Secrets of a Scandalous Bride (19 page)

“I’m not a fool, Leland. It will be gold or I shall not go through with it. You see, you hold all the cards except one. But it is your choice, ultimately.”

He smiled slowly, his look cunning and greedy. “All right, my dear. It isn’t as if the guineas will be coming out of my pockets. But I shall only do it under two stipulations.”

“Yes?”

“First, the transfer shall occur at Carlton House, where I will arrange for us to be married
immediately
after the conferral of the duchy—not the morning after. And you shall write to Rowland Manning to clearly state your distaste for him. You shall insist that he is never to disgust you with his presence again. He is not to ever know you had a part in this bargain. Do you understand?” His voice broke into an awkward high pitch on the last word.

He had no idea. He was a complete idiot. Did he really think she would want to torment Rowland Manning by professing her undying love for him while marrying Pymm? “Of course, Leland. For once we are in complete agreement.”

“There. I knew you could be obedient if you made an effort. Now give me a kiss to show your gratitude, my sweet. Only three more days and then…well, you shall be under my protection forevermore.”

Rowland had always suggested how absurdly gothic her turn at life was. She could not have agreed more. The general’s face was moist when she forced herself to kiss his cheek. And his scent…the sour-smelling sheep’s wool of his heavy uniform mixed with too much eau de cologne.

“She did what?” Rowland shouted at Joshua Gordon, nearly shaking the new rafters.

The footman’s face turned four shades of red. “She and General Pymm were leaving Helston House in a phaeton when I arrived there with the message from you. The footman told me they were for Hyde Park. To the corner where the general’s new great house is to be erected.”

Rowland stared at Joshua, now his only footman as the other one had departed, having gone without pay for the last three quarters. “And why didn’t you follow them?”

“I didn’t know that you would want me to.”

Death
. Words of chaos and death. His blasted footman had no idea how his burble of words had formed a pit of black fury in Rowland’s mind. Lord, what had Leland Pymm done or said to make her go about alone with the lecherous swine?

“Sir? Sir!”

Rowland looked down to find that he had gripped the edge of his plain, ancient desk with such force that the trim had come loose in his hand. A nail gouged his flesh, and blood streamed from the gash. The footman immediately took off his neck cloth to bind the wound as Rowland cursed a blue streak. Nothing was going as planned.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t expected it. When it involved Elizabeth Ashburton, nothing ever went as planned.

The smallest smile teased his lips as he finally dismissed his footman. He realized it was the reason he felt the way he did about her. The woman actually
seemed to relish disobeying men, and walking alone the tightrope of disaster.

She was a woman to save. A woman to cherish.

And he would do it whether she liked it or not. Tonight. After he spent the rest of the day contemplating what he had thought about for twenty-four hours of every bloody day—the dismantling of everything he had built the past decade. But then, was it not all built on pillars of sin? Dust to dust. Nothing was immune.

It was just a damned shame the whole affair had to entail the unpleasant task of entering Helston House with stealth eight hours later. There was no other way to avoid the phalanx of soldiers who appeared to forever troll Portman Square. He didn’t want to give Pymm any more reason to suspect him later when he spirited Elizabeth away.

And so Rowland Manning, former bastard mudlarker, and quite possibly headed back to the same, employed his considerable skills at climbing and entering. At least the warm, summer night provided the key—Elizabeth’s
open
window in the back of the townhouse, where a trellis provided the footing. He could only hope that she would not scream like a banshee if she awoke.

In the moonlight, he silently mashed dozens of full-blown roses on his ascent, and had the thorns in his breeches and gloves to prove it. He brushed away a small mountain of something on the sill. Seed. Of course, for the dowager duchess’s bloody canary. And then he peered into the large chamber.

With furtiveness borne of years of evading danger, he slid his considerable frame into the room when
a gust of wind rustled the leaves of the trees in the garden.

He crossed the room to stand over her, studying the woman who now tormented his every waking thought. Her lush fall of beautiful hair curled over her shoulder as she rested on her side, the bedclothes pushed aside in the warm night. Her hands were clasped beneath her face, like an innocent child’s. Yet there was nothing childlike about the slope of her form, revealed by the thin night rail.

He hadn’t been able to save Mary. Hadn’t saved anyone of his family: his worthless half brother Howard, his mother lost to lung fever, and Mary…
bloody hell
. A numbness drifted through him as he thought of the night she had disappeared. She had sold herself to buy food for
his
damned belly and hers—despite her promises never to do such a thing. For years he had searched for her, never wanting to admit she had been vilely used and most likely tossed away like so many ruled by poverty. Well, he might have failed his sister, but he would save Elizabeth, if it was the very last thing he ever did.

He stared down at her for what seemed like forever and a day, his past washing over him, his future ever darkening. A restlessness now gripped her in sleep and she turned to her back. He leaned over her and kissed her brow.

She came awake within the blink of an eye and ready to do battle.

“’Tis only I,” he whispered, grabbing her hand as she prepared to strike at him.

She drew in a ragged breath and sat up, her eyes spearing him. “I thought you were…”

“I know,” he said, his voice low. He reached for the extravagant beeswax candle on the heavy silver holder and scratched a flame.

“Why are you…Is everything all right?”

“You left without a word, Elizabeth.” He stared into her lovely face.

She looked in her lap, where her fingers twisted. “I left because I knew you would not see reason.”

“Reason? There’s no reasoning to it. You’re out of time. There are no solutions, so it’s off to France with you.” He couldn’t stop the rasping in his voice.

“But I still do have a chance. I spoke to Leland today, and he—”

“So, it’s
Leland
now, is it?” he growled.

“Now you’re not going to be a fool about this, are you? You were always the one person I could count on to behave with a superior amount of rational thinking.”

“Go on,” he ground out.

“I’ve made some headway with him.”

“Really,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Her eyes darted about the room, filling him with ill ease. “Yes, I have.”

“What sort of headway?”

“I’m to dine with him tomorrow in his suite of rooms at the Pulteney Hotel. There will be chaperones from Helston House. I’m going to search his rooms for the letters.”

He shook his head. “It will never work.”

“You told me it could. Have you forgotten already?”

“That was before.”

“Before when?”

“Before I realized…” His voice faded.

“What?”

“For Christ sakes, Elizabeth, I will not allow you to put yourself at such risk.”

“Well, you’ve no choice, for I’m determined to do it and I won’t go to France until I’ve exhausted every possible chance of staying here.”

Hope flooded him. He had had the absurd notion that she would refuse to adhere to his brilliant plan. “So you agree you’ll go to France, then?”

Her eyes were steady. Not a hint of falsehood showed. “You must give me until the day
after
the conferral at Carlton House. The wedding is planned for the next day and instead I would leave with you before dawn.”

“I’ve an inclination to bundle you up right here, right now, and leave for France tonight,” he said, furious that his ability to hide his every emotion was deserting him in his hour of need.

“But surely, I shall find the letters. Even if I cannot search for them tomorrow night, I’ll have one other chance. You see, I will make pains to endear myself to his servants at the Pulteney tomorrow. And then I shall return with my affairs the very next day. He’s asked me to have them transferred. I shall take pains to arrive after he’s left for Carlton House. And I’ll tell his servants I want to see our private chambers with my maid from Helston House. How can they refuse? It shall be a simple matter really.”

He noted she was talking too quickly and adding far too many complicated details. She was unsure of herself, unsure of success. He highly doubted she had a prayer of a chance. “And then?”

“After I find the letters, I shall go to Carlton House and call a halt to the wedding.”

He shook his head. “It would be far too dangerous for you to announce anything. If you are lucky enough to find the letters, I will confront Pymm along with Helston, Ellesmere, and my brother.” He paused. “But it is far more likely you will not find the letters, Elizabeth.”

“That won’t happen. I know I’ll—”

He cut her off. “Do you promise to leave for France if you do not find your father’s letters?”

She nodded.

He reached to cup her heart-shaped face in his hand. “I would hear your answer out loud.”

She paused, searching his face for what he did not know. “I promise not to let you down,” she whispered.

He exhaled roughly. There was something odd in her voice—and he wondered not for the first time how far he would trust her to do as he bade.
Not far at all.

“And will you promise to wait for me in this room then—two nights hence?”

“I said I would be here and I will.”

She reached for his hand, so dark and brutish compared to her soft one. She pressed a kiss to his palm, scarred from years of labor. “You know, my father always promised me I would one day find a man better than he. A man strong enough to tame my unfortunate willful streak, he said.” She smiled, a faraway look in her eyes. “And I would always correct him.”

“What sort of man did you hope to find then,
Elizabeth?” He pulled her to within inches of his face.

“A man like you. A man capable of caring for me the way I would care for him.”

“And what way would that be?”

“A love that never questioned, never doubted, never feared. A love without end.”

He closed the gap and nibbled at her lush lower lip, and then moved his lips to her ear. “Well, then that just proves I’m not the man for you if you think for a moment I would never fear for you. And doubting…hmm, well, I think you know I was born with doubt instead of blood in my veins. So, you’ve misjudged the matter entirely. In fact, I’m of a mind to show you just how bad I am for you.” His heart felt light in his chest and he chuckled. He would not think about the fact that in a few days, a week at most, she would be separated from him. She in France, and he facing ruin. But at least she would be saved from that hell named Pymm.

Elizabeth could barely speak for all the lies she’d dared utter. She wasn’t sure how she had gotten this far. There was only one thing of which she was certain. She wasn’t going to have to wait until death for her punishment. Oh, she would go to the Pulteney Hotel and search just as she had said she would. But she knew how carefully officers locked away papers of importance. And she had already set a course. So she had constructed her overly complicated story.

That utterly masculine scent of his drifted through her senses, and in one long, smooth movement he
drew her closer so she could rest her head on his shoulder. “Rowland,” she whispered into the silence that enveloped them. His fingers lightly skimmed the flesh of her arms.

“Mmmmm?”

“The last time I had to beg to…”

“Yes?”

“To give myself to you.”

He smiled knowingly. “And?”

“I don’t want to have to beg you to take anything I offer ever again.”

He drew away from her and smiled in a fashion that made him appear so much younger than ever before. “You are a demanding wench,” he whispered. “If I have the right of it, you don’t want to have to beg, and at the same time there’s to be no questioning, doubt, or fear.”

“That’s right.” Honesty tasted so good on her tongue.

“You know, you never had to worry about the first one,
mhuirnin
. I’m essentially a selfish bastard, or haven’t you heard?”

“You and I both know it’s just a façade. A way to keep everyone at a distance. You’re the least selfish man I know.”

“Really?” he drawled wolfishly as he perused her form.

“Yes, really.”

“Well then, you won’t consider it a problem if I tell you that you have exactly five seconds to take that bloody night rail off before I tear it from you,” he growled. “With my teeth.”

She bit back a request.

He smiled. “You’re not scared, are you? I thought there was to be no fear.”

“Ummm, could you at least blow out the candle?”

He raised his eyebrows. “That sounds very like a question, Elizabeth. And no, I will not blow out the candle. Bloody hell, you’re breaking every rule you just set for a man.”

He had no idea how much he had the right of it. But at least she would make certain he would never doubt her love for him. Not after tonight. And certainly not after the remainder of this week played itself out on the rickety stage of her life.

She looked into his pale green eyes. She wondered if he knew how much she loved him. She wondered how she was going to live without seeing him ever again.

The first time they had lain together she had been determined to have a memory of him to hold close to her heart always. She had wanted to see the desire in her soul reflected back in his eyes. But now, armed with the knowledge of his past, of his sister and mother, she could only imagine how impossible it must have been for him to take her innocence.