“Walk with me, Miss Stone?”
he asked abruptly.
“Come, bear me company for a small part of this lonely evening.”
“Walk with you?” Her voice quivered as she tried to hide her astonishment. “Why, wherever would we go?”
Even in the flickering light of the wall sconce, Evangeline could see a mischievous smile tug at the corner of Elliot’s full, sinfully handsome mouth. “In the gardens,” he whispered, leaning into her. “Beneath the light of the moon. Where is your sense of romantic adventure, Miss Stone?”
“I do not think that we should—”
“Ah, Miss Stone! Do something wildly irresponsible for once.” Without taking his eyes from hers, Elliot placed his hand on the doorknob of her bedchamber and flashed her a wicked grin. Slowly, he pushed the door open on silent hinges, his big hand splayed against the wood. A wave of desire and uncertainty shook her.
“Your cloak,” he answered, in response to her disquiet. Elliot gently tipped her chin up on his finger and looked down into her eyes. It should have been a sweet gesture, but in the darkened corridor, it felt like something quite different. “You are safe with me, Miss Stone,” he whispered. “The pleasure of your company is all I seek tonight. But do go in and fetch a cloak, for you shall find the night less benign than I.”
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Sonnet Book published by POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
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Copyright © 1999 by S. T. Woodhouse
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN-10: 0-7434-1777-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-1777-8
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Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Epilogue
A Woman Scorned
s
To my muse and mentor,
my husband
To those red-penned she-devils,
Debbie, Sally, Sandy, and Teresa
And to the eternal optimist,
Lauren McKenna, editor extraordinaire
Team players,
one and all
O, what excuse can my invention make,
When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed?
Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake,
Mine eyes forgo their light, my false heart bleed?
The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed.
—William Shakespeare
My False
Heart
Prologue
Innocence for innocence; we knew not the
Doctrine of Ill-doing.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
With an athletic grace, Lord Elliot Armstrong literally leapt from his glossy black traveling coach, just as it rolled to a stop before his future uncle-in-law’s town house in Maverton Square. As Elliot’s coachman reined in the four fresh grays, a powdered servant jumped down to slam shut the carriage door, left swinging on its hinges in the young nobleman’s wake. Vaulting eagerly up the stairs, however, Elliot thought of nothing but his exquisite bride-to-be. He had to see her. Just for a moment. Indeed, he had been formally betrothed to Lord Howell’s niece for three whole days now. Surely he had every right to call upon his beloved Cicely, even at such an unfashionably early hour?
After his admittance by Howell’s obsequious footman, Elliot strode into the now-familiar morning parlor, where he had paid desperate, passionate court to his green-eyed beauty for all of a sennight. “I must see Miss Forsythe at once, Cobb, if you please,” demanded Elliot, tossing his hat and gloves to the servant.
“Miss Forsythe is, er—in the garden with a—a caller, my lord,” replied the footman uneasily, motioning Elliot toward a worn settee. “If you would care to relax for a moment?” Elliot did not care to relax for a moment, because an unexpected and arduous journey lay ahead of him. He chose instead to pace the frayed carpet before the French windows, which led onto the flagstone terrace. His reluctance to travel north could be assuaged by nothing less than one last glimpse of Cicely. Immediately, a flash of pink silk caught his eye, and impatiently Elliot lifted his gaze to peer through the glass and into the thick foliage beyond. The sight he beheld sent blood pounding into his temples. Godfrey Moore! What was that bastard about? Had he no shame? Had he not heard? Cicely had made her choice, damn him! But Moore appeared disinclined to accept defeat with gentlemanly grace, and Elliot watched in horror as the man touched Cicely, letting his fingertips slide almost seductively across her flushing cheek.
“Howell!” roared Elliot over his shoulder, not breaking his gaze from the fervent scene on the garden bench. Bloody hell! Moore had a desperate grip on her wrists now. The hot pounding in Elliot’s head grew louder, more insistent, blocking out all logical thought. Instinctively, his hand went for the small dagger which he kept tucked discreetly in his sock, but he found himself clawing impotently at nothing more than the leather of his fine English topboots. Damnable London manners. He hissed, wrenching on the door handle. In his Highland home, even in this enlightened year of 1809, a usurper like Moore could well expect to suffer a knife in his ribs for such egregious conduct, and Elliot fully intended to oblige him. Only the sound of heavy footsteps treading into the parlor restrained him from shattering the glass with his bare hands.
“Ah, good morning, my lord!” The baron’s voice boomed forth with ingratiating cheer. “Come to call upon my lovely niece, have you?”
Still clenching the brass handle in a white-knuckled grip, Elliot jerked his head toward the baron’s terrace. “God damn it, Howell! My future wife is being assaulted under your own roof, and you have the gall to give me good morning?” Suddenly slack-jawed, Howell took one look through his French windows and, with a practiced skill, simultaneously kicked and yanked the resistant door, which came free with a wrenching scrape. Muttering a vile curse, the burly baron leapt forward to jerk his niece’s red-faced, stammering suitor off the bench. He then propelled Moore smoothly through the room and into the entrance hall.
But Elliot paid neither of them any further heed, for Cicely was now floating in from the terrace, one soft hand outstretched in greeting. Anxiously, he went to her and took Cicely’s dainty fingers in his. “Oh, my love!” she breathed, a strained but gracious smile fixed upon her pale face. “What a surprise! Uncle and I did not expect to see you until this afternoon—”
Behind them, the baron interrupted by clearing his throat, his beefy face still florid with obviously suppressed aggravation. Alone, he strode back through the parlor, his whip and hat in hand. “Cicely, Elliot.” He nodded at them in turn, as if nothing untoward had occurred. “Just on my way out, I’m afraid. Lady Howell has gone to her papa’s and shan’t return until tomorrow, but I cannot think why the two of you—er, engaged and all that—cannot spend an hour or two alone.”
“Oh, thank you, Uncle dear!
” answered Cicely in a honeyed voice as Howell turned to quit the room.
As Cicely pulled him down onto a nearby settee, Elliot forgot his black mood entirely. He forgot, furthermore, to ask Cicely precisely how she had come to be alone on the terrace with Godfrey Moore. And he forgot that he was not supposed to sit quite so close to his fiancée. All these rational thoughts floated up and away as Cicely eased across the settee toward him.
“Oh, Elliot,” she whispered softly, lowering her long black lashes. “I have been counting the minutes until I could see you again. To be separated from you, for even a day, is sheer torture. I—forgive me, but it is simply beyond bearing!”
Elliot watched as a little tear formed in a corner of one of her vivid green eyes. “Oh, Cicely, do not cry. It is the same for me, but we must—”
“No, Elliot!” One tiny hand fluttered at her throat. “Do not say ‘But we must’! I cannot bear it. But we must wait! But we must use discretion! But we must think of what others shall say! Oh, my love, I am sick to death of must and should! When can we be married? Do say it shall be soon. I beg of you!”
Cicely clutched passionately at his huge, big-boned hand, and Elliot felt as awkward and as clumsy as a gorilla playing with a china doll. He drew a deep breath. “Cicely—how I dread what I must tell you. Mother has sent for me. I am bound for Scotland at once. My father has taken ill again, and the physicians hold out little hope this time.”
Elliot waited for Cicely’s quiet words of sympathy, yet he scarcely noticed when they did not come. “At once?” she echoed hollowly, all color draining from her face. “But—but what of me? How soon will you return? I—I must know, Elliot! Why … why, you cannot leave me like this—” Her voice choked with obvious alarm.
“Oh, my dearest! I shall never leave you. I’ll be gone but a few months, three at most. I promise you, Cicely—”
“Three months?” Her voice was uncharacteristically sharp, and she licked her pouting pink lips uncertainly. “But that is much too long—I mean, it is so very long. I shall surely die—of loneliness, of course.”
Elliot suppressed a flash of irritation, reminding himself that Cicely would not carry on so were her love for him less ardent. Indeed, had she not singled him out for her attentions almost immediately upon his arrival in town last month? This despite the fact that he was shy and unsophisticated, while a throng of polished flirts flocked to her side at every ton function.
“Darling,” he said gently, tipping her sharp little chin up with one finger, “what would you have me do? My father is dying this time, and ’tis only proper I attend his deathbed. Moreover, I shall be required to take charge of the Rannoch estates.”
Cicely licked her lips again, her face drawn into the stubborn, taut lines Elliot had quickly learned to recognize. “Very well, then, Elliot,” she replied with sudden coolness, staring blindly into the distance. “Let us be wed immediately. You must use your family’s influence to obtain a special license this afternoon.”
Elliot froze. “This afternoon? Cicely, are you mad? Your uncle would never agree!”
Cicely shook her head and gave a twisted little smile.
“Oh, Elliot! You know nothing of what Uncle wants! Howell would have me wed as soon as possible, and I have made it plain that I shall have only you. Indeed, I am sure he will wish us happy.”
“I cannot think, my love, that you are correct. Nonetheless, my mother would have an apoplexy! Only think of what people might say about you—”
Cicely sniffed disdainfully. “They would say that we are hopelessly in love, that’s what they would say.”
“No, darling,” he answered with uncharacteristic firmness. “I’ll not risk sullying your name. As soon as my mourning is ended, we shall have a grand wedding—the finest St. George’s has ever seen! The world must see that you are to be treated with every respect.” Respect, he had learned early on, was a word that carried great weight with Cicely, and Elliot had vaguely noticed that in some circles his beloved was received with a coolness he did not fully understand.
Elliot’s young heart was warmed by the recollection of how sweetly Cicely had smiled, how eagerly she had grasped his hand, when he had told her that, as the future marchioness of Rannoch, she would be able to look down her nose at those crones at Almack’s who had refused to extend her a voucher. Indeed, she would be able to give the cut direct to much of London should she so desire. Elliot almost hoped that she would so desire, for he had had a gut full of the high-handed pomp and English arrogance he had endured during his few short weeks in town.
Cicely smiled weakly and drew his hand to her full, slightly parted lips. “Yes, of course, you are right, my love,” she responded in a husky voice. She kissed his hand fervently, then shocked him by sucking one fingertip into the warmth of her mouth, seductively lowering her lashes. Then, slowly, oh so slowly, she withdrew his finger and pressed his palm to her breast. With her other hand, Cicely tugged inexorably downward on the plunging bodice of her gown, dragging the pink silk erotically over her firm, rosy nipples until the lovely white mounds spilled forth. One luscious breast now rested just beneath his eager fingers.
Elliot sucked in his breath and closed his eyes tightly. Never in his life had he seen a lady do such a thing. Whores, yes, but there’d been precious few of them in Elliot’s young life. Ayr was a damnably dull town. Furthermore, Elliot’s cold, staunchly religious father frowned on such debauchery.
“Oh, touch me, Elliot,” whispered Cicely thickly, pulling his fingertips back and forth across the hardening bud of her breast. “I am so very ashamed, but I simply cannot wait—”
Slowly, Elliot opened his eyes, and almost involuntarily he began to caress Cicely’s breast. It was as if his hand belonged to someone else altogether, to a disgusting libertine, in fact. His groin tightened, his breathing quickened, and he felt dreadfully uncertain of himself. He was, therefore, greatly reassured when Cicely’s head tipped back and her mouth parted slightly in obvious pleasure. Her eyes were dark, glittering slits. A cat being stroked.
Ah, yes! She did love him. And she desired him. She would be the perfect wife.
“Oh, yes, Elliot—please, please do not stop.” Cicely urged her full breasts forward into his hands. “Touch me. Ah, yes, there. And there—”
Elliot did not stop, though he knew that as a gentleman he should. He touched her there. And there. Just as she asked. After all, they were engaged. In a matter of months, Cicely would be his wife. He had every right to touch her thus, did he not? She wanted him. She loved him so passionately. That much was pleasingly obvious to Elliot.
Slowly, Cicely’s head came up, and her green eyes narrowed further still. “Ahh, Elliot, please! My aunt and uncle are out. Come upstairs with me. No one will know. I—” Her lashes fluttered demurely. “I simply must have you now. I cannot wait.” When Elliot found himself stunned into utter silence, Cicely slipped one delicate hand down his waistcoat, then lower still, until Elliot gasped.
As she caressed her own breasts with one hand, Cicely began to massage his swollen member with the other until Elliot was sure he was going to disgrace himself right there on the baron’s brocade settee. Then, somewhere deep inside the house, a servant’s voice echoed, dragging Elliot back to the grim edge of reality. Frantically, his Presbyterian upbringing fought his libidinous urge to the ground and wrestled it into a chokehold. He pulled away from Cicely and gently tugged upward on her bodice.
“Cicely, my darling,” he whispered hoarsely, “I could never take you outside the bounds of matrimony. You are too special. Too worthy.”
Sitting stiffly back against the settee, Cicely crossed her arms, tossed her raven curls, and fixed her lips into a lovely pout. As always, Elliot was utterly charmed. With gentle deliberation, he leaned forward to kiss her dainty nose. “Soon, sweetest, soon,” he promised, with all the reassurance he could muster. But Elliot was stunned to see that Cicely’s green eyes had pooled with tears and she was now crying in earnest.
> Eighteen-year-old Evangeline Stone leaned wearily across the boat railing, sighing in abject frustration as their westbound Ostend schooner sailed into the ancient Cinque Port of Dover at precisely the same moment as the afternoon packet came in. As ill luck would have it, the crowded ship, despite running late as usual, came in on the tide and managed to beat their chartered boat by a breath. On the distant quay, stevedores began to swarm like industrious ants, stirring in anticipation of the incoming vessels. In the background, carriages ranging from the finest barouche to the simplest farmer’s gig lined the lower road which curved up and into the town proper. Despite the fact that war raged on the Continent, business struggled on.
Standing on the deck beside her, little Nicolette began to whine, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other. Their exodus from occupied Flanders had been both expensive and harrowing, and the children were now weary to the point of agitation. Urgently, Nicolette tugged at her elder sister’s hand, a now cold and seemingly bloodless extremity which the child had clutched tightly in her own sticky little paw for the last two hours or more.
“Evie,” wailed the round-faced toddler plaintively, “I have to go!”
Slumped against the rail beside Evangeline, her grief-stricken father said not a word. His thick hair, always too long, was now tossing aimlessly in the channel breeze. The rich brown locks had turned to a dull gray, seemingly overnight. Only the briefest movement of his flat blue eyes, flicking up to the soaring heights of Dover Castle and back down into the churning surf, gave any indication that Maxwell Stone was even vaguely aware of his surroundings.
Evangeline inhaled deeply, threw back her narrow shoulders, and sent up a silent prayer for strength, but little Michael chose this illtimed moment to begin screaming his displeasure at the delay, and, no doubt, at the brisk channel breeze.
“De pis en pis,” muttered his French nurse darkly, shifting the plump infant to her other hip. Weakly, she mopped her clammy brow with the back of one pale hand.
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