Ripe for Scandal (36 page)

Beau, a slightly frazzled expression on her face, was standing across the room, her back to the long windows. Her gown was
black, the sheen dull even in sunlight. Her face was pale, trapped between the dark fabric and her equally dark hair.

“Oh, thank God,” she said as she saw him.

Gareth smiled at her over his mother’s lacy cap. He’d missed her, though it had been only a few short days since he’d left
her in London. He’d got rather used to having a termagant underfoot.

“And you.” His mother pulled herself out of his arms and rounded on Beau. “None of this would have happened without you. I
hate you. I hate you all, and I wish you’d leave me in peace.”

“Gladly,” Lady Olivia said. “I’ve been asking for the same courtesy for weeks now. And now that the decision has come down,
I’m finally free to leave this horrible place.”

“You’d be dancing on his grave if you could,” the countess said as Lady Olivia stormed out.

“I just might,” she shouted before slamming the door behind her hard enough to rattle the hinges.

Gareth surveyed the scene. Shattered figurines littered the floor. There were dents in the plaster walls, and a chair had
been overturned. He glanced at Beau, and she rushed across the room, took him by the hand, and pulled him out behind her,
completely ignoring his mother’s protesting wail.

“You have no idea what we’ve been putting up with here,” she said as she led him unerringly to the Tapestry Room and closed
the door behind them. She leaned back against it, bracing herself as though she expected an assault.

“My apologies, brat. I should have thought before sending you here alone. I see you found my family on their very best behavior.”

“It’s bedlam. Your father is inconsolable. Your mother alternates between blaming me and berating Lady Olivia for not playing
the dutiful widow. And one can hardly blame poor Livy. She’s in the most unenviable position, neither fish nor fowl in this
whole unfortunate mess, and now that the Commissaries has declared your brother’s first marriage valid, well, her situation
has gone from bad to worse.”

“Why is she still here?”

“I asked the same thing when I arrived. It seems her father and your father agreed that it was best for her to remain, to
stake her position as Souttar’s legitimate wife—widow now. They want to fight on. To challenge the ruling here in England.
The earl’s solicitor found some sort of precedent they’re hanging their hopes on.”

“I take it Lady Olivia doesn’t agree.”

Beau shook her head and moved away from the door.
“Poor Livy. Scandal and humiliation are not her usual fare.”

“Unlike you.”

“Unlike me. I’d brazen my way through it. Livy can’t.”

“She seemed to be doing pretty well standing up to Mother just now,” Gareth said, taking a seat and pulling Beau down with
him. She settled into his lap and dropped her head to his shoulder.

“Livy’s taking a stand now that Souttar’s dead.” She pushed herself up and turned her head so that she was looking him dead
in the eye. “You never told me what a bully your mother is.”

“I never knew she was,” Gareth replied. And he hadn’t. He’d never seen his mother behave as she had today, and he hadn’t been
around much during Souttar’s brief marriage to Lady Olivia. He had no idea if the two of them had been fighting like cats
and dogs since day one, or if this was something brought on by grief and disappointment.

“Well she is, and I’m telling you right now that I won’t put up with it as Livy has.”

“Good thing we don’t have to live here with her then,” Gareth said.

“She seems to expect that Jamie will though,” Beau said, worry marring her brow. “She vacillates between railing about ‘
that Scottish woman’s bastard’
and crying to be united with ‘
all that’s left of her beloved son
.’ ”

Gareth let his breath out in a long sigh. He’d been worried about this for days. “My mother’s right to want him at Ashburn,”
he said.

“No.” Beau shook her head, dark curls tumbling across her eyes, her tone accepting no disagreement.

“I can fight my parents, but I won’t win. I suggest we encourage ‘
the Scottish woman’s bastard
’ line of thinking then. If mother refuses to accept him, it will be easier to justify leaving him with us, at least until
he’s old enough to go to school.”

“It could take that long before this is all concluded if your father fights to have the marriage declared invalid under English
law.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Gareth smoothed his thumb over the soft skin on the inside of her forearm, stopping when he reached the
pulse point in her wrist. Her pulse leapt.

“Then as Souttar’s widow, she’ll be entitled to a dower, and your father can send her on her way with a pittance and a curse,
which is about all she deserves after abandoning Jamie because his existence was inconvenient. And in the eyes of the law,
she’s got no right to Jamie, so even that need not concern him.”

Gareth’s thumb moved in tiny circles across the thin skin at her wrist. “You’re right,” he said. “And even if the laws were
different, they’d have a hard time forcing an English earl to give up his heir to the mother who abandoned him.”

Gareth’s lips brushed across her cheek. Beau nodded, unable to muster a verbal response, and Gareth captured her mouth for
a long, devouring kiss. Beau moaned softly, going pliant in his arms. Still kissing her, he half carried, half dragged her
to the adjoining bedchamber. He let her legs fall, but kept one arm securely about her waist as he shut the door behind them.

“That room doesn’t have a lock, but this one does,” he said as he turned it.

Beau shoved his coat off his shoulders with rabid
haste. He let it fall to the floor. He fought with the hook and eyes holding her gown closed, but gave up as they hit the
bed and tumbled into it.

She kicked off her shoes, and they clattered noisily across the floor. Her nimble fingers attacked the buttons of his waistcoat
and those that held his braces in place. Lord, she’d have him spilling himself in her hand if he wasn’t careful. He’d missed
her far too much for this to end so quickly, so ignominiously.

Gareth slid off the bed, Beau’s mewl of protest almost drowning out the rustle of fabric and the creak of the floor as he
settled on his knees. He ran his fingers up her legs, the transition from silk to even softer flesh tantalizing and full of
promise.

Beau propped herself up on her elbows, barely able to see over the rise of her petticoats. She raised a brow and placed her
stockinged foot on his shoulder, pushing him back slightly, staving him off.

Without dropping her gaze, Gareth pushed her foot back over his shoulder, and he pushed her legs apart with both hands, palms
flat against the tender skin of her inner thighs. He leaned forward to lave his tongue along soft, secret flesh. Sweet, like
a plum plucked from a tree on a hot summer day.

He opened the fall of his breeches as he traced every hill and valley with his mouth. He dipped his tongue inside her, licked
up the length of her, locked his mouth over the engorged bud, and sucked until she thrashed.

“Now.” Her hands locked in his hair. “Now.” Beau dragged him up, impossible to resist. No
please
. No begging. Just a command that she expected to be obeyed.

Gareth entered her swiftly enough to catch the last pulsing contractions of her release. Beau smiled, lazy, self-satisfied,
replete. She threw her head back, offering him the tender expanse of her neck.

Gareth placed an open-mouthed kiss below her ear, added a hint of teeth, and sucked harder. Beau gasped and arched, legs locking
about his ribs with a now-familiar strength.

She bent upward, head tucked hard against his shoulder, hair falling about her in waves, its pins scattered all over the bed.
Her hands slid up his back, beneath his waistcoat but over his shirt. Beau clung to the fine linen, wrenching it in two directions,
using it to draw him to her, to hold him, trapped, entangled.

The fabric gave way, the sound loud and sharp against their mingled breaths. Beau’s nails slid across his back, dug in, spurring
him on. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, Beau’s gasps and cries almost too soft to hear beneath it. With an exultant shout,
he spilled himself inside her.

CHAPTER 53

B
eau pushed her fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp, trying to stave off the headache that was steadily building
behind her left eye. Dinner had been blissfully quiet, since both Lady Olivia and the countess had chosen to eat in their
rooms. Breakfast, however, was rapidly turning into something of a nightmare.

“Father,” Gareth said with a flare of temper. “Lord Leonidas is, at this very moment, along with Sir Tobias Montagu and the
entire constabulary of Kent, hunting for Jamie and for George Granby. Would you prefer I be there? Because I assure you, I
would much rather be doing something other than kicking my heels here.”

The earl grumbled something under his breath about being cursed with disrespectful children, and Gareth sliced into his steak
as though he were picturing his father on his plate. Beau refilled her teacup and piled her muffin high with marmalade, ignoring
them both.

“The burial is scheduled for eleven, is it not?” Beau said into the strained silence.

The earl blinked as though he’d forgot that she was there. “Yes, the vicar will meet us in the churchyard.”

“Then I propose to have our things packed and the horses harnessed and ready to leave by one,” she said before taking a bite.
The marmalade was bitter and sweet on her tongue, much like everything else in her life at the moment. “There’s no reason
to tarry.”

Gareth nodded his agreement and stabbed a piece of meat with his fork hard enough that the metal squealed sharply against
the plate. His face was flushed with anger, his brows drawn down over narrowed eyes.

This was not a salubrious household, and she would not be sad to leave it behind. How Lady Olivia had survived in such an
atmosphere was beyond her. She’d have come to blows with one of Gareth’s parents if she were forced to share a home with them.

She finished her toast and excused herself to pack. Upstairs, she found Lady Olivia lying in wait in the Tapestry Room.

“You have to take me with you, Beau,” she said. “I can’t stay here another day. I simply can’t. And I’ve no other means of
escape.”

Beau claimed the chair beside her, smoothing her skirts as she sat. She’d known Lady Olivia for years. They’d shared their
first Season together. Pinned up each other’s trains at balls, fought over flirts. It could so easily be her trapped here.
“Livy, I’m sure your father—”

“Doesn’t want to accept the truth,” she said, voice shaking with anger. “He thinks if I just hang on everything will come
about. His last letter advised me to remain here, stand my ground, and not give up my claim. I could strangle him.”

Beau curled her hand over her mouth, thinking. The earl might object, but Gareth certainly wouldn’t. “Do you know where you’ll
go?”

Livy gave her a mocking smile. “I shall go to grandmamma, of course. I don’t think my arrival will come as a surprise to her,
and she’s the only person I can think of whom my father will hesitate to cross. He’ll have to leave me in peace—they all will.”

Beau found herself nodding. If anyone could knock heads together and force a resolution, it was the Dowager Duchess of Cherbury.
“Pack what you can,” Beau said, squeezing Livy’s hand reassuringly. “But don’t let them see you. Let us be well on the road
before they discover you’ve flown.”

The first shovel of dirt hit Souttar’s coffin like a cannon going off, the sound loud enough to make his father wince. Gareth
took a deep breath. His brother was gone. The grave didn’t make that fact any more real than it had been an hour previous,
but somehow the feeling of finality, of futility and waste, was heightened by the sight of that scar in the earth being carefully
refilled.

Gareth took the earl by the arm and led him slowly back to their waiting coach. His father didn’t say a word as they rolled
slowly back to Ashburn Park. He just stared, unseeingly, at his own hands.