Once Upon a Highland Summer (4 page)

He followed her instead, staying in the shadows, because she was beautiful and alone and needed someone’s protection. Her face—what he’d seen of it under the shadow of her hood and bonnet—had been white in the lamplight, her fear as palpable as her determination to see her mission through.

She reminded him of his half sisters, especially since she was about the same age as Megan, the eldest, would be by now. He fervently hoped none of his sisters would ever do anything as stupid as this woman was about to do. In all likelihood, she’d end up unmarried, ruined by her worthless lover, and forced to return to her family once she realized she’d been duped. She would spend the rest of her life hidden away, an embarrassment to her kin. Would this adventure be enough to sustain her for the years of regret to come? Her family would likely do nothing to find the bastard, since that would only add to the scandal. Alec clenched his fists. He’d hunt down any man who dared harm anyone he loved.

But he didn’t love this woman. He didn’t even know her, had barely gotten a good look at her in the dark. So why was he following her? Curiosity, perhaps—or guilt, because he’d never be there to protect his sisters if they needed him, might never see them again at all. He wondered who this woman might be, if she had a brother who’d failed her when she needed him. Maybe she was a servant, he decided. The ruby ring she’d given him was valuable. A maid might take the chance of stealing such a jewel before she fled her employer. He felt a momentary twinge of guilt at his own almost-theft of Lady Bray’s necklace. He frowned, wondering if he was abetting a robbery now. But why would she give her ill-gotten prize to him? The ring was worth far more than he’d given her in coin.

He studied the slender figure ahead of him, walking with determination toward the inn, set on her path. She was brave, he’d give her that. Most of the ladies he knew would melt like sugar at the mere mention of rain, and none of the ladies he knew would ever be found walking the streets of London at night, rain or no. Yet he decided she wasn’t a servant. Her bearing declared her nothing less than a lady born and bred, and her nervousness said that despite her bravado now, she was unused to being out alone. He hugged the shadows and watched her, and kept an eye out for signs of trouble.

She reached the inn safely, and Alec slipped out of the rain and into the stables to wait. He watched the coach pull up, saw her get in. There were two other women and a pair of men on the journey, all of them respectable-looking folk. She’d be safe enough for the moment.

The coach pulled away as dawn lit the sky, turning the wet streets of London pink for a few brief moments. The color of hope, and love.

He turned away, banishing the ridiculously sentimental thought. Instead, he wished the young lass well, whoever she was.

He had his own problems to face. He retraced his steps until he stood in front of the grand façade of Bray’s elegant town house.

But the letter was nowhere to be found.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

T
homas Ellison, Earl of Bray, thundered along the hallway that led to his wife’s apartments. Her maid ran behind him, running to keep up, no doubt terrified by the string of curses he’d let fly when she came to his study to summon him.

He’d been reading a rather interesting letter when she knocked. There had been an unusual break-in the night. A perfume bottle had been broken, but the magnificent Bray necklace had been left untouched on her dressing table. According to the footman who reported the incident to Bray when he rose this morning—since no one would dare to wake the earl unless the house was about to burn down around his bed as he slept—a thin plank of wood was found in the countess’s chamber, the exact width of the drawer in the little table, along with a single letter bearing the Prince of Wales’s seal. It hadn’t taken Ellison long to figure out what had occurred. He had a number of drawers with secret panels himself, though none had been touched. Whatever the thief had wanted had been in his wife’s possession. The footman presented the letter to him on a silver tray, along with a tattered length of blue ribbon. Once he read the letter, addressed to his wife, and written in the kind of intimate language that left no doubt of an affair, Bray realized there must have been other letters, tied with the ribbon, perhaps from different lovers.

He read this letter over again, and yet again, scanning the tender lines written in the prince’s all too familiar hand. How many times had he received notes from Prinny, written on the same gold-embossed stationery, inviting him to come to a rout, or a dinner party, or an evening of gaming?

Bray’s first impression had been awe. Elizabeth had attracted the Prince of Wales? After the second reading, he’d realized he’d been cuckolded. After rereading the letter a dozen times, he was furious at the betrayal of his wife, and the royal prick who professed to be his friend. He wasn’t the only lord the prince had put in this position. Other powerful men had been made fools by the prince in the same way. Those men had never been able to hold their heads up quite as high after their cuckolding. Nor were they able to demand satisfaction from the prince for his sins. They simply had to live with it. Bray was not that kind of man. He would have his revenge, somehow. He’d been plotting it when Elizabeth’s maid arrived.

The girl opened the door of his study nervously, and dipped a deep curtsy and stayed there, not daring to rise. “Her Ladyship has taken too much laudanum, my lord. May I send for the doctor?” she asked.

He stared at the letter in his fist. “No.”

She looked up, her country cornflower blue eyes wide. “But—” Her argument died on her lips as he abruptly got to his feet, let the chair of his desk crash to the floor behind him. How dared she argue with him? It wasn’t as if this was the first time Elizabeth had drugged herself insensible with laudanum. She used the drug with such frequency that Bray had forbidden the servants to send for the doctor when the countess had one of her “spells,” as they called them. The doctor had been coming every week for the past six months, and each time he brought more laudanum with him. It was Bray’s opinion that it was the medicine that was causing his wife’s problem. When the quack diagnosed the countess with a condition he called “frantic dyspepsia,” Bray had thrown the man out of the house with his own two hands.

He pushed past the cowering maid and strode down the hall, and now the maid was running behind him to keep up. Was she afraid he might hurt her mistress? She should be.

He didn’t bother to knock when he got to his wife’s bedroom. He simply threw open the door. He slammed it behind him, right in the maid’s face, probably taking the skin off her nose, if her squeal was any indication. Good. If he found the chit had been gossiping about his wife’s addiction, he’d do worse. He couldn’t abide gossip. And now there was the letter, or letters, perhaps. How many people knew the truth?

He came to a stop beside the bed, his mouth twisting in disgust at the sight of his countess. “Elizabeth.”

She barely seemed aware of his presence, a lolling of her head the only indication that she’d heard him at all.

“Elizabeth!” he bellowed, and her eyelids cracked open to reveal glittering, unfocused eyes. The black pupils drifted upward, exposing the whites as her head dropped back onto the pillow.

He slapped her. She cried out and raised slack arms to shield herself from another blow, but he picked up the laudanum bottle instead and threw it against the wall where it shattered, the brown liquid staining the silk wallpaper with long copper ribbons.

“Please, Ellison, my nerves—” she whimpered.

“There’s nothing wrong with your nerves!” he growled. “Sit up and explain yourself at once, or I’ll pour cold water on you. Your maid wants me to send for a priest since I won’t allow the doctor to come.”

“My letters—did she find them? Oh, where could they have gone?” She threw her wrist over her eyes, her mouth twisting in ugly paroxysms of anguish.

He felt no pity. “Is this what you mean?” he demanded, holding up the crumpled letter. Her face flushed, and he could see that she knew exactly what it was.

“It was a long time ago,” she pleaded, her fingers scrabbling uselessly over the pink satin counterpane. “I only wanted Sophie to have the very best—”

“What did you do?”

She sobbed, turning her face away from his. “I was seduced. I had no choice!”

He felt disgust rise in his gorge. “You’re my wife, Elizabeth, my countess. I married you to get an heir, a
legitimate
heir. You dared to betray me with the Prince of Wales, Fat George, a man I considered my friend? Did the two of you laugh as you cuckolded me, when you lied to my face? A horrible thought struck him. “Is Sophie even my child?”

She didn’t answer his question, but he knew by the way her eyes widened and her face reddened.

“No,” he managed, his throat closing.

She reached for his hand. “I did it for you, to gain his favor!” He pulled away before she could touch him. She sank back on the bed and shut her eyes, her hand falling limp by her side. “You didn’t love me, Ellison, but he made me feel wanted. He wrote me love letters and poems. He
wooed
me. You never wooed me.”

“Wooed you?” He stared at her in bafflement. She was an earl’s daughter, had come with land and a huge dowry. He’d married those facts as much as the woman before him. The land and money brought him comfort that she had never offered.

“I just wanted to be loved, but he was as cold as you, once I’d—” She had the grace to blush. “Once I’d submitted to his desires. It was only once, just one time, I swear. I kept his letters, read them over and over, knew that someday—”

He felt his head start to buzz. “
Letters?
There’s more than one? How many?”

“I don’t remember!” she pleaded.

“You do,” he insisted. “How many letters?”

“Eight!” she sobbed.

“All like this one?” he asked, horrified, imagining the intimate details of his cuckolding spreading like plague, being read aloud in salons all over London, discussed by gentlemen in the clubs and gaming hells.

She forced herself up. “I did it for you, Ellison. He wouldn’t acknowledge her, wouldn’t answer my letters after she was born. But I had these”—she reached for the page in his hand, but he held it away from her. “I wanted to make him pay, wanted to force him to acknowledge her, to marry her to royalty. Surely you can see how advantageous a royal marriage would be for us?”

He stared at her. “You tried to blackmail the Prince of Wales?”

She ran a hand through the tangles of her hair, preening. “I gave him what he wanted. Now he must pay.”

“You’re a fool,” he whispered. “He was my
friend
. How he must have laughed all these years, knowing his cuckoo was in my nest. He danced with Sophie at her come-out ball—oh, what an honor, what a jest!” Bitter acid filled his mouth. He turned away to spit in the chamber pot. When he turned back, Elizabeth was watching him. She had the gall to look proud, even in her drugged state.

“You didn’t think I was beautiful, but he did. He wrote me poems. He swore he couldn’t live without me, would harm himself if I did not submit to him—”

“And he wrote this down?” Bray demanded. “In letters?” Oh, the stupidity! He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefingers. “Does Sophie know?”

“Of course not. I wanted to wait until Prinny arranged a suitably important marriage for her before I told her—”

He laughed bitterly. “I have raised her to the highest consequence, insisted on the best tutors, the finest modistes, the most esteemed company. I had no idea I was raising a princess.”

She raised her chin. “And now you do. Perhaps
you
could convince His Highness to see that Sophie must be married as befits her station in life,” she said.

“Her station in life is the bastard product of a roll in the hay between two of the stupidest people in England!”

Her face fell, her slack jaw dropping to her chest. He had no more to say. His anger had been spent, and the bottom had dropped out of his world in the space of a morning. He turned away from the bed, unable to look at her.

“Your maid will pack your things. You’re leaving at once.”

“Where am I going?” she whined.

“Carswell Park for the time being. I will decide where you’ll go more permanently later.”

“Ellison, please!” she begged, trying to rise from the bed. She was a ruin, a parody of a lady turned whore. He let his gaze move over her, taking in her eyes, red and bleary from drugs and tears, her expensive lace nightdress, rumpled and stained, and the tangled mass of hair falling around her like the locks of a madwoman.

Perhaps he’d send her to a madhouse as part of his revenge.

He crossed to the door, opened it. Her maid jumped back from the keyhole, nearly knocking over the footman crouching behind her. Both servants regarded him with wide-eyed expressions of feigned innocence, but he knew they’d heard everything.

“Pack her things,” he said to the maid. “She’s to be ready to leave for Carswell Park within the hour. You will accompany her, and so will you.” He included the footman. Let them rot with their secret on the Welsh border for a while. There’d be no one to gossip with on the wild edge of civilization. “You are to speak to no one before you go, is that clear? I will know if you say even one word of what has occurred here,” he said menacingly.

They both nodded, fear in their eyes now, wordlessly obedient, suitably terrified.

He stalked down the hall, passing Sophie’s apartments. He could hear the dissonant clatter of a pianoforte being badly played. She was having her lesson. He paused outside the door. He usually liked to go in and listen, play the indulgent father. His fist clenched. Not today. He wasn’t sure he could ever look at her again. For a moment he considered sending her away with her mother. But questions would be asked. Sophie was the Season’s most popular debutante. People would want to know why she’d left Town so suddenly. What if the prince asked him about her? Would he have the gall? And the stories the
ton
would make up for themselves would be every bit as ruinous as the truth.