He walked over to the bed, gripped her chin roughly in his hand and kissed her. It wasn’t soft or tender. It was bruising, punishing, and when he bit her lip, she gasped softly. “You’ll wait here… and you’ll not touch yourself till I return. Is that clear, my pet?”
She shivered but her eyes gleamed with pleasure at the challenge. “Will I be punished if I disobey?”
“Most assuredly,” he replied.
“Then I understand perfectly what is required of me, my lord.”
Randall smiled and stroked her hair gently. “I’ll return shortly.” With his free hand, he snagged his dressing gown from the edge of the bed and donned it quickly. He didn’t wait for the butler, but strode ahead of him, down the stairs and toward the pacing figure of Daventry.
At his approach, Daventry looked up and said, “She’ll have to be killed.”
Cold fury swept through him. Gripping the other man’s arm, he shoved him into the nearest room and closed the door. “By all means, announce every crime we might commit to a houseful of underpaid servants.”
“It’s hardly my fault that your help isn’t loyal to you!” Daventry snapped.
“Loyalty is either earned or purchased, Daventry. I’ve not been lord of this castle long enough for the former and your daughter’s paltry inheritance has not allowed for the latter!”
“Paltry? It was a fortune… if you’d spend less time concerning yourself with where to put your cock and more time working to make your estate profitable, her inheritance would have done you up quite well!”
“Perhaps if I’d gotten the entirety of it rather than the half you granted me. Why are you here?” Randall demanded.
“The bitch won’t go back to Scotland. Adamantly refused, as a matter of fact. Unless you want to give back that paltry sum you mentioned, you’ll need to do something about it,” Daventry said. “I sent a letter, but then thought I should see you in person to be certain you understood what was intended.”
“What a loving father you are! Are you certain you don’t want to at least pretend to beg for her life?” Randall sneered.
“We both know I couldn’t care less for the chit aside from the purpose she already fulfilled, to marry your uncle. Her return from the dead is a complication neither of us can afford. You have a plan, I assume?”
Randall smiled. “It’s already underway. The villagers here can be a superstitious lot. We’re not so very far removed from the witch trials presided over only half a century ago.”
“You mean to accuse her of witchcraft?” Daventry asked incredulously. “That’s your bloody plan?”
“I don’t mean to accuse her of anything. There are already whispers in the village, those who have begun to question whether or not she is who she claims to be… perhaps, she’s a changeling or, perhaps she’s a witch and the devil sent her back to torment them. One loud voice can set them all to screaming. It’s best you return to London and deny you ever visited here. It is best, after all, if you can plead ignorance of all this.”
“There’s more… apparently in her absence, she birthed a bastard she means to pawn off as a Grantham,” Daventry hissed.
Randall felt his blood run cold. “She did what?”
“She has a son. She claims he is the rightful heir to the Ramsleigh title. It isn’t just the money you might have to let go of. Are you prepared for that?”
Randall crossed to the desk and sat down. So that was why she’d run when she did. How many nights had he gone to her chamber, rutting on her in his withered uncle’s stead, trying to get a bastard on her that he’d never let draw its first breath. The first time his seed had taken root in her belly, it had been an easy enough thing to shove her down the stairs. She’d run because he’d confessed to it, because in his own drunkenness he’d gloated of it to her that no child of hers would live to claim what was his.
Fury swept through him—at her, at himself, at the child she’d borne who threatened everything he held dear. Rising to his feet in one quick motion, he swept his arms over the desk, sending everything upon it crashing to the floor. As ink pooled on the carpet, dark and thick, Daventry stepped back.
“You’re utterly mad,” he sneered, clearly repulsed by such a display of emotion.
“Where is this child?”
“I suppose in Aberdeen with her mother’s people… that is where she took off to, after all.”
“Then we’ll be needing to send someone for him, as well. I’ll not lose a single sovereign to the bastard!”
“And if he isn’t a bastard?” Daventry demanded.
“Oh, he’s a bastard. Who do you think planted him in her belly? Do you honestly think my ancient uncle was up to the task? He wanted a brat on her, and to stay in his good graces, I plowed her whenever it was asked of me,” Randall confessed the words gleefully, watching Daventry’s face pucker with distaste. “Is that too coarse for your delicate sensibilities? You shouldn’t have auctioned her off to an old goat like him if you’d wanted better than that for her!”
“I couldn’t care less, but my God, you are a disgusting creature… foul and low as any wretch in the gutter. You’re not deserving of a title.”
“Deserving or not… I earned it. By fair means and foul. And you’ll do what’s necessary to help me keep it or pay the price for your own perfidy. You think I don’t know that you helped dear old uncle shuffle off the mortal coil? He was a threat to you, Daventry, because declared dead or not, he wanted his pretty wife back in his reach, close enough to feel the weight of his fists! How strange it was that the bottle of brandy you gifted him arrived just days before his death… and that the man who despised garlic reeked of it. Arsenic is an obvious choice, of course, but still an effective one.”
“You can’t prove it,” Daventry insisted.
Randall unlocked the desk drawer and produced a bottle, placing it on the desk. “I kept it. Just in case proof was ever required. You’ll do what you’re told in this, you arse, or you’ll pay for it. You don’t have a title to keep you from the hangman’s noose!”
Daventry frowned. “Fine. I’ll cooperate, and you’ll keep my name out of all of it. There is another complication, however. I had the misfortune to run into Lord Ambrose at the inn. What the devil he’s doing here I’ll never know!”
Randall sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re a damned nuisance. I’ll take care of Ambrose, too. Now get gone and stay gone. Leave all this to me.”
“You’ll let me know when it’s done?”
“Oh, you’ll know. I imagine it will be quite newsworthy when a resurrected noblewoman is hanged for a witch by a mob of angry villagers. It’s a little too French for the comfort of our peers, after all.”
“And the child?”
“No one will ever know he existed,” Randall vowed.
Daventry frowned but nodded in agreement. “This had better work, Ramsleigh. Neither of us can afford for it not to.”
“One way or another, your nuisance of a daughter will cease to be a problem for either of us,” Randall assured him. “Now, I have a naked and randy woman waiting for me in my bed. I’d far rather spend the evening in her company than yours.”
Daventry grimaced. “You’re worthless, Ramsleigh. Worse than your damned uncle even!”
Randall laughed, calling out as he walked away, “I certainly hope so!”
*
Dinner had been an unusual affair. Viola watched the interplay between Nicholas—Dr. Warner—and his half-brother, Lord Ambrose, with more curiosity than she cared to admit. She could see the similarities between them, more so than either of them would likely care to admit. They were stiff and overly formal with one another, the end result being that everyone else felt just as awkward. Ultimately, it was a relief when the meal ended and the men retreated to brandy and cigars in the library while she and the Ladies Blakemore made their way to the small drawing room.
“He’s quite handsome, isn’t he?” Lady Agatha said.
“Lord Ambrose?” Lady B
eatrice asked.
“Yes. I must say, it’s quite apparent to anyone viewing them together that he and Dr. Warner must be blood. If only we were in society, my dear! We’d be the toast of the ton with gossip such as this.”
Beatrice shuddered delicately. “I’m quite relieved to not be in society. I cannot begin to imagine the gossip that would beset all of us! Far better to rusticate here in the countryside with clean, sea air and the company of friends.”
The gentle smile in Viola’s direction was testament to the fact that Lady Beatrice counted her in that number. Viola felt a pang at the thought. How long had it been since she’d had a friend? In truth, never. Her father never encouraged her to socialize with other children and with her marriage to Ramsleigh arranged before she was even out of the school room, there had been no bosom friendships formed at balls and musicales. She’d gone from one isolated household to another. It was only in Aberdeen, where she’d enjoyed the company of the women who often helped her aunt on the farm, that Viola had come to appreciate how good it could feel to be in the company of other women. Even then, they’d been somewhat reserved with her due to the difference in their social standing.
“It is very good to be amongst friends,” she agreed softly. “I always regretted that we could not visit and come to know one another better while I was at Ramsgate.”
“And I,” Beatrice agreed heartily. “But alas, that is rectified. You must tell me of your son. I daresay he must be a remarkably beautiful child.”
He was. Dark-haired, with perfectly cherubic features and a hint of mischief in his dark eyes, her son was her greatest joy and she missed him so fiercely it was like she’d lost a limb. “He’s a very willful little boy,” she said as the sherry was poured. “He insists on doing things for himself when it isn’t possible for him to achieve them yet. But I am very proud of him for trying, for wanting to be independent. I cannot help but feel his independence and strong will as a child will carry him well into his adult life.”
Beatrice smiled in that coy way that so many expectant mothers had, as if they carried the very secrets to the universe within them. Perhaps they did, Viola thought.
“I cannot help but wonder what our child will be like,” she admitted. “Fierce and strong-willed like Graham or more even tempered as I am?”
Lady Agatha chuckled. “My dear, your husband would likely challenge that description. Even tempered! At one time, perhaps, but not after his return. I daresay, he was the spark who lit the fire in you. You’ve been quite different since then, have you not?”
Lady Beatrice looked rather chagrined. “I suppose that is true. But those were certainly unusual circumstances that we found ourselves in! How rude we are being, Lady Agatha, discussing these things when poor Lady Ramsleigh has no notion of what we speak!”
Lady Agatha smiled. “I think Lady Ramsleigh understands precisely what it is like to meet a man who ignites one’s passionate nature. Isn’t that so?”
Viola blushed. “Lady Agatha, you are being quite scandalous.”
Lady Agatha waved her hand dismissively. “Scandalous! Ha! There’s no one to hear it but us. As we are the only society one another keeps, it matters little enough. I do believe, Beatrice,” she said, turning her attention back to her daughter-in-law, “that Lady Ramsleigh has caught the good doctor’s eye. And he hers!”
“I suspected as much! But you really must stop,” Beatrice admonished. “If and when Lady Ramsleigh feels compelled to share the details of her flirtation with Dr. Warner, she will likely tell us all about it!”
Viola raised her hands in mock surrender. “There is no flirtation! We are friends. That is all. My life is far too complicated to be anything more than that with any man… I am dead, after all!”
“He’s handsome enough to raise the dead, dear,” Lady Agatha said. “And if not him, then Lord Ambrose! What a fine figure of a man he is!”
“Then perhaps you should pursue him.”
The rejoinder had been uttered in a deep, low voice from the doorway. Dr. Warner had entered without them being the wiser.
Lady Agatha fell into fits of giggles and Lady Beatrice pursed her lips to keep from laughing with her. Viola, meanwhile, wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole.
“I’m much too old for him, dear boy,” Lady Agatha called out. “And too old for you to be sneaking up on! It’s a wonder my poor heart didn’t simply give out!”
“Nonsense,” Nicholas said, stepping deeper into the room. “You are fit as a fiddle.”
“And is that why you’re here… to discuss how fit I am?” Lady Agatha asked with an arched eyebrow and a knowing look.
“No,” he replied. “I had come to ask Lady Ramsleigh to walk with me. The night is cool but quite clear and there is a full moon rising above the sea. It’s quite a sight to behold.”
Viola knew she should decline. Walking with him in the moonlight was more temptation than any woman could resist, and she’d already admitted her weakness when it came to him. But as she opened her mouth to utter her refusal, something else entirely escaped it. “I’ll fetch my wrap.” It appeared her mind and heart were not of one accord. It isn’t your heart, her conscience corrected.
“No need, my dear,” Lady Agatha said and removed her shawl. “Take mine.”
Accepting the intricately woven paisley shawl from Lady Agatha, she draped it about her shoulders and accepted Nicholas’ proffered arm. Nothing was said, but she could feel the weight of both Lady Agatha’s and Beatrice’s stares as they exited the room. His interest had been marked and her all too eager acceptance of it had not gone unnoticed.
“Are you attempting to ruin my reputation, Doctor?” She asked the question softly once they were in the corridor.
“You are a widow, Viola, not some innocent deb. It’s hardly of consequence if you walk with a man in a garden. If it makes you feel any better, I have no designs upon your virtue.”
“I’m a widow, as you pointed out. I have no virtue for you to have designs upon,” she reminded him, recalling one of their earlier conversations.
He smiled. She could see the faint curving of his lips in the shadows of the hall. “How lucky for us both then that virtue is not what I desire.”
It was a double entendre, one that even she with her limited experience could grasp. More surprising was the heat that suffused her at the thought. Had she been a more morally upstanding woman, she would have slapped his face for such offense. Instead, she pursed her lips in disapproval, disengaged her arm from his and stepped out onto the small terrace.
“Don’t feign displeasure because you think you ought to. If I offend you, tell me… if I intrigue you, Viola, do not deny us what we both clearly desire,” he chided softly.
“And what is it that we desire, Dr. Warner? A walk in the garden? A stolen kiss? Or more? I cannot afford to indulge in such flirtations! My life and my son’s future hang in the balance!”
“Your son’s future will be secured. You have the full support of Lord Blakemore and, now, Lord Ambrose to ensure it,” he replied. “And I’ve no doubt that you had his birth properly documented in Aberdeen, did you not? So that the date of it and his legal paternity could never be challenged?”
She had, of course. The Bishop of Aberdeen had been called upon to record Tristan’s birth in the church’s registry. It had taken some persuading but the man had agreed finally, given her title and the last of the money she’d managed to escape with. “There is documentation, of course. But we both know that Randall will contest it as viciously as possible. I cannot indulge myself with whatever this is between us, Dr. Warner.”
“But you do admit that what is between us exceeds the bounds of platonic friendship?” he challenged.
Viola felt her blush deepen. “I concede that it could, but I cannot allow it. Not with the risks involved! Can’t you see that?”
“What I see,” he said, stepping closer to her, “is a woman that I admire, that I am drawn to for far more than her exception
al beauty. Smart as a whip, daring and braver than most men would have been, willing to risk everything for the safety of her child… what is it that you think I want from you, Viola?”
“More than I can give,” she answered.
“Perhaps. But let me tell you what I will accept from you… at this moment, alone in this garden, all I ask is a kiss.”
“A kiss is never just a kiss, Dr. Warner,” she refuted. “For an innocent young girl, it might be. But I am neither of those things and we both know that a kiss is simply a prelude to something else.”
“One can hope,” he replied with a boyish grin. “But a kiss, whether it is a prelude or the extent, can still be savored on its own merit.”
Viola shook her head. “I should go back. This conversation has done little but muddy the waters further. I think under the circumstances, Dr. Warner, that our friendship should be—well not suspended—but strictly limited for the time being.”
*
Nicholas watched her turn, watched her take a single step toward the house. It was only a second, a minuscule amount of time, really. But in it, he weighed his options very carefully. Part of him thought he should simply let her go. She was entitled to make her own choices, after all. Too many men had made decisions in her life already and she had suffered the consequences for them. But there was a difference between him and those other men in her life. He cared. At the end of it all, he wanted her to be happy. He wanted her to have the security and the confidence that a woman of her position should have. At the same time, he knew that there was something else inside him—something jealous, possessive, selfish—and that part of him would not simply give ground. Not when they could have something glorious.
So that single step, slow and torturous, toward the house was all he permitted her to take. One hand snaked out to grasp her wrist and tug her back to him. Her back was pressed against his chest, the curve of her bottom pressed into the notch of his hips, and his arms circled around her. He could feel the weight of her breasts against his forearm. “Don’t walk away… not yet.”
She shuddered softly. “I should. We both know that.”
The Resurrection of Lady Ramsleigh Page 10