Once Upon a Scandal (9 page)

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Authors: Barbara Dawson Smith

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BOOK: Once Upon a Scandal
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In the awkward silence, Phoebe fidgeted with the ivory ribs of her fan. “Well. It has been quite a long while since we’ve seen you at
ton
events, Emma.”
“Seven years,” Olivia stated. “Surely you miss being the center of attention.”
“On the contrary,” Emma said, “I don’t miss it a whit. I lead a much more useful life now.” She stole a sidelong glance at Lucas. He stood alone, watching her, drinking his glass of brandy. Curse him for deserting her.
“Oh?” Olivia said, her chin held high. “And don’t you care that you no longer set the fashion?”
Emma resisted the impulse to smooth her outdated pink gown. “We’ve all changed,” she said softly. “I understand both of you have children now. They seemed a happy crowd up in the nursery.”
Phoebe took the bait. “I have three,” she said, clasping her folded fan to her pillowy breast. “Jane, Lydia, and baby Ralph. I must say, Longden strutted like a cock when I presented him with his heir last March.”
“And the handsome, fair-haired boy guarding his regiment of tin soldiers, is he yours, then?” Emma asked Olivia.
“He’s my eldest. We named him Andrew.” Olivia’s face softened ever so slightly, taking on a glow of maternal pride, before her mouth pinched tightly again. “Remember my brother Andrew? He died in the Portuguese War. We were in deep mourning for him when you lured Lucas into a hasty marriage.”
Watching from across the room, Lucas saw Emma stiffen. She sat with elegant composure, as fragile as a porcelain doll, listening gravely as his sisters prattled on. He wondered how
she managed to appear so cursed beautiful when her soul was so black. Her upswept hair glinted like gold in the candlelight. The bandage wrapped around her palm enhanced her vulnerable look. Her hands rested on the arms of her chair, and he fancied those delicate knuckles showed a hint of whiteness.
What were his sisters saying?
He felt an unexpected jab of pity for her. Livvie and Phoebe would be making sharp comments in the interest of defending their brother. They meant well. But he was a man now, and he did not need. mothering.
He needed his wife. Naked in bed.
Uptilting his glass, he let the brandy slide down his throat, sweet and searing like the lust inside him. He had never felt this darkly haunting passion for any other woman, not even Shalimar.
Guilt twisted his gut. He’d called on his mistress that afternoon, told her of his intent to sire an heir, and renewed his vow to find her son. But his scruples would not allow him to visit her for now, not while he lived with his wife. Shalimar had reacted with inscrutable calm and quiet dignity. She was like a cool oasis in a burning desert, and Lucas hated himself for wanting to be scorched by the sun.
Tonight he would give himself up to the heat. He would go to Emma. She would be waiting in a temptingly sheer nightdress, and he would take his time kissing her, loosening the ribbons of her bodice, reaching inside to caress her silky skin. Emma hid a wild spirit behind her facade of frail femininity, a wildness he intended to unleash and then control with the whip of desire. He knew a hundred ways to arouse a woman, exotic techniques even a woman of her experience could not know. Tonight he would make her his willing slave; he would reduce her to a state where she begged for his touch. And never again would she scorn him … .
“M’lord?”
He realized that Stafford stood beside him, a silver salver in his white-gloved hands. The servant said in an undertone,
“Lady Wortham has a visitor. I—ahem—thought you might wish to know.”
Setting down his glass, Lucas plucked the calling card from the tray, and his eyes narrowed on the printed name. The heat within him burned to cinders. An icy surge of anger immobilized him.
His mother motioned from the chaise where she sat with Toby in her lap. “Who is it?” she inquired. “Who would be so uncivil as to call upon us at dinnertime without invitation?”
“His name is of no importance,” Lucas said, his voice low and curt. “If you’ll excuse me a few moments—”
“
His
name?” His mother cast a scandalized glance across the room at Emma. “A
man
has come to see your wife? Kindly pass me that card.”
“No. I’ll handle the matter.”
Emma rose from her chair and came toward them. “Did I hear you say I have a visitor?” She took the card from Lucas, made a little gasp, and murmured breathily, “Sir Woodrow!”
His mother’s silvery brows rose in surprise. “Sir Woodrow Hickey? Good gracious! Stafford, send him in at once. And set another place at the table.”
“Yes, m’lady.” The servant marched out of the drawing room.
From across the room, his sisters watched with interest, murmuring to each other. At least, Lucas thought dourly, his family was spared the knowledge that Emma wished to divorce him and marry Hickey.
“Sir Woodrow came to see
me,
” Emma objected. “About a business matter. I will speak to him in private.”
She flounced away and Lucas stalked after her, seizing her by the arm just inside the doorway. Bending close to her ear, he whispered, “Let there be no mistake as to whom you belong.”
Blue fire flashed in her eyes. “I belong to no man.”
“You belong to the devil. And you’re going nowhere without me.”
“So you are the devil?” she said in a grating murmur.
“I’m your jailer. It’s either this gilded cage … or Newgate.”
Lucas watched in cynical amusement as Emma compressed her lips, the color bleaching from her face. So much for her stealing a moment alone with her lover.
Her bosom swelled as she drew in a deep breath to speak. His gaze flicked to her breasts, and she lifted her hand to her décolletage as if to hide herself. Her poisonous retort remained unspoken, for Sir Woodrow Hickey marched into the drawing room.
His receding, wheat-brown hair had a mussed appearance, though otherwise he was impeccably dressed in a dark green coat over tan breeches. The grim set of his mouth looked faintly ludicrous on his mild-mannered face.
He rushed straight to Emma. He stretched out his hands as if to take hers, then let them drop to his sides. “My dear Emma,” he said in a low-pitched voice fraught with emotion. “I just heard the news from Briggs, that you’d taken up residence here. You and Jenny.”
“We decided only today—”
“Good God,” he exclaimed. “What have you done to your hand?” This time he ignored Lucas’s glare, grasped Emma gently by the wrist, and clucked over her bandage. “Why, you poor darling, you’ve been bleeding.”
“It’s merely a scratch,” she lied, drawing her hand back. “An accident with a knife, I’m embarrassed to admit.”
“You should not work in the kitchen,” he muttered. “Such labor is unsuited to a lady of your delicacy.”
“Bless you for your concern. And I’m sorry I didn’t have time to warn you about the change in my situation. Truly sorry.”
They whispered to each other like two cooing doves. Hickey, apparently, was taken in by Emma’s pretense of helpless female. She very nearly had the lack-witted fool groveling at her feet.
This was the man Emma wanted to marry. This uninspiring, weak-chinned milksop.
Lucas gritted his teeth. Damn her, she ought to be currying
his
favor instead.
He
should be the recipient of her desperate yearning, her heartfelt gaze, her loving pretense.
Lucas moved closer, molding her softness to his side and reviving his awareness of her treacherous charms. “I’ll see to my wife’s comfort,” he said. “Henceforth, I would thank you to keep your hands to yourself.”
“Wortham.” Stepping back from Emma, the baronet acknowledged his host with a belated nod. “What a surprise that you’ve finally returned from your trip abroad.”
“I couldn’t stay away. You see, England holds a certain undeniable attraction for me.”
Lucas caressed Emma’s waist in a proprietary gesture. Her breathing caught, and when she flinched, she reminded him of a cornered doe.
But Emma was no fey woodland creature facing the hunter’s gun.
“What is the meaning of all this secretiveness?” the dowager called across the room. “Sir Woodrow, have you no greeting for the rest of us?”
“Forgive me, ladies.” Like a gallant courtier, Hickey bowed to each of the women in turn, ending with Lucas’s mother. He stepped toward her and took her proffered hand. “The years have been kind to you. May I say, you are as lovely as ever.”
“Why, thank you. You were always such a polite, wellmannered boy.” Smiling, the dowager stroked the terrier in her lap. “I insist that you join us for dinner.”
“Oh, yes, do!” added Livvie and Phoebe in unison.
Casting a troubled glance at Emma, he said, “I’d be honored to sup at your table.”
“Excellent,” the dowager said. Then sadness shadowed her gaunt features. “It’s a pity we lost touch after my son’s untimely death. But now we have the chance to share stories of happier times. I should like to hear all about your school days with Andrew.”
The baronet took a seat beside her on the chaise. “Oh-ho, I don’t know if my tales would be suited for the ears of
ladies. He and I had a few exploits that would curl your hair.”
“He was ever the darling scamp,” Livvie said wistfully. “I hope my own little Andrew takes after him.”
A flash of bittersweet nostalgia penetrated Lucas’s ill humor. He couldn’t help smiling at his sister. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” he teased. “Have you forgotten the time Andrew snitched your diary and read it aloud to a roomful of your suitors?”
Livvie giggled. “Oooh, I was furious, but I had my revenge when Papa made him renounce his sins in front of the entire congregation at St. George’s.”
“I say, why don’t we record our anecdotes in a memorial book?” suggested Phoebe. “So our children can know their uncle, too.”
“How positively famous,” Livvie said, clapping her hands. “Over dinner, Sir Woodrow can tell us stories about their stint together in the cavalry.”
From the doorway, the butler intoned, “Dinner, my lord and ladies.”
Chattering happily, Lucas’s sisters rose from the chaise while Hickey offered his arm to the dowager.
Emma stepped away from Lucas. As the others started out the door, she gazed after Hickey, her expression stricken. Her fingers were clenched together, and the naked anguish on her face infuriated Lucas.
He came up beside her and dipped his head down to hers. Her warm, womanly essence swirled around him. “Mourning the loss of your lover?” he murmured.
She blinked, and he had the strangest feeling she wasn’t even seeing him. The bruised darkness beneath her eyes accentuated her fragility. Of course, playing the Burglar, she hadn’t slept last night.
Nor would she would sleep tonight.
Elation flamed inside Lucas. At last, he would possess her, bend her to his will. He would take his pleasure and purge himself of his obsession for her. He would prove she was only a comely body, a woman unworthy of his attentions.
“Have you nothing to say, my darling wife?” he taunted. “No recriminations for me now that everyone is gone?”
Her lashes fluttered as her gaze wavered on him. She swayed on her feet. Then, before he could catch her, she breathed a little sigh and crumpled to the floor.
A
sharp odor stung her nostrils.
Moaning, Emma jerked her head away. She wanted to drift in a warm cloud of nothingness. To sleep in a soft nest of oblivion. But no matter how she shifted position, the acrid stench followed her. It drove her out of the protective cocoon, and she opened her eyes to glaring reality.
She was at Wortham House. In the candlelit drawing room. Gazing up at her husband’s grim, unforgiving face.
He crouched beside the chaise and held a small brown bottle to her nose. Foul fumes emanated from the vessel.
She coughed, batted away his hand, and struggled to sit up. “What … happened?”
He pressed her back down. “You swooned.”
“I never swoon.”
“You did just now,” he said flatly.
Several other faces swam into view. “It’s the loss of blood from the wound on her hand,” Sir Woodrow pronounced with a worried frown. “Emma is wont to neglect her own health for the sake of others.”
“Will she be all right?” the dowager asked with surprising anxiety. Toby squirmed in her arms, his liquid brown eyes fixed on Emma.
“When was the last time she ate?” Olivia asked, absently touching her pregnant belly. “I get light-headed when I miss a meal.”
“She looks positively exhausted,” Phoebe observed, turning her fan on Emma and creating a gentle breeze. “Oh, dear. It’s our fault for being so unwelcoming.”
They cared about her? A bittersweet gladness flowed into Emma. Yet she also wanted to snap at them in frustration. If only they knew. If only she could tell them the real reason she had fainted.
Wracked by memory, she closed her eyes again. No, she couldn’t bear their kindness. It kept her from shouting out the truth. The truth that had stained her soul for the past seven years. How had she thought she could live in this house?
Two strong arms slid between her and the chaise, one beneath her knees and the other supporting her neck. She opened her eyes just as Lucas swung her up against him.
He clasped her to his granite-hard chest. “Hold on to my neck,” he said.
“No.”
“Yes. I’m taking you to bed.”
Her heartbeat surged so fast she swayed from another wave of dizziness. She grabbed at him and clung for dear life. Her cheek met the hard pillow of his shoulder. The lingering ammonia sting of the hartshorn was replaced by the clean scent of starched linen. And the musk of man.
“I’ll send my maid to attend her,” the dowager said.
“I’ll fetch a physician,” Sir Woodrow added. “She needs proper medical attention.”
“Go on into dinner, all of you,” Lucas said. “I’ll take care of my wife.”
A lightning bolt of fear struck Emma. His ominous words rumbled through her like the thunder presaging a storm. She was conscious of his physical strength as he carried her up the grand staircase and along a dim passageway. She could hear the thud of his footsteps, the harshness of his breaths. He stared straight ahead, his jaw set in stony determination.
I’m taking you to bed.
Sweet Jesus, save her. Lucas meant to assert his husbandly
rights. Now. While the rest of the family sat down to their dinner.
Emma resisted the dark force of panic. If she let herself sink into a black pit of despair, she might never climb out again. She must perform the duties of a wife, that was all. It was better to allow Lucas to have his way with her than to be tossed in jail. Or to risk being transported in a prison hulk halfway around the world to a penal colony—leaving Jenny alone.
I can find a more honorable woman on any street corner
in
Whitechapel.
She took a perverse comfort from his brusque words. Lucas wanted a child from her, an heir. He felt no driving, overpowering lust for her. He wouldn’t grab her unawares, cast her to the ground, and yank up her skirts—
She shut out the memory. Yet a cold clamminess crept over her skin.
He shouldered open a door and conveyed her to the bed, depositing her on the counterpane as if she were an unwelcome burden. Emma’s heightened senses registered the coolness of the sheets and a faint sunshine scent. At any other time, she would have found the bedchamber inviting. A cheery blaze on the hearth illuminated a room decorated in hues of peaches and cream accented by gold. The chairs were plump with cushions, the gilt desk dainty and feminine. Even the bed felt fluffy and comfortable with feather pillows and fresh linens.
Yet the walls seemed to press in on her as if she were locked in a cell.
No choice. No choice. No choice … .
Lucas towered beside the bed, his hands on his hips and his gaze sweeping over her revealing pink gown. Her flesh prickled from the heat of his stare. He must be anticipating stripping her naked, exposing her to his aggression. Would he snuff out the candles first? Would he press his hand to her mouth to keep her from crying out? Would he hurt her?
Slowly, unwilling to antagonize him, she pushed herself
into a sitting position against the pillows. And waited for him to ravish her.
“When did you last have your menses?” he snapped.
She blinked in bewilderment, feeling a flush crawl upward from her neck. “My … ?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“Answer the question.”
“F-four days ago.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“N-no!” Moistening her dry lips, she realized she was stammering, just as he had once done. “Why would I?”
He flattened his palms on the mattress and thrust his face close to hers. “I should think it’s obvious. You swooned. That can be a sign of impending motherhood.”
His meaning struck her like a slap. She stiffened from the pain of it. He suspected her of tricking him. Again.
Emma drew up her knees to her chin, hugging them to her aching breast. The ticking of a clock vied with the fussing of the fire. Lucas stood watching her, his gaze dark with suspicion. She had the sudden, dismal view of herself through his eyes: the conniving wife who had vowed faithfully to honor him. When all the while she had been pregnant with another man’s child.
“I fainted from exhaustion, that’s all,” she murmured. “I assure you, I’m not with child.”
“You and Hickey have been lovers—”
“No! Never.” She shook her head for emphasis.
One brown eyebrow arched in disbelief. “You are not to consort with him or any other man. Not until after you’ve given birth to my son. Is that clear?”
His autocratic command set her teeth on edge. For seven long years, she had answered to no one but herself. “Woodrow and I are friends. He’s been like a father to Jenny. I’ll see him if it suits me.”
“You’ll see the magistrate, then, too.”
Emma clenched the bedlinens and tried to be reasonable. “You can hardly bar Woodrow from your house. You’d have
to explain the reason to your mother. And her health is precarious.”
Lucas leaned closer, and she could feel the warmth of his breath. “Heed me well,” he said. “Don’t ever use my mother—or anyone else in my family—as a bargaining chip.”
She stared back, refusing to let him see her fear. “You cannot dictate who my friends are.”
“I set the rules here,” he said in a cold, hateful voice. “And rule number one is, you’ll give up your lover.”
“Only if
you
stop seeing your mistress.”
She froze, wanting to call back her feckless words. What madness had gotten hold of her? Let Lucas visit his foreign woman as much as he liked. He would have less time to debauch his wife.
A beastly brilliance burned in his eyes. He slid his knuckles down her cheek in an eerily erotic caress. “There’s one way to stop me from straying, dear wife. Keep me satisfied. Well satisfied.”
And then he pounced. His long, muscular form imprisoned her on the mattress. She lay numb with shock as a barrage of impressions assaulted her senses. The heavy weight of his body. The brandy-male scent of him. The firmness of his fingers tilting her face up to his.
Emma drew in a breath to protest, but his mouth swooped down to silence her. His tongue glided across her parted lips and delved inside, tasting, coaxing, invading. The velvety heat of him took her by surprise. Instead of using force, he sampled her as he might sip the finest of wines. His fingers slid into her hair and massaged in a mesmerizing pattern. Streamers of warmth swirled downward, penetrating even the part of her that was cold to the core. Something wondrous and terrifying loomed on the horizon of her awareness. The inexplicable allure of his kiss startled her.
Her hands rested on his shoulders, and the throbbing of her injured palm seemed to descend to her belly. Rather than thrust him away, she found a peculiar pleasure in the hardness of his muscles. He did not use his strength against her.
The tip of his finger traced her ear with a lightness that wrested a moan from deep in her throat. He touched her reverently as he might touch a goddess. As if he thought she might shatter. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad, after all.
And then he moved his hand lower.
Her pulse surged as he feathered his fingers downward, tracing the shape of her chin, her neck, her bodice. He fondled the curve of her breast and, to her dazed astonishment, the tip contracted into a taut, aching pearl. He was far from done. Even as she shivered from the strange sensations, he boldly explored the contours of her body. His palm smoothed over her ribs, her waist. And lower. Between her legs. The shock of it turned her to ice. Panic clawed at her control. Any pleasure she’d felt vanished as she stiffened, resisting the memory that crowded her consciousness.
“I want you,” he muttered against her mouth. “God help me, I want you.”
That voice. It was the cultured voice of a gentleman, the dark voice of a demon.
His
voice.
God help me
…
don’t fight …
She felt herself hurtling backward in time, into the spinning blackness of a nightmare.
… he pinned her to the ground . . his guttural breaths raked her face … bile seared her throat and gagged her screams … he pushed up her skirt … pain lanced into her like a sword thrust …
“No,” she cried. “
No!
”
Lucas froze. Her frantic voice penetrated the hot beating of his blood. Her hands shoved at him. He found himself holding a madwoman.
A moment ago, Emma had lain quietly beneath him. She had made no protest when he kissed her, had even enjoyed it. But now, she thrashed beneath him, wildly hitting him with her fists.
Her eyes were glassy, her face as pale as parchment. Wave upon wave of tremors shook her small frame. In India, he had seen fakirs in a trance who were not half so convincing.
Her frenzy astounded him, and he reacted without thinking.
He caught her flailing arms and pinned them to the mattress. His thumbs moved assessingly over the rigid tendons of her wrists. “Shh. Lie still.”
“Get off me.
Get off.
”
At her keening note of hysteria, he released her. Emma curled herself into a ball, drawing her knees up to her chain. He wondered what the devil had come over her. She reminded him of a hedgehog protecting its vulnerable belly, displaying its sharp quills to the world.
Except Emma had no bristles. Not now. She looked petrified. Cringing, as if she expected him to abuse her.
Baffled and angry, Lucas frowned. It was the second time this evening she had fallen to pieces. Her fearful reaction made no sense.
Or perhaps it did. Perhaps this was her way of gulling him again. The thought enraged him.
Regarding her closely, he sat up on the bed. “My, you’d make an excellent actress. Have you ever considered auditioning for the stage?”
For a moment he thought she hadn’t heard. Then she shook her head, only a portion of her stricken profile visible to him. “I just don’t want you to hurt me.”
He took hold of her chin and made her look at him. “So help me God, don’t play me for a fool, Emma. This fear of yours—it’s all pretense. You’d do anything to escape our bargain.”
She jerked out of his grasp and scooted herself backward, sitting up against the headboard. Wisps of fair hair framed the haunted desperation on her face. “You don’t understand!”
“Yes I do. You think I’m a convenient dupe. Like all your other men.”
Emma shook her head, more violently this time. “It isn’t true. A man forced me to … he forced me … .” She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away.
Lucas felt as if someone had driven an iron fist into his stomach. Forced? Emma had been
raped
?
He remembered the way she froze whenever he touched
her. The alarm in her eyes whenever he came near. Her violent reaction to his kiss.
No. This was another ploy for sympathy. Women like her had a thousand tricks to get what they wanted. She wanted him to let her alone, to leave their marriage unconsummated. To free her to go on her thieving, merry way.

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