She blushed. “You are incorrigible and utterly without shame.”
“Unrepentantly so,” he agreed, dipping his head to press a soft kiss into the valley of her breasts. The slight rasp of his whiskers, coupled with the heat of his skin, had her shivering.
All too soon, they had arrived at Wilhaven. Arriving in the ancient gig, Michael tossed the reins to a waiting stable lad and hopped down, assisting Abby afterward. There was no line of carriages as most of the guests were there for a week or longer, and had arrived earlier. They were the only guests that were arriving for that evening alone. After they had been admitted by the butler and announced, they moved into the large drawing room where the guests had gathered before dinner.
Upon entering, Michael immediately knew that he had made a grave mistake in underestimating how truly devious Lavinia could be. Most of the guests were female and well known to him; he imagined their various spouses had either been left at home or were congregated together somewhere, plotting his demise. Every woman in the room had been his lover at one point or other. Lady Caroline Westerbrook, his most recent paramour and the one whom he had left London to escape, was strolling toward him, arm in arm with Lavinia.
Beside him, he felt Abigail stiffen. It wasn’t the presence of the women so much as it was the collectively smug gaze that was being directed at her. She turned to Michael, “What is happening here?”
Any hint of prevarication on his part would only make matters worse. “Lavinia has decided to divide and conquer… And by divide, I mean us. These women are my former lovers.”
Abby had suspected as much as soon as she walked into the gathering, it wasn’t like Lavinia to intentionally surround herself with women whose beauty could compete with her own. A sick feeling settled in her stomach as she took in every last knowing look. While there was undoubtedly animosity between the lot of them, they were united in their immediate and intense dislike of her. To say that it was an uncomfortable feeling to be in a room full of people who would gladly see her disgraced or much worse would have been a gross understatement. Discomfited by their stares and false, toothy smiles, Abby wanted nothing more than to flee, to retreat to the relative safety of Blagdon Hall.
Other emotions were stirring inside her, as well, a maelstrom of humiliation, doubt and jealousy boiled inside her. They were all beautiful; all accomplished in some way, experienced and sophisticated, and they had all known her husband—biblically. She could sense the cattiness in their gazes. She had thought the gown Michael provided for her the most beautiful thing she’d ever owned. That was still true, but it lacked the sophistication and town bronze that the other ladies wore so well and with such apparent ease.
“I think we should go. We should just turn and leave.”
Michael took her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it fervently, in full view of everyone. His response was whispered. “We cannot. If we walk out, she will know that this is our weakness.”
“All of these women, Michael? Really? Every last one of them?”
He could apologize, but it felt wrong to him to do so. He was who he was, and the women in the room represented his past. But Lavinia was approaching, and they needed to present a unified front. “We will discuss this all that you want to later, but for now, let’s just get through this night to the best of our ability.”
She knew that he was right. “We will talk about it,” she said, and behind her bright smile, her teeth were clenched.
“Abigail, darling… And my new brother-in-law, Lord Ellersleigh,” Lavinia called, her voice echoing with false warmth. “I thought it might be nice for Abby to meet her new peers prior to going to London. I’m sure you will all have so much in common.”
“Lavinia, you are as thoughtful as you have ever been,” Abby said. On the surface, the comment was complimentary, but the conversation was occurring in layers.
“Lady Whitby, Lady Westerbrook,” Michael said. His greeting was cordial and accompanied by a slightly formal bow. It was also completely lacking in warmth.
“Surely you can spare a warmer greeting than that, Michael,” Lavinia said, making free with the familiar use of his name. “I had thought the two of you were well acquainted with one another.”
Abby felt ill. Her humiliation could not have been more complete. “Lavinia—“
“Abby, come with me darling, and I will introduce you to everyone while Michael and Lady Westerbrook catch-up with one another.”
Michael had no choice but to relinquish Abby’s hand as Lavinia all but tugged her from his grasp. He wasn’t proud of his past. Many of his former lovers were not what could be considered nice women, they were vicious and cold-blooded. He had bedded them because they were available, he admitted to himself, and because there was no chance of his heart ever becoming entangled with such a creature. Now, Abby would be at their mercy. He turned to Lady Westerbrook, but she spoke before he had a chance.
“I didn’t know, Michael. I’m so very sorry.”
He met her gaze. She was a far different creature from the others present. He truly liked Caroline, and she was a remarkably beautiful woman, but she didn’t stir him the way Abby did. “Why are you here, Caroline? I can’t believe that news of my marriage escaped your notice. You have a network of spies that are the envy of Whitehall.”
She smiled, “No… I knew that you had married. According to the letter from Lady Whitby, which did not include the pertinent fact that your new bride was her stepsister, you had been trapped and were quite miserable with a frigid social climber.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said, furious at Lavinia’s meddling and lies.
Caroline placed her hand on his arm, and he began to walk with her around the perimeter of the room. “I can see that. She’s very lovely… and of all the women in this room who will cause her the most unease, it shall be me because I was the last.”
“There is more at stake here, Caroline. Lavinia is up to something, and this, all of this, is intended to be nothing more than a distraction.”
Caroline looked up at him, her regret written clearly on her face. She’d had many hopes for their relationship, but she was honest enough with herself to recognize that those hopes had come from her own desires, and not from anything he had said or done. She had been an affair for Michael, and he had never done anything to indicate otherwise. “Just tell me what I can do to help you, and I will.”
“It will be difficult for Abby, but I need to search the house. If we disappear together, it will be far less suspicious,” Michael explained.
Caroline nodded, “I will retire to my room for half an hour, and that should give you the time you need.”
Michael looked across the room at Abby. Though she was deep in conversation with other ladies, her eyes followed Caroline as she exited the room. Five minutes later, when he was slipping from the drawing room, he felt her eyes on him, as well. When he glanced over his shoulder at her, she refused to meet his gaze
Twenty minutes later, Michael was finishing his search of the dressing room just off the master suite. Rupert’s study had been occupied, so he would search it during the night. In their private chambers, he had discovered a variety of erotic reading material, from the refined to the profane. He had also discovered a wealth of sex toys and implements that even given his vast experience, he was unable to identify their purpose. There were also numerous vials and bottles of herbal remedies and medications. As a physician, he'd encountered some of them in the past; others were wholly unknown to him, but it made clear one fact. Either Lavinia or Rupert were ill and possibly gravely so. Nothing made men and women more fearsome than impending death.
He had not found the green velvet robes or the golden masks that Sarah had described to him. He made his way back to the hallway, and at the sound of approaching voices, ducked into a darkened alcove.
Lavinia and Squire Blevins were groping one another in the hallway. The Squire lifted her skirts, shoved her roughly against the wall and
without any preamble, entered her. Michael looked away, but there was no escaping the guttural grunting or the sounds of the coarse coupling.
He'd never been accused of being a prude, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time in his life he’d born witness to such an act, that the parties involved were people he despised was the source of his revulsion Thankfully, it was short lived, and when the squire had ceased his panting, he lowered Lavinia’s feet to the floor, smoothed her dress and left. Lavinia was close on his heels, returning to see to her guests.
He waited, but his caution created a greater complication. He would be late returning to the drawing-room, and would have no chance to speak with Abby prior to dinner, no opportunity to explain that appearances had been necessarily deceiving. When he entered the drawing room, the guests were migrating into the dining room. He ignored Lavinia’s snide smile as he found Abby and took her arm to lead her in. He also ignored the frigid glare that Abby leveled at him.
Michael was only too well aware of how things appeared. The smug glances of the other women present, Lavinia’s transparent, thinly veiled slurs, Rupert staring lasciviously at Abby, all combined to make the evening a misery for them both. It had been an utter waste of his time, except for the all too vivid images of Lavinia and Squire Blevins in the hot clutches of lust, which he would just as soon forget.
As the dinner progressed, it only became worse. The tension between Abby and himself was palpable. In one respect, it was the perfect response. It lent credence in the minds of everyone else present that his reason for disappearing from the party was that he and Lady Caroline had slipped away for a liaison. The unfortunate element of the situation was that, having no time to explain the situation, Abby now believed it as well; this did not bode well for the remainder of his evening.
As the dinner was cleared away, the guests began to segregate. The men retreated to the billiard room and the women headed back to the drawing-room. Michael managed to steer Abby into a quiet alcove.
He uttered the first words that came to mind. “It is not what you think.” Even to his own ears, it sounded weak and hollow, even if it was the truth. How many men and women had uttered those words to cover up their infidelities?
“Michael, we both know who that woman is and what your relationship with her is. Don’t insult my intelligence by asking me to believe that you disappeared for half an hour with a woman who until two weeks ago was your mistress without it being precisely what I think it was! Regardless of what your disappearance signifies to me, we both know what it signifies to everyone else… I will not be an object of ridicule.”
Michael sighed heavily, “I promise you; I will explain everything tonight. For the time being, I need you to continue acting as you did at dinner…It works to our benefit to have them all believe that you are angry with me.”
She glared at him, before jerking her arm free from his grasp. “That should not prove to be difficult as nothing has changed since dinner, regardless of your implausible explanations.”
Michael watched her walk away, waiting until she disappeared into the drawing-room, before retreating to the billiard room. He was sympathetic to her hurt feelings and bruised pride, but there was simply too much at stake. What Sarah had endured at their hands was not something he could permit them to do to anyone else. If it meant damaging his as yet unsteady relationship with his new bride, so be it. He could only hope that over time she would be able to forgive him. Abby was not the sort to forgive quickly and he would pay the steep price for his actions for some time to come.
Abby entered the drawing room and steadfastly ignored the falsely pitying looks leveled at her by the other ladies present. She couldn’t abide being the subject of such a public humiliation. She didn’t truly believe that Michael had engaged in an amorous encounter with Lady Westerbrook during the absence, but it galled her to know that everyone else did.
His thoughtlessness in casting such scorn upon her was the true source of her anger. She acknowledged to herself, at least, that much of that stemmed from her father’s faithlessness to her mother and his marriage to his mistress only months after her mother’s death. Lavinia had exploited that weakness of hers, almost from the first.
“Darling, even with your rustic upbringing, surely you understand that this is the way of society marriages!” Lavinia said, her voice dripping with false sweetness.
Abby turned to meet her stepsister’s smug gaze. “Is that why your guest list consists of nothing more than my husband’s former lovers? You filled your home with his past paramours and then let us walk blindly into the middle of it.”
Lavinia smiled sympathetically, but her eyes remained cold and calculating. “You make it sound so cold, darling! It was only to protect you from false hopes and expectations. It was best for you to learn now what kind of man you married.”
“Others may be fooled by your sisterly displays of concern, Lavinia, but you and I both know that this is simply more of your conniving machinations…You should see to your guests, sister, and leave me be.”
Abby walked away from Lavinia, made small talk with locals and steadfastly avoided the guests that had been invited to increase her misery. When the gentleman returned to the drawing room, she pleaded a headache and retired to their chamber. Michael excused himself and followed right behind her, ignoring the slamming of their chamber door in his face.
“Abigail,” he began as he entered the room. She was plucking the pins from her hair with quick, angry movements. “I had no idea that Caroline would be there. There was no liaison, planned or otherwise.”
“Lady Westerbrook,” she said with emphasis, the pins clattering onto the top of the dressing table with sharp pings, “Is not the issue here. The issue is that I will not be publicly humiliated by you!”
One of the pins went skittering off the dressing table, and he retrieved it. Gently, he clasped her hands and removed them from her hair. “I find that I’m rather partial to your hair. I would prefer it if you left it attached to your head.”
“You’ll forgive me if I find myself less than concerned about your preferences at the moment,” she said. She didn’t particularly like the waspish tone of her voice, but she found herself incapable of containing her ire.
“Lavinia invited those women, not I,” he said patiently. “I cannot change my past, Abigail, and I cannot promise that you will never be put in a position of having to face it.”
His ability to completely ignore the reason for her displeasure with him boggled the mind. “But do you have to leave me alone in a room with it while you’re slipping away with your lover?” she demanded, her voice a sharp hiss.
Michael threw his hands up in the air. “I did not slip away with Caroline! The only way to search the house without arousing suspicion was to make it appear that we had—.”
“Was to allow every viperous woman in this house to believe that you had decided to renew your relationship with your most recent lover only days after we married,” she said succinctly. There was no heat in her voice, but the anger still simmered below the surface.
He couldn't deny the truth of her words, she was absolutely correct in her assertions. For him, the ends justified the means. If Rupert and Lavinia were responsible for what had happened to Sarah, and there were no likelier culprits in the area, they had to be stopped at all costs. “If it were possible to investigate them using other means, I would. I cannot allow them to continue what they are doing, Abigail. You must see that? I am sorry that it hurt you. ”
“Not hurt, Michael. Embarrassed. You embarrassed me and left me alone to face the censure of others. I was an object of pity before, as the poor relation, but I was not an object of ridicule. You have changed that.”
Again she spoke the truth. Yes, he had good reasons for what he had done. It had been necessary, and there had been no other expedient way to search the house. It did nothing to lessen what she perceived as her humiliation at his hands. Though he could not admit it to her, to himself he acknow
ledged that he would have been furious if the situations had been reversed.
“I cannot change what has already been done, Abby.”
“Why is it your responsibility to investigate Lavinia and Rupert? You could just as easily hire a Bow Street Runner to look into things and then we could leave this place!”
“It's my responsibility. I am the owner of Blagdon Hall! And need I remind you that anything related to your stepsister and her lurid actions will stain your reputation, as well?” He was frustrated with the conversation and ready for it to end, primarily because there was no good outcome of it continuing.
“My reputation! What reputation? I'm a poor relation left penniless and homeless due to a Faro game between you and my now deceased cousin whom you were accused of murdering. You avoided the noose only because I provided an alibi for you at the absolute cost of my honor!”
“And in return you were given the protection of my name, and if you weren't being so bloody hardheaded, you'd see that everything I'm doing right now is to protect you and to protect the people of Blagdon!” he shouted. He was beginning to understand why he'd preferred other men's wives to taking one of his own.
“I'm returning to Blagdon Hall tonight. I cannot spend the night under this roof surrounded by your past mistakes.”
“They weren't mistakes... not all of them.”
She gasped as if she'd been struck, but he continued. “They were not mistakes but they are very much my past. I cannot change that. Had it been my choice, I would not have forced you to confront it in such a brutal manner. Lavinia is responsible for creating this dreaded scene, not I. Turn your anger where it belongs, Abby and let us call a truce. Please?” He extended his hand toward her, but she backed away from his touch.
He recognized wounded pride for what it was. Resigned to continued hostilities between them, he sighed heavily. “Regardless of your displeasure with me, wife, you must remain in public areas with other guests until I can escort you to this chamber. You will not return to Blagdon Hall tonight because it would be foolhardy to allow them to know you are there alone. Surely, you haven’t forgotten the horrors that Sarah suffered, more than likely at the hands of your sister and brother in law?”
The Dark Regency Series: Boxed Set Page 36