by Deana James
"You can't just come in here," the butler began.
"Let him come, Millard." The Earl of Larnaervon opened the door of his study and stepped out.
"There he is, Captain," Sebastian cried. "Do your duty."
The young man hesitated uneasily. The earl cut an imposing figure in his black velvet coat, his long hair spreading over his shoulders.
"Do your duty, Captain MacPherson," Sebastian repeated, coming to a halt in front of the earl. His normally plump face was pinched with cold. A fever blister had popped out on his mouth and his lower lip was misshapen. "You have a warrant. Serve it."
The earl smiled unpleasantly. "I should be very sure that I was doing the right thing, Captain. Otherwise, you may be very sorry indeed before this business is over."
MacPherson needed no second warning. He was already thoroughly unhappy at being included in the expedition.
"Now, Mr. Dawlish." The justice sidled forward to put out a timid hand and pluck at Sebastian's sleeve. "Surely there is some misunderstanding here. Let's all keep our tempers and allow his lordship to explain. I'm sure it's a mistake that he can easily explain. You can, can't you?" He looked hopefully at the earl.
Rowling stepped in front of the timorous justice. "Misunderstanding indeed," he declared in his best oratorical style. "Kidnapping is not so easily explained. The lady was abducted. We have every reason to believe she was brought here."
"Oh, my sweet lady," Frances keened. "Kidnapped. Kidnapped right out of her hotel room. Right from under my eyes." She joined the group surrounding the earl, who stood stiffly, his hands folded over the top of his cane, his mouth twisted wryly. "You monster." She brandished her gloved fist. "What have you done with my lady?"
The earl's look would have melted chilled steel. "What lady might you have the presumption to call yours, madam?"
A real lady's maid would have cowered, completely intimidated by the earl's fierce demeanor, but Frances Eads had long ago rid herself of timidity and shame. "Why, Lady Marleigh, that's who! I’ve taken care of the sweet helpless child since she was a wee one."
"You lie," the earl declared. "Sebastian Dawlish hired you within the year before Miss Marleigh's illness. Before that, you had never been close to a lady, let alone served one." His dark cold eyes stared at Frances until her fist wavered and she flushed and stirred uneasily. " ‘Tis strange to think how the illness came upon her so shortly after your arrival."
The statement had the effect of a lightning bolt striking in the room. Thomas Penstaff gasped and covered his mouth with his hand. The garrison captain stiffened. His keen eyes shifted from the earl to Dawlish, whose face reddened. The solicitor cleared his throat noisily and rocked back on his heels.
Frances's composure slipped. Her eyes darted to Dawlish, then dropped to the floor. Her mouth set in a sullen line. "I'm sure I didn't have anything to do with her catching pneumonia."
The earl did not deign to make her an answer, instead he signaled to Millard to escort them through to the downstairs parlor, a gloomy, dusty room, with no heat whatsoever. Emma Felders came from the foot of the stairs. "Tell Vivian that her guardian is herewith an army to take her prisoner. Be particularly sure to tell her that they have brought the Eads woman with them."
"Yes, milord."
The quick look Frances Eads shot the lawyer was not lost on the garrison captain.
The earl remained standing in the hallway as the quintet looked round them in dismay, their breaths fogging before their faces. "Please to make yourselves comfortable," he invited, his smile a mockery. "I have sent Mrs. Felders to summon my son and new daughter-in-law, so you may confront them together."
"New daughter-in-law!"
"Oh, my precious lady."
"See here!"
"She can't marry without my consent."
"You will understand when I do not remain with you. My health is frail and the draughts of this room do an injury to my limbs." Larne stepped back over the threshold, and Millard closed the door on the storm of protests.
************************************
"They've come for you," Emma Felders said, her pinch-purse mouth spread in a malicious smile. "You'll be going with them I expect. Back where you belong."
Vivian did not pretend not to understand. A chill ran up her spine. Dawlish, of course, but who else? She wrote the question on the pad and thrust it under the housekeeper's sharp nose.
"Larne said to tell you that the Eads woman was among them below. And a couple of gentlemen, official by the look of them. There's a garrison captain in his full dress uniform, poking his nose into everything. I told his lordship the minute you bead rattlers walked through the door, you'd be trouble. But he wouldn't let his wife go off without a show. What did he care if the old bitch died? They'd hated each other for years."
Not waiting to listen to more of Mrs. Felders cruel and indiscreet remarks, Vivian picked up her skirts and hurried from the room. Halfway down the stairs she halted and clutched the banister with cold fingers.
The earl stood in the hall, his white hair overspread his black-clad shoulders. His black trousered legs and his gold-headed cane planted to form a triangle for balance. He looked immovable and infinitely menacing. "So," he said, "Sebastian calls and you come running."
She shook her head faintly; her mind spun in confused circles. What am I doing?
"You choose Dawlish and Rowling and Frances Eads," he sneered. "You must really believe that marriage to my son is a fate worse than death."
She shook her head again.
"I won't stop you," he sneered. "Come right down. Walk right into the parlor like a foolish fly into the spider's web."
Vivian took a step backward, then another. Her own sense of helplessness made her ill. Her voice. Her voice. If she could only find her voice. As it was she could not utter a single protest.
Behind the earl, the door to the parlor opened. Sebastian Dawlish stuck his head out. "Vivian!"
She backed another step.
The earl did not turn his head. He merely looked up at her, his mouth curved in a malicious grin.
"Vivian! Come here! The marriage can be annulled!" Sebastian called. He dashed to the foot of the stairs.
Behind him came Rowling, his voice quavering slightly with anxiety. "My dear Miss Marleigh, I'm sure you've put a wrong complexion on the whole affair."
The earl laughed nastily. "I'm sure she put exactly the right complexion on the whole affair."
"Vivian!" Sebastian started up the stairs, but the earl's cane shot out.
"No man goes up these stairs except by my express invitation."
Frances Eads came up on the other side, a seraphic smile on her face. "Shall I come up and help you get dressed, milady? The way I used to?"
Vivian retreated shaking her head.
The young captain of the guard stood in the threshold of the parlor taking in the scene. She caught his eyes, warm with sympathy. But he did not know whom to believe. He could never help her.
"Vivian!"
"Miss Marleigh."
"Please, milady. Let me help you."
All were lying. All of them. But she could not return with Sebastian. That way was sure disaster.
"The way you did before." The earl sneered at Frances. "Drugs in her tea. And how did she suddenly become so ill? Near to death, so I was informed, when she was taken to the abbey?"
"She had a bout with pneumonia," Frances insisted doggedly. "It just weakened her. I didn't have nothing to do with makin' her sick." Her cultered accent began to slip in her confusion.
"Frances, shut your mouth," Sebastian ordered. "Of course, you didn't have anything to do with making poor Vivian sick. She's always been sickly."
At his words Vivian turned and fled. Fled for her life, certain that if she fell into their hands she would be put away forever. At least here with the earl, she might have some chance. Some chance however slim was better than none.
Sebastian wheeled on the earl. "I have a warrant. The court has ordere
d her to go with me. She's my ward. You have no right to marry her to your son. The marriage isn't legal anyway."
"Ah, but it is. I assure you," the earl rejoined. "She was married today at noon by the good priest from St. Anselm's. I have the papers."
"Then the marriage hasn't been consummated." Sebastian seized upon the point immediately. "It can be annulled. Isn't that right, Pikestaff?"
"Er—Penstaff." The justice came forward. "I don't think ... That is, I don't know that—”
"The marriage hasn't been consummated," Rowling finished for him in disgust. He started up the stairs. "Bring her down here and let's be on our way."
"Do you have a warrant to go up those stairs?" the earl demanded. "What say you, Captain MacPherson? Are they in possession of a warrant?"
The captain shook his head. "I haven't seen one so far."
Dawlish shot him a scalding look. "Penstaff, do your duty."
"But-I—”
"For the lord's sake!" Dawlish was practically dancing up and down in his fury. "Take this idiot some place where he can sit down and tell him what to write."
Rowling took the little man by the shoulder and turned him back into the parlor. Dawlish and the captain followed them. Frances Eads put one foot on the first riser, but the earl hissed so viciously in her ear that she jumped back and scurried after them.
************************************
In her room Vivian wrapped her arms tight around her body. She had only minutes before her guardian would take charge again. Minutes while a timorous little man wrote a document dictated by her own solicitor. And taken to a madhouse. She shuddered. Her teeth chattered. Her knees threatened to give way. The earl had given her the very briefest of respites. She had only minutes to save herself.
A terrible idea took shape in her mind. Like a drowning person clutching at a single spar in a maelstrom, she embraced the thought.
The viscount was in his room. He had to be. Throwing the trailing blue velvet riding skirt over her arm, she bolted down the hall. She knocked at the door, but did not wait for him to answer. Instead she slipped inside and closed the door behind her.
He was sitting in his chair before the fire, a brandy glass in his hand. Watkins had helped him off with his coat, vest, and shirt and was dabbing at the hideous bruise on his shoulder. A single trickle of dark blood ran over his white skin. The bicep of his muscular arm bulged beneath that skin.
Vivian swallowed, pressing her fists against her waist. Fear and heat, surprising in their intensity, curled in her belly. His chest was so wide; the dark hairs, thick in the center, emphasized its flat planes. The bicep jumped beneath Watkins's hand as the valet started at her unexpected entry. With strength like that, he could take hold of her—
A hideous embarrassment drained the color from Vivian's cheeks. She had come here in her desperate need. Yet how could she convey it to him? The idea of writing, of committing to paper what she wanted, what she wanted him to do to her drove the breath from her body.
Conscious of the sharply disapproving looks from both him and the valet, she opened her mouth to suck in air. She took a deep controlling breath and let it out slowly. Dropping the skirt of her riding habit, she allowed it to trail behind her as she crossed to Piers's side and took the cloth from Watkins's hand.
Piers stared at her white face. He took a swallow of brandy. "What the hell do you want?"
Vivian made a dismissing gesture to Watkins.
The man looked to the viscount for confirmation. When Piers nodded, he bowed slightly and left the room. Lifting the brandy to his lips again, Piers stared at her curiously.
His scrutiny making her more nervous than ever, Vivian washed the blood from his skin, conscious that this man was her husband. Dipping her fingers into the jar of salve, she smoothed it on, feeling the heat in his skin.
"Your fingers are cold," he observed without inflection.
She lifted them away, then shrugged helplessly.
"What did you come for?"
She shook her head, her eyes haunted.
Throughout the entire process, his eyes never left her face. As she was screwing the lid on the jar, he raised one dark eyebrow. "To what do I owe this 'wifely' concern? Don't pretend with me. Begin as you mean to go on."
Drawing on steel deep inside her, she managed to plaster a tentative smile on her stiff lips.
His dark eyes narrowed. "What are you up to?"
Her kiss answered his question. She had never kissed a man of her own volition. But she pressed her lips clumsily to his. His mouth was open to question her, a startled exclamation turned to a gasp. She pursed her lips against his and his tongue slid between them. The intrusion startled her. She jerked her head back.
His eyes were still open. His tongue slid provocatively over his lower lip. "The amateur wife?"
Tremors began deep in her belly. Her knees were close to buckling. Yet she could not pull away. She must somehow do what she had come to do. The alternative was prison in a hell too terrible for her imagining. Lowering her mouth to his again, she brushed his lips.
He grunted shortly and pushed her away. "What the hell are you about?"
She smiled and reached for the strip of linen that Watkins had laid by. Her fingers trailed across his skin as she placed the pad tenderly on the wound. She lifted his arm, so she could pass the strip under his armpit and bind the pad in place. Her fingers touched his chest, so near the aureola of his nipple that it tightened. Her eyes flew to his face, fearful of the tiger she was rousing.
He gasped, his nostrils dilating as his blood began to heat. In the firelight his pupils glittered beneath the dark fan of his lashes. "What have you come for?"
She finished the knot, tucked the ends under the edges of the bandage and lifted his hand. While he watched, she hesitated. Her index finger trembled. Then she pressed it down into his palm. "Love."
"Write that again," he ordered gruffly.
She flinched. "Love."
"You love me?" He snorted. "Permit me to doubt that."
She shook her head slowly. Again she wrote, "Love."
He stared at her, suspicion darkening his eyes, cynicism curling his mouth. "You want me to make love to you?"
She nodded. Her hands began to tremble. Her fingers felt icy. She longed to thrust them into her skirts, hold them out to the fire, anything to break the terrible contact with his.
He set the brandy glass down. "Now? Here?"
She did not nod. Instead she wrote, "Yes."
Rage so fearful flamed in his face that she tried to fling herself backward, but he caught her wrists and dragged her down to her knees in front of him. Her face was white with fear as she twisted to free herself.
"You! Come to me here in my room and try to seduce me?"
She struggled impotently against him. Her eyes burned as tears threatened to overflow.
"My father must have been deceived in you. He said you were a frightened virgin. But you're not frightened."
She shook her head, trying desperately to free her hand. She could not answer him unless she could write.
Effectively as a gag, he gathered her wrists together in one of his hard hands and caught her chin. Their faces were inches apart as he studied her. Contempt blazed in his dark eyes. "Are you pregnant with someone else's child? Sebby's perhaps?"
How could he guess at such a thing? She had never considered that her coming here would lead him to assume something so horrible. She tried to shake her head against his hand.
He felt the movement. "Not Sebby's. Not foolish, pitiful Sebby's."
She managed to wrest one hand free. Her nail scratched at his wrist.
"She-devil!" He let her go abruptly.
She caught his wrist and scratched.
"Damn you! Get a pencil and paper if you want to tell me something."
Her fear made her awkward. She tried to rise, fell back, tried again. Her feet slipped, her ankles twisted, tangled in the heavy folds of her velvet skirt.
He groaned and held up his hand. "Stop. Just calm down." He picked up the brandy glass. "I’ll try to ask the right questions. Just nod your head if I'm right, and shake it if I'm wrong." He looked down at her floundering in the folds of her dress. "You can do that, can't you?"
At that moment she hated him with all her heart and soul. He had dragged her down there, then mocked her clumsiness.
He took a long drink and rubbed his bruised shoulder gently. "First." He pointed a long finger at her. "And tell me the truth on your life. Are you trying to foist someone's bastard off on me?"
She shook her head and grabbed at his hand.
He caught it back out of her reach. "None of that. I’ll ask the questions, and you'll answer me without clawing me to ribbons."
She subsided, clenching her hands in the folds of her skirt.
He took a sip of brandy and regarded her steadily. She dropped her eyes to a spot of the floor beside his boot, then shifted them abruptly to the blazing hearth as she realized she was staring at a spot of his blood. Her flaming cheeks whitened. "Did the earl send you?"
She shook her head.
"You came of your own free will? This was your idea?" he asked incredulously. "Pull the other one."
She nodded hastily.
"No."
"Yes." Her lips formed the word, then breath passed between them, but no sound came.