Valor Under Siege (The Honorables) (21 page)

He pounded again with the same result.

“Stay clear of the door,” he warned. “I’m going to break it down.” He retreated down the hall, pivoted, and braced his shoulders. His enormous body wasn’t a boon very often, but just now, he was awfully glad to be his own battering ram.

The door opened.

Relaxing his posture, Norman hurried over. He smelled the alcohol even before he reached her. She leaned against the doorframe, clinging to it for support. Ebony strands had fallen from her coif, framing a colorless face. She blinked up at him with red, bleary eyes.

“Only you, Norman Wynford-Scott, would be so courteous about breaking down the door. I decided I’d better open it, else you’d never forgive yourself for splintering the wood.” Pushing off the doorframe, she turned and sauntered back into her bedchamber.

Norman followed, quietly closing the door behind him. The bedclothes were rumpled. On the nightstand stood a bottle of scotch, half empty. A glass beside it, one she had used to serve her chilled tea concoctions, contained three fingers of the amber liquor.

She stopped several feet short of the glass and bottle; her head bowed, her hands fisted in her skirts.

Norman’s heart lurched. He went to her, put his hands on her shoulders. She was rigid in his grasp, so brittle he feared she would crumble into pieces.

Gently turning her, he pulled her into his chest. “I’m so sorry, darling. I’m so sorry it happened.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he bent his cheek to the top of her head. One hand clasped her hair, while the other held her tight about the waist, a band of protection that was never going to release her. “Whatever happened in the village ... Your true friends stand by you, Elsa. Lady Beaufort was beside herself when she saw the drawing. Sir Seymour packed Alderly back to London without even a steak for his eye.”

She stirred at that. “What ...?”

“And no one is upset with you right now, not I, not Foster. We understand why you felt the need for alcohol. It's just ... I wish ...” His heart hurt, and he didn’t know how to put into words his desire to take her cares upon his broad shoulders. “You don’t owe me anything, Elsa, but I want you to know you can always come to me if you feel the compulsion to drink. I will help you however I can. This past month has been a revelation, seeing you healthy and sparkling and full of life, and—again, you owe me nothing, Elsa, nothing at all—but the thought of you going back to how it was before just guts me, Elsa, it does. Think of ...” He sniffed, his throat tightened. Elsa softened against him. Norman kissed her hair. “Think of your journal,” he went on, “all those ticks, all those days you have been so strong. Keep being strong, sweetheart. And if you feel you’ve depleted your own strength, you’re welcome to mine. God knows I’ve more than enough.”

He lapsed into an awkward silence, feeling there was so much more to say, but that he may have already said too much. She was in no condition for a reasoned discussion. He would have to try again tomorrow. For now, she needed something to eat and then a good rest. He eyed the bed, prepared to lift her into it. “All right, then, let’s get you—”

“I didn’t drink.”

The sound of her small voice stopped him dead. Gripping her shoulders, he held her back, examined her weary face. He smelled it all over her. She reeked. His stomach sank as he recalled Brandon’s warning that habitual drunkards could become secretive about their drinking. “Oh, Elsa.”

“I didn’t!” she insisted.

Sighing heavily, he said, “Elsa, I can smell you from across the room.”

Blushing, she stepped back. Her red-rimmed midnight eyes touched his, then darted away. “I wanted to drink,” she said. “Intended to. But the cork was stuck in the bottle. I had to wrestle the damned thing with my teeth, and when it finally popped out, half the bottle spilled down my front. But I haven’t ... Come here.” Contradicting her own command, she approached him, stood on her toes, opened her mouth, and breathed heavily into his face. Norman sniffed. There was a faint fume of tea on her breath, and perhaps a hint of bacon, but no alcohol.

“If my eyes are red,” she muttered, “it’s because I’ve been crying, not from drink.”

He brought his hand to her cheek. “You astound me,” he said quietly, “and you humble me. You’re so very strong.”

She shook her head. “I’m not, Norman, I’m really not. I want it so very badly, you see. I’ve been lying there on my bed for the past hour, looking at it, smelling it, imagining that first sip burning down my throat.” She began to tremble. “Why am I still so weak for it? I thought I was better, but I’m not, I’m not.”

“You are,” he said in a commanding tone. “Elsa, this is a moment of choice, the very same choice you make every morning: Will you drink today, or no?”

“No?” She sounded uncertain. Her eyes drifted once more to the scotch.

Norman placed himself between her and the liquor. “Brandon gave you a piece of advice. Do you remember what it was?”

“Day by day, hour by hour, and sometimes minute by minute.”

“Good,” he said with a nod. “Are you going to drink in the next minute?”

“No,” she said, more confidently this time. “No, I’m not.”

Norman crossed to the window and threw open the sash to dissipate the aroma. He looked at Elsa and lifted a brow. Tucking her chin into the air, she plucked the bottle and glass from the table, held them well in front of her, tipped their contents onto the flowerbed below, and tossed the containers out after it. She turned her back and glanced at him over her shoulder in silent request. Quickly, he unfastened her dress and helped her step out of it, then he opened the door and passed it off to Foster, who’d obviously had her ear to the door. Norman could not rebuke her when he knew the woman was beside herself with worry for her mistress.

“She’ll be all right,” he assured the maid.

Foster’s eyes shone and she nodded. “Thank you, sir.” Then she dashed away with the scotch-perfumed frock.

When he turned back into the room, Elsa had already selected a fresh dress from the wardrobe and struggled to pull it over her head. Norman tugged her into it, buttoned her up, and then tied a neat bow in the sash around her waist. “There.” He tipped her chin and pressed a kiss to her lips. “I’m so proud of you, Elsa. You spent an hour locked up with your personal devil and lived to tell the tale. You
are
strong. The strongest person I know.”

She offered a thin smile. “Quite a compliment, coming from a man with the approximate dimensions and constitution of an ox.”

As if to demonstrate his formidable constitution, he swept her into his arms and spun her in a circle until she squealed for mercy. Then he dropped her onto the bed and followed her down. She nuzzled her face into his neck as his arms wrapped around her.

They lay in silence for a time, Norman’s fingers drifting up and down her arm. Elsa gradually relaxed completely, and her breathing slowed. A tender sense of possessiveness shook Norman to the core. He pressed his lips to her hair and breathed her warm, floral scent deep into his body.

“Thank you for coming for me.”

“I thought you were asleep,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry, Elsa,” he said a moment later, turning on his side to face her. Her wide blue eyes in their thick fringe of dark lashes were filled with sadness. “I didn’t know what he was planning.” Norman inadvertently echoed Elsa’s words about the scandal sheet. What had this campaign done to them? “Please believe, I never would have—”

“I never thought you had. Not for one second.” Her hand came to his face, her touch light as a butterfly. She tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “The by-election is rather spoiled now, though, isn’t it?”

Rolling onto his back, Norman brought the back of his forearm to his brow. “Completely sullied. I don’t want anything to do with that damned seat.”

She inhaled sharply. “Don’t say that,” she protested. “You’ve worked too hard.”

A growl of frustration rose in his throat. “But what can I do? Your cousin made sure no one will vote for me, and then Alderly struck back through you ...” He just couldn’t puzzle a way out of this quandary. Everywhere his mind’s eye looked was rot and dirt.

There was a
bang
as the front door slammed open against the wall downstairs; then the whole house juddered when it crashed home again. “
Elsa
,” roared a man’s voice.

She bolted upright, her eyes wild, her hand clutched to her throat. She scrambled off the bed. “Oliver,” she said when she looked out the window. “It’s just Oliver.”

Norman frowned. Her response implied more than just being spooked by a loud noise.

Foster’s voice floated up the stairwell. “My lady is resting, Mr. Fay, you mustn’t go ... Mr. Fay, wait!” Boot steps on the stairs. “I’ll fetch her down for you, just—”

Norman rolled off the bed and tucked himself into the corner behind the door just as it opened. Oliver Fay strode into Elsa’s bedchamber. She scrambled from the mattress and smoothed her palms down her skirts. “Cousin Oliver.” She nodded once, a regal bend of her neck. “I was just resting. If you’d be so good as to wait downstairs while I freshen up—”

“Is it true?” he spat.

From his hiding place, Norman could not see Oliver’s face, but he could see Elsa’s. She lifted her chin and arched one elegantly winged brow, her deep blue eyes serene as they met her irate cousin. “Yes, Oliver, it’s true.”

She didn’t hedge, didn’t pretend ignorance, just met his question head-on with bare honesty. His heart swelled with pride and love for his fierce woman.

“You’re the reason Wynford-Scott was screened from Gray’s?”

“I just told you so. You’re becoming tiresome.” Her eyes slid to Norman. He gave her a nod of encouragement. To her cousin, Elsa said in a dismissive tone, “If that’s all, Oliver—”

“It isn’t close to all,” he snapped. “Have you any idea what you’ve done? You’ve tainted me with your debauchery.”

Elsa strolled to the vanity, plucked a ribbon from a silver box, and wound it around her finger. At Oliver’s allegation, she snorted. “Come now, sir, I was not the one who published that illustration. I believe you must give Mr. Alderly credit for tainting you with my debauchery.”

Oliver’s hands fisted at his sides. The hairs on Norman’s nape rose.

“For the past two hours,” Oliver ground out, “I’ve been confronted by voters who say they will no longer vote for me because of our bad family blood. I tried telling them you were not actually family, but to no avail.”

Elsa threw her head back and laughed, rich and throaty. “Oh,
now
you wish to distance yourself from me? You were happy enough to claim me as your cousin when you needed my expertise on your campaign.”

“And even
more
electors,” Oliver went on, gesturing broadly, “say they’re fed up with the whole thing and won’t vote at all.”

“Can you blame them?” Elsa tugged the loose end of the ribbon, dislodging it from her finger in a long curl. “You started this, cousin, with your ridiculous scandal sheet. I told you to leave it alone.”

“Yes, but you didn’t tell me why I should have done. Now I know. Didn’t want your dirty little secrets getting out, did you? Didn’t want the village to know that their beloved Lady Fay in her wholesome little cottage is a slut and a drunk.”

“Leave now.”

Oliver spun, startled, as Norman pushed the door out of his way and stepped into the smaller man’s space.

Oliver tipped his head all the way back to meet Norman’s eye. “I don’t know why, but I’m not surprised to find you here making use of Elsa’s readily dispensed favors.”

Norman experienced an anger that he felt first in his stomach, and that slowly spread outward from the middle. “Mr. Fay,” he said in a deceptively mild tone, “owing to the fact that Lady Fay may harbor some residual familial feeling toward you, I have thus far refrained from punching your teeth into your brain. But the next word you utter—be it a single syllable—will breach the border of my restraint. Leave this house now. Do it swiftly and silently.”

Oliver’s mouth popped open. At Norman’s grim smile, he snapped it shut again, made a hasty egress from the room, and then the house.

Elsa raised her brows. “Impressive, Mr. Wynford-Scott. Who knew you possessed the ability to be terrifying?”

“Did I terrify you?” He stepped forward to place a hand on her waist.

“Oh, no, not me. I was not frightened in the least.” She smoothed a palm over his lapel. “I found your display rather thrilling, in fact.”

“Did you?” He brought his other hand to her waist and lowered his head.

“I did,” she affirmed, “and soon I shall make good on the thrill that’s coursing through my flesh, but just now, I must tell you the brilliant idea I’ve had.”

She did, her eyes bright, her gestures animated. And it
was
brilliant, but—

“No,” he said, shaking his head when she’d reached the conclusion. “You’re so brave, Elsa, and the fact that you would do this for me is humbling beyond words. But it’s too risky. You’ve been subjected to enough scorn as it is. I cannot expose you to more.”

She brought her hands to his face and pulled his mouth to hers. “Norman,” she said in a husky voice after a kiss that left her gasping, “I love ...” She took a shuddering breath. “I love that you worry for me. But I can do this. I’m strong. You showed me that.” She smiled into his eyes, and he was lost.

He smiled ruefully, defeated. “Then we’d better make a plan.”

Shortly after breakfast the following morning, Elsa arrived at the Beauforts’ home. Standing in the entry hall, she ran a palm over her hip, smoothing a wrinkle in her white skirts. Today she’d chosen to dress all in white, not as a protest to innocence, but as a clear statement that she was presenting herself without any political affiliation whatsoever.

Laura, whom Elsa had not seen since the day Norman’s campaign had horned in on Oliver’s picnic, rushed down the stairs and grasped Elsa in a tight hug. “You don’t have to do this. Sir Seymour and I stand by you. The village will come around in time. There’s no need—”

“I want to do this,” Elsa assured her. Stepping back, she smiled bravely into her friend’s worried face and attempted to stomp out her own apprehension. “I’ve come to learn these past few months that one cannot will a problem to solve itself. It must be met head-on, regardless of momentary discomfort. Avoiding issues only allows them to fester. If I want my neighbors to respect me again, then I must act in a manner worthy of respect.”