Wicked Scandal (Regency Sinners 3)

by Carole Mortimer

  He clenched his hands at his sides. “I shall insist that it does.”

  The earl shrugged. “I doubt you can make your bride say ‘I do’ if she no longer wishes to do so. And she may not wish to when her brother is not well enough to stand at her side.”

  Devil turned to glare across the room at the man lying on the sofa surrounded by all his cronies. “I need to speak with Alys,” he muttered. “Explain to her that I did not—”

  “Too late,” Carlton murmured at his side.

  Devil turned to see Alys sweeping into the room, her maid following closely at her heels. Alys was now fully clothed, thank goodness. Her hair was pulled back into an untidy cluster of curls at her crown, evidence she had hurried her grooming.

  Alys saw no one else in the room except her brother as she hurried to his side. Teddy lay prostrate on the couch, his face pale. His jacket and waistcoat had now been removed, but all that achieved was to reveal the blood soaking into and staining the front of his white shirt and no doubt the sofa beneath him. Not that Alys cared about that. After all, the couch and everything else within Newcomb Manor belonged to Teddy, and he might do with them what he wished.

  She moved down onto her knees beside her brother and took one of his bloodstained hands into her own. “How do you feel now? Did someone send for the doctor? Are you in a great deal of pain? What hap—”

  “How am I supposed to answer any of your questions if you do not even pause for breath before asking the next?” Teddy scowled his irritation.

  “Of course.” Embarrassed color warmed her cheeks. “Did Holmes send for the doctor, at least?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Go and enquire, would you, Woodcock?” she requested of the nearest gentleman before turning back to her brother. “How did this happen, Teddy?” Alys had found time to consider the situation while washing and dressing, and she now had her own thoughts as to what might have transpired. But she wished to hear what her brother had to say on the subject before making her final judgment.

  Teddy glanced across the room to where Deveril and Carlton stood silently watching the two of them. “I know I have always pooh-poohed your accusations toward Deveril in regard to the murder of our father. That I did so as recently as three days ago,” he spoke to her softly. “But evidence would seem to indicate you might have been correct after all. I now believe he shot Father and killed him, as he has now shot me, with less success.”

  Alys released Teddy’s hand to sit back on her heels. It was what she had suspected, but even so, thinking something and hearing it confirmed were two distinctly different things. “What possible reason could Deveril have for doing such a thing?”

  Teddy glanced pointedly at the guests standing close enough to overhear their conversation. “I believe we must talk about this later and in private, Alys.”

  “Of course.” She lowered her lashes. “If you will excuse me, I must have a few words with Deveril about the arrangements for this afternoon.”

  Teddy’s eyes glittered with malice. “Do not bother to let the bastard down gently.”

  Alys gave her brother a brief smile before standing and crossing the room to where Sebastian and the earl both watched the proceedings through narrowed lids. Sebastian was noticeably tenser than the earl.

  “Alys—”

  She calmly cut through whatever he had intended saying. “Sebastian, are you particularly set on the wedding taking place today?”

  As Carlton had suggested, and Devil had suspected might be the case, Alys intended to call off their wedding, probably indefinitely. “I am very set on it, yes,” he answered her through tight lips.

  She nodded as if she had expected no other answer. “Then perhaps you might ask the vicar if he could bring the service forward several hours? I should then like to leave for Herefordshire, as planned, immediately after we are finished at the church.”

  Devil frowned his confusion. “You still intend to marry me today?”

  Her chin rose. “That is what we agreed, is it not? Unless you have changed your mind?” She met his gaze calmly.

  Devil decided there was something not quite right about Alys’s calm or this conversation. He had been convinced she would return downstairs and demand to be released from both their betrothal and the wedding this afternoon. Instead, she was asking for the opposite, that the wedding should take place earlier than planned.

  “Not in the least,” he answered distractedly.

  Alys nodded. “Then so be it. As my brother is currently indisposed, we are in need of another witness besides the earl.” She glanced in Carlton’s direction as he stood guard to ensure their privacy while at the same time attempting to give every indication of not eavesdropping on their conversation. “I will ask the vicar’s wife. I am sure she will happily step into that role.”

  “Alys—”

  “If you will both excuse me now?” she continued as if Devil had not spoken. “I still have some last-minute details in need of my attention before I depart Newcomb Manor for good.” She turned to leave.

  Devil reached out and grasped her arm. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded when she glanced back at him.

  “Surely that is obvious.”

  “Not to me,” he assured her grimly. “I felt sure, as your brother is…indisposed, you would wish to remain by his side until he is recovered.”

  “Did you?” Alys maintained that coolness. “My brother has made it more than clear these past few days that my presence is not needed here. I see no reason— Ah, the doctor has arrived,” she said as a short, balding man was shown into the room by Holmes. “We will talk again later, Sebastian,” she dismissed before pulling out of his grasp and crossing the room to join the doctor at her brother’s side.

  Devil was nonplussed. No other word for it. After tensely waiting for Alys to revile and then reject him, she had instead stated she still intended marrying him and had asked him to bring the wedding forward by several hours.

  “Quite the surprise, your little bride.” Carlton echoed Devil’s thoughts.

  He gave a dazed shake of his head. “I would call her unpredictable and incomprehensible, rather than merely surprising.”

  The earl gave an appreciative grin. “You will certainly never be bored in your marriage, old chap.” He gave Devil a congratulatory slap on the back. “Talking of which… I should strike while the iron is hot, if I were you, and pay the vicar a visit.”

  Devil had every intention of doing so.

  “Sebastian,” he suddenly realized. “Alys called me Sebastian just now,” he explained impatiently as Carlton gave him a puzzled glance.

  “Well, that is your name.”

  “Yes, but—” Devil saw no reason to explain to Maxim that Alys only ever called him by his given name when the two of them were being intimate together. It was a distinction that did not need to be shared with a third party.

  Devil decided he would wait until after the wedding to speak with Alys on the subject of her brother, and also as to whether or not she was a spy for Napoleon.

  He might even be able to delay the latter as long as tomorrow.

  Chapter 11

  “I told Sir Percy that you and I were together for the whole of this morning.”

  Devil eyed Alys warily as she stood in the center of the bedchamber he occupied at Newcomb Manor. “Why would you tell him something that is not true? Moreover, something which puts into question your own reputation?” he added with a scowl.

  “In light of our hurried wedding later today, I believe my reputation is beyond saving,” she dismissed. “And I told Sir Percy you were with me so you would have an alibi for when Teddy was shot, of course,” she snapped her impatience.

  Devil had returned from a successful visit with the vicar to learn from Carlton that Sir Percy Renshaw, the local magistrate, had arrived in his absence to investigate this morning’s shooting. Devil had immediately sought out Alys, only to learn she was already talking to Sir Percy in Newcomb’s stud
y.

  So instead, Devil had gone to his bedchamber to ensure Riley was dealing with his packing. More for something to keep himself occupied than any real doubt his valet was being his usual efficient self. Alys had knocked on his bedchamber door several minutes ago, her interview with the magistrate obviously over.

  She was very pale, and her eyes seemed huge and deeply blue against that pallor.

  Devil looked at her searchingly. “But we were not together this morning.”

  “Does it matter?” She began to pace the room, her movements agitated. “While you were down in the village, the Earl of Carlton explained to me you were out walking, alone, when my brother was shot.”

  His shoulders tensed. “Maxim asked you to lie—”

  “He did nothing of the sort,” Alys reproved. “He merely thought I should be aware of that fact before speaking with Sir Percy.”

  “So that you would lie to him.”

  “The earl did not ask me to do so.”

  “He implied it.”

  “Not in the least,” Alys insisted. “It was my own decision.”

  “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Because I know you did not shoot Teddy!” Her eyes glittered with anger rather than tears as she stopped her pacing to glare at him. “I do not know who did, but it certainly was not you.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Her lips thinned. “Because I am.”

  “I shall have to tell Sir Percy the truth when he asks to speak with me,” he insisted.

  She snorted her impatience. “And get yourself arrested for something you did not do, and perjure me in the process?”

  “Alys—”

  “I saw the truth in Teddy eyes earlier,” she stated flatly. “I am certain, with the help of his accomplice, he engineered the shooting himself.”

  It was one thing for Devil to suspect that might be the case, and for Carlton to agree with him, quite another to hear Alys stating it as fact. “Did he tell you that?”

  Alys shook her head. The memory of that look of malice, almost triumph in her brother’s eyes, when he had believed she was about to call off her wedding to Sebastian had told Alys all that she needed to know about who had shot Teddy. “Do we have to talk about this anymore just now?” She looked at Devil in appeal. “Is it not enough that I now know my brother to be a thief and a liar?”

  “A thief?”

  “He might as well have stolen that twenty thousand pounds from you for all the truth there was in his accusations against you,” she snapped in disgust. “Now he is attempting to implicate you in his having been shot. I could not allow him to do that.”

  Once she had reached her bedchamber earlier, Alys had been able to think past the immediacy and shock of learning her brother had been shot. To consider the implications of that shooting, and who might benefit from it.

  No one did.

  Except Teddy himself.

  For reasons Alys did not comprehend, her brother had not wanted her to marry Sebastian. To blackmail the other man out of a great deal of money, yes, but not for him to marry Alys.

  Once she realized that, it had not taken her long to know that if Teddy could convince the authorities and her that Sebastian was responsible for shooting him, then the wedding would not take place. With that in mind, once she returned downstairs, Alys had deliberately tailored her questions to Teddy to give her the answers she needed to confirm her suspicions.

  It had been too easy to draw Teddy out enough to incriminate himself.

  He had willingly stated he was now of the opinion Sebastian had killed their father after all, and that he had now shot him too. Her brother’s reaction when he thought she was about to break off her betrothal to Sebastian had also been telling.

  “For reasons of his own, I now believe Teddy does not wish our wedding to take place,” she stated with certainty.

  Devil had that same impression five days ago, and, like Alys, he wondered why that was. Alys would become a marchioness on their marriage. Newcomb would be the brother-in-law of one of the wealthiest men in England. The possibilities for Newcomb to extort more money from him were endless.

  “I should like to ensure that it does,” Alys continued briskly. “We can investigate Teddy’s reasons for attempting to incriminate you and, by doing so, ensuring our wedding does not take place, once we are safely married and have left Newcomb Manor.”

  Devil still fought an inner battle with himself regarding blatantly lying to the local magistrate. Despite knowing he was innocent of shooting Teddy Newcomb, it did not sit well with Devil’s other, clandestine but necessary work for the Crown, to actually lie to Sir Percy.

  But Devil believed he might manage to ignore his scruples if it meant his marriage to Alys would take place, and that afterwards he could remove her from Newcomb Manor and her treacherous brother…

  Devil felt no inclination to reopen the subject and so cause a return of friction during their carriage ride into Herefordshire later that afternoon.

  The wedding, brought forward two hours with the vicar’s agreement, had gone off without a hitch. Mainly because the only people attending were Alys and Devil, Carlton, the vicar’s wife, and a handful of the household staff from Newcomb Manor who had asked if they might attend.

  Riley had managed to learn from the gossip in the kitchen that Teddy Newcomb was in his bedchamber sleeping when they all left for the church, leaving the other man in total ignorance of the wedding about to take place. Nor was Newcomb’s name mentioned by any of the guests, before or after the service. As evidence of how shabbily Newcomb was known to treat his sister? Devil believe that might be the case.

  He had made enquiries after the doctor left his patient. As Devil had suspected, Newcomb’s wound was not life-threatening, although it would need careful watching to avoid any infection.

  Devil’s own interview with Sir Percy had gone well. How could it not when Alys had supplied him with an unbreakable alibi for the time the shooting took place. One that was all the more convincing because it shed a bad light on Alys’s own reputation and morals.

  Devil had been slightly taken aback at the church when Alys removed her cloak to reveal she wore a red silk gown beneath it. Admittedly, she looked beautiful in the gown, and brides often wore rich and lush-colored silk gowns to be married in. But the defiant tilt of Alys’s chin said she had worn the red silk for another reason entirely.

  “You look very beautiful today,” Devil told her gruffly as she sat across the carriage from him.

  He knew Alys’s maid had agreed to accompany her to Herefordshire but had gone to visit with relatives first and would join them in a few days’ time. Devil’s valet was traveling in the coach carrying their luggage. Carlton had left in his own carriage after the wedding to return to London and report back to Stonewell.

  Alys gave a graceful inclination of her head. “Thank you.”

  He sighed at her formality, knowing the subject of Teddy Newcomb still stood between the two of them like an ominous specter. “Did you see you brother before you left?” He was not aware of her having done so.

  Her mouth tightened. “No.”

  “You did not feel the need?”

  “No.”

  “What do you think he will do when he learns you are no longer at Newcomb Manor and have now become my wife?”

  “Does it matter?” she said dully.

  “Not to me, no,” Devil confirmed. But he seriously doubted Newcomb would sit meekly back and accept the fait accompli. “Do you think he will follow you?”

  “Why would he?”

  Why, indeed. But Devil did not believe he had seen the last of his brother-in-law. That either of them had.

  But if the other man attempted to harm Alys in any way again, verbally or physically, Devil would feel no hesitation in exerting some retribution of his own in defense of his wife.

  Newcomb would do well to think long and hard before he touched anything Devil considered his. And Alys was his now.
His wife. His to protect.

  Alys had known Sebastian would have more questions about her actions today, but she had hoped he would not feel the need to broach the subject until they had reached his home—now their home—in Herefordshire. “I wish only to talk about pleasant things on our wedding day.” And the subject of Teddy was not a pleasant one.

  To be frank, with herself at least, Alys’s thoughts about Teddy after the events of today were decidedly unpleasant. Some of them very unpleasant indeed. So much so, Alys was having a problem quite believing the extent of the possibilities of where those thoughts had taken her.

  But until she felt surer of her suspicions, something she intended doing as quickly as possible, she would prefer not to discuss the full extent of them with anyone. Even Sebastian.

  He seemed to accept her avoidance of the subject as he straightened. “May I sit next to you?”

  “If that is what you wish,” she invited almost shyly.

  His grin was almost boyish as he crossed the carriage to sit beside her and take one of her gloved hands in both of his. “I can hardly believe we are married, can you?”

  It was reassuring to know Sebastian found the situation as surreal as she did. “It is certainly strange to think I am no longer Miss Alys Newcomb but Lady Alys Trentham, Marchioness of Deveril.”

  He gave her fingers a squeeze. “My wife.”

  “As you are my husband.”

  He nodded. “I know the circumstances were not ideal, but I will do my best to be a good husband to you, Alys.”

  “I know.”

  “I also want you to know that…whatever transpires, my loyalty now lies first with you and our marriage.”

  “As mine does with you.” She frowned slightly, not sure what Sebastian was referring to by that remark. Unless he had come to the same conclusions she had in regard to Teddy?

  Sebastian’s fingers tightened about her more slender ones. “You should also know that you may tell me anything and I will not judge. I will only try to help.”

  Alys shook her head. “There is nothing for me to tell you right now.” Nothing of certainty, at least.