Never Surrender to a Scoundrel

by Lily Dalton

  “He most certainly has not,” Sophia retorted. “If he was any sort of gentleman, you would not be in this predicament.”

  “I have no one to blame but myself.”

  Sophia rose onto one elbow and looked down into her face. “You are an innocent young lady. He is far more worldly than you, which makes him a cad. He seduced you. He manipulated your emotions.” She squeezed Clarissa’s shoulder. “You do realize that, don’t you?”

  Clarissa’s head hurt from so many crisscrossing thoughts. Had Quinn ever intended to marry her? Thinking back, it was he who had insisted on secrecy. Like a fool, she had gamely agreed, believing at the time that love was just a fun and happy game. Whatever the truth about her and Quinn’s affair, Mr. Kincraig had not seduced her, and she could not in good conscience allow him to take blame.

  “Please don’t talk about him like that,” Clarissa insisted, and, with a hard wrench of her shoulder, pulled away.

  Oh, she was angry. Not at Sophia, but with Quinn. But most of all, with herself.

  How Mr. Kincraig must despise her this morning. She could only hope that like many young men, he had aspirations of marrying well to improve his fortune and connections. While she couldn’t promise love and passion, she could certainly, with some degree of confidence, guarantee that.

  “You feel fondly for him, then, at least,” Sophia whispered softly. A moment of silence passed, and then Clarissa felt a hand gently stroke her hair. “It’s just that this has all come as such a shock, but I love you. We all love you, don’t we, Daphne? That’s all that matters.”

  A snore arose from the tousled heap of hair that was Daphne.

  “Daphne—” Sophia pinched Daphne’s arm. “Daphne. Wake up.”

  “Ow…what?” Daphne moaned, jerking her arm away and burying her face under the covers.

  “I said wake up. It’s morning.” Sophia sat up and, with her fingers, attempted to comb out her wild mass of dark hair. She had always worn her dark hair longer than her blond sisters and normally slept with it in a braid. They’d forgone their customary bedtime rituals the night before in favor of sisterly commiseration. “Clarissa needs us to be awake and present, to support her through what will most likely be the worst day of her life.”

  “The worst day of my life,” Clarissa exhaled. “Are you trying to make me feel better or worse?”

  “You’re marrying Mr. Kincraig.” Sophia sighed drolly, scooting off the bed. “Unfortunately, I don’t believe there is any way to make you feel worse.”

  She moved slowly and carefully, with a hand resting atop her belly. Clarissa watched, unable to imagine herself in such a state. How she envied her sister. Both her sisters, who had married into love matches. She supposed it was too much that three should accomplish such a remarkable feat.

  “Oh. My. Heavens,” blurted Daphne, pushing the blankets from her face to stare wide-eyed at the pink canopy over Clarissa’s bed. “For a moment after waking up I didn’t remember, but it is all coming back to me.” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Clarissa, you always wanted your wedding to be the talk of London, and it seems as if today you shall have your wish.”

  “Daphne,” Clarissa cried, following Sophia out of the bed to thrust her feet into her slippers. No—they were Sophia’s slippers! She kicked them off and replaced them with her own. “Don’t tease me, not now. It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not teasing.” Daphne rolled toward them, resting her head on one hand. “Certainly you know that no matter the degree of discretion around today’s ceremony, there’s going to be an announcement in the paper, and everyone’s going to ask questions about why everything happened so quickly, and why the Duke of Claxton had to exert his influence to obtain a special license so immediately. You’re marrying Mr. Kincraig, after all. He is a known drunk and a gambler, and…and…quite possibly a swindler.”

  “He is not—” Clarissa blurted.

  “Daphne,” Sophia warned, her gaze sharp. “It won’t be that terrible. It’s the end of the season. Half of London has likely already left town as of this morning.”

  “He’s a scoundrel,” Daphne accused.

  “I won’t have you speak ill of him,” Clarissa sniffed.

  Daphne scowled. “You know all too well we’ve all thought it at one time or another, as has the rest of the ton. There’s got to be some reason no one ever heard of him before he arrived on our doorstep two years ago claiming to be a relation, which of course didn’t even turn out to be true. That awful beard and mustache, and the way he dresses! He is not at all the sort of man anyone would expect a young lady of your potential to wed—”

  Everything Daphne said was true.

  “You shush now,” Sophia snapped protectively, coming to stand between them.

  Daphne pushed into a sitting position, her face puffy from sleep. “Am I the only one who remembers that night when the King’s Guards found him swimming in the fountain at Kensington Palace, wearing only a ballerina’s tutu?”

  “How could any of us forget?” Sophia murmured, then, with an apologetic glance to Clarissa, she said, “Mr. Kincraig has always been a wild cannon.”

  Clarissa closed her eyes. Yes, by all accounts everything they said was true, her savior and future husband was all of those things, a wastrel, a drunk, and a gambler, but he had agreed to marry her, and what other choice did she have? Wolverton hadn’t exactly presented her with any other options, and she couldn’t very well place a sign in front of the house asking for more desirable volunteers.

  “He’s insufferable. Irreformable.” Daphne rolled from the bed, taking up her robe and pulling the garment onto her arms. “Don’t pretend otherwise. We were all quite relieved at hearing he would at last be gone from our lives. I knew there had to be a reason he didn’t look more disappointed at learning he wasn’t our relation—and it was because he’d already seduced Clarissa.”

  “That’s not true. Please, just stop,” Clarissa begged. “There was no plan to seduce me. I assure you with the utmost sincerity that Mr. Kincraig is no villain. He can be very charming and kind. If only you will try to see past all the rest.”

  The words, even to her own ears, sounded forced, not because her future husband had no redeeming qualities but because she ought not to have to defend Mr. Kincraig. He did not even belong in this story, other than by unfortunate chance.

  Daphne peered at her, her eyes damp. “So help me, by all that is holy and good, if he was not the father of your child I would tear him apart with my own hands for the shame he has brought upon you. I shall despise him always for what he has done. Oh, fig! Christmas is ruined forever.”

  A wave of misery enveloped Clarissa. Christmas! Where would life find her and Mr. Kincraig then, when she could hardly see past the shock of this morning?

  “Now you’re being cruel,” Sophia rebuked.

  “I don’t mean to be.” Daphne’s pale hair glinted brightly, touched by a beam of morning sunlight. She swiped her hands at the tears in her eyes. Her demeanor softened then, as did her voice. “It’s just that I’m so very worried about grandfather and our dear mother, both of whom I came two inches from scandalizing just weeks ago with all my carrying on with Raikes. And not least of all, I am concerned for my sister, whom I love very much and want to be happy.”

  In two steps Daphne threw her arms around Clarissa, embracing her tight. “I’m sorry for speaking harshly about the man you love.”

  Sophia watched them, a sideways smile on her lips. “She doesn’t love him. You missed that all-important revelation when you were asleep.”

  Daphne pulled back and looked at Clarissa, her expression baffled. “Then how did this happen?”

  With both of them looking at her in sympathy and puzzlement, a confession welled up from deep inside Clarissa’s chest, threatening to burst from her lips.

  But even if she went against her grandfather’s wishes and told them the truth, they could do nothing to repair her situation. At least if she held her silence, they wo
uld believe she was marrying the father of her child and someone whom she respected enough to defend. If they knew about Lord Quinn’s betrayal they would only pity her more, and she didn’t want to live with that inglorious badge for the rest of her life, being poor Clarissa, the reckless little fool living a lie. She didn’t want to live a lie. She must embrace this new reality.

  She inhaled her sister’s comforting scent, that of lilacs and sleep.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I have hurt everyone with my impulsive choice.” She gently withdrew from Daphne’s embrace and stepped back, straightening her shoulders and holding her head high. “But it is all my doing, and I must live with the consequences. Thank you both for passing this long night with me, but I think I’d like to be alone now.”

  Her sisters looked at her, looking more traumatized than she felt in their sleeping gowns and rumpled hair and emotion-flushed faces.

  “I am a terrible sister!” Daphne exclaimed, reaching for her again. “I shouldn’t have said all those things. I’ve only made you feel worse when I should have just held my tongue and told you Mr. Kincraig is a gem in the rough and that everything will turn out for the best.”

  Clarissa squeezed her hands and laughed, albeit darkly. “I wouldn’t have believed you. Go on. I know you’d both like to see your husbands after a night spent apart.”

  Sophia moved closer, a frown on her lips. “I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

  Clarissa went to her dressing table and looked at her reflection in the mirror. What a mess she’d made of her eyes, with all the crying last night. What a lovely bride she would make, if indeed they married. If her conscience allowed it.

  “Mr. Kincraig is to arrive before eleven. It is my wedding day and I’d like to bathe and dress if you don’t mind.” She looked over her shoulder at them, doing her best to hold her countenance placid. “Could you send Miss Randolph? And one of you, could you please look in on Grandfather? As I am responsible for the shock that caused his downturn in health, I’d like to know if he is all right.”

  Sophia nodded, her expression no less worried. “Yes, dear, of course.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and Sophia looked out and spoke to whomever stood in the corridor. She nodded, and closed the door.

  Her shoulders rigid, she looked at Clarissa. “It’s Mother, with the physician. I think he is here to confirm the…the…”

  “The pregnancy,” Clarissa said, nodding bravely. “It’s all right. Let them in.”

  Dominick sat in the same chair, at the same table, staring at the same bottle he’d stared at since returning to his residence some five hours before. He’d removed the cork a score of times—and thrust it back into its berth just as many—daring once, but only once, to lift the opened bottle to his nose.

  What a mistake that had been.

  Even now, with the bottle securely corked, he smelled whiskey in his nostrils—and his mouth watered.

  He closed his eyes and bit his bottom lip. The scent crept inside his head and encircled his brain and kindled a fire inside his chest, already blazing there over the injustice served up to him last night in Lord Wolverton’s chambers.

  He’d been so careful, meticulously executing each assignment, knowing his superiors watched and judged his every action and reaction. At last, he’d regained everything he’d lost. For a fleeting moment, his world had been returned to right.

  But now he feared his dreams were just as charred and destroyed as the perfectly marvelous foreign assignment orders he’d committed to the flames.

  He hissed into the darkness. His present predicament was all part of God’s curse upon him, brutal and ceaseless. For a brief moment last night, he’d thought his penance paid, but apparently not—

  All those nights he’d pretended to be a sotted drunk, he’d never touched a drop. It had all been a well-executed act, designed to draw Wolverton’s enemy closer, when in truth he remained clear-headed and alert for any sign of danger.

  Of course he’d been tempted, but never enough to surrender, but this thing with Clarissa—

  “Put it down, Blackmer.”

  He blinked, breaking his stare at the bottle, which was tipped against the crystal rummer in his other hand. Exhaling through his nose, he lowered the bottle to the table, but not without regret. His stomach twisted in want, and his mouth went sour, denied.

  He’d been one breath away from the pit, the same one that had consumed him within its shadowy blackness for nearly a year after Tryphena’s death—until he’d dragged himself out from its depths and decided to live.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come. What took you so long?” he said to the shadow in the doorway, a man who stood tall and lithe and, like him, still dressed in evening clothes from the night before.

  The shadow answered. “As you can imagine, there were others with whom I had to consult.”

  Always the others. Faceless, powerful men who determined his destiny from behind a veil of anonymity.

  “Of course.” Dominick held himself rigid, waiting to hear what would come next. A verdict upon his future.

  “You’re out, I’m afraid.”

  The words struck him like a bottle smashed to the back of his head. Though his eyes remained open, his vision went black. He could barely muster the breath to emit a response.

  “I see.”

  “Certainly you understand.”

  He thumbed the base of the whiskey bottle, the urge to bellow in rage almost too strong to bear. He had done nothing wrong, and for that, he had lost the last thing that held any meaning in his life.

  “I can’t say that I do.”

  His visitor—his handler in the secret service—emerged from the deeper shadows of the doorway, and the early light of morning coming in through the window revealed his familiar features. “As might be expected, the earlier tragedy is still fresh in everyone’s minds. We took an enormous chance afterward, returning you to duty, and now this.”

  “This,” Dominick repeated in a hushed whisper.

  He had provided an understanding shoulder to a frightened girl, and for that, his life was ruined? His hands flexed atop the table, his knuckles itching for the satisfaction of a wall.

  “You know the standard to which we are held.” The man’s voice grew hushed with regret. “Really, there could be no other decision.”

  Dominick’s jaw tightened as a tangle of words pressed against the back of his teeth and lips, a denial so hot he felt certain its vehemence would burn the eyebrows and hair off the man standing before him. The degree of self-control he exerted in that moment in order to remain silent about the truth of that night almost sickened him.

  He gritted out, “I suppose there could not be.”

  Only one thing prevented him from speaking: his promise to Wolverton, a misguided attempt to assuage a dying old man’s fears for his granddaughter’s future and that of her fatherless child. The power of that vow extended even here, between two men who built their lives around secrecy.

  His visitor circled round to stand beside the fire. “What are you thinking, Blackmer?”

  Black thoughts. Dangerous thoughts. His hands curled into fists. He had worked so hard and so long to get his life back.

  “I’m certain you can imagine.”

  The man murmured, “Aren’t you going to tell me it wasn’t you who seduced Miss Bevington?” He reached out to touch the silver matchbox on the mantel. “That it was Lord Quinn?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  At hearing the name spoken, Dominick’s pulse leapt. But just as quickly, his mind adjusted a few lopsided pieces of the puzzle that before hadn’t quite fit, and he knew nothing had changed.

  You’re out, I’m afraid. The words had already been said.

  “Does everyone on the council know then?” he inquired darkly.

  He nodded slowly. “You can thank Mrs. Brightmore for offering her confidential assessment.”

  Dominick closed his eyes. “And yet the truth makes n
o difference.”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t, because you see—”

  “Wait, don’t tell me.” He stood suddenly, grabbing the bottle by the neck and walking toward the liquor cabinet, where he lowered the bottle to the inlaid-leather top with a solid thunk. “It’s because Quinn’s father, the Duke of Lowther, is favored to be the next Prime Minister.”

  His handler nodded and sank into the chair Dominick had just vacated. “If Wolverton survives…if we don’t keep the matter utterly quiet and discreet, a war will break out among England’s most powerful men. Other powerful men would join in and choose sides. Given our perpetual state of conflict with France and Spain, any breath of internal upheaval, any weakening of our ranks, must be squelched in the—”

  “—best interests of the empire,” Dominick announced sardonically, with grand flourish of his hand. “And for those interests, I shall be sacrificed.”

  How humbling to learn he was nothing more than a pawn in the games of more powerful men and that none of the missions he had accomplished, the valor he had displayed, or the sacrifices he had made for the last decade of his life had meant one damn thing.

  He was out. A warm body to be installed into a necessary spot, simply because he’d had the misfortune to be holding Clarissa Bevington in his arms when everything had gone to hell.

  He felt grievously slighted. Betrayed by very organization he’d sworn to live and even die for, if necessary. Just like that, the fire in his chest that had burned so bright, fueled by loyalty and pride, wavered…and flickered out, leaving nothing but a cold and vacant hole in its place.

  Although he was only thirty-four years old, he suddenly felt very old. Insignificant and worst of all, powerless. There was no one to whom he could appeal for reconsideration, because no one of importance gave a whit whether he’d been treated fairly, only that the political foundations of England remained unshaken.

  His handler shrugged. “Think of it as a reassignment.”