Sweet Temptation (12 page)

Gavin turned sharply in Sara’s direction. His eyes scanned her face in search of an explanation for her unexpected defense of his conduct; the Earl completely ignored her outburst.

“Under the circumstances, I naturally supposed you would remain close at hand,” he continued, driving the point of his verbal dagger deeper into Gavin’s heart. “The fact that you were also newly married led me to expect that you would, for the meantime at least, maintain daily contact with this house.”

“You can thank my blushing bride for that,” declared Gavin angrily, still staring at Sara. “The reception she gave me was ample reason to take myself off.” The Burroughs women, one seated and one still standing, were rooted to the spot, mouths and ears wide open.

Involuntarily Clarice’s gaze shifted to Sara, as jealousy, then anger, flamed in her cheeks. So this was Gavin’s wife. She nearly sniffed her scorn aloud. This shrinking Miss could never satisfy him. He would soon tire of this meager fare, if he hadn’t already, and then he would come back to her bed.

No one saw Clarice’s look, they were too busy staring at Sara, but Sara did. Even worse, she understood it.

“I can’t think Lady Burroughs and her daughter wish to be burdened with the details of your domestic imbroglio,” announced the Earl. “She would undoubtedly appreciate it if you would postpone this discussion until after their departure.”

“I don’t give a damn what Lady Burroughs wants,” Gavin exploded, completely beyond caring for appearances. “If she doesn’t like what she hears, she can leave.”

The butler entered the salon on silent feet.

“Lady Burroughs and Miss Burroughs are ready to depart,” the Earl announced. “See them to their carriage.” Lady Burroughs made a determined attempt to prolong her visit, but the Earl would not be out-maneuvered, and his determined flow of small talk prevented Gavin from making any more ill-timed disclosures. When the door closed behind the visitors, however, he dropped the mask of politeness and turned swiftly back to his son, his face a deathly white from rage.

“You have not been backward of late in providing me with reasons to deplore your conduct, but never until today have you given me cause to be ashamed of you.”

“Because I brought my mistress into your house, or because I gave that gossip-hungry witch something to prattle about?”

“Either would be sufficient to cause a person of ordinary sensibility to think before speaking.”

“Why don’t we invite them back, drop your pretense of paternal affection, and
really
give them something they can sink their teeth into? Or would you prefer I invite a hand-picked audience?”

“If this is the kind of behavior being with your mistress encourages—”

“What in hell makes you think Clarice determines my behavior? She’s my
mistress,
not my
wife!”

“I haven’t noticed that your wife is able to exercise a restraining effect upon you either.”

But Sara didn’t hear the Earl’s remark. The word mistress had exploded in her brain like a blinding flash of light, rendering her insensible to everything else. She was furious that Gavin would force her to meet this woman, especially in the presence of strangers, but she was more hurt than angry. She felt violated, much more so than on her wedding night.

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” Gavin said to his father.
“You
chose her. But then it was the money and not the girl you wanted, wasn’t it? The money and an heir, that is. That’s why you didn’t tell me mother was sick. You
knew
if she died, I would never set foot in this house again as long as you lived. It was the only way you could get me to marry the Raymond money and father an heir for your precious estate.”

Sara turned toward the Earl, stunned that he would use the illness of his wife against his own son. Despite the anger in her own heart, she realized, at least for a moment, that Gavin had entered into this marriage with an even greater burden than she had.

“I have the misfortune to be your son and can claim no immunity from your evil,” Gavin declared wrathfully, “but by all that’s holy, this poor child shouldn’t have to suffer because of your greed and cruelty.”

“There is no need for such heat,” replied the Earl impatiently, not in the least shaken. “I do not deny that I used your mother’s illness to achieve my ends. The more usual tactics had already failed. I merely chose to employ an alternate means of persuasion.”

“You mean you didn’t care whether or not I loved Gavin?” gasped Sara. At last she understood the reason for her marriage, the haste, the secrecy, and she was angry at both Gavin and his father, but most particularly she was furious with the Earl.

“You were, and still are I might add, totally unimportant and unformed, without definition or value,” the Earl stated contemptuously. “Since you would naturally take your fortune with you when you married, and since it was important to me to retain the use of your money, I saw no reason not to arrange a suitable marriage which would also enable me to maintain custody over the business I have worked so hard to create.”

“Then you were never interested in my happiness?” asked Sara. This was all so incredible she could hardly believe it was happening.

“Not in the least,” the Earl stated bluntly.

“You’ve got your fortune,” announced Gavin, “but you won’t have an heir. There is no power on earth that could force me to bed that … that
child!”

Sara felt as though she was being brutalized from all sides. She didn’t dare look at Clarice. She couldn’t bear to know what she was thinking. But she vowed that no matter what she had to do, this would never
ever
happen to her again.

“What do you propose to do,” demanded the Earl scornfully, “sulk about London with that milch cow in tow, providing the malicious with enough gossip to make them forget the imperfections of our coarse German king and his even coarser offspring?”

“I’m leaving for Scotland within the hour.”

“What about your wife?”

“You picked her out.
You
keep her.”

“So you’re running away again, just like you did before.”

“I went away to cool off and do some thinking. This time I’m
leaving.”

“And I can see where you took yourself,” replied the Earl shaking with rage. “How
dare
you bring that harlot to this house? I f you have no respect for your wife and our guests, at least remember this was your mother’s home as well.”

“It was Clarice who brought me the news of mother’s death. She seems to be the only person in London who gives a damn about me.”

“Stop whining and get that slut out of here,” commanded his father.

“Clarice will go when I ask her,” shouted Gavin.

“Get her out, or I shall have the footmen throw her into the street,” challenged his father. “This is my house, and I’ll not have it disgraced by that whore.”

“You can have your goddamned house,” shouted Gavin turning on his heel.

“You know you can’t leave before the funeral,” the Earl taunted his son with a withering sneer.

“There’s not going to be any funeral here,” Gavin told his father, turning to face him with defiant, flashing black eyes. “I’m taking mother home to Scotland. You can have your house, your daughter-in-law, and everything else you’ve bought with your ill-gotten money, but you’ll not have me or my mother ever again.”

He turned from his father and strode from the room with enormous strides, his boots striking a rhythmic cadence on the marble floor, Clarice forgotten in his urgent need to be out of his father’s presence.

“Gavin, wait!” she called out. “What about me?”

The loud slamming of the door was her answer, and she turned back to the room, stranded between fury at such a public rejection and fear of the Earl, who was even now instructing his footman to remove her, forcibly if necessary, from the room. Clarice faced the Earl with as much dignity as she could muster.

“You needn’t put yourself out,” she said fiercely. “I know you think it’s fine for me to solace your son between the sheets, but I’m not good enough to be seen with him in public. You needn’t deny it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” replied the Earl in arctic tones.

“Look down your nose at me if you like, but I understand him better than you do, and that galls your soul. I
am
common, but I’m not stupid or selfish and deceitful. I never took anything from him when I wasn’t willing to give something back in exchange. That’s more than you can say.”

“Get out of my house,” commanded the Earl in a voice vibrant with loathing.

“I’ll go, but not before I’ve said my piece. And you won’t let your footman put his hands on me, because I’ll set up a screech that will bring half the street to your door.” She smiled complacently. “You wouldn’t like that, would you?” The Earl regarded her in rigid silence, and Clarice chuckled. “I ought to do it just for the pleasure of seeing your face, but I’m a Christian woman and I won’t do anything I wouldn’t want done to me. I have one piece of advice for you, and if you ever want to get your son back, you’d better listen. Before you can have the man he has become, you’re going to have to make peace with the boy he was.” She turned to Sara and her expression softened, but only slightly. “And if you want him to be your husband, I mean a
real
husband, you’re going to have to become a woman. Gavin lost interest in girls long ago.” Having delivered herself of this Parthiare shot, Clarice gathered her cloak about her and marched through the door the footman was holding open for her with all the aplomb of a reigning monarch.

Sara, hardly able to function after the multiple disclosures of the last minutes, turned mute and anguished eyes toward the Earl.

“See what you’ve done, you frigid bitch!” he bellowed, rounding on her savagely. “I curse the day I decided you should be his wife. I wish to hell he had raped you.”

“You almost got your wish,” Sara cried, starting to her feet. “But you don’t wish half as much as I do that I’d never set eyes on you. I don’t know why my father ever thought you would make a suitable guardian. I wouldn’t trust you with a half-breed dog.”

“Then I guess I’m eminently suited to be your trustee,” the Earl replied cruelly.

“You don’t deserve to have had such a wonderful wife as the Countess,” Sara continued, ignoring his insult. “And you don’t deserve a son like Gavin. He only hurts others because he’s hurting so much himself. But most of all, you don’t deserve me, and I promise you I will find a way to escape this accursed house.”

Sara thought she must begin screaming in loud, piercing wails if she stayed in that room one minute longer. Without excusing herself, she ran from the salon, raced down halls and up stairways, causing more than one servant to gape after her in open amazement, threw herself on her bed, and sobbed her heart out.

Chapter 9

A rapidly building crescendo of sound filled the salon and echoed down the broad hallway as Sara drove toward the climax of a Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach concerto, a composer made fashionable by the court of the German Emperor Frederick and now being popularized by England’s own German monarch, George II. Music was Sara’s solace, and she found herself turning more and more frequently to the harpsichord, to vent the anguish and longing locked up inside her. After being sheltered and protected her whole life, Sara was now beset on all sides by seemingly insoluble problems, and she was only gradually learning that she must begin to fight back.

It was hard to believe how differently she had viewed the world just a month ago. Then she had felt that to become Gavin’s wife and escape Miss Adelaide’s was all she needed to be happy. She had achieved both, only to realize she had achieved nothing. Love was of little value when it was not returned, and marriage was just another form of bondage. Becoming Gavin’s wife hadn’t given her love, hadn’t given her freedom, and hadn’t given her control of her own money. It
had
removed her from the safety of Miss Adelaide’s seminary, shattered her childhood dream, destroyed her innocence, and made her the target of the Earl’s brutal attacks.

She attacked the cadenza with more force than artistry, but then she wasn’t playing for art.

At first she had hidden in her room, but she was too strong-willed to give up. By degrees she had come to realize that it might still be possible to achieve her dream of a loving marriage, but she wasn’t going to do it as long as she remained a helpless pawn in the Earl’s hands. She must have some leverage. After several days of soul-searching, she came to understand that it wouldn’t just happen, and that no one was going to do it for her. Gavin and the Earl were part of a society which did not often concern itself with the fate of a powerless woman; in reality, neither did the rest of the world.

Along with this broadening of Sara’s understanding came a change in her character. She began to see the need to act to change her situation, and to see herself as capable of this action. This change came in her slowly and reluctantly, much like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, but she was a different and stronger woman now.

Sara finished her concerto and let her body sag from exhaustion, but the tension remained. She didn’t have any answers yet; she had only just begun to search for a solution to her dilemma. She would have to discover a way to get around the Earl, and that wouldn’t be easy. He was a cold and ruthless adversary. He had turned his back on her in cold rage when he had been informed that Gavin had removed his mother’s coffin from the house.