“If her health depended upon it.”
“Her health? How?”
“I cannot speak to particulars, but let us assume she risks more than her current situation…What if they were compelled to do something more drastic than Gretna Green if they cannot marry?”
Arthur leaped to his feet. “Adeline, is there something you’ve not told me?”
Adeline, taken aback, stared at him with widened eyes full of fear.
He felt a pit in his stomach. “Did you—Did he—My God.”
So that was why they wished to marry with little delay. And Philippa knew it. She knew it this whole time and had said nothing to him!
“I will have the truth, Adeline,” he said sternly. “I thought better of you, but to repay my kindness with falsehoods and pretenses—”
Quaking, she burst into tears. He bit back an oath. This was too much. He was not equipped to handle the guardianship of a young woman.
Her sobs tore at him. He wanted to storm out of the room, but he could not bear her crying. He pulled her into his arms.
“I would you had told me earlier,” he sighed.
“F-Forgive me,” she wailed. “Please do not disown me! Please!”
He could not find it in his heart to do such a thing, but he would have a word with George Grayson. And he had come round to thinking the young man might be worthy of Adeline!
After sobbing for longer than Arthur thought it possible to sob, Adeline calmed down.
“We will discuss the matter tomorrow,” he said as gently as he could despite the anguish he felt. He saw her home to their grandmother’s and told Mrs. Williams that, under no circumstance, was she to let Adeline out of her sight.
He then went to call upon the Graysons and was told that Mrs. Grayson was out but that George was home. He was shown into the drawing room, where he promised himself he would not wring George’s neck.
“Lord Carrington, to what do I owe the pleasure—” George began upon entering.
“It is without pleasure that I come here,” Arthur seethed. “You are a blackguard and a deceiver.”
“My lord?”
“Do you deny having taken advantage of Adeline?”
“My lord, I have the utmost respect and love for Miss Hartshorn!”
“If you love and honor her as much as you claim, you would not ruin her!”
George blanched. “Ruin her? I would sooner die than see her pained!”
“You lie! I will see you run out of town. You’ll not have the slightest opportunity afforded to you.”
“What is this?” came a cry from the threshold.
They turned. It was Philippa, still in hat and bonnet, having just arrived home.
“Ah, the source of your skills in deception,” Arthur remarked.
Philippa stared at him agog. “What is the purpose of your visit, my lord?”
“To inform you that I do not need a fortnight to consider your son’s suit. He is a scoundrel. And you, too, madam!”
“My lord, I own I made a mistake,” George said, “but it does not change the fact that I love and adore Miss Hartshorn and pledge my life to her happiness!”
“You placed your own carnal desires above her needs.”
“You are one to talk!” Philippa accused.
“I have never deflowered an unmarried woman.”
“Nor has my son!”
Arthur started. He turned to George. “Adeline is with child. Do you deny that you are the father?”
George hesitated, then looked him square in the eyes. “No, my lord!”
Deciding he would wring the man’s neck afterall, Arthur lunged toward George and grabbed him by his collar.
“Stop! Stop this!” Philippa exclaimed. “Leave my son be! He deserves not your censure!”
“He deserves an early grave,” Arthur snarled.
She tried to pull him away. “All he says and does—all of it—is for Adeline’s sake! To protect her!”
“I am done with your deceit and dishonesty. You and your son’s.”
“What of your family’s?”
“Mama, pray do not!” George shouted. “Say no more!”
Philippa looked ready to cry. “It isn’t fair!”
George gave her a silencing look. She stepped back, her face full of misery.
Observing the interaction between mother and son, Arthur paused. “What further truths do you mean to hide from me?”
Philippa sank into the nearest settee and covered her mouth. Her whole body trembled.
“I will suffer no more falsehoods or lies of omission,” Arthur told her.
She turned and glared at him. “The only scoundrel here today is you, my lord!”
He stared at her, taking in the passion that flared from her eyes, the conviction in her voice. This woman, though he knew her but a short time, could not be guilty of the duplicity he accused her of.
“What did you mean when you referred to my family?” he asked quietly, staying his anger.
She looked away.
“Nothing,” George answered.
“Philippa?”
George raised his brows at the familiar address he used.
Still avoiding his gaze, she shook her head.
“My lord, I admit to an egregious error in judgment,” George said. “I fully comprehend and deserve your wrath. Nevertheless, I still wish to marry Miss Hartshorn and vow that I will make her happy.”
Arthur studied the young man, who spoke with the same passion and conviction as his mother. Arthur looked to Philippa, who still trembled. How he wanted to comfort her and wipe away her tears!
This was not the sort of response he expected from a family trying to further its own standing by worming its way into a better one. He recalled how Philippa had taken the concerns of Miss Collingsworth in hand. Her compassion was genuine. It was as if Miss Collingsworth was her own daughter. She would regard Adeline similarly and go to even greater lengths—
Arthur whirled his attention back to George. “Are you truly the father of the unborn child?”
George straighted his shoulders. “I am.”
Arthur turned to Philippa. “Is he?”
She trembled harder.
“I will have a word with your mother,” Arthur said to George. “Alone.”
George looked at his mother. “I think not, my lord.”
“You wish me to approve your suit yet choose to defy me?”
George looked abashed. “Your pardon.”
With one last look at his mother, he withdrew. Arthur turned his full gaze upon Philippa.
“Is George the father?”
She rose to her feet. “I have nothing to say to you.”
She made for the doors but he caught her. He searched her eyes. Like his earlier, they burned with anger.
“Tell me, Philippa—”
“I would I had never gone with you to Château Follet!”
She tried to struggle out of his grasp, but he only held her tighter.
“He’s not the father, is he?”
“No! I will not have my son’s wrath upon me because of you!”
“I have only to ask Adeline. She cannot deny me the truth.”
At that, her strength seemed to leave her. He wrapped his arms about her.
“Philippa, how could you? Why did you?” he murmured into her hair. “Had you told me in the first place, I would not have charged into your home to wrongly accuse you and your son—and now I must beg your forgiveness. You must think me a brute.”
“That you are,” she mumbled into his chest.
He held her in silence for several minutes before saying, “You owe me one more night at Château Follet.”
She pulled away from him to stare at him. “Is there no end to your—”
“But I shall not claim it till after the new year as you have much to plan for.”
“I have not agreed to anything, but there is much to be done still for Christmas.”
“There is Christmas. A
s well as a wedding.”
Her mouth dropped. “A—a wedding?”
“I think your son will have no room for wrath when there is joy to be had.”
She grasped his lapels. “Do not dare toy with me. Do you speak the truth? Do you approve?”
He took a hand of hers and kissed it. “I do.”
She cried out. Delight replaced misery in her countenance. “A better Christmas could not be had!”
He grinned. “I can think of a better one: Christmas at the Château Debauchery.”
About Em Brown
Em Brown is a bestselling author of wickedly hot romances. In her stories, she encourages the unabashed indulgence in fantasy--without guilt or judgment. Her heroines can go toe-to-toe with the most forceful Dominants, and the men are deliciously bad in all the right ways.
See why readers say her stories are “so captivating I had to read it in one sitting” and why they make “my panties wet and squishy.”
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