Never Surrender to a Scoundrel (25 page)

He let out a deep-throated groan. “I can do that.”

Before dawn the next morning, Clarissa helped Dominick dress. At his insistence, she went no further than the threshold of his chamber.

“Go back to bed,” he murmured, kissing her one last time before he closed the door.

She drew away, somehow unsettled to have seen the shadowed outline of a footman standing watch in the corridor outside her room. Only then did she realize Dominick must have slipped away from her at some time in the night to make arrangements for her increased protection.

Later that afternoon, she returned from a dress fitting in town with Lady Stade and climbed the stairs. Her faithful footman, a burly lad by the name of Philip, following some distance behind. His protection had been so discreet throughout the day that her ladyship hadn't noticed him. For that Clarissa felt grateful, because she didn't feel like explaining him when it might be her ladyship's younger son who made his attendance upon her necessary.

Miss Randolph met her at the door, and took her hat and gloves.

“I don't remember dress fittings ever being this tiring,” Clarissa laughed.

“It will be the same every day, for a time, I venture, regardless of whatever activities you undertake, and we both know why.”

“Yes, the baby. Which makes the tiredness no bother at all.”

“Perhaps tonight, forgo the evening meal with His Lordship's family. Take your meal here in your room and retire early.”

“I think I will.”

Besides, she had no real wish to be in Colin's presence after hearing how he'd betrayed Dominick.

Miss Randolph slipped her pelisse from her shoulders and whisked it away to her dressing closet.

Something out of place caught Clarissa's eye, at the center of the bed, but the canopy's shadows did not allow her to discern the specifics. Moving closer, she saw a small frame—and within it a pale face surrounded by dark hair.

Her pulse increased. Hand trembling, she lifted it up from the coverlet and stared into the face of a beautiful woman with green eyes who stared boldly out of the miniature, her eyes flashing with sensuality.

“Tryphena,” she whispered. It could be no one else.

Miss Randolph returned to the room.

“Do you know where this came from?” She held the portrait for her maid to see.

Miss Randolph's eyes widened. “Oh, my lady. Is that who I think it is? I arrived in your room just as you did, after taking afternoon tea in the servants' dining hall. Someone must have come inside and left it.”

In the next moment, anger crashed through her with such force she could hardly think. What sort of person would play such cruel games?

Storming toward the door, she threw it open and swept past Philip, who started in surprise and followed as she descended the stairs and passed, room to room, until she found Colin inside the library.

He looked up from his newspaper and watched her approach without saying a word.

She thrust the miniature in front of his face. “If you think this frightens me, then you're wrong.”

I
f I think
what
frightens you?” he said, looking dismayed. “Why would I want to frighten you?”

He took hold of her wrist. She snatched her hand away.

“You know what this is.” She held the portrait higher, beside her head. Her eyes narrowed on him, assessing his response.

He tossed the newspaper aside and stood. “Not until you let me see it.”

The beating of her heart calmed. He looked sincerely perplexed by her accusation.

“Did you put this in my room?” she asked in a low voice, pressing the frame into his palm before stepping back. “Or have someone else do it for you, such as that maid you are carrying on with, perhaps?”

He stared down at the picture in his hand and his face paled. “God, no. I wouldn't.”

“Tell me the truth,” she insisted.

He met her gaze. “I
am
telling the truth, I swear it. Where did you find it? In a drawer? Perhaps it was left behind after their last visit and has remained there until then.”

“I returned from town just fifteen minutes ago to find it in the middle of my bed.”

His brows drew together. “I'm not responsible. I know things are quarrelsome between Dominick and me, but I wouldn't do such a thing. I'm not vindictive or devious, and I certainly wouldn't want to terrorize you.”

“I want to believe that,” she said. “But you're the only person who had an attachment to her.”

He covered his mouth and exhaled. “Blackmer told you that Tryphena and I carried on an affair.”

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes. “God, I made a terrible mistake.”

“If you feel that way, you should talk to him,” she suggested softly. “And apologize.”

He looked at her sharply, his eyes shining with tears.

“How does one apologize for kissing one's brother's wife?” He returned to the chair and sank down, pressing both hands to his face before running them through his hair. “There can be no forgiveness for such a betrayal. No going back. I heard they separated after that, and then she died. I feel responsible for it all. I despise myself.”

She sat in the chair beside his. “Why did you do it at all, if you knew it was wrong?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “I was so angry at him for leaving Darthaven and so envious of his freedom and for being strong enough to venture out on his own. I have never been so fearless although I've always wished to be. Then he came home with her, suddenly wanting to be part of the family again, and Mother and Father were so happy. They forgave him everything, and, at the time, I didn't understand and it angered me.”

“It's not unreasonable that you'd have felt that way. But to betray your brother by carrying on an affair with his wife?”

 “Tryphena,” he said. “She was just so beautiful and…overwhelming. I knew it was wrong, but it was flattering to believe, if only for a moment, she wanted something in me that she did not find with him. But she loved him. Why she pretended otherwise, I'll never understand. As soon as Dominick discovered us—she was…devastated, and finished with me. He despises me, as he should. And I've tried very hard, for so long, to despise him back just so I can live with myself.”

“It might be easier to live with yourself if you just talked to him and told him what you just told me.”

“He won't want to hear what I have to say.”

“How do you know, if you don't try?”

A long moment of silence passed between them.

“I will,” he said evenly. “I want him to come home to stay. I want us to be brothers again.”

But then he sat rigidly straight in his seat and held up the miniature. “That still leaves this. Who would have left it in your room?”

“It's not just the picture, Colin.”

“What are you saying?” He scowled. “There's more?”

Dominick stared into the leaping orange flames of a small fire built near the barn door, where he'd been sleeping for the past three nights.

“I think the house will be very fine when it is finished.” Mr. Gilbraith lay back upon his bundled-up coat, which he had made into a pillow for his head. “Finer even than when your grandsire lived here. And I know many among the local villagers are eager for paying positions, so you'll won't go without good help.”

Dominick and Mr. Galbraith had just finished their evening meal, which consisted of a cold chicken, a few equally cold baked potatoes, some bread and cheese, and a bottle of wine. It was late, and getting colder with wind sweeping through the cracks in the barn. Their horses stood quietly in the far corner, near a patch of fresh hay. It had been such a long day, meeting with various tradesmen from the village, Dominick welcomed even the thin pallet on the cold ground behind him. Though he'd certainly prefer a bed, especially one with Clarissa in it. God, he ached for her. He wondered what she was doing and hoped she was well.

He stood and went to the open door of the barn, peering across the field toward the house. Moonlight illuminated the manse, making it look more magical than real. Frost End wasn't a grand house when compared to a place like Darthaven, but he found it beautiful still.

He secured the heavy door, barring it from inside. Already Mr. Galbraith snored.

Dominick too lay down, and closed his eyes on the thought that in two days he would see Clarissa. He dozed. He slept.

Only to be roused by Mr. Galbraith's terrible snoring.

Dominick's throat constricted and, despite gasping for his next breath, he found none. His blanket smothered him. Damn, such
heat
.

Which didn't make any sense. When he'd fallen asleep, the air had been so cold.

A horse whinnied and stamped, distressed.

Dominick sat up, eyes wide and scratchy, attempting to shake off his mental fugue. The barn was black…more black than night. Impenetrable—other than a strange, wavering orange light coming from…where? He had no sense of direction. He glanced to the small fire beside him for guidance—the one he had purposefully built for warmth—and saw its embers only dimly, as if his eyes were thickly veiled.

Smoke already filled his nose, throat, and lungs. The horses neighed loudly, and he heard a solid
thud
as one of them kicked the wall.

The barn was on fire.

His heart beat wildly, yet he forced calm on himself and remembered that when he'd gone to sleep, he'd done so with the soles of his boots facing the barn door. Leaping up, he stumbled in that direction, his arms outstretched in the darkness until he felt wood. Finding the bolt, he cast the door open.

He collapsed outward, into fresh air, smoke billowing out and over him in a thick blanket. He rose up again…stumbled and fell, and scrabbling away saw orange flames leaping from the side of the structure.

But Mr. Galbraith and the horses…

After clearing his lungs and filling them with fresh air again, Dominick dove back into the dark until his boots touched something substantial. He reached down, seizing hold of a leg.

He dragged the man backward, in the same direction from which he'd come.

Outside, he gasped for breath and roused Mr. Galbraith, whose eyes opened with a start, after which he fell into a fit of coughing. Dominick returned inside and shoved open the stall doors, freeing the terrified horses, and they raced past him. He followed, coughing raggedly, his eyes streaming and urged his companion to stand, and together they removed themselves to a distance farther away.

“The fire…we built, did it get out of hand?” gasped Mr. Galbraith.

Dominick remembered the fire as he'd seen it upon first awakening, its low-burning embers still neat and tidy in its shallow pit.

“No,” he answered, his eyes going to the walls of the barn and the flames that consumed them—not just from one place but from all four walls and, by all appearances, from the outside in. There had been no overturned lantern, no stray ember on dry hay. There was no question in Dominick's mind that someone had started the blaze intentionally.

Just then Dominick felt a wet drop strike his face, and then another. Another moment, and rain fell from the sky.

“Did we sleep though a lightning strike?” murmured Mr. Galbraith, looking at the sky, bemused.

Lightning, no. Dominick turned away from the barn, scanning the darkness and looking toward the house. Was that someone here, even now? He saw nothing. No trace of movement other than the horses, who had ended their panicked streak and now paced spiritedly in the paddock just beyond, two dark shadows illuminated by moonlight.

Mr. Galbraith backed away, his eyes staring out wide from his sooty face at the fire, which had overtaken the roof. “There's no way to save it. What a shame. What a shame! But thank the Lord above that it wasn't the house.”

But why
not
the house? Why the smaller of the two barns? Dominick thought he knew the answer to that as well:
Because he'd been inside.

His heart seized, thinking of Clarissa so far away at Darthaven, and his mind became a tumble of images—torn dresses and old letters and her sweet face. Was she in danger as well?

“We've hours left until dawn,” Mr. Galbraith said. “I suppose there is nothing left to do but retrieve those horses and pass the remainder of the night in the big barn.”

Dominick knew, of a certainty, he would not sleep at all. And though the roads were dark and perilous, he could not remain there until morning, tortured by thoughts of Clarissa's safety.

“No, Mr. Galbraith. I'm afraid I must leave you and immediately depart for home.”

That Thursday night, Clarissa stood in the midst of the crowd, as a six-musician band played lively provincial tunes. As Lady Stade had promised, she'd planned a party to welcome Lord Blackmer and his new wife home. Only Dominick still hadn't returned from Frost End. Clarissa had been forced to face nearly fifty curious faces without him there.

Still, she had always enjoyed a social nature and had welcomed the break in monotony. It seemed that each day since Blackmer had left had been filled with too much silence—and there was also the rain, which she feared had prevented his timely return for the ball in their honor. Her new gown had been delivered today, and none too soon. She could no longer hide the apparent bump beneath her high-waisted skirts—nor would she want to. The pink lustring fitted perfectly. She'd enjoy the new gown and feeling so pretty more if her husband was there. She fretted over his absence, hoping he was safe and would return very soon.

Almost everyone had been very nice and eager to welcome her. But there'd also been numerous very specific questions about how she and Blackmer had met and come to be married—especially from Miss Brookfield, the young lady who had become so emotional about her presence that day at the dressmaker's shop, and her small group of young lady friends. Clarissa hadn't enjoyed answering them alone.

But this evening, as Lord and Lady Stade dutifully spoke with guests, her brother-in-law had stepped in to ease the awkwardness of the conversations that followed.

“Here you are, my lady. I brought you some lemonade.” Colin presented her with a glass.

He had been her salvation tonight, and on those days when she'd languished inside Darthaven, the rain striking endlessly against the panes. After that conversation in which he'd confided his feelings about his brother, they'd warmed to one another, playing chess and talking for hours.

Nearby, Miss Brookfield stood with three other young ladies, and they all looked at Clarissa with wide blinking eyes. Because she was a woman, she knew exactly what
that
look meant—they were talking about her, and perhaps not in a complimentary way. While she had every determined intention to win their friendship—including Miss Brookfield's—she wished her sisters or any of her London friends were here, just to ease the moment. In all her days, she could not recall ever having been the unwelcome outsider at a gathering, and the feeling didn't set well with her at all.

Taking note of Miss Brookfield, Colin leaned closer. “I hesitate to tell you what she's saying.”

“I'd rather know than wonder,” she replied beneath her breath.

He answered in a confidential tone, but with a shine of humor to his eyes. “It seems Miss Brookfield has deduced from the London scandal rags that you and Blackmer married in shocking haste, to the great surprise of society onlookers, and that my brother was a virtual unknown. There was also something about a disaster of come-out ball, and your grandfather, the earl, being so mortified by the sudden nuptials that he took grievously ill.”

Clarissa's cheeks burned with heat and she bit her bottom lip. “Things didn't happen in precisely that order.”

“None of it matters now. He's obviously smitten with you.”

“And I with him,” she answered earnestly. Her heart ached from missing him.

“Miss Brookfield's ordinarily a nice young lady. She's just fancied herself in love with Blackmer forever.”

“If she's such a nice girl, then why don't you court her? As a matter of fact, you could go talk to her this moment, and—” Clarissa lifted her lemonade and, taking a sip, peered over the edge at him. She giggled. “Break up that little conversation they are having about me.”

He shook his head and smiled, albeit a bit morosely. “And forever stand in his shadow? To settle for being second best? No, thank you, my dearest Lady Blackmer. That said, I do know how to break that little gathering.” After taking her glass and setting it aside on a tray, he extended his hand. “Care to dance?”

“Lady Stade should announce when she wishes for dancing to begin.”

“She's distracted by her friends.” His hand at her back invited her to accompany him. “I know all these people. They've been pent up inside for days, just as we have, and they want to have a good time.”