Lady Wicked: Notorious Ladies of London Book 4

by Scott, Scarlett

  “Is it the reason you left London so abruptly, the reason you would never tell me?” her friend asked.

  “No.” Julianna gazed down at her cup, taking another deep breath. “I did not know about Emily when I left for New York City.”

  Truth, in a sea of lies.

  “Then why did you go?” Hellie asked.

  It was a question Julianna was not prepared to answer. She could ill afford to go back in time and recall the way she had felt. Reliving the betrayal and hurt was too much. She could not bear it.

  “I left to spend time with my mother.”

  “You are lying.” Her friend made the accusation without heat. Her tone was knowing.

  What was she to say? That Shelbourne had broken her heart and left her a shell of herself, that everything she had believed had been shattered like fine porcelain hurled from a roof to the gravel below? No, she could say none of that.

  “I do not want to speak of it now, Hellie,” she said. More truth. After two years of lies, veracity was freeing.

  Though bittersweet. Nothing about this homecoming had unfolded as she had intended, according to plan.

  “Did my brother know?” Hellie demanded. “If he abandoned you when you were carrying his daughter, I will break his bloody nose.”

  “He did not know,” she reassured her fiercely protective friend. “He met Emily for the first time a week ago.”

  It was difficult indeed to believe one week had passed since she had confessed the truth to Shelbourne. Since they had come to terms on a marriage settlement. He had presented her with a lengthy contract which she had no choice but to sign. It protected him and Emily, and left precious little for Julianna aside from the promise her daughter would be made legitimate and she would inherit her uncle’s fortune, to do with as she liked.

  She already knew where a portion of the funds she did not require to invest in her business would go—directly to the Lady’s Suffrage Society. The rest, she would hold in safekeeping for Emily’s future.

  Their living arrangements had been explicitly outlined. Julianna was to remain in England, as were Emily and any future progeny, at Shelbourne’s discretion. The last had given her hope. Shelbourne had proven himself to be the typical lord, and Julianna had no doubt that when the novelty of being a father wore thin—particularly if Julianna were to hasten the efforts—he would change his mind.

  Nevertheless, each day that passed in the last week, he had arrived for a morning visit with Emily, and then for an evening visit as well. It both pained and pleased Julianna to discover he was kind and loving toward their daughter, with a seemingly endless well of patience. Still, she was sure he would grow weary of being a husband and father.

  “Your daughter is the reason you are marrying,” Hellie said.

  “Yes, she is,” Julianna admitted.

  “What caused you to keep my niece, my brother’s daughter, from us?”

  There was no good answer to that.

  Julianna had been a terrified girl with a broken heart. But she had quickly become a strong woman and a mother determined to do the best for her daughter. She had known she could not continue to live a farce. Her uncle’s will had been the impetus she needed to make things right.

  “My mother took great care with my reputation,” she explained. “In New York City, I kept the secret until I no longer could, and then Mama sent me away, to Philadelphia, where no one knew me. When I returned, Emily stayed with a nurse for a time. My mother intended to see her placed with another family, but I could not bear it. I begged and pleaded, and finally she was brought to me. I was not able to acknowledge her as my daughter.”

  The cutting, horrible hurt of that hit her anew.

  Along with a sense of peace that at least if she must sacrifice herself to an unhappy marriage with Shelbourne, she would be free to call herself Emily’s mother. The last two years had been agony in almost every way. But if his plan worked, tongues would wag, yet secrets would no longer need to be kept. She could claim her daughter with pride.

  Freedom was within her grasp, though admittedly not in the sense she had initially supposed. She would do anything for her daughter’s sake. It would be enough for now, granting her some time to battle Shelbourne and giving her the opportunity to grow her business as she so desperately needed. And in time, she would find her freedom, one way or another.

  “Why did you not send word to Shelbourne?” Hellie queried then, and in her agitation, she upended her teacup, spilling her tea all over her gown and the saucer.

  Muttering, she snatched up a napkin and dabbed at the spreading stain on the fabric of her skirts.

  Julianna could not help but to feel responsible. For the spilled tea. For everything. “Forgive me, Hellie. Please. I never intended to keep Emily from you. But I was terrified of losing her. She is all I have.”

  Her voice quivered on the last words. But she did not care.

  Her friend looked up, met her gaze. Compassion softened her countenance. “I understand, in a small way, how you feel.”

  Hope lit within her. “You do?”

  “I do.” A small smile curved her friend’s lips. “Because I am with child, and I know how strong the urge to protect is, how strong the love.”

  Heavens! Her friend was having a baby?

  “You are? Hellie, that is wonderful news.” Julianna was happy for Helena—truly, deeply happy. She saw how happy Hellie was with her husband the Earl of Huntingdon. And she had also witnessed the earl’s love for her friend. It was something to behold. And something to admire.

  Rare indeed.

  “I am, and I wished to tell you in a different manner.” Her friend paused, looking and sounding flustered. “But never mind me. What I do not understand is why you would not seek Shelbourne in all this time, never tell me the truth. We are like sisters, Julianna. At least, I thought we were. And yet, two years? Forgive me, but I cannot fathom why you would wait so long. Why you would keep this secret when you were hurting so many?”

  Had she hurt Shelbourne? Julianna hardly thought so.

  Still, she knew the stinging rush of shame for her actions. The last two years had been fraught with difficulties, and she did not pretend she had weathered them with grace. She had made mistakes. Wrong choices. Each one had led her here.

  Back to him, curse Shelbourne’s handsome hide. But that was temporary.

  “Your brother was well-contented to live his life in my absence,” she defended. “Indeed, he was content to live it before then as well.” That was another story, one in which she refused to indulge. “That is neither here nor there. I wanted—needed—you to know the truth. You have a niece and she is beautiful and stubborn and she looks very much like her father. If you cannot forgive me for what I have done, I understand. But I want you to know her. You will be the best auntie she could ever ask for.”

  Julianna meant those words. So much so that the tremble had returned. Tears stung her eyes. This was an emotional revelation, one she had envisioned many times. But she had been ill-prepared for the magnitude.

  Hellie nodded curtly, forgetting her napkin and the stain spreading on her silk skirts altogether in favor of their conversation. “I want to meet her, Julianna. I do not pretend to understand the decisions you made. However, I promise to try because I love you. I have always loved you as a sister, and now you shall be one in truth.”

  It was more than Julianna could ask.

  She bowed her head, humbled. “Thank you, my dear friend.”

  * * *

  He was going to be married.

  Two years too goddamned late.

  It was true. They could have shackled themselves to each other years ago, before she had left for New York City. Before Emily had been born. Before their lives had become a precarious game of maintaining propriety and claiming their daughter at the same time.

  “A fucking mess is what it is,” he pronounced.

  “Shelbourne, please, no epithets,” chastised the woman who would soon be his wi
fe. Wrapping his mind around that shocking truth still required intense effort. “I will not have Emily cursing as her first words.”

  “Her first word was Papa,” he reminded Julianna, as infinitely pleased now as he had been when their daughter had clapped and grinned and declared the word for the first time yesterday.

  Neither pa nor bub. But Papa. And she had been looking at him when she said it, grinning her adorable, mostly toothless smile. He wondered when infants were finished cutting their teeth. His knowledge of babes was admittedly nil. However, he suddenly found himself wanting to know everything there was to know about children. About babies.

  About his daughter.

  His perfect, adorable, sweet, amazing baby daughter.

  He had only known of her existence for a sennight, and already, he was desperately in love with her. He could not recall what his life had been like without her in it. The pattern of his every day now revolved around when he could visit her, what she might be eating, saying, doing.

  Lady Emily Davenport was a marvel.

  His marvel.

  Well, Julianna’s, too. But he would rather not think about his daughter’s mother in such glowing terms just now. Or ever.

  “She has not been able to say mama,” Julianna defended stiffly. “I could not give myself that title before, for her sake.”

  “For your sake,” he corrected bitterly. “And whose fault is that, hmm?”

  “I should think we are equally at fault, my lord.”

  The censure in her gaze and tone was not lost upon him. Nor was she entirely wrong. Sidney knew he was to blame for making love to her, for failing to take precautions, for bedding her before marrying her. If they had wed two years ago, they would not be where they were now—strangers, each untrusting of the other, watching their inquisitive child toddle about the salon at the Marquess of Leighton’s townhome.

  But where would they be? That was the true question.

  She had not wanted to marry him two years before. Indeed, she had turned him down in crushing, stunning form. Had laughed away his proposal and then promptly disappeared, taking his heart and soul—and, God help him, his child—away.

  “We may be equally at fault for her birth, but the circumstances are your burden and yours alone,” he reminded her quietly. “I asked you to marry me. You refused.”

  Refused was such a concise way of describing his humiliation.

  Fortunately, he was no longer wallowing in the pain of the past. He was about to exact his revenge upon her in the form of their marriage. And what sweet revenge it would be. He had already been about to marry Lady Hermione Carmichael. Switching from one lady he did not like for another hardly signified. Except having Lady Julianna Somerset at his mercy—at last—would be well worth shackling himself to her.

  And in truth, marrying her was the only way to protect his daughter and give her his name. It was his sole recourse.

  “I did not want to marry you.”

  She spoke so calmly, as though she had not torn him apart as if she were a fucking bayonet instead of a female, all finely dressed and perfumed.

  He studied her now, trying to tamp down the bitter resentment still coursing through him for what she had done, first in leaving him and then in keeping his daughter a secret from him. She had returned, two years too late.

  “You should have thought of that before you begged me to take you,” he said, his voice low so it would not carry to their daughter’s ears.

  Not that Emily would have an inkling of what he was saying, but he would not have Julianna chastising him again over his language.

  A flush stained Julianna’s cheekbones. “You are being crude, Lord Shelbourne.”

  Yes, he was. But if she thought he was not capable of far worse, she had never known him.

  He merely shrugged. “I prefer honesty. Unlike you.”

  Her lips tensed, but she kept her gaze carefully trained upon Emily, who was playing with a set of wooden blocks, entertained by stacking them up and then knocking them down with her pudgy little fingers. Her sweet innocence softened the harshness within him.

  Which was why he was staring hard at Julianna now. He needed to cling to his anger.

  “I never lied to you,” she said, turning to favor him with a glance at last. “You could have written to me or contacted me to inquire after my welfare. You could have made certain there had been no repercussions from the intimacies we shared. Instead, you chose not to.”

  How wrong she was. He had crossed a damned ocean for her. But that secret was his, and he was not about to share it with her, now or ever.

  “I trusted you would send word to me,” he said instead. “It is what you should have done, and you know it.”

  “I did what I felt was right.”

  “And yet it was wrong,” he could not resist countering.

  Since her revelation, he had spent time—so damned much time—trying to understand her actions. To comprehend why she would have given birth to their daughter out of wedlock and kept her a secret rather than simply telling him the truth.

  He would have married her in the beat of a heart.

  Hell, he had wanted to marry her. From the moment he had first kissed her in that bloody lake, he had known he would, with a stupid, incipient hope that was rather unlike him. One he had ultimately shed.

  “I do not know if it was,” Julianna insisted, before turning her attention back to Emily.

  His gaze swung to their daughter as well, just in time to watch her rise, take a hesitant step, and trip over the blocks, falling to the carpet and smashing her face into the Axminster.

  Her wail rose up instantly, and Sidney was on his feet, rushing toward his daughter, intent upon calming her, staying her tears. Christ, he hated when she cried. Each time clawed at his black heart, reminding him it was not entirely dead.

  But Julianna had risen as well. They sank to their knees as one, both reaching for Emily at the same moment. Her hands closed over Emily and his closed over Julianna’s. She had been a second quicker in her motherly instincts.

  The realization was not what shook him, however. The feeling of her hands beneath his, coupled with the resultant electric jolt, was.

  Nothing had changed.

  Not since the day he had first seen her. Not time, not distance, not betrayal and lies.

  He hated himself.

  He removed his hands from hers as if she had burned him, allowing her to take Emily into her arms and offer her comfort. And even the sight of Julianna holding their daughter close, kissing her brow and murmuring calm words into her ear, affected him.

  Julianna was a good mother. It both pleased and pained him to acknowledge that fact. Pained him because it certainly would have been easier to cling to his rage if she had been the sort of mother who did not care for her child. The kind who did not want her social obligations to be hindered by a mere babe. Pleased him because he wanted to know his daughter had been well loved and taken care of in his absence.

  He had missed so much. It still made him furious, thinking of it all. From the time she had been born, to now. An entire year had been denied him. So many moments. Her first smile, her first step. Now that he knew she was his, he would do everything in his power to make certain he would never miss another damned thing.

  “There now,” Julianna was murmuring to their daughter, rocking her in her arms. “Did you hurt your darling face when you fell?”

  She punctuated the question with a kiss to the tip of Emily’s nose.

  Something warm trickled inside his chest. Ruthlessly, he quashed it. There was to be no warmth for this woman. No quarter. She had kept his child from him, damn her.

  Emily sniffled, blinking as tears streaked down her cheeks.

  “Mama has you now,” Julianna crooned, rubbing their daughter’s back in soothing strokes.

  Mama.

  It was the title she had not called herself. His gaze met hers. For a breath, he felt the importance of that word, that moment, to his soul
. Even if he did not want to.

  He swallowed.

  She blinked furiously, and he swore he spied tears glistening in her bluer-than-blue eyes. “It is past time for her to have her nap. I should return Emily to her nurse.”

  He inclined his head. His time here, like every day since he had begun these visits, was limited. Soon, he would have as much time as he wished to see Emily. To get to know his daughter. To make up for everything he had missed.

  “Go on. I will wait for you.” He could not resist leaning forward and dropping a kiss atop Emily’s head.

  As he did so, Julianna’s scent overwhelmed him. Familiar, exotic, floral. Lily of the valley. Christ, but that scent had haunted him in his dreams. As had she.

  She rose to her feet, and he did as well.

  They faced each other reluctantly.

  “You may go,” she told him.

  Dismissing him.

  He grinned. “I will stay. There is much we need to discuss concerning our pending nuptials.”

  She said nothing, but nodded.

  He leaned forward, dropping another kiss on Emily’s cheek. “I shall see you again soon, poppet.”

  Julianna swept from the room, regal as any queen. He watched her go, unable to keep his gaze from tracing all her curves. Damn the woman, as much as he raged against her for what she had done—what she had stolen from him—he still wanted her. There was no denying it.

  Chapter 7

  Darling Julianna,

  A fortnight has passed since you left for America. I have marked each day of your absence by drowning myself in drink. Still, the pain will not end. I have told myself your departure is for the best. That if you are gone, our paths cannot cross, and I will not be reminded of you. Common sense, of course. However, I cannot imagine a day when you do not haunt my heart, my thoughts. Part of me wants to chase after you. To storm across the Atlantic and bring you back to me. Only my pride keeps me chained to these shores, knowing remaining here is what must be done. You made yourself clear whilst I remain hopelessly murky…