One Night of Scandal (34 page)

‘I was never married to Neil Stratton,’ she said, in a rush. ‘I did not know that he was already married when I eloped with him. He never told me. It was only after he died that I discovered he already had a wife and child.’ Her voice faltered. ‘By then, of course, Neil had seduced me and I was already ruined.’ She shook. She could not help herself. ‘We contrived a pretence, Ross and Olivia and I. I was to live here quietly in Midwinter and pretend to be the respectable
widow that I was not.’ Her voice rose a little. ‘No one knew. Ross has paid to support Neil’s real wife and child ever since—poor girl, she never meant to cause trouble, but her very existence spelt my ruin. I am sorry. I was so very stupid. I should not have trusted Neil—God help me, I thought it was exciting to be courted in secret and to run away to Gretna! I was so foolish and so impetuous and rash—’ She broke off as Richard’s lips brushed her cheek very softly.

‘Deb,’ he said.

‘I am sorry,’ Deb said again, wretchedly. ‘I have been so afraid all the time and I tried so hard not to do foolish things, but sometimes I cannot seem to suppress them.’

‘Did you think that spending the night with me was a foolish thing and to be regretted?’ Richard asked.

Deb shook her head and unconsciously strained a little closer to the comfort of his body. ‘No. It was a wonderful thing! But I never meant to fall in love with you, Richard, and I certainly never intended to marry, for I was so afraid of trusting again and being hurt and losing my self-respect. And I was afraid that when you knew you would have no good opinion of me—’

‘Deb,’ Richard said again. His voice was hard with suppressed anger and Deb shuddered to hear it, though she could not be sure whether it was turned against her or against Neil Stratton. And when Richard spoke again he had moderated his tone, though she could still hear the violence underneath.

‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that I give a damn about whether or not you were truly married to Neil Stratton? If you love me and wish to be married to me, then that is all that matters.’

Deb was trembling fiercely now. ‘But I am a fallen woman, Richard! Even now, if the truth came out, I would
be utterly ruined! That was one of the reasons I struggled so hard against my attraction to you, and why Ross and Olivia were shocked that I could make the same mistake twice, only this time knowing what I did, with my eyes open…’

‘Why did you do it?’ Richard asked.

Deb hesitated. ‘I thought it was because I was attracted to you too strongly to resist, but the truth was that I was falling in love with you, and I
wanted
to love you and desperately wanted you to love me too.’

‘That is more than enough for me,’ Richard said, and Deb could hear the smile in his voice now and her heart started to ease, though she still hesitated.

‘I do not understand why what happened before does not matter to you, Richard.’

‘It matters to me that someone hurt you so badly,’ Richard said. His voice softened. ‘The rest is not important. How could it be, when you chose of your own free will to give yourself to me? Deb, it is
you
I love, not Mrs Deborah Stratton, widow, or Miss Deborah Walton, spinster, or however you or society wishes to describe you. It is what you are—warm and impulsive and vibrant and so alive—that is important to me, and if you love and trust me too, then that is all that matters.’

Deb smiled shakily. ‘It is true that I was not sure if I could trust a rake,’ she said shyly, ‘but I know that you are not like Neil. You are an honourable man.’

Richard angled his head and kissed her hard, pressing her head back against the wooden bars. She gave a little gasp of protest and he straightened.

‘You
can
trust me.’ His voice was not so steady now. ‘I swear it. I love you. I would never hurt you. God knows, Deborah, it must surely be apparent to you that I would walk
across burning coals for you if I had to. I would probably
eat
burning coals if you asked me.’

Deb tilted her head up towards him. ‘Richard…’

‘Yes?’ The word was like a caress on her skin. Deb wriggled.

‘The burning coals will not be necessary. But we have been away from the dining room for a considerable time. People will have noticed.’

‘They will indeed.’

‘Taken with the rumours about last night, I fear that your freedom is lost. You will have to marry me.’

There was a pause.

‘Are you proposing to me, Mrs Stratton?’ Richard said, after a moment. Once again Deb could hear the amusement in his voice and she felt warm.

‘I believe that I must. In a moment they will find us, you see…’ Even as she spoke, Deb heard the scrape of a door and the sound of voices at the other end of the ballroom.

‘They will whip off this damnable sheet and find you and me tied up together beneath it in a wholly scandalous and utterly compromising fashion. There will be no alternative other than a quick marriage to silence the gossips.’

She felt Richard bend his neck so that his lips could brush her hair. ‘How quick?’

‘Oh, as quickly as we can make it? By special licence? So that we can return to the hunting lodge for our honeymoon?’

She felt the easel shake as he laughed. The voices and footsteps were coming closer. The ballroom was filling up with Lady Sally’s visitors.

‘The hunting lodge…’ Richard said. ‘I am so glad that you enjoyed it.’

Deb could feel herself blushing. Suddenly the warmth of the sheet was stifling, the press of Richard’s body stirring
all the feelings they had explored with intimate delight the previous night. ‘I did,’ she said. ‘I am sorry—I never thanked you.’

‘It was my pleasure,’ Richard said. ‘Truly.’

His mouth captured hers, warm and tantalising, making Deb’s mind reel. Briefly she freed herself.

‘Richard! Any moment now they will see us—’

‘Let them.’

He kissed her again and Deb succumbed to the pure pleasure of his touch. She burned at every point their bodies were in contact. The easel strained as they pulled on their bonds, prompted by an instinctive desire to hold one another. Deb gasped in frustration as she could not break free and gasped again as Richard angled his head to kiss her more deeply, pressing his hard body against every yielding line of hers. His tongue curled lazily against hers and an infinitely sweet sensation flooded Deb’s veins and made her melt with longing. She clenched her fingers about the wooden upright of the easel.

‘I love you,’ Richard murmured, as his lips left hers to trace the line of her throat and move down to tease the soft skin above the collar of her gown. ‘Always.’

‘This is the moment that we have all been waiting for! Light the candles, please.’ Lady Sally’s voice spoke suddenly from nearby, making Deb jump. She tried to pull away from Richard, but he was having none of it and she would not have been able to put much distance between them even had he co-operated with her. Instead he nibbled gently at the sensitive skin below Deb’s ear, sending goose bumps along her skin. She could have sworn that he was smiling. It
felt
as though he was smiling.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Lady Sally continued, ‘may I present my watercolour calendar, which I am sure will be the greatest of sensations—’

‘Richard,’ Deb whispered desperately, ‘we mustn’t—’

Richard’s only response was to kiss her with prolonged and deliberate intensity until she forgot everything else and was grateful for the support of the wooden easel, without which she would surely have tumbled to the floor.

There was a flare of light as someone whipped the sheet from about them. Deb made an incoherent sound against Richard’s mouth but he did not relent, continuing to kiss her with a purposeful pleasure that drew a roar of shock and scandalised comment from their audience. Eventually he let her go, and Deb blinked in the light. The ballroom was packed with people and illuminated with a hundred candles. In the long mirrors at the end of the ballroom, Deb could see their reflection. They looked utterly indecent, she tied with her hands behind her back and Richard with his arms about her in the closest and most private of embraces. Deb rested her head against Richard’s shoulder in appalled resignation.

For once, Lady Sally Saltire looked shocked and was entirely silenced. For once, Justin Kestrel also lost his customary aplomb.

‘Good God, Richard—’ he began.

‘Thank goodness you are here, Justin,’ Richard said coolly to his brother. ‘Untie these bonds so that I can kiss my fiancée properly, there’s a good fellow.’

With superb aplomb, Justin Kestrel loosened the ropes that bound his brother to the easel and shook him formally by the hand once he was freed.

‘Congratulations on causing a sensation, Richard,’ he said.

Richard grinned. ‘Thank you, Justin.’

Lady Sally hastened to help Deb and the biting ropes fell away, leaving her rubbing her wrists. Before she had time to feel any of the mortification that the situation surely de
manded, Richard had scooped her up in his arms and kissed her with pent-up passion and a dizzying love that made her head swim. Lady Sally’s guests started to applaud.

‘I imagine that you will wish to continue your celebrations in private,’ Lady Sally said, looking as though she was trying not to laugh. ‘I will send for your carriage.’

‘And I will send for the Bishop of Ipswich,’ Justin said, ‘with a special licence!’

Richard kept his arm protectively about Deb as he ushered her through the crowd and eventually they found themselves out on the steps of Saltires with the carriage waiting.

‘What a shocking night,’ Deb said, sighing, as she collapsed on the seat. ‘Should you not go back and tell your brother what has happened?’

‘I told Justin that I would talk to him later,’ Richard said, drawing her close into his arms. ‘I am all for neglecting business in favour of pleasure tonight.’

Deb sighed, snuggling close. ‘Do you think that we might manage one more night of scandal before the bishop arrives with the special licence and I am at last respectably married?’ she asked, a little wistfully.

Richard smiled as he drew her closer still. ‘I think we might,’ he said, ‘and though I cannot wait for us to marry, Deb, I assure you that we shall never, ever be respectable.’

Epilogue

‘W
hat an extraordinary business that led up to your brother’s marriage,’ Lady Sally Saltire said, a fortnight later as she shared a late-night glass of brandy with Justin Kestrel in her study at Saltires. ‘Although I had predicted that Richard and Deborah would marry, I had not imagined that it would come about in such a sensational manner. The whole of Woodbridge is still agog!’ She cast him a thoughtful glance. ‘Who could have played such a trick on them?’

‘I am sure that I have no notion,’ Justin Kestrel said, his dark gaze betraying nothing but blandness.

Lady Sally knew him too well to be deceived. ‘Nonsense, my dear Justin. There is something havey-cavey going on in Midwinter and you know it!’

‘Mayhap so.’ Justin’s tone was as unrevealing as his expression and Lady Sally sighed.

‘I can see that you mean to tell me nothing.’ She fidgeted a little with her glass. ‘Just so long as you do not suspect
me
, Justin.’

There was a flash of feeling in Justin Kestrel’s eyes that looked oddly like pain and Lady Sally found her heart beating a little faster. It was surely a very long time since she and Justin Kestrel had had the power to hurt each other and
yet it seemed that she still had feelings for him. No, she knew that she did. Feelings too complicated to give a name, too late to act upon…

‘Tell me something, Sally.’ Justin spoke slowly.

There was a tension in the room. It caught at Lady Sally’s nerves, making her tremble. She wanted to tell Justin not to ask her anything too difficult, yet she was obliged to admit that she owed him any explanation that he cared to request.

‘Why did you choose Stephen Saltire over me?’ Justin asked.

There it was, the one thing that she had dreaded. She looked up from the amber swirl of brandy in her glass to meet his steady regard.

‘He asked nothing of me,’ she said, as lightly as she could. ‘I was young and not very brave, and you…’ she swallowed the lump in her throat ‘…you were too much of a risk, my dear. I sensed an intensity in you I was uncertain I could match. Whereas Stephen—’ she smiled with affectionate memory ‘—Stephen was easy, straightforward, accepting. He made life easy for me too.’

The silence lingered until Lady Sally broke it by fiddling restlessly with the seam of her gown.

‘So Richard and Deborah are wed within three months and I win my wager,’ she said brightly. ‘You had not forgot that we made a bet at Lord and Lady Newlyn’s wedding, Justin?’

‘No, indeed,’ Justin said. ‘What do you demand in payment?’

Lady Sally put her head on one side thoughtfully. ‘Oh, merely that you attend the ball to celebrate the launch of my watercolour calendar, I think,’ she said. ‘Having lost one of my greatest attractions in the person of your brother, I need the cachet a duke will bring to gain the attention of the
ton
!’

‘Nonsense,’ Justin said. He smiled. ‘I shall be there, nevertheless. That was a very easy stake to agree, my dear. You could have asked a deal more of me.’

‘I dare say,’ Lady Sally said. ‘I did not wish to tempt fate, however.’

Once again a ripple of tension seemed to spread through the room. Lady Sally found herself unable to meet the Duke’s eyes and this time it was Justin who changed the subject.

‘I seem to remember that your prediction was that Lucas would be next to fall in love,’ he remarked. ‘Do you stand by that, Sally?’

Lady Sally bent her sparkling smile on him. ‘Of course! I assure you that I am never wrong on matters of matrimony!’

‘Another wager, then?’ Justin suggested, with the shadow of a smile.

For once Lady Sally seemed reluctant. ‘I am not certain—’

‘Then you do not really have faith in your own prophecy?’

‘It is not that.’ Lady Sally flashed him a look. ‘Lucas is less predictable, for he has not yet met the lady of his heart. Nevertheless, I believe that when he does—and it will be soon—the matter will be arranged in the shortest time.’