The Scarred Earl (20 page)

‘This mythical lady of yours would probably prefer you to be yourself, not some beau ideal she might find impossible to live with every day for the rest of your lives together,’ she told him numbly.

Whatever he might have said in reply was lost as her mother sailed into the room, somehow managing to look as if the atmosphere between her daughter and the man she had committed herself to marry was as light and joyous as a fine May morning, when Persephone felt she could cut the tension in the room with a knife.

‘There you are, my dear ones,’ she said brightly, as if they might not have noticed each other. ‘I fear you’ve been closeted alone quite long enough and I had to come and play bodkin before the gossips got busy with both your reputations. Luckily Corisande will have to trip you two up through a third party now you have that promise of hers to stop her making a scandal herself, but your engagement doesn’t mean she has lost any of her jealousy of you, my love. More the opposite, I fear,’ she said with a nod at Persephone
that Alex seemed to understand better than she did.

‘A fair warning, my lady,’ Alex said as he exchanged a long look with Persephone’s mother and she wondered what they were telling each other about her.

The temptation raged to stamp her feet and shout at them for protecting her from Corisande’s envy in some way she didn’t quite understand, but she curbed it. ‘I’m glad Cousin Corisande has been persuaded to return home for a week or two in order to visit her modiste, since she seems to think no gown can be properly made unless she can have it altered every time her mood changes with the direction of the wind,’ she suggested carelessly.

‘She might, if she could afford to,’ Alex said shortly and she could tell he wanted the topic of her spiteful cousin over with as soon as possible.

‘And it’s far better to keep your enemies close where you can see what they’re up to, is it not?’ Persephone challenged them to exclude her from any scheme to contain Corisande’s malice.

‘Much better,’ her mother agreed blithely as if she had no idea what her daughter was
so angry about. ‘And luncheon was nearly ready when I came in, my dears, so we might as well get on with it, since the vicar is calling this afternoon to discuss the wedding. At least nobody can make anything out of you two being closeted in Jack’s study with him as your chaperon and I can consult cook and dear Mrs Maybury about arrangements for the wedding breakfast.’

‘Will you not be joining us when Mr Wootton calls?’ Persephone asked a little desperately, wondering what innocently uncomfortable questions the saintly vicar of Ashburton villages might ask if she and Alex were alone with him.

‘Of course not, it would be ridiculous of me to chaperon you so closely that the good Reverend felt unable to give you his favourite talk on the love and duty a husband and wife owe to each other within marriage. Your father and I received it much as you two will do this afternoon, my love. Would that we had known then how happy we would be together, so we could have taken better note of what he had to say. Do listen—Mr Wootton will be so happy to know the daughter of a couple he married so long ago will be nigh as happy in her marriage as her mama and
papa were before her that it seems a shame not to indulge his romantic side and enjoy it.’

‘Then of course we will pay close attention, Lady Henry,’ Alex insisted before Persephone could think of an excuse to avoid that speech.

‘Of course we will,’ she echoed meekly and hoped it wasn’t a rehearsal of their marriage for her to echo whatever Alex said and for him to expect such meekness.

Her heart somewhere around the level of her elegant indoor shoes, Persephone took her fiancé’s offered arm and followed her mother from the mellow old room. At least preparing a look of contented amusement would give her something to do while she came to terms with the idea of wanting a man who could never love her. Jessica had been so right to hold out for love, and how desperately she longed to be strong-minded enough to forge her own path in the world without him. Well, her bridges were already burnt as far as that went and she didn’t have it in her to be so resolute as to go through her life without him. She shuddered at the idea of skipping off towards social damnation and knew she would agree again, even now, rather than bring scandal and disgrace
on her family and Alexander Forthin, Earl of Calvercombe.

‘Cold, my dear?’ he asked as if he’d felt the chill that shot through her at the idea of a possible fifty years of marital indifference yawning between them.

‘Of course not, it’s a lovely day,’ she murmured and tried not to let him see how truly disturbed she was while he snatched a shawl one of her sisters had left lying about the hall and tenderly draped it over her shoulders. ‘How kind of you, my lord,’ she managed to thank him limply.

‘What a gallant Earl I’m in danger of becoming,’ he replied with an ironic smile and she dropped her gaze so he couldn’t see how hard she was having to fight not to cry about marrying a very gallant Earl indeed.

Marcus lay in the stuffy little chamber he knew better than he wanted to. Weary of captivity and impatient with the sticky heat, he needed a bath and his freedom, then maybe his temper wouldn’t be so raw. He was frustrated and bored and there was nothing to do or see. After spending so many hours picking at the mortar round the bars of his cell, he found they were built into the
walls and steady as rock. Unable to find a bright side to look on for once, he intended to sleep away the heat of the day, but he felt something had changed here and wished he knew what it was.

He made himself breathe slowly and wondered if he was being watched, managed a sleepy sigh and turned his back on the stout oak door. It was mid-afternoon, he decided, fifteen days into his captivity, and how he wished he’d listened harder when Jack and Calvercombe were discussing their enemies back at Ashburton.

An average-sized man in average clothes was all he recalled of his attacker and the drug the man forced into him had made even that picture confused. Wigs, cheek pads and paint could disguise a man if he was good at what he did and the cold glint in his kidnapper’s eyes told Marcus that his abductor got what he wanted from life. Either the man was a lunatic, or he had a motive beyond a fat ransom. Marcus didn’t think that cold-eyed man was deranged, so he’d probably done this to control Jack or Rich in some way. Jack was long gone by the time Marcus had left Ashburton, so that left Rich and Marcus squirmed at the idea of being used to
make Rich reappear. With luck his brother was in another country and had no idea his little brother had let himself be kidnapped while too preoccupied with luscious little Clary to notice his attacker until it was too late.

Marcus had never resented the fact Jack and Rich were brothers in all but name and his sister Persephone was always happy to join in any mischief going. Now for
her
all the Seaborne men would run their head into a noose. The villain he had met that night certainly wouldn’t hesitate to attack a female, and, if Rich was truly in hiding to protect Alex Forthin’s young cousin Annabelle, that proved
she
was at the heart of this conundrum and not his brother. To lose himself so completely for her sake, Rich must feel something deep and important for the girl. Marcus concluded his brother thought her enemy dangerous and forced himself not to shudder.

If the man who had taken him with such cool daring on Seaborne land was using him to bait a trap, he wouldn’t care if Marcus knew he was here or not. The rascal had left others to take any risks that came with his abduction and Marcus could only identify
the dark-haired lady with any certainty. The self-serving cruelty of leaving his lady gaoler to take the risks whilst the true villain waited for whatever he wanted to happen struck him as intolerable and Marcus was tempted to leap to his feet and stride about his cell in frustration.

It dawned on him this was the first time he’d thought urgently about his situation since he woke and found himself locked in her lumber room. His wardress was definitely a lady, but now the promise and intrigue of her finally hit him, he wondered why he hadn’t seen through his own eagerness for her company sooner. Not that she’d have him if he came gilded, he decided, with a wry smile.

If only she would trust him, they could seek sanctuary at Ashburton or Seaborne House. Then he could make sure she was dressed and chaperoned as a lady should be and he tried to picture his fiery lady guard in pale muslins and demure white silk and failed. Her masses of dark curls and darkest of brown eyes called for strong, pure colours and extravagant jewels to highlight the silken fineness of her creamy skin. It was no good—he couldn’t lie here in a stew of urgent
need at the thought of his nameless lady as his lover, or maybe even his wife, only in her lovely bare skin and never mind the colour of her discarded gown.

Chapter Fourteen

A
lexander felt about as much use as a three-legged horse staying in Jack’s house, impatiently waiting to marry Persephone while another man searched for her brother. He’d thought he was beyond caring what the world thought of him when he came back from India, so it came as a surprise he was furious the villain had taken Marcus Seaborne then tried to push the blame for it on to him.

The very idea he’d harm a hair on the thoughtless young idiot’s head made him want to stamp about the room and rave at his fellow men for being so gullible. He longed to challenge the gossips to explain how they thought abducting one of their own would
help his relations with the powerful family he was about to marry into. Refuting ill-informed gossip would only make the story stronger, but the goad of the malicious tale still tore at him.

‘Mr Peters has come to call again, my lord. Now isn’t it lucky I saw him creep round the corner of the stable-block and head towards this obscure corner of my cousin’s mansion and decided to let him in myself?’ Persephone informed him after she preceded that gentleman into the room and dared either of them to send her away.

‘As well nobody else is aware you’re here, I suppose, man, but couldn’t you contrive to get here without Miss Seaborne seeing you?’ Alex greeted him irritably. ‘I thought you told me you could ghost in and out without a sign you’d ever been here.’

‘I can, my lord. Miss Seaborne seems to have a remarkable talent for finding out whatever she wants to know, don’t you find?’

‘Aye,’ he agreed, with a look for his fiancée that should have told her he found it one of her least attractive traits, but she stared serenely back at him as if he was in the wrong for trying to exclude her in the first place.
‘Miss Seaborne is undoubtedly very talented indeed,’ he added grimly.

‘Why, thank you, gentlemen,’ she replied as if they were heaping high praise on her modest head.

‘She clearly doesn’t possess a morsel of tact, though,’ Alex challenged.

‘Being a Seaborne, I have no need of it. Ask my grandmother.’

‘Now why should I do anything as foolish as that, my dear?’

‘True,’ Persephone said with a rueful grin and couldn’t have chosen a finer way to disarm him if she’d tried for a week. ‘Then let me stay because it’s sure to be Marcus you’re discussing and I need to know if he’s been found, and whether we did the right thing by not telling Mama of his disappearance,’ she said with a look that told him how heavy all this had weighed on her.

‘Stay, then, but first promise me you won’t race off on some wild scheme to rescue him on your own. I couldn’t even begin to find a way to tell your mother you’d been kidnapped as well as your second brother and I’d miss you rather badly myself when it came down to it.’

‘How flattering,’ she said flatly. How could
he tell her the very thought of her at the mercy of an enemy who obviously had very little of that quality tore at his heart and soul?

He had rashly promised her a marriage of not exactly convenience, but one that offered equality of passion and their deep commitment to a shared future. Yet now he’d come to realise Persephone was essential to him in some crucial way that was beyond all that and he couldn’t risk telling her so and having all idea of a marriage between them rejected, out of some gallant notion she couldn’t accept his increasingly passionate need for only her without being able to offer something similar in return. Half a loaf being better than no bread, he was content to let her drift towards their oncoming marriage without realising she was wedding a wolf who would guard his mate as fiercely as he would if they were wandering some wild and hostile steppe on their own.

All of which meant he wanted to keep her as happy as she could be while her brother was missing and content to go on with their coming marriage without feeling the bonds he sometimes wished he could bind her with, so she would be unharmed by all this. As if anyone could be so sheltered from life—or
that his secretly rather wild and headlong Persephone would even want to be guarded from reality. It would be the challenge of a lifetime for him to try to make himself civilised enough not to let her feel trapped by his warrior instincts once they actually were married, but that was for then. For now he had to make sure she was safe before he went after Rich’s would-be nemesis.

‘Promise?’ he said implacably, knowing this was a line he couldn’t let her blithely tear across if he was to stay sane.

‘I promise,’ she agreed with a long-suffering sigh, after a long moment of meeting his eyes as if trying to understand all he was doing his best to conceal.

‘Unfortunately I’m not dim or naïvely trusting enough to take that as a blanket undertaking to behave like a delicately bred lady from now on, Miss Seaborne. You’ll have to promise me you won’t storm off to rescue your brother alone as soon as my back’s turned before either of us breathe a word of where your scallywag of a brother has got off to this time.’

‘Not unless you take me with you when you finally decide to get on with it,’ she challenged with the lift to her determined chin
that made him itch to take up the call to battle in her stormy green gaze and kiss her in front of Frederick Peters.