Portrait of a Scandal

by Annie Burrows

  She was reacting to his caresses with instincts as old as time, her hips straining towards him, telling both him and her that they were ready for the act she knew almost nothing about.

  When he came over her and nudged her legs apart with his own, she found herself flexing up towards him in a way that must have been purely instinctive, because she had certainly never imagined herself doing anything so...unseemly.

  And then he began to prod at her.

  And then there was a searing pain.

  ‘Ow!’

  He pushed into her again.

  ‘Ow, ow, owww!’

  All the pleasure had gone. Instead of wanting to flex up towards him, she cringed away from the painful invasion.

  ‘Stop it,’ she cried, getting her hands between them and pushing at his chest. ‘You’re hurting and I don’t like it!’ How could she ever have thought this was a good idea? It was horrible.

  ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’

  * * *

  ‘What the devil?’ He pulled out of her, rearing back so that he was kneeling between her splayed legs. She couldn’t have been a virgin. She had a child.

  But there was a smear of blood on her inner thigh. He’d been dimly aware of the barrier even before she’d cried out with pain.

  She had been a virgin.

  How the hell was this possible?

  A black miasma swirled up before his eyes, which he shut, to blot out the sight of her curling up on her side, thrusting her hands down between her legs, her face crumpled with anguish.

  But he could still see exactly how it was possible.

  The bastards had lied to him.

  Chapter Seven

  Ah, God! He placed his fists over his eyes, barely suppressing a cry of anguish as keen as her own had been.

  How could his father have done this to him?

  And it had to have been his father who’d told Fielding that Amethyst had secretly given birth to a child. He’d known it from the moment his friend had said he’d been told in confidence and hated to have to be the one to break it to him. He’d recognised his father’s style of setting up a dupe to do his dirty work.

  But he hadn’t really questioned the veracity of the tale. He couldn’t quite believe even his father would stoop so low as to deliberately blacken a respectable woman’s name, just because she stood in the way of his plans, not back then.

  He’d naïvely thought his father—with great tact and forbearing—was trying to deliver a warning that he’d strayed into a potential minefield. Giving him a chance to extricate himself from it, rather than just wading in and throwing his weight around, the way he usually did. He’d felt as though his father was finally giving him a chance to prove that he could do the right thing. That he was offering him an opportunity to go to him, and say he was ready to settle down, to stop resisting his family’s efforts to match him up with Lucasta, without either of them having to speak of the disaster he’d almost made of things when left to his own devices.

  He’d thought it was that important to his father—their relationship. He’d thought all the subterfuge was about trying to avoid coming to a confrontation between them, which might have resulted in a complete breach.

  His insides hollowed out as the truth smacked him in the teeth. It had been the alliance with the Delacourts that had been important to his father. His determination that all his sons should cut figures in society. Even his youngest.

  No matter what it cost.

  Or who paid the price.

  She groaned, then, struggled into a sitting position and shot him a look of loathing.

  ‘I might have known all you’d bring me was pain,’ she said, jolting him out of his own agony of mind and reminding him that, right now, she was in actual, physical pain. Pain that he’d caused.

  ‘That you’d lead me halfway...somewhere, then let me down.’

  Was that the way she’d seen it? It must have been. She couldn’t have had a clue why he’d suddenly turned so cold. For he’d cut her out of his life with brutality. And in public. Her face that night—oh, God, the wounded, bewildered look she’d given him as he’d given her the cut direct. The way she’d crumpled when he’d danced with one girl after another. What had he done to her?

  Why hadn’t he questioned it? Why hadn’t he gone straight round to see his father and demanded proof?

  Because he’d finally seen a way to win his father’s approval, that’s why. Having Fielding carry him that tale had told him the old man was vehemently opposed to the match with Amethyst. He had plans for his youngest son. Plans that did not include him marrying a nobody and settling down in the countryside to live a life of contentment in obscurity.

  So he had played along. Hardened himself against her tears. Told himself they were evidence of her guilt. That she was upset at being found out.

  But he’d known, deep inside, that he was watching her heart breaking.

  He’d known, God dammit!

  Just as he’d sensed her innocence tonight. But just like before, he’d thrust the truth aside, preferring to believe the lie. Because it exonerated him from blame. He didn’t want to be the man who’d broken her heart. So he kept on telling himself she didn’t have a heart to break. That she was manipulative and deceitful.

  But he had been to blame for destroying her. He had indeed led her halfway somewhere, then let her down, not once, but twice.

  He squeezed his eyes shut on the devastating truth—she’d loved him.

  And he’d let one lie destroy it.

  All those wasted, miserable, hellish years...years during which he’d believed in a lie. A lie so base it had warped his entire outlook on life.

  She hadn’t had a child in secret. She hadn’t come to London to ensnare a man with her practised wiles. She’d been innocent. Innocent!

  She moaned again and struggled to sit up.

  And he wondered how long he’d been kneeling there, reeling in horror at the terrible mistake he’d made. Too long, however few seconds it had taken for the truth to strike him right between the eyes the way it had. Because she was suffering, shocked at the painfully brutal invasion of her body, and she needed comfort. Not some oaf, kneeling there, so many miles and years away in his head that he might just as well have left the room altogether.

  In his mind, it was the hurt he’d dealt her years ago that was the biggest issue, but for her, it was the hurt he’d dealt her tonight.

  And that was what he had to deal with. He had to put this right, he had to tend to the pain he’d caused her, right now, prove that he wasn’t the uncaring, fickle disappointment of a man who’d brought her nothing but grief.

  There was no need to bring up what had gone wrong between them ten years ago. Not as far as she was concerned.

  He blenched when he thought how close he’d come to quizzing her about the little girl he’d seen her with—the one he’d assumed was hers. And the man he’d thought had fathered it on her. The man he’d thought of as a vile seducer.

  But it was him. He was the only seducer of innocence she knew. He was the man who’d callously, clumsily, ripped her virginity from her. As if shattering her hopes ten years ago hadn’t been bad enough. What effect had it had on her? He hadn’t stopped to consider that, not before. But she’d fled London at the height of the Season. And she hadn’t ever married...

  ‘I will never let you down, or bring you pain again,’ he vowed.

  ‘No, you will not,’ she said firmly, grabbing the corner of the quilt to cover her breasts as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. ‘Because I won’t let you.’

  ‘Hold hard!’ He gripped her shoulders and, when she wouldn’t look at him, spoke to her rigidly averted profile. ‘Do not leave, not as you are. Let me get you...a drink. Yes, a drink. I should have hot water to bathe you
and soothe you, really, but it would take too long to fetch it and heat it.’

  He winced as the words came tumbling out of his mouth. He was practically gibbering. But then what kind of man would be able to stay calm after discovering that, ten years earlier, he’d spurned the only woman he’d ever loved, because he hadn’t had the guts to question a pack of the most dastardly lies about her? And only finally learned the truth of her complete innocence of any kind of wrongdoing because he’d treated her like the veriest lightskirt?

  He darted from the bed, out of the room and over to the table where he kept a decanter of good brandy. For a moment or two he could see the attraction of becoming a Papist. It must feel wonderful to be able to go to a priest, confess, and have your guilt absolved through the muttering of a few prayers.

  Sloshing a generous measure into a glass, he hurried back to the bedroom, to find, to his relief, that she was still sitting hunched up on the edge of the bed, clutching the quilt round her shoulders and not, as he had feared, hunting round the room for her discarded clothing.

  He handed her the glass, which she took from him with a scowl.

  ‘I...I’m sorry it hurt.’ Mea culpa. ‘The first time often does, I believe...’

  ‘I’m amazed anybody ever does it a second,’ she said, screwing up her face as she took a gulp of the brandy.

  ‘Perhaps...other men are not as clumsy about it as I just was,’ he admitted, running his fingers through his hair. ‘If I’d known...’ No, he couldn’t tell her that, could he? Or he would then have to explain why he’d made such an assumption. ‘I misunderstood. That is...I thought you seemed impatient.’

  No, that wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t try shifting one iota of the blame on her. His was the fault. And it was up to him to make amends.

  And there was only one sure way of doing that. He took a deep breath.

  ‘We must marry, of course,’ he said. It was the appropriate penalty to pay for all he’d done to her. The ultimate sacrifice to atone for his sin.

  But her scowl only grew deeper.

  ‘We will do no such thing!’

  ‘We have to, Amy, don’t you see?’ He sat down on the bed next to her. ‘I have taken your virginity, ruined you...’

  ‘You didn’t take anything. We were sharing a moment of what I’d hoped would be pleasure. What a stupid mistake to make,’ she said bitterly.

  He flinched. Had he asked her the same question ten years ago, she would have been overjoyed. She’d loved him, back then, just as he was.

  Now he’d become as big a disappointment to her as he’d always been to everyone else.

  ‘It is a mistake, however,’ he persisted, ‘that can soon be rectified.’ He wouldn’t be a disappointment to her as a husband. He would cherish her. Stay loyal to her. Make up for all the hurts she’d ever suffered on his account and defend her from anyone who ever attempted to do anything similar in future.

  ‘Not by marrying,’ she retorted. ‘I agreed to your proposition because I believed you were the one man I could trust not to want to go all...respectable. You made it quite clear that you had no intention of marrying me, not ten years ago, and not now. You made me,’ she said, jabbing him on his arm with her forefinger, ‘believe it would be safe to take up with you. Oh, why do I never learn? I should have known you would be nothing but a disappointment. To think I hoped that because you had the reputation for being a rake, that you would be able to make this...’ she waved the hand holding the brandy glass wildly, indicating the rumpled bedding ‘...enjoyable! And not only was that the stupidest mistake I’ve ever made where you are concerned, but now you are talking about trapping me into matrimony.’

  She slammed the brandy glass down on his nightstand and got to her feet.

  He had to think of something fast. He couldn’t let it end like this. If she left now, he would never get her back. Never be free from the guilt. He went cold inside.

  Think, man, think!

  Firstly, he got the impression that the tighter he clung to her, the harder she would struggle to break free.

  And she’d just said she’d wanted to feel safe with him—which meant free to come and go as she pleased.

  And finally, she’d said she wanted pleasure.

  Summoning every last ounce of his ability to dissemble, he leaned back into the pillows and folded his hands behind his head as she struggled to get off the bed with her dignity intact, which wasn’t easy given all she had to preserve it was a rather moth-eaten quilt that revealed as much as it covered whenever she made an injudicious movement.

  ‘Very well,’ he said with feigned insouciance, ‘you don’t want to marry me. I can understand that. For as long as I can remember, there has been somebody telling me I’m no good.’ Except for a few heady weeks ten years ago, when a young girl, fresh from the country, had hung on his every word. Her face had lit up whenever she saw him. Nobody had ever made him feel as though he could be enough for them, just as she was, until he’d met Amethyst.

  His calm voice, his apparent nonchalance, had an instant, and highly satisfactory, effect on her. Just as a skilled groom would gentle a skittish, badly broken mare, his retreat roused her curiosity. She stopped scrabbling round on the floor for any item of clothing she could find and looked at him fully for the first time since he’d withdrawn from her body.

  Though there was still wariness mingled in with the curiosity.

  ‘What do you mean, no good? You are the son of Lord Finchingfield.’

  ‘He was always my sternest critic. I’ve never had any ambition, you see, which in his eyes is the greatest sin a member of the Harcourt family can commit.’

  It was some consolation that he’d taken a stand and broken free of his father before tonight. Otherwise, he’d have had to go and tell him that he’d never forgive him for what he’d done to Amethyst. For what he’d made him do to Amethyst. For making him an accomplice in her heartbreak.

  Meanwhile, Amethyst had found a shoe, sat down on the edge of the bed with it and was sliding it on to her foot.

  He pulled himself together, sat up, slithered closer and slid his arms round her waist.

  ‘You don’t really want to leave, do you?’ he murmured the words into her ear. She shivered, but didn’t pull away. ‘I won’t mention marriage again,’ he breathed, before nibbling his way down her neck, ‘if the prospect of being legshackled to a man of my calibre is really so offensive to you.’

  ‘It isn’t you,’ she huffed, arching, probably involuntarily, to grant him better access. ‘I don’t want to marry anyone. Ever.’

  He wondered why not. It was generally the height of every woman’s ambition.

  His mouth flattened into a grim line. He had a sneaking suspicion that might be his fault too.

  ‘I can understand that,’ he said. ‘Having gone through the misery of being chained in a bond of mutual antipathy, I would not lightly enter into the state again.’

  ‘But you said...’

  ‘It was the shock, my sweet,’ he said, sliding one hand inside the quilt, to cup a breast, ‘of finding you a virgin.’ Well, it was true, up to a point. ‘But if you really don’t want to get married, we can forget all about it.’

  ‘There is no if about it,’ she said vehemently. ‘I did not get into your bed in an attempt to extract a marriage proposal from you.’

  ‘Oh?’ He nibbled round the outer edge of her ear. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me what you did want to achieve, then. Because you aren’t the kind of woman who routinely has affairs, are you?’

  ‘Well, obviously not. You’ve just discovered that! I...’ She faltered into a sigh as he slid the quilt from her shoulders and started kneading at both breasts at once.

  ‘Then tell me,’ he urged her. ‘Tell me what you want from me.’

  ‘I don’t know, exactly,’ she pro
tested. ‘I just...wanted to know what it would be like.’

  ‘Curiosity? Is that all that drove you here? I don’t believe that,’ he reproved her by nipping hard at her earlobe.

  ‘Well, no, that wasn’t all,’ she confessed, her eyes drooping half-shut. ‘It is...it has all been building up for some time now.’

  ‘Building up, yes,’ he agreed, sliding his hand down her torso until it rested just above the soft downy hair at the juncture of her thighs.

  ‘I’m so sick of people telling me how I ought to behave,’ she said, her head lolling back into the crook of his arm. ‘Of how to think. And never ever being...happy. I wanted...’ She ended on a whimper as he stroked lower.

  ‘You wanted to break free. To be yourself. Even if you’re not sure who that is, just yet.’

  ‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Ooh, yes...but how did you...?’

  ‘How did I know? What do you think I’m doing in Paris?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re doing. But...’

  ‘But it feels good, doesn’t it. No pain now. Only pleasure, I promise.’

  He pulled her back down on to the bed and shifted so that he was beside her. And kissed her.

  She kissed him back for a while, but then stiffened and pulled her mouth away, and said, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m giving you what you want. I’m going to be your lover. For as long as you’re in Paris, we are going to keep on coming back to this bed—’

  ‘You must be joking!’

  He lifted one leg over hers when it looked as though she was going to struggle out of his arms, pinning her down while he kissed her again. Until she stopped struggling and kissed him back.

  ‘This is too important to joke about,’ he said grimly. ‘I hurt you. And made you want to run away when I should have given you the greatest pleasure you have ever known.’