Authors: A Rogues Embrace
Margaret Moore (25 page)
Elissa ran a cold, measuring gaze over the young woman. “I would keep your foolish, ignorant opinions to yourself, if I were you, Antonia, and I would keep my jealous, spiteful mouth shut!”
Lady Alyce snorted and opened her eyes. “Oh! What? Dear me!”
“I am bidding you and your daughter good night,” Elissa said with a fraudulent smile as she rose from her chair.
“Oh, good night, good night,” the befuddled woman murmured.
“Good night,” Antonia said without troubling to hide a sneer.
Elissa hurried to Richard’s side, as determined
to leave this place as she was not to let Antonia upset her.
She would not believe that her husband would betray her. He loved her. He had not said so in so many words, of course, but she didn’t doubt it.
She hadn’t doubted William Longbourne’s love, either, when he asked her to be his wife.
“What is it, my sweet?” he asked, looking at her with surprise, and then concern. “Are you ill?”
“No,” she replied with a more genuine smile at their host. “I think it is getting rather late. I believe we should thank Mr. Assey for a wonderful evening and go home.”
“Very well,” Richard agreed, and the coach was ordered at once.
“I thought I would be the most anxious to return home tonight, since I like nothing better than being alone with my beautiful wife,” Richard observed when they were on their way home. “Or is it that I embarrassed you again?”
“Not at all!”
“Did the curls tickle too much?” he asked softly, moving close beside her on the seat and reaching out to brush one back from her cheek.
His touch made her sigh with barely suppressed desire, and she was suddenly certain
Antonia’s words came from spiteful jealousy. “No.”
Perhaps now would be a good time to tell him about the baby …
She never got the chance, for Richard suddenly pulled her into his arms, and his mouth captured hers in a rapturous, heated kiss. She responded eagerly, the pent-up desire she had felt all evening suddenly liberated.
Leaning into him, she felt his chest heave with his breathing, sensed the growing tension in his taut muscles, and yearned to run her hands over his naked skin.
As she fumbled with his jabot with quick, impatient movements, he untied her bodice. While his tongue explored her willing mouth, his hand plunged inside her loosened gown. Cupping her breast, he teased her pebbled nipple with his thumb while a low groan of sensual pleasure rose from his throat.
His body pressed hers against the back of the coach as her hands clutched his shoulders. The swaying motion of the coach added to her excitement in a way she had never foreseen.
Then she felt him lift her skirt. “Now?” she panted.
“Not that,” he answered in a low whisper. “Not yet.”
His hand found her honor and with slow, incredibly arousing thrusting motions, he caressed her. At the same time, his tongue
flicked upon her naked flesh. Between that sensation and the other, all she could do was give herself over to the pleasure he aroused.
She had to clamp her lips shut to stifle the scream of pure animal pleasure when he brought her to completion just as the coach rolled to a stop outside the stables of Blythe Hall.
“We are home,” he whispered, quickly pulling down her skirt.
Hastily retying her bodice, she could think of nothing to say as the waves of pleasure slowly subsided, unless it be a request to go on a long—a very long—drive.
The coachman opened the door and Richard leaped out, then held out his hand to help her. She stumbled slightly as she got down and he swept her into his arms, glancing back as the startled driver and stable boy exchanged looks.
“Lady Dovercourt is a little dizzy,” he explained as he carried her toward the house.
Her arms tightened about his neck. “They will think I am drunk,” she chided in his ear.
“Would you rather they knew what we had been doing in the coach?”
“No,” she said as he carried her toward the stairs. “You may put me down. I am quite capable of walking.”
“I am in a great hurry,” he replied as he started up the steps.
“Am I not too heavy?”
“You are as light as goose down.”
“I am not.”
“Do you doubt my strength?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He continued toward the bedchamber, kicked the door open, quickly crossed the floor and laid her on the bed.
“Now then,” he said in the most seductive tone of voice Elissa had ever heard or imagined, “my turn.”
“Yes,” she replied just as provocatively as she reached up and pulled him down onto the bed beside her. “It is.”
As she sat in her closet, Elissa sighed, then leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. Zounds, if she did not get more rest, she would soon be too fatigued to do much of anything.
Unfortunately, the only way she would get more rest, she suspected, would be to exile Richard to a different bedchamber, a far from satisfactory solution.
Yawning, she resumed her search of the desk for ink and a new pen. She was sure she had put those items in here when they had been delivered a few weeks ago.
Should there not have been more paper, too? Or had Richard used it all for letters?
She would have to remember to speak to him about that.
Sighing, she acknowledged that she was becoming very forgetful these days, or perhaps too easily diverted by her handsome, virile husband.
She had been so distracted by him last night, she hadn’t told him about the baby. She would do so the minute he finished fencing with Will.
She glanced down at her desk and spotted a letter that must have come by messenger sometime last evening while they were at Mr. Assey’s. She picked it up and, recognizing her lawyer’s plain, neat hand, tore it open.
Dear Lady Dovercourt,
I hope this letter finds you in good health, and enjoying some happiness regardless of the unfortunate circumstances of your marriage.
Elissa smiled. Some happiness? She had never been happier.
I regret I have some bad news with which to trouble you, but I must, for to do otherwise would, I fear, be criminally irresponsible. I am sorry to have to report that my clerk, Mr. Mollipont, has been involved in some questionable dealings.
I am very, very sorry to have to tell you that he
has been copying and selling certain legal documents referring to your legal affairs.
“My legal affairs?” Elissa murmured in bewilderment and a growing sense of dread.
The copies in question were sections of your late husband’s will, as well as portions of your marriage settlement with Mr. Longbourne and some details of the sale of the Blythe estate to him.
The cold finger of fear which this letter had already laid upon her became an icy grip.
The pertinent sections
of your husband’s will concern what will happen to the Blythe estate should your son predecease you.
You may not know that this question caused your late husband some consternation, but since he had no living relatives, your father and I were eventually able to persuade him to accept the following terms in that regard. If your son meets with an untimely death, the property in its entirety reverts to you.
I should also remind you of the terms of your current marriage settlement. If the earl outlives you, and you die without further issue, all your property becomes his, including anything that you yourself may have inherited.
I confess that such an eventuality did occur to me, and yet taking into account your son’s
robust health, your own youth and obvious ability to bear children and, although this ought to be no excuse, the haste with which it was necessary to draft the document, I thought this an unlikely enough event and so did not change the usual draft of marriage settlements that I make for my clients. In hindsight, I should have taken more care with this portion of the document and ask your forgiveness for not doing so.
Unfortunately, as of yet Mr. Mollipont refuses to name the person interested in this information. All he will say is that he was compelled to this criminal activity because of gambling debts. My lady, I am shocked and aggrieved that my trust and yours has been so utterly betrayed and will do all in my power to force Mr. Mollipont to tell me all.
I am confident that I will eventually be successful.
Elissa could well believe this. Mr. Mollipont would not be able to keep his secrets from the stern, persistent Mr. Harding forever.
Although I do not wish to cause you undue alarm or pain, my lady, I must point out that while 1 know of no specific incidents in your current husband’s past to make him a suspect in this matter, he would be the one most obviously to benefit from the death of your son. Until we can know the identity of Mr. Mollipont’s
accompliss, I would suggest that you take all possible care of your delightful child.
I remain, very faithfully yours,
Robert Harding
Stunned by the contents of this epistle, Elissa didn’t know what to do. His first impulse was to summon Richard … but then again, maybe that would not be wise.
Yet Richard had not been to London since he had returned to Blythe Hall, so he could hardly be in league with Mr. Mollipont.
On the other hand, he could write letters, and he had many acquaintances in London who might act as his agent in this business.
Oh, surely Mr. Harding was wrong to suspect Richard of any involvement in such a terrible scheme. Mr. Harding likely suspected everybody of everything—
“My lady! My lady!”
She started at the servant’s alarmed cry, then hurried to thé door.
“What is it?” she demanded of the distraught footman who stood at the door of the withdrawing room.
“There’s been an accident!”
She gripped the door frame. “Who—?”
“It’s your son. They was fencing and—”
“Not with real swords!”
“He said the tip come off and—”
“Oh, sweet heaven!”
At that moment, Richard appeared at the door to the withdrawing room.
One look at Elissa’s pale, terrified face, and he silently heaped more curses on his own head.
“Will is fine, Elissa,” he hurriedly assured her as he came into the room. “I blame myself for not taking better care, but I promise you it isn’t a bad cut—”
“Where is he?”
“In his room, play—”
“Did you send for the doctor?”
“The wound is not serious enough for—”
“I shall be the judge of that!” she snapped, brushing past him.
Was it possible she was as wrong about Richard as she had been about William Longbourne? Could he be planning to take her estate by the horrible means Mr. Harding’s letter suggested?
I never should have agreed to let Richard teach Will anything about swordplay, she thought, as she hurried to the stairs. Will was going to be a country gentleman; he didn’t need martial skills. He need know only how to keep accounts and manage the laborers and tenants, how to bargain with the wool merchants …
What if Will’s wound became infected? What if the injury became gangrenous?
Tears filled her eyes as she ran up the steps as fast as she could. If anything bad had happened to her darling son, she would never forgive herself.
And she would never forgive Richard, either.
Would Richard have taken such a risk with a child of his own? Was this accident merely the result of a momentary lapse of good judgment?
It must be! Richard was good and kind to Will, as if he genuinely cared about her son.
Or he acted as if he did.
She had seen for herself what a very good actor Richard was.
What of his wish to help her with the ledgers and other business of the estate? Did he really want only to be helpful, or was there another, more sinister reason for his assistance?
Then a great and terrible question took precedence over all these: Had she put her beloved child in jeopardy by allowing herself to be blinded by love yet again?
With a self-recriminating sigh, Richard hurried after his perturbed wife.
It was not that he feared for the boy’s health. The cut on the boy’s arm was a minor one. However, he was responsible for ensuring Will’s safety. He had failed, causing Will pain and upsetting Elissa.
He never should have acquiesced to Will’s oft-repeated plea to try “just once” with real rapiers. He should have insisted they continue with the sticks.
He was nearly to Will’s bedchamber when he heard the lad’s excited voice. “So then, Mama, he
burned
it!”
Richard cringed. “I
cauterized
it,” he corrected as he entered the room.
Will stood in the middle of his bedchamber, his sleeve rolled up and his arm thrust out. A few of his wooden toys were scattered about on the floor. His small rope bed was in the corner, a table and chair near the window, and a washstand beside the door. His bandage had been removed and now lay on the bed. Elissa knelt beside him, carefully examining his injury.
Richard recognized the lad’s attitude: He was like a brave warrior recounting his battlefield exploits, or like King Charles when he told of his narrow escape from Cromwell’s men. The king took great satisfaction in describing how he had spent an entire night hiding in an oak tree. In truth, he never seemed to miss an opportunity to talk about it.
“He never even whimpered,” Richard remarked, not hiding his admiration for the lad’s bravery.
“I told you I didn’t cry, Mama, even though it hurt like bloo—”
Will looked at Richard and flushed guiltily.
“Even though it hurt very much,” he amended. “And Richard says I’m going to have a
scar!”
“Yes, I think you are,” Elissa agreed as she began to rebandage the boy’s arm.
Will grinned with unmitigated delight.
“I’m sure it’s not serious,” Richard said placatingly.
“Since you have not studied medicine, I think we must defer to the doctor’s opinion.”
Richard noted the way Will’s face fell, and his uneasy glances from Richard to his mother.
“It was just an accident,” Will said. “I jumped and knocked the end of his sword with my blade and they scraped together and I was afraid I had hurt his sword so I went to see and Richard didn’t realize and he lifted the blade and there I was!”