts, breathing deeply.

  “God, I’ve missed the smell of you, the taste—”

  “You aren’t going to embarrass me with lusty words, are you?” she hurriedly interrupted.

  He leaned up and actually grinned at her. “Would it embarrass you?”

  She didn’t have the heart to tell him yes when he was grinning like that. “Possibly not.”

  “That’s what I thought. But I’ll compromise,” he said and licked a path to her ear. “Did you start getting that divorce yet?”

  The shivers his tongue was causing prevented her from thinking clearly, or she would have been highly disturbed by that subject. She did manage to get out, “not yet.”

  “Then what would you think about not getting one, Maggie?” She was shocked speechless. He added, “That was as close as I’m getting to asking for your hand.”

  He seemed to have gone very still himself, waiting for her response, while she was having trouble dealing with that much happiness dropped on her all at once.

  “What would you think about closing the door?” she finally got out.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see he’d left it open. She added, “That’s as close as I’m getting to saying yes.”

  His gaze dropped back to hers. It was there, what she’d seen only once before in his eyes when he looked at her. Tenderness, and so much of it, her breath caught in her chest.

  “Are you going to tell me you love me?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  She gasped, sputtered. He laughed and kissed her really deeply, then
shot off the bed to slam the door shut. He tore out of his coat and shirt on the way back.

  “While I had no doubt—” he began.

  “Course you didn’t.”

  “I’m bloody well glad that you love me, Maggie.”

  “Don’t need to hear me say it, eh?”

  “No, no more than you do, though if you feel like saying it, I won’t try to stop you.”

  She laughed. “Course I do, you dratted man.”

  He rejoined her on the bed, gathered her close. His kiss was exquisitely gentle but quickly turned remarkably passionate, kindling the fire between them. Amazing how easily he could do that.

  “God, Maggie, I never thought I would ever feel this kind of happiness again. I do love you, m’dear, more than I thought possible to love anyone.”

  She could make him even happier, she realized, and said, “I should mention—”

  “It can wait,” he replied, stripping them quickly of the rest of their clothing between his kisses. “We’ve an appointment at Edgewood, but that can wait, too. Everything will have to wait—on this.”

  He entered her as he said it, catching her gasp of pleasure with his mouth. That “appointment” at Edgewood might have stirred an inkling of curiosity in her, but he was quite right. That and everything else could wait.

  Chapter 53

  M ARGARET HAD NEVER BEEN SO RUSHED in all her life. Not during the lovemaking. Oh, no, that had been sublimely paced, well, actually, the extent of her passion had dictated a rather swift conclusion that caused her a few blushes afterward. Nothing could have slowed that down, however, when they were both so hungry for each other.

  But while she’d wanted to lie there and savor what had just occurred, Sebastian mumbled something under his breath and to her. “There wasn’t time for this. I rode ahead, but we’re still going to be late. Hurry.”

  She tried, she really did, but not knowing what the urgency was about, she couldn’t muster the haste he wanted. “If you could just sum up in a single statement what—”