How To School Your Scoundrel (21 page)

Luisa looked back to the lawn. Olympia was beckoning to Lady Somerton, reaching inside his pocket.

The divorce papers. The decree nisi, the preliminary decree of divorce.

What would Somerton say? But he knew the decree existed. He’d told Luisa he wasn’t going to contest the petition; after all, he’d originally planned to offer Lady Somerton a divorce himself. That was back in Northamptonshire, however. What if today’s events had changed his mind? What if, out of pure venom, he ripped the papers up now, demanded Philip, demanded Penhallow’s blood? A decree nisi wasn’t a final judgment, after all. If there were new evidence, evidence of adultery, for example . . .

He wouldn’t do that.

Lady Somerton was holding the papers in her hand. She was looking up at Somerton in amazement. He made a little bow.

Luisa’s body sagged with relief. It was all right, then. They would divorce, and they would work out something reasonable for Philip, who would one day, after all, be the next Earl of Somerton.

But something wasn’t quite right. They were still arguing. She could hear their voices rising, even here.

Lady Somerton’s hand flashed out and struck her husband’s cheek. He hadn’t been expecting the blow; he staggered sideways. Luisa took a step forward and forced herself to stop. Her fingers bit into the bark of the tree.

Somerton wiped the corner of his mouth and smiled. Oh, God. What was he planning?

Penhallow interposed himself between Somerton and the countess, who placed her hand on her belly in a protective gesture, and then moved it hastily away.

Her belly.

Luisa’s breath caught in her throat.

She knew that gesture. She’d had two stepmothers. She’d watched them progress through pregnancy after pregnancy.

Luisa stared at the countess’s waist. She was perhaps a hundred yards away, and the sun shone fiercely on her clothing, obscuring the details. But that jacket was certainly more rounded than its trim outline last winter.

A baby. Whose?

Her gaze shifted to Somerton, and at once she saw that he had realized it, too. Had realized that his wife was harboring a precious secret beneath her heart. His gaze was raking her, from top to bottom, and his stance was straightening, growing rigid, ready to explode.

Then everything went into motion. Olympia put out his walking stick and pushed Somerton back. Penhallow turned Lady Somerton about and urged her up the hill.

“Is it mine?” Somerton shouted. His booming voice carried across the grass, echoed against the opposite bank of the Arno. “Is it mine, by God?”

Lady Somerton whipped around and said something back, fierce and low. Luisa strained forward, but she couldn’t hear the words. She pounded her fist against the tree. It was time to go. Time to go find Beadle. This had all gone out of control. Something was going to happen, something awful. Olympia was holding Somerton back with both hands on his walking stick, wielding it like a baton, but with all his height and strength he was no match for Somerton, in the prime of his life, massive and furious as a young bull.

The countess turned to head back up the hill, and Somerton broke free.

Penhallow reached into his pocket and whipped out his knife.

Luisa started forward. There was no time for Beadle, no time for anything but to get that knife out of Penhallow’s hand. Olympia lay sprawled on the grass, picking himself up.

Somerton came to a halt, just outside Penhallow’s reach, circling about. He said something in a taunting voice. Penhallow straightened and tossed the knife away, into the lawn.

Thank God. Luisa checked herself and looked back and forth between Olympia and Penhallow.

Somerton burst into motion. He leaned down, picked up the knife, and charged up the hill after his wife. In the next instant, Penhallow dashed after him, two yards behind him, one yard . . .

He launched himself at Somerton’s back, just short of the countess’s horrified gaze.

They rolled in the grass together: tawny hair and dark, clean limbs and thick. The knife flashed in the sun, and disappeared into the tangle of struggling arms and kicking legs. The slope of the hill pulled them inexorably downward, toward Luisa, toward the boating terrace and the river beyond it. She couldn’t tell who had the advantage; they were both fighting for their lives, fighting with a deadly mixture of skill and treachery and brute male intent, Somerton’s strength matched against Penhallow’s lightning quickness.

Luisa stood frozen and helpless, hands cupped at the sides of her mouth, wanting to shout something, anything, to make them stop.

But no words came.

In a sudden graceful movement, Penhallow broke free and sprang to his feet. He balanced the knife in his hand and backed away, step-by-step, downstream, to the opposite side of the terrace from Luisa. Leading Somerton away from the countess and Philip.

Luisa turned to Lady Somerton, standing near the top of the hill with a shocked Philip standing behind her, as helpless as Luisa.

“Go!” she screamed. “Go! Take the boy!”

The countess looked at her in amazement.

“Go!” she screamed again, but Lady Somerton wavered, unable to act while her husband and lover fought below.

But Philip. Philip had started into motion, running down the hill.

“Watch him! Watch him!” she yelled at the countess, pointing to Philip.

But Lady Somerton had turned the wrong way and missed him as he pelted past her, running in a panic toward his father and his Uncle Roland. Too late, she spun around again and saw the boy.

Luisa darted forward, but Philip had the momentum, he was closer. Penhallow seemed to hear him and turned in the boy’s direction, and Somerton, not realizing what was happening, lunged for his opponent’s unguarded middle.

“No!” Philip shouted, and he ran into his father’s back, arms outstretched.

Somerton staggered to the side, caught off balance, and put his hand out to the crumbling stone balustrade of the terrace. It gave way beneath his weight, tumbling into the river, and for an instant Somerton stood poised above the river’s edge in a queer sort of arc, his immense arms stretching out as if to embrace a lover.

And then he fell into the water, ten feet below.

Luisa stood stunned for a second or two, not quite able to believe what she had just witnessed. Penhallow moved first, running to the low terrace wall and peering over the edge. He whirled around and sat down. “My boots!” he said.

Luisa ran forward and grasped the heel of his right boot and tugged with all her might. Her hands were shaking with fear. She moved to the next boot, yanked it off, and Penhallow rose up and dove into the water.

She staggered upward on her unsteady feet. Lady Somerton rushed beside her and looked over the edge, and Luisa turned to join her.

His body—good God, his limp and lifeless body!—was floating downstream, facedown, yards away already. Penhallow stroked swiftly toward him, his white shirt flashing in the muddy water. He grasped him by the shoulders and turned him over.

A rush of red blood ran down Somerton’s forehead, past his closed eyes and his proud Roman nose and into his mouth. His head lolled uselessly against Penhallow’s shoulder.

Beside her, Lady Somerton gasped.

Luisa forced her legs into action, off the terrace to the path by the river, where Penhallow was dragging Somerton’s unresisting body to the bank. “Is he alive?” she shouted.

Penhallow couldn’t answer. He stroked hard with his legs, on his back, while Somerton lay propped on his chest, above the water.

Luisa scrambled to the bank and plunged in the water, without stopping to take off her boots. She waded to her knees while Penhallow approached, dragging Somerton through the murky water, until his feet found the bottom and he stood. The blood was still pulsing down Somerton’s white face.

“Is he breathing? Is he alive?” she demanded.

“There’s a heartbeat. Help me get him on the shore. He’s built of bloody stone.”

Penhallow slipped his arms under Somerton’s shoulders. Luisa splashed around and grabbed his feet, with the preternatural strength of panic, and together they wrestled Somerton’s immense body to the riverbank.

“Bloody hell. I don’t think he’s breathing. Get that wound on his head, if you can, and let’s roll him over.”

Luisa whipped out her handkerchief and blotted the streaming blood, while Penhallow struggled to get him into position. His face was so white, so still. The lips hung slack, the head lolled to one side, against Penhallow’s arm. Already her handkerchief was soaked with blood.

“Breathe, damn you! It’s me, it’s Markham. You’ve got to breathe!” She looked at Penhallow. “For God’s sake, do something!”

“Help me turn him over. A few good thwacks on the back.”

She grabbed Somerton’s shoulder and yelled in his ear, “Breathe, you idiot! I
order
you to breathe!”

Without warning, the earl’s chest made a single powerful heave, sending her sprawling into the muddy riverbank.

“Turn him over! Now!”

She scrambled up and braced one shoulder while Penhallow flipped that burly body and held him up while he heaved and heaved, water and vomit pouring from his mouth, mingling with the blood from his forehead, with the deep groan from the bottom of his chest.

Alive.

She was covered in blood and vomit and muddy river water. She didn’t care. He was alive, he was breathing. They could fix everything else. She could survive everything else, but she could not survive his death.

She loosened his jacket and collar. A clean handkerchief appeared before her hands. She looked up and saw her uncle’s face, creased with concern.

“He lives,” she whispered. “He lives.”

“So he does.” Olympia shook his head. “The lucky devil.”

T
he thin cracks of sunlight at the edges of the curtain made his head throb.

He closed his eyes again. Much better.

“Would somebody please shut the bloody curtains,” he said, to no one in particular. The air was still and cool around him, smelling of roses. The bowl by his bedside, he remembered. He could picture the flowers quite clearly: yellows touched with pink at the tips, as if they’d been dipped in . . . dipped in . . . something pink. Or red. Something . . .

A hand touched his forehead. “They’re already shut,” said a gentle voice. Markham’s voice, only softer and kinder than usual.

“They are not shut. There are . . . cracks. Blistering cracks.”

“I can’t do anything about that, I’m afraid. You’ve had a nasty blow to the head, and the light will hurt your eyes for a few days yet.”

A blow to the head. He remembered now. The riverbank. Elizabeth, Penhallow, his son. Olympia.

A sense of crashing loss came down upon him. He was drowning in it. He couldn’t breathe.

Markham.

“Where am I?” he whispered.

“We’re still at the Villa Angelini, until you’re well enough to travel.”

Of course. He knew that. His aching head, the vague feeling of nausea and vertigo. Someone waking him, giving him a sip of water, letting him sleep. Then waking him again, far too soon.

A concussion. That was what the doctors called it. His brain had been bruised.

He moved his hand against the sheets. A few slender fingers curled around it.

“How long have you been here?” he said.

“I haven’t left,” she said.

•   •   •

S
ome untold time later, he opened his eyes again, and this time the cracks of light didn’t pierce his skull with quite the same white-hot fury. His thoughts fell obediently into line, or most of them. He was at the Villa Angelini. He had lost the fight. His brain was bruised. There were roses next to his bed. Markham was here.

He closed his eyes again.

“Markham,” he said.

“Sir.”

There was a rustle of clothing, and her hand touched his. He wrapped his fingers around her, testing their strength.

“You should call me Luisa now,” she said.

“You’ll always be Markham to me.”

She said nothing. He opened his eyes. In the dusky light, he could make out her outline, quite close, soft and blurred. A gentle glow of light shone on her cheekbone.

“Well, Markham . . .”

“Luisa.”

“Luisa. Am I going to recover my senses?”

“I believe so. I hope so. In another week we should be able to move you out of here.”

A week. He’d be damned if he lay in this bed for another week. “Where is my son?” he asked. At the word
son
, the black weight fell down upon him again, the thick, oily substance of his grief. Failure, and loss, and the knowledge of his sins.

“Philip is with his mother and Lord Roland, not far away. I believe they’re waiting for the decree absolute to be issued by the judge in London, so they can marry.”

“She is with child.”

A slight hesitation. “So I understand.”

“It’s his, of course. I suppose that’s a relief, though I thought, for an instant . . . there was a small chance . . .” He turned his head away from her. “I behaved badly, I think. When I saw that she was expecting, when she told me it was Penhallow’s child . . . I wouldn’t have hurt her, never that, I just wanted to . . . take that knife and
run
somewhere . . . killed myself, probably . . .”

“You have a habit of behaving badly, my lord. But I hope this matter is now behind you.”

He closed his eyes again. “Yes. She can have whatever she wants. Only let me see him, from time to time. My son. To see how he’s doing.”

A glass nudged at his lips. He drank the water obediently and went back to sleep.

•   •   •

A
small hand lay inside his own.

It was the first detail he noticed, when he opened his eyes. He turned his aching head and looked down at his son’s anxious black eyes, and for an instant he thought he was looking in his own childhood mirror.

“Philip.”

“Are you awake, Father?”

“Yes. Why are you here?”

A rustle of silk, a woman’s voice. “I brought him, my lord. He wanted to see you.”

Somerton rolled back and closed his eyes. “Elizabeth.”

“Father, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Philip’s voice began to crack. “I didn’t mean to push you in. I only wanted you to drop the knife, before you hurt Uncle Roland.”

Somerton whispered, “You did the right thing, Philip. Brave boy.”

“Does your head hurt very much, Father?”

His head was going to split apart. “Not at all, son. I’m just resting, that’s all.”

God, a pair of small, damp lips. Right there on the knuckle of his thumb. He opened his eyes again and looked down at his son’s bowed head.

“I’m sorry, Father.”

“Don’t be sorry, Philip.” He lifted his hand and touched Philip’s soft hair.

Elizabeth spoke softly. “Philip, my dear. May I speak to your father for a moment?”

“Yes, Mama.”

Philip kissed his thumb again and disappeared, and an instant later Elizabeth’s body appeared in his place, on the chair next to the bed, rounded with her lover’s child, the face above her white collar blooming with health and love and happiness.

“You’re looking well,” he said.

“Thank you. You look a little better than last I saw you.”

“I’ll heal. I suppose you want my blessing,” he said. “To assure yourself of my compliance.”

She hesitated. “I
am
sorry about what’s happened. You must believe that. I was wrong to run away, but you . . . but we . . .”

“We were never suited.”

“No.” She looked at her hands.

He turned his face back to the canopy above his bed and brought his hand, the one Philip had kissed, across his chest. “I behaved badly, Markham says.”

“He’s quite right. But I was not without fault, either. We have both made the most dreadful mistakes, and I hope . . . I hope . . .” Her voice groped and fell away.

“I apologize,” Somerton said stiffly. “If you want my blessing, take it. Marry him. I have no doubt he’ll make you happy at last.”

“I hope you’ll be happy, too, one day.”

Something stung the backs of his eyes. He gathered himself. “Take care of my son. Both of you.”

“We shall.” She pressed her cool fingers on his forehead, for the briefest instant, and rose to her feet. “For what it’s worth, Somerton, he never heard a word against you. Either from me, or from Roland. And he never will. But the rest is up to you.”

Somerton pressed his thumb against his heart. “If I can be of any assistance in the future, madam, you have only to ask.”

She didn’t reply. He heard her murmuring to Philip, rustling her ladylike silks again.

“Good-bye, Father!” his son called cheerfully from the door.

“Good-bye, Philip.”

When the door closed, he turned his head and studied the painted wood, the dark shadows cast there from the meager light, until he fell back asleep.

•   •   •

W
hen you said
move you out of here
, Markham, what precisely the devil did you mean?”

It was the next day, or possibly the one after; he had lost track of sunrise and sunset in this dark cave of a bloody bedroom. He was now sitting up in bed, unable to read, unable to stand up without wavering, unable to do anything interesting, and his temper had begun to fray.

“It’s Luisa, my lord. Have a little broth.”

“I am not an invalid! Luisa.” He mumbled the last word.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but you are. You are unable to stand unassisted, and your temper is very much of the invalid sort.” She sighed and set the broth aside. “Not that I expected anything else from you.”

“You stray from the point, Luisa. I have a number of affairs requiring my attention. Misdeeds, you understand, which only I can execute properly.”

“My lord, I have a proposition for you.” She knotted her fingers in her lap.

He peered at her. The room was still dark, though a little more sunlight had been allowed in today, and she appeared to him in grays and browns, not quite precise. He could see that she no longer pomaded her hair, so its scanty inches fell about her face; she was wearing a loose white shirt and no waistcoat. She wanted him to call her Luisa.

These were all clues, he knew.

“What is this proposition?” he asked suspiciously.

She took in a little breath and straightened her shoulders. “I have been giving our respective circumstances a great deal of thought for the past few days.”

“No doubt you have, Markham.”

“The decree absolute will be formally issued in London court in three or four weeks, ending your marriage to her ladyship.”

“Yes.”

“Would it then be possible . . . would you be willing to consider . . .”

“Markham . . .”

She met his gaze with her haughtiest Markham eyes. “Marrying me.”

The Earl of Somerton was a man accustomed to shocks. They had occurred with regularity in the ordinary course of his life; they arrived even more frequently in the course of his chosen profession. He had once arrived for a hazardous rendezvous in Copenhagen with his most trusted associate, the one man above all he had thought incorruptible, and found himself in the center of an ambush at the end of a blind alley, surrounded by enemy agents. He had barely escaped with his life.

His associate, on the other hand, had not. Of that, he had made certain.

He was accustomed to shocks. He prided himself on his ability to take in the new information, to make the necessary adjustments, to act.

Now, as the words
marrying me
revolved lazily in his bruised brain, bounding and rebounding off the tender walls of his skull, he found he had only one thing to say.

“Marry you? Are you mad?”

“You needn’t look so appalled,” she said, a little indignant. “Marriages of state are a matter of business, a . . . a thing of convenience.”

“Convenience?”

“For the advantages conferred.”

“Advantages?”

She leaned forward. “Listen to me. It isn’t just a matter of defeating these damned anarchists who have taken over my government. I had only just ascended the throne when I left; they had never had a female ruler before. My father had to change the articles of succession to allow it. My support among the populace was hardly strong, which I suppose is why the Revolutionary Brigade picked that moment to act.”

He nodded, scowling.

“Alone as I am, having been away from my country for nine months, I stand little chance of rallying people to my cause. I understand that. I remember the looks on their faces, that last day in Holstein Cathedral, at my father’s funeral. They were not going to accept me, a female, as their ruler.”

“If any one of them dares to say a word against you . . .”

“But if I return with a consort, a man of strength and resolve, an English nobleman . . .” She drew in another deep breath, and her cheeks seemed to take on a touch of color in the dimness. “If I return already increasing with a young prince . . .”

Somerton felt a little dizzy.

“. . . I may just be able to sway their hearts.”

“I beg your pardon, Markham. Did you say
already increasing
?”

She looked at her lap. “Peter and I . . . we tried faithfully, every week, but I was never so fortunate as to conceive. You, on the other hand, are an expert. You are a proven sire of a strong and healthy son . . .”

She had to be stopped. Now.

“In fact, I have three,” he said.

Luisa’s head shot up. “What’s that?”

“Three sons, that I know of. Philip, you have seen. I got a child on a tenant’s wife when I was seventeen—I rather believe she was using me for the purpose—and another from a mistress of mine at Oxford, a careless mistake. She was several years older than I, and had some ambitious notion that she could manipulate my young will into making her the Countess of Somerton for her trouble. She left for America shortly after the birth; I haven’t seen them since.”

“Good God.”

“I have also a daughter,” he said softly. The words hurt his throat as he said them. “I entered into an adulterous affair with an officer’s wife, while he was stationed in India. He returned hopelessly disfigured, and she . . . she threatened to get rid of the child if I didn’t leave with her for the Continent. So I did as she asked. A great mistake. She was not the sort of woman . . .” He caught his breath. How to describe the Duchess of Ashland, God rest her troubled soul, now dead these two or three years? When Luisa’s own sister had since married the widowed duke. A rather awkward detail, to be sure, and one he lacked the energy to deal with, at the moment. “In any case, I left her eventually, though not without insisting that she place the girl in London with a relative, instead of exposing her to the damned dissipated existence she was then living in Rome. I sent money. I didn’t try to see the girl; I thought it was better for all concerned if I didn’t. But she exists. Four children, at least that I’m aware of. I have, since then, exercised a great deal more caution in my private affairs.”