Once Upon a Scandal Read online

  He stood gazing at her strangely, moodily, his earlier mirth vanished. “I fail to see what’s put you in an ill humor,” he said. “Conceiving a child is what we agreed upon.”

  And then you’ll take our son away. She hugged her arms to her aching bosom. “It’s a cold-blooded plan, that’s what. And I don’t care to have your tiger mask here to remind me of it.”

  Compressing his lips, Lucas stared at her consideringly. “The truth is, I showed the mask to the director of the museum. Then I brought it here so you might catalog it in your journal. The rest … simply happened.”

  It wasn’t much of an apology. Yet she was mollified to know he had been overcome by passion for her rather than merely pursuing his heartless scheme. A fierce resolve took shape in Emma. If he did not see a place for her in his future, then she would have to create one. Smiling determinedly, she moved into his arms and curled her hands around his neck. “Then I do hope the rest happens again soon, my lord.”

  He lifted his eyebrows quizzically. “You aren’t angry anymore?”

  She shook her head, arched up on tiptoe, and touched her lips to his. After a moment’s hesitation, he tightened his grip and returned the kiss, a light and playful action that held the affection she craved. At least the wall of hatred and mistrust was gone, and that left the way open for love.

  “Women,” he growled. “I’ll never understand you.”

  “There’s something I don’t understand,” she said, drawing him over to the desk. “Perhaps you can answer my questions about this strange elephant creature.”

  Obligingly, he took the piece in his hands. “Ah, Ganesh. He’s a lovable fellow with the face of an elephant and the spirit of a child. He’s from a district in India called Gujarat.” Lucas ran his finger down the stone trunk. “Every Gujrati home has a shrine to Ganesh. The natives burn incense to him in order to invoke his good will.”

  Emma listened, fascinated by his tale as much as the tender care with which he turned the statue in his big, competent hands. The same tender care with which he had delivered her out of the darkness of fear and into the light of hope. For better or for worse, she loved Lucas Coulter, this man who had once loved her, too. She had wed him for revenge, to take his name in exchange for nurturing his brother’s seed. And now she didn’t regret any of it, not even the rape, for it had brought her Jenny … and Lucas.

  Little did he know, she considered their bargain nullified. She had no intention of handing over the child they would conceive and then meekly walking away. Nor would she allow Lucas to seek out any other woman.

  She meant to fight for her husband’s love.

  Chapter 19

  Memoirs of a Burglar

  Installment, the First

  Upon a moon-dark night, along the steep rooftops of London, walks the Seeker of Justice. Fleet of foot and noble of purpose, he is garbed in black, a shadow darting from chimney to chimney, nimbly balancing on the narrowest of ledges and bravely risking the maws of Death in his quest to aid those poor souls who have suffered at the whims of Evil Gamesters.

  By night he journeys along the upper stories of the city; by day he promenades with the upper reaches of Society. Be not alarmed by this stealthy visitor, ye who live a life of Goodness. Do not hide your jewels or secure your valuables—there is no need. Only those Amoral Others, those who think naught of beggaring a decent man at the toss of the dice or a turn of the cards, have reason to fear, for the Burglar walks among you.

  And I am he.

  Lord Anon, known as the Bond Street Burglar

  At the breakfast table, Lucas dropped the newspaper he’d been reading aloud and looked at Emma. She sat to his right, close enough for him to smell her feminine fragrance, not close enough to satisfy him. Her cheeks were as pale as the cream she had been pouring into her tea. Her eyes were big and pansy-blue against a face of such exquisite beauty he felt thunderstruck anew each time he gazed at her.

  Lately he had spent an inordinate amount of time in a state of dazzlement. And an equal amount of time resenting Emma’s mastery over him.

  She set down the cream pot with a distinct clink. “It’s Grandpapa,” she declared. “That’s what he was writing last week when we went to see him about stealing from Miss Pomfret. He hid a stack of papers in his desk, remember?”

  Lucas did, indeed. But his mind dwelt on what had happened later that night in the privacy of his bedchamber. And every night since, not to mention the trysts during daylight hours. He couldn’t fathom his obsession with a woman who should mean less than nothing to him.

  “You’re right—this is Briggs’s work.” Lucas glanced down at the newspaper. “And apparently there’s more to come. It says here that tomorrow we shall find out about Lord Anon’s first escapade as a ‘Seeker of Justice.’”

  Making a small sound of distress, Emma lifted her gaze to the ceiling. “Grandpapa has gone too far this time. If the publisher of this scandal rag knows Lord Anon’s real identity, then others can find out, too.”

  “I very much doubt Briggs would be so foolish as to tell anyone, let alone a stranger.”

  “I pray so.” Heedless of crumb-laden dishes, she reached across the table and placed her hand in his. How soft was her skin, especially beneath her clothes, the breasts and hips, the velvety cleft between her thighs. “Oh, Lucas. If Clive Youngblood discovers the truth, he’ll drag Grandpapa off to prison. These memoirs will be like a signed confession.”

  “Youngblood won’t find out. I’ll make certain of that.” Lucas pushed aside the remains of his breakfast. “And in the meantime, I believe I shall pay a visit to your grandsire.”

  “Don’t be angry at him. He did this for me.” Her voice lowered to an anguished whisper. “Bless him, he wants to clear my name.”

  “And pay off Mannering,” Lucas muttered, half to himself.

  “But Grandpapa surely wasn’t paid five hundred pounds for this.” She tapped the newspaper.

  Lucas shrugged noncommittally. He was sorry he’d reminded her of the gaming debt Briggs still owed. It was better that Emma didn’t guess the suspicion that nagged at him.

  “Dear heaven,” she said.

  Lithe and graceful, she rose to her feet and paced the dining room. Lucas was fascinated by her low-cut apricot dress, by the swish of the skirt around her legs. He knew precisely how those legs felt, slender and silken, wrapped around his waist—

  “I see now,” Emma said, with a snap of her fingers. “If Lord Anon were to threaten Gerald Mannering with being made a laughingstock in a future installment, then Mannering might be induced to pay out blackmail money. Which Grandpapa would turn around and use to reimburse Mannering.”

  Pushing back his chair, Lucas went to her, unable to stop himself from lightly touching her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I fear that may indeed be his plan. But you needn’t worry, I’ll take care of the matter.”

  A smile blossomed on her face, and her eyes sparkled. “Worry? Why, I think it’s exceedingly clever of Grandpapa.”

  Lucas dropped his hand to his side. “It’s exceedingly foolish, you mean. Not to mention illegal.”

  “Oh, nonsense. It’s far safer than scrambling around on rooftops and pilfering people’s jewels.” She absently rubbed her shoulder. “A person could get shot doing that.”

  “A person could also get hurt while attempting to dupe a scoundrel like Mannering.” Lucas fisted his fingers in a vain attempt to erase the feel of her. “And that settles it. I’ll pay off Mannering myself. If I hadn’t been so thick-skulled, I would have done so at the start.”

  Emma stood very still. “You would discharge his gaming debt? You would do that for Grandpapa?”

  “Not for him,” Lucas said roughly. “For you.”

  The truth slipped out before he could stop it. Emma would be devastated if anything happened to the wily old man. And Lucas could not bear to cause her pain.

  Her hands alighted on the lapels of his coat. She lifted herself on tiptoe and touched her
lips to his in a butterfly kiss. “Thank you,” she murmured, and laid her cheek against his chest.

  A treacherous softness unmanned him. He was conscious of her slim body, how well she fit his arms, how sweet and guileless and loving she was. His wife. His wife. There was nothing suggestive about her embrace, yet he craved her again, even though they had welcomed the dawn with a private celebration of pleasure.

  He shouldn’t be holding her like this. There was no point to affectionate hugs. He needed a child from her, that was all. Only a fool would want more from a woman who could not be trusted.

  And if she did not become pregnant? In the two years he and Shalimar had been together, his mistress had not conceived. Perhaps the fault lay in him. Perhaps he wasn’t so virile a man. Perhaps, deep down, he was still that green boy who had worshiped at the feet of a goddess … .

  He subdued his doubts. So much the better if the task took months. Those were months in which he could purge himself of this white-hot passion for Emma. Even then, she might give birth to a daughter. And he would have to take Emma to his bed again … and again.

  Each time he clasped her to him, it was more difficult to remember that he held an illusion. Each time, he reminded himself. She had beguiled him once into believing she loved him. She had lied to him, stolen his chance to have a family of his own. Because of her, he had spent seven years as an outcast, wandering the world, belonging nowhere.

  Because she had been raped, his conscience argued. She’d been young and frightened and desperate.

  She was also amoral. Prideful of the fact that she had broken into the homes of the nobility and pilfered their jewels.

  Because she’d had to pay off her grandfather’s debts. And pride also had kept her from demanding the allowance due her as the Marchioness of Wortham.

  She wanted an end to their marriage. She had made that clear from the start and had accepted his terms—their son in exchange for a bill of divorce. Already she had selected her next husband, a fact which infuriated Lucas.

  So why, then, this past week, had Emma acted the devoted wife? Why did she tease Lucas with the finesse of a seductress? At first he’d thought it was her brand of revenge, her way of punishing him for his abandonment, for demanding she give him a child. But now he knew. Quite simply, Emma was mad about sex.

  For most of her adult life, her natural sensuality had been locked within the walls of fear. Now, with her inhibitions shattered, she was like a child let loose in a confectioner’s shop. And he was the lucky proprietor who fulfilled her every appetite.

  Love had no place in their marriage. It never had. It never would.

  “Mama, look!” Jenny skipped into the room, her braids flying. Against her green dress, she cuddled a squirmy ball of white fur.

  Emma drew away from Lucas and knelt down to touch the ball. “Mercy! What do you have here?”

  “It’s Toby’s great-granddaughter. And Grandmama says I may keep her.” Jenny giggled as a tiny pink tongue licked her cheek. Beseechingly she looked at Emma. “But only if you and Papa say so.”

  “A puppy is a great obligation. You should have to feed her and care for her.”

  “I will! I’ll save the very best morsels from my plate.”

  “She’ll need to be walked outdoors, too.”

  “Nurse promises to take us to the park every day.” Growling playfully, the puppy pounced at Jenny’s braid. “Please, Mama,” Jenny begged. “I’ve already named her Sissy. Since I don’t have a real sister.”

  Emma uttered a small sound of distressed sympathy. She glanced up at Lucas. “What do you think?”

  He stared into her clear blue eyes, surprised she would consult him in a decision regarding her daughter. And confounded by how pleased he felt.

  He crouched in front of Jenny. There was something inexplicably familiar about her eager blue-green eyes, something that caught at his heart. “There’s one more important duty,” he said. “You’ll have to mop up any puddles she leaves indoors.”

  Jenny screwed up her nose. “I will, Papa. I promise. You won’t be sorry. I’ll be your best girl, forever and ever.”

  He felt the most curious twist of pain in his chest. Jenny didn’t know she would one day leave here with her mother. She didn’t know the danger of growing attached to him.

  Yet it was impossible to resist her innocence when she looked at him so anxiously, her tongue worrying the gap in her front teeth. “That’s quite a pledge,” he said. “All right, then, you may keep her.”

  “Oh, thank you!” She launched herself at him, and for the second time that morning he found himself holding an armful of female—and this time a wriggling puppy as well. Over Jenny’s head, he could see Emma watching, a soft wistfulness in the downward curve of her mouth. The look swiftly vanished, and she smiled again.

  “Come,” Jenny said, tugging at Emma’s hand. “Let’s go tell Grandmama.”

  “All right.” Letting herself be dragged toward the door, Emma murmured to Lucas, “You’ll visit Mannering today, then?”

  Lucas nodded curtly. As she blew him a kiss and left in a flash of apricot skirts, an unwelcome thought struck him. If people believed the Burglar to be Lord Anon, then Emma was cleared of suspicion and Lucas had lost his leverage with her.

  She could refuse to bear his child. She could leave his bed forever. She could move out of Wortham House immediately and return to the estimable Sir Woodrow Hickey. He would not demand she relinquish her own son; in fact, he had promised her a chaste marriage.

  A violent resentment choked Lucas. He assured himself it was concern for her well-being. Now that Emma knew the joys of intimacy, she wouldn’t be happy with a cold fish like Hickey.

  And it was up to Lucas to make her realize that.

  That afternoon, in another part of the city, Clive Youngblood glowered at the master printer, a rawboned wretch without a brain inside his bald skull. The cluttered office stank of ink and cheap paper. Little sunlight penetrated the soot-grimed windows, rendering the place dim and cold. The clack of the handpress came from the other end of the long room, where a whey-faced apprentice was cranking out additional copies to meet the high demand for Memoirs of a Burglar. A burly laborer hefted armloads of the edition to the boys waiting outside to hawk them all over the city.

  Clive rattled the news sheet at the man. “What d‘you mean, you hain’t no idea ’oo wrote it?”

  The printer splayed out his skinny, ink-stained fingers. “’Tis what I said, sir. The story came by post. There wasn’t any return address.”

  “You must’ve sent payment somewhere.”

  “He gave it for free, I swear it. The Burglar’s like Robin Hood. He steals from the rich and gives to poor, hardworking citizens like me.” The stoop-shouldered man bowed to the Runner. “If I might beg leave, sir, I have tomorrow’s issue to set up.” He scuttled off toward the trays of lead type stacked against the back wall.

  Clive seethed. He wouldn’t be outsmarted by toffs like Lady Wortham and Lord Briggs. They was no better than pickpockets from Petticoat Lane. Nobody made a fool of Mr. Clive Youngblood and got away with it.

  Then a thought struck him. Tomorrow’s issue.

  The Bow Street Runner marched past the jumble of files and papers and stopped behind the master printer. By the yellow light of an oil lamp, the man used wooden tweezers to transfer bits of type into a press tray. When he paused to squint at the manuscript beside him, Clive snatched up the top sheet.

  “Lemme see this,” he said, his eyes avid on the spidery handwriting. “Ah-hah. ‘Installment, the Second. Whereby the earl of F——lures several gentlemen into a game of Speculation and leads them to Ruin—’”

  The paper vanished from his hand, snatched back by the printer, who glared with surprising defiance. “Please, sir! You are not permitted to peruse this episode until the morrow. The Burglar was quite specific about releasing only one chapter a day.”

  “Too bad fer the Burglar, then. That there is evidence.”


  Clive started to reach for the manuscript, but the brawny laborer who’d been hauling newspapers appeared out of nowhere and stepped in front of him. His meaty face wore a sneer. “Come back wid a warrant, then, ya bleedin’ worm.”

  Clive’s palms broke out in a cold sweat. Not for the first time, his bravado failed him. He glanced from the brute to the glowering printer arid decided to err on the side of caution.

  “’Ave it yer way, then,” he said. “I’ll be tellin’ the magistrate that yer aidin’ and abettin’ a criminal.”

  It was an empty threat. But they couldn’t know that just this morning he’d been ordered off the case. Clive’s stomach went queasy at the memory of the head magistrate’s stern reprimand about harassing the nobility. Lord Wortham’s doing, no doubt.

  Clive adjusted his battered hat on his head. Ignoring the snickers of the apprentices, he made for the door.

  At least he had a bit of new information. Judging by the handwriting, the Memoirs was writ by Briggs, he’d bet a crown on that. And somehow Clive Youngblood would find a net to catch the old codger.

  And Lady Wortham, too.

  Chapter 20

  Memoirs of a Burglar

  Installment, the Twenty-second

  Of all the feats of daring performed by the Bond Street Burglar, this one I shall relate today has naught to do with gambling. It is the sad story of a virginal lady who faced Ruin after being seduced by Lord Villain. This sweet gentlewoman loved the virtuous Lord W——, and thence married him in haste, lest her innocent babe suffer the slurs delivered by the ungenerous tongues of the Public. Thusly would Society’s strict rules of propriety punish the Pure and reward the Debaucher.