The Marriage List (18 page)

As he watched through the window, May glanced back at Longbranch House. Was it his imagination, or did he see the same longing that burned in his chest reflected in her bright eyes? Could there possibly be a chance for a future with her?

No. No. No. The answer had to be no.

There was no love between them, only longing and a curious emotion Radford didn’t quite know how to describe. His passions toward May felt as comfortable as a friendship, only more heated.

What a blasted mess. He dragged a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands.

Lady Evers captured his wrist and kept his manicured fingers from further mussing his hair. “Don’t fret about the future, Radford. I will keep the path clear for you. You will see. Your decision to marry Lady Lillian is the right thing. This match is something that would make your father proud.”

Her eyes glistened prettily. “And you will make me proud tonight—and bestow happiness on a very lucky young lady.”

Happiness? Why hadn’t he thought to put anything about
his
happiness on that marriage list? The list, so like his life, had become muddled by the limitations of logic and duty.

Chapter 17

Life would be so very different if she possessed Lady Lillian’s delicate looks or Lady Iona’s gentle manner. May stiffened her chin and sniffed back some unruly tears. If men refused to see past her birth, her nature, and her looks . . . well, she wanted no part of such a world.

She would survive.

Her parents abandoned her. And she somehow managed to survive. Society matrons treated her like a servant. And she barely blinked. Her aunt’s health weakened. And she was forced to become something stronger than she ever imagined she could be. She more than survived.

Why should a little trifling like a broken heart trouble her?

Back straight, head held high, and prepared to face her uncle, May marched back to her cozy little cottage. She would confront him with Radford’s accusations and insist that Aunt Winnie demand her brother’s assistance and support.

Although this moment felt tragically like an ending, May reminded herself that it wasn’t. This was a wonderful, glorious beginning. A new adventure lay before her on the horizon.

Things would be different, and she would be stronger without a certain dashing viscount meddling in her life. Things would be better . . .

May drew to a sudden stop. Uncle Sires’ carriage was no longer waiting in front of her thatched roofed cottage. The shades inside were drawn, the windows dark.

A crimson-tinted cloud reached out overhead, signaling the approaching end of an utterly perplexing day, and May could not stop a feeling of dread from snaking through her veins. The cottage looked different, somehow. Something was wrong.

Horridly wrong.

“May!” a breathless voice called out to her. Lady Iona waved her arms as Lord Nathan deftly steered his new curricle down the road. May tilted her head back and looked up at the pair as the curricle pulled to a halt on the road in front of her. Pins were slipping from Iona’s hair, and her dress was smudged with dirt. Tears stained her rosy cheeks.

“Whatever is the matter?” May asked. Her friend would never appear in public in such a state unless something was terribly amiss. “Please tell me it isn’t—”

“Your aunt, May. She’s collapsed. We’ve been searching everywhere for you. Where in Heaven’s name have you been?”

“No,” May gasped. She charged into the stone-still cottage, tears streaming down her face. She should have never run away. She should have never . . .

“Aunt! Please, please, no . . . ”

Portia appeared in the foyer. Her lips tightly drawn, her hands in constant motion, she lowered her head. “I am so sorry, Miss Sheffers. You poor, little mite.”

May heard Lady Iona and Lord Nathan follow her into the house. She felt supportive arms hugging her shoulders. But her mind could not take it all in.

“Aunt Winnie?” How would she survive without her aunt? Her legs melted beneath her, and she sank to the oriental carpet covering the foyer floor and silently wept. “I must see her. I must ask her to forgive me for not being here.”

Lord Nathan cleared his throat. He padded nervously around the small entranceway. “It seems your housekeeper bravely tried to keep Lord Redfield from carrying her to his town house, but he would not be dissuaded.”

“Oh, that is correct, Miss Sheffers. Your poor, poor dear aunt was so weak. He insisted he care for her.” Portia heaved a weepy sigh. “He cursed something fierce until I thought my ears might bleed.”

May lifted her head slowly, fearing sudden motions might wipe away that small bud of hope. “Aunt Winnie is alive?” With a sheer force of will, she made her legs support her. “I must go to her. She needs me.”

“Of course.” Lord Nathan took May’s arm and led her back outside.

“But-but, Lord Redfield. . . ” Iona sputtered.

“Blast the man. He will just have to tell her himself,” Lord Nathan grumbled.

May was much too upset to wonder about that exchange. She let Lord Nathan help her up into his curricle. Iona snuggled in beside her, and within a minute, they were racing through the paved streets toward her uncle’s town house in Queen’s Square.

Aunt Winnie was strong. She would recover. She would simply have to . . . May wasn’t prepared to accept any other ending.

* * * * *

“I was told not to let anyone enter.” Uncle Sires’ butler sneered down his nose at May as he spoke. She recognized him from Redfield Abbey. He’d been the Abbey’s head footman the last time she’d visited. In no way did his off-putting manner dissuade her.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, keeping her voice dangerously level. She made sure her devilishly violet eyes glared daggers into his. “I care not one whit about what you were told. My aunt is inside and I intend to see her.” She paused for a dramatic beat. “Step aside.”

“I would do as she commands,” Lord Nathan said. He folded his arms across his chest. Lady Iona, bless her, did the same. A united front poised for battle.

“Very well.” The butler stepped to the side of the doorway. He made no attempt to lead them to a parlor or to Aunt Winnie’s room. Instead he left them stranded in the impressive marble foyer. “I will tell his lordship that you have arrived.”

May had no intention of standing around while the butler and her uncle discussed ways to deny her. Aunt Winnie needed her. She would open every closed door in the house, if need be, to find her.

As the butler scuttled off toward the back of the house, May took to the stairs. Lord Nathan and Iona followed along silently.

A low murmur of voice rumbled behind a closed door at the end of a long hall. May rushed toward the sound. She tossed open the door, not worried about anything beyond seeing to her aunt’s welfare.

Two men were bent over her aunt, who was lying all too still on an elegantly appointed bed. The room looked like it had been decorated to house a fairy-tale queen. At least her aunt was finally getting the comfort she had always deserved, May thought as she rushed to her side.

“How is she?” May asked. She knelt beside the bed and gently lifted her aunt’s hand to hold it against her chest.

“Only time will tell,” the white-haired man closest to her said with a slight shake of his head. “She is weak.”

“She has been overtaxed with worry,” Uncle Sires’ voice boomed into the room. “I will not have you and your unseemly manner endanger her further, child.”

May carefully laid her aunt’s hand on the soft bed. She lovingly stroked Winnie’s smooth cheek and said a small prayer for her recovery before rising to face her uncle.

“I have more right than you to stay with her,” she said in an oddly calm voice. “You may be able to take away my money. You may be able to take away my future. But I will stand up to the forces of hell before letting you take Winnie from my life.”

“Please,” the doctor said, ushering everyone to the door. “She needs quiet. She needs to rest.”

The instant May stepped her toe outside the bedroom door Uncle Sires captured her wrist. He mercilessly dragged her through the hall and down the stairs. May tripped over her feet as she tried to keep up with the brutal pace. Lord Nathan stepped in and attempted to save her but was swiftly pulled away by two burly footmen draped in bright red livery.

“What do you mean to do?” May asked. She twisted her wrist, trying desperately to break free. There was a murderous gleam in her uncle’s eye that made her heart slam against her ribs. “What do you mean to do?”

“Something I should have done years ago,” he said and gave her arm a vicious tug. She stumbled down the last three steps. Her knees slammed against the hard, marble floor in the foyer. He didn’t give her time to pull herself back to her feet. His pace unbroken, he dragged her across the floor and into a dark, oak-paneled study.

The door slammed closed behind her. The lock clicked.

“You are an abomination . . . just like your father. I can’t stand to look at you, a grotesque mixture of his blood with mine.” He loomed over her. A menacing grimace transformed his features into a mask of pure hatred.

He leaned down until his lips were a mere hair’s breadths from her ear. His fiery breath struck her cheek as his voice crackled. “I cannot allow this willful existence of yours to continue, child,” he threatened, jamming a leather horsewhip just under her nose. “I intend to beat it from you once and for all.”

* * * * *

Where were the blasted rains? The skies were darkening as evening approached, the pale moon rising, and not one blasted cloud to be seen. Radford didn’t wish to gaze on the moon as his open landau carried his mother and him to the Newbury townhouse in the center of Bath.

The moonlight reminded him of May and the night he first kissed her. She’d been bathed in the spectral glow of the heavens flowing in the tall window in the Newbury’s darkened library. A fey goddess illuminated by natural elegance.

An unattainable spirit, who would soon be engaged to a man very anxious to beat all that was special and loveable from her small body.

His hand curled into a very tight fist as the carriage bounced over a rut in the stone-paved road. Just picturing May married to another man . . . entering the marriage bed with another . . . it was too much to bear.

He much preferred the rains and the aching muscles and misery the damp weather brought with it than to gaze on the shimmering, oval moon and think of May.

A family ring, an ancient piece of art with a miniature crest etched into a cabochon-cut ruby, sat nestled in the breast pocket of his coat. Within a few hours he’d slide that ring onto Lady Lillian’s slender finger and pledge himself—body and soul—to a woman he may never be able to love.

His mother snuggled up beside him and cooed happily.

“Tonight will be magical,” she whispered. The landau’s driver slowed to turn onto Bennett Street. “Just a few more blocks, Radford. Your future waits for you in the Royal Crescent. I couldn’t be more proud.”

She squeezed his hand. Her grasp felt light, fragile through his leather gloves.

This night was for his mother. He would give himself to Lillian, vowing to her fidelity and security in exchange for a brood of children.

This was his gift to his mother. She’d suffered so much because of his injuries. Marriage to a beauty like Lady Lillian was no great a sacrifice in order to fulfill his duty to his family.

If only the rains had fallen. With that blasted moonlight shining down on his face and the stars twinkling mysteriously all through the nearly black sky, he couldn’t seem to keep his thoughts from straying to May, a most unsuitable woman.

Ah, May . . . a future with you is naught but a pretty fairy tale. Children may believe in such a romantically outrageous ending. Adults are trained to be far more practical
.

His future waited a few blocks away.

“I am pleased you find pleasure in my decision,” he said warmly to his mother. “Your happiness is very important to me.”

“As yours is to me, dear.” She gave his arm a gentle pat. “As yours is to me.”

Lady Evers craned forward then, tilting her head one way and then the other. “Whatever could that be about?” she whispered while craning forward further still. She’d scooted so far off the bench she was in danger of falling off.

Radford searched the road. His landau was rounding The Circus. A few pedestrians, three young women giggling as they followed an older couple, were strolling on the sidewalk. A carriage rolled by in the other direction. Two carriages sat motionless in front of a couple of townhouses, with grooms attending to the waiting horses. Other than that, he could see nothing. Certainly none of the activity visible on the street was out of the ordinary.

“What is it? What do you see?” he asked when his mother gasped and fell back on the squabs in a near swoon.

“Shameful . . . disgraceful,” she muttered. “A harlot being tossed from a home, here, in this respectable area? I cannot believe my eyes.”

“Really? Where?” Radford asked more to placate his upset mother than out of any kind of perverse interest in viewing another man’s dirty affairs.

“There.” An accusing finger shot out to identify a townhouse a few doors into the circular row of houses known as The Circus.

What the devil
?

Radford perched forward on the bench to get a better view. Time moved at a painfully slow pace as he watched a nightmare unfold.

May, dressed in the same burgundy gown she’d been wearing when he’d met with her earlier in the day, stood at the open door. A long, elegant sleeve had been ripped away. Part of the ruined bodice hung open. She tugged wildly at the wide, masculine arm holding her. A look of naked terror on her elfish face, dimly illuminated in the yellowy lamplight, froze the blood in his veins.

He rose shakily to his feet, prepared to leap from his landau while it still moved.

“Hold there,” he called to his driver and swung open the door.

“Radford!” his mother screamed and wrapped her arms around his strong leg. He fell back onto the bench as his damnable weakened leg collapsed under the strain from his sudden shift of weight.

He watched in horror as May tore free from her attacker, tripped down the steps, and ran blindly into the brick road. His horses, startled by her sudden appearance in front of them as they were slowing their pace, whinnied and reared. The landau creaked and jolted forward.

May screamed.

A deadly silence followed.

No
! Radford pried his mother’s hands from his body and jumped down to the ground.
No
! He dragged his weaker leg behind him, not caring what he looked like or how he moved. All he cared about was getting to May . . . to seeing her safe.

“There was naught a thing I could do to save ‘er, m’lord. I swear it. I didn’t even see ‘er,” his driver cried, wringing his hands as he gazed down at May’s crumpled body.

A trickle of blood oozed from high on her forehead.

“No,” Radford whispered. He dropped to the road and gathered May into his arms. Cradling her, he hugged her against his chest and felt for any sign of life, no matter how small. She was still in his arms, too still. “Live, damn it. If I have to cling to this cursed mortal coil, you do too.”

He glanced up pleadingly at the sky. His gaze chanced on the open door and the man who’d tormented her, the man who’d driven her to run in front of his horses.

The Earl of Redfield.

A horsewhip hung in his hand. A murderous gleam darkened his face. Why hadn’t Radford seen it? The bounder had been set on ruining May’s life from the start. His power and his comfortable lifestyle were being threatened. Radford should have worried about May’s safety after telling her the truth about her uncle. She must have confronted him and roused the greedy man’s wrath.

“I should have protected you.” He brushed her hair away from her bloody brow and pressed a handkerchief to her forehead. He’d never forgive himself if she died. Losing May would leave a gaping hole in his heart, which, like his leg, would never heal.