Beyond Scandal and Desire

by Lorraine Heath

  She gave a little nod. He wasn’t certain if she was acknowledging his cleverness or the fact that she was more relaxed here. “The hotel we passed reminds me very much of yours.”

  “The Bedford. I modeled mine after it and a few others. Mine is a combination of the things I favored in the hotels I visited. When I was a lad, I used to steal rides on the train to get to the seaside. It always smelled so much cleaner here, seemed so much cleaner. A person had room to breathe.”

  “You traveled alone.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes my brothers would travel with me. Sometimes not.”

  “You never feared the railway, never at all?”

  “For me, it represented freedom. It allowed me to dream that where I was, was not where I needed to stay.” He shook his head. “Sounds silly said out loud.”

  She squeezed his arm reassuringly. “No, it’s a beautiful sentiment. I’m impressed you realized it so young when I’m only just beginning to feel the confines, to question them, to want to step beyond them.”

  She averted her gaze as though embarrassed by her words, and he wondered if she would permanently step away from Kipwick. He didn’t want to push her, didn’t want to give her cause to doubt his intentions, but decided it would be to his advantage to leave her thinking on what she’d said. Glancing back, he signaled to his man. “Jones, let’s set up over here. Fancy!”

  His sister looked over her shoulder.

  “Over there!” he shouted and pointed.

  “Jolly good!”

  They spread out blankets. He helped Aslyn lower herself to one of them, then joined her there. Fancy opened a basket that Jones had been carrying and brought out an abundance of food their mum had packed for them. Several meat pastries, blocks of cheese, even a bottle of wine, which he poured for the adults and passed around.

  “This is quite impressive,” Aslyn said.

  “Mum worries about people being hungry,” Fancy said, leaning over to wipe a little girl’s dirty chin. “It’s a wonder we’re not all fat. She’s always feeding us too much.”

  “Because there was a time when she didn’t have anything at all to feed us,” Mick said.

  Fancy stilled. “Of course. I don’t remember it. It was before I came along, I think.”

  “By the time you joined our merry band, we were old enough to start working. That helped.”

  “It must have been difficult, though,” Aslyn said. Sitting on a blanket on the sand, she was still regal in her bearing. No one could mistake her for being anything other than an aristocrat. She was so beautiful, so prim, so bloody clean. He couldn’t help but think she would have the power to wash the dirt off him, to make him all shiny, perhaps more so than Hedley’s acknowledgment would. “What was it like?”

  How to explain it to someone who’d never gone hungry? He didn’t resent that she hadn’t. He was glad of it, wished no one ever experienced a gnawing in the gut, but how to describe it so he didn’t come across as a victim? He’d never considered himself one. He shrugged. “Some nights you had a full belly, some you went to bed with a hollow belly. You didn’t cry about it. It’s just the way it was.” And the reason those who took in bastards didn’t spend much effort keeping them alive. It was costly to feed them.

  “It’s so unfair.”

  “Life isn’t fair. You can either rail against it or do what you must to make it fairer.”

  Aslyn smiled, the teasing of it wreathing her face. “I think I’d have done both.”

  He held her gaze, which reflected the sky above her, and admitted, “Sometimes I did.”

  She glanced over at the children. “I don’t suppose those little ones go hungry.”

  “Never.”

  “If Mick discovers one of the staff punishes a child by denying him his supper, he lets that person go,” Fancy said. “The children must be well cared for above all else.”

  “Where do you find the time?” Aslyn asked.

  “You find time for what’s important to you. The home is important to my mum, so it’s important to me.”

  Aslyn couldn’t help but think that being important to Mick Trewlove would be one of the finest experiences of someone’s life. He was so passionate about anyone or anything he cared for: his mother, his buildings, his family, the plight of the unloved children.

  Staring out to sea, with her legs drawn up, arms wrapped around them, her chin on her knees, she sat alone on the blanket with her various musings. Mick and Jones had gone to secure ices for everyone. Fancy, Nan and Mary had taken the children to play at the edge of the water. They’d discussed the possibility of using a bathing coach, but as none of them had brought bathing attire, the water’s edge seemed adequate. She’d considered removing her shoes and joining them, letting her toes sink into the sand as the water swirled around her ankles, but without a button hook, it would be a challenge to get them off. Bad planning that. Next time—­

  Would there even be a next time? She wanted there to be. Another ride on the train, another day at the seaside, more time with Mick. Even knowing she shouldn’t want the latter, she couldn’t seem not to yearn for it. From the moment the train had begun rolling along the tracks, she’d given no thought to Kip, all her attention focused on Mick. She knew in the future, if she were with Kip, she’d be thinking of Mick. Yet even as she considered him, she knew her guardians would never approve of her taking up with a commoner, no matter how successful he might be. It was one thing for a lord to marry an American heiress—­that was accepted. But for a British heiress to become involved with a commoner . . . it was inconceivable. Especially when that commoner couldn’t even claim legitimacy as part of his heritage. It wasn’t fair, but there it was. While with hard work he’d managed to improve his circumstances, there was little he could do, save an act of Parliament, to make himself legitimate.

  With a start, she noticed the dark head bobbing, the arms flailing in the water and realized her thoughts had drifted off to such an extent her gaze had lost its focus, but now it came in sharp and frightening. It was one of the children, one of the little boys. How had he gotten so far out?

  Shoving herself to her feet, she began running toward the shoreline, casting a quick glance over her surroundings, searching for help. Nan and Fancy had wandered down a bit, were distracted with the other children. Mary stood at the water’s edge, just watching, a satisfied smirk on her face. Aslyn would think on that later. For now, she started screaming for help, while she began wading into the sea, the sand sucking at her feet, the waves pushing against her.

  The water was nearly to her hips when she reached the lad, grabbed his arm, even as another pair of hands—­large and scarred—­snatched the child up. His dark eyes were round and huge as he began retching.

  “It’s all right,” Mick said. “It’s all right.”

  She didn’t know if he was talking to her or the boy, but it didn’t matter. The words were soothing, filling her with relief, as he cradled the boy in one arm and wrapped the other protectively around her shoulders, drawing her in against his side. “I thought he was going to drown.” She heard the tears in her voice, only then realizing they were also streaming down her cheeks.

  “He would have,” Mick said, as they began trudging back to shore, “if you hadn’t yelled and gotten to him.”

  The weight of her drenched skirts threatened to drag her down, might have if Mick hadn’t held her so securely. He wasn’t going to let the sea have her, she knew that, drew comfort from it. Waiting at the shore, Jones draped a blanket around the weeping child, took him from Mick, while Fancy offered her a blanket, but she ignored it, instead working her way free of Mick’s hold and marching ungainly toward Mary.

  “Why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you yell for help?” she asked the servant.

  “He’s a bastard. They’re all bastards. What does it matter if he drowns? It’s one less ill-­conceived—�
�”

  The flat of Aslyn’s hand struck quick and hard, its meeting with the woman’s cheek echoing around them, the jolt of pain going up her arm, the sting of her palm taking her by surprise. She’d never before hit anyone. It took everything within her not to strike again. “You’re let go. I don’t care how you make it back to London, but you’ll not be traveling with us.”

  “The duke and duchess—­”

  “Are not going to hear a single word about this day. You will pack up your things and leave quietly and thank God that I don’t have charges for attempted murder brought against you.”

  “He’s worth nothing. No one cares about him.”

  “I care! And who do you think a jury is going to believe? You or the daughter of an earl?”

  “Don’t forget the fate of Charlotte Winsor,” Mick said quietly. The maid’s eyes widened slightly. “Aye, you remember her, don’t you? They hanged her for killing a by-­blow.”

  “My lady—­” She held out a hand imploringly.

  “Off with you now, Mary,” Aslyn said. “Before I change my mind and seek out a constable.”

  As the maid shuffled away, weeping, Aslyn wandered over to where Nan sat on a blanket, rocking the boy who had fallen asleep. She lowered herself to the wool, spread out her skirts and held out her arms. “Give him to me.”

  As she gathered him up, he barely stirred, weighed hardly anything at all, couldn’t have been any older than four or five, was all long limbs. He’d be a tall fellow when he grew up. The fact that someone thought he might not be worthy of growing up broke her heart.

  “We need to get you dry, my lady, before you catch your death,” Nan said.

  “The sun is warm enough to dry me in no time at all.” Still she welcomed the blanket Mick draped over her. “Nan, go help Fancy with the other children.”

  Her maid left her, heading toward the young ones, gathered in a circle around Fancy, with Jones keeping watch, enjoying ices. Mick dropped down beside her, facing her, partway on the blanket—­they weren’t in her world any longer; they were without boundaries—­his thigh lightly touching hers.

  “She was watching him,” she said, hating the words even as she spoke them, “watching him struggling in the water and doing nothing. How could she just stand there and do nothing?”

  “Some people believe those born in sin have no right to life.” Gently, with his thumb, he slowly swiped the tears from her cheeks. “Don’t cry, Aslyn. The boy’s alive thanks to you. Although your parasol is broken.”

  “My parasol?” It seemed an odd thing to think about at that moment.

  He held up the mangled object. “Apparently you stepped on it in your rush to get to him.”

  The tears started up anew, stinging. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get to him in time.”

  Tenderly, he cradled her cheek. “But you did, sweetheart.”

  The endearment again, used so casually. She should have objected, but it brought such comfort. For the longest moment, he merely held her gaze and she found herself becoming lost in the blue of his eyes, thought he might lean in and kiss her. For a moment, she thought she wanted him to. No, she didn’t think, she knew. As a reaffirmation of life. Only he didn’t. Perhaps because there were people around, strangers they didn’t know, his sister, Nan, Jones, the children. Or perhaps he feared she’d rebuff the overture.

  “Who was Charlotte Winsor?” she asked.

  With a sigh, he dropped his hand, looked past her to the others, and she rather wished she’d kept quiet, missing so much his touch. How could she long with such yearning for something she’d barely had, probably shouldn’t have had at all? “She advertised that, for a modest fee, she was willing to take in babes born out of wedlock. Then she would strangle them, wrap them in newspaper and leave them on the side of the road, to be carried off by wild animals, I suppose.”

  “My God.”

  His gaze came back to her. “Someone saw her disposing of a child, authorities were notified. They have no idea how many she murdered. It was about four years ago, I think, when her trial brought to light the darker aspects of the baby farming trade.”

  She couldn’t recall reading about it, but she’d have been sixteen at the time and her focus had been on preparing for her first Season that would take place a year later.

  A corner of his mouth hitched up, and he said dryly, “Well, today certainly didn’t turn out to be the sunny, pleasant day I’d planned for you.”

  “I’m sorry for what this little one had to go through, but today has given me a clearer understanding of things. The circumstances under which children are brought into the world is not their fault. They shouldn’t carry the stigma.”

  “Yet, they do.”

  Even as adults they carried it, which she suspected was the reason he hadn’t leaned in to kiss her earlier. There was a barrier between them, even if it wasn’t visible. In the shadows of the night, sin could take hold. But not at a sun-­bright seaside.

  He watched her sleep on the large sofa in the center of his car, the urchin curled against her lap, her chest, where Mick longed to be. She’d relinquished claim to the lad only long enough for Mick to carry him from the sand to the railway station and into the car. Then she’d settled on the sofa like a queen and signaled for the boy to be handed over. He’d have handed over anything she asked.

  He’d been carrying some of the damned ices when he’d heard her cry for help, had seen her rushing headlong into the waves, not seeming to realize that the water would soak her dress, could suck her under, could carry her out to sea. His heart had rioted, threatened to burst through his chest as though his legs were not churning fast enough for it and it could reach her more quickly if not encumbered by ribs holding it in place. He’d never moved with such speed or ferocity in his life—­not when chased by a constable for nicking an orange when he was seven, not when he’d needed to fetch a physician because his mum was writhing in pain striving to give birth to a child she’d eventually name Fancy, not when word had come to him that one of his brothers was in danger of dying. But for her, he’d damned near taken flight. To get to her, to save her, to ensure the world didn’t continue on without her.

  Even if she wasn’t part of his world, she should be part of another’s. Just not Kipwick’s. She deserved so much better than a man easily ruled by his vices. She deserved better than a man consumed with gaining what another didn’t wish to grant him.

  Inwardly, he cursed Hedley to hell and beyond, grateful he had a scapegrace for a legitimate son. Not so grateful that Aslyn might reconsider her hiatus and marry the scourge.

  Sitting in a chair that gave him the perfect view of her, he sipped his whiskey, a tiny girl with the courage to approach him coiled in his lap, sucking her thumb, the fingers of her free hand toying with the buttons on his waistcoat as though they fascinated her. No doubt by the end of the journey, the threads would be loosened to such an extent he’d have to hand the clothing over to his tailor to set to rights. He should be irritated by the prospect. Instead, he thought of his own not-­yet-­born daughter nestled there, one with blond hair and blue eyes and a crooked smile.

  He wasn’t supposed to fall for the woman. His plan was to use her, then lose her. But how could he not come to care for Aslyn when she had a hidden courage she wasn’t even aware she possessed? On the surface, she gave the appearance of being timid, afraid of trains, for God’s sake, but he’d seen her pride and courage not falter when she’d had to hand over her jewels and witnessed her bravery today. And more than that: her willingness to stand up for injustice. She hadn’t hesitated to let the servant go, had even threatened her with an arrest, possible prison. She’d been magnificent in her fury and just as glorious in her compassion. Her tears hadn’t been for herself and that had made them all the more profound.

  “I loike ’er,” a tiny voice whispered.

  He glanced down at the misch
ievous lass. “Hmm?”

  With the finger attached to the thumb in her mouth, she pointed toward the sofa. “I loike ’er.”

  Leaning down, he whispered, “As do I.”

  Far more than he’d expected, far more than he wanted.

  Chapter 15

  She wasn’t surprised to see the footmen waiting for her at the station. She suspected everyone, even those not employed by him, obeyed Mick Trewlove’s orders. After giving each of the children a hug, an extra-­long one to the lad she’d rescued, she smiled at Fancy. “Thank you for thinking to invite me. It was a wonderful outing.”

  “I’m glad you could join us.” She looked at her brother, gave him a wicked grin. “I’ll have to think of something else we can do together.”

  “I’d like that.” The words were true even as she wondered how many lies a person was allowed to tell before getting caught. Perhaps she’d misjudged how the duchess would react.

  Without thought, she slipped her hand in the crook of Mick’s elbow as he began escorting her to her carriage. He seemed at once startled and pleased.

  “I can’t believe I slept on the train,” she said.

  “I’d say you’ve overcome your fear of it.”

  “Yes, I rather think I have.”

  “Think of all the places you can go now.”

  She could have gone to them before in a carriage, but she suddenly felt a sense of freedom and expansion of possibilities she hadn’t before. Fear did have a tendency to narrow one’s world. When next she traveled on a train, she would think of him, and every time after.

  “Your dress and shoes are ruined,” he said. “How will you explain it?”

  “I’ll go in through the servants’ entrance and up the back stairs. Nan will see that I’m not spotted. I’ll change and go down to dinner with no one the wiser.”

  “If there is any trouble—­”

  “There won’t be.” And if there was, she’d handle it. For some reason, today’s outing had liberated her in ways she didn’t even realize she needed liberating.