I
n every great life there is invariably a tipping point. A few half moments in time during which a crucial decision hangs in the balance. Many retreat, an excellent excuse on their lips, and a complete disregard for the tarnish to their dignity. But sometimes, indeed only rarely, a man pries loose extraordinary courage and chooses the door so little employed that it creaks open with effort. Invariably it changes forevermore the set pattern of any number of lives, including his own.

Ofttimes it leads to naught but unqualified disaster, for destiny is, undeniably, a fickle friend.

But, then again, in some instances, capricious fate swoops down through the whispering trees, laughs at the impossible, and blows the candles of ill fortune in the opposing, yet proper direction. Some call it haphazard chance. At the end of the long, hot summer of 1814, Rowland Manning—a heretofore unchivalrous blackguard of the first order—called it a
bloody gawddamned devil of a miracle
…which more than made up for all that had gone before in his godforsaken miserable life.

My dove,

Where are you? I search for you ceaselessly and yet…I cannot discover where you’ve hidden yourself. Fear not, my love, I shall never give up. Memories of you sustain me in my darkest hours. And when I find you—when this note finds you—we shall never be parted forevermore.

Chapter 1

B
eribboned ladies and bespectacled lords were squashed tooth and jowl in St. George’s, all strained in readiness for the much-anticipated wedding of one of their own. The beautiful bride entered on pearl-encrusted slippers, a tall stranger beside her.

Chests puffed in outrage. Fans fell from fingers. The archbishop raised a brow.
The audacity.
The unmitigated gall.

How dared Rowland Manning, the most ruthless, enigmatic man in all of England, tread these holy pavers of righteousness? Why, he was the heartless bastard from whom gentlemen shielded their daughters, warned their sons, and prayed their wives never met. Yet here, flaunting before the best and brightest jewels of English aristocracy, the big bad wolf escorted an innocent lamb—with the merest glint of large white teeth showing.

There was but one person not focused on the audacious spectacle. She was far too busy praying.

Numb and exposed in front of the paneled high pew boxes trimmed with every last white flower to be had in London, Elizabeth Ashburton begged for deliverance.

Her feet answered.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” The shrewd, wizened visage of the kindhearted Dowager Duchess of Helston peered over the top of a bouquet far too large for her petite form.

“To, um, see to Grace’s cloak in the vestry, Ata. I think I forgot to hang it.” Elizabeth held the dowager’s suspicious gaze like the seasoned campaigner in the art of lying that she was.

“Hmmm. How very thoughtful,” Ata murmured, “if not doubtful. Oh botheration, Elizabeth. You’ve overseen the preparation of the breakfast, and helped with the flowers. You’ve done enough.”

Elizabeth’s best friend, Sarah Winters, who stood on the other side of the dowager, sent her a speaking glance, as Ata continued. “Honestly, Eliza, I don’t know what’s become of the sociable lady I knew in Cornwall.” A pert smile erased the wrinkles and doubt lurking in her alert, dark eyes. “Oh, do look at Grace. Have you ever seen a happier, more eager bride?”

The tightness in Elizabeth’s chest made it hard to breathe. The swell of trumpet and organ signaled the official beginning of the wedding. No one would miss one stray bridesmaid. She shifted one blue satin toe closer toward the—

“Take my arm, Elizabeth,” Ata murmured, a step ahead of her in thought and action. “I need your support. Oh, and Sarah…you too, my dear.”

Elizabeth’s heart redoubled its beat. She opened her mouth but Ata continued, “That Mr. Manning cut it far too close, don’t you think? Highly irregular even for a devil of his ilk to arrive three minutes before the
ceremony.” Ata raised her chin, showing all four feet eleven inches of
hauteur
to advantage.

Elizabeth Ashburton gripped a tiny bouquet of violets as Grace and her unlikely escort walked ever closer. The attention of hundreds of the most influential and most notorious gossipmongers of the peerage drifted toward all of them at the front. They were the sort who would recount for generations the exact number of Belgium-lace flounces on the bride’s gown, as well as the number of dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, barons, and lesser titles who grumbled and forwent a far more entertaining morning at White’s Club to offer escort to their wives, mothers, and sisters. Elizabeth was of a mind with the gentlemen. Indeed, she would have rather faced the Light Division’s flogging post than risk this sort of exposure. A gentleman’s voice filled her mind unbidden…

We were predestined, my angel. Surely you cannot doubt it. You were meant for me, and I shall take care of you—protect you, in return. You will soon forget your sadness.

She shivered. The memory always arrived paired with the vivid recollection of his hand resting on her bare arm. His white glove had been pristine save for one tiny drop of blood near his thumb.

She forced the picture from her mind. She wanted so badly to be free of the past. She had been lulled into thinking it was a possibility during the last eighteen carefree months with Ata and the rest of the ladies in the dowager’s circle of friends.

Elizabeth pushed back her shoulders, glanced at Sarah on the other side of the petite dowager duch
ess, and resigned herself to fate. She
would
enjoy this. Danger be damned.

Elizabeth’s breath caught at the site of the groom’s handsome face, which held such private love and poignant happiness that it was almost too painfully intimate to observe as Grace walked the last few steps to stand before the archbishop. Never had London witnessed such a glorious love match, and even the peerage, as fashionably jaded as they tried mightily to appear, could not muster a single snipe for the perfection they embodied.

Elizabeth’s eyes moved to the man who stood between Grace and the Earl of Wallace. His was a bemused, cynical face, devoid of all sensibilities. Indeed, upon close scrutiny it was bankrupt of any sort of integrity at all. The hardened planes of Rowland Manning’s face were framed by thick black hair shot through with several silver streaks. She had the odd thought that his eyes should be blacker than the dead of night instead of the luminous pale green she spied.

Elizabeth knew why the earl had allowed the infamous man to walk Grace past the six stately Corinthian columns, down the center of St. George’s. He was his half brother after all.

The
bastard
son of the former Earl of Wallace.

Elizabeth shivered at the thought of the two men, one so good, the other quite the opposite, and both so startlingly tall. But only one was capable of laughing and spitting in the eye of God one moment and the devil the next.

Why, Mr. Manning had had the audacity to at
tempt to take Grace’s fortune in exchange for his half brother’s life only a few months ago. And studying him now, he appeared as if he hadn’t lost a wink of sleep over the entire botched, hushed-up affair.

Elizabeth never fully understood why Grace and Michael forgave the terrible man, but forgive him they did. Love had a way of leading to forgiveness, she supposed. It was simply ironic that it was so obvious that love did not flow in the opposite direction.

As Elizabeth watched Grace float the last few feet to the front, tears pricked the backs of her eyes. Dressed in the blush of pink lamé netting over silver tissue, she appeared like the veriest angel from paradise. Orange blossoms and sparkling brilliants threaded her artfully arranged fair hair. Her signature pearls graced her décolleté. But in her gloved hands, the countess carried the oddest thing…a horseshoe studded with tiny rosebuds. Michael Ranier de Peyster, the newest Earl of Wallace, broke into a wide grin and reached for his bride’s hand.

“You can’t have her,” Rowland Manning murmured with a growl of a voice that sounded as if he ate gravel for breakfast and washed it down with sawdust. His eyes half closed in dark bemusement. “Patience, little brother. The bloke with the silver hat will let you know when it’s your turn.”

A choke of laughter escaped Ata before she regained her composure. “Oh, I do wish Mr. Brown was here.” The tiny wizened dowager duchess stood on her tiptoes, and her gnarled hand nudged Eliza. “I still cannot imagine why he insists on brooding in Scotland.”

Elizabeth looked into the elderly lady’s sad expression, and whispered, “Have faith. Surely he’ll come for Victoria and the duke’s wedding.”

“No.” The dowager’s dark eyes brewed with melancholy. “I fear he has, indeed, given up, just when—”

The rector interrupted Ata by clearing his throat and commencing the solemnization. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of…”

His sonorous voice faded from her consciousness as Elizabeth darted another glance past the heavy canopy over the pulpit toward the eagle-eyed, starched, and boxed crowd. Perhaps she would be lucky after all. Really, there was no reason to think
he
would put in an appearance.

Surely, a celebrated hero had more important things to do than attending a ton wedding. Her only confidant must have read her thoughts, for Sarah reached behind the dowager and gave her hand an encouraging squeeze.

The archbishop droned on, “…marriage was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves
undefiled
members of…”

Elizabeth’s glance caught on the
defiling
eyes of Rowland Manning as he perused her form. It was obvious he had never sought a remedy against sin and most likely latched on to
every
chance at fornication. When he raised his eyes to her own, the barest hint of a curl at the edge of his mouth betrayed his amusement at her censure.

“Wilt thou love her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep
thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?” The archbishop, dressed in formal vestments, gazed expectantly at the Earl of Wallace, whose attention was fully absorbed by his beloved.

After a beat the black-hearted brother ground out, “Well, any bloody fool can see he’s mutton-headed over the chit.”

The earl grinned and finally recited his vows.

Ata murmured for Elizabeth’s ears only, “He looks like Judas in that painting, don’t you think?” She nodded toward the reredos of the Last Supper. The notorious black-haired betrayer crept along the edge. “One has to wonder. It’s always the ones like that…Well, I would wager Mr. Manning’s kisses bring most ladies to their knees.”

“Ata!” The tiny dowager’s outrageous comments never failed to shock.

“Pish, I’m certain of it. Why, if he weren’t so appallingly corrupt and unsuitable…” The all-too-familiar appraising gaze of Ata focused on Elizabeth.

The awful naked sensation of being an object under scrutiny made Elizabeth restlessly scan the pews once more until her eyes came to rest across from her. Oh, for goodness sakes. The pale green eyes of Rowland Manning were inspecting her
again
. Perhaps he’d overheard Ata. His darkly bronzed face was in stark relief against the whiteness of his teeth, now revealed in a mocking smile.

She stiffened. The man appeared to be undressing her in the corners of his wicked mind while standing in the house of the Lord.

And then he laughed softly.

A wave of movement caught Elizabeth’s attention,
and she half turned, only to see the very person she and Sarah had managed to evade for the last two years entering the church. A retinue of six scarlet-coated officers flanked him as he stopped at the entrance to the sanctuary. Now the attention of the crowd was caught between the two spectacles—one in the front of the church, and one in the rear.

She darted a glance at Sarah and they both hunched forward to hide their faces. Elizabeth would never forgive herself for her past misjudgments, which had led to their present circumstances.

Ata whispered, “Such an honor. Who would have thought he would actually come…”

The last few words of the ceremony were lost on Eliza as she tamped down the urge to run. Only her long years spent following the drum saved her. She would not forget the lessons taught to her by the man she had loved more than anyone else on earth.

The smallest muffled sniff of happiness escaped the dowager duchess as the Earl of Wallace clasped Grace, now a countess twice over, in a scandalously improper kiss as the crowd swelled with a combination of outrage from the older matrons and delighted amusement by the rest.

Flashes of red snagged Elizabeth’s attention, and then she knew. He’d spotted her and was now sending his dogs to circle. Her heart pounding, cool reason fled. She dared to look directly at him in the rear of the sanctuary. His blond hair gleamed like a halo beneath one of the silver candelabra while a look of assurance decorated a face Eliza had learned to dread.

Arm in arm, Grace and Michael retreated down
the center aisle, Ata and the rest of the couple’s friends following close behind. At that moment, Eliza clutched Sarah’s hand. “We’ll have a better chance if you go to the back, and I go out the side.”

“Eliza, no. You should take the safer—”

“Absolutely not, Sarah. Now go…”

She had already darted behind the double-decked reading desk, and skirted the half wall of Corinthian columns in front of the altar to find the panel door feeding into the rector’s passage on the side. Now running as if the hounds of hell nipped her heels, Elizabeth negotiated the complicated maze before she found the exit, which fed into Mill Street, at the rear of the church. Ripping the wreath of flowers from her hair, she quickly debated her options in the brilliant May sunshine.

Suddenly spying an enormous, wilting funereal arrangement outside the door, she dropped the violets and grabbed it. Holding it in front of her, she forced herself to slow to a normal pace as she rounded the corner to Mill Street. Through the flower stalks, she saw a scarlet coat and her knees nearly buckled. Sarah was nowhere in sight.

Without a second thought, she grasped the door handle of the nearest carriage, shoved the flowers into the hands of the startled coachman standing nearby, and leapt inside. Before tugging the door closed, she begged the older man, “Just a few minutes, please. A guinea if you say not a word.”

The scrawny man smiled, winked above the flowers and bobbed his accord while he began whistling a tune as if nothing had occurred. Eliza released the curtains to fall fully across the windows, and backed
into the near crook of the carriage, her ear to the wall. The deep clang from the bell tower pealed the joyful news of another happily ever after.

A cornered mouse…yes, that was how she felt. She released the tension in her chest, only to take in the masculine bouquet of scents swirling inside the elegant carriage—glycerin leather soap, tobacco, and that indefinable element of excessive
richesse
. A crystal decanter half filled with amber spirits stood in a casing in the polished rosewood interior.

And then suddenly…

Lord, she could hear the driver telling someone, “Ain’t seen nobody loikes that, Cap’n.”

Blood pumping fast and furiously in her ears blocked out the low, insistent words from the soldier.

BOOK: Secrets of a Scandalous Bride

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