A Scandalous Marriage (7 page)

“Why, Miss Carrollton, you are a hoyden,” he said with mock sincerity.

Her peal of joyful laughter rang loud and clear.

“Yes, I am, my dear Huxhold. A terrible hoyden. To be honest, I miss the freedom of being myself. It seems the only time I can be me is when I’m with you. Now move over two steps to the right. I can’t see in the window.”

Just to tease her, he took a step to the left. She had wonderful balance and laughingly coaxed him in the direction she wanted to go. It was fun. It was silly. But it was also spring, and they were young, and it seemed completely right and natural.

Leah directed him. “Closer to the window. Over a bit. Ah, yes. I can see!”

She attempted to rise up on her tiptoes. Devon held her slim ankles. It would do no good to anyone if she fell.

“This window is so dirty,” she complained.

“It’s the salt air.”

“Yes,” she agreed absently. She rubbed a spot clean before making a disappointed sound. “I can’t see a thing. There are rolls of fabric, but they are covered in sackcloth.”

“I know.”

“You knew!” she echoed with a quiver of indignation. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, I would have, but then you started climbing me and it was a temptation I couldn’t resist.”

“Temptation?” she asked suspiciously.

Devon nodded. “Very much of a temptation.” To add meaning to his words, he lightly nipped her ankle.

She wiggled at his touch, giggling. “Stop that.”

“Stop that or you’ll what?” he demanded, looking up at her. He let his fingers stroke the silk of her stocking.

“Or I will be very angry,” she said, trying not to laugh. “Let me down now.”

“I can’t. You’ll have to climb down the way you came up,” he quipped, anticipating the feel of her body skinnying its way down his—and the kiss he would claim at first opportunity.

They were so involved with each other that they didn’t see the man turn into the narrow walkway between the buildings until his drawling voice said, “Huxhold, amazed to see you in these parts. Don’t come here often myself.” It was Sir Godfrey Rigston, a friend of his grandfather’s.

Leah made a soft cry, and Devon felt her go rigid with the fear of discovery.

“Sir Godfrey,” he said in greeting, attempting to act as if it were the most normal thing in the world for him to have a woman standing on his shoulders.

Sir Godfrey stared up with no little curiosity, but since Leah’s back was to them, Devon hoped she was safe from recognition. “What brings you down to the wharves this time of day?” he asked.

“No purpose,” Sir Godfrey answered. He was a portly man with a protruding lower lip and a nose like a parrot’s beak. He enjoyed wearing a curly wig. “Had a friend preparing to sail with the tide and accompanied him for the ride. Seemed a good place to visit on such a fine day.”

“That it is.”

“I say, Huxhold.”

“Yes?”

“Is that a woman standing on your shoulders?” the man asked with perfect English understatement.

Leah muffled a small sound with her hands as Devon answered with equal seriousness, “Yes, Sir Godfrey, it is.”

“You lead a devilishly fine life, Huxhold,” the older man confided.

“I believe I do, sir.”

Sir Godfrey nodded his head. “Well, carry on. Give my best to your grandfather.”

“I will when I see him, sir.”

Swinging his walking stick, Sir Godfrey continued on his way.

Devon waited until the man turned a corner before sighing with relief. Then, with a heave of his shoulders, he lifted Leah off and caught her in his arms.

She burst out laughing, laughter he joined in.

“Do you think he recognized me?” she asked.

“I’m certain he didn’t. Have you ever met him before?”

“Not ever.”

“Then we have no worry. He won’t be expecting a virtuous woman by the docks, let alone London’s loveliest debutante.”

She grinned. “I can’t believe it. He acted as if it was nothing to see you with a woman standing on your shoulders.”

“I have a certain reputation,” Devon couldn’t help saying, and they both laughed all the harder.

He helped her put on her shoes, and they hurried back to the hack, giggling like children. But once inside, and safely on their way, the laughter stopped.

For a second, they stared in each other’s eyes. Then she said solemnly, “Hold out your hand.”

He lifted his hand, palm out.

She placed hers an inch apart, and immediately, an irresistible force pulled their hands together. He clasped his fingers around hers.

And then their lips found each other.

Kissing Leah was as natural to him as breathing. Once started, he couldn’t stop, not when she so eagerly responded. Their tongues touched, and he drank her in. His hand rested at her waist but he wanted to explore lower, to lift her skirts, to feel the soft skin of her thighs and to feel her heat, her moistness.

She broke the kiss. “Why is this happening to us, the two people in London who can never be happy together?”

“Don’t ever say that. It’s not true. I am going to marry you.”

His bluntness caught her by surprise. She searched his face. “But how?”

“I will talk to your father—”

“No! Why, Julian would never let you close. He hates you, Devon.”

“He doesn’t know me except by reputation. We’ve never said two words to each other.”

“He doesn’t have to know you. He hates you for no other reason than your last name is Marshall.”

“Are you refusing me?” The words came out stilted. He had never thought of asking a woman to marry him, let alone that she might reject him.

She hesitated.

“Say it,” he demanded. “Just blurt out what you are thinking.”

“I don’t know.”

It was not the answer he wanted.

Leah laid her hand on his arm. “Please, Devon. If I agree to marry you, then it may mean turning my back on my family forever. I don’t know if I can do that. And think about yourself. Do you really believe your grandfather would accept our marriage?”

“I don’t answer to my grandfather.” Anger and disappointment colored his words. He broke the silence between them. “Do you at least return my love?”

She pulled her hand back and clasped both hands in her lap, squeezing her fingers before answering. “I don’t know. I need time to consider it more. There is so much at stake. Can you give me just a bit more time before demanding an answer?”

Bitterness filled him. “I wait… but not forever.”

“That’s fair,” she admitted, but there was sadness in her voice. They didn’t say any more to each other after that. Silence seemed best.

Devon had the hack stop at the baroness’s house, and he borrowed a maid to play the role of a Hamlin servant. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he caught sight of tears on Leah’s face as the hack pulled away.

“Something is amiss,
cher,”
Charlotte said to him. “You are not your swaggering, cheerful self and Miss Carrollton seems unhappy.”

“I’m in love,” Devon confessed brutally.

“Ah,” she said with understanding, and then, “love is never easy.”

“Now you tell me.” He tipped his hat, not wanting further conversation. He needed to be alone. He would have started on his way, but Charlotte stopped him.

“You did not ask me why love does not come easy,
cher
.”

“What reason could that be?” he asked sarcastically, smarting from his own discoveries.

She smiled, the expression sober. “Because in order to love, you must be worthy of love.”

Her words haunted him for the rest of the day, especially as he relived over and over his words with Leah. She had to love him. She must.

But in the end, what he wished or she wished didn’t matter.

Unbeknownst to them Sir Godfrey had recognized Leah. She was the Season’s Reigning Beauty and Sir Godfrey was not as oblivious to a pretty woman as Devon had suspected or as cloistered. He had seen her from afar at numerous parties. So Sir Godfrey mentioned her standing on Devon’s shoulders to several members of his club, who repeated the words. Soon the gossip spread.

Scandal always traveled fast in London. McDermott was the one who told Devon of the gossip later that very same day.

Devon hurried to repair any damage that might be done to Leah’s reputation. He made up some cock-and-bull story about not recognizing her and helping a damsel in distress. It all sounded silly, but there were enough gentlemen interested in pursuing her who were willing to forgive anything.

She had that sort of impact on men, he realized. It was a gift. Some women had it; some didn’t.

He wondered if it was love he felt, or was he, too, a victim of her spell? He planned on finding out when next he saw her at Whitney’s.

Of course, that never happened. That evening, when he returned home, he found Julian Carrollton waiting to call him out.

Yorkshire, 1815

Devon’s long legs ate up the distance to the cottage. He had to find help. Halfway there Leah’s body trembled, but not from the cold. A spasm gripped her. It took hold of her like a giant hand pulling the strings of a marionette.

The only birth Devon had ever witnessed had been that of a horse. He remembered the animal’s struggle to push a life out into the world. Leah was so petite that he couldn’t imagine her surviving such an effort.

Gallant nickered a greeting as he passed. Devon didn’t pause but shoved the cottage door open with one shoulder. Entering, he spied a bed in a room off to the side. He headed for it.

He had just started to lay her down when she whispered, “No, I can’t.” She started to make as if to rise from the bed, but he gently pushed her down.

“Leah, rest. I have to get help.”

Now panic set in. Her fingers dug into his coat. “Can’t leave. Too late. Don’t leave.”

He covered her hands with his own, trying to calm her. Her hands were no longer lotion soft but callused by work. Hard work. “Where is your husband, Leah? He will want to be here.”

“Oh, Devon.” Her voice sounded sad. She released her hold, turned her head away from him. “I have no husband.”

She said the words so softly that he almost hadn’t heard them.
No husband.
He nodded, concern mixing with a strange, elated relief.

“I’ll get help.” He started to leave.

Her hand gripped his. “No! Stay.”

“Leah—”

“Please—” Her protest was cut short by the next contraction. It doubled her up. Her knees bent, and she cried out in pain.

He couldn’t panic, he warned himself. Women had been having babies for centuries. It was natural, a force of nature. It was also damn scary.

And in spite of his fear, he couldn’t help but wonder who the father was.

A middle-aged woman with an ample bosom, dressed in black from head to toe, wandered in the front door. “Good heavens, why did she leave the door wide open?” Her apple cheeks flushed with indignation. “Where’s Leah? Has she no sense?”

She was talking to a young man who shared her same fair coloring. “Mother, I wish you’d leave her alone—”

His words were interrupted by his mother’s sharp cry of surprise upon seeing Devon. She raised her prayer book protectively in front of her.

Her son stiffened at the sight of Devon, but then his gaze slid to Leah on the bed. He cried out her name and started to move for her.

His mother stopped him by grabbing his arm. “What are you doing in
my
bed, missy? And who are you?” she demanded of Devon.

Leah started to rise, but Devon placed his hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.

“You don’t understand—” Leah protested to him, but he shushed her.

Facing the woman and her son, he announced, “I am the Viscount Huxhold.”

The woman’s blue eyes went wide, and she clasped her leather prayer book to her chest. “Huxhold!”

She was obviously familiar with the name.

Devon couldn’t resist sending Leah a rueful smile. There were advantages to having a shocking reputation. He rarely had to introduce himself twice.

“Please, Devon,” Leah begged. “I must move from Mrs. Pitney’s bed.”

Devon ignored her. “She’s having the baby,” he informed Mrs. Pitney and son.

“Well, she can’t have it there,” Mrs. Pitney replied briskly. “That’s my bed.”

“Mother!”

“Oh, Adam, can’t you see what is plain as the nose on your face? She’s one of Huxhold’s doxies. They say he has bastards from here to Cornwall. He’s come to claim the child. And he can hie her off to another bed as far as I’m concerned!”

Adam jerked at her words as if they’d physically assaulted him. “Is that true?” he said to Devon. “Did you do this to Leah and abandon her?”

A denial was on the tip of Devon’s tongue, but then he looked into the young pup’s eyes and hesitated.

Adam was in love. He would fight Devon for Leah. He was ready to champion her.

There was only one way to dismiss the lad’s adoration. “Yes,” he answered.

“No,” Leah corrected, but Mrs. Pitney drowned her out.

“See?” she said to her son. “I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen. All you could see was her pretty face.”

Adam was in no mood to hear his mother crow—and Devon almost felt sorry for him. The lad had been planted a facer. Love hurt. Especially loving Leah. Devon knew that firsthand.

Leah might have challenged the claim, but another pain took hold of her body. She cried out.

“She must have help,” Devon said. “Mrs. Pitney, do you know about childbirth?”

“Not a thing!”

“What about a midwife?”

“Wait a minute!” she snapped. “That’s my bed. She can’t have the child in my bed. It’ll muss the sheets.”

Her son rounded on her. “What do you expect, Mother? That she have the baby out in the stable?”

“I don’t care. I wish you’d never brought her here, Adam. Then you’d already be married to the miller’s daughter. As it is, your chances may be rained!”

Devon reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his money purse. He tossed it at Mrs. Pitney’s feet, where it landed with a heavy thunk. “There. You can purchase a wagonload of beds with it. Now go fetch the midwife.”

“Well, I never—” she started to say even while she bent to retrieve the purse. She caught her son frowning at her. “I’m not wrong for wanting my bed. She’s just the farm girl.”