Once Upon a Scandal (6 page)

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Authors: Barbara Dawson Smith

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: Once Upon a Scandal
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Emma allowed herself a sigh of relief. Now to complete her errand.
Praying her luck would hold, she nipped a candle from a wall sconce and then crept down the servants’ staircase to the ground floor. A door loomed at the bottom, and she cautiously peered out. The grand passageway was deserted, lit by a single oil lamp that flickered outside the conservatory.
As she tiptoed toward the library, the scents of damp loam and flowering plants drifted to her. She recalled hiding there two days ago while Stafford gave her message to Lucas. Her throat tightened. She might as well never have bothered to finagle a meeting with him. Her husband was convinced of her mercenary nature. The bitter irony was, she truly meant the divorce to be an atonement for her sins as much as a chance for Jenny to have a real father.
Well, with any luck, she need never see Lucas again. Their sham marriage would be over quickly once she enlisted the aid of the dowager.
Emma had no time to fathom the melancholy inside herself. Taking another swift look up and down the corridor, she stole into the library.
The house was dark and quiet when Lucas let himself in the front door. He stopped in the dining room and poured himself a drink. The French brandy was as smooth as silk and as warm as a willing woman. The perfect tonic for his troubled thoughts.
Crystal decanter in one hand and a glass in the other, he stood in the silent, shadowed room, aware of how alone he was. His mother would be asleep upstairs. As would Livvie and her husband and their children. Tomorrow, with the arrival of his other married sister and her family, no doubt he
would long for such a moment of peace. He would not feel so lonely then, so starved for companionship. And so reluctant to go to his empty bed.
He strode out into the passageway and paused there, hesitating. For some strange reason, the tiger mask lured him.
You must answer the call of the tiger god
. Nonsense. It had no magical powers. Yet he felt the fanciful urge to see it, to hold it and know it was nothing more than gold and gemstones, a masterpiece crafted by human hands.
He proceeded through the darkened house, his way lit by an occasional oil lamp burning low, casting long shadows over the walls. How odd to feel so at home here, as if he’d never left. He took quiet pride in knowing he was master of this grand house. It had been built by his great-grandfather in the time of the first King George, and passed on through each generation to Lucas. By all rights, his own son ought to play and laugh in these halls.
But the line of descent would be broken. Unless he sired an heir.
Rancor consumed him. He took a long, burning gulp from the glass in his hand. To hell with Emma. He’d wasted enough time brooding about his amoral wife.
Turning his mind to the mask, he walked toward the open door of the library.
Emma was glad for the meager light of her candle. The library was dark and spooky. The scent of leather-bound books perfumed the chilly air. Resisting the temptation to poke around her husband’s retreat, she wended her way past the chairs and chaises, around the wooden crates that littered the center of the room. At the mahogany desk, she opened the drawer and plucked out the key.
An inexplicable exasperation flared in her. How careless of Lucas. Even her grandfather had managed to locate the key.
She set down the candle, removed the books from the appropriate shelf, and unlocked the safe. Within the dark mouth of the repository, jewels glinted like a pirate’s treasure
trove. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have been eager to calculate the worth of the gemstones.
Yet the notion of coveting her husband’s wealth sickened her. Briefly she closed her eyes beneath the ebony domino. She had stolen something from him more precious than jewels. She had robbed Lucas of the chance to have a family and a loving wife.
But now was no time to torture herself.
Untying the black scarf she’d used as a pouch, she drew out the tiger mask. The piece weighed heavy in her hands, and she gazed down at it a moment, wondering what Lucas meant to do with the mask. Perhaps wear it to a costume ball? That struck her as out of character for a man so reserved, yet he had changed considerably during his journeys abroad.
He exuded an aura of mastery now. He spoke with sharp precision. He kept a mistress.
Heat prickled over Emma’s skin. The yellow diamonds picked up the candlelight, and the emerald eyes seemed to watch her. She stared back. The tiger mask glowed with a strange, almost erotic energy. It was like an enchantment cast by a sorcerer, a seductive charm that repulsed her even as she felt the pull of fascination … .
“What the deuce—?”
A harsh male voice broke the spell. She spun around to see a dark form silhouetted in the faint light of the doorway. The man loomed big and powerful and threatening, a tiger about to pounce.
Her fingers clenched around the mask. Dear God.
Dear God, save her.
It was her husband.
An intruder clad entirely in black stood before the opened safe. The light of a single candle illuminated his small, wiry form and the black domino that concealed his features. He was holding the tiger mask.
Rage exploded in Lucas. His fingers tightened around the
decanter and glass. Without further thought, he surged into the long, shadowy room.
The robber let out a muffled gasp. Then he dashed around the large desk and skirted the pile of crates. Lucas expected him to run for a window. Instead, he pounded straight for the door.
Dropping his drink, Lucas lunged at the fugitive. Brandy splashed his trouser leg as he leaped over the chaise. Chairs went crashing to the floor. He reached out to seize the man. The robber hurled something through the darkness. The heavy object hit Lucas in the abdomen, knocking the breath out of him.
The tiger mask. It landed with a
thunk
on the carpet and skated under a chair.
Lucas reeled backward and gulped in brandy-scented air. He recovered himself in time to see the burglar dart into the passageway.
“Come back, you thieving bastard!”
He rushed in pursuit. The black figure raced toward a door in the paneling and disappeared into the servants’ staircase.
Lucas entered the narrow shaft. Darkness hung thick in the air, but above him he could hear the patter of the man’s fast footfalls. Where the hell was he going?
Fear gripped Lucas. His family slept on the second floor.
He took the steps three at a time, grimly hoping his long legs gave him the advantage. By the time he reached the second floor, he had closed the distance to a bare yard. He snatched at the villain and caught a handful of his cloak.
The robber loosed a guttural cry. Wrenching open a door, he plunged headlong down the corridor.
Lucas flung the empty cloak aside. “Stop, thief!” he bellowed.
He hoped to rouse the servants who slumbered in the attic directly above the family bedchambers. How dare this footpad invade his domain and attempt to plunder his property. The tiger mask was priceless, the keystone in his dream of opening a new wing in the museum.
As Lucas sped down the dim-lit corridor, the robber skidded
around a corner and crashed into a table and vase. Porcelain cracked; water and flowers went flying. With a final surge of speed, Lucas brought down his quarry against the mahogany railing of the grand staircase.
Panting, his captive wriggled and squirmed like a madman. Gloved hands battered Lucas’s face and chest. On a burst of angry triumph, Lucas wrestled him to the carpet. The man was skinny, almost dainty. Looking for a hidden weapon, Lucas slid his hand over legs and arms slender enough to belong to a child.
Bedroom doors opened, and the buzzing of voices rose in the corridor. Her nightrobe rustling, his mother hastened to his side. “For the love of God, whatever has happened?” She caught sight of his black-clad captive and gasped. “Dear heavens! It’s the Bond Street Burglar!”
She staggered back into the arms of her elder daughter, Olivia, who watched with rounded blue-green eyes, her rusty-red braid draped over her shoulder. “That ruffian broke into the house?” Olivia said in a rage, her hand resting on her pregnant belly. “We might have been murdered in our beds!”
“Don’t be dramatic, Livvie,” Lucas said. “He doesn’t even have a weapon. Now give me the belt from your dressing gown.”
“But why—? Oh.”
She untied the gold silk cord and handed it to him. He rolled the struggling thief over, yanked his arms behind his back, and secured the wrists together. The restraint seemed to sap the strength from the man, and he went stiff and still, except for the rapid rising and falling of his chest.
“Thank goodness you came home,” the dowager said, half swooning against Lucas’s sister. “We might have been robbed of all of our jewels.”
“He went after the tiger mask down in the library. I chased him up here.” Lucas glanced up at her wan face. With the wisps of gray hair peeking out from her nightcap, she looked old and weary and utterly shaken. “Go on back to bed,” he
said gently. “I’ll send Stafford for the Watch and have this riffraff carted off to jail.”
“Can you manage him?” Olivia asked. “Hugh’s asleep—he could sleep through a tempest—but if I shake him hard, I’m sure I can rouse him—”
“Let your husband rest. Now, Mother’s on the verge of collapse. Escort her back to her chamber. And stay with her.”
Olivia raised a doubtful eyebrow, as if he were still the gangly, ineffectual adolescent and she the all-knowing big sister. Then she nodded primly and guided the dowager away.
Lucas returned his attention to his prisoner, who lay as rigid as a mannequin. Easing himself off the scoundrel, he discerned a light, pleasing scent that stirred a faint recognition in him. For the first time he noticed that the lips beneath the black demimask were soft and pouty. There was an almost feminine roundness to the robber’s form, a curvaceousness …
A snake of heat bit Lucas’s groin. He felt the unexpected urge to press himself into the cradle of those shapely hips.
The instinctive response of his body appalled him, but his self-disgust lasted for only an instant. Seized by suspicion, he moved his hand to the robber’s black shirt. And found himself caressing the fullness of a womanly breast.
Before he could react to his amazing discovery, his captive gave a violent shudder. In a blur of motion, she lunged up off the carpet. Her teeth clamped down hard on his forearm.
Lucas jerked backward, more from surprise than from pain, for his coat sleeve protected him. “Damn you!”
Already she was rolling away, struggling to stand up, though hindered by her tied hands. Before she could scramble to her feet, he slammed his body over hers and pinned her to the floor again.
“Not so fast,” he growled. “So the Bond Street Burglar is a woman. I’ll have a look at you.” He yanked off her domino, taking her close-fitting, black cap along with it.
Silvery-blond hair spilled like moonbeams across the dark
carpet. Impossibly blue eyes stared up at him. Astonished, he found himself gazing into a face so pale, so lovely, that the breath left his lungs.
No wonder her body seemed so sinfully familiar—it had been the subject of his adolescent dreams. And he felt like that boy again, thick-witted and struck mute, able to voice only one hoarse word.
“Emma.”
H
is stone-cold expression froze Emma. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak. She could only stare up at her husband as the moment of recognition stretched into an eternity.
Lucas exuded a raw animal power that terrified her. He smelled of brandy and male anger. As he straddled her on the floor, she could feel every muscle in his brawny body. Struggling was useless against his superior strength. With her hands secured behind her back, she was caught as neatly as a rabbit in a trap.
No longer the amenable boy, Lucas had become a stranger, a savage man with impenetrable dark eyes. She was defenseless to stop him from punishing her. As defenseless as she had been against another man, another time … .
Panic rushed through her like a great wind, snatching away her breath, plunging her into mindless terror. She couldn’t bear the suffocating weight of his body. Not for another instant.
She thrashed beneath him, kicking, bucking. “Let me up.
Let me up!”
“For Christ’s sake, you’ll awaken the house again.”
He clapped his hand over her mouth and lifted himself from her. Yanking Emma to her feet, he marched her down the shadowy passageway. She was forced to half run to keep pace with his long strides. The pressure of his palm muffled her cries of protest.
At the end of the corridor, he opened a door and shoved her inside. She lurched forward, gulping in air, and found herself in a large, dim-lit bedroom. A banked fire glowed on the marble hearth, and a four-poster bed with bronze velvet hangings dominated the room.
This must be her husband’s bedchamber.
Spurred by terror, she whirled to face him. She swallowed convulsively before she could speak. “Just what do you intend to do to me?”
Lucas closed the door with an ominous click. He sent her a black look, barely visible in the shadows. “Exactly what you deserve.”
Striding across the room, he crouched down to light a candle at the hearth.
Emma slowly backed up against a tall desk, moving as far from the bed as possible. She glanced frantically at the sterling letter opener, the sharp pens. With her hands bound, she had only her wits to use as a weapon.
“Where is your valet?” she asked.
Lucas walked toward her, and the flickering flame of the candle cast harsh shadows over his face. “Gone for the evening. We’re quite alone.”
“I—I feel rather faint. If you would be so kind as to ring for a maid—”
“No. But I’ll be so kind as to offer you a seat.” He hauled out the desk chair and shoved it against her calves. She plopped down, her bottom smacking the leather cushion with stinging abruptness.
He set the candlestick on a wooden chest at the foot of the bed. His mouth pressed into a grim line, he towered over her like Lucifer come to fetch her to Hell. “Explain yourself.”
She moistened her dry lips. A simple request. An impossible dilemma. How could she reveal that her grandfather had stolen the mask? That she was merely returning it? Lucas would laugh in her face.
And if, on the off chance he
did
believe her, Clive Youngblood would arrest Lord Briggs as the Bond Street Burglar.
Feeling cornered, Emma assumed the pose of a helpless female. Men always fell for damsels in distress. Tilting her head back, she worked her expression into one of pleading repentance. “I’ll be happy to tell you everything, Lucas. But won’t you please untie my hands first?”
“No.”
“Why not? Are you afraid of me?”
He arched a contemptuous eyebrow. “You break into my house in the middle of the night, attempt to steal my valuables, and then you expect mercy. Try again, darling wife.”
No compassion softened his stern features. From his obsidian eyes down to his polished black boots, he was all cruel, unforgiving male. It took little effort to make her lower lip tremble. “I know how displeased you must be—”
“Displeased is not the word.”
“Angry, then. Furious.” She let her lashes flutter downward. “But I can assure you, my being here isn’t so terrible as it would seem. You must understand, I am desperately in need of money—”
“Are you this Bond Street Burglar?” he cut in.
Her gaze flew to his. “Me?”
“Yes, you.”
A sinking dread weighed on her confidence. “You cannot be serious,” she said, feigning an airy laugh. “A lady making a habit of clambering on rooftops and picking locks? Why, it’s beyond belief.”
“On the contrary. You’ll do anything to get what you want.”
“I—” The denial stuck in her throat. She fancied his sharp eyes piercing her defenses, reading her darkest secrets, seeing the scar left by her brush with death.
He took a menacing step closer. She found herself recoiling, her spine bumping the back of the chair.
“The truth, Emma,” he said. “
If
you know the meaning of the word.”
His low opinion hurt more than she cared to admit, and she lashed back at him. “All right, then. Perhaps I
am
the Burglar.”
His eyebrows rose a fraction. For a moment, there was only the muffled sound of a clock somewhere, ticking away the minutes of her doom. She had not meant to give him another weapon to use against her, yet he drove her to indiscretion.
Coming up behind her, Lucas lifted the unbound hair from her shoulder and let the silky blond strands sift through his fingers. “First a whore and now a thief. How do you manage to appear so angelic, Lady Wortham?”
Emma flinched. The brush of his warm hand against her neck jolted her as much as his condemnation. She struggled to keep from showing her fear. “I am not the villainess you think I am.”
“No doubt you’re worse.” He braced his hands on the back of the chair and put his face close to hers. “Tell me, what other crimes have you committed? Forgery? Swindling? Murder, perhaps?”
“Confound you, I’m innocent.”
Releasing a brusque laugh, he walked in front of her, his fists clenched at his sides. “Innocent? A strange description for you, dear wife.”
Emma opened her mouth, then closed it. She must guard her temper. She would not gain her release by antagonizing him.
Swallowing the bitterness of pride, she dipped her chin in a pose of contrition. “I had no choice but to resort to stealing. Without an allowance from you, I was forced into thievery in order to feed my family.”
“And what of Lord Briggs? Is the old goat still alive? Surely he can provide for you.”
“Grandpapa is deeply in debt. I will not sit by and watch my daughter starve.”
At the mention of Jenny, Lucas’s countenance darkened. His hand slashed downward, causing Emma to jump. “Spare me your pretty tale of woe. I’ve heard enough of your excuses to last a lifetime.”
“I’m not making excuses.” She lowered her voice to a
sultry murmur. “Please let me go. You have the mask back. There’s no harm done.”
“No harm. I suppose you’d have me believe you crept into my house in the middle of the night merely to admire the tiger mask.”
Frustrated by her inability to soften him, she threw back her head and glowered at him. “Have it your way, then. I wanted more jewels, more riches to satisfy my greed. So I decided to take what I’m entitled to.”
“Then perhaps I should take what I’m entitled to, as well.”
He loomed over her. His hand stroked downward over her black shirt and cupped her breast. The heat of him invaded her, crawling like spiders across her skin, descending deep inside her belly. The alien sensation made her flushed and dizzy. She was conscious of the shadow of whiskers on the lean line of his jaw, the blatant hostility on his face. He was her husband. He claimed the right to touch her. In the eyes of the law, he owned her.
Teetering on the verge of panic, she kicked him hard in the shins and stubbed her toes in the process. “Beast! You’ll take nothing from me.”
“Only because I want nothing.” He stepped back, and his abrasive gaze scoured her mannish attire. “I can find a more honorable woman on any street corner in Whitechapel.”
His fingers closed on her arm again, biting like a manacle as he jerked her off the chair. He pushed her ahead of him and thrust her into the shadows of the dressing room. Emma stumbled forward, bumping the hard edge of a clothes press. With her hands tied, she was unable to catch herself, and she fell to her knees.
The hulking black form of her husband filled the doorway. “I’ll be back,” he said. “With the authorities.”
The door slammed shut and the key grated in the lock. The heavy tread of his footsteps faded away.
Emma crouched in the gloom, her head and shoulders bowed as the coldness of reality set in. An uncontrollable shuddering seized her. Dear God. She would be clapped in
irons and thrown into a dank cell, there to molder until she was hauled before a judge. Based on her husband’s testimony, she would be convicted and transported. Or worse, she might swing from the gibbet at Tyburn.
Lucas despised her that much.
I can find a more honorable woman on any street corner in Whitechapel.
She should be thankful he did not want her, that he had not forced himself on her. The wildness in him frightened her. He was too big, too powerful, too overwhelmingly male. Even now, the scent of him pervaded the dressing room: musky, faintly feral. She could feel a searing sensation where he had touched her breast. As if he had put his brand on her, the mark of the damned.
In defiance of logic, a lump of regret settled in her stomach. She had wrought the change in Lucas. She had turned him from a sensitive youth who’d adored her into a callous, uncaring brute who saw the worst in her. He believed her to be a wicked, amoral creature, beneath his contempt.
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps, deep down, she was no seeker of justice. She was a petty thief who made excuses for her reprehensible behavior.
Emma did not know how many hours she slumped there, riddled by self-doubt and robbed of strength. Although her eyes felt hot, she could not weep. She never wept. Maturity had made her realize the uselessness of tears. Rather than waste her energy, she always strove to make the best of circumstances.
Now was no different.
By degrees, Emma straightened her spine. All was not lost. If she escaped, she and Jenny could flee the country. She would find a post as a seamstress or a maid. She would do any honest labor if it enabled her and her daughter to stay together.
But first, she must get her hands untied. And quickly. She had squandered enough time already.
Struggling to her feet, Emma made her way through the darkened dressing room. She nearly tripped over a stool. Her
legs prickled from kneeling so long, and her arms felt numb. Finally she found what she sought—a washstand in the shadowy corner. On a silver tray lay her husband’s shaving implements—soap, brush, cup. And a long razor that glowed in the soft gray light from a small, high window.
It must be near dawn, she realized on a surge of alarm.
Turning around, she managed to pick up the blade in her fingertips. The task was difficult with her hands tied behind her back. The metal felt cold and slick to her clammy skin. Kneeling again, she gingerly maneuvered the razor until she could wedge it between her heels. Then she murmured a prayer and worked her wrists downward onto the sharp edge, sawing carefully through the silk cord.
The binding broke abruptly. Too abruptly. Before she could pull back, the razor sliced into the heel of her left hand.
Warm blood dripped down her wrist. The pain intensified as feeling returned to her deadened arms. She groped inside the washstand, found a white linen towel, and wrapped the wound, using her teeth to pull one end of the knot. Despite the throbbing discomfort, she was free. Free!
Almost.
Hugging her injured hand to her breast, she rummaged around in a drawer and came up with a gold stickpin. Emma smiled, her dismal mood lifting. As the rosy light of dawn tinted the room, she crouched by the door and went to work on the lock.
Lucas awakened to a throbbing in his temples. Stiff and cold, he lifted his head from the desk and found himself sitting in the library at Wortham House. The pearly light of early morning shone through the tall leaded windows, and the air reeked of brandy. An overturned glass had puddled its contents over the polished mahogany surface.
For a moment he could not remember why he had fallen asleep at his desk or, for that matter, why he was back in England. His thoughts flowed as thick as treacle. He’d been dreaming about a frenzied chase through a crowded bazaar. He could still feel his frustration at being mired in a mob of
people, his fury at seeing the tiger leap to freedom over the colorful awnings.
The tiger mask.
The burglar.
Emma.
Stabbed by memory, Lucas sat up straight in his chair. Christ. Last night, he had surprised his wife in the act of thievery. He had left her tied up in his dressing room while he’d come down here to secure the mask in a safe place. Then, instead of sending a footman to fetch the magistrate, he had proceeded to get stone drunk.

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