Once Upon a Scandal Read online

  “Never mind,” she said soothingly. “It isn’t important now.”

  Leaving her grandfather grumbling, Emma rushed back to her own packing, her gray traveling dress swishing around her sturdy cotton stockings. Her nerves thrummed with tension. She hadn’t ceased hurrying since she’d dashed pell-mell through the streets of London after the harrowing escape from Lucas’s house. In the half an hour since she’d returned home, she’d rallied the household, changed from the Burglar’s black garb, and packed the flotsam of her life into one valise. The wound on her hand trickled blood, but she ignored it. There would be time later to tend the cut.

  She prayed that when Lucas discovered her missing, he would go first to the house she’d been living in as his betrothed. But she and her grandfather and Jenny had changed residences twice since then, each time moving to a house that charged cheaper rent. With any luck, it would take Lucas—and the law—several hours to track her down.

  Precious hours in which she planned to be well on her way to the coast.

  There was one last item to pack. Opening a dresser drawer, she drew forth a box hidden behind her unmentionables. The small case was covered in blue velvet, worn smooth near the clasp. Her fingers trembled as she opened the box and touched the string of milky gems inside. Her mother’s pearls.

  In Emma’s last hazy memory of her parents, Lady Caroline had been wearing this very strand around her swanlike throat when she’d bent to kiss Emma good-bye. In a waft of violet perfume, she and Papa had gone off, never to return, for that night, they’d been overcome by smoke when a fire swept through a crowded opera house.

  Emma hugged the necklace to her breast. She had kept the pearls even when selling them would have enabled her to put beef on the table and coal on the grates. They were meant to be her legacy to Jenny. But now the pearls must pay for passage to the Continent.

  With the heaviness of regret, Emma tucked the necklace deep inside her valise. She took one last look around at the rosewood furnishings that had been hers since childhood, the bed with its lace canopy where she slept alone, the little desk with its collection of dog-eared books, the wooden chest where she kept a few foolish mementos of her wedding. Sadness pressed upon her, but she had no leisure to indulge in sentimentality.

  As she hastened downstairs, she met Maggie in the corridor leading to the kitchen. The small, lively servant had carrot-red hair and a dusting of freckles that gave her a merry appearance. But today she looked as grim as the girl Emma had rescued from the gutter.

  Maggie lugged a large wicker basket which she dropped with a thump. “Here’s the provisions, m’leddy.”

  The rattle of carriage wheels stopped outside. “There’s George now with the hackney,” Emma said. “Where’s Jenny?”

  “In the kitchen, saying good-bye to them stray puppies George found. The little dodger tried to sneak one into the basket when I weren’t looking.” Stepping forward, Maggie clutched at her apron. “M‘leddy, you dursn’t leave. I’ll hide you in the rookeries where the Runners don’t go. And especially not that high an’ mighty husband of yours.”

  Touched by Maggie’s willingness to endanger herself, Emma grasped her hand. “Thank you, but I cannot risk Jenny’s future. And you’ve done enough for me already by keeping silent about my burglaries.”

  “Can’t never do enough. Bless you for saving me when me dad would’ve sold me for a doxy.”

  Emma squeezed her work-roughened hand. “How I’ll miss you and George—”

  A pounding shook the door. She started, her heart racing. It couldn’t be Lucas. Not so quickly. But when she looked at Maggie, she saw alarm widen her eyes, too.

  “Lud, mum. George don’t knock.”

  Heedless of the stabbing pain in her hand, Emma snatched up the heavy basket and valise. “I’ll hide in the kitchen. If it’s Lord Wortham, tell him I’m gone already.”

  Maggie squared her shoulders. “I’ll get rid of the bloody bugger, don’t you fear.”

  “Pray God Grandpapa stays in his room.” Emma glanced up the narrow staircase, then turned to flee down the passageway.

  She hadn’t gone more than two steps when the door crashed open. His black cloak swirling, his face as wild-eyed as the devil himself, her husband charged into the foyer.

  Chapter 6

  With a leaden sense of inevitability, Emma dropped the basket and valise. Her instincts screamed at her to run. To dash out the back way while Maggie used her street skills to stop Lucas.

  But Emma could not—would not—leave without Jenny.

  His footsteps rang out on the bare wood floor as he stalked straight toward her. Maggie glared daggers at him as he passed her by without a glance. Standing her ground, Emma could only be thankful that no magistrate followed him.

  His dark hair disheveled, he stopped in front of her. “What the devil have you done to yourself?” he demanded.

  Emma looked down at her gray gown in confusion. “Done?”

  “You bled all over my floor.” He reached for her hand, the one wrapped in his red-stained towel. Loosening the knot, he unwound the wrapping.

  She pulled back, hissing through her teeth as the cloth stuck to the dried blood. “Let me go.”

  “Be still. From now on, we’re doing things my way.” In contrast to his harsh tone, his grip was amazingly gentle, his fingers strong and supportive as he examined the ugly gash across her palm. Blood oozed from the long cut. “You there,” he said over his shoulder to Maggie, “go fetch a bowl of water and a proper bandage.”

  “Nay.” The servant shook her head, her carroty curls bouncing around her face. “I dursn’t leave the likes of you alone with m’leddy.”

  “Go. Or I’ll lash the backside of you.”

  Emma intervened. “Just do as he says, Maggie.”

  Nose in the air, the servant stomped down the passageway toward the kitchen. Lucas thrust the stained linen towel at her as she passed him.

  He applied pressure to Emma’s lower back, urged her into the tiny morning room, and bade her sit on a frayed yellow chair by the window. He unfastened his cloak and tossed it onto a footstool.

  Suspicious of his motives, she kept her spine rigid. “I don’t need your doctoring.”

  He crouched on one knee beside the chair, whipped out a crisply folded handkerchief, and pressed it to her injured palm. “Someone has to tend to you.”

  “Leave it to my jailer, then. Or are you feeling guilty for sending your own wife to prison?”

  He gave her a hard stare. “On the contrary. I have good reason to require you to be in excellent health.”

  His voice held an ominous undercurrent. The rugged angles of his face cut starker than ever, and he reeked of brandy. Sunshine glossed the bronze highlights in his dark hair, hair that was wild and windblown. She had the peculiar urge to comb her fingers through the mussed strands. The lack of sleep must have brought on this giddy strangeness in her.

  Maggie delivered the bandages and water, and Lucas sent her out the door again. Frowning with concentration, he set to work dabbing the blood from Emma’s palm. Gritting her teeth against the stinging pain, she wondered how he could appear so concerned.

  “I see a few calluses here,” he said.

  “Pardon me for lacking the soft hands of a lady. I’m a working woman now.”

  His expression remained unreadable. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No.” She held her breath until a horrid burning sensation passed. “But if you wish to help me, then leave my house and never return.”

  “I will. And when I go, you’re coming with me.”

  Her ribs seemed to crowd inward, squeezing her lungs. Her pride dwindled beneath the onset of alarm. Without thinking, she grasped his wrist with her uninjured hand, and felt the warm skin beneath his cuff. “Lucas, please. Don’t take me to the Bow Street Station, I beg you. I’ve no one to care for my child.”

  “There’s your grandfather.”

  “He’s too old, too unreliable. Please, if you hav
e a scrap of compassion left in you, let me go. I’ll leave the country, and you’ll never hear from me again, I swear it.”

  He picked up a fresh strip of linen and deftly wrapped her wound. Then he looked up, a cryptic intensity in his gaze. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to let you go. Once you’ve given birth to my son.”

  “Your … son?”

  “I find myself in need of an heir. And you, dear wife, are sorely in need of salvation.”

  His eyes were flat and frigid, hard as coal. A cold prickling spread over her skin, and she let go of his wrist. He meant it. He meant for her to submit to him. Was he addled from lack of sleep?

  She shook her head in shock. “But I thought … your cousin …”

  “On reflection, I’ve decided I prefer to have a son of my own blood.” A small, insincere smile hinted at the dimples on either side of his mouth. “You will live in my house, so I can be certain the child is mine. Once you’ve done your duty by me, you shall relinquish the boy into my care. And you will be free to go on your merry way.”

  Frozen, she stared at him. “You wish me to give up my own son?”

  “Or go to prison. The choice is yours.”

  Her pulse drummed in her ears, echoing the throbbing in her hand. His proposal was impossible, unthinkable, inhuman. He expected her to allow him to slake his lust in her. If that was not a vile enough prospect, she must carry his baby for nine months and then give the child away like a bit of rubbish. How could Lucas ask her to make such a devil’s bargain?

  Yet the alternative was to leave Jenny without a mother.

  “This is your notion of revenge, isn’t it?” she whispered bitterly. “To force me into your bed and then rob me of my own child.”

  “It seems a fair exchange. And a far more lenient punishment than you deserve.”

  “What if I conceive a daughter?”

  “Then we’ll try again until I have my heir.” He rose, looking down at her, his face impassive. “Understand that the courts will award me custody of any children born of our union. You will not be permitted any contact with them. Though you’ll receive a handsome annuity, of course.”

  Heedless of the pain in her palm, Emma squeezed the coarse cotton of her skirt. “I don’t want your money.”

  “It’s yours—from your marriage portion. I would advise you to take it. I can see you’re accustomed to living beyond your means.” His lips thinned, he looked around the morning room in its pitiful state of disrepair. “And by the way, your daughter shall remain here.”

  “Jenny? No!”

  “Yes. Briggs will look after her. You’ll be permitted to visit her from time to time. Under supervision, of course.”

  Emma stared, speechless with horror. She felt as if a boulder crushed her breast. Lucas didn’t seem to comprehend the sacrifice he asked of her. Live apart from Jenny? Bear children only to give them up? Surely he could know nothing of a mother’s love.

  Or perhaps he did. Dear God. Perhaps he did.

  “What have you done to my mama?”

  Emma looked up in astonishment to see a blur of amber shoot across the room. Jenny launched herself at Lucas, pounding her small fists against his dove-gray waistcoat and kicking at him with her slippered feet. He frowned down at her in bemusement as if she were a pesky gnat.

  Emma sprang up, took firm hold of Jenny’s shoulders, and pulled her back. The girl continued to fight and wriggle. “Jennifer Frances Coulter,” Emma said in her sternest voice. “Stop it, this instant.”

  Jenny quieted, though she thrust out her lower lip. “I hate him. Maggie says he’s come to cart you off to jail. He’s going to lock you up and throw away the key.”

  Emma bent down and embraced her daughter. “Oh, darling, that isn’t true. No one shall take me away from you. No one.”

  Lucas’s throat went dry as the little girl buried her face against her mother’s bosom. They might have been a portrait depicting maternal devotion, one blond head and one chestnut-brown. So this was Lady Jenny, by law his daughter.

  As cold and clear as a shard of ice, bitterness pierced him. This was the child for whom Emma had deceived him. The child she had carried inside her on their wedding day. Emma had cheated him out of the chance to have children of his own. He knew then why he had stayed away from England for so long. It had been easier to ignore the girl’s existence than to face the living proof of Emma’s treachery.

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

  Who was Jenny’s father? A married gentleman? A charming rake? A handsome servant who had been seduced by Emma?

  Lucas scrutinized Jenny for a clue to her paternity. She was a dainty bit of a thing, six going on seven. Clad in a too-short amber gown that showed her scuffed leather boots, she had inherited her mother’s spirit along with Emma’s delicate features. The only significant difference was her eyes; they were more green than blue.

  Jenny turned from her mother. Her pixie face glowered at him, displaying a missing front tooth. “Why did you come back? We don’t need you. You’re not my real papa.”

  “Jenny!” Emma exclaimed. “That is quite enough.”

  Discomfited by the girl’s resentment, Lucas shifted his feet. “I can see she gets her manners from you.”

  “Her manners are perfectly fine,” Emma said.

  She sent a warning look at Jenny, who sketched a curtsy. “Beg pardon,” she mumbled with obvious reluctance.

  “Apology accepted,” Lucas said. And then, because he felt awkward and ill at ease beneath her suspicious stare, he held out his hand to her and spoke slowly. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Jenny.”

  She scowled another moment, then placed her small hand in his and gravely shook it. “Have you come to live with us?”

  “No. Quite the contrary—”

  “You and I are going to live at his lordship’s house for a time,” Emma broke in. “Both of us will be moving our things there today.”

  She gave him a challenging stare as if she expected him to dispute her statement. His triumph over trapping her was soured by the prospect of taking her love child into his home. He couldn’t do it. His mother and sisters would have fits. Worse, society would view it as his acceptance of Jenny.

  “But I want to go to France,” Jenny objected. “You said we’d go boating on the Seine.” An unholy gleam entered her eyes. “And we’d see the place where the king got his head chopped off.”

  “Shh,” Emma said, stroking Jenny’s hair. “We’ll have to postpone our trip. We’ll go later, just the two of us. Run upstairs now and finish packing.”

  “But I don’t want to.” She stamped her little foot. “I won’t live with him.”

  Lucas knew he should follow his own edict: He should not permit this child to live under his roof. Yet when he looked at Jenny’s pink cheeks and obstinate mouth, he found himself saying, “You’ll obey your mother. You’re coming to live at my house. And no more arguing.”

  Emma glanced at him, her eyes wide with a gratitude that gave Lucas an uncomfortable twinge of guilt. He quickly discounted it. Although she appeared to be a decent mother, he could not allow her to have any part in raising his child. Emma was a liar and a thief, and she had brought her troubles onto herself.

  “Who have we here?” A snappish voice broke the silence. “Zounds; if it ain’t my long-lost grandson-in-law.”

  Lucas tensed as Lord Briggs strolled into the morning room. The old man was dressed entirely in black. Wisps of white hair stuck out from beneath his ebony cap, and his eyes were a startling blue against his soot-streaked face.

  Lucas gave a curt nod. “Briggs.”

  “Great-grandpapa, why are you dressed so funny?” Jenny asked with a giggle.

  Grinning, he polished his knuckles against his black lapel. “Because I’m the Bond Street Burglar, that’s why.”

  Her eyes rounded like saucers. “Truly? Is that like Robin Hood?”

 
“Indeed so, my little imp—”

  “For heaven’s sake!” Clutching at her skirt, Emma wheeled toward her daughter. “He’s only playacting, darling. Now go upstairs as I asked.”

  “But I want Great-grandpapa to tell me a story about the Burglar.”

  “Later,” she said, herding Jenny out of the room. “Off with you now.”

  When the little girl trudged into the passageway, Emma closed the door. She leaned against it, the full appeal of her blue eyes turned on Lucas. “Don’t listen to him, please. He isn’t the Burglar. I am.”

  “Ha.” Lord Briggs stabbed his index finger at his chest. “I’m your culprit. I stole jewels worth thousands from the finest homes in London. I’ll be happy to make a full confession to the magistrate.”

  He was lying for Emma’s sake; Lucas didn’t doubt that for an instant. How did she inspire such loyalty? “You forget,” Lucas said in a steely tone. “I caught her myself, breaking into my strongbox last night.”

  “Because I stole the tiger mask, and she was returning it. Just ask her. Ask her if she stole the blasted piece from you.”

  “I’ve no interest in playing games with you, Briggs.”

  “Games! That’s what started this havey-cavey muddle.” The old man took off his cap and hung his head as if in shame. “Every time I had a run of bad luck at the cards, I robbed those who’d bilked me at the gaming table.”

  “I never bilked you,” Lucas said in disgust.

  “No, you only bilked my granddaughter.”

  Emma uttered a low, strangled sound of distress. She walked swiftly to Lucas, stopping so close he caught a whiff of her womanly scent, sending a rush of heat to his loins. “Grandpapa is only trying to protect me,” she said. “You mustn’t believe he’s the Burglar.”

  A little devil made Lucas say, “And if I did? You’d be free to go, then.”

  Her cheeks paled. “At his expense,” she whispered. “And anyway, you haven’t a shred of proof.”

  “He has my word of honor as a gentleman,” said her grandfather. “Good God, put a mask on me, and Lord Jasper Putney would swear I was the burglar he shot.”