The increasing miles distancing her from London had done little to ease the sorrow in her heart. A spiteful part of her blamed Everod for Worrington’s failing health. She wondered if he would rejoice when news of his father’s demise reached his ears.
“Rowan, do you think he still lives?” she asked, fiercely concentrating on the glowing embers in the hearth.
“Who? Oh, Father,” Rowan said, peeling the sleeve of his rumpled frock coat from his arm. He gave the garment several firm shakes before placing it over the back of a chair. “You saw his frail state, love. Undoubtedly, his life has met its mortal conclusion.”
Her uncle. Dead. With all that had occurred, the thought was almost too much to bear. Maura glanced in his direction when he said nothing more. Rowan was frowning at her again. She suddenly had a vision of the future. It was filled with years of Rowan scowling at her with the same disappointed expression on his face.
“You believe he still lives.”
Her delicate brow lifted at his accusation. “Do you not?”
Agitated, Rowan pushed his hair from his face. “Naturally. What a ridiculous question. I am, after all, his most devoted son.”
His gaze narrowed as an unpleasant thought darkened his visage. It spurred him to angrily walk toward her and seize her by the wrists. His thumbs rubbed the fragile flesh of her inner wrists. “And what of your devotion, Maura? Is it as fickle as your heart?”
Maura held his hot gaze. “Fickleness implies loss, Rowan. I can assure you, you have never had my heart.” She tugged free, distancing herself from the man she had promised her dying uncle that she would marry. The hours alone with Rowan had her questioning the wisdom of uttering vows under emotional duress.
Maura paused in front of the empty bed and swallowed thickly. She felt the heat of Rowan’s body a second before he settled his hands on her hips. When she attempted to slide away, he dug his fingers ruthlessly into her joints and held her in place.
“True,” he said, sighing into her ear as he rested his chin on her shoulder. “I have been denied both your heart and body. Ironic, is it not, when I am the only Lidsaw willing to marry you. And what of my dear older brother? Did Everod cleverly seduce you into surrendering your virginity with pretty flattery, or did he simply hold you down and take your innocence?”
Maura stiffened in Rowan’s embrace. Her earlier exhaustion faded as she became fully aware of her perilous predicament. While Everod had preferred seduction, there was something menacing about Rowan’s demeanor. He had subtly changed since they had departed from the Worringtons’ household. Her instincts screamed that her betrothed was perfectly capable of shoving her onto the bed and forcing her to acknowledge his claim if she continued to provoke him.
A single tear slid down her right cheek. “Your brother is a liar and a cold-blooded villain, Rowan. The details no longer matter.” As she swiped at the tear, she turned slightly in his arms and pasted a half-smile on her lips. “You are the man I intend to marry.”
“Are you certain you have not seen this woman?” Everod demanded as he shoved the miniature of Maura he had taken from the Worringtons’ household under the innkeeper’s nose. Fear and exhaustion had honed his temper to a lethal edge. “Dark brown hair. Her eyes are the hue of a storm-tossed sea.” Christ! Next he would be spouting flowery prose about her lips. “She would have been traveling with a gentleman.”
Everod growled and ground his teeth in frustration at the man who continued to shake his head. He tried again. “They would have been traveling in haste. They might have stopped for the night or merely for a few hours.”
Georgette would have urged Rowan to make the journey with few stops between London and Gretna Green. The countess had been wary of Everod from the beginning, and uncertain of his feelings for Maura. She would have cautioned Rowan to be vigilant.
“Nay, milord. I would have recalled this comely lass if I had met her,” the innkeeper said, his expression laced with regret. “Run off with the wrong gent, has she? A shame. I wish you luck on your chase.”
Everyone within earshot started at the sound of Everod’s fist slamming against the rough surface of the wooden bar. At that moment, he would have gladly welcomed a fight, but he could not afford the delay. He gruffly thanked the innkeeper and departed.
Everod blinked against the brightness of the sun as he entered the yard. His abused body did not relish another day on horseback, but it was the only way he stood a chance of catching up to Rowan’s coach. Wearily, he leaned against a fence while he waited for one of the grooms to bring him a horse. As he had hundreds of times before, Everod opened his hand and glanced down at Maura’s portrait. With each passing hour, she was slipping through his fingers. The thought of Rowan touching Maura was enough to send Everod into a mindless rage.
He thought back to the night Georgette had laughed in his face and gleefully told him that it was too late to prevent Rowan from marrying Maura. Her laughter had switched to hoarse curses, when the constable had escorted her from the house. As the hours passed by his father’s bedside, Everod had suffered the torments of a damned man, torn between his ill father and the woman he loved. Aye, loved. He was not afraid to admit it to himself when he was on the verge of losing her. Solitea and the others had urged him to go. They had promised to look after Worrington. However, Everod had not been able to abandon his father that night. He was certain Maura would have been disappointed in him if he had.
“I will find you,” he told her portrait. There were two more inns along the way that Rowan might have stopped at for meals or fresh horses. In spite of the delays, Everod had the advantage of speed and uncompromising determination. Georgette’s influence over his family would come to an end, when he found Rowan.
Everod scrubbed his bearded face with one hand as he stuffed the miniature into the inner pocket of his coat. “Rowan hasn’t won, Maura. Even if he marries you, I can promise you that your bridal flowers will be used to adorn his grave.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The bride was terrified. The bridegroom was foxed. It was not an auspicious beginning for a marriage. Or a wedding.
While Maura paced in front of the blacksmith’s shop, an elderly gentleman by the name of Mr. Joseph Paisley grumpily waited for the couple who had rudely disturbed his sleep to step within the whitewashed walls and allow him to marry them. Mr. Paisley had even roused two of the villagers from their warm beds to act as witnesses.
Slumped against the side of their coach, Rowan peered bleary-eyed at her. “We—you—promised Father that we would be married, Maura,” he said, gesturing with a bottle of Mr. Paisley’s fine brandy. “Can’t s’pect us to return and tell a dying man his last wishes won’t be honored.”
Maura wrapped the ends of her shawl tightly around her. It was still dark, they had hours yet until the dawn chased the shadows away. She was cold, hungry, and the long hours confined within the stuffy compartment of the coach with Rowan had not convinced her that he would be the exemplary husband that her aunt Georgette claimed he would be.
“We should have stayed, Rowan,” Maura said, thinking of how fragile Worrington’s hand had felt in her grasp. “If those were your father’s last hours, then he deserved to be surrounded by his family.”
Aunt Georgette was alone and likely frightened.
“Enough!” he yelled, allowing the bottle to slip carelessly through his fingers. It struck the ground and toppled over. In the dim lamplight, the brandy reminded Maura of blood.
Rowan reached for her hand and missed. He closed one eye, and caught her fingers on the third pass. “We are going in there. We’ll pledge our bloody troths to the anvil priest, and we’re married. On the journey home we will con-sin … no,” he said, shaking his head to clear it. “Consummate our blessed union, and God willing, my father will be still warm for you to hold his hand.”
Maura deliberately locked her legs, forcing Rowan to stop. “You make it sound so cold.”
“I am cold, Maura. And tired.”
He swiped at his hair, and knocked his hat off. Holding on to her for support, Rowan leaned over in an exaggerated manner and retrieved his hat from the ground.
“Rowan.”
“No, no, I’ve got it.” He plopped the hat back on his head. “Georgette s-said you’d be a biddable wife. No fuss. We could carry on like always, and you wouldn’t know.” He brought his finger to his lips.
Oh, really.
Maura jerked her hand from his grasp. “We? You and Aunt Georgette—”
Good grief, was there a Lidsaw male alive that her aunt Georgette had not bedded?
“Going to be Earl of Worrington someday,” he mumbled, snatching her hand and dragging her closer to the blacksmith’s door. “ ’Course Everod will have to die, too.” He blinked at her horrified countenance. “His death should please you, considering he announced to all and sundry that you were his biddable whore.”
Rowan frowned. “There’s that word again. Biddable. I just don’t see it.”
Maura ignored Rowan’s drunken ramblings as she sorted through what he had told her. Aunt Georgette was Rowan’s lover. He anticipated inheriting the Worrington title, but two gentlemen would have to die before that could happen.
She brought her hands up to her face.
Aunt Georgette, what have you done?
Maura grabbed Rowan by the shoulder and shook him. “We have to return to London.”
He pointed at the closed door. “But—”
“Immediately. We can marry another day,” she assured him, wondering exactly when her aunt had begun plotting her husband’s death. “Rowan, I believe your father may be in trouble.”
He took her hand, drawing her closer to the door. “We’ll depart after you marry me.”
Maura groaned in frustration. The man had pickled his brain with wine and brandy. “Rowan!”
She was unprepared for his slap, or the viciousness of his sudden attack. Maura spun away from him and collapsed on the ground. He charged her, seizing her arms before she could crawl away.
Maura cried out as he hauled her to her feet.
A subtle slyness had crept into Rowan’s expression.
Violence aroused him. The proof was stabbing her in her hipbone. “We have come all this way to marry. Your aunt will be displeased if we return unmarried. So will I,” he whispered in her ear. “Georgette loves you like a daughter. Defy me again, and you will break your neck in an unfortunate accident. Your aunt is not the only one who can dispatch troublesome family members without remorse.”
For the second time that day, Everod kicked in a front door. Five pairs of eyes confronted him as he strode through the door. After three and a half days of reckless riding and very little sleep, Everod had run out of patience. His ruthless amber-green gaze locked onto Maura’s face.
Something akin to what he hoped was relief flickered in his lady’s eyes. However, he could not contain his temper, when he noticed that Maura clutched a wilted bouquet of wildflowers in one hand, while her other one was firmly clasped within his brother’s.
Rowan gawked at his elder brother as if he were an apparition.
Maura took a step toward him, but his damnable brother dragged her back to his side.
Everod glared at the elderly man who must have weighed close to five and twenty stone. “This marriage cannot take place!”
Rowan swayed against Maura. “Ignore him.”
“Och, an’ who might ye be, sir?” the grumpy gentleman demanded.
Everod looked her straight in the eye. “The sire of the babe she’s carrying in her belly!”
His scandalous announcement awoke the two slumbering villagers who had been called upon to be witnesses.
Maura’s sea-gray eyes rounded at his outrageous claim. She jerked her hand free from Rowan’s. “T-that is not true!” she stuttered.
His younger brother stepped in front of Maura, blocking Everod’s way. “See here, no one wants you here. The lady belongs to me, and—”
Everod slammed his fist into Rowan’s jaw. There was a satisfying crack of bone, before his brother dropped to the floor in a boneless heap. He did not know if Rowan had been aware of Georgette’s schemes. They could sort out who deserved the blame when they returned to London. He stepped over Rowan’s unconscious body.
Maura stared at him. “You hit him.”
Everod glanced at his younger brother and shrugged indifferently. “He deserved it.”
Her eyes narrowed when he smirked. “So do you!” The crazed woman attacked him, striking him repeatedly on the head with her wilted weeds. “Oh, you do not know what I have endured.”
Everod shielded his face with his arm as she relentlessly battered him with her bouquet.
“And then you kick in the door and tell everyone that I’m breeding? What is wrong with you Lidsaw men? Was it not enough that you called me a whore in front of half the ton?”
“Marry me.”
Maura threw her mangled bouquet at his head. He dodged the floral missile, and it landed on Rowan’s back.
“I hate you!” she hissed at Everod.
The elderly gentleman squinted at Maura’s stomach. “So are ye carrying this mon’s wee bairn?”
“No!” she shrieked, the piercing note an uncanny reminder of her ambitious, murderous aunt.
Everod held out his palms in a supplicating position. “Be fair, my love. We both are aware I was a lost man after I tasted the strawberry jam.”
The two villagers straightened in their chairs, listening attentively to the angry bride and her second bridegroom for the night.
He grinned at her. “You might call the afternoon a fruitful endeavor.”
Everod had pushed her too far. Maura launched herself into his arms. “Ooph! You take too many liberties, Lord Everod! How can you tease me when your brother is a cruel blackguard—” Recalling her fallen bridegroom, Maura scowled at Rowan and kicked him in the ribs.
Their three spectators winced at her display of violence.
Maura shifted her ire back on Everod. “And you, charging in here like some medieval knight, daring to fight anyone who hurts me.” She backed away from him, and sniffed. “Well, you hurt me.”
“I know,” he said, his heart aching when her eyes filled with tears.
“Really hurt me.” She sniffed again, and scrubbed the wetness on her cheeks. “Shall I have Mr. Paisley punch you or you would perhaps like to do the honor yourself?”
If she wanted to kick him, Everod was willing to lie down on the ground and submit to her abuse. Maura hiccupped into her clenched hand. “This has been an awful day. And—and … your father is dying,” she blurted out, sobbing.
Everod could not take much more of her misery. It shamed him that he was to blame for much of her upset. Ignoring her muffled protest, he hugged her fiercely. “My father isn’t dead. I was with him, before I chased after you. He’s gravely ill, but there is a chance he will recover now that your aunt is no longer feeding him poisoned wine every few hours.”
Maura gasped and pulled back. “How did you know?”
His amber-green gaze narrowed suspiciously on her. “What do you know?”
Maura sneered at Rowan’s unconscious body. If Everod had not been holding her, she probably would have kicked his younger brother again. “Only what he told me. You might want to tie him up before he awakens.”
Everod rubbed her back. He never doubted Maura’s innocence in the sad affair. “We have much to discuss on the journey back to London.”
She nodded absently.
“Marry me, my lady,” Everod murmured into her hair. “I love you. You know I did not mean half—”
Maura gave him a pointed look.
Everod sighed. “All of the things I said when Rowan stood up and announced that you two were to be married. Marry me, and you, Kilby, Patience, and Fayre can sit around and think of fiendish ways to make me suffer for the pain I have caused you.”
The softening started in her eyes. “I love you, Townsend. However, marry
ing you to claim my revenge seems about as ridiculous as—”
“Seducing a delectable virgin for the same reason,” he said, quirking his left brow.
“About my aunt …”
Everod did not permit her to finish. Georgette was in the hands of the magistrate. The countess would not escape justice this time. Slanting his mouth over hers, he kissed her as if it had been years instead of days since he last saw her.
Mr. Paisley slammed his hammer down on the anvil. “The pledges av been spoken. The marriage blessed.” He nodded at the startled couple. “Ye are wed.”
The man pointed at his two companions. “Get some rope. Doona tarry. I’m wanting me bed.”
Maura looked up at Everod, her sea-gray eyes gleaming with mirth.
“I love you.” She mouthed the words as they moved aside so the men could tie Rowan’s hands and feet for the journey back to London.
“I love you, Lady Everod,” he said aloud, threading his fingers through hers.
Forged in the hellish fires of pain and betrayal, theirs was a love that could never be broken.
Scandalous by Night
© 2008 Barbara Pierce.
ISBN: 0312947976
ST. MARTIN’S
Ed♥n
Scandalous by Night Page 23