Saved by Scandal's Heir

by Janice Preston

  Then he realised. Other than the need to satisfy his own curiosity, it did not matter for, whatever the truth, it would not change the fact that he and Harriet were to marry.

  He stood up. ‘Thank you for attending me, Mr Swain, and yes, please do get on with drawing up a new deed. I shall instruct you later as to the amounts as I intend also to include a house for her ladyship’s use if she should survive me. I will summon you again if I have any further questions.’

  He actually had a thousand more questions swarming through his brain, but he doubted the solicitor could answer the question that was uppermost in his mind: the burning question of why Malcolm had provided a dowry for the local vicar’s daughter.

  ‘Very good, sir.’ Swain stood up and brushed both hands over the seat of his trousers.

  Swain left and Benedict sat back, hands laced behind his head. The myriad doubts that had hovered beneath the surface of his conscious mind now untangled themselves, fighting their way free of the restraint of his longing to simply trust her.

  Why had Malcolm paid Harriet’s dowry? Many reasons came to him, and most were dismissed. The few possibilities remaining were the ones he liked least. And the thought that floated to the surface time after time churned his gut with anger, jealousy and despair. He knew Malcolm had a taste for young girls. Had Harriet succumbed to him? Had she, once he had returned to Cambridge after that last glorious summer they had spent together, become embroiled in his cousin’s sordid sex games? She was a passionate woman. That was undeniable. Had that passion, once he had awakened it, driven her to seek excitement?

  He was loath to believe it. It did not tally with her reputation as a virtuous widow, but who knew what really went on in another’s life? And her behaviour at the masquerade... If he had not been there, would she have targeted some other man to flirt with? Or more?

  Growling an oath, he shoved his chair back and stood. It was time to ask Harriet.

  During the journey to Sackville Street his thoughts turned to the future and what this marriage between himself and Harriet would be like. Last night, at the musical evening, he had watched Matthew and Eleanor—besotted with one another, gloriously happy—and the same envy he had felt before had infused him. Could he and Harriet ever be that happy? Or would their shared past always be a barrier between them? He could only hope not.

  Stevens showed Benedict into Harriet’s salon, and she came to him, hands outstretched, smiling.

  ‘This is a pleasant surprise. I did not expect you to call this morning.’ Then she hesitated, her hands falling to her sides. ‘What is it? What is wrong?’

  ‘I have a question, and I want to know the truth.’

  She stilled. Not a single muscle in her face so much as twitched but, somehow, her expression blanked. Her guard was raised.

  ‘What is your question?’

  ‘It is about your allowance—the one that Brierley pays you.’

  Her fair brows drew together into a puzzled frown. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Why did you not tell me my cousin settled a sum of money on you when you married Brierley?’

  ‘I...I do not know what you mean.’ She sank onto the sofa behind her, staring up at him, her eyes huge in her pale face. ‘Your cousin? Do you mean Sir Malcolm? What sum of money? Who told you that?’ She sounded genuinely perplexed.

  ‘My solicitor, when I consulted him today about drawing up our marriage settlement. He told me that when you married Brierley, Sir Malcolm provided your dowry.

  ‘I want to know why.’

  * * *

  Harriet tried desperately to take in what Benedict was telling her. What did it mean? Sir Malcolm had provided a dowry? For her? But...

  ‘No. I had no dowry. My father was poor. He could not pay a dowry.’

  She was uncomfortably aware that Benedict was watching her closely. Too closely, his green eyes narrow. He was suspicious, but of what? What had he to be suspicious of? He was the one who had abandoned her. She remembered as if it were yesterday the agonising pain when her father had told her of his interview with Sir Malcolm and Benedict, and of Benedict’s refusal to take responsibility for her and their baby. Yet he appeared to have wiped that from his mind.

  How delightful it must be to have no conscience.

  She loved him, she no longer denied it, but she still could not forgive him and that memory festered. She longed to shout at him, to scream out her anger and frustration over what he had done to her, and yet she could not process her thoughts swiftly enough to work out what reaction that might provoke. What if it caused him to break off their betrothal? What would she do then, and how...how...could she survive if he rejected her again?

  One day—when she was brave enough, and strong enough, to broach the subject—she would have to tell him the truth of how she felt. But once that truth was spoken, would there be any future for them? Could they work together to rebuild her trust in him, or would their troubled past destroy any hope of a happy life together?

  At the masquerade, she had been certain marriage to Benedict would solve all her problems. And so it would—her practical problems. But what of her feelings, and what of his? Her emotions pushed and pulled at her heart until she could no longer be sure what was for the best and what it was she really wanted.

  She could not decide what to say for the best, and so she said nothing.

  She waited.

  Benedict paced the room before he returned to tower over her. She tensed against the instinct to shrink away from him.

  ‘Why did Malcolm settle such a large sum on you?’

  ‘I do not know. I did not know that the money came from your cousin.’

  Uncertainty churned her insides. Why is he angry? Shadows from the past rose up to haunt her. Is it my fault?

  Benedict paced the room again as he continued to fire questions at her.

  ‘So you did know there was a settlement.’

  ‘No. Yes.’ She remembered the dreadful meeting with Mr Drake. ‘But I only found out recently—that day you came to my aid outside the solicitor’s office. I assumed the money was settled on me by my husband.’

  ‘Did you never think to ask?’

  ‘I... No. I—’

  ‘Why were the dividends paid to Brierley?’

  Her head was spinning. She gripped her hands so tightly together in her lap her knuckles turned white. ‘I don’t know.’

  What had Mr Drake told her? There was a condition attached to the settlement, that Brierley would pass the dividends onto Harriet as long as she did nothing bring the Brierley name into disrepute. Except, of course, her late husband had never seen fit to pay her those dividends.

  Nausea churned her stomach and forced its way higher to burn her throat as she felt the full weight of her worthlessness bear down upon her. She tore her hands apart and pressed her fingers to her lips to prevent a sob from escaping. Benedict had not wanted her—still did not want her, not truly—and Brierley, that lecherous, brutish old goat, would not even take her without a handsome bribe.

  ‘You must ask Edward,’ she said finally, for want of something better to say. ‘I know nothing more than I have already told you.’

  She rubbed her hand across her forehead and rose to her feet, her legs shaking. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I am unwell. I must go and lie down.’

  Benedict was by her side in an instant. He scooped up her hands and clasped them to his chest. ‘No, do not say sorry. It is I who must apologise,’ he said. ‘I have done nothing but fire questions at you since my arrival. I will do as you suggest, and talk to Brierley.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘What did Edward say?’ Harriet asked later, as she and Benedict travelled in his carriage to dinner at Stanton House in Cavendish Square.

  ‘He was at the Lords,’ Benedict said, ‘taking
part in a debate that’s expected to continue into the small hours. I left him a message that I will call on him tomorrow morning.’

  Harriet had spent all afternoon sifting through the past in the light of the information that Sir Malcolm had paid Brierley to marry her. She should be accustomed to humiliation. No wonder Brierley’s favourite taunt had been that Harriet belonged to him, body and soul. But, if she considered the transaction from Brierley’s position, it made sense. He would be faced with the expense of raising another man’s child except, in the end, it had cost him nothing. But it had cost her everything.

  She cast a glance at Benedict. He was frowning. Again. It appeared to be his constant expression since Kitty’s ball, she realised with a start. He was not happy about their betrothal, that was clear, but what she could not fathom was why he was so incredulous that Sir Malcolm had paid money to provide for her. He knew she had been with child. What had he expected? Did he think when he rejected her that there would be no further consequences, and that his guardian would cast her adrift with no means of support, like so many gentlemen did to their maidservants in the same circumstances?

  The incredulity that had smouldered ever since Benedict had told her about the dowry finally sparked into rage, exploding through her. This was Benedict, not Brierley. She must not fear punishment for speaking her mind. If he objected to her words enough to break off their betrothal, then so be it. Better to live a pauper than to constantly fear to voice her opinion.

  ‘Why do you persist with this fantasy? Is it really so unbelievable that your guardian paid Brierley to marry me?’

  Benedict stiffened before twisting to face her. ‘Fantasy? What is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I mean that you are making this into a drama when you know damned well why he did it. You might not have been told that he had provided financial support for me, but you must be able to work it out.

  ‘Not speaking of a thing does not mean it did not happen, Benedict, or have you managed to completely wipe the past from your memory?’

  * * *

  Benedict hauled in a deep breath, battening down the urge to grab Harriet by the shoulders and shake her meaning from her. A glance out of the window revealed the carriage was even now approaching Cavendish Square. He rapped the ceiling of the carriage with his cane and it drew to a halt. He opened the door and leaned out to speak to the coachman. The carriage lurched on its way, and Benedict sat down.

  ‘I’ve told Atkins to take a turn around the park,’ he said, ‘whilst you explain to me exactly what you are talking about.’

  He crossed his arms across his chest and waited. Harriet’s ragged breathing was loud in the carriage, but he battled his instinct to take her in his arms and soothe her distress. Or was it anger? Whichever it was, she had spoken from the heart and she must continue to do so if he was ever to learn the truth of the past.

  ‘The money was for the baby.’

  The air whooshed from his lungs. Baby? He could not speak. His heart jolted and lurched in his chest as her words reverberated right through him. No. It could not be. But... He dragged in a tortured breath, his chest swelling and burning with the effort. He looked back over the years... They had been inseparable, confident in the throes of first love and the unassailable belief of youth that nothing could spoil their vision for the future. They had made love. The first time, for each of them...

  ‘What baby?’ His voice was strained as it emerged from his thick throat.

  ‘Our baby.’ She glared at him. ‘Do not pretend you did not know. Papa told me.’

  His thoughts charged onward, skimming over what had taken place that summer and the following autumn: the best, followed by the worst, time of his life. He had blocked what had happened from his mind for the most part; he had not examined those events but buried them securely in a compartment in the depths of his mind. Now he must bring them into the light and look again. What was the truth?

  He had returned from Cambridge that Christmas to find her gone. Had he ever questioned Malcolm’s glib announcement that she had married Brierley for his title and for the riches he could provide?

  ‘What did your father tell you?’

  ‘He told me what you said to him.’ Tears sparkled in her eyes and glistened on her lashes. ‘I w-was a bit of f-fun. You were sowing your wild oats.’ The disgust in her voice affected him even more than even those words did. ‘Y-you wanted n-nothing to do with m-me or...or our b-baby.’

  Fury blacker than he had ever known thundered through Benedict. He clenched his fist and slammed it into the carriage door, which shivered in its frame. The carriage once more lurched to a halt. Damn and blast it! He stuck his head from the door again. ‘Keep driving until I tell you to stop!’

  He turned to Harriet, who sat shaking, her arms wrapped around her torso, head bowed.

  ‘It’s not true.’

  She lifted her head and glared at him. ‘Papa wouldn’t lie. Not about something like that.’

  He sat down again, prised her arms away from her body and enfolded her in his arms. ‘I am not lying to you, Harry. I knew nothing about the baby. What... But where is the baby?’

  Tremors racked her body and a sob escaped her.

  ‘Harriet?’

  ‘She—she died. Before she was even born.’

  Benedict freed one of his hands to scrub it over his face. He couldn’t take it in. He’d only just learned he’d fathered a baby, and now it was as if she had been snatched from his arms. Grief engulfed him for a tiny life he had not even known existed until a few minutes ago.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ His words sounded harsher than he intended. He cupped Harriet under the chin and forced her head up to meet his gaze. ‘Why?’

  ‘You knew!’

  ‘Harriet...no. I didn’t know. I swear.’

  Before his eyes, she withdrew, retreating behind a mask that foiled the eye of the observer quite as effectively as the mask she had worn for the masquerade.

  ‘Talk to me, Harriet, please. I—’

  ‘We will be late,’ she said. ‘Richard and Felicity are expecting us.’

  Richard! The same jealousy spiked through him and burst from him before he could consider his words. ‘Stanton! Heaven forbid we upset Stanton. Are the rumours true? Is he your lover?’

  She jerked away from his touch. ‘We are not lovers.’

  ‘But you were?’

  ‘That is neither here nor there.’ Her voice wobbled.

  He worked hard to tamp down his anger and moderate his tone. ‘We should go home and talk about this.’

  ‘I am not ready to talk about it. Not yet.’

  ‘How much time do you need? You’ve had eleven years to think about it...to talk about—’

  ‘I’ve had eleven years of not talking about it. To anyone. Do you understand?’ A bitter laugh escaped her. ‘No, of course you do not. You have had eleven years of living a life of blissful ignorance. Now, please, may we continue to Cavendish Square? I do not want to be late.’

  To look at her, nobody would now suspect anything was wrong. She hadn’t been that way when he’d first known her—he had often joked she was like an open book—but since they had met again, there had only been an occasional glimpse of the spirited Harriet he used to know. Such as just now, when she had lost her temper. Why did she retreat behind a mask whenever there was a danger of confrontation or whenever her emotions ran high? It was as though she was scared of letting go...of saying what she really thought. She had erected a barrier as effective as a brick wall, and he could not find a way to breach it.

  Or could he? He could take her in his arms and kiss her, encourage her to talk about her deepest feelings...but would it be a mistake to push her now, at a time when both of their feelings were raw and time was limited? He was afraid of widening the gap between them rather than brea
ching it. Maybe it would be better to tackle it tomorrow, when they’d both had time to calm down.

  As he instructed the coachman to drive back to Cavendish Square he promised himself that tomorrow morning—early—they would sit down and they would talk this thing through.

  And then he would take her in his arms and kiss her and tell her—for the first time in eleven years—how much he loved her.

  * * *

  What was she to do?

  Harriet sat in her boudoir, gazing unseeingly from the window, until the rosy light of dawn fingered the rooftops opposite. She was numb, her brain frozen with indecision. She had picked over her memories until the bones of the past were stripped bare. Either Papa had lied or Benedict now lied. She wanted neither of those two to be true. And that was impossible.

  How she had survived the evening before without screaming out her pain and frustration she did not know. But she had. And her heart had twisted a little tighter each time she’d observed Matthew and Eleanor or Richard and Felicity together, and recognised the love that bound them, shining out for all to see. She had watched Benedict, too. Read the signs of strain in his features; traced with her eyes the furrows on his brow; recognised his discontent in the downward turn of his mouth.

  He escorted her home from the Stantons’ house in near silence, depositing her at her home and then leaving in his carriage. And Harriet had climbed the stairs and dismissed Janet and had sat and thought.

  It was not just their argument about the baby and about Stanton that had caused Benedict’s low mood. He had been frowning and unhappy before that—she had noticed it more than once since Kitty’s ball. And the thought crept unbidden into her mind that she was the cause. She viewed the decisions she had made and the actions she had taken since Benedict’s return to London and she reached the conclusion she was no better than Bridget Marstone.

  Oh, she could fool herself that she had not deliberately trapped him into a proposal at Kitty’s ball. She had convinced herself at the time that the whole farce was his fault because he’d followed her into Edward’s library. And yet...she could not deny she’d deliberately set out to seduce Benedict on the night of the masquerade with every intention of prising a proposal from him—because she’d felt aggrieved, because she’d blamed him for everything that had gone wrong in her life and because she’d thought he deserved to suffer as she had.