Forbidden (Scandalous Sirens) (29 page)

“I’ll stay for a short while. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see what he is here for.”

Vaughn met Harlan at the front door. “What is it, my good man?”

Harlan took the steps two at time. “His lordship has requested his fiancée’s presence at Fairleigh Hall. I’ve come to take her back.”

“I can do it.”

The servant lifted his chin. “No, sir, I’m afraid I have the strictest orders to return her myself. Plus, he said you would no doubt want to stay with Miss Natasha.”

It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he couldn’t deny it without causing speculation. “Very well, I’ll get her for you.”

Vaughn found Elisa in the parlor with Caroline and William, having what appeared to be a celebratory toast, for three glasses of champagne sat on the table.

“Toasting my future, I see,” he said, stepping into the room. All three of them turned to him, but he was automatically drawn to Elisa. She was still far too pale and her lip trembled when she did not press them together. When she looked up she smiled a little when she saw him, but the smile evaporated when she saw Harlan beside him.

“It seems Father wants you home,” Vaughn told her. “Harlan has come to escort you.”

She stood abruptly, knocking the table and spilling the champagne. “I’m so sorry,” she said, righting one of the glasses. “How clumsy.” Her hands were shaking.

“It’s quite all right,” Caroline assured her and called for the servants.

Vaughn went to Elisa and extended his elbow. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

“I will call on you later this week, if that is to your satisfaction,” Elisa added politely.

“That would be lovely,” William declared and Caroline, who had clearly received the full details of Elisa’s supposed sordid past, murmured something that Vaughn did not catch. For the sake of seeing him married to her daughter, it appeared that Caroline would suffer a whore in her parlor. The hypocrisy of high society never failed to amuse Vaughn, but his amusement had a bitter edge now.

Vaughn had offered to escort Elisa to the front door as a means for talking to her about this abrupt summons back to the hall. However, Caroline and William followed them to the hall, all the way to the front door, where Harlan already had Elisa’s high-fettled horse waiting.

As Vaughn helped Elisa up into the saddle, which she settled into as if it was a sidesaddle, with one knee around the pommel, he squeezed her hand tight and murmured up to her. “I’ll be right behind you. Stall Harlan if you can.”

She nodded, looked up and smiled at Caroline and William then settled the reins. Harlan was on foot and that would slow them somewhat. Vaughn knew Elisa had a head for intrigue—she would find a way to take forever to reach the hall, which would give him time, he hoped.

She glanced at Vaughn once more before kicking the horse into a slow walk and he saw pure fear in her eyes. It kicked him in the gut. Suddenly, he knew he could not allow her to return to the hall alone. He did not care that she had refused him, that she had made her choice. Instinct was screaming at him.

But before he could so much as turn to ask for his horse to be brought around, William was at his side. The older man clapped him on the shoulder. “Come. You and I will go to my study and lock ourselves in with one of those excellent bottles of port you sent over to me and the chessboard. We have things to discuss, away from the women.”

Vaughn glanced back over his shoulder, to where Elisa was already at the end of the drive, Harlan’s hand on the horse’s bridle.

At the top of the steps, Caroline was smiling at him.

He forced a jovial smile onto his face. “Wonderful idea,” he lied.

Chapter Sixteen

Elisa glanced over her shoulder. It was ridiculous to hope that Vaughn would catch up with them, despite every delaying tactic she had been able to conjure up, including a desperate plea for a private moment behind a bush, which she had spun out for long minutes. Despite the knowledge that Vaughn could not possibly be that close behind her, Elisa found herself looking over her shoulder constantly, hoping to see him.

Yet for as far as the eye could see there was no one. Just she and Harlan and within minutes they would be at Fairleigh Hall.

Please, Vaughn, hurry.

They reached the gravel driveway and Harlan helped her dismount. The great manor rose above her. Each step she took up the stairs toward the front door felt like her last. The mahogany door with its huge brass knocker loomed. She glanced back at Harlan, who stood at the bottom of the steps watching her. What was he doing? Did he fear she would run?

With a trembling hand, she opened the door. Every nerve on edge, she took a deep breath and stepped into the front entrance foyer.

It was empty. She relaxed a little, then reminded herself that Rufus would hardly await her arrival in the front foyer.

“I see you’ve made it!” Rufus’ voice boomed, startling her. That booming, echoing quality meant he must be in the circular stairway hall.

Her heart racing, she walked to the end of the foyer where the archway gave on to the marble floored hall. The sun was spilling through the high windows at the back of the house, flooding the hall with light that bounced off the shining marble surfaces, dazzling the eye and making the hall glow with a false warmth. She had always thought the hall a cold place, empty of heart.

She stepped onto the marble, looking around for Rufus and came to a halt, barely a pace into the hallway, with a hand to her mouth.

Rufus sat on the fourth step. Between his feet was a nearly empty decanter. The half-inch of liquid at the bottom was golden yellow. Rufus had exchanged his usual port for stronger spirits. His face was red, his hair wildly disarrayed—it looked as if he had been ruffling it with his hand, or perhaps he had simply rolled out of bed this morning without pause to complete his normal ablutions. His tiny eyes were blood-shot and bleary. But it was not his demonical appearance that halted her. It was the pistol in his hand.

Everything within her screamed at her to run. The door was still open behind her…in two steps she could be racing down the foyer and out across the open field.

Except Harlan stood guard at the front door.

“Rufus, what is this?” she asked, wincing as her voice broke.

He got to his feet slowly and stood swaying. Then, with a pause to perhaps consider his next movement, he stepped down to the stair. His toes barely missed the decanter. Another step. “Come here, woman!” he bellowed. “You have made me wait for too long.”

Though she knew it would infuriate him, she made no move toward him. It felt as though her legs were encased in lead.

“Did you not hear me, whore?”

She flinched as though struck and bit the inside of her cheek rather than respond.

He stood a step toward her. She took one back.

“Do you fear the man you are going to marry?”

Swallowing past the hard knot of fear in her throat, she replied, “I fear the anger in your eyes. I fear the fact you have a weapon in your hand.”

He lifted the gun, a smirk on his cruel lips. “Do you fear I will use it on you? Or do you fear for your lover…my son?”

Before she could move, he was upon her, grabbing her by the same wrist he had twisted earlier that day. She winced under the pain, but refused to cry out.

“Harlan’s son went for a walk this morning. He went to the ruins.”

Which meant he had seen her and Vaughn making love beneath the tree. There was no way she could deny it. And she knew he wouldn’t believe her denial anyway. Time had run out. Just like that.

“Vaughn will be back soon,” she warned Rufus.

He laughed—it was a twisted noise that shocked her. “Of course he will. That whoreson has been sniffing around you from the moment that he saw you. I knew if I sent for you, he would come running. I counted on it.”

Horror burst through her in waves of hot and cold. Vaughn would be walking into a trap! She must find some way of disarming Rufus.

He was waving the pistol at her and she swallowed dryly. “You counted on it?” she repeated. “I assume, then, that Harlan’s son didn’t spontaneously decide to go for a walk this morning, either. You set him to follow me.”

“But of course,” Rufus snarled. “Did you think I’m addled, woman? I could smell that whoreson’s stink all over you. I knew that if I watched you, sooner or later you’d go running to the bastard.”

“Congratulations, then. You’ve acquired exactly what you wanted. Although what has it got you, Rufus? You don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself right now.”

He slapped her so hard it split her lip. Her entire jaw went instantly numb, but she could taste blood in her mouth. She accepted the blow calmly. She had deliberately baited him, after all.

The slap served another purpose, too. It gave her an idea. Rufus was clearly waiting for Vaughn to arrive before he used the gun, or he would have pulled the trigger a moment before.

Disarming him physically would be beyond her meager strength, but there was another way to disable a pistol: fire it. There was no powder horn nearby that she could see, no shot. If she could anger him enough, she could perhaps get him to shoot the pistol. He was too good a shot to hope that he would miss her, but at least he would not be armed when Vaughn came upon him. It would give Vaughn the slender advantage he might need to overcome Rufus.

Elisa judged Rufus carefully. He was no fool. She could not immediately begin baiting him and expect him not to see through her strategy.

“Rufus, listen to me. I’m the one who started the affair. I’m the one who pursued Vaughn. He’s a young man who simply took what I offered.”

The vein in Rufus’ temple looked ready to explode. The blood-shot eyes narrowed. “You lie for him.”

“Why would I lie now? Ask Harlan’s son. I’m sure he gave you lots of detail. Ask him if I seemed at all unwilling this morning. Ask him who it was who pressed their attention upon the other.”

She knew she had scored a hit, for his fingers bit into the skin of her arm.

“But you already know, don’t you?” she said quietly. “He did not spare you a single detail. I’m sure he delighted in the retelling.”

“No!” Rufus shook her arm. “He despises me as much as I despise him. He wanted to hurt me and he thought seducing you was the way.”

“Of course a man with a heart as cold as yours could never be hurt by an emotion as petty as love,” Elisa taunted.

Rufus’s cackled laughter made the hair on her arms stand on end. “All he got for his trouble was a well-used whore. How quick you are to return to your wicked ways.”

“For my trouble, I learned how deeply your hatred of me truly extends, Father.” It was Vaughn’s voice.

Rufus’ pistol swiveled immediately to the left of her. She whirled, to see Vaughn leaning against the doorframe of the French door that led to the back garden and the stables. His arms were crossed and he looked not at all concerned about the pistol Rufus held.

“Elisa will be coming with me,” Vaughn said, straightening up. He took a step toward her, but Rufus cocked the gun. Elisa smothered a little shriek with her hand, but Vaughn seemed not to notice…or care as he held his hand out to Elisa.

Rufus waved the pistol. “Hands off her!”

“Vaughn, don’t—he’ll kill you,” Elisa breathed.

“It’s time for you to leave,” Vaughn said. “I learned some interesting news a few moments ago. I received a letter from Lord Arden in London.” He reached into his jacket, but Rufus snarled and he aborted the movement after glancing at his father.

“Don’t talk as if I’m not in the room, boy,” Rufus added.

Vaughn turned his head. “You have been dead to me since the moment I read the letter.” He made the pronouncement as one would announce breakfast. There was no drama, no emotion there. Vaughn looked back at her. “I’ve had my letters directed to William’s estate as I didn’t trust the security of any correspondence that arrived here. It’s just as well. My agents in London reported back to me about a matter I asked them to investigate a few days ago.”

“London?” Elisa repeated, dazed. What was all this? Did Vaughn not care that a pistol was pointed at his back? Did he not realize that every second he ignored Rufus, the little man’s choler rose higher and higher? She licked her lips, her mouth and throat drier than a sand dune.

“This man you agreed to marry, Elisa, the man who told you he would get your son back for you has never lifted a finger in the attempt. No one was ever hired to find Raymond. He merely told you that in order to keep you with him.
 
Rufus has coveted you for a long time…not long after you married Roger, he vowed you would one day be his. No-one took any notice because most of the men in London swore they would have you one way or another.
 
But Rufus was quite serious in his intention.
 
He coaxed Lord Arden into calling your husband out when Roger was caught in his wife’s bed.
 
And it was Rufus who encouraged Arden to twist the events.
 
Arden was desperate to save his wife’s reputation—he is particularly influential in the House of Lords and this would have destroyed his career.
 
By claiming that he had been caught in your bed, Elisa, Arden gained the admiration of every man in London and his wife was protected.”