by Ingrid Hahn
Except how could he make demands of her? He wanted children. There was but one way to beget the next generation.
Smiling, Eliza kissed the squirming pup again, her attention lost to the little creature in her arms. While he had dithered, his moment to speak had slipped away.
“It’s of no importance.” Of no importance, his ass. His inner self seethed at his cowardice.
In an effort to redeem himself, he took a step forward. The last time they’d been so close, he’d kissed her. He had a mind to do it again.
She must have sensed his intention, for her cheeks darkened. The pink of her blush set off her hair, which only made him think of seeing the locks freed about her shoulders. “My lady, if you don’t mind, I should very much like to…”
Not meeting his gaze, Eliza nodded and licked her lips, as if in anticipation. “Of course, my lord.”
The awkwardness didn’t diminish the need that had sprung up in him. Quite literally, in fact. What he wouldn’t have given to shut the door, turn her around, and take her hard and fast over the back of his chair.
One did not do such things to virgins, however.
Their lips met. She was warm and smelled like Eden itself.
It would have been far too easy to have gotten carried away. He broke away. Tonight…tonight he would do better. He bowed with more gallantry than he felt like displaying in the face of enough potent need to drive him half mad. “I’ll bid you a good rest of your day, my lady.”
…
“A visitor, my lord.”
At his desk, Jeremy set the letter down and attended Templeton. The butler’s expression gave no hint as to what Jeremy should expect. “Not my brother, I hope.”
Arthur had threatened to visit the couple after they were wed, which he undoubtedly would—when he wanted money.
“This young man says he has business with you concerning Miss Burke.”
Miss Burke?
Jeremy squinted. “Am I supposed to know this woman in question?”
Templeton gave him a rare look.
“Oh. Right.” Eliza before she had become his countess. So who was this young man? Surely not the man whom she’d professed to love.
A shadow fell over Jeremy’s mood, and a swirl of conflicting emotions made him scowl. Jealousy and possessiveness mingled with regret for his callous disregard of his now wife’s heart.
“Very well. I shall see him.”
Jeremy stood and tugged the bottom hem of his waistcoat and brushed at the sleeves of his wool jacket to remove any stray specks.
A young man with a rectangular head and an all too shiny expression came into the library. His cheeks were pink with pleasure, and he wore a red coat.
No. It couldn’t be. If Jeremy had married the woman this man loved, he would not appear so happy now. And he did look happy. Terribly so.
“You’re Lord Bennington, I assume?”
“Indeed.”
“I beg you to allow me the indulgence of shaking your hand, my lord.”
Before he could answer, the man had crossed the room and taken Jeremy’s hand within both of his own. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did, my lord.”
“For what I did?”
“For marrying her.”
Befuddled, Jeremy stared. “Forgive me, but you have me at a disadvantage, I’m afraid.”
“No, no. It’s I who should be asking your forgiveness. My name is Lieutenant Hart. Tom Hart. And I am entirely indebted to you, my lord. I can’t ever repay you.”
“Come to the point, Lieutenant.”
“For not marrying Christiana, of course.”
Jeremy froze. Not marrying Christiana? A rock lodged itself in the center of his stomach. A man couldn’t believe he was marrying one woman and instead marry an entirely different one. It wasn’t done. The scandal…
He couldn’t have heard correctly. “I’m sorry?”
Was it Jeremy’s imagination, or did the man’s grin actually widen?
“For not marrying Christiana. Miss Burke and I are to be married tomorrow. She’ll be of age, and…well, being together, it’s all we’ve dreamed of since…” The young lieutenant’s cheer faltered, his smile wavering. Some of the color faded from his cheeks. “Are you…” He cleared his throat, brows sinking. “Are you quite well, my lord?”
The last thing Jeremy needed was this young man—this stranger—seeing into his confusion. He couldn’t lash out. He wouldn’t. First, as of yet there was no evidence of his having colluded in any deception. Second, if there was one thing Jeremy relied upon, it was his capacity for control. A single slip was one too many.
“Forgive me, Lieutenant, but how did you get here so quickly?”
“Miss Burke and I have planned for several years to marry. We only had to wait for her to come of age. I was well on my way to London when she left. All I had to do was come a little farther—and no distance is too great where she is concerned.”
“I see.” Jeremy paused. The young man earnestly believed himself in love, didn’t he? Well, far be it for Jeremy to challenge a man on his feelings, however absurd they might be. “Why don’t you avail yourself of some refreshments? Are you staying in the village?”
Lieutenant Hart nodded. “At the Silver Lion, my lord.”
“I’ll send a messenger to pay your bill and have a room made up for you here.”
The young man turned serious. “Oh, I don’t think I could share a roof with Christiana before we’re wed. Miss Burke, I mean. ’Twouldn’t be proper. Thank you all the same, my lord.”
“In a house like Idlewood, Lieutenant, it will all be perfectly honorable, I promise you. You’re to be wed. You must allow me to share my hospitality. It’s the least I can do in wishing you joy.”
He stalked from the room to inform Templeton of the plans.
Afterward, in the silence of the corridor, he pressed a fist against the wall, letting the sturdy structure support part of his weight as he took slow breaths deep into his lungs.
This could not be happening.
It had to be something else. There had to be a misunderstanding. He had to have misheard. Misconstrued. Something. Anything but what it had sounded like.
His teeth clenched. He had to talk to his wife. But not until the first flush of anger had subsided. As much as he wanted to charge in to see her immediately, he well knew what a foolish decision it would be. He had to let his blood cool before he saw her. Because the one thing that mattered most was that he remain master over himself.
Chapter Ten
Eliza was in the breakfast room when Christiana joined her.
Christiana beamed.
“A dog! You have a dog!” She knelt on the floor and tussled with the little creature, who yipped with joy. “What’s her name?”
“Daisy.”
“Oh, how perfect!” Daisy bounced down and trotted over to Christiana. “Look at those lovely brown eyes.”
“Well…” Eliza went thoughtful a moment. It was difficult to look at the pup without sensing that under different circumstances she would have been grateful to marry the earl. She wasn’t sorry, not exactly. But she didn’t have the right to be happy. “Apparently, he’s male and I have to think of another name, but—”
“What a shame.”
“—I haven’t been able to think of anything.”
A few minutes later, over a plate piled with steaming food, her cousin opened a letter from a friend who was remaining in London until the end of the Season. While Eliza pushed food around her plate, Daisy remained by her feet, tongue lolling, eyes bright, in ever-vigilant hope of a crumb.
After last night, Eliza’s conscience weighed far too heavily to eat. She had a confession to make.
The breakfast room at Idlewood mocked her with its simple beauty and elegance. The azure walls, the perfect draperies in a complementary cream shade that could have been straight from Ackermann’s Repository, and the airy lines of the furniture. She was mistress of this place. But she had no
right to be.
What would become of her when she told Lord Bennington of her deception?
There were the jewels, of course. After keeping them all these years, it would be terrible to be forced to part with them. If, however, the choice was between destitution and a modest existence in some quiet, out-of-the-way place, she’d have to do exactly that. If her father were still alive, he would understand.
Abandoning the food, Eliza took Daisy into her arms and went to the windows. The morning mists were burning away, revealing the promise of a sun-soaked May day. How horrible.
From behind her came a choking sound. Eliza turned to her cousin, eyes wide. “What is it? Are you all right?”
Christiana’s cheeks had turned an alarming shade of red. She looked up from the letter over her spectacles, panic in her features. “It’s going around London. Someone found out, and it’s going around London.”
Eliza needed no explanation. Her insides filled with cold lead. If Lord Bennington heard what she’d done from anyone but her…
“Already?”
She kicked herself. She should have told him straightaway. He had a right to know—a right to hear it from her, not from anyone else—and every second she waited, the risk grew higher.
Her head went light. Hadn’t Templeton made mention of a visitor coming to see the earl earlier this morning?
Steady. The earl was a busy man. It could have been any number of people. She wouldn’t let her imagination gallop wildly ahead of any solid evidence.
Daisy in her arms, Eliza left the breakfast room in a resolute stride. But Lord Bennington wasn’t where she expected him. The library was empty.
Back in the corridor, she found the butler down at the other end, deep in discussion with the head footman.
“Mr. Templeton, if you please.” Both men stopped what they were doing to acknowledge her. “Where might I find his lordship?”
“I believe he’s gone for a turn in the gardens, my lady. Incidentally, his lordship asked me to tell you that he requires you to join him there as soon as you’re finished.”
Her stomach dropped. Why had she been such a foolish coward? She shouldn’t have waited. She should have told him everything without delay.
Eliza was still tying the ribbons to secure her bonnet when she slipped from the house onto the gray flagstones of a large terrace. Daisy followed at her heels.
Lord Bennington wasn’t visible. But the gardens were extensive. He could be anywhere.
She set out. Daisy immediately darted out down the path with a happy yip, ears flying. The dog stopped partway down to look back at Eliza. Then, apparently content, she turned her attention to a small pond rimmed in stone. She lapped the water, the silky plume of her tail wagging the entire time.
Despite everything, Eliza couldn’t help but smile. She’d had Daisy no more than a few hours, but the sweet creature was everything she’d wanted in an animal companion.
The earl must have gone to some trouble to transport the dog to Idlewood so quickly. Whatever was to come after her confession, she wasn’t going to be parted from Daisy. If the earl threw her out without the slightest compunction, the dog would come with her.
Eliza took a few steps then turned down a path lined with cherry laurel, the glossy leaves casting off the bright morning sunlight.
Perhaps tossing her out was the very worst case—the scenario for which she was trying to prepare herself to make the real consequences of her actions, whatever they would be, less dreadful.
The Landons being as averse to scandal as they were, it seemed unlikely that he’d do something so drastic.
Then again, she didn’t know the man. They’d shared two kisses—well, one and a half, more like—which didn’t mean much, no matter what they’d stirred in her.
And just like that, around the corner, she stopped short.
He was hunched close to the ground, attending something one of the gardeners was explaining. The bed before them had recently been dug up, piles of earth overturned to reveal a rich, deep brown. Wheelbarrows, uprooted plants, and various tools were strewn about the area.
The earl rose at the sight of her. The gardener straightened. He didn’t wait to be dismissed but excused himself with a bow.
Set against the blue sky with Idlewood behind him, Lord Bennington’s height seemed exaggerated. It had to be a trick of the mind—a manifestation of her fear. He was large, certainly, but not a giant.
Daisy ran to stand before Eliza’s feet and yipped as if protecting her—his, rather—mistress from a threat.
Which he might have been, for all Eliza knew.
When the earl spoke, his voice was low. “We need to talk, my lady. A young Lieutenant Hart arrived this morning and said something quite interesting.”
Her mouth went dry. The sun was suddenly too bright. The birds too horribly cheerful. The earl far too much of a stranger—a stranger she’d misled in a dreadful fashion.
But that wasn’t the worst of it, was it? If he was this angry now at discovering her deception, what would he do when she confessed her lack of virginity?
Captain Pearson’s words clawed at the inside of her skull. Why would any man want a whore like you? He had looked at her with such disgust.
She’d brought this upon herself. The very moment she’d put her name on the paper in answer to the earl’s demand that she tell him her name, she’d known there would be a reckoning.
And here it was.
…
Jeremy watched with cool interest. His wife’s expression was troubled, her color a bit too pale for the bright and beautiful day, and her composure distinctly disturbed.
Yet she still stood before him. That took some doing.
Whenever he witnessed a person doing what she didn’t want to do but was determined to do anyway, he couldn’t help but admire her.
“Whatever it is you have to say”—he spoke with quiet care—“I want to hear it.”
She looked down. “There’s something you ought to know.”
Jeremy’s abdominals clenched. Here it was. The admission. Was he ready to hear it?
The Landons had scandal in spades, and the previous earl wasn’t alone. He had company. Plenty of company. First, the old earl’s daughter Grace had had an accidental encounter in a storeroom with a man. That had set tongues dancing merrily, even though that man was now her husband. Then there was Phoebe. She’d married a rambunctious scoundrel whose sordid family history rivaled even the Landons’.
Unfortunately, it didn’t end there. Oh, no. There was also the business of yet another Landon sister, Isabel. Whom Jeremy couldn’t think about without becoming angry with his mother for having abetted her wild scheme. The consolation was that Isabel’s secret life remained unknown. So far. It was a house of cards waiting to be destroyed by the lightest breeze.
He braced himself. He’d worked too hard for too long to allow another scandal to harm the family. Unwittingly, he’d found himself in the middle of one. Marriage by deceit. That he could never forgive.
“I’m not Lady Rushworth’s ward.”
“No?” He didn’t feign surprise.
“No.”
Jeremy scowled, finally able to voice the question plaguing him since his conversation with young Hart. “Then who are you?”
It was a devil of a thing to have to ask one’s own wife. But he sincerely didn’t know.
“I’m her daughter.”
Chapter Eleven
The air vanished from Jeremy’s lungs. It was as if he’d been punched in the gut.
Her daughter? Eliza was Lady Rushworth’s daughter?
Dear sweet holy heaven. He’d married the daughter of the person who hated him most in all the world.
A swift flood of boiling anger threatened to drown him. Part of him wanted to laugh. Another part wanted to slam his fist into stone and shatter rock to dissipate the violent assault of rage. His teeth clenched, and he was trembling as he fought for air. “You deceived me. In the worst possi
ble way.”
She paled and bent her head. “I know.”
“Are you not sorry for what you’ve done?”
She raised her head, eyes shining with defiance. “I couldn’t let you marry Christiana. She loves Tom.”
Jeremy had not expected this. In light of this startling revelation, he must maintain control. He’d spent far too long gaining mastery over the hotheaded youth who’d used a wooden sword on an innocent tree to vent his anger and frustration. He wasn’t under anyone else’s domination. He was the master now. And when the time came, he’d be nothing like his own father had been to him.
It was by far the biggest test he’d endured in some time. Perhaps even his biggest test to date. “It’s about her? You did this to me for her?”
“Yes.”
It was too simple. He wanted…well, he didn’t know what he wanted. But it wasn’t this. “That’s it, then? You cared so much for your cousin’s future that you sacrificed your own?”
“I have no future, my lord.”
Something about the way she spoke the lines—plainly, but with a measure of resignation—the sadness of her words pricked against the cold husk of his heart. He waved as if to at once dismiss the sensation and the notion. “That’s absurd. You’re the daughter of an earl, are you not? And an heiress.”
She only pressed her lips together. “I wasn’t doing terribly on my own. Spinsterhood agreed with me, I dare say.”
His instinct to smash something warred with the last vestiges of rational thought that screamed at him to maintain control—especially in front of her. Somehow he’d stepped close enough to be looming over her. Close enough, too, to catch the scent of roses on her.
A breeze swept through, rustling the detritus strewn about the ground. In the wind, the fabric of her skirts clung about her legs, revealing their length and shape. Jeremy’s stance must have upset the dog he’d given her, for the creature abandoned the stray leaves he’d been chasing and came to stand at Eliza’s feet, staring at Jeremy as if protecting his mistress.
“We’re not going to talk about this here in the middle of the gardens.” Jeremy tempered his tone, taking a deep lungful of air in an attempt to burst free of the vines of rage squeezing the breath out of him. “Let’s go to the orangery.”