by Lauren Smith
“You’re watching me,” she said. “Why?”
He smiled, set his book aside, and waved her over. She put her own book down, crawled onto his lap, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I’ve been waiting for the right time to give you this.” He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a small, velvet pouch. He offered it on his palm. She took it, loosened the drawstrings, opened the velvet. She paused and looked at Lachlan in puzzlement before she tilted the bag upside down. Pearls tumbled into her hand. This necklace held two strands of pearls.
“My pearls… But… they can’t be. Mother’s necklace had only a single strand of pearls.”
“The others are a gift from my mother. She would have given them to you at some point.”
“But, I cannot take hers, not when…”
“Hush, lass. She wanted you to have them. To let you know that you’re as dear to her as you are to me.”
Daphne peered closely at the double-strand necklace, her lips trembling.
She pressed the back of her fingers against her mouth. “I thought I’d lost them forever when I left that day. I’d thought I’d lost you too,” she admitted.
“I’m not that easy to be rid of, you know.” His tone was teasing and mischief lit his eyes.
“I know. You almost died and…” she choked, the terror of that day still fresh in her mind. She could have lost him forever.
“But I didn’t, now dry those eyes. I don’t ever want to see you crying on my account.” He wiped at a tear that trailed down her face.
She sniffled and raised the necklace to her cheek, brushing the smooth round orbs against her skin before she kissed them.
A piece of her past had been restored through Lachlan’s thoughtfulness. Her heart had shattered violently from Lachlan’s betrayal and she’d run fast and far from the dream world Lachlan had let her glimpse. When she’d broken the strand and the pearls had scattered across the floor, she hadn’t stopped to retrieve them. She’d tried hard to forget the pearls over the last few days, not knowing what had happened when they’d fallen. They’d represented the life she’d had before her mother died, and she’d had to face the truth. That part of her life was over, had been over for years. She was living her new life, with man she loved with all of her heart. Yet he’d given her back this last bit of her mother and Moira had given her a set of pearls too. The unity of those two strands together was beautiful not because the pearls were lovely but because of what they represented. Time was healing old wounds. Willian’s death and her father’s imprisonment were the past. She and Lachlan were the future.
Lachlan took the pearls from her and fastened the clasp around her neck. Their gentle weight against her collarbones was comforting.
“I love you lass, never doubt it.” Lachlan’s winter-blue eyes held no frost, only the heat of a winter fire.
She brushed her fingers through his hair, careful not to touch his barely healed wound. “I love you too.”
“Prove it,” he said.
She brushed her nose against his. “You’re quite commanding, aren’t you?”
“Only when I expect to be kissed.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and she laughed, but her heart was so full that she could scarcely breathe. She very slowly leaned her head into his, biting her lip as she paused an inch from his mouth.
“Do you know what I keep thinking about?” she asked.
“What?” His eyes fixed on her mouth.
“About our wedding, and the moment we entered the church together.”
Lachlan’s eyes met hers and held. “That is a day I will never forget. I could breathe again when I took you in my arms and pledged myself to you. You gave me my life back.” He brushed a finger over the pearls. “My lady in pearls.”
“You did the same for me.” She closed the last inch between them. Their lips met and time froze, like an errant beam of sunlight that strikes a chandelier’s crystal and fractures into a rainbow that illuminates the world around it.
We are two broken hearts made whole, two lost souls made one.
###
Take a sneak peek at the next book on The Daughters of Scandal collection
A Most Unusual Scandal
Erin Rye
Chapter One
A Man’s Inheritance
Ashton Strachan, the Earl of Dundee, lifted and stared at his wine glass in an effort to curtail his mounting frustration. Between his grandmother’s perpetual frown and the growls from the black pug ensconced on her lap, the meal had been torturous.
"Ashton," Lady Leighton said, "is it really so difficult for you to endure my company for a mere hour?"
Ashton regarded her across the candle-lit dinner table. “Not at all, Grandmother.”
He set his glass down.
The pug growled.
“Come now, Angel, behave.” Lady Leighton scratched the dog’s chin.
Two years ago, when he’d last seen her, she hadn’t had the dog. The animal was at least four years old. Had its previous owner abused it? Whatever its history, the animal certainly wasn’t an angel. What had possessed his grandmother to bestow the name on such an ill-tempered animal?
She dabbed the corners of her mouth with her fine linen napkin as she locked gazes with him. The fire on the hearth crackled. The innkeeper, in his zeal to please the Earl of Strachan and his elderly grandmother, had placed enough wood on the fire to bake them.
She released a sigh. “As you clearly have no desire to share anything about your life, I suppose we should get down to business."
He offered a placating smile. "As I said earlier, there is little to tell. I feel certain you are aware that I have been working at Stanhope Hall.”
"That is always a safe assumption with you, Ashton."
He reached for his wine glass. Angel growled. “Easy there, lad.” Ashton sipped his wine. He returned his attention to his grandmother. "You say that as if it’s a bad thing."
"On the contrary, you know full well I've always admired your determination and work ethic."
"You simply wish me to focus my attention elsewhere."
An uncharacteristic light of sadness shone in her eyes. "I only wish you wouldn't ignore Kinnettles. How is the harvest going at Stanhope?”
“Better than last year.” Which was not a lie. But for the fourth year in a row, he would go into debt feeding the tenants—which was why he’d agreed to meet his grandmother tonight. He set his wineglass down.
Angel lifted a lip and flicked back his ears.
"I wish I could visit," his grandmother said.
He eyed the dog. "You are welcome to visit anytime you like."
Lady Leighton graced him with a cool smile. "I know you wouldn't turn us away if I showed up on your threshold, but you do not relish such a visit." He opened his mouth to rebut—to lie—but she waved him to silence. "It is neither here nor there. I grow too old for long journeys."
"Rubbish," he said. "I know men half your age who don't have the stamina and determination you do."
She grunted a laugh. "Be that as it may, the body doesn't cooperate like it used to. Which brings me to the reason for this meeting."
He tensed. Here is where he would pay the price for ignoring her these two years past.
"Are you aware that Duncan's wife is pregnant?"
Ashton felt as if he'd taken a fist to the gut. His cousin's wife pregnant? Dread wound through him. His grandmother didn’t lapse into idle gossip. He could easily guess why she mentioned the pregnancy.
“I suppose felicitations are in order,” he said.
"As you know, Kinnettles has been passed down to the women in our family for seven generations. You may not care for Duncan, but even you must admit that Linda is a good woman."
Ashton remained rigid. "What she sees in Duncan, I will never know."
"That aside, I know she would care for Kinnettles."
The death knell tolled for his inheritance. He said nothing. What was there to say?
/> "Have you asked Anne to marry you?"
Ashton blinked in surprise.
“I am acquainted with her mother, as you are aware," she said into his silence.
"Then you know that I have asked for her hand," he said.
"I will be honest, Ashton."
His brows shot up before he could stop the action.
Her eyes narrowed. "In this, I would prefer to keep my own counsel. As I said, I am old. I don't have the luxury of time I once did.” She paused. “I am more partial to Linda than Anne.”
He wasn’t surprised
“I will return here in three days,” she said. “Despite my partiality to Linda, if you are married by the time I return, I will give further consideration to naming you my heir.”
Ashton stared. This was unexpected—and too good to be true. When he’d turned eighteen, and Duncan twenty-one, she had informed them that one of them would inherit Kinnettles and her fortune. Ashton hadn’t cared. Duncan had. When Ashton turned twenty-seven, he began to realize that Stanhope Hall, his father’s ancestral home, was in financial trouble. After five years, he realized that his father had neglected the property and land too long. In favor of Kinnettles, no doubt, he thought with disgust. Without a large infusion of money, he and his tenants would slave for years—if he didn’t lose the estate first.
The last two years, he’d known he should have attended to his grandmother. But the same determination she claimed to admire in him was the same determination that drove him to ignore good sense. That, and a liberal dose of pride.
“Don’t be an impoverished, proud fool,” she said.
He shook his head. His grandmother read him too easily.
“If you have asked her to marry, then nothing stops you from saying the vows.”
In three days’ time?
She pushed back her chair. He rose. Angel growled as Ashton strode around the table to assist her rise.
“Come now, my pet,” his grandmother soothed as she set the pug on the floor. “Let’s learn our manners, shall we?”
The wee beastie barked and bared his teeth from the safety of his grandmother’s skirts as Ashton offered her his arm. “Shall I escort you to your room?” he asked.
She scowled. “I can reach my bedchambers without assistance.”
He stepped back. She might be able to read his mood, but, after all these years, he miscalculated her moods more often than not.
She crossed the room. Angel trotted behind. The little dog growled until he escaped Ashton’s reach, then pranced to the door. His grandmother paused with her hand on the knob. “I was just your age when Aisla married your father.”
He tensed.
“She was so very beautiful. Gregory was so handsome, and he worshiped her.”
Ashton’s heartbeat raced.
“He was only four years my junior. Douglas was so pleased. But, in truth, had she not wanted to marry him, he wouldn’t have forced her. She was only seventeen. Did you know that I was seventeen when I married Douglas? I never regretted a day with him.” She went silent but didn’t leave. “She was a wild one. I feared… I hoped she would find the happiness Douglas and I had.” She sighed. “Perhaps one day you will understand…and forgive.”
“Forgive?” he blurted.
She twisted the knob and looked over her shoulder. As usual, her expression baffled him. “I convinced your mother to marry him.”
Without another word, she left him staring at the open doorway.
Chapter Two
The Demon Earl
The single candle in the washroom flickered in a draft. Ella glanced from the cracked mirror to the table where the candle sat. They would be fortunate if the taper lasted the night.
“Ella, I don’t want to—”
Ella shot her little brother a glare in the mirror and murmured a single world, “Stealing.”
He dropped his gaze and pulled his knees against his chest where he sat on the upended washtub. She returned her attention to her reflection and jabbed the last of her blonde locks under the cap she’d borrowed from him. She squinted in the dim candlelight and studied herself. The tan breeches hugged her slim legs. The stress of the past two years—the last few months, in particular—had taken a toll. Her once voluptuous figure had melted away and her rosy cheeks were now pale and drawn. She released a slow breath. She’d always dreamt of having a willowy figure. Now—thanks to her father’s fall from grace—she had one.
She glanced at Cyril. Shame and excitement warred on his young face. The worry she’d fought these last months niggled harder. Thankfully, he hadn’t suffered as much physically as she had. With youth came exuberance—and innocence. He was so gullible, and continually fell victim to the street urchin’s schemes. Which is what brought them to their current dilemma.
She faced her brother. How far they’d fallen. A little less than two years ago, she’d dined with the princess. Even seven months ago, despite her father’s conviction for killing his wife’s lover, she and Cyril had attended house parties with the last close friends who would associate with them.
Ella gave her reflection a final scrutiny. “I’ll pass for a man, or at least a youth.”
Even at this early hour of the night, the neighborhood drunks were out en force. It would be dangerous for a woman to walk the streets without adult male companionship. A too-familiar fear rippled through her at the memory of another danger she’d faced in her own home only seven months past: her cousin Gavin. Her heart twisted. Cyril and she would have moved into a modest cottage in the country…if not for Gavin. When he’d appeared on their doorstep twenty months ago, she’d turned him away. Her father, however, had set Gavin in charge of their finances—including her inheritance and dowry.
Now, she and Cyril ate day-old bread, if they were fortunate, at a table in a dismally dark and rat-infested wash room located in the slums of Edinburgh. From dawn until dark—indeed, long into the night—she scrubbed clothes. When her work was done, she stumbled to a corner pallet and fell into an exhausted sleep next to her brother. When the sun rose, she started again. And that start wasn’t far away.
“Cyril—”
“It was a dare, Ella,” the boy cut in.
She crossed the room in three steps. “Is the watch yours, Cyril?” She gave his ear a twist.
The child squirmed under her grip like a worm on a hook. “Sean said he was a demon. The Demon Earl. It was a dare. I had to prove I was a man.”
Ella pursed her lips. “You’re far too trusting. If I hadn’t come along, Sean would have taken the watch and sold it. He’s having you steal for him, Cyril. Can’t you see?”
Her brother’s eyes widened. She blew a long, desperate breath. This latest incident of the watch wasn’t his first brush with trouble. With his blond hair, blue eyes and chubby cheeks, he even looked like the angel he was. Of course, the pickpockets would use him to their advantage. Eight-year-old boys should be in school, but there was no hope for that. What could she do? The only thing she could.
“You’ll stay with me and help wash clothes,” Ella said. The wash house was hardly a safe environment, but it was the best she could provide.
“But, Ella,” he whined.
“That’s the price you’ll pay, young man. There’s no excuse for stealing. You’re no thief, you’re a…” She caught herself before she said ‘Stratford.’
With her father in prison for murder and her mother in France with her latest lover, being a Stratford was something she’d rather forget. Indeed, she’d assumed her mother’s maiden name of Wetherby in order to distance herself from her family’s scandal—and from Gavin. She had every confidence he would never forgive her for disappearing before he could take her maidenhead.
She took a deep breath and started again. “You’re a gentleman, Cyril. Never forget that. A gentleman—not a common street thief.”
Cyril scowled. Ella tousled his fair head and went to the baskets of folded clothes stacked in the corner of the room, ready for tomorrow
morning’s delivery. She’d washed several men’s coats that afternoon. Surely, she could find one that fit. She quickly located a gray twill overcoat, somewhat smaller than the rest.
“This will do.” She shrugged into the coat. “Now, get your coat, Cyril. Let’s see this done.”
He darted away, and Ella returned to the table and picked up the watch. Though old, with a cracked crystal, the timepiece was finely crafted. She turned it over and read the initials A.S. engraved on the back and edged with gold filigree. The glitter as it caught the candlelight reminded her of the glisten of diamonds under the light of hundreds of beeswax candles. Her gaze caught on her hands, raw, red and roughened by the harsh lye soap. She tucked the watch into her pocket.
“Are you ready, Cyril?” she called.
Her brother dashed back from the shadows. “Ready,” he chirped as he fastened the last button on his coat.
“Right, then.” She gave a curt nod. “Let’s return this watch to its owner before he discovers it gone.” And before her employer discovered her gone from her place of work.
“The Demon Earl had a coach and six, Ella.” Cyril’s young voice trilled with excitement as they stepped into the darkened street. “Do you think they’re demon horses?”
“Nonsense.”
Coach and six? She snorted. Such an overt display of wealth. But her bravado didn’t quite disguise the ripple of fear that radiated through her. Long ago rumors said The Demon Earl of Dundee had murdered his own father—after the man had thrown his wife, Ashton’s mother, from the castle tower. The rumors had swept the country for months. Of all the people for Cyril to have stolen from, why did he have to choose the son of a murderer turned murderer himself?
Ella huffed and then realized her brother still stared at her expectantly. “Sean was simply goading you, Cyril. You can’t be so gullible. Learn to question what you hear. Most likely, your Demon Earl is as tame as a kitten.” A lion cub, more like.
They rounded a corner near the church just as a drunk burst through a door. Ella snatched her brother out of the man’s path as the drunk staggered past, bleary eyed and mumbling loudly. She gripped Cyril tightly by the arm and hurried down the street.