“I’ll take no more of this from ye, lass!”
“Yes, you will,” Abby yelled back, surprising them both. “This entire situation is ridiculous. You hate and hate and care about nothing but money and more money. You denied a son without accepting the truth. You’ve denied me my brother. You are willing to sacrifice the girls and me without an ounce of remorse. You are a hateful old man, but this time, I’m not going to stand meekly by and let it continue. You can send us all off without a thought, but the time has come to do the right thing for a change and you’re going to start with this! For Jamie MacKenzie and for Alex MacKintosh and any love you ever held for them, you will demand Cambridge search for their sons.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I will never marry Aylesbury and you’ll never see a penny of my inheritance.”
Abby flatly threw down the bargaining chip she had hoped to withhold. It was the one thing she had to use against him, and in using it, she would not only save Richard but lose him as well. Her heart already ached but she managed a satisfied smirk for her father anyway.
“Ah, there’s something you care about, isn’t there? Well, if you want it, you’d better be prepared to pay for it.”
“Ye think ye can blackmail me, daughter?” he growled, crossing his arms over his chest.
Abby crossed hers as well. “Yes, Papa. I do. It’s recently been brought to my attention that I am above the age of consent. Who I marry is my choice and mine alone.”
There was a calculating look on her father’s face that was mixed with some grudging respect. “I ask George this favor, and ye’ll wed Aylesbury without argument?”
Thinking of Richard, thinking of a love that had lived within her for a decade and would last for all the decades she had remaining, she swallowed hard. She would do anything to make him happy, to relieve the burden that ate at him. She would lay down her life for him. Marrying another to save the lives of those he loved would be a small sacrifice on her part.
“You get His Highness to agree unconditionally,” she amended, “and I will ask Aylesbury myself.”
Chapter 25
Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering ‘it will be happier’…
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson
A garden party at the home of Arthur Balfour
Secretary to Scotland
16 Portman Square, London
Two days later
“Then there’s no chance that you might intervene with your uncle on our behalf to listen to our plea?” Richard asked his host, with a sinking feeling. It was just another lead, another chance at hope being cast to the wayside.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Balfour responded with true regret. “I’ve half of Parliament still accusing me of using my connections to my uncle to gain my present position. Further use of the relationship would be political suicide.”
And there was no chance that any of London’s politicians would run that sort of risk, Richard thought with a mental snort. It was a lesson that he had learned quickly but was not becoming easier to swallow. With so many moments similar to this marking the last several days, he might have thought that he would become inured to the rejection but each time it clawed at his heart.
In truth, Balfour’s position was more fragile than most. As the nephew to Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury and the current Prime Minister, any appointment in the government would have been met with speculation. Parliament had gone beyond mere hearsay to straight accusation. The phrase ‘Bob’s your uncle’ was already being bandied about as a humorous euphemism for having a windfall awarded to one without due diligence.
“Thank you for your time, Secretary.” He held out his hand politely but could not keep the disappointment from his voice.
“I truly am sorry, Captain,” Balfour repeated, before adding, “You must know that you are unlikely to find the support you need. Perhaps it might be best if you accept the things you cannot change.”
Richard’s chest seized in rebellion at the man’s words. There was no chance of that. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could dissuade him.
“On the contrary, sir, I rather think in this case, I am more inclined to change the thing that I cannot accept. And I cannot accept that there is nothing to be done for my comrades.”
Balfour nodded slowly. “Well said, Captain, well said. Good luck to you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Turning away, Richard squinted up that the blue sky. Again, it seemed that the fine weather of the spring day, the sunny skies—that had incredibly lingered for over a week—and the fragrant breezes, were somehow mocking his misery. For six months as a prisoner of the rebels, the only time he had seen the sun was when the band relocated, in its nomadic way, to another camp. Otherwise, it had been dark, arid caves and the smell of camel dung. It was wrong that he should have so much, when the others had so little. To have his freedom, when his friends had only despair.
Never had he felt such guilt…or perhaps he had.
There were moments when the worry and the pain disappeared, moments when everything seemed right with the world. Those moments he was with Abby—or, more precisely, after he was with Abby—left him more guilt than any others. She was his salvation and his destruction, only because he knew he could not hold on to that inner peace and did not deserve to until his mission was complete.
As if his misery needed to be compounded, Alice Balfour, Secretary Balfour’s sister and hostess, approached him across the lawns with no one less than Abby’s stepmother on her arm.
Even as he inwardly berated himself for doing so, he glanced around looking for Abby, wondering if she had accompanied her stepmother here. The past two days without her had seemed never ending in their continual, soul crushing disappointment. He longed to see her once again, to hear her tender encouragement…to feel her soft kiss. His desire for her in so many ways was astounding.
However, he had no desire to see her stepmother.
“Captain MacKintosh!”
Cringing, Richard put on a polite but chilling smile as the pair curtsied before him and offered their hands. Though his hostess met his gaze politely, Oona swept a glance up his length, her gaze lingering at the lower cut of his coat as if assessing the potential hidden there.
He glared steadily back. Her assessment of his person left him uncomfortable and longing to block her appraisal of his finer attributes with his hat. Such a look was the outside of enough when added to the horrible treatment Abby had had at her hands.
Miss Balfour carried on as if she did not notice either look. “Lady Haddington was just telling me that she could hardly stand the sight of one of my guests standing alone, Captain MacKintosh, and I must agree. As Lady Haddington has no gentleman present to escort her down to the croquet field, I must ask if you would be so kind as to do so? That way, neither of you will stand alone.”
“It would be my pleasure, of course,” he answered through gritted teeth and offered an elbow to the countess, thinking it was anything but a pleasure to be doing so. Where a true lady might merely lay a delicate hand lightly on his arm, Oona was bolder, wrapping her hands around his bicep and hugging it tightly against her breasts. It was all he could do not to shake her off.
“Perhaps something more intimate would be preferable, Captain MacKintosh,” she murmured in a low, suggestive voice as their hostess moved away. “The maze perhaps? Or the library?”
The seductive undertone lifted his brows in surprise. Surely, she wasn’t…? Aye, she was, he decided studying her fluttering lashes and feeling the press of her breast against him once more. Oona was offering him much more than a stroll.
His eyes narrowed upon her with consideration before finally he answered with a shrug. “Why not? I think a private moment with you would be just the thing, Lady Haddington.”
“Shall we?”
“Lead the way.”
As they walked, Oona waited for the compliments that usual
ly came her way once she was alone—or nearly alone—with a gentleman. It wasn’t that she was exceptionally vain, Oona had long thought in her own defense, it was simply how things were. How they had always been since she’d had her own moment as a diamond of the Edinburgh Season. All the men had loved her, all the men had wanted to make love to her. It was intoxicating to have such power over the male of the species.
It was even more important to have it now that she was past her thirtieth year, she acknowledged with a frown that she quickly smoothed away. It simply wouldn’t do to allow for any chance of a wrinkle to mar her perfect complexion.
She glanced up at Richard MacKintosh with some expectation, only to find to her surprise that he wasn’t looking at her at all.
Checking to assure her bosoms were properly exposed, she took a deep breath to thrust them even higher against her bodice, hoping for a better result.
She’d heard of the prowess of the MacKintosh men. They were all young men, but virile by all accounts. Though the captain and one of the others had been out of the country for the past year, it was said that the eldest—the earl—was gaining a sterling reputation for his expertise in the bedchamber in Edinburgh. His estranged countess had cast certain doubts on his skill to gain sympathy for carrying on her own affairs, but Glenrothes discounted every rumor laid against him and with a fervor that left a number of ladies delighted.
Oona hadn’t been able to entice that MacKintosh into her bed as yet, but perhaps this one might be different. He’d caught her attention at Catharine’s betrothal ball several nights past, looking incredibly dashing in his regimentals. All the ladies knew that an officer was always as randy as a goat and, well…Oona was randy as well. What with Cullen back at Glen Sannox House and her usual beaux in Edinburgh, she had no one here in London yet to keep her in good company. God only knew that she couldn’t expect her husband to perform, even if she wanted him to.
Glancing up at the handsome captain once again, she was surprised and a little confused that his attention still was not focused on her amply displayed assets. Instead, he stared off in the distance. His attention firmly ensnared elsewhere.
Following his gaze, her scrutiny sifted through the possibilities, trying to determine who or what had caught his eye. The Grafton lass? Too scrawny for any serious notice. That Primrose heiress? Oona considered the plump debutante before shaking her head. Then another woman caught her eye.
Certainly not!
Looking back and forth between the captain and the young woman, her eyes narrowed, and she couldn’t hold back the snarl that escaped her lips. It was none other than her stepdaughter, Abygail, who held Captain MacKintosh’s attentions. How was that even possible? Of course, they’d known each other since childhood, but that was not a look of friendship that sculpted the captain’s ruggedly enthralled expression. No, it was the look she’d expected to be set upon her.
Lust. Longing.
It was simply unacceptable.
It was hard enough to accept rejection of any sort or to lose a lover in favor of another. But if she failed to bed Captain MacKintosh, it wouldn’t because of that little twit.
Stepdaughter! Bah! If she had known what was waiting for her as Angus Merrill’s wife, she might have given up her hopes of a title to avoid not only her husband, but that daughter of his, as well. Haddington actually claimed—after the wedding, of course—that he had wed her only to gain a mother for his three young daughters. (Though Oona knew it was because he wanted what was between her legs and she refused to give it up to him without marriage.)
Well, he’d certainly chosen the wrong woman for that job. Though if all three had been like Sara and Catharine, there wouldn’t have been a problem. They were sweet, pretty twins of just seven years when she’d married their father. From the very first, the pair had been in awe of Oona’s beauty and sought only to emulate her in every way. It had been a bit like having an entourage to cater to her vanity. They adored her, and in return, she dressed them up and taught them the ways of Society.
Abygail, however, had not only been hateful but rebellious and Oona had been happy to ignore her until one afternoon when she had caught sight of Abygail in a mirror as she walked by. That day, she’d seen something she’d never seen even when looking straight into the lass’ bitter, aqua eyes. Underneath her often rumpled and dirtied exterior, Abygail was a beauty, pale and angelic.
Naturally, at twelve, Abygail had been as flat as board with no hips to speak of but, despite her own lush figure and renowned dark beauty, Oona knew that she could not compare to the beauty her stepdaughter would become. She’d gladly sent the chit off to boarding school without a second thought. And, in all honesty, she had been glad to see Abygail brought down a notch by that dreadful scarring her accident had left her with.
And she would bring her down another, Oona thought triumphantly. She would have Richard MacKintosh for herself now. She would have both her reward and revenge and enjoy every moment of it, she thought with satisfaction.
Casting a smug smile at her stepdaughter, she hugged the captain’s arm even more tightly and led him into the house.
* * *
Abby watched Richard disappear into the house with Oona hanging on his arm and felt her blood chill. She knew her stepmother’s habits well, though her father might try to turn a blind eye to them. She was like a cat in heat, letting one Tom after another beneath her skirts. When she was on the hunt, she always caught her prey.
And now she was after Richard.
Her Richard!
Richard, who had just the day before, confessed how he was aching with desire! It had never occurred to her that he might find another to slake his lust upon. She had never imagined that Oona might be the one to do it.
A memory popped into her mind of that day years past, when she’d followed him through the crowds at Ascot. He, with another woman upon his arm—just as he had now—and Abby bearing down upon him with the single-minded purpose of bringing such a liaison to a halt. She had failed then, but as she felt her blood boil once again with all the righteous anger she had felt that day, she knew she would not fail again.
Richard was hers, whether he knew it or not!
Slipping silently into the house, she followed in their wake. It would be a cold day in hell before she watched him walk away from her again. If he needed a woman so badly, he would have one. And it would be her, she thought grimly. It would damn well be her!
Yes, she would be the remedy to his problem, but first she needed to ensure that he and Oona engaged in nothing…well, nothing at all in the meantime. She needed something or someone to interrupt whatever they had planned…short of boldly knocking on the door of the drawing room herself, of course.
An emergency! That’s what was needed. Racing back to the garden party, she was completely willing to set fire to the croquet mallets, if that was what it would take to create one.
Chapter 26
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
~ Leo Tolstoy from The Kreutzer Sonata
Richard couldn’t believe Abby’s stepmother was attempting to seduce him. She was, after all, well acquainted with his family as he was with hers, a connection that usually created an unspoken impediment to situations such as this. By the time they reached the library, he’d been certain that he must have misinterpreted her words, but no. If the press of her breasts against his side hadn’t been confirmation enough, having her mouth latch insistently onto his the moment the library doors closed affirmed that it was no mistake.
With a grimace, he pulled away, placing a large chaise between them. “I fear I must have misinterpreted your words or you mine, my lady. There truly are some words I would like to have with you.”
She laughed lightly but wasn’t immune to the slight sting of his mild rebuke. “Nonsense, Captain, I know a double entendre when I hear one.”
“It seems not.”
To his surprise, she reacted with immediate bitterness, a s
neer marring what was a beautiful, if sour, countenance. “It’s her, isn’t it? How can that be?”
“It is about Abby,” he told her but added, “Though, I think, not for the reason you believe.”
“Are you truly going to try to convince me that you don’t want her for yourself?” Oona scoffed. “I saw the way you looked at her out there.”
Shaking his head, Richard refused to be drawn into a discussion of Abby’s personal appeal. Quite frankly, it was none of Oona’s business. “I only wanted to say that I have heard how you speak to Abby, how you belittle her. I must demand that you stop doing so.”
“I don’t belittle her. I merely tell the truth.”
“Your version of it.”
“She’s hideous!
“Abby is a beautiful woman, both inside and out.”
“Her accident was a social death toll,” Oona cried. “No man could possibly desire to take to wife a woman so obviously flawed without compensation. I’ve taken great pains to cultivate the Marquis of Aylesbury as a suitor for Abygail these past several months. I will be honest, he needed to be bought, Captain. That is how little she is admired.”
Richard had seen Aylesbury’s face when he looked at Abby and, though it ate at him to admit it, knew that her finances had little to do with the marquis’ interest, no matter what he had told Oona. “Bought with Abby’s own inheritance, isn’t that so?”
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