Breathlessly, Lancaster said, “Much as I’d like to see that, I’d rather get out of range.” He climbed slowly to his feet. “My congratulations, Athstone, for reeling in Lady Emily’s dowry. That kind of money is the only reason a man would put up with such a shrew. Glad I was able to help by telling you all about it.” He left the room, still hunched over.
Emily said, “I promise.”
Very slowly, Gavin eased his hold. As soon as she could move, Emily jerked her knee up, hard and fast—and missed, for suddenly he was holding her at arms’ length. “That was naughty of you, my dear.”
“I’m not your dear, and Lancaster’s not on the floor anymore, so you wouldn’t have been next to him. Why do you think I’d tell you the truth, when you just lied your head off to me?”
“I understand you’re angry, but—”
“Angry? I am so far beyond angry…” She stopped, swallowing hard. She had nodded to her father, agreeing to the betrothal; she remembered it now—because, for just a few minutes while Gavin held her, kissed her, and schemed to protect her, she had hoped that he meant it. That he cared for her.
You fool. You fell in love with him.
Her voice was quiet. “You said once there was nothing about me that you admired.”
“No, you said it. And even if it had been true at the time, I found, on closer acquaintance, that—”
“Oh, yes, on closer acquaintance you found something to admire—the same thing Lancaster wanted. So he told you all about my dowry. You may as well admit it, Gavin.”
“You’d take that cad’s word for anything?”
“It’s not a matter of taking his word. The whole thing is obvious, now that I think about it. You’ve done to me exactly what Lancaster was planning to do—force me into marriage for the sake of my dowry. No wonder you came bursting in here to save me! You had to act quickly, or he’d have beaten you to the prize.”
“That was a rescue, Emily—not a competition.”
“You’d like me to think that, wouldn’t you? I couldn’t have been more wrong about you. Tell me—how large a bribe did it take to interest you? Has my father increased the amount even more?”
“I’d be the last to know.”
“I don’t believe you. Not now.” She stared up at him. “Gavin, I trusted you! I thought you wouldn’t be attracted by my dowry because you have no need of it. But that’s not true, is it?”
He leaned against the back of the settee, folded his arms across his chest, and pasted a patient expression on his face.
Fury raced through Emily’s veins. How dare he be so calm? Just because he thought he’d won…Well, she’d make certain he knew he wasn’t fooling her. “You may be the heir of the Duke of Weybridge, but that fact doesn’t give you anything but a courtesy title. You’ll be dependent on Uncle Josiah for handouts and an allowance. You do need my money to support you. So you caught me in a bad spot, and you forced me into this—the same way Lancaster intended to do. ”
She ran out of breath. She was almost afraid to look at him, for he’d been too quiet. Surely he should have argued, defended himself.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I did force you.”
Emily’s heart sagged.
“Though I have to say, if I’d been the one who had you under me on that settee, you wouldn’t have been reluctant.”
Damn him, he was right—and that made her feel even worse. How could she know all this and still want him?
“As I see it, Emily, because of your own actions you have no choice but to marry someone.”
The last little shred of hope that he might truly have wanted this—wanted her—curled up and died deep inside her. “Wait a minute. My actions?”
“You were fool enough to go off alone with Lancaster.”
“I only went because he told me—” Memory flashed over her. “Oh, no! Lucien’s in trouble. He’s taken Chloe off somewhere, and if our father finds them—”
“There’s nothing we can do about Lucien. Even if Lancaster was telling the truth, which I doubt, Chiswick won’t murder his heir. Whatever else your father may be, he’s hardly impulsive.” He reached out a hand to her. “One way or another, you must give up this mad dream of independence, Emily. I want you to marry me.”
Stubbornly, she shook her head.
“Very well.” Gavin pushed himself upright. “Since Lancaster is your choice—”
“He’s not my choice! I don’t want—”
“—To marry anyone. I know. By the way, feel free to consult your father and your Uncle Josiah about whether they agree with you, or with me, about the need for you to marry.”
Emily felt a flush climb her cheeks.
“If you’d prefer Lancaster to me, I’ll find him. I’ll even be happy to explain to him that strictly speaking, you’re still a virgin. Though I must admit when he laughs at me for being such a fool, I may be sorely tempted to finish the job you—”
“Gavin!”
“Sorry, I got distracted there for a moment. I was merely making the point that he won’t quibble over marrying you.”
A little hiccup of a sob escaped her, and she shook her head in despair.
“You don’t want Lancaster?”
“Of course not. But I don’t want to marry you, either—and you don’t want to marry me.” Just saying the words made her throat feel raw.
“You’re wrong there, for I do want to marry you. I fell in love with you that first afternoon when you snipped at me over your title.”
He sounded almost matter-of-fact. Surely, she thought, he should be flattering her, making up to her—not reminding her of embarrassing moments.
“Emily, I’m so deeply in love with you that I want to make you a duchess someday—and for a man who has never quite taken to the idea of being a duke, that’s a considerable change.”
She stole a look at him. He was smiling, and there was a softness in his eyes she’d never seen before. She couldn’t get her breath.
“There’s something else you should know,” he said quietly. “It’s true that the duke’s solicitors found me laboring in a farm field.”
“I heard Uncle Josiah say something about that,” she muttered.
“I was helping to bring in a crop for a friend who had been injured and couldn’t do it himself. But that’s not what I do—what I used to do—for a living. I wasn’t a farmhand, and I don’t need your dowry.”
She looked at him doubtfully.
“Even if your Uncle Josiah leaves every penny of his private fortune to charity, we can get along. I sold all the real estate, because I knew it would be too hard to take care of it from the far side of the Atlantic Ocean in case I ended up staying here. That’s why it took so many months for me to show up in England.”
Her breath stuck in her throat. “You owned…”
“Mostly houses. A few business properties—not the businesses in them, only the buildings. But that was a sideline. I spent most of my time running the shipping lines. I still own my share, and I plan to keep it, but I turned the day-to-day management over to my partner when I decided to come to England. Just in case—”
“In case you ended up staying.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You really thought you might not want all this?”
“I almost didn’t come at all—except my curiosity wouldn’t let me stay away. A castle, a title…who could resist taking a look? Now I know making that trip was the best decision of my life. Not because of the castle or the title. Because of you.” He reached out to brush a curl back from her face.
Emily noticed that his hand was unsteady.
“I should warn you, though, that I’m not as well off as your uncle.”
“Nobody is,” Emily said quietly.
“If you want a castle of your own—well, that might be more than I can afford. But the fact is I’d be happy with you in a cottage in Barton Bristow.”
Emily sniffed and fumbled for a handkerchief. “It’s a very small cottage. I’m afraid you wouldn’t ft.”
Gavin handed her a big white square. “So what are we going to do?”
She blew her nose quietly and then toyed with the linen, folding it precisely so she didn’t have to look at him. “I suppose,” she said very quietly, “in that case, we’ll just have to live in this castle.”
Isabel couldn’t find Lucien or Chloe or Emily anywhere. Even the Earl of Chiswick and the Duke of Weybridge seemed to have disappeared.
She was distracted for a moment when she spotted the duke’s wheeled chair sitting empty in the most secluded corner of the great hall. But she concluded the footmen might have carried the duke upstairs without it. Isabel was only surprised that Uncle Josiah had stuck it out for so long. He’d had a very strenuous day—by the time he gave in and retired, he might have been too exhausted even to sit upright any longer.
She made a full round of the great hall and came back to the little knot of onlookers still gawking at Lady Fletcher and whispering behind their hands.
Lady Stone had put the vinaigrette away and was discussing some sort of wager with an elderly gentleman of military bearing.
He shook his head. “You’ll have to do better than that, Lucinda.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll give you four to one, you chiseler.” She broke off and looked past Isabel. “Here they come.”
Isabel swung around, expecting to see Emily, or Lucien. Instead, the Earl of Chiswick came slowly across the great hall, pushing the duke in his wheeled chair and pausing here and there to speak to someone in the crowd. Far from being an exhausted hulk, Uncle Josiah had more color in his face than he’d displayed all week.
Mr. Lancaster came up beside her. “What’s all the excitement about?”
Lady Stone answered. “It appears that Hartford and Miss Fletcher are to be married.”
He snickered, and then gave way to a belly laugh. “Now that’s funny.”
Isabel wasn’t about to ask him to explain the joke. She moved aside and surveyed the room again. Surely by now Emily should have reappeared. Where could she have gone?
“Tell me, Chiswick,” Lady Stone rasped. “Did I do well to bet on young Athstone?”
The earl bowed. “I am pleased to announce that my daughter Emily is betrothed to Lord Athstone.”
Emily and Gavin, Isabel thought with a wave of pleasure. She’d thought for days they would make a good combination, and Emily was eminently suited to be a duchess. Isabel was so delighted at the news that she momentarily forgot her own troubles.
Then Lancaster spoke up, loud enough to be heard even above the orchestra. “The truth is that Chiswick found Athstone with Lady Emily…ahem…in fagrante delicto in the smoking room. But of course he’s not going to tell you that part.”
Isabel’s joy dried up in an instant. If Emily was being forced into this marriage, the gossip tonight would be only the start. And this time all the talk would be much more difficult to bear.
But why take Lancaster’s word for it? Perhaps Isabel’s first instinct had been right and Emily was happy. “How would you know?”
“I was there, Lady Isabel.” His voice had the ring of truth. “It was quite a scene.”
Beside Isabel, Maxwell murmured, “What a rare party this has been. Lucien stealing your father’s promised bride, Athstone compromising Emily, or possibly vice versa…Do the Ardens actually go looking for scandal, or does it just naturally cling to you?”
Isabel turned on him. “Can I possibly make it any plainer that I would like you to go away?”
“No, you’ve been quite clear,” Maxwell said easily. “But my name is on your card and the supper waltz is just starting.”
“I am not going to waltz with you, Maxwell.”
“Very well.” He started a low and unusually courtly bow—but before Isabel knew what was happening, he draped her over his shoulder and straightened up, his arm tight around her knees and her head dangling down his back.
“What are you doing?” she shrieked.
“Improvising. There have already been two scandals at this ball, so why not another one?”
He carried her straight across the center of the great hall, scattering the dancers, and through the back rooms toward the new wing. On the staircase he slowed down a bit, but when he reached Isabel’s bedroom he was still breathing easily.
Which was more than Isabel could say for herself, since it was difficult to get adequate air when she was upside down with a shoulder directly under her diaphragm.
He dropped her on the bed and straddled her hips to hold her there, sitting back on his heels so he loomed over her. “I wouldn’t advise struggling unless you intend to turn that dress into rags. What was it again that you wanted to talk to me about after the ball? Ah, yes. Mistresses.”
“I’d be happy never to talk to you again,” Isabel said.
He braced his hands above her shoulders and leaned over her. His lips brushed hers and she turned her head away. All she accomplished, however, was to put her ear right next to his mouth, so he traced the outline of it with the tip of his tongue.
She gritted her teeth. “Stop it!”
“I didn’t think you could make that resolution work for long,” he whispered straight into her ear. “The not-talking part, I mean. But I’d be happy to make love to you first, if—”
“No! Get off me!”
“You have to promise to stay here and listen.”
Isabel considered and gave a jerky nod.
Maxwell rolled to one side, pulling her with him so they lay face-to-face, only inches separating them. “It’s pretty clear Lady Murdoch is your main concern. Right?”
She didn’t bother to answer.
“First, I didn’t arrange for her to be here. She wasn’t invited—her husband was, because he’s an old friend of your uncle’s, and she seems to have borrowed his invitation. Second, I did have a tendre for the lady a long time ago—before she was married and before I acquired enough common sense to realize that beauty doesn’t make up for a grasping nature. She is not and has never been my mistress.”
“She’d like to be,” Isabel muttered. “And now that she’s given her husband his heir—”
“Neither her wishes nor Murdoch’s heir are any concern of ours. There’s only one heir in the world I’m interested in.”
Isabel’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she turned her head away, trying to hide them.
“But the fact that she bothers you, my dear…”
“She doesn’t. I mean—she’s not the only thing that bothers me.”
“Then it’s Kilburn?” He sighed. “It’s true I wanted the property your dowry included, and your father made marrying you a very intriguing proposition when he dangled not only Kilburn in front of me, but the rest.”
“The rest? He gave you more than just Kilburn?”
“Your father never told you? I suppose that’s no surprise. Chiswick has always played his cards close to his chest. But don’t worry. Keep your word, and you’ll finally have what you’ve wanted all this time.” He sounded almost bitter.
Beauty doesn’t make up for a grasping nature, he had said a few minutes ago about Elspeth Murdoch. Did he think that phrase described Isabel too?
But why should she feel guilty for trying to provide for herself? She wasn’t the one whose conscience was burdened with a ruined mistress, a secret child, the death of a friend…
“It’s not Kilburn, either.” She had to steady her voice before she could go on. “You say you’re only interested in your heir, but what about the other child? Miss Lester’s child?”
He went as still and cold as a frozen lake. “That doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Yes, it does!” She surged up from the bed and onto her feet. “It was bad enough when you left me on our wedding night to stand up as a second to the scoundrel who disgraced my sister. You betrayed me, and you betrayed Emily.”
“And I’ve been sorry for it ever since.” He sat on the edge of the mattress. “Philip Rivington was my friend, Isabel.”<
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“Quite a good friend, it seems. Close enough to die for you!”
Her words fell in a silence as deep as a chasm. “What are you talking about?”
“I was outside the folly this afternoon. I heard it all—everything you told Lady Murdoch. Odd that it never occurred to me until today to wonder why Philip Rivington fought that duel—why he didn’t just marry Miss Lester instead. But if the real father of her child couldn’t marry her, because he was already married…” She gulped. “Already married to me…”
Maxwell’s face went white. “You think I sent Philip out to take a bullet for me?”
“Why else would you have left your bride on your wedding night—unless you had no choice?”
“I didn’t have a choice. Philip swore to me that he was innocent.”
“You believed him?”
“He assured me Miss Lester had lied to her brother when she said Philip had seduced her—that it must have been a gardener or a footman or a stable boy who got her with child, but she didn’t want to admit it. It wouldn’t be the first time a gentleman was accused without proof.” His tone was dry. “Or the last, it seems.”
But Isabel had heard the evidence, in his own words. Hadn’t she?
“It wasn’t until the bullet struck and he knew his time was short that Philip admitted the truth. With his dying breath, he finally owned up. He took advantage of that girl, he seduced her, and he promised marriage. It was a promise he never intended to keep.”
She stared at him.
Almost casually, Maxwell said, “I wondered why Elspeth asked me to meet her in the folly today, when there were so many more convenient places. But how did she get you to come all that way, so you could conveniently overhear what she phrased so carefully in order to mislead you?”
“It wasn’t only what she said. You told her you were responsible.”
“Yes, because I feel responsible. I believed Philip and I supported him—and I was absolutely wrong.”
Isabel felt dizzy.
“If he had told me the truth, or if I had taken the time to ask more questions, I would have prevented that duel. I would have forced Philip to offer marriage to the young woman he had ruined. She would have had a reluctant cad for a husband, but perhaps she would have preferred that. At least she’d have been able to choose.”
The Birthday Scandal Page 29