Society's Most Scandalous Viscount (28 page)

“These past weeks have destroyed any illusions I may have clung to.” Angelica shook her head in disbelief. “To steal me from the convent is to commit a litany of sins.”

“Do not echo Father's influence, dear sister.”

“How can you be so spirited and carefree? Aren't you afraid?”

“I told you. No longer.” Helen smiled again and her reassurance offered Angelica strength. “Not to be locked under his rules and distorted religious beliefs has forced me to become independent and self-reliant, two valuable qualities I will never forsake. His controlling lunacy poisoned us for too many years. Chanting verse, memorizing psalms. I'm thrilled to be free of it all. Has he behaved terribly to you? Has my disappearance brought further misery to your feet?”

Silence ensued for several minutes before Angelica continued. “Never mind the past. What will become of us now? Three women with nowhere to go and no funds besides. Helen, I'm grateful for your rescue but I'm scared for our future.”

“Dear child…” Grandmother brushed her fingertips across Angelica's cheek in comfort “…have a little faith. We haven't drugged your father and fled to Dorset without a plan to make this all right.”

Angelica sighed, dispelling a portion of panic with her exhalation although her heart continued to flutter with agitation. “Of course.”

“Your father will be livid when he discovers the deception but we will be well in hiding by then. I have more funds that we'll ever need and friends in London who will welcome my arrival.”

“And I've secured a room for this evening at the Silver Key Inn. I promised to return as soon as possible. My employers understood I had a family emergency although I left them in an unexpected bind. We shall live together, the three of us. I will have a healthy child to make our family four and you shall find a handsome man to love.”

I already have.
Angelica slowly fit the pieces together, until one unanswered question formed in the way of Viscount Kellaway.

“Did you say the gentleman who came to see you claimed to be a viscount?”

Grandmother grunted a soft sound of approval, as if she read Angelica's heart. “Your sister has found the one.”

“What? But who? How?” Helen's questions peppered the air. “Not the vicar?”

“Heaven forbid.” Aghast at the suggestion, Angelica let loose a shudder.

“It is the viscount, isn't it? The man who you love,” Helen persisted, though a tone of amusement danced in her voice.

“Yes.” The admission sent a rush of emotion swirling through Angelica.

Helen smiled. “However did you come to know such a handsome lord? One who vehemently searches for you?”

“I'm not exactly sure.” Wonder carried her answer through the air.

“Oh, Angelica, you have so much to share. I'm quite relieved we have such a long ride ahead so I may hear every last word of this story.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Damn it to hell if he could understand his behavior. Never one to dabble in sensitivities, somehow Angel had penetrated the barriers of his heart and now, like a lovesick fool, Kell lamented little aside from what they'd shared and what he'd lost—the incommodious behavior reprehensible, embarrassing, and above all else, dangerous to his welfare. How many times had she run from him and still he mourned the loss? He needed to stop his brooding immediately. It could only be misplaced emotion due to Nyx's death that provoked his maudlin disposition. Still he'd made inquiries, sought answers, discovering only frustration in return. He'd never calm his unrest until he spoke to her and confessed his heart—until he understood why she left and the reasons that provoked her departure.

He'd agreed to remain in London and enjoy the time spent with his Grandfather, yet with simultaneous intent his efforts placed him out of depth and extraneous, uncomfortable in his own skin, and any other pitiable condition he contrived to label his inner disquiet. He'd become every kind of lovesick moonling he'd mocked in the past, and yet here he stood outside Inventive Investments with Jasper, Oliver, and Penwick, awaiting the ladies to complete their business upstairs so they could all be off for an afternoon, which promised to be bucolic and tranquil.

With truth, the last thing he desired was quiet. Quiet invited regret and disappointment to the outing every time.

His flashed a glance left where his friends engaged in jovial conversation on a topic he deemed less than interesting and as he idled, his eyes wandered to the corner of the building parallel to an adjacent awning secluding the bright sun, where a large tabby sat watching in equal measure to his surveillance. Peculiar, the unbreakable hold of the feline's attention. It stared at him with such intensity one would think it meant to communicate something.

Rubbish.

His brain had gone to mush since his heart developed a voice. He'd tried every vice to vanquish the peculiar ailment, but Hazard no longer held allure, brandy tasted bitter, and he'd wasted himself at the Pleasure Garden, comparing each ladybird to a titian mermaid and finding none worthy.

Locked in stalemate with the cat, he stood unmoved until the approach of a curricle pulled his reluctant attention to the curb where a nondescript equipage rolled to a stop. Unremarkable horses, drab carriage, and ordinary driver, the coach seemed a study in myriad shades of mundane. An accurate stab of loss accompanied a memory of Nyx, glorious and majestic in the morning sunlight.

Another mistake in a long list
.

Regretting his lapse, he trained his gaze to the alley only to discover the cat had vanished. Perhaps he'd become addled. Or she'd broken him, hadn't she?

One of his comrades called his name and he banked as much gravity as he was able and rejoined the men, hardly aware of the elderly woman who disembarked from the newly arrived carriage. Then without just explanation he returned his interest to the street where a second occupant took the steps and settled on the sidewalk.

His heart stopped.

Words funneled through his ears.

An exhalation caught in his chest as his heart slammed against his ribs.

The surroundings faded from awareness, and he was barely conscious of the feminine laughter as Emily and the ladies exited the building behind him.

Time enervated.

There she stood as rare as a rainbow at night in the middle of London, on the same square of city block. How dare the world enjoy her and he be excluded. He managed a long stride forward in silent amazement.

“Angel.” The word sounded sharp because it was so very important, yet at the same time it became difficult to breathe.

Her eyes snapped to his, flaring wide with a series of emotions, as blue and true as he remembered, and beyond all volition he stole another two steps and yanked her forward, into the circle of his arms, his mouth seeking hers with determined accuracy, obliterating any objection or choice, his heart resounding with a hard beat.

She tasted like each of his memories and for a fleeting moment he lost himself.

“What the devil?”

Someone tugged at his coat with ferocious vigor. Jasper. Jasper's recrimination pierced the haze. His friend managed to separate him through advantage of surprise, though Kell didn't release his hold on Angel.

“Have you gone mad?” Jasper persevered, asserting himself between the two of them, unseemly and open to scandal as they stood connected in daylight, their hearts entangled.

“The lady doesn't appear to object,” Oliver offered from the side.

Somewhere off in the distance, Kell heard a cat yowl.

And then they were surrounded, not just the gentlemen, but the ladies, urging everyone inside the brick building and upstairs, away from the large glass window, beyond prying eyes and dogged scandal-makers.

Emily's friends departed and those who stayed assembled upstairs in silence, although a high-strung apprehension alive and anxious, rabbited around the room by way of discreet murmur and unanswered inquiry.

Jasper approached, his expression one of scrupulous aplomb though the situation remained fraught. “Good God, Kell. You, of all people are fly to the time of day and discriminate concerning scandal. What is this about?”

“I want her.” He said it matter-of-factly like the man he was, spoiled, ruined, and accustomed to getting everything he desired though this was different on more levels than he could comprehend. It wasn't a matter of possession or gain, albeit he relished both aspects. Long weeks of retrospection and misery had revealed his true emotions. Angel had entered his life as if a benevolent answer to his longing, and he realized with utmost clarity he loved her deeply, his heart finally open along with his eyes. As he spoke, he noticed the older companion to be the same lady he'd encountered in Brighton. She smiled at him and the unexpected gleam in her expression caught him unawares.

I need her.

His proclamation focused apt attention on the lady at the center of the congregation, her cheeks aflame in a fetching shade of cerise.

“I don't believe it's as simple as all that.” Jasper's tone expressed ample opinion, as if Kell behaved as a nodcock, and perhaps he had, but little mattered now that Angel stood within reach.

A flurry of conversation consumed the small cluster, all at once eager to offer advice or elucidate explanation, and Kell snatched Angel's elbow, steering her clear of the gathering to a corner a few strides away. No one exhibited the inclination to follow.

He meant to come straight to the point, their privacy provisional, but this time she beat him to it.

“I regret having left you.” Something caused her voice to quiver. “And how things transpired.”

“Everyone has regrets.” Emotions collided and the fierce edge of his reply may have compounded rather than soothed her distress. “But you'll never be one of mine.”

Her lovely eyes flared with his declaration, the crescents of her delicate brows winged high, still she hadn't heard the half of it. She took time to arrive at the proper reply, her voice even and controlled when she spoke as if she'd rallied a brilliant show of courage.

“Nor mine. Still I had little choice but to steal away.”

“You continue to run from me. Why?” There was no help for it. His question sliced the air though his blood quickened with their whispering nearness.

“Not by choice.” Her eyes searched his, colored with desolation and some unknown sentiment that she'd never revealed, leaving him grasping at ideas and focusing all failure on his own shortcomings. “I know.” She took a small breath and bowed her head in a reticent nod. “I gave you my word.”

“I gave you my heart.” The depth of the confession cost him.

She smiled then, a slight and tremulous curl, and he wasn't prepared for the impact. His heart stuttered. His hands itched to wrap her again in his embrace. He wasn't angry as much as he was nervous.
Him, nervous.
The notion jarred him.

“It's complicated.” Somehow her warning sounded like a challenge and how he loved a dare, though while she watched him closely her smile faded as surely as a comet's trail. A beat of disharmony invaded their conversation. “You're not a pirate.”

Was it his imagination that detected a note of disappointment in her question? “Nor are you a mermaid.” A memory, unbidden, vivid, and disturbing, rose to snatch his breath. Angel bared and beautiful, on the beach beneath the moonlight.

A loud awkward silence descended. Belatedly, they realized the others had gone silent in wait of some semblance of explanation. Time evaporated, minute by minute.

“No matter the circumstance, you cannot deny we are meant to be together.” He gently grasped her elbow and aimed her toward the cluster of friends in the center of the room, a veneer of calm overriding the turbulence of his declaration. “This is far from over.”

“There is more at play here than love on the beach.”

Her words instilled fresh hope.

“You are a viscount.”

Yet this sounded more an accusation.

“What matters is how I feel, not who I am.” His insistence overrode the end of her sentence, his impatience evident as their privacy ran out.

“Lord Kellaway…” the old woman smiled as if she enjoyed their amusing distraction “…may I present my granddaughter, Lady Angelica Curtis, youngest daughter of the Earl of Morton.”

How was it possible? It tempted one to believe in serendipity, gypsies, and secrets confessed to stars, when somehow life transformed wishes into truths. She could be rotting away at the priory, married to the vicar, or forced into some banishment contrived by her father, but no. Benedict had just kissed her and like the prayer she believed him to be, her heart felt whole again.

Grandmother seemed to find the entire predicament entertaining, a strange conspiratorial glee tainted her words, but now as Angelica faced the viscount and his speculative entourage, she wondered in which direction to lead the conversation.

No proper way to explain her lack of objection existed. She'd allowed Benedict to haul her off her toes and into his kiss…an intoxicating, glorious kiss. A little thrill shimmied through her at the memory.

Still, she'd need to parse out scraps of sense to explain her behavior. “The viscount and I became acquainted in Brighton.”

Someone exercised a loud throat clearing at her use of the word
acquainted
. She eyed the man introduced as Penwick. He too held an earl's title. Could he possibly know her father?

“I keep a cottage there.” Grandmother helped ease the awkward bend of conversation. “At the foot of East Cliff.”

“My home.”

All persons swiveled in Benedict's direction as he joined the conversation, though her head jerked up in surprise. Oh, the impolite manner in which she'd referred to the property and its master was unforgivable. Benedict caught her distress and the rascal winked. Best she push on with further explanation. “We've come today to visit the League of Virtuous Equality. My sister and I are in need of guidance.”