“Then marry me.”
Claudia froze. Neither one of them moved for a moment until she suddenly began to slap his arm away from her waist as if it were a snake and staggered free of him. She was frightened now, truly frightened—for a man like Julian to offer marriage … “You are insane!” she said harshly, and pressed her hands to her abdomen to keep the tremors from erupting into illness.
“Claudia, listen to me! I have compromised you irrevocably. I should not be able to live with myself if I did not set the matter to rights, and I daresay you will suffer the most from it. Think about it—it’s a good match, you and I. We know each other quite well—what more could we ask?”
“You can’t be serious!” she cried, and moved unsteadily, frantically into the shadows. What did he think, that after all he had done she would waltz to the altar with him? So what if he had been seen latched to her naked breast? Such things happened all the time among the ton, and everyone knew it! It was a meaningless dalliance, nothing more!
“Listen to me, Claudia. This will ruin your reputation—”
“Oh God, don’t try and convince me that you would save my reputation!” Hysteria was rising in her throat, choking her. She pressed her hands to her cheeks—they were blazing. Her father would kill her, or at the very least, lock her away. How many times had he told her? Everything she did reflected on him, and therefore, the king …
Julian was suddenly beside her, his hand anxiously on her arm. “What options do you have? You must consider your reputation, and there is your father’s position with the king—at the very least I owe you the protection of my name. It’s not a bad solution, Claudia, and really, it’s the best one.”
Lord God, she couldn’t breathe, much less think. It was all so fantastic, so very absurd! She would not marry for the mistake of sampling carnal pleasure! Men did it all the time—why couldn’t she? Why should her reputation suffer for it? His certainly wouldn’t! “I will not bend to the outdated expectations of the ton in this!” she exclaimed wildly. “I will not be forced into marriage because of some ridiculous fear for my reputation. Your reputation won’t suffer as a result!”
“But yours will, Claudia. They will cut you directly, refer to you in reprehensible terms in their parlors, and by all means, keep their children from you for fear your behavior will infect them. You know it is true. It is the way of our world.”
Our world. It had happened to Sarah Cafferty. Seduced into a lord’s bed, disgraced and banished to the country, unmarriageable, untouchable. God help her, it had happened to Sarah Cafferty, the daughter of a marquis, and it could happen to her. Oh Lord, oh Lord, why had she succumbed to the temptation of passion with him? To be brought down by him, just as Phillip had been, all because she desired his kiss!
Claudia had never felt so despicably low in all her life.
“You know I’m right. Look, let me go out and bring a carriage around. Let’s quit this place—we’ll go some place private and talk. But we can’t stay here—”
“There is nothing to talk about,” she bit out. “I won’t marry you, Julian. Not ever.”
Silence.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and cringed—his eyes were blazing. “Indeed it is not the ideal circumstance, but I cannot think of what you could possibly—”
“I will not marry you over such a silly, meaningless mistake, but moreover, I will not marry you because I honor Phillip!”
“What has Phillip to do with any of it?” he snapped. “I don’t think he is coming to your rescue, Claudia! Mother of God, what can I say to make you understand? You, Lady Claudia, the daughter of the very powerful Earl of Redbourne, were seen on this bench, beneath a man—”
“Beneath a man who prides himself on being a rake! Beneath a man who led another man to his death! I will not forget what you did to Phillip, and I will not fetter myself to you for all eternity because of it. I shall face ruination before I dishonor his memory!”
Stunned, Julian took a step backward as if she had slapped him. “What in God’s name are you talking about?” he asked roughly.
“You kept him from me!” she cried hysterically. “You kept him from me and coerced him into accompanying you to all those places that ruined him! Albright may have shot him, Julian, but you put him in that field!”
Raw pain hardened his features; he glared at her, his black eyes gleaming with the fire of abomination, his lips pressed tightly together. He finally looked away, clearly disgusted, and shoved a hand through his hair as Claudia caught a ragged breath in her throat.
“No one believes that more than I do,” he muttered angrily. “God knows, when Phillip was on top of a whore at Farantino’s or putting himself further into debt he was not with you. You are right—I killed him. I, Julian Dane, led him to his demise, and tonight I almost met my own. Thank you, Lady Claudia, for stopping me from making the biggest mistake of my life.”
Claudia gaped at him, unable to speak.
“Good luck—you are going to need all that you can get,” he said bitterly, and quit the hothouse, leaving her to find her own way out of this mess.
Ten
THE EARL OF REDBOURNE heard the first ugly rumor concerning his daughter not two days after the alleged incident had occurred. He was seated in a chair turned toward the great hearth at his club, sipping his usual port and languidly puffing on a cigar when he had the grave misfortune to overhear a snippet of what Sir Robert Clyde was loudly bragging. Having indulged in a half dozen too many brandies, Sir Clyde apparently did not know that Redbourne was sitting where he was, or else he would never have said what he did—that he, too, had once tasted the lips of Lady Claudia, and would have tasted all of her had they had but a moment more in the coach.
Shocked, Redbourne did not even realize he had dropped his port and come to his feet—his only thought was that Sir Clyde had just uttered the grounds of his own death warrant. And Redbourne would have called him out then and there, but his old friend Lord Hatfield intercepted him, pulled him away, and quietly told him of the tale that was circulating freely among the ton.
The news that Claudia had been caught in flagrante delicto at a Harrison Green affair had rendered Redbourne speechless. Staring at Hatfield, he slowly sank into the leather wingback chair, shaking like a leaf.
It was inconceivable—his daughter would never do such a thing! He frantically reminded himself that Claudia had been raised in the best of circumstances, had been perfectly trained for her role as a peer’s wife and hostess. It simply was not possible that she would allow herself to be pawed by a despicable Rogue of Regent Street, and especially not Julian Dane!
It was incomprehensible.
And he repeated that over and over as he hurried home, intent on hearing what had transpired at that rout from his daughter’s own lips. He would hear it all, then think what to do to keep the ugly rumors from spreading too far—to the king, for godsakes!
He arrived home at the same time Lord Montfort’s footman was leaving. Standing in the foyer, Redbourne gestured for the note the man had brought. It was addressed to Claudia. Redbourne opened it, feeling not one scintilla of guilt—she was still his daughter and his responsibility, and as such, her mail was open to his inspection. He quickly scanned the vellum and felt his pulse begin to quicken with dread. The note very politely conveyed that, due to unforeseen circumstances, Lord Montfort would not be making a donation to Claudia’s charitable project. No other explanation was given, nor was one needed.
Redbourne’s pulse jumped erratically.
Montfort was a wealthy man. The unforeseen circumstances he referred to were the rumors of Claudia’s hideous display of loose morals. Frankly, Redbourne would have done the same in Montfort’s shoes—if Claudia couldn’t be trusted with her own chastity, she could hardly be trusted with the man’s money. What frightened Redbourne most was the unanswered question of just how many people knew.
He found her in her sitting room with a servant’s daughter—Redbo
urne couldn’t remember precisely which servant—in whom Claudia had taken a particular interest. He had chalked it up to her being five and twenty and still unmarried, and wished she would just agree to marry one of the half dozen suitors who regularly sought him out and bear her own child. Claudia and the girl were sitting side by side on a lawn green couch, an atlas spread across their laps.
Surprise flit across Claudia’s face as he entered, turning into a beatific smile. “Papa! How wonderful that you should join us!”
Redbourne glanced at the girl. “Run along and find your mama.”
The girl looked hesitantly at Claudia, whose smile slowly faded. She nodded to the girl. “Let’s continue tomorrow, shall we? There now, off you go—your mother is in the kitchen with Mr. Randall.” The girl slid off the couch, peering intently at Redbourne as if she had never seen a grown man before, walked slowly to the door, then reluctantly slipped out.
He waited until the door had shut behind her before turning to look at Claudia. Her lovely face tilted up to him, and he was struck with the disappointing notion that it was such a waste of beauty. “I understand you had a rather fine time of it at Green’s latest soiree.”
All of the color suddenly drained from her face. “W-what?”
Deny it. Tell me it is an abominable lie. Redbourne walked farther into the room, crumpling the note from Montfort. “Rumors apparently abound that you were discovered alone with a man in a rather … compromising position. Is that true?”
For a moment, Redbourne feared she might actually be ill. She could not possibly have done this—her reaction was one of shock and dismay that such horrid things would be said about her. When she found her breath, she would beg him to bring all his power to bear on whomever had started this despicable lie.
“It is true,” she murmured. “I am so very sorry, Papa.”
Marshall Whitney’s world tilted. Staring at his flesh and blood, he refused to accept that this child of his could have slandered his name with such careless depravity. It could not be true! “With Kettering?” he heard himself ask with great disbelief. “On a bench beneath him, your breasts exposed?”
Wincing painfully, Claudia shamefully averted her gaze from him.
Redbourne stumbled to a chair, his mind racing. If the king heard of this disgrace, he might very well have him removed from the Privy Council. Worse yet, he would be the laughingstock of every club in London—his daughter, a whore!
“Papa, I—”
“No!” he said sharply, throwing up a hand. “Do not speak!” Taking several deep breaths, he fought for composure. He had never lifted a hand to Claudia, but if the gel ever deserved a sound thrashing, it was now. “Why?” he finally managed. “Why would you degrade yourself?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered miserably.
Furious, Redbourne jerked his head up and glared at her. “You don’t know?”
Claudia remained silent.
“I have given you all that I can, raised you in the best of circumstances. How could you throw it all away? And for … for the sake of lust? What kind of woman are you? Why in God’s name did you do it?”
A sob caught in her throat as she glanced heavenward. “I don’t know! I thought … I mean to say I wanted to know—”
“I don’t want to hear it!” He suddenly vaulted from the chair and began pacing furiously. “I don’t want to know what madness overcame you! I never saw such lascivious behavior in your mother! God, Claudia, have you any idea what you’ve done? You’ve ruined everything! Do you think any of your suitors will call again? Believe me, they will not—no one will make a match with a woman disgraced by her own lust! Look at this!” He lifted Montfort’s crumpled note for her to see. “You have already put your charitable endeavors in jeopardy!” He tossed the note at her, hitting her squarely in the chest.
She did not pick it up from her lap. “I am not disgraced! Kettering is not disgraced, so why—”
“Kettering will pay the piper, you may depend on it! I won’t allow him to succeed in bringing this humiliation upon my house!”
“What do you mean?” Claudia asked breathlessly. “W-what do you intend to do?”
Redbourne scowled at her. “He shall marry you,” he said low. “I will see to it that he makes a legitimate whore of you!”
She recoiled physically, and for a scant moment, Redbourne almost regretted his words. Almost. But her ungodly lust had brought scandal to his pristine name, and by God, she would know the consequence of her folly!
“I won’t marry him, Papa.”
After what she had done, she would defy him? For the first time in his life, Redbourne could hardly stand to look at his daughter. “You will do as I tell you,” he said in a voice trembling with rage, and started for the door.
“You can try and force me to your will”—she spoke so softly he had to strain to hear her—“God knows, as a woman, I have no rights in such matters as this. But you will not impose your will on him, I assure you.”
Redbourne twisted sharply around and leveled a lethal gaze at her. “You had best worry less about your rights and pray that he doesn’t hide you away in some remote corner of the world for the rest of your life. The bastard certainly has the means and the reason to do so.”
Her eyes widened with mortification. “Papa—”
“Save your breath—you should have considered the consequence of lying under that bastard like a whore at the appropriate time.” And with that, he walked away.
A steady rain was falling on the little town house on Upper Moreland Street, crowding the inhabitants into the house from the small but cheerful garden in back. Three of Doreen’s charges—women ranging in age from twenty to almost five and sixty—were gathered in the basement kitchen, baking the last of the teacakes. Two more women were gathered around sewing baskets in the parlor, chattering gaily over their darning while three young children played at their feet. Doreen sat at the front window, rocking back and forth as she labored over the piecework in her lap, looking up and out the window occasionally when a carriage or pedestrian passed.
Claudia stood at the bay window, staring blindly into space as she had been doing for the better part of an hour since delivering fresh fruit for the children. This house was the only place she felt like herself now. Her life had been turned upside down and everything she thought she knew was suddenly open to debate—and God knew she had done enough of that. Word of her carnal experience had spread like fire through the ton, thanks to Mrs. Frankton, the story becoming more outrageous with each telling. It was humiliating to learn from Brenda, her maid, that some unscrupulous men—men she had known for years and had hosted in her home—were fanning the flames by claiming to know Claudia Whitney’s person, having been associated with her in that capacity.
It was even more humiliating to learn that she had not, apparently, been The Rake’s only conquest at Harrison Green’s that night—Brenda had also heard about a rather tawdry kiss Julian had shared with Lady Prather in the ballroom.
Claudia folded her arms across her abdomen, seeing Julian’s dark face above her again, his black eyes shining. You are right to fear me …
She shook her head, tried to clear her vision, but it was blurred by a thin sheen of tears she could scarcely keep at bay. She had finally come to realize … or admit … that her folly had cost her much. It didn’t matter that certain factions of the ton judged her unfairly—Julian Dane was just as guilty as she was, yet she had not heard a word spoken against him. Nor did it matter that she was a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions and mistakes—the error in her judgment was adversely affecting her father’s reputation. Her argument that she was a thinking adult with free will who should be allowed to enjoy the same pleasures in life as a man was met with an icy reproach. The essence of it, really, was that she was a woman, and therefore, her will was supplanted by that of her father, or a brother, or a husband.
Her reputation was annihilated beyond repair, apparently—the donations to
her school project had dwindled to almost nothing. In the last few days, she had received a half dozen notes in which offers so generously made two weeks ago were withdrawn. Worse, when she had called on kindly Lord Cheevers to discuss the withdrawal of his pledge, he had refused to see her. His butler had turned her away at the door.
It was that for which she could not forgive herself. Above all else, her folly had affected children like the three little girls playing behind her now. Because she had allowed her desires to emerge unchecked, those girls might not receive the education they needed and deserved. The tears began to well again.
“I reckon there ain’t much to be done for it,” Doreen said, startling Claudia from her ruminations. She glanced at the woman who had been forced to trade her body to keep food in her children’s bellies and felt a wave of self-loathing.
“I don’t suppose,” she muttered wearily.
“They’ve got you over a barrel. Only one thing to do, it would seem.”
Claudia turned toward Doreen, staring at her as she calmly rocked, her needle flying in and out of the fabric. “What?”
Doreen shrugged lightly. “Marry him.”
Dear God! “No,” Claudia responded flatly
Doreen did not look up. “It won’t get any easier, not for you. I know this bloke has made you all sad and nervous of late, but he also made you moon-eyed—”
“I have never been moon-eyed!” Claudia protested as she sank onto a stool next to Doreen.
Doreen glanced up briefly from her piecework, but her skepticism was clearly evident. “You know that ain’t so. You were moon-eyed as a cow, right here in this parlor. Marry him. Won’t do you any harm.”
“Doreen!” Claudia exclaimed. “You vowed never to allow a man to rule your life again! Why should I do so?”
Doreen lowered her sewing and fixed Claudia with a stern gaze. “There’s a difference between you and me, miss. You’re one of them, the Quality. You must marry if you are to live. You can’t work if you are of a mind to, and even if could, you’d not last a day in the factories. You’re too fine for that. What else can you do? That father of yours won’t keep you forever. Seems to me there ain’t really no choice, not for a woman like you.”
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