He yanked her to him before she could think of denying him.
This kiss wasn’t gentle. There was no coaxing or teasing or easy slide into warmth. His mouth slanted over hers and took it. His breath was hot, his scent as intoxicating as the whiskey she’d sampled the night before. The rasp of stubble against sensitive skin made her shiver. The skillful pressure of his lips and smooth glide of his tongue made her tremble.
His hand cupped the nape of her neck, angling her head to his liking . . . and hers.
The world spun away. And just as quickly righted itself when laughter erupted directly on the other side of the arbor.
Mrs. Cress. The tour. A wave of panic washed over her.
She froze, her mouth open an inch from Connor’s lips.
Connor moved. In a single fluid motion, he pulled them both out from the shelter of the arbor and into full view of a dozen guests.
Which is precisely when her world begin to spin away once more, and this time, there would be no righting it.
Chapter 5
Adelaide was surrounded by a sea of wide eyes, gaping mouths, and a silence so absolute it was deafening.
She tore herself away from Connor and then stood there, as red-faced as any of the guests . . . with the possible exception of Sir Robert, whose skin wore scarlet blooms that were expanding with disconcerting speed.
Never in her life had she known such mortification, not even when she’d tossed up her accounts on the shoes of the vicar’s son in front of the entire congregation. She’d been twelve then, old enough to know what mortification was, and still young enough to be certain she could die of the affliction.
Oh, how she wished she’d been right. Because in comparison to what she was facing now, ruining a young man’s footwear was really but a slight embarrassment. And if there was ever a time a young lady ought to be able to die of shame, it was when half the guests of a house party, including her almost-fiancé, caught said lady tossing away her family’s future in exchange for a kiss . . . from a near stranger.
A stranger who had compromised her on purpose.
“What have you done?” she whispered in a daze.
Connor’s voice floated softly over her head. “I’ve saved you.”
Thoughts of her own death were immediately replaced by visions of his. If there was ever a time a young lady ought to be able to get away with murder . . .
“You—”
The list of vile names she had on the tip of her tongue was lost in the sudden explosion of noise from the guests. They found their voices, all at once, and assailed her with a volley of questions and demands.
She stammered and rushed, trying to address them all at once.
“I demand an explanation!”
“You shall have one, Sir Robert. I—”
“Good heavens, child, what were you thinking?”
“If you would allow me to explain, Mrs. Cress. We—”
“La, I never expected it of Miss Ward.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. She had no response to that.
“Connor?” Lady Engsly, a pretty woman with kind blue eyes and dark hair, appeared in a small gap between the shoulders of two guests. It was another moment before her husband, the Marquess of Engsly, stepped aside and the rest of her became visible. “Connor? What on earth are you doing here?”
“Never mind that.” Lady Engsly’s sister-in-law, Lady Winnefred, fought her way to the front of the crowd, her amber eyes wide with fascination. “How did you get out of prison?”
Adelaide was sure she hadn’t heard the young woman correctly. “What did . . . Prison?”
“Little Freddie,” Connor drawled, “always so tactful.”
She had heard correctly. It hadn’t seemed possible for things to become any worse . . . but there it was. She’d been compromised by an escaped convict.
“Prison?” The word was barely more than a squeak, but it was a wonder she managed even that because, honestly—Prison?!
Mrs. Cress gave Connor a quick looking over. “I do not recall issuing you an invitation, sir.”
Connor returned her censure with an eloquent bow. “I beg your pardon, madam. I assumed Sir Robert’s was extended to his family.”
“We are not family,” Sir Robert barked. Several heads, including Adelaide’s, snapped from Connor’s, to Sir Robert’s, and back again.
“You’re related?” someone asked.
“Absolutely not!” Sir Robert’s face had gone from mottled to uniformly purple. Adelaide fully expected him to begin foaming at the mouth at any moment.
“Brother,” Connor drawled, “you wound me.”
“Brother?” She turned to Sir Robert. “You’ve an escaped convict for a brother?”
Not the most pertinent question at the moment, but it did a fair job of turning attention away from her . . . Until Mrs. Cress turned to her and said, “You have an escaped convict for a lover?”
“She does not,” Connor said stiffly. He even looked a little offended on her behalf, which was rather nice. Surprising, but nice. “I was released.”
Oh, the rotter.
“This man is not my . . . my . . .” She couldn’t even say it. Surely the guests could see that a lady incapable of even saying the word “lover” was highly unlikely to possess one. She looked from expectant face to expectant face. Apparently, they didn’t see. “He is not. Mr. Brice took advantage of . . .” Of her willingness to sneak away into the garden to meet with him. “What I mean to say is . . . I was not expecting . . .” Only she had rather been hoping. “That is. . .”
Lady Engsly took pity on her. “Perhaps we should discuss this inside.”
“There is nothing to discuss.” Sir Robert stepped forward and slapped Connor across the face with his glove.
The challenge elicited gasps from several of the guests, a roll of the eyes from both Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred, and—unless Adelaide was much mistaken—an amused snort from Lady Winnefred’s husband, Lord Gideon.
Connor met the challenge with a long, chilling silence followed by the single most menacing smile Adelaide had ever seen.
“Name your weapon,” he said at length. His tone was frigid, and he stared at Sir Robert as if he were imagining running the man through on the spot.
A shiver skittered along Adelaide’s skin. This was not the Connor who had teased and laughed with her in the garden. This was not the kind gentleman who had patiently listened to her plans and dreams. This man was . . . Well, she had no idea who or what this man was, except terrifying.
Sir Robert paled, spluttered a moment, and finally managed a shaky, “That . . . is not how it is done.”
“You pick the weapon,” some idiot explained.
“Fists,” Connor growled. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than tearing you apart with my bare hands.”
“Good gracious,” someone breathed.
“Such brutality,” someone else said with unmistakable relish. Adelaide guessed it was the same helpful idiot who had set Connor straight on the rules.
Sir Robert’s swallow was audible. “That . . . is also not how it is done.”
Lady Engsly appeared to be one of the few people present who was not morbidly enthralled by the scene.
“Oh, what stupidity,” she said on a huff. “Duel, indeed.”
Adelaide was inclined to agree. “Enough. There will be no duel.” She wedged herself between the men and faced Connor. “Mr. Brice, this is not help—”
She broke off mid-word when Connor grasped her by the shoulders, lifted her off her feet, and simply set her aside . . . all without taking his eyes off of Sir Robert. It was as if she didn’t exist.
And all she could think was: Now? Now, he chose to pretend not to see her, when it wouldn’t do either of them a speck of good? He couldn’t have brushed her aside last night, this morning, five bloody minutes ago?
She heard Lord Engsly sigh a moment before he walked forward into her line of sight. He was an imposing figure, both a
s the highest-ranking member of the house party and as a man in his physical prime.
“Miss Ward is correct. There will be no duel,” he announced.
Sir Robert immediately stepped back from Connor and began to replace his glove. “If you insist.”
Every head in the group swiveled to Sir Robert in perfect unison, an unusual bit of choreography Adelaide was able to note by virtue of her eyes going very, very wide.
Insist? There had been no insisting. A hint of chiding, perhaps. A clear note of impatience. But nary a whisper of insistence.
“Well, that was very quick,” someone commented.
“Instantaneous, really,” Lady Winnefred said.
Mrs. Cress leaned toward her and whispered, “This does not bode well for you, my dear.”
Indeed, it did not. A duel was out of the question, of course. It was illegal, immoral, and as Lady Engsly had pointed out, stupid. But there wasn’t a soul present who would be willing to believe Sir Robert had capitulated for any of those reasons. Not now.
Sir Robert had backed down because he’d reconsidered the value of her honor. There would be no offer of marriage. No five thousand pounds a year. No secure future for her family.
Or perhaps he was simply a coward.
Please, please let him be a coward, she thought, and she immediately wondered if any woman before her had ever prayed for the existence of such a dreadful attribute in a bridegroom.
Had it come to this, then? Had she lost all sense of hope? Was marriage to a coward now the most advantageous match she could expect? She refused to believe it.
I am not pathetic.
I am not without worth.
I can do better for my family than this.
“I . . .” She began in a loud voice. All eyes turned to her, and she realized, belatedly, that she couldn’t announce to all and sundry what she had been thinking. “Am . . . going inside.”
And with that spectacularly feeble finish, she turned and strode toward the house without any clear idea of what she would do once she reached it. Go to her room, pack her things, leave for home, and wait there until it was time to go to the poorhouse. That was the best she could come up with at present.
She knew she was being followed by everyone, but it was only Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred who made the effort to catch up with her. They flanked her like a pair of guards.
“There is a study off the library,” Lady Engsly said. “May I suggest we—”
“I am going home.” She kept her eyes on the house and increased her pace.
“I understand you’re upset, Miss Ward,” Lady Engsly said, “but it would be better for you, and your family, if you settled matters before you left.”
The mention of family silenced the dissent on the tip of her tongue. A vision of George and Isobel formed in her mind. She couldn’t imagine how such a mess could be settled, but she owed it to them to at least try.
“The study, then.”
“A wise decision,” Lady Engsly said placidly. “Our husbands will mediate on your behalf, if you like.”
She threw a surprised glance at the lady. “They would do that?”
Lady Winnefred brushed impatiently at one of many light brown locks of hair that had slipped from their pins. “Yes, of course. They’re quite fond of you.”
Adelaide blinked at that admission. She hardly knew them, really. It was their wives with whom she’d begun to develop a friendship over the last few months. Adelaide said a small prayer of thanks for that friendship. Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred were clever, sensible, and levelheaded women. More, they were the only ladies who hadn’t eyed her a moment ago like a temporarily amusing but ultimately pitiable creature. And the only two who weren’t even now trailing behind her like starving dogs after raw meat.
“I would be grateful for their assistance.”
She doubted the marquess and his brother would welcome the responsibility, but even reluctant interference was better than dealing with Connor and Sir Robert on her own.
Lady Winnefred nodded and sidled closer to speak in a low tone. “Perhaps you would like to slow your steps, so that your champions might keep pace.”
If Adelaide had not already been shamefaced, she would have blushed. Lord Gideon was as fit as his brother, but an old war injury required the use of a cane. A quick glance over her shoulder told her he was keeping up well enough, but the pace couldn’t be comfortable for him. Nor for Mrs. Cress, who also required the assistance of a walking stick.
She slowed down for Lord Gideon’s sake. Mrs. Cress she would have been happy to leave behind.
Doing her best to ignore her audience, she pushed through a side door and turned her feet toward the study door.
Lady Winnefred caught her arm. “Wait a moment.”
“What for?”
“Your pride, of course.” She gestured at Lady Engsly, who’d stepped over to confer with Lord Engsly and Lord Gideon. “She’ll only be a minute and then—”
Lord Engsly nodded and stepped away from his wife. “Mrs. Cress, would you be so kind as to take the guests . . . elsewhere?”
There was a murmur of discontent amongst the guests, and Mrs. Cress’s round face scrunched in annoyance. Clearly, no one wished to miss the next chapter of the sordid tale. One didn’t argue with a marquess, however, not even in one’s own home. After a bit of cane thumping, a harrumph, and finally a heavy sigh of resignation, Mrs. Cress began to herd the disgruntled guests down the hall.
“The two of you as well,” Lord Gideon told his wife and Lady Engsly.
“We shall leave that for Miss Ward to decide,” Lady Engsly said.
Adelaide’s immediate inclination was to make as many people as possible go away. She changed her mind, however, after looking over who would be left if the ladies were sent away—Lord Engsly, Lord Gideon, Connor, and Sir Robert. A marquess, the marquess’s brother, the man who’d compromised her, and the man she’d betrayed.
“Oh, please, do stay.”
Chapter 6
The study’s dark paneling, slivered windows, and oversized mahogany furniture gave Adelaide the impression she was walking into a crowded cave. Uncertain of what to do with herself, she stood in the middle of the room while Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred took seats on a small settee, Lord Engsly and Lord Gideon positioned themselves in front of the desk, and Connor leaned a shoulder against a bookshelf.
Sir Robert stopped three feet inside the door.
“I would have a word with Miss Ward before we begin,” he announced suddenly. “And I would have that word alone.”
“No.” The sharp refusal came from Connor.
“Miss Ward?” Lady Engsly prompted.
Adelaide considered it. She’d faced his censure in public; there was nothing to be gained by facing it in private as well.
“I would prefer we speak here.”
Sir Robert sighed the sigh of an eternally beleaguered man, but he didn’t argue. He walked to the middle of the room, took her hand, and held it between his own.
“Miss Ward,” he began, “you have my most sincere and abject apology.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He nodded thoughtfully and patted her hand. “I have told you some of my family’s story, but much of it . . . most of it, I kept hidden from you out of fear of disgrace. And now, my selfish reticence has put you in grave danger. This man”—he flicked an accusing glance at Connor—“is indeed, and to my family’s eternal shame, an offspring of my father’s.”
“He’s not cattle,” Lady Winnefred muttered just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
Connor flashed a brief smile. “Thank you, Freddie.”
“Don’t talk to my wife,” Lord Gideon ordered.
Sir Robert squeezed her hand. “Connor Brice is a most depraved individual. Until recently, however, he was safely removed from society.”
“He had me tossed into prison for a crime I did not commit,” Connor translated.
“His imprisonment w
as of his own doing,” Sir Robert insisted. “He is a violent man, Miss Ward. And consumed with jealousy of me. His lowborn mother poisoned his mind with—”
“Mention my mother again,” Connor said darkly, “and we’ll be getting round to that duel after all.”
Sir Robert cleared his throat but didn’t respond to Connor. “He nurtures a bitter hatred of me. Nothing would give him more pleasure than to destroy all I hold dear.”
“That’s true,” Connor agreed easily.
Sir Robert pretended to ignore him, but the new burgeoning flush of red on his neck betrayed the lie. “Knowing his nature and his capacity for cruelty, I kept watch over him during his incarceration. But his whereabouts were lost to me after his recent release. I—”
“What he means to say,” Connor broke in, “is that he had half the prison guards in his pocket.” He answered Sir Robert’s glare with a mocking curl of the lip. “Pity for you it wasn’t the clever half.”
The red expanded to Sir Robert’s face. He spun on Connor. “You have no proof of such a—”
“You have no idea what I have proof of.”
“I will see you—!”
“You were apologizing, Sir Robert?” Adelaide punctuated the quick interruption with a firm tug on Sir Robert’s hand.
He looked to her, to Connor, and back again. “Right. Yes, of course. I beg your pardon.” He took a deep breath, held it, and released. Adelaide was surprised to smell brandy. “I was apologizing because it is on my head that this . . . this libertine, this cad, this—”
Lady Engsly cut him off. “We have established your opinion of the gentleman, Sir Robert.”
“Of course.” Another long, dramatic breath. “What happened today is entirely my fault. I should have taken better care. I should have known he would seek out and attempt to injure what I hold of value. I failed to warn you, and I failed to protect you. I do, and shall always, regret this error bitterly. I can only beg your forgiveness now and plead for the opportunity to make amends.”
This speech was met with silence by the group, with the exception of Connor, who muttered something that sounded rather like, “Bravo.”
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