Seduction & Scandal (32 page)

Panicked, she felt Sussex's arms clamp tightly around her as he tried to remove her, but she refused, kicked out, connecting with his shins.

She managed to free herself, when Wendell turned and aimed his pistol at her.

“No!” Jude roared as he jumped up and ran around the carriage with his open pistol raised. Torn between which one to shoot, Wendell aimed high, and shot at Jude. Jude fired back, but it was too late, Jude was falling to the ground, blood like a crimson stream flowing from beneath him.

Crying out, heedless of her own safety, Isabella ran to him, praying she would get to him before it was too late.

When the next bullet sounded, she froze. She heard
Sussex's roar, the pounding of her own blood in her ears as she waited to feel the bullet tear through her flesh.

Her gaze met Black's. Saw his lips move, his gaze raise up to where Sussex was standing, and then higher.

As she waited, the pain never came, and the body before her, Wendell's body, crumpled to the steps, a red stain saturating his shirt.

“Sussex, the roof!”

Her hearing returned just in time to hear Jude call out the warning. She whirled around, saw someone in a black-hooded robe run from the rooftop. Sussex chased him and Isabella ran down the steps to Jude, pulling him into her arms.

“You little fool,” he murmured as he kissed her. “You could have been killed! My God, I will never forget the sight of Knighton pulling that pistol on you.”

“Never mind that,” she cried. “We need to get you home. You're bleeding.”

“I'm fine.”

“Jude, don't argue with me. You're ashen, you've lost too much blood.”

“Isabella, I'm fine.”

With her help he stood, wobbled a bit and then pitched forward. The hackney that Wendell had brought her in was still there, the coachman taking in the scene with astonishment.

“You there,” she called. “Give me a hand.”

The coachman actually began to shake his head.

“I'll make it worth your while,” she grunted beneath Black's weight.

“'Ow much?”

“Get us home quickly and I'll give you twenty pounds.

Tell no one what you witnessed and I'll give you fifty.”

The coachman was down from his perch and running to her in no time.

“My lips are sealed,” the man said. “And you had better have that fifty quid at the ready when we arrive.”

I
SABELLA STRUGGLED
beneath Black's weight. The metallic tang of blood reached her nostrils as the same moment she felt Black's warm blood seep through her cloak.

“Billings,” Black ordered as he struggled out of the carriage. “Get me to him.”

“I promised the driver I'd pay him immediately,” she whispered. “And I don't want you home alone. Come to my uncle's. We'll send a footman for his physician—”

“Billings,” he insisted. “He'll arrange payment. No doctor,” he hissed as he stumbled and banged his shoulder up against the carriage. “Damn,” he gasped, and Isabella saw how pale he was.

“Our butler shall be out momentarily,” she called to the driver, and she heard Black chuckle, then grunt in pain. “
Our
butler? You've decided to make an honest man of me, then?”

“How can you jest at a time like this?”

“I'm not jesting, little love. I only want to know that you'll be my wife.”

Just then he faltered again, and she thought she'd never get the black iron gates opened. A dog barked, and suddenly Billings and a footman were there to catch him.

“My lord!” the servant exclaimed in alarm.

“Shot. I need patching—and the damn driver needs paying.”

“You there,” Billings shouted to the hackney driver. “Wait a moment and you'll have your payment.”

The footman and Billings took Black's arms and legs and carried him up the drive, while Isabella lifted the hem of her gown and ran behind them.

What seemed like only seconds later, Black was lying on the settee in his library and Isabella was on her knees, tearing his shirt from his chest, and viewing his wound for the first time.

“Jude,” she whimpered as she saw the flow of blood that pulsated from his shoulder. “Oh, my God!” Her voice was rising, and panic and fear set in.

Warm fingers grazed her chin, and she looked up into his pale face. “There is nothing to fear, Isabella. It's not deep.”

“But there's so much blood…”

“Miss Fairmont,” Billings said as he pulled a table closer. “Might I request that you stand at the foot of the settee while I work.”

She didn't want to move, but Black nodded. “I think it's best. Billings is a master of sutures, my love. There is nothing to worry about.”

Mutely she obeyed, but she did not move away from him. She couldn't. Instead, she moved to the arm of the settee where his head lay. She knelt down, placed her cheek to his temple and raked her fingers through his hair. “Don't leave me,” she whispered. “Please.”

Closing his eyes, he said, “I won't. Never.”

Nervously she glanced around the study. It was dawn—the sun just peeking around the clouds. The city was just stirring from its slumber, the night giving way to day. But it was still possible to see shadows, and Isabella could not help but look into every corner of Black's library. There were no shadows. Death was not there.

“You're lucky, my lord. Another inch or so and he could have got you in the neck.” Black gave his butler a chilling glare. “Prepare yourself, my lord. I've found the bullet and now I'm going to remove it.”

Jude looked up and stared into Isabella's face. “I'm ready, Billings.”

Holding him, Isabella stroked his hair, pressed kisses against his brow. If Billings was amused by the two of them, he gave no indication, but instead focused on his work.

As Billings pulled the bullet out, cleansed the area with antiseptic, then began pulling the needle and thread through Jude's torn flesh, Isabella realized there were a thousand words she wanted to say to him—all things she should have told him when they were lying safely in each other's arms.

To think that she might not have had the chance to speak of her heart—after he had offered her his—made her tremble. So much wasted time. So much fear.

She would never be afraid again. Not of Black and not of her passionate nature. Her mother's lot would not be her lot.

“My lady,” Billings said as he finished winding a white gauze sling around Black's arm. “Shall I take a look?”

Quizzically, Isabella looked down, wondering if she was bleeding. There was some dried blood on her arm, but it was Jude's. But then she saw that Billings was staring at her face, his expression a mixture of concern and anger.

“Yes, do, Billings,” Black answered. “The bastard, it should have been me who killed him for what he did to you,” he growled.

She had forgotten that Wendell had hit her—forgotten all about her eye stinging and pulsing with pain. After seeing Black fall to the ground, bleeding, she had forgotten everything but him—even the fact that Wendell lay dead on the steps of the Masonic Temple.

“You've been struck very hard,” Billings murmured as he wiped at her eye with a clean cloth. “Does your head pain you, do you feel ill—or faint?”

“No, Billings. I'm of hearty Yorkshire stock, it'll take more than a cuff on the head to make me swoon.”

The butler smiled. “You'll do well in this house, my lady.” He dipped his fingers into a jar of salve and wiped her bruised skin gently. “One needs the constitution of a Yorkshire lass to brave the world of the Earl of Black.”

“Nonsense. Ignore him, Isabella, he's prattling on.”

Smiling, she watched Billings pack up his medical kit and rise to his feet. “I assume His Grace and Lord Alynwick shall arrive shortly. I will direct them, my lord. For now you must rest, and I shall return with a poultice for your eye.”

The door closed behind the butler, and Isabella stood, helped arrange Jude so that she could sit down with his head on her lap.

“What an invaluable butler you have,” she said thoughtfully.

“Mmm, yes, and he can be all yours if you consent to be my countess.”

“That's not much of a proposal, is it?”

He turned to look up at her. “No, it's not. But I'm not eloquent. I only know what I want, and that's you in my life and my bed. It's thousands of nights, and thousands of mornings with you. It's children and grandchildren, and you reading to me—and me making love to you. It's you and me and a future I want so badly I can taste it.”

“Now, that is the proposal of dreams, Jude,” she murmured. “Yes, I will be your wife.”

How she adored this man, how perfect he was in every way. He had risked his life to save her—he could have been lost to her—just like Lucy's lover had been lost to her.

“Jude,” she began, stroking his cheek. “I could not bear it, to be parted from you. When I saw Wendell shoot you, the blood—” she shuddered “—my heart shattered.”

“He was aiming for you, and when I realized that, my heart stopped.”

Isabella opened her eyes and looked down upon him. “No one has ever loved me like you,” she whispered, awed.

“No one ever will. I won't allow it.”

“I didn't speak the words, Jude, but they were there all along. I love you. Oh, how I adore you. I have loved you since the moment you pulled me from the ocean and made me come back to life. The second I opened my eyes and saw you leaning over me, your hair dripping and your clothes sodden, and your lips, so warm and inviting, pressing against mine. It was you all along, my Lord Death. You were the hero of my story, because I loved you even then. I thought you Death—and my rescuer. But now I know that you're my life, and my savior.”

“Isabella,” he whispered as he pulled her down to him for a kiss. “You undo me.”

He was weeping and she caressed his face, brushing away the tears from his cheeks. There was no more darkness in those beautiful tempest-tossed eyes, only tranquillity.

Smiling, she thought of her story, how Death had only wanted to feel, to know what it was to weep. It was a fitting end to his story, and a fitting end to theirs.

“I have something,” she said. The recollection of her story and of Death reminded her of the small package in her reticule. “I bought it a while ago, and have been keeping it hidden, afraid to give it to you.”

“My love,” he whispered. “There is no need to bring up the past.”

“You told me I could trust you. To believe in what we had, that it wasn't just lust that flared between us. The words didn't seem enough. You had given me so much, and I had given you nothing.”

“Not nothing,” he said. “I have been given the honor
of being your first lover—and last,” he added in a deeply erotic tone.

“Words come easy for me, Jude. I can write them, I can search my soul and let them pour out. But I feared you'd think them too easy. You see, I wanted you to trust me, too. To know that I wasn't merely besotted with my first taste of pleasure.”

“I did worry over that. The first pleasure can be intoxicating, and I feared that perhaps you were enamored of what I could give you physically.”

“So it was right for me to do this.” Pulling the black velvet box from her reticule, she handed it to him. He was forced to let her help him, as his left arm was bandaged and utterly useless to him for now.

The crimson satin lining gleamed in the firelight, and so, too, did his eyes. When he looked up at her, there was a mist to them once again.

“Little magpie,” he whispered as he looked at the black onyx ring. “You gave up everything for this, didn't you?”

She nodded. “That is how much I trust you. Everything I had hidden away in that biscuit jar went to this. All my worldly goods are in that ring, Jude.”

“Then I will take it and hold it close, and never give you cause for regret.” He put the ring on his index finger, and Isabella grinned. How perfect it looked—how utterly sensual. She wanted that ringed hand on her body, comforting her. Loving her.

Raking her hands through his hair, she bent to kiss his forehead and commanded him to rest. Just when he was going to argue, the study door opened and Sussex strode in, followed closely by Alynwick. “Knighton's dead.”

The statement hung heavy in the air, and all eyes were upon her, gauging her reaction. She would not have had him die. Wendell had been kind—until he had let his greed and lust for power poison everything he was. She
felt only deep sadness, and perhaps pity for the man he had once been. The Wendell of almost two months ago, not the monster who had abducted her that night.

“The body?” Black asked.

“We thought it best to leave him there. The authorities will make what they will of his death, but there is nothing to implicate us. It's better this way.”

“How the hell was Knighton involved in this?” he asked, his voice sounding exhausted.

“I think we can only assume the culprit is someone from within the lodge. It has to be.” Alynwick answered.

“Our rogue Mason?”

“Indeed.”

“What did you discover about the shooter?” Jude asked as he struggled to sit upright.

“Once I spotted him on the rooftop, I ran up the back stairs to follow him. He was long gone, but he left something behind,” Sussex said.

“Oh?”

“Yes, I'll take it upon myself to investigate it.”

Jude opened his eyes, his stare focused on the duke. “Do you need my help?”

Alynwick snorted. “A soiled dove with a broken wing,” he drawled. “What use would you be?”

Jude grumbled, “I'll be fine by the morning.”

“You most certainly will not,” Isabella gasped. “Now, Jude—”

Her reprimand was interrupted by a commotion in the hall, and the sound of Jude's deep voice. “Who the hell could that be?”

The library door swung open to reveal her uncle.

“Isabella!” Stonebrook's white muttonchops twitched as his eyes grew round with shock—then anger.

“Stonebrook,” Jude said, holding out a hand. “I can ex plain.”

“You'll explain over a set of pistols,” her uncle
thundered as he charged into the room, but Sussex reached for him, and held him steady.

“By God, you're covered in blood and my niece has been injured! Isabella, have you lost your mind?”

They tried to answer, but Stonebrook kept blustering, interrupting them before they could talk. “I come here to inform you, Black, that someone has broken into the temple, and that Wendell Knighton is lying dead on the temple steps—terribly sorry, my dear,” he said to Isabella. “And here I am confronted by your betrayal and the evidence that you have abused my beloved niece.”

“Knighton is responsible for that. I'm only responsible for seducing her, and causing this scandal.”

Isabella groaned. Black was making a hash of this.

“Damn you, sir, get up from that unseemly position!”

“I would,” Black said, and Isabella saw his lips quirk upward, “but it seems I am a soiled dove with a broken wing.” Jude held up his arm, where shadows of red were beginning to seep through.

“Compliments of Wendell Knighton, and before you can accuse me of murder, no, I did not kill the bastard, but I wish I did after I saw Isabella's face.”

Her uncle looked between the three men, unable to make sense of the tableau before him. “You have precisely two minutes to make your case, sir.”

“I am in love with your niece, my lord. Very much in love, in fact. I have offered marriage, and Isabella has accepted. Unfortunately, Knighton had other plans, and seemed hell-bent on having her. He abducted her tonight and I followed, and ended up taking the bullet meant for her.”

“And Knighton? Who put the bullet in his chest?”

“A mysterious third person,” Jude murmured. “From what you have just said about the temple being broken into, I can only assume it was his accomplice.”

“Mmm,” Stonebrook mumbled, then looked to her. “Is this true, Isabella?”

She could feel the weight of the stares from Sussex and Alynwick, but Jude's hand only tightened in hers. “It is, Uncle.”

Nodding, he straightened his jacket and waistcoat. “Very well. Black, you'll see to the special license, and Isabella, you will find your way back home immediately. Do you understand?”