Once Upon a Scandal Read online

  Her silver earrings and bangles clinking musically, Shalimar served him a cup of cinnamon-scented green tea. Then she fetched another cup, sat cross-legged on the floor beside the bed, and blew at the hot liquid. If she guessed at his torment, she showed no sign of it. Her serenity was one of the qualities that had drawn him to her. There was nothing artificial about her, no false smiles or helpless pretense. An inscrutable calm smoothed her face, and no one but he would have detected the hint of sadness in her gaze.

  He had been so caught up in his own troubles he had nearly forgotten the sorrow that ruled her life. Setting down his teacup, Lucas drew her onto the bed. “Have faith,” he murmured. “I’ve three men searching every theater in London. We’ll find your son soon.”

  “Tomorrow, I must search, too. Lest I go mad.”

  “We’ll look together, then.”

  Taking his hand, she lowered her forehead to the back of it. “My lord, you have another destiny. You must answer the call of the tiger god.”

  He frowned at her bowed head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  She straightened up, and her eyes shone like dark diamonds in the glow of the fire. “The mask bestows fertility upon its owner. I realize now it was not meant for you and me. It belongs to you and your English wife.”

  Her words hit him like a fist in his gut. Jerking his hand free, he leapt off the bed. “That is superstitious nonsense. I’ve no intention of keeping the mask. It will go in a museum where many people can appreciate its beauty.”

  “You cannot!” Shalimar blurted out in rare reproach. “The mask is sacred. A gift of the gods.”

  “It was a gift to me by the maharajah, to do with as I will.”

  He stalked to the heap of his clothing and snatched up his breeches. To his disgust, he had emerged from his mistress’s bed still burning with the dark, driving need to possess Emma. He yearned to lie naked with her, to sink into her heat, to feel her soft and submissive body accept the essence of himself. He wanted to impregnate his wife.

  Damn her heartless soul to hell.

  Shalimar sank to the floor in front of him. “Master, I beg a thousand pardons for offending you. I wish only to make you happy.”

  Her long, black hair fanned out on the rug and framed her willowy body. Unaccountably annoyed by her servile posture, he lifted Shalimar to her feet. “For God’s sake, I am happy.”

  To prove it, he pulled her into his arms. She felt familiar and comfortable, her almond scent evoking a pleasant warmth in him. He pictured himself introducing her to his mother and his sisters, and his mouth twisted bitterly. They would sooner welcome Emma back into the family fold than accept his attachment to a lowly foreigner.

  Did he want Shalimar to share the English part of his life, anyway?

  Guilt nagged at him. His ambivalence was due to no fault in her. Even if he were free, he did not wish to marry again. Emma had cured him of that particular craving.

  He finished dressing and bade Shalimar good-bye. Outside, he motioned to his coachman. “Return to Wortham House. I’ve decided to walk.”

  The servant doffed his black top hat. “Beggin’ yer pardon, but the streets can be dangerous.”

  “I appreciate the warning,” Lucas said dismissively.

  “Aye, m’lord.” The burly man flicked the reins, and the pair of matched bays drew the coach down the road, hooves clopping and harness jingling until the sound disappeared into the night.

  Lucas strode through the quiet neighborhood, a new development of small brick houses with cottage-type gardens. It must be well past midnight The moonlight cast a pearly sheen over the pavement, making the shadows beneath the trees denser. As black as his thoughts.

  He despised Emma for more than the unforgivable trick she’d played on him. He hated remembering the lovestruck boy who had once believed in miracles. She had made him feel tongue-tied and gauche, as if he did not suit her sophisticated tastes.

  Even at eighteen, Emma had favored the wild bucks, the aristocrats who lived on the edge of society. He himself had never possessed a ready wit or an interest in wagering. He had trouble conversing with strangers. That was why he’d been astonished when she had chosen him from her many suitors.

  He had been awestruck by her beauty, her air of fragile femininity, and he had walked straight into her spider’s web. She’d spun the silk of her charm around him, and he’d only realized her deadly intent when she had sucked the blood from his heart.

  Emma had never desired him. Her skittish reaction to him two days ago had proven he still disgusted her.

  He took in a lungful of bracing night air. Her opinion of him shouldn’t hurt. He wouldn’t let it. His affection for her was long dead, buried beneath the dirt of her deceit. To hell with the tiger mask and its reputed powers. He didn’t want a son from Emma. A child would only bind them together.

  Though it rankled him to agree with her, divorce was the next logical step. The matter could be resolved with a suit to establish her infidelity, then a petition to Parliament. No peer in the House of Lords would stand in his way. An immoral wife posed too great a threat to the succession of his title. Then Emma would be gone from his life. Forever.

  Yet as he crossed a deserted side road, he pictured her in bed, her fair hair loose on the pillows. She’d be wearing a sheer gown that revealed her womanly curves. She would be smiling, holding out her arms to …

  To her latest lover. Surely a siren like Emma didn’t sleep alone.

  I haven’t the least notion who fathered my Jenny. He could have been any one of a dozen men.

  God knew how many times she had cuckolded him. She must have learned some method of birth prevention, else she would have spawned many more bastards. Her latest conquest was Sir Woodrow Hickey. Did the enraptured fool lie beside her at this very moment?

  A violent resentment throbbed in Lucas. If ever he saw Emma again, he wouldn’t trust himself in her presence. He’d be tempted to show her exactly how a wife should behave. He’d take her to bed, take what she’d given freely to a succession of lovers. And he’d make damned certain she forgot all men but her husband.

  Emma stood stock-still. A moment ago, the groan had nearly scared her out of her skin. She waited, straining to see into the gloom.

  A snuffling snore came from the left. Bed ropes creaked heavily. A manservant was asleep in the attic room, that was all.

  Step by careful step, she edged out the door. The mask bumped against her thigh as if to remind her of her mission. Without awakening the servant, she slipped into the corridor.

  Emma allowed herself a sigh of relief. Now to complete her errand.

  Praying her luck would hold, she nipped a candle from a wall sconce and then crept down the servants’ staircase to the ground floor. A door loomed at the bottom, and she cautiously peered out. The grand passageway was deserted, lit by a single oil lamp that flickered outside the conservatory.

  As she tiptoed toward the library, the scents of damp loam and flowering plants drifted to her. She recalled hiding there two days ago while Stafford gave her message to Lucas. Her throat tightened. She might as well never have bothered to finagle a meeting with him. Her husband was convinced of her mercenary nature. The bitter irony was, she truly meant the divorce to be an atonement for her sins as much as a chance for Jenny to have a real father.

  Well, with any luck, she need never see Lucas again. Their sham marriage would be over quickly once she enlisted the aid of the dowager.

  Emma had no time to fathom the melancholy inside herself. Taking another swift look up and down the corridor, she stole into the library.

  The house was dark and quiet when Lucas let himself in the front door. He stopped in the dining room and poured himself a drink. The French brandy was as smooth as silk and as warm as a willing woman. The perfect tonic for his troubled thoughts.

  Crystal decanter in one hand and a glass in the other, he stood in the silent, shadowed room, aware of how alone he was. His mother would be asleep upstairs
. As would Livvie and her husband and their children. Tomorrow, with the arrival of his other married sister and her family, no doubt he would long for such a moment of peace. He would not feel so lonely then, so starved for companionship. And so reluctant to go to his empty bed.

  He strode out into the passageway and paused there, hesitating. For some strange reason, the tiger mask lured him.

  You must answer the call of the tiger god. Nonsense. It had no magical powers. Yet he felt the fanciful urge to see it, to hold it and know it was nothing more than gold and gemstones, a masterpiece crafted by human hands.

  He proceeded through the darkened house, his way lit by an occasional oil lamp burning low, casting long shadows over the walls. How odd to feel so at home here, as if he’d never left. He took quiet pride in knowing he was master of this grand house. It had been built by his great-grandfather in the time of the first King George, and passed on through each generation to Lucas. By all rights, his own son ought to play and laugh in these halls.

  But the line of descent would be broken. Unless he sired an heir.

  Rancor consumed him. He took a long, burning gulp from the glass in his hand. To hell with Emma. He’d wasted enough time brooding about his amoral wife.

  Turning his mind to the mask, he walked toward the open door of the library.

  Emma was glad for the meager light of her candle. The library was dark and spooky. The scent of leather-bound books perfumed the chilly air. Resisting the temptation to poke around her husband’s retreat, she wended her way past the chairs and chaises, around the wooden crates that littered the center of the room. At the mahogany desk, she opened the drawer and plucked out the key.

  An inexplicable exasperation flared in her. How careless of Lucas. Even her grandfather had managed to locate the key.

  She set down the candle, removed the books from the appropriate shelf, and unlocked the safe. Within the dark mouth of the repository, jewels glinted like a pirate’s treasure trove. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have been eager to calculate the worth of the gemstones.

  Yet the notion of coveting her husband’s wealth sickened her. Briefly she closed her eyes beneath the ebony domino. She had stolen something from him more precious than jewels. She had robbed Lucas of the chance to have a family and a loving wife.

  But now was no time to torture herself.

  Untying the black scarf she’d used as a pouch, she drew out the tiger mask. The piece weighed heavy in her hands, and she gazed down at it a moment, wondering what Lucas meant to do with the mask. Perhaps wear it to a costume ball? That struck her as out of character for a man so reserved, yet he had changed considerably during his journeys abroad.

  He exuded an aura of mastery now. He spoke with sharp precision. He kept a mistress.

  Heat prickled over Emma’s skin. The yellow diamonds picked up the candlelight, and the emerald eyes seemed to watch her. She stared back. The tiger mask glowed with a strange, almost erotic energy. It was like an enchantment cast by a sorcerer, a seductive charm that repulsed her even as she felt the pull of fascination … .

  “What the deuce—?”

  A harsh male voice broke the spell. She spun around to see a dark form silhouetted in the faint light of the doorway. The man loomed big and powerful and threatening, a tiger about to pounce.

  Her fingers clenched around the mask. Dear God.

  Dear God, save her.

  It was her husband.

  An intruder clad entirely in black stood before the opened safe. The light of a single candle illuminated his small, wiry form and the black domino that concealed his features. He was holding the tiger mask.

  Rage exploded in Lucas. His fingers tightened around the decanter and glass. Without further thought, he surged into the long, shadowy room.

  The robber let out a muffled gasp. Then he dashed around the large desk and skirted the pile of crates. Lucas expected him to run for a window. Instead, he pounded straight for the door.

  Dropping his drink, Lucas lunged at the fugitive. Brandy splashed his trouser leg as he leaped over the chaise. Chairs went crashing to the floor. He reached out to seize the man. The robber hurled something through the darkness. The heavy object hit Lucas in the abdomen, knocking the breath out of him.

  The tiger mask. It landed with a thunk on the carpet and skated under a chair.

  Lucas reeled backward and gulped in brandy-scented air. He recovered himself in time to see the burglar dart into the passageway.

  “Come back, you thieving bastard!”

  He rushed in pursuit. The black figure raced toward a door in the paneling and disappeared into the servants’ staircase.

  Lucas entered the narrow shaft. Darkness hung thick in the air, but above him he could hear the patter of the man’s fast footfalls. Where the hell was he going?

  Fear gripped Lucas. His family slept on the second floor.

  He took the steps three at a time, grimly hoping his long legs gave him the advantage. By the time he reached the second floor, he had closed the distance to a bare yard. He snatched at the villain and caught a handful of his cloak.

  The robber loosed a guttural cry. Wrenching open a door, he plunged headlong down the corridor.

  Lucas flung the empty cloak aside. “Stop, thief!” he bellowed.

  He hoped to rouse the servants who slumbered in the attic directly above the family bedchambers. How dare this footpad invade his domain and attempt to plunder his property. The tiger mask was priceless, the keystone in his dream of opening a new wing in the museum.

  As Lucas sped down the dim-lit corridor, the robber skidded around a corner and crashed into a table and vase. Porcelain cracked; water and flowers went flying. With a final surge of speed, Lucas brought down his quarry against the mahogany railing of the grand staircase.

  Panting, his captive wriggled and squirmed like a madman. Gloved hands battered Lucas’s face and chest. On a burst of angry triumph, Lucas wrestled him to the carpet. The man was skinny, almost dainty. Looking for a hidden weapon, Lucas slid his hand over legs and arms slender enough to belong to a child.

  Bedroom doors opened, and the buzzing of voices rose in the corridor. Her nightrobe rustling, his mother hastened to his side. “For the love of God, whatever has happened?” She caught sight of his black-clad captive and gasped. “Dear heavens! It’s the Bond Street Burglar!”

  She staggered back into the arms of her elder daughter, Olivia, who watched with rounded blue-green eyes, her rusty-red braid draped over her shoulder. “That ruffian broke into the house?” Olivia said in a rage, her hand resting on her pregnant belly. “We might have been murdered in our beds!”

  “Don’t be dramatic, Livvie,” Lucas said. “He doesn’t even have a weapon. Now give me the belt from your dressing gown.”

  “But why—? Oh.”

  She untied the gold silk cord and handed it to him. He rolled the struggling thief over, yanked his arms behind his back, and secured the wrists together. The restraint seemed to sap the strength from the man, and he went stiff and still, except for the rapid rising and falling of his chest.

  “Thank goodness you came home,” the dowager said, half swooning against Lucas’s sister. “We might have been robbed of all of our jewels.”

  “He went after the tiger mask down in the library. I chased him up here.” Lucas glanced up at her wan face. With the wisps of gray hair peeking out from her nightcap, she looked old and weary and utterly shaken. “Go on back to bed,” he said gently. “I’ll send Stafford for the Watch and have this riffraff carted off to jail.”

  “Can you manage him?” Olivia asked. “Hugh’s asleep—he could sleep through a tempest—but if I shake him hard, I’m sure I can rouse him—”

  “Let your husband rest. Now, Mother’s on the verge of collapse. Escort her back to her chamber. And stay with her.”

  Olivia raised a doubtful eyebrow, as if he were still the gangly, ineffectual adolescent and she the all-knowing big sister. Then she nodded primly and g
uided the dowager away.

  Lucas returned his attention to his prisoner, who lay as rigid as a mannequin. Easing himself off the scoundrel, he discerned a light, pleasing scent that stirred a faint recognition in him. For the first time he noticed that the lips beneath the black demimask were soft and pouty. There was an almost feminine roundness to the robber’s form, a curvaceousness …

  A snake of heat bit Lucas’s groin. He felt the unexpected urge to press himself into the cradle of those shapely hips.

  The instinctive response of his body appalled him, but his self-disgust lasted for only an instant. Seized by suspicion, he moved his hand to the robber’s black shirt. And found himself caressing the fullness of a womanly breast.

  Before he could react to his amazing discovery, his captive gave a violent shudder. In a blur of motion, she lunged up off the carpet. Her teeth clamped down hard on his forearm.

  Lucas jerked backward, more from surprise than from pain, for his coat sleeve protected him. “Damn you!”

  Already she was rolling away, struggling to stand up, though hindered by her tied hands. Before she could scramble to her feet, he slammed his body over hers and pinned her to the floor again.

  “Not so fast,” he growled. “So the Bond Street Burglar is a woman. I’ll have a look at you.” He yanked off her domino, taking her close-fitting, black cap along with it.

  Silvery-blond hair spilled like moonbeams across the dark carpet. Impossibly blue eyes stared up at him. Astonished, he found himself gazing into a face so pale, so lovely, that the breath left his lungs.

  No wonder her body seemed so sinfully familiar—it had been the subject of his adolescent dreams. And he felt like that boy again, thick-witted and struck mute, able to voice only one hoarse word.