Once Upon a Scandal (3 page)

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Authors: Barbara Dawson Smith

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BOOK: Once Upon a Scandal
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Lucas frowned. “Andrew’s old school chum?”
“Yes. He wishes to marry me.”
Releasing her abruptly, Lucas strode to the fireplace. He leaned his forearm on the mantelpiece and gazed at her. “I remember Hickey as an honorable, level-headed gentleman. Not the sort to take up with a fallen woman.”
The slur hurt, but she refused to let it show. “
You’ve
taken a mistress. Why should you deny me the privilege of companionship?”
“Because one spurious child is quite enough for me.” A faintly feral glint entered his eyes. “And perhaps Hickey knew you intimately before we were wed. Perhaps
he
is the father of your child.”
She stood in frozen denial as fear slithered forth from the dark place inside her. No one would believe what had happened. Least of all, Lucas.
Snatching up the sword of anger, she struck back with a lie. “I haven’t the least notion who fathered my Jenny. He could have been any one of a dozen men.”
“So you said. On the night of our wedding.”
She would not feel guilty. Not for taking the only course of action that benefitted her daughter. “Woodrow loves Jenny. That is all that matters to me. If you won’t be a father to her, then I must seek a man who will. A man who can forgive a youthful error and accept a blameless child.”
His expression hewn from granite, he studied her with a stranger’s hard eyes. “There will be no divorce. That is final. Good day, Lady Wortham.”
The bars of the prison closed in on her. Fighting back, she
retorted, “As you wish, Lord Wortham. Only prepare yourself for another scandal.”
Lucas watched his wife march toward the door of the library. She moved with her unique brand of sensual dignity, her head held high, the lilac silk gown draping her slender curves. He had forgotten how small she was, how dainty, how angelically fair of face. She exuded an air of innocence that infuriated him. For a moment there, when he’d been standing behind her, he’d felt like that callow lad again, dazzled by her deceptive purity. And he’d been seized by the desire to press her down on the rug and consummate their marriage.
He clenched his fingers. Damn her.
When she reached the doorway, Emma turned her head to glower at him with her beautiful blue eyes. As if
she
were the injured party. Then, with a twitch of her skirts, she vanished into the passageway.
She would go back to Jenny now. The thought squeezed his chest in a vise so tight he could scarcely breathe. Somehow, putting a name to Emma’s child made his resentment blaze hotter. And his regrets burn deeper.
If you won’t be a father to her, then I must seek a man who will.
He slammed his fist down onto a crate, splintering the wood. Pain speared up his arm. Did she think
he
ought to have accepted her bastard?
. No, not a bastard. Under the law, her child bore his name and the distinction of his rank. Lady Jenny Coulter. She would be six by now. Of an age to ask questions about her father. Did Emma tell her the truth? Did Emma admit her own wrongdoing?
To hell with it. What she told her daughter held no interest for him. His emotional turmoil arose only from the fact that he fully realized now the danger of having an untrustworthy wife.
Running restless fingers through his hair, Lucas paced the length of the library. Considering Emma’s penchant for toying
with men, it was a wonder she had not conceived again. In fact, it was a miracle she hadn’t given birth to a boy. By law, the Wortham heir.
The ramifications of such an event struck a grim note. While he’d been away, the issue of the succession had seemed remote, unimportant. Now he faced the fact that he could not permit Emma to hold such power over him.
Yet if he did not divorce her that left him only one choice. His pulse surged as the solution enticed him.
No. He wouldn’t even consider such madness. He’d only bring calamity onto himself and his family. On the other hand, perhaps he was underestimating himself. He was no longer the green boy, easily hoodwinked by a pretty smile. He could keep Emma under strict control.
The unthinkable course of action took flame inside him, filling him with dark, damning fire. Yes. He must do it.
He must ensure that Emma bore
his
child.
Emma’s thoughts were in such chaos that she walked straight past the man who loitered on the front steps of her house in a seedy neighborhood on the fringes of Cheapside.
She had been reliving each moment of the meeting with Lucas. From the instant she had seen her husband looking every inch the omnipotent lord, she had lost control of the conversation. She had failed to guide him into accepting the only reasonable resolution to their unconventional marriage. Why was he so adamant about not wanting a divorce?
Because he had a mistress, a woman he loved. The notion stung with surprising poignancy. His lover must be unsuited to marrying a man of his high station. Was she a foreigner, then? Or a lower-class Englishwoman he had met overseas?
Whoever she was, she pleasured him in bed. She lifted her gown and submitted to his dominance. She allowed him to perform that painfully degrading act on her …
“Out burgling, m’lady?”
Jolted, Emma found herself standing on her own front steps. Beside her stood a pigeon-breasted man wearing a battered black top hat and the cast-off brown suit of a gentleman.
One of his eyelids drooped, lending a sly look to his sallow face.
Clive Youngblood.
Her stomach took a dive. The Bow Street Runner had plagued Emma and her grandfather for months, suspecting one of them was the Bond Street Burglar. He alone had noticed the pattern of the robberies—that in the weeks preceding each theft, her grandfather had lost money to the victim.
Surreptitiously, she glanced up and down the residential street. No one was watching. “I beg your pardon,” she said icily. “Did you speak to me?”
“You know I did. It h’ain’t polite to ignore an officer of the law.”
“Nor is it polite to address an unescorted lady.”
“Maybe ‘tis a rule fer you top-drawers. But ’ere, in my part of town, we h’ain’t so particular.”
She gritted her teeth on a retort about self-important little men. Youngblood lacked proof of her crimes, yet he continued to dog her, disappearing for weeks, then reappearing. “If you’ve something to say, then say it.”
“I might at that.” A crafty smile curled his lips as he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Yer grandpa’s been gamblin’ again.”
Her feet froze to the step. “You’re lying.”
“Nay. Saw ‘im wid me own eyes. ’Twas last night, comin’ outa Chutney’s Club.” He clucked his tongue. “’E ’ad the look of a bloke oo’s lost ’is last farthing.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re mistaken. Good day, sir.”
Grinning, he lifted his top hat with the hauteur of a lord. “I’ll be on the lookout fer the Bond Street Burglar.”
The warning didn’t deserve the dignity of a reply. Leaving him standing out in the cold, Emma went inside and shut the door. Only then did she allow anxiety to wash over her.
Chutney’s was a backstreet gaming hell. Where Grandpapa had been wont to go in the sad months after Grandmama’s death.
Emma shook her head. Youngblood’s accusation could not
be true. Ever since she had come home bleeding from Lord Jasper Putney’s bullet, Grandpapa had stopped gambling. He would not risk the dice, not ever again. Where would he get the money for a game, anyway?
The cash box.
Denying her doubts, she walked briskly across the bare wood floor of the entryway. The downstairs was silent as a tomb, though she could hear Maggie singing off-key in one of the bedrooms above. The familiar sound lifted Emma’s spirits. It was Monday, washing day, when fresh linens were put on the beds. Jenny would be up there, helping Maggie and chattering instead of doing her lessons. Were it not for her doomed errand this morning, Emma would be with them, sweeping the dustballs from beneath the beds or scrubbing the grates. At one time she would have been appalled to do the work of a servant. But necessity—and Jenny—made it all worthwhile.
Entering the small morning room, Emma could not help but compare it to Wortham House. Here, the blue curtains were frayed. No fire burned on the hearth, for coal was too dear to waste. She had placed the furniture in strategic locations to hide the worn spots in the rug. Yet a pair of windows looked out on a tiny rear garden dominated by a stately beech tree. And they had a roof over their heads and food on the table. That was all that mattered.
She went to the tall secrétaire in the corner. Standing on her tiptoes, she took a chipped porcelain vase off the top shelf and shook out a key into her palm. She used the key to open the metal strongbox inside the desk.
And found herself staring down into the empty interior.
Her stomach lurched. Where was the money she had set aside until the next quarterly payment from her trust fund? Just yesterday, there had been six pounds, three shillings, and a few pence. Enough to scrape by with nothing to spare.
Closing her eyes, she pressed her forehead to the oak secrétaire. It took a moment of deep breathing to alleviate her distress. Youngblood was wrong. He
must
be wrong. Grandpapa would not break his vow.
But he had come in very late last night and gone out early this morning again, leaving the house as she’d come down to breakfast. Had she not been wrapped up in her own troubles, she would have paid more heed to his air of jolly frivolity.
Was
he up to his old tricks again?
The question nagged like a sore tooth. As soon as he returned home, she would get the truth out of him. Agitated, she paced to the front door. If only she could put her financial woes behind her by marrying Sir Woodrow.
Though he wasn’t sinfully rich like Lucas, Sir Woodrow Hickey was comfortably settled. He wanted to take care of her and Jenny. Her heart warmed at the thought of his kindness and gallantry, his undemanding and courtly devotion. She had grown exceedingly fond of him over the years, once she’d looked beyond his slight acquaintance with Lucas’s family. A trusted friend, Woodrow had stayed at her side during the difficult years of early motherhood. Emma had hoped to repay his regard by making them a family.
She peeked out the front curtains. Almost as if she’d conjured him, Sir Woodrow was marching up the steps. The sunlight shone on his impeccable blue suit with the perfectly tied cravat. Thank heaven, he had a firm hold on her grandfather’s arm. She could only pray they’d missed Youngblood.
The moment the two men came inside, she knew her wish had been denied.
“Confounded Runner,” Lord Briggs muttered, shaking his fist. “A pox upon him, bothering his betters. Why, in my day, a person of common birth knew his place. He didn’t gabble on and make sly remarks.”
“Good day, madam,” Woodrow said, bowing to Emma before turning back to Viscount Briggs. “I confess, I’m astonished you would be acquainted with such a man. How did you come to meet him?”
Dear God. Woodrow didn’t know about her secret life as a burglar. “Grandpapa met him in a gaming hell,” Emma said quickly. “He … he came by to deliver some interesting
news. And I’ve been wondering if it has to do with my strongbox being empty.”
Her grandfather opened and closed his mouth. His gently weathered face took on a sheepish expression, and he tugged at his neckcloth, mussing the starched linen. “I can explain that, my dear.”
“I’d hoped so. In the drawing room, then.”
“After my nap.”
“Now.”
He blew out a sigh. “Lead the way, girl.”
“Before we talk, I should like a word with Sir Woodrow.”
“Take as long as you like.” With a benevolent wave of his hand, her grandfather marched past her like a martyr on his way to the lions. “Go on, Hickey. Save me the trouble. You’ll tell her everything, anyway.”
The baronet removed his hat, revealing wheat-brown hair that receded from his brow. His clear gray eyes were grave. “I don’t know quite how to say this, Emma.”
“You must tell me,” she whispered back. “Where did you find him?”
“At a small club in the Strand. I’m afraid he was … er …”
“Gambling again.” Struck by despair, she struggled to keep her expression calm. On impulse, she reached for Sir Woodrow’s hand and squeezed it. His fingers felt warm and comforting, nonthreatening. “Thank you for bringing him home.”
The ruddiness of his cheeks deepened, and he withdrew his hand. “Never fear, I shall see to his markers.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Emma said fiercely. “I’ve some money put away. Just tell me who he owes this time.”
“You know I cannot. It’s a debt of honor between gentlemen.”
“Nonsense. Grandpapa has always told me in the past.”
Woodrow frowned. “He expressly asked me not to reveal the gentleman’s name. I cannot betray a confidence.”
She bit her lip against another argument. Woodrow wasn’t
one to bend his strict principles. “As you wish, then.”

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