“I shan’t have it. Do you hear me?” So angry his ears glowed red, Brighton spun to face Crispin. “This is just another stunt to try to avoid marrying my daughter. It won’t work either, Your Grace.”
Why would any father who claimed any affection for his daughter insist she wed a man she obviously loathed?
Smirking, Brighton shook his head, causing the sparse hairs atop to sway like giant orangey feelers. Is orangey a word? “I’ll see you in court if you try to break the betrothal contract. And I’ll not hesitate to drag this shameless harlot’s name through the shite.”
“Sir! You forget yourself.” Theadosia raked her gaze over him in much the same way one would scrape manure from one’s shoe.
“Every gossip rag and newssheet will be eager to print the tales I feed them about her,” Brighton crowed, confident he had the upper hand.
Did he?
Much like raptors, gossips hovered about, ready to swoop in and attack anything weaker than themselves. And blackguards such as Brighton possessed no integrity. A tiny frisson of fright tip-toed across her shoulders, and she wrapped her hands about her waist in a protective gesture.
“Not if they want to remain in business, they won’t.” Crispin drawled with commendable calm but wintery finality.
Brighton leaned in, going toe to toe with him. “Watch me. I already have men willing to swear they’ve bedded the tart.”
Bloody cur! Jessica made a choking sound as she clamped her teeth against several other unsavory oaths throttling up her throat. Shaken by the rage thrumming through her, she dug her fingernails into her palms.
“No doubt paid handsomely by you to say so,” Crispin bit out, each word razor sharp.
“Prove it,” Brighton sneered, folding his arms, his features smug. He bloody well thought he had them, the cur.
Theadosia gasped. Her appalled attention swung to Jessica then bounced right back to Brighton. “You’re a monster.”
“My God,” Jessica whispered, slanting into Crispin. As if things weren’t already abysmal, this villain was prepared to lie to blacken her name further.
“Now, see here.” Victor took up a position beside Crispin, his features taut with indignation. “You’ve gone beyond the mark, besmirching Miss Brentwood’s good name when it was your daughter who drugged her. And her lover who bashed Bainbridge on his head.”
Lover? Just how had Victor come by that morsel?
“Lies. All lies, I tell you—every foul, libelous word. Lilith told me everything, not more than an hour ago,” Brighton spluttered, shifting his muddy-brown glare between the three of them.
“Lilith?” A chill of trepidation slithered down Jessica’s spine. “But…she eloped with Lord Brookmoore last night.” She cast Crispin a questioning glance. Hadn’t they eloped? Had someone twisted the facts there, too? Or carelessly failed to learn the truth?
“She did no such thing.” Brighton drew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his damp forehead. “More of your slanderous lies, wench.”
Crispin went rigid, yet he kept his arm about her. It was an anchor, holding her steady in this emotional tempest. “Yes, she did. But Brookmoore threw her over, didn’t he? Did he learn she wouldn’t inherit a dime if she wed without your consent?”
Brighton blanched but still puffed out his chest. He looked like an oversized, brightly-plumed pigeon. “Are you casting slurs on my daughter’s good name, Bainbridge?”
“No, but I am, Brighton.” Victor raked a fuming glance over the sweaty little man, and his upper lip hitched in contempt. “I have it from a knowledgeable source your daughter did, in fact, enter a coach with Brookmoore. That said, coach had valises stashed inside, and that it did, indeed, make straight for the Scottish border.” He patted his coat pocket where the letter lay.
Ah, so that was what that was all about.
“They stopped at the Cat and Crock Lodging House overnight,” Victor went on. “They shared a chamber and were overheard quarreling in the common room the next morning.”
Jessica couldn’t help but admire the speed at which her brother-in-law had seen Brookmoore and Miss Brighton pursued. Nor fail to appreciate his defense of her. Or Crispin’s, either.
Victor cut Crispin a steady gaze and gave a sharp nod before pointing a scathing scowl at Brighton. “Your daughter did indeed reveal to Brookmoore that she’d be cut off without a cent for eloping. Poor chit fancies herself in love with the bugger.”
If Miss Brighton hadn’t been so conniving and devious, Jessica might’ve felt a twinge of pity for her.
“I’m sure Brookmoore vowed everlasting love,” Victor drawled, sarcastically. “Until he realized he’d be saddled with a wife but without a marriage settlement. He, being the gallant gentleman that he is, acquired a mount and deserted her, leaving your daughter to return to London on her own. Which, I presume, she promptly did and fed you the cock-and-bull story she contrived along the way.”
“That romance didn’t last long,” Theadosia remarked dryly, with perhaps the merest hint of gratification in her tone.
Brighton directed his scornful stare at Crispin’s arm around Jessica’s waist. “I don’t care how many loose women you entertain before or after your marriage to my daughter. But marry her, you will.”
“I think not,” Crispin denied, a wry smile quirking his mouth as his welcoming heat burned into Jessica’s side. The pleasant aromas of sandalwood, soap, and starch floated past her nostrils.
“Your daughter dissolved our betrothal when she arranged to have Miss Brentwood and me incapacitated and then absconded with Brookmoore.” He crooked a superior eyebrow over merciless slate-dark eyes, his disdain palpable. “Do you comprehend the seriousness of the charges they face for attacking a duke?”
Brighton’s fleshy, bewhiskered jowls worked as he clenched and unclenched his hands.
Scorn and anger emphasizing his angular, clean-shaven features, Crispin leaned over, intimidating the shorter man, who had the good sense to step back a pace. “I confess to being most grateful to Miss Brighton.” He skewed his mouth sideways.
Casting him an astonished glance, Jessica tried to discern if he was serious. How could he possibly be grateful to the chit?
Bold as brass and in front of all, he gave her a devilish wink, and her tummy turned over in giddy excitement.
Gathering her hand in his, he brought it close to his chest, the gesture almost reverent. “Now, I am free to marry a woman of my choosing. Miss Brentwood has granted me the highest honor possible and agreed to become my wife. You, Brighton, can deal with your wayward daughter any way you see fit. But know this: If you do anything to disparage my future duchess, I. Shall. Destroy. You.”
Moisture beading his forehead and upper lip, Brighton blanched, swallowing audibly while tearing at his neckcloth.
Crispin jerked his chin toward the door. “Now, leave my house, and never darken my doorstep again.”
“I shall see you in court, then.” Brighton stomped to the doorway. He looked over his shoulder, spearing Jessica with a loathing-filled glare before swinging his wrathful focus to Crispin. “Lilith carries your child.”
Jessica stared blankly at the page of the novel in her lap, a new Gothic romance Nicolette Twistleton had sent over the morning after the incident. Far better to be busy and concentrating on something—anything—but the debacle on everyone’s lips. Or Mr. Brighton’s last vile, world-tilting accusation.
Was Lilith Brighton truly with child? Was the babe Crispin’s?
Her stomach sank and clenched as it always did when she entertained the possibility. It left a hollow, sick feeling in her belly. She didn’t want to believe the ugly accusation. Found it almost impossible to accept.
But his reputation.
Crispin had vowed his romantic escapades were exaggerated. Claimed he’d created a false persona with the intent of off-putting his betrothed. Twisting her mouth to the side, she furrowed her forehead into a scowl, directed at the unread words on the page.
> Jessica wanted to believe him. Needed to believe him. Had believed him. For if the claim was valid, what was she to do?
Her tummy pitched sickeningly again.
In truth, Crispin and Lilith assuredly wouldn’t have been the first couple to have anticipated their vows and consummated the union prematurely. Still torturing the edges of the poor book, she worried her lower lip.
Yet that didn’t make sense.
Why would Miss Brighton have Crispin knocked over the head, then? Why arrange for Jessica to be caught and disgraced with him? Why elope with the viscount? It was much more likely Lord Brookmoore had impregnated the daft chit then, as Victor suggested, abandoned her.
Afterward, the wily wench had thought to entrap Crispin. Oh, how Jessica longed for five minutes with the devious snake. She’d give Lilith Brighton a tongue lashing she’d not soon forget.
Bah! How many times had those same musings circled each other in her brain, like a dog chasing its tail? Why, she’d almost made herself dizzy. And that was why she did her utmost to keep her mind occupied. Yet, she hadn’t advanced beyond the first chapter since the day Crispin had proposed.
Pinching her mouth tighter, she uncrossed her legs, stretched out before her on the rather hard settee. She wiggled her toes to ease the slight cramping of her muscles from having remained in the same position for too long.
Crispin had attended the Christmastide house party hosted by her sister and brother-in-law. Jessica had seen him at several gatherings in the ensuing months since, including the musical at the Twistletons’ and tea and garden party at Theadosia’s, where he’d lost the match of Pall Mall to her.
Not privy to his comings and goings, she had no way of knowing if he’d ventured to London regularly. Town was but a four-hour journey on horseback. But to her knowledge—and Victor believed it true as well—Crispin had only just arrived in London with the rest of his cohorts in time for the start of Parliament.
As he was a close associate of Crispin’s, Victor would know, wouldn’t he?
She permitted a tiny smile of relief to curve her mouth and the tension knotting her shoulders and neck to relax a trifle. Victor was an excellent judge of character.
During the day, Jessica fared well enough. But at night, as she lay in her too-big bed when all was quiet except for the peculiar noises a sleeping house made, and she attempted to sleep, her mind replayed the dreadful scene in Crispin’s drawing room.
With his incessant, unpleasant monologue, Mr. Brighton had been positively beastly, calling her a whore.
What was more, her deuced overly-creative imagination made a remarkable effort to fill in the lurid details she’d been oblivious to in her drug-induced slumber that night of the ball. Small mercy, that. She didn’t want to know everything that had transpired. What she did know proved distressing enough.
How could Crispin stand to face the people who’d come upon them? Her instinct was to run and hide. His, she’d venture, was to confront and demand truth. Ducal airs, and all that.
What was it about aristocrats that made people bow and scrape before them? Those same sycophants wouldn’t give her the time of day.
When that horrible night wasn’t haunting her ruminations, or the humiliation of the snubs she’d already received from several denizens, genuine worry for Crispin smothered her.
Once Brighton had departed, he’d nearly collapsed. She’d vowed to herself, right then and there, she’d not discuss any of this ugliness until he was much improved. She’d keep her worries to herself.
He’d written daily, reporting on his tactics, when he should’ve been resting and concentrating on recovering. It could not be good for his health to deal with Brighton, the rumors, the authorities, and the rest of the odiousness that now enshrouded both of them.
That was how she thought of their situation. Odious. Ugly. Vile. Loathsome.
The situation continued to deteriorate, and honestly, she hated the helplessness she felt. Despised feeling powerless to rectify the wrong done to her and Crispin. She’d agreed to wed him because, if nothing else, she was pragmatic.
A woman in her precarious position had few—very few—respectable options. In truth, she didn’t relish hieing off to some fusty corner of England or Scotland. To live in obscurity for the remainder of her days, kept company by a few cats and chickens. Maybe a goat and a donkey as well. And a darling puppy.
After all, it was her fondness for puppies that had landed her in this mess. She might as well benefit from it in some small measure. Plus, marriage to a man who could kiss her breathless and turn her bones to custard wouldn’t be so awful. She’d secretly admired Crispin, never once considering she might catch his attention.
If his sizzling kisses were any indication, he wanted her just as madly, but his letters conveyed none of the passion he’d introduced Jessica to that day.
She hadn’t known how to respond to his terse, fact-filled correspondences. It was as if he briefed a court on proceedings rather than penned missives to his betrothed. How odd to think of him as such. Except, he’d signed the letters, “Ever yours, affectionately,” followed by a flourishing C.
Ever yours? Affectionately?
The kind of warm regard one held for a long-time acquaintance? Or the tender care or fondness reserved for a beloved sister? Possibly—that was what she fervently hoped—a stronger emotion?
The man was an enigma. A puzzle she couldn’t quite piece together. These past months, she’d caught glimpses of who she believed Crispin was, and then he’d say or do something she hadn’t expected, and the image she’d built of him in her mind had to be reconstructed all over again. He was far more complex than a simple rakehell. He hid a noble side, and she found herself admiring him more than she ought.
With a sigh, Jessica brought her gaze up to the window and idly fingered the page edges, the movement strangely soothing. An ebony-headed coal tit flitted from branch to branch in the dogwood tree outside the library window. Cocking its head, the little bird scampered along, dipping and bowing, singing all the while.
She adored birds, particularly songbirds. An abundance of coal tits populated Colechester, so she was quite familiar with the sweet, little things. Looking closer, she spied another coal tit bearing slightly more muted plumage.
Ah, he was showing off, the wee gallant gentleman.
Were they already mates? Or was he trying to win her favor?
Even as Jessica contemplated the thought, the female gave what could only be called a flirtatious dip of her beak and suggestive flick of her tail before flying off. At once, the male pursued her.
Oh, to be like those birds. How much simpler their mating habits were than humans.
Hushed feminine voices in the corridor announced she was about to be interrupted. Jessica hadn’t even swung her feet to the floor when Ophelia Breckensole, Nicolette Twistleton, and Rayne Wellbrook sailed into the chamber. Each resembled a spring blossom in their colorful gowns.
“Ophelia? Nicolette? Rayne?” She shoved to her feet, delighted to see them and simultaneously concerned at the risk they’d taken. Good Lord. They’d be ruined if anyone knew they’d called upon her. She was soiled goods, and they chanced degradation by associating with her. “Surely, you know you shouldn’t be here.”
“Darling, we could stay away no longer.” Ophelia enfolded her into her soft embrace, holding her in a fierce hug. She drew back, and after bussing Jessica’s cheek, she examined her features. “I’ve been so very worried about you. How are you managing, dearest?”
Her hazel gaze overly bright, Ophelia blinked rapidly, valiantly fighting the moisture pooling in her eyes.
“Of course Jessica’s beside herself, but she’s still holding her head up, as she well should,” Nicolette declared, swooping in for a hug and smelling of lilies, as usual. “Never you mind, Jessica.” She gave Rayne and Ophelia a knowing look, her vivid, blue eyes conveying a silent message. “Your friends know the truth, and that’s all that matters.”
; Not as reassuring as Nicolette, no doubt intended. Truth, Jessica had concluded during her short stint in London, seldom accounted for as much as titillating on dit.
Nicolette arced a long-fingered hand between herself and the other women. “Besides, our being here is part of a grand plan contrived by our ducal friends, their duchesses, and a few others who aren’t to be trifled with. My mother, as well as my brother, also lend their support.” She quirked her mouth into a wry smile. “Though as much as Ansley deigns society, that’s not much help, I fear.”
That was true. Ansley, Earl of Scarborough, was a unique man. Kind but subdued, and he tossed off nearly all social strictures in favor of his preferred interests and regimens.
Nicolette stepped aside so that Rayne could buss Jessica’s cheek. More reserved than either Ophelia or Nicolette, she clasped Jessica’s hands in her own. “Is it true? You’re to wed Bainbridge?” A naughty grin tipped her mouth. “He is devilishly handsome.”
How, precisely, had they learned that tidbit? Ah, part of the grand plan, no doubt.
“He’s proposed, and I’ve accepted.” No need for her to tell them neither of them had any choice in the matter. It was an unstated fact. No one with a lick of sense would attempt to spin a romantic slant on the situation.
Theadosia glided in and glanced around with satisfaction. “Excellent. I shall request tea. You girls are precisely what Jessica needs.”
Her sister should chastise their friends for taking such a chance, but Jessica couldn’t deny she was grateful they had. The fickle world of London Society seemed a trifle less daunting when surrounded by her dearest friends.
Subdued laughter and forced gaiety filled the next two hours. Everyone avoided mention of the puce hippopotamus in the room. Namely, the sordid events that had taken place at the ball. She could tell by their side-eyed glances they were dying to know the details but would bite off their tongues before asking.
Not ready to reveal all just yet—she mightn’t ever be—Jessica studiously turned her attention away when she noticed their inquisitive gazes.
Seductive Scoundrels Series Books 4-6: A Regency Romance Page 26