Once Upon a Scandal Read online

  Chapter 23

  He was aware of her following close behind him.

  The patter of Emma’s soft footfalls echoed his slow, heavier steps. Dry leaves crunched beneath his heels. The music in the distance had ended and an unearthly silence enveloped the wooded gardens, as if the very air braced itself for the noise of the fireworks display. Only an hour ago, Lucas had looked forward to watching Emma’s joy as the dazzling show lit up the night sky.

  He had no stomach for amusements now. He doubted she did, either. Their relationship had altered irrevocably.

  He had condemned her as a coldhearted conniver. But their marriage was not her fault, not really. She had chosen him of all men to be her husband because, as head of the family, he was accountable for the actions of his brother. It was as simple as that.

  Lucas couldn’t blame her for fighting back the only way she knew how. She’d had an unborn child to protect. And he understood why she had withheld the truth. It had been an act of selfless mercy. She had wanted to spare him the pain that now corroded his soul.

  God! Andrew had had her first. Witty, irreverent Andrew, always smiling, the youngest of the family, and the light of their mother’s heart. The hero of Talavera was a villain and a coward. He had forced himself on Emma. He had hurt her, ruined her, then left her alone to raise his child.

  Lucas blinked away a stinging heat. Jenny. Little Jenny was not the daughter of a stranger, but his niece. He should have recognized those distinctive blue-green eyes … Andrew’s eyes.

  But Lucas had been too caught up in his own selfish needs to notice. He had barred Jenny and Emma from his house for seven years. He had compelled them to live in poverty, the subject of scorn.

  The dark knowledge assaulted him. Was he so much better than his brother? He too had run away. He had left Emma to fend for herself. He had abandoned her in her time of need, when she carried his brother’s child in her womb. Not knowing didn’t excuse his actions.

  And upon his return to England, he had treated her with contempt. Granted, he hadn’t used violence to force her into his bed, but he had coerced her. He had threatened to turn her over to the law if she did not bear him a son. A son whom he intended to wrench from her arms.

  The cruelty of his terms shamed him. He could only imagine the suffering his arrogant demands had inflicted on her. Emma, who deserved so much more than a brutal, compassionless husband.

  As they neared the edge of the gardens, he slowed his steps so she might catch up to him. It wouldn’t do for anyone to spy him striding ahead of his wife, as if she were a servant trailing after her master. Yet even as he silently offered her his arm, and her small fingers curled around his sleeve, he sensed an insurmountable barrier between them. It seemed as if a thick glass wall separated them. And he was suffocating slowly, unable to seek the comfort of his wife. He needed Emma as much as he needed air to breathe.

  A boom resounded through the gardens. Over the trees appeared a shower of twinkling, colored lights against the night sky. “The fireworks,” Emma murmured.

  She stood beside him, the brightness reflected on her wistful, uptilted face. Fierce regret seized him. She should still be innocent of the evil in life. She should never have known the dark side of human nature. But it was too late to erase the past.

  They had reached the line of carriages. It was a cold night, and few guests had come by boat across the river. Here, the coachmen and footmen held their own celebration, singing boisterously around a huge bonfire. The ribald song ceased when someone spied the approach of Lord and Lady Wortham. Their burly coachman set down his mug of beer and hastened to their carriage.

  “Where is Hajib?” Emma asked.

  The coachman tipped his hat. “Don’t know, m’lady. ’Em foreigners, they don’t be interested in our English celebrations, I trow.”

  As they entered the dark confines of the coach, Emma said, “Lucas, wasn’t Hajib to wait here for you to bring him the tiger mask? He must be around somewhere. Shouldn’t we go and look for him?”

  “He’ll find his way home.”

  “And what of the mask? Perhaps we should tell Clive Youngblood—”

  “To hell with the mask,” Lucas said savagely.

  She went quiet, and the directness of her gaze chastised him. Despite his remorse, a choking sense of unworthiness kept him from touching her. “Forgive me,” he said, though words seemed inadequate to span the chasm between them. “I should not have snapped at you.”

  “You’ve every right to be angry,” she said in a soft, sad voice. “Now that you know I married you for revenge.”

  “Andrew gave you no choice.” To Lucas’s chagrin, tears blurred his vision. He denied the weakness with a violent slash of his hand. “God damn him. God damn him.”

  “He damned himself. Must you damn him, too?”

  “Don’t defend the bastard. He might have offered for you. He might have made reparations. He did nothing. Nothing to rectify the depravity of his actions toward you.”

  “I’m not defending him. But Andrew is dead. For me, that’s retribution enough.” She leaned forward, groping for his hands. “Let it be enough for you, too. Don’t let his mistake ruin your life.”

  It was too late for forgiveness, too late to salvage any love for his brother. Lucas drew his hands out of hers. “I believed Andrew a man of valor. But he was a craven beast.” With iron effort, Lucas kept his voice steady, though emotion seared his chest. “Were he alive today, I would call him out for what he did to you. I would kill him.”

  The chill fingers of horror crept down Emma’s back. Lucas couldn’t mean that. He couldn’t. But the finality in his voice convinced her, as did the terrible expression on his face. Through the darkness, his features appeared hewn from stone, cold and dead and implacable. Then he turned his head toward the window and stared out into the night.

  It was just as the dowager had predicted. If Wortham were to learn the truth, it would destroy him.

  And his ability to love.

  The sounds of revelry on the streets contrasted with the bleakness inside her. So her secret was out. How gladly she would resume the burden of it if only to bring back the teasing, carefree Lucas, the man who had learned to laugh again. But the damage had been done. And now a dark fear haunted her. Could he tolerate seeing her every day, being reminded that his brother had brutalized her? Could Lucas regard her with anything but pity and repugnance? Andrew’s ghost would always stand between them. Andrew’s child would always bring to mind the violence of her conception.

  Dear God. Overwhelmed by pain, Lucas might seek refuge in the arms of his foreign mistress. The woman to whom he had run once before.

  Emma’s throat tightened with raw anguish. It hurt to think of him devoting himself to another woman. But if she truly loved him, she must let him go. He could never find peace of mind with the wife who embodied the tragic mistakes of the past.

  Surreptitiously she pressed her hands to her belly. She and Lucas had created a precious new life through the beauty of their passion. This child, at least, was no mistake.

  Tonight, she would tell Lucas about the baby. He needed to know the terms of their bargain had been met, that he was free to leave her bed. But she would not give up their son. She would raise him with love and teach him to be as fine a man as his father. And if she bore a daughter instead, she would treasure the little girl and tell her stories about her wonderful papa.

  Unencumbered by the duties of a parent, Lucas could leave England with his mistress. He could escape the constant reminders of the past.

  They arrived at Wortham House. Stepping out of the carriage, she looked up at the stately, torch-lit entrance with its tall columns and shiny brass door fittings. A sharp ache throbbed in her breast. Strange, how in the space of a few weeks she had begun to think of this house as her home. Perhaps, when he went away, Lucas would allow her to stay here. Yes. She would insist upon that. It was only fitting that Jenny and the baby took their rightful places as proud memb
ers of the Coulter family.

  As she and Lucas entered the foyer, Stafford rushed forward in a state of unusual agitation. “M’lord,” he said, wringing his white-gloved hands. “That plaguey Runner from Bow Street Station is here again. He’s waiting in the library.”

  “Send him away.”

  “But m’lord, you don’t understand. He’s arrested your man, Hajib.”

  Emma’s mind reeled in confusion. What absurdity did Clive Youngblood entertain this time? Lucas’s valet had no knowledge of the Bond Street Burglar.

  She hastened after Lucas, who was already halfway down the corridor, his bootheels ringing on the marble floor. Sweet heaven. She and Lucas needed no more complications in their lives. She wanted only to be alone with him, to spend one last night in the arms of her beloved husband.

  The moment she entered the library, Emma faced the impossibility of that wish.

  Brandishing a truncheon in his hand, Clive Youngblood stood before the hapless servant, whose hands were bound behind the straight-backed chair in which he sat. To one side of Hajib huddled a lovely, dark-skinned woman who hugged a half-grown boy.

  Youngblood spun around and doffed his dented top hat. His thin lips were curved in oily triumph, the self-important smile making his drooping eyelid more prominent.

  “Ah, m’lord and lady. I reckoned you’d like to meet the Burglar afore I took ’im off to the magistrate. It h’ain’t Lord Briggs, after all. I caught this sneaky foreigner wid the goods meself.”

  “What goods?” Lucas demanded.

  “Why, the tiger mask, o’ course.” With a flourish, Youngblood stepped back and pointed at the desk, where the mask glowed in savage glory. Backlit by a branch of candles, the emerald-rimmed eyes seemed eerily alive.

  Gasping, Emma swung toward the valet. “It was you, then. You took the mask from the temple.”

  Hajib raised his turbaned head and turned his mournful gaze to her. “Yes, O Great Lady. I followed you through the gardens. You do not need the mask anymore. It has already worked its magic on you.”

  “What the devil are you saying?” Lucas snapped.

  “She bears your child in her womb, master.”

  Emma stood paralyzed as Lucas wheeled toward her. “Is this true?” he said hoarsely.

  She could only nod. How had Hajib guessed? Her throat was too choked for speech as she searched Lucas’s face for a sign of gladness. But his expression was remote, unreadable.

  “A toast to m’lord’s prowess,” declared Youngblood, raising his billy club in the air. “We both ’ave cause to celebrate, me fer following the Burglar to the ‘ouse of his ’arlot, and you fer—”

  “My mother is no harlot,” the boy shouted. “You are a demon for saying so.”

  He rushed at Youngblood, all flailing arms and brown fists and kicking feet. With a cry of surprise, the Runner lurched backward, but the boy kept at him, landing blows to Youngblood’s jaw and chest, and kneeing him in the groin. Yowling, the officer doubled over a moment before coming up with his wooden club raised.

  “Sanjeev, get back!” Lucas bellowed. He leapt forward and caught the truncheon before it could crack open the boy’s skull. And then he used the length of wood to pin the Runner by his throat to the wall.

  Books tumbled from the shelf behind Youngblood. His face turned purple. He sputtered and gasped for air.

  Emma hastened forward. “Lucas, no! You’ll kill him.”

  “The weasel deserves to die.”

  She pulled at his steely arm, but couldn’t budge him, couldn’t stop him from committing murder. To her alarm, he was driven by a force greater than his fury at the Runner. All the pent-up emotion of the night incited him to violence.

  “Please,” she said over her shoulder at the foreign woman, who comforted her son. “Help me.”

  She came at once, a willowy beauty with sultry dark eyes. “My lord,” she said, touching his straining arm. “Think of your child. You have been blessed by the gods. Just as I said you would be.”

  His strident breathing rent the air. Then he released Youngblood and hurled away the truncheon. The officer slid to the floor, where he lay panting and choking.

  Emma watched in dawning shock as Lucas turned to speak to the woman, his voice too low to discern his words. Like a humble supplicant, she sank to her knees before him, a length of white silk draping her black hair. She was more than a friend to Hajib. This enchanting, graceful foreigner was Lucas’s mistress. The woman he loved.

  “Rise,” Lucas said, before turning to Hajib. “So she begs for your worthless life. And you, a thief. How well you hid your greed.”

  “Shalimar has become beloved of me, and I wish to take her as my wife,” Hajib said proudly. “The tiger mask will bring us many children, brothers and sisters for Sanjeev.”

  “Please, my lord, he meant no harm,” Shalimar said in her smoky-soft voice. “We must take the mask back to our homeland. It is a treasure of my people. It was never meant to molder in an English museum.”

  Lucas stood silent, his hands at his lean waist. A sharp ache assailed Emma. With his peacock robes and his sun-burnished skin, he looked as if he belonged with them.

  Not with her. Never with her.

  “Untie him,” he told Shalimar. “He’s free to go.”

  She rushed to do his bidding. In a moment Hajib stood beside her, one arm protectively around her shoulders, the other holding Sanjeev close. The boy wore an expression of dazed wonder.

  Clive Youngblood hauled himself to his feet. “You can’t let the blighter go. ‘E’s the Burglar! Caught ’im red-handed wid the goods.”

  “Ah, but you’re mistaken,” Lucas said. “Hajib didn’t steal the mask. It belongs to him. And to Shalimar.”

  While Youngblood sputtered and Emma stared, Lucas walked to the desk, picked up the tiger mask, and delivered it to Hajib.

  The valet gazed wide-eyed at the priceless golden mask he cradled against his gray robes. Then he fell to his knees before Lucas. “Master, a thousand blessings upon you. May you have twenty children to bring comfort to you in your old age.”

  “God forbid—this place would be worse than Astley’s Circus. Now get up. There’ll be no more prostrating yourselves, either of you.”

  Emma listened in stupefied amazement as he spoke of making arrangements for their passage back to Kashmir. He was letting Shalimar go. He was giving his mistress over to another man. Didn’t Lucas care? Or had all emotion withered in him? She could read nothing but coldness in the stern angles of his face.

  Certainly he had been kind to Hajib. She suspected he had another purpose. He hadn’t bothered to point out to Clive Youngblood that almost all the robberies had occurred before Hajib had even set foot on English soil.

  Now, with Hajib out of the country, Clive Youngblood would believe the Burglar was gone for good. How clever of Lucas.

  As the happy trio left the library, Lucas picked up the truncheon and tested the solid end of it against his palm. Still, he did not look at Emma. His eyes were hard and dark as he turned to the Bow Street Runner, who had untied his neckcloth to rub his bruised throat. “As to you, Mr. Youngblood, if ever I see your face again—anywhere, anytime—near any member of my family or my household, I’ll finish you off. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Q-quite, m-m-m’lord. N-never again.” His hands visibly shaking, Youngblood snatched off his hat and bowed repeatedly as he backed toward the door. “N-never.” The moment he was out of range of the truncheon, he turned and scuttled out, nearly knocking over a side table in his haste. The pounding of his shoes echoed down the passageway and then died into silence.

  She was alone with Lucas.

  He stood watching her, his face somber, his thoughts unfathomable. Against the quiet hissing of the fire, the mantelpiece clock chimed the hour of midnight. The witching hour, she reflected. The time when fairy tales ended.

  Her heart ached so badly she wanted to run and hide, to find a private place to curl up and mourn. But with a
greater fierceness, she wanted a new beginning. She would make it happen. No matter what the cost, whether she had to beg or bribe or seduce, she would not allow Lucas to walk out of her life.

  The resolve steadied her. Going to him, she placed her hands over his on the hefty wooden club. How warm was his flesh in contrast to his cold manner. She forced a teasing tone. “You aren’t thinking about beating me, are you?”

  As she’d hoped, that grabbed his attention. His eyes narrowed and he scowled. “God, no. Why would you say that?”

  “For not telling you about our baby. For withholding the truth from you again.” She attempted a charming smile, but to her distress, a sob broke loose instead. Her eyes flooded with tears, clouding the image of him.

  He tossed the truncheon onto a chair and folded her into his arms. “Don’t weep,” he murmured, stroking her hair and holding her close. “Please, don’t weep.”

  “I’m not weeping,” she said, sniffling against his chest. “I never weep.”

  “Ah. I’d noticed that about you. You’re a strong, courageous woman.”

  “Lucas, believe me, I never meant for you to find out this way,” she sobbed into his musk-scented robes. “But I—I was afraid …”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Afraid that once you knew about the baby, you’d consider your duty done. You’d stop holding me, kissing me, loving me.” The notion brought a fresh spill of tears, and she fancied her heart was bleeding, a crystalline stream of pain.

  From somewhere in his robes, he produced a handkerchief, which he used to blot her cheeks. “So you think only duty enticed me to your bed.”

  His voice held the faintest hint of teasing. It was enough to bring her head up and lock her gaze to his. Though his mouth was unsmiling, his eyes held a certain softness. “Well, of course you took pleasure in what we did,” she amended.

  “I’m pleased you noticed.”

  “But we did make a bargain.” Mustering the shreds of her dignity, she lifted her chin higher. “And I wished to speak to you about that.”