Hayden raked a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “After Phillipe fled, everything was a blur. I was half crazed myself. I remember sweeping Justine up in my arms and carrying her through the town house. All I could think about was getting her out of that bed where she had… where they had…” His hands clenched into fists. “She still didn’t realize what had happened. I remember the feel of her cuddled against my chest, the way her arms curled so trustingly around my neck just as they had a hundred times before. She gazed up into my eyes and told me how sorry she was for the cruel things she’d said, the hurtful things she’d done. She told me how much she loved me, how grateful she was to me for giving her the chance to prove that love.”
He unclenched his hands, studying them as if they belonged to a stranger. “For one fleeting instant, as I gazed down into those beautiful eyes of hers, I wanted to strangle the life from her, if only to spare her the knowledge of what she had done—what she’d done to us.”
“But you didn’t,” Lottie said fiercely, rising from the divan.
He watched her approach, his eyes wary. “I have no need of your pity, my lady, and I certainly don’t deserve your absolution.”
“I don’t pity you,” she said calmly. “I envy you.”
“Envy?” He snorted in disbelief. “Are you mad as well?”
She shook her head. “Most people go through their entire lives and never know a love like the one you and Justine shared.”
Hayden rolled his eyes toward the skylight. “Dear Lord in heaven, deliver me from the romantic notions of schoolgirls. If that was love,” he all but spat, “then I want no part of it ever again. It does nothing but destroy everything in its path.”
“It hasn’t destroyed you or your daughter. Yet.”
“Are you so sure of that? You heard Allegra tonight. She despises me.”
Lottie rested her hands on her hips. “Oh, really? Is that why she goes into hysterics at the mere mention of being sent away from you? Is that why she snuck into this room and masqueraded as a ghost in the desperate hope that you would be the one to walk through those doors, not me? Why, the only way she knew how to get your attention was by dressing up as her dead mother!”
For a long moment, Hayden could only blink at her in disbelief. “That’s ridiculous! Whenever I try to give her my attention, she flings it back in my face, just as she did the doll I had made for her.”
“That’s because she doesn’t want dolls or expensive toys from you. She wants you to look at her! She wants you to really look at her, just once, without seeing Justine!”
Lottie couldn’t have said when her voice rose to a shout. She just knew that somehow they’d ended up standing toe-to-toe, so close she could feel the heat roiling off of his body and smell the crisp, rich scent of his bayberry soap.
Hayden reached down and twined one of her long, golden curls around his fingertip, his voice growing dangerously soft. “What about you, Carlotta? What do you want?”
Lottie wanted him to look at her, just once, without seeing Justine.
She wanted him to assure her that she wasn’t falling in love with a murderer.
But most of all, she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to stand on tiptoe and claim that wary mouth of his for her very own. She wanted to kiss him until all the ghosts—both Justine and that phantom of his younger self—had been banished from the room. She wanted to twine her arms around his neck, press herself against him, and remind him just how warm and giving living flesh could be.
So she did.
Chapter 15
How could my treacherous flesh crave the touch of a murderer?
HAYDEN STIFFENED IN SHOCK AS LOTTIE’S lips brushed his jaw, scattering soft kisses all along its rigid curve. He closed his eyes, a muscle working in his throat, as her lips sought the corner of his mouth. But it was the bold flick of her tongue against that vulnerable spot that made him groan, coaxed his mouth into melting against hers, no longer able to resist the carnal innocence of such a kiss.
Wrapping his arms around Lottie, Hayden slanted his mouth over hers, thrusting his tongue deep into the silky heat of her mouth. Her tongue curled around his, maddening him with its wordless promise of pleasure. Pleasure he had denied himself for far too long. Somewhere in his mind, love and loss had become inextricably intertwined. But Lottie was seeking to give, not take, and he was powerless to resist such a generous offer.
Until he glanced up to find Justine laughing down at him, mocking him for succumbing to the very temptation that had once proved his ruin.
Hayden thrust himself away from Lottie, struggling to catch his breath. If he dared to look at her in the moonlight with the spun gold of her hair tumbling down her back, her lush lips moist and swollen from his kisses, her misty blue eyes imploring, he knew they’d both be lost. He’d have her beneath him on the divan, her nightdress rucked up around her waist, before she could draw another breath.
“I already told you once,” he said, his voice so harsh he barely recognized it himself, “I neither want nor deserve your pity.”
“Is that all you think I have to offer you—pity?”
Hayden closed his eyes, steeling himself against the husky catch in her voice. “I’m sure you have much to offer, my lady. But I have nothing to give you in return.”
“Because you gave it all to her.”
Even as his silence condemned him in her eyes, Hayden could not resist stealing one last look at Lottie.
Although her eyes glistened with unshed tears, that stubborn little chin of hers had lost none of its determination. “Then I hope the two of you will be very happy together. I’m beginning to believe you deserve each other.”
With those words, his wife turned and walked stiffly from the room, much as his daughter had done earlier in that cursed day.
Biting off an oath, Hayden swept one of the porcelain shepherdesses off the mantel and hurled it at Justine’s portrait with all of his might. The figurine shattered against the canvas without leaving a single mark on her angelic face.
The next morning Lottie sat on a rock near the edge of the cliff, the hem of her skirts whipping in the wind. She wanted to cry, but she knew the wind would only snatch the tears from her face before they could fall. So she simply gazed out to sea, her heart aching and her eyes burning with unshed tears. She wondered if Justine had ever sat in this very spot, gazing down upon the jagged rocks that would end her life.
Lottie was beginning to realize just what a colossal fool she had been since coming to Oakwylde. She had thought to banish all the ghosts from the manor, never taking into consideration that it wasn’t Hayden’s house that was haunted, but his heart. Despite all of her bravado, she did not know how to fight an enemy she could not see.
Watching the breakers swirl around the rocks, she wondered how it must feel to be loved with that kind of all-consuming passion. How could a man destroy something he loved so much? But passion and jealous rage often went hand in hand, she reminded herself. The hunger to possess was all too often coupled with the drive to destroy what refused to be possessed.
“Justine,” she whispered bitterly, searching the cloudswept sky. “Why did you have to take all of his secrets to your grave?”
She closed her eyes, wondering if she was imagining the faint hint of jasmine that perfumed the wind.
When she opened them, Allegra was standing there, clutching Lottie’s doll in her arms. As usual, she didn’t bother with pleasantries, but simply blurted out, “Father says I’m to be allowed into the music room to practice the piano whenever I like.”
Although her expression was no less dour than it normally was, the girl somehow managed to look as happy as Lottie had ever seen her. Perversely enough, it was Hayden’s kindness, not his rebuff that finally prompted the tears in Lottie’s eyes to well over.
“That’s marvelous,” she said, dashing away a tear before Allegra could see it. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Then why are you crying?” the child asked,
creeping nearer.
“I’m not crying,” Lottie insisted. “The wind just blew a speck of dirt in my eye.” But to her dismay, the tears began to spill down her cheeks faster than she could dash them away.
“No, it didn’t,” Allegra said accusingly. “You’re crying.”
No longer able to dispute the obvious, Lottie buried her face in her hands to muffle her sobs.
She was startled to feel the weight of a small hand on her shoulder. “Why are you crying?” Allegra asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Was someone mean to you? Someone besides me?”
That earned her a strangled hiccup of laughter. Lottie lifted her head, smiling at the child through watery eyes. “No one was mean to me. I’m just feeling a little sad today.”
“Here.” Allegra shoved the doll at Lottie. “When I’m sad, sometimes I squeeze her very tightly and it makes me feel better.”
Caught off guard by the child’s unexpected generosity, Lottie took her old doll and gave it a wary squeeze. Surprisingly enough, she did feel a little better. But not nearly as good as she felt when Allegra slipped one small hand into hers.
“The two of us were just about to have breakfast,” Allegra informed her. “Why don’t you join us? Unless you’re too sad to be hungry, that is.”
Lottie stared at their joined hands. Hayden might not have need of her, but perhaps his daughter did.
Wiping away the last of her tears, she allowed Allegra to tug her to her feet. “Don’t be silly,” she said, swinging the girl’s hand in hers as they started for the house. “I’m never too anything to be hungry.”
Hayden St. Clair was being haunted.
This spirit was much more tenacious than any found between the pages of a Gothic thriller. It didn’t wail like a banshee or shine mysterious lights from the window of some deserted chamber. It never rattled chains after midnight or drifted up and down the corridors of the manor in the moonlight with its severed head beneath its arm. Nor did it play ghostly melodies on the piano in the music room or wake him out of a sound sleep with a whiff of fragrance that should have dissipated years ago.
On the contrary, it haunted his every waking moment, boldly laying claim to each room of his home until there was nowhere he could flee to escape it.
He had his first inkling of its presence a few days after his moonlight encounter with Lottie in the music room. He was passing by the drawing room when he heard a most astonishing sound. He froze in his tracks, cocking his head to listen. The sound wasn’t completely foreign to him. He had heard it many times before, but so long ago that it was like a song remembered from a dream.
His daughter was giggling.
Unable to resist the siren lure of the sound, he retraced his steps and warily peered around the archway that framed the drawing room door.
Lottie, Harriet, Allegra, and Lottie’s scruffy old doll were all gathered around a teak-inlaid table, partaking of afternoon tea. They each wore elaborate hats festooned with a colorful array of feathers, ribbons, flowers, and cobwebs. Hayden did a double take when he spotted the stuffed parrot perched on the shoulder of Lottie’s doll. The mangy bird perfectly complemented both her eye patch and her leering smirk. The doll required only a cutlass in her dainty little hand and she would be ready to sail the bounding main.
Even Mirabella wore a hat—a baby bonnet of ivory lace, its satin bow tied beneath her furry chin. Allegra held the squirming kitten in her lap to keep it from bolting, giggling every time the creature reached up to bat at the ribbons dangling from her own hat.
Apparently, Hayden was the only one who hadn’t received a formal invitation to the tea party. Three of the kittens Lottie had given him stood on the table, lapping cream from a china saucer, while their yellow sibling chased its own tail around a table leg.
As Allegra added a ruffled petticoat to Mirabella’s elegant ensemble, Pumpkin and Mr. Wiggles went streaking past Hayden, obviously fearing they were in danger of being subjected to similar indignities. Hayden knew he would be wise to follow. Yet still he lingered, reluctant to abandon the charming chaos of the scene.
He hadn’t counted on the yellow kitten spotting him. Before he could slip away, it came trotting toward him, mewing at the top of its tiny pink lungs.
“Traitor,” Hayden muttered, nudging it away with his foot.
But it was too late. The smiles had vanished. The merry chatter had ceased. Miss Dimwinkle looked as if she were trying to choke on a mouthful of scone. If she succeeded, Hayden assumed he’d be required to add the burden of another untimely death to his conscience.
Lottie blew a wayward feather out of her eyes, surveying him coolly and looking every inch the lady of the manor in her tulle-and-cobweb draped hat and her fingerless lace mittens. “Good afternoon, my lord. Would you care to join us?”
Allegra buried her sullen face in Mirabella’s fur as if she could care less whether or not he accepted Lottie’s invitation. Hayden was the only one who knew it hadn’t been an invitation, but a direct challenge— one Lottie obviously expected him to refuse.
He returned her mocking gaze with one of his own. “You won’t make me wear a bonnet, will you?”
“Not unless you choose to.”
Lottie drew the only remaining stool up to the table and poured him a cup of tea. Hayden dutifully sat, but bounded quickly back to his feet when the stool let out a protesting yowl. Gritting his teeth, he swept the yellow kitten off the stool and onto the rug. It immediately clawed its way back up his leg, snagging his doeskin trousers, and curled up in his lap, purring madly. Hayden draped a napkin over it and tried to pretend it wasn’t there.
The stool was far too short for him. Every attempt he made to fold his long legs beneath it failed miserably. He finally had to content himself with stretching his legs to the side, which brought them in dangerous proximity to Lottie’s trim ankles. Her shapely limbs might be swathed in layers of petticoats, pantalettes, and stockings, but that didn’t stop him from imagining how sleek and warm they would feel wrapped around his waist.
“Would you care for some cream?” Lottie asked.
Jerking his gaze away from the curve of her calf, Hayden eyed the cream pitcher askance. The black kitten was teetering on its lip. Even as he watched, it lost its balance and went plunging into the milky froth. Before Allegra could rescue it, it scrambled back out and gave itself a dazed shake, scattering drops of cream all over the front of Hayden’s waistcoat.
“No, thank you,” he murmured, watching it lick its whiskers clean with fastidious care. “I believe I shall pass.”
“We borrowed the hats from the attic.” Lottie offered him his teacup, her haughty tone all but daring him to protest. “I hope you don’t mind. Allegra said they belonged to her mother.”
“Not all of them.” Hayden pointed to the lace-trimmed bonnet framing Mirabella’s cantankerous little face. “If memory serves me correctly, that one once belonged to me.”
Allegra cupped a hand over her mouth to suppress an involuntary giggle. “You wore a bonnet?”
“I most certainly did. But it wouldn’t have been so mortifying if your grandmother hadn’t insisted on having my portrait painted in it while she dandled me on her knee. I must confess that at the time I had curls that would rival your own.”
Allegra looked doubtful. “I’ve never seen such a painting.”
“Nor will you,” Hayden assured her, taking a sip of his tea. “I ‘accidentally’ spilled some lamp oil on it and set the hateful thing afire when I was around your age.”
“That was quite clever of you,” Allegra blurted out. Ducking her head so that her hair shielded her face, she returned her attention to stuffing Mirabella’s hind legs into a pair of doll’s pantalettes.
“Have you any other youthful indiscretions you’d care to share with us?” Lottie asked, her blue eyes all innocence as she pinched off a bite of scone and tucked it between her lips.
Hayden fought the overpowering urge to lean over and lick away the dab of clotted cr
eam at the corner of her mouth. “One doesn’t have to be a youth to commit indiscretions,” he replied, refusing to surrender her gaze. “Some temptations, however foolhardy, only sweeten with age.”
Blinking at them both from behind a pair of oversized spectacles loaned to her by one of the servants, Harriet snatched up a handful of iced tea cakes, obviously hoping that if she kept her own mouth full, Hayden wouldn’t address her directly.
“So tell me, Miss Dimwinkle,” he said pleasantly after she’d crammed them all in her mouth, “are you enjoying your stay in Cornwall?”
Harriet lowered her tea, her hand trembling so violently that the cup rattled against the saucer. “Oh, very much, my lord,” she mumbled around a mouthful of cake. “I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am to you for writing my parents and asking them to allow me to stay on here as a companion to Lottie. Why, if you’d have sent me packing back to Kent, I would have simply di—” Harriet stopped talking and chewing at the same time, her expression horrified.
“Died?” Hayden gently offered, hoping to help her swallow before she did just that.
From out of nowhere, Allegra suddenly said, “Lottie’s mama died when Lottie was only three. She burned up in a fire. Lottie doesn’t even remember what she looked like. Isn’t that sad?”
Hayden stole a look at his wife. She looked as puzzled as he felt. “Yes, it is,” he agreed with utter sincerity. “Terribly sad.”
Still refusing to look at any of them, Allegra rocked Mirabella in the crook of her arm like an ill-tempered, overdressed baby. “Lottie said I should be thankful that I remember my mama.”
Hayden felt his throat tighten. “And so you should,” he finally managed to choke out, speaking of Justine to his daughter for the first time since her death. “She loved you very much.”
Awkwardly shoving back the stool, he stood. The yellow kitten rolled to the floor, shooting him a wounded look. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have business I must attend to. I’m sure you’ll be eager to get back to your lessons after tea.”
One Night of Scandal (Avon Historical Romance) Page 18