One Night of Scandal (Avon Historical Romance) Page 5

  …while your sister and I decide what must be done.

  The utter finality of Sterling’s words made even the thought of curling up in her cozy canopied bed impossible. She couldn’t shake the suspicion that Sterling had already reached some irrevocable decision about her fate. Just as soon as George had escorted Miss Terwilliger to her carriage and two footmen had carried Harriet to a guest bedchamber, Lottie came creeping back downstairs, thankful that all the lamps in the foyer had been dimmed for the night.

  The towering drawing room doors were still open. She slipped behind one of them and peeped through the crack between door and hinge.

  Sterling was seated at the secretaire, his hand moving rapidly as he scrawled something on a piece of stationery.

  Laura was pacing behind him, her lovely face shadowed by agitation. “We should be relieved, shouldn’t we? After all, this Lord Oakleigh is hardly the husband we would have chosen for Lottie. What do we know of him besides what’s been written in the scandal sheets?”

  “One can hardly rely on the tabloids for taking an accurate measure of a man’s character.”

  Lottie wondered if Sterling was remembering the scandal his and Laura’s own hasty wedding had ignited. The scandal sheets had refused to believe a notorious rakehell like the ‘Devil of Devonbrooke’ could have lost his heart to an orphaned rector’s daughter without some subterfuge on her part. Of course, the true story was twice as shocking as what they’d printed.

  “Perhaps it’s just as well that he refused to offer for her,” Laura said. “How could we have asked Lottie to marry a man who didn’t want her?”

  Her sister wasn’t entirely right, Lottie thought with a dark shiver. Hayden St. Clair did want her. Just not for a wife.

  “A man who might never love her?” Laura finished.

  Sterling dipped his pen in a bottle of ink and continued writing. “Many long and solid marriages have been built on far more stable foundations than love.”

  “Not ours,” Laura reminded him softly. “And not Thane’s and Diana’s. Or even Cookie’s and Dower’s. We’re the ones who taught Lottie that love is the only foundation for a marriage. How could we be so cruel as to ask her to live the rest of her life without it?” Laura rubbed his rigid shoulders. “Why don’t we just skip the Season and all go back to Hertfordshire in the morning? We’ve always been our happiest there. With enough time, some new scandal should drive all thoughts of Lottie and this marquess from everyone’s mind.”

  Sterling reached back to pat her hand. “Time will solve nothing, my dear. I’m afraid that society has a very long and unforgiving memory. Hayden St. Clair should know that better than anyone,” he added bitterly. “On the contrary, it will only be a matter of time before the less scrupulous gentlemen of our acquaintance come beating a path to our door, whether it be right here in London or in Hertfordshire. They will murmur their regret over our difficult situation. They will offer our Lottie their sympathy, their kindness, their protection. But they will not offer her their good names.”

  Laura shook her head in dismay. “Surely that can’t be her only possible future.”

  He folded the sheet of stationery, dribbled sealing wax along its seam, and pressed his ducal seal into the warm wax. “It won’t be. Not if I can help it.” Rising, he gave the bell rope hanging over the secretaire a sharp tug.

  Lottie huddled deeper behind the door as Addison, the duke’s butler, emerged from a darkened corridor and came striding past. From his bright-eyed alertness and the impeccable state of his attire, one would never guess that he had been jarred from a sound sleep. Lottie had always suspected that he slept in his crisply pressed trousers, starched shirt, and waistcoat.

  “You rang, Your Grace?” he intoned.

  When Sterling turned, he was holding two missives, nearly identical. “I want you to see that these are delivered immediately.”

  Lottie frowned, chilled by his resolute expression. What missive could possibly be so urgent that it required delivering in the middle of the night? She squinted at the clock on the mantel. Or in the first wee minutes of the morning?

  Laura grabbed his arm, a panicked note creeping into her voice. “Sterling, what are you doing?”

  “What I must.” He gently shook off her grip. “And Addison?”

  “Yes, Your Grace?”

  “I also need you to insure that my pistols are made ready by dawn.”

  Lottie clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her horrified gasp.

  For once, Sterling had succeeded in ruffling the manservant’s composure. Addison hesitated before slowly saying, “Yes, Your Grace. I shall see to it myself.”

  The manservant’s bow lacked its usual crisp flair. He exited the drawing room, leaving Laura staring at her husband in open-mouthed disbelief. “In the name of all that’s holy, what have you done?”

  He turned back to the secretaire, busying himself with capping the ink and shoving the wax sealing sticks back into a cubbyhole. “In defense of my sister-in-law’s honor, I’ve challenged Lord Oakleigh to a duel. And I’ve asked Thane to serve as my second.”

  “Thane won’t do it. Diana won’t allow it.” Laura shook her head, her expression fierce. “And neither will I.”

  Giving up all pretense of efficiency, Sterling slammed both palms against the hinged desk, his back still to his wife. “None of us has been left with any choice in this matter, including you!”

  Tears began to spill down Laura’s cheeks. “This is madness, Sterling! You know how much I adore my little sister, but you’ve already said it’s too late to salvage her honor. So what can this possibly prove?”

  “That she is of value. That she is worth fighting for.”

  Laura tugged at the back of his sleeve. “And is she worth dying for?”

  Sterling turned to face her, his own eyes damp. “Yes. She is.”

  Laura gazed up at him for a long, helpless moment before throwing herself into his embrace. He wrapped his arms around her, closing his eyes as he buried his face in the softness of her hair.

  Lottie slowly backed into the shadows of the foyer, the full enormity of her folly weighting her steps and making her stomach churn. This was no thrilling melodrama crafted by her clever pen. This was her brother-in-law’s life, her sister’s heart, her niece’s and nephew’s futures. She’d not only disgraced herself this time. She’d brought ruin down upon them all.

  Any man who would kill his best friend in a duel would surely suffer no qualms of conscience about gunning down a stranger. Her overwrought imagination quickly provided an image of Hayden St. Clair standing on some dewy common, his dark hair blowing in the wind, smoking pistol still in hand. She could see Sterling lying in a pool of his own blood, Laura cradling his lifeless body in her arms, her pale face streaked with tears, her gentle brown eyes bitter with accusation as she lifted them to Lottie. An accusation that would inevitably harden into hatred as she realized just what her sister’s recklessness had cost them all.

  Lottie closed her eyes to blot out the terrible image and for one traitorous heartbeat, it was St. Clair lying in a crimson pool of blood, his sooty fringe of lashes resting against his pale cheeks. Only there would be no one to weep for him, no one to cradle his lifeless body in their arms and mourn his loss.

  When Lottie opened her eyes, they were dry and burning. Despite all of his noble intentions, Sterling had been wrong. One of them had been left with a choice.

  She crossed the foyer with sure strides, breaking into a run before she reached the stairs.

  Chapter 4

  I blushed before his bold proposal…

  HAYDEN HAD JUST SUNK DEEP INTO THE feather mattress of his rented bed, his exhausted muscles groaning with relief, when an all too familiar banging sounded belowstairs.

  “Surely you jest,” he muttered, throwing himself to his back and glaring up at the underside of the bed’s wooden canopy. The one thing he’d looked forward to in London was a few nights of uninterrupted sleep. But it seemed even th
at was to be denied him.

  Not even that rascal Ned could have devised a torture this diabolical. Hayden was a man who valued his solitude above all other comforts, yet in the space of a few hours his privacy had been besieged by a snooping virgin, an insolent strumpet, and an irate duke. Perhaps Ned had returned to confess that the entire nightmare had been one colossal joke, that the delectable debutante and her infuriated brother-in-law were only actors hired to perform in some ridiculous farce of which he’d become the unwitting lead.

  But if that were true, then the woman he’d held in his arms tonight had been an accomplished actress indeed. Any Fleet Street doxy could mimic passion, but the innocence he’d tasted in her kiss was not so easily feigned.

  The banging ceased. Hayden soaked in the blissful silence, afraid to breathe. Perhaps it had just been his valet or one of the other servants, stumbling back from their night of revelry at one of the local gin shops.

  He rolled to his side and plumped up his pillow, determined to steal at least a fitful nap before sunrise.

  The banging resumed—sharp and persistent.

  Throwing back the covers, Hayden jumped out of the bed. He jerked on his dressing gown, yanking the sash in a careless knot. Snatching up a candlestick, he went storming down the stairs, cursing himself for having ever given the servants the night off in the first place. For a man who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, his company was certainly in very high demand these days.

  As he flung open the door, the last person he expected to find standing on his stoop was Carlotta Anne Fairleigh.

  She opened her mouth.

  He closed the door.

  There was a brief pause, then the banging resumed, twice as forceful as before.

  Hayden threw open the door, using the full advantage of his height to glare down at his uninvited guest. She’d changed out of her torn gown and now looked less ravished than ravishing in a maroon skirt and a fur-trimmed spencer of emerald green velvet. The short jacket hugged her trim waist and accentuated the gentle curves of her bosom. She’d even crowned her curls with a saucy felt hat topped with a pink feather. Oddly enough, it was the defiant angle of that jaunty little feather that gave Hayden’s heart an unexpected tug. If she was nonplussed at being confronted with six feet, two inches of angry male wearing nothing but a burgundy dressing gown and a ferocious scowl, she hid it well.

  “Good evening, Miss Fairleigh. Or should I say good morning?” He searched the empty street behind her. A public hack was just disappearing around the corner, crushing his hopes of ridding himself of her quickly. “Are you alone or should I expect an outraged uncle or second cousin to come leaping out of the bushes at me at any minute, brandishing a rapier?”

  “I’m alone,” she replied, although she did flick a nervous gaze over her shoulder.

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Shouldn’t there be a nursemaid or a nanny to see that you’re tucked safely away in your bed? Hiring one would prevent a great deal of bother—especially for me.”

  Hayden was struggling to forget that only a short while ago, he had come dangerously close to tucking her into his. Although if he had got her off her feet, he doubted they would have made it any farther than the Grecian couch in the study. At least the first time.

  She sighed. “As I tried to explain to you earlier, Lord Oakleigh, I’ve been out of the nursery for quite some time now.”

  “Which means you should be old enough to understand the perils of engaging a public hack and visiting a lone gentleman in the privacy of his home in the middle of the night without a chaperone.”

  Clutching her silk reticule as if it were a talisman, she drew herself up. “According to my family, my reputation is already in ruins. I have nothing left to lose.”

  “If that’s what you believe, Miss Fairleigh,” he said softly, “then you are far more young and naive than I first thought.”

  Although she forced herself to hold his gaze, a becoming blush tinged her cheekbones.

  Feeling like the worst sort of bully, Hayden sighed and stepped out of the doorway. “You may as well come in before someone sees you. There might still be one or two people in London who aren’t aware that I’ve added debauching debutantes to my catalogue of vices.”

  She wasted no time in accepting his reluctant invitation. Before he could close the door, she was already heading for the study. “Do make yourself at home while I dress,” he called after her. “Again.”

  If she could ignore his sarcastic pleasantries, surely he could ignore the hypnotic sway of her hips beneath the rippling skirt. He returned to the study a few minutes later to discover she’d stirred the dying flames in the hearth to life and settled herself in the chair before the desk as if she belonged there. If nothing else, she was resourceful.

  Hayden sank into the chair behind the desk, studying her. Although there were countless poets and romantics who would doubtlessly classify her heart-shaped face as angelic, it was the spark of devilment in the heavenly blue shade of her eyes that intrigued him. Her honey brown lashes and brows provided an irresistible contrast to her golden hair. Her mouth was a lush Cupid’s bow, uptilted at the corners. Her slender nose was stylishly retroussé, but her pointed little chin betrayed more determination than was strictly fashionable.

  Just as he had feared, that determination was directed toward him. Tugging off her gloves and stuffing them into her reticule, she said, “I’m sure you must be wondering why I would disturb you at such an ungodly hour.”

  Hayden suspected that she could disturb him at any hour. “I’m simply atwitter with curiosity.” He drummed his fingertips on the desk blotter, his dry tone implying the opposite.

  She leaned forward, her expression alarmingly earnest. “This is a bit awkward, but I was wondering if I might somehow persuade you to marry me.”

  For a long moment, Hayden couldn’t speak at all. He leaned back in the chair, clearing his throat once, twice, a third time before asking, “Are you proposing to me, Miss Fairleigh?”

  “I suppose I am. Although it might make a more romantic story to tell our grandchildren if you proposed to me.”

  Her hopeful tone prompted him to gentle his voice. “I’m afraid there won’t be any grandchildren. As I explained to your guardian in no uncertain terms, I have no intention of taking another wife. Not now. Not ever. I also assured him that it would not be necessary for you and I to wed because, despite appearances to the contrary, I did not compromise you.” As Hayden recalled the velvety softness of her breast against his palm, a pang of guilt stabbed him. Perhaps he wasn’t being completely honest, even with himself.

  Undaunted by his rejection, Lottie asked, “What if you had compromised me? What then?”

  He considered his reply very carefully. “Then I would have been compelled upon my honor as a gentleman to offer you the protection of my name.”

  She bowed her head. Given his past experience with women, Hayden expected wheedling, recriminations, perhaps even a few artful tears. He did not expect her to reach up and draw off her hat. The feather drooped as she rested the scrap of felt on the edge of the desk. Her hands went searching through her hair, drawing out the pearl-tipped pins one by one until a cascade of shimmering curls came tumbling around her slender throat.

  She lifted her head, giving him a look that was a smoldering mixture of invitation and innocence. Hayden felt his mouth go dry, the victim of a hunger too long denied. Her sensual boldness might have been even more affecting if he hadn’t noticed the trembling of her fingers as she reached for the cloth-covered buttons of her jacket.

  Hayden was around the desk before he even realized he’d moved. He closed his hand over hers, hoping she wouldn’t notice that his own fingers were none too steady. He could feel the pounding of her heart through the heavy velvet of her jacket.

  His voice was far rougher than his grip. “Forgive my bewilderment, but have you come here to persuade me to marry you or to compromise you?”

  “Either. Both. Does
it really matter as long as the outcome is the same?” She gazed up at him, desperation shining through her eagerness. “You can’t deny that you want me. You were perfectly willing to compromise me when you thought you were paying for the privilege.”

  “But the price you’re asking now is far too high.” He studied her face through narrowed eyes. “Your guardian is one of the wealthiest men in all of England. You no doubt possess a generous dowry. Given your fairness of face, I’m sure you’ll have no lack of suitors either now or in the future. So why on earth would you seek to wed a man with my reputation?”

  She swallowed nervously, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips. “Because I find you…irresistible?”

  This time when the knock on the front door sounded, Hayden didn’t even start. But Lottie nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “Stay right here,” he commanded, giving her a warning look.

  When he returned, she was sitting exactly as he had left her, staring into the leaping flames on the hearth. He tossed the missive he’d just received in her lap, making sure her guardian’s broken ducal seal was plainly visible.

  Her shoulders slumped, her breath escaping her in a defeated sigh. “If you don’t agree to marry me, then my brother-in-law will be compelled to avenge my honor on the dueling field.” She lifted her eyes to him. “I can’t bear the thought of Sterling risking his life over such a worthless trifle as my reputation.”

  Hayden leaned against a corner of the desk. “What makes you so sure your guardian wouldn’t win this duel?”

  She drew in a shaky breath, but refused to relinquish his gaze. “You do have a reputation as an expert marksman.”

  Although Hayden’s expression didn’t so much as flicker, he heard the deafening report of two pistols fired in nearly perfect synch, smelled the bitter stench of gunpowder, saw Phillipe crumpling to the grass, stunned disbelief clouding his boyish face. But when he spoke, it was with icy calm. “Even an expert marksman can miss when faced with an opponent of equal skill. Who’s to say that it wouldn’t be my heart’s blood spilled in this contest of yours?” He chuckled, the dry sound devoid of humor. “Oh, yes, according to the scandal sheets, I haven’t any heart.”