Valor Under Siege (The Honorables) (3 page)

He felt her ribcage expand on a sharp inhale. “Fire?”

“Out,” he assured her. “No serious injuries or damage.”

“Tha’s good,” she mumbled. “I told ’em be careful wif Uncle Seamus’s whiskey. No open flame or drinkin’ it straight.” She chuckled. “Wicked stuff.”

Something in Norman’s head snapped. Or broke. Came loose. Went wrong. Stopping short, he yanked her around to face him. “
You
did that?” he demanded, pointing to the now-dark hall. “Turned harmless champagne punch into a lethal potion? And then you threw cold water onto hot glass, spreading a fire that could have brought down the entire hall. How could you be so foolish?”

She blinked slowly, her head drooped. Norman gave her a shake, bent low, and crowded her. Embarrassed by his unseemly six-foot-nine height, he’d always tried to be smaller and quieter than his body allowed, hoping a reserved disposition would make up for him occupying more than his fair share of space. But now ... now he hoped—wanted—to intimidate her. Wanted her to tell him what the bloody hell had been going through that pretty head of hers. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Elsa?” he boomed, his voice cracking off the brick walls of the surrounding buildings. “Do you? The entire hall might have been lost. People could have died. You’ve cost me—” He cut himself off, biting his tongue until he tasted blood. No good would come from venting his spleen, not with her in this state.

He trembled all over, caught in the grips of the fiercest anger he’d ever known. Her stupid stunt and her unforgivable love of drink had cost him his home and other repercussions yet to be determined by the Master Benchers. When he should have been celebrating his imminent call to the bar, Norman instead found everything he’d worked for about to be snatched from his grasp.

He towed her to the carriage. After several failed attempts to navigate the step, Elsa started laughing. “My foot won’ go!”

Norman hoisted Elsa, still laughing, onto the seat.

 She swatted his arm. “Oh, don’ be dour.” Her plump lips, red and moist, twisted in her flushed face. She fell against his chest, knocked his hat to the floor, and played her fingers into the shaggy hair over his ear. Her fingernails scratched lightly at his scalp, as though she were petting a dog. “I liked being with you tonight.”

What the devil was wrong with the woman? She was unrepentant about the damage she’d done, blissfully unaware of his ire.

“Regretfully, I cannot say the same.” He brushed her fingers aside. He never should have asked her to be hostess of the revels, knowing as he did her weakness for drink.

“Oh, don’ say you’re angry at me.” She clung to his hand, her eyes pleading. “I was jus’ havin’ fun. I din’ mean for it to happen. An’ I didn’t mean to be so ... I tol’ myself only one drink.”

She sniffled; an overabundance of liquor had her mood staggering about as much as her faltering steps. Despite himself, her crestfallen expression tugged his heartstrings.

“Elsa ...” He sighed. “Don’t fret over it tonight, all right? We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

She dried her eyes against his sleeve. “You’re good, Norman. Sheri always says so. He’s right.”

Shaking his head, Norman turned his gaze sightlessly to the window, Mayfair’s houses and streetlamps passing in a meaningless blur.

 Though her tears had ceased, Elsa still rubbed her face against his arm, back and forth. Her hand found his chest and slid up to hook around his neck.

“Elsa, what are you—”

She pulled his mouth to hers. She was warm and soft and inviting, tasting of whiskey and the promise of sex. Her tongue swept into his mouth on a moan, invading his senses with her scent.

He was a man of flesh and blood, and she was a temptress like no other he’d encountered. His body responded, even as his mind insisted he do the right thing. Never had he been so at odds with himself.

Gently as he could, Norman pushed her away. “No, Elsa,” he rasped.

She blinked up at him, bewildered. “You don’t want me?” she asked in a small, pitiful voice.

Sinking back into the squabs, Norman dragged his hands down the sides of his face. “You would hate me in the morning.”

“I could never hate you.”

“I would hate myself.”

Her face darkened. “Because I’ve been with other men? Not played the pious widow? Fine. I’ve other
friends
who’ll keep me company.” She pounded on the ceiling to signal the driver to stop.

He didn’t doubt there were any number of men who would be more than happy to take advantage of a lonely, inebriated widow. “Now see here,” he said darkly, “I’m not about to let you jump into bed with one of your ciscebos—not in this state. Drive on,” he called out the window.

In a flash, Elsa’s defensive glower turned to a sneer. “Jealous?”

Undoubtedly. How often had he watched her turn the head of every man in a room, then take her pick of them for a night’s dalliance? So many nights, he’d secretly ached, foolishly wishing she’d chosen him.

But longer than he’d desired Elsa, he’d known this: A woman who couldn’t walk a straight line or speak a straight sentence was in no frame of mind to choose to go to bed with a man, and any male who did so anyway was a piss-poor excuse for a man.

“You aren’t my keeper,” she railed. “You’ve no right ... none.”

“You’re scarcely more your own keeper than I am,” he retorted sharply. “You’ve no control over yourself.”

Her face screwed up in anger. “You ain’t so good, affer all, just a sad little man threatened by a woman unafraid of pleasure. Find us threat—threat’nin’.”

The coach stopped. When he saw Elsa’s townhouse through the window, he sagged in relief.

When the door opened, Elsa half tumbled out; it took both the driver and Norman to get her onto the front walk. With his arm around her waist, Norman steered her to the front door. “Fetch Foster,” he instructed a footman. “Her ladyship isn’t feeling well.”

While the man went for the lady’s maid, Elsa pushed away from Norman. She swayed alarmingly in the center of the entry hall. Her coiffure listed to the side, dark strands dangling lank around her pale face. She looked, he thought, like a banshee. Or a sad, drunken fishwife. He reached for her, but she held him off with a warning hand.

“How dare you judge me?” she hissed. “You think I never seen how you lookit me?” She jabbed herself in the chest; the tip of her finger disappeared into her cleavage. “An’ the time I offer you a fuck out of pity, you’re sunnly too good for me? Well,
Misser Norman Wynfor’-Scott
,” she sneered, imbuing his name with a healthy dose of scorn. “Well, maybe ... Maybe you’re not good ‘nuff for
me
.”

“I’ve no doubt that’s true,” he clipped off, the sarcasm dripping from his words seeming to pass right over her muddled head.

Foster hurried down the stairs. Taking in the sorry state of her mistress, the maid let out a gasp of dismay. She wrapped a protective arm around Elsa and guided her toward the stairs. “Thank you for seeing her home, sir.”

“And don’t come back,” Elsa yelled. “You hear that? I’m rejecting
you
. I’ve got no time for fools.”

She didn’t mean it. It was the liquor talking. When she’d slept it off, they’d once more be friends. But when she became drunk again, as she inevitably would, her mood would be unpredictable, and he’d be powerless to resist the need to protect her from herself.

As he watched her slowly ascend the stairs, Norman had a realization: The night was lost to catastrophe long before the punch caught fire. Disaster was inevitable from the moment he’d become entangled with the beautiful, ruinous Lady Fay.

Light sliced through her eyelids. Elsa, the dowager Viscountess Fay, winced. “Closed, Foster,” she croaked, flapping her hands in the general direction of the parted curtains and their skull-splitting blades of yellow death. Her stomach lurched alarmingly, so she stopped flailing, instead pressing her fingers to eyes pounding in time with her heart.

“It’s gone one, my lady.” Foster’s tone bristled with disapproval. “Here’s tea for you.” There was the sound of liquid pouring into a cup, the neat
snick
of the teapot placed precisely where it belonged on the tray. “Cook’s kept kidney pie warm for you. Have your tea while I fetch it up.” She paused, adding as an afterthought a slightly pitying, “Milady.”

Insolent biddy
, Elsa silently remonstrated. None of her friends tolerated such managing from their abigails. She heard Foster’s brisk steps cross the room and disappear down the hall. A draft from the corridor soothed Elsa’s heated cheeks. If she lay very still and took shallow breaths, the bed didn’t spin quite so crazily. She drifted.

Footsteps again. Heavy. A man’s.

Elsa startled out of her drowse, confused and cold with fear.
Harvey.
He disapproved of her lying abed beyond sunrise. And she’d had her courses. Without child once more. She’d failed. He would be angry—

A hand on her shoulder. For a few terrifying seconds, she was paralyzed, waiting for the grip to turn punishing.

“No use feigning sleep. Foster told me you’re awake.”

Not Harvey.
She knew that voice. Elsa opened her eyes and her lips, air flooding her lungs on a gasp. A handsome man stood at her bedside, splendidly attired in perfectly tailored weskit and tailed morning coat. His left hand still rested on her shoulder. In his other, he twirled a silver quizzing glass.

“Sheri?” Her hands trembled as she swiped a damp strand of hair from her forehead. What was Lord Sheridan Zouche doing in her bedchamber? Sheri was married now, wasn’t he? Why couldn’t she remember for certain?

“Here, allow me.” He made quick work of gathering pillows to prop her up, handling her gently but efficiently.

Elsa disliked being made to feel like an invalid, but her limbs did not seem inclined to cooperate. “Where’s your wife?” she asked, as Sheri turned to the tea tray.

“Here, my lady,” said a rich, musically accented voice. Elsa glanced past Sheri to see Arcadia Zouche just inside the door.

Sheri handed Elsa her tea. Ignoring the liquid sloshing over the rim, she buried her face in the fragrant cup, hiding her disquiet. In other circumstances, she’d be delighted by a visit from her dear friend and his lovely bride, but why were they in her bedchamber? Something was not right. Something was, she suspected, terribly wrong.

Shame twisted her gut. Last night. The memories were piecemeal, but what she recalled was reason enough for embarrassment.

Mr. Wynford-Scott, one of Sheri’s cabal of Honorables, had asked her to serve as hostess for the Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn. He was overwhelmed by the undertaking, he’d said, and since she had experience with such things ...

Once, she’d been a political hostess for her husband, holding weekly salons and fortnightly dinners during every session of Parliament throughout the six years of her marriage. She had charmed the nation’s mighty and powerful, knowing whether to employ a pointed observation or a flirtatious remark to best advance her husband’s interests. She’d been good at it, too, so good. It was the only way in which she’d not been a failure as a wife, Harvey had often remarked.

And so she’d been secretly delighted to be needed once more. She’d swooped in and rescued poor, fumbling Mr. Wynford-Scott. He’d had a few rough ideas that she had honed to perfection. She’d made sure the food would be prepared in ample quantities, chosen the most amusing entertainments, and hired the liveliest musicians.

She was in high spirits, drunk on her success and proud to once again have felt part of a team. But soon, that natural euphoria wasn’t enough. She’d sworn she’d only have one glass of wine with supper, and only a bit of punch elsewise, but then she’d given those boys a bottle of Uncle Seamus’s homemade Irish whiskey, the fumes of which curled the hairs in one’s nostrils, and had to prove to those green fellows that she could keep up with the rest of them.

After that, the evening was a blur of music and dancing and— Her cup clattered into the saucer.
Dancing.
She’d made a proper fool of herself dancing on the tabletop. That must be why Sheri had come, to chide her for the lewd display.

“Do you remember setting fire to Gray’s Inn last night?” he asked in a light tone.

The question caught her off guard. “Fire?”

There had been the drinking, and the music, and some more drinking, and then the dancing, another nip of whiskey ... She’d enjoyed teasing Norman, loved the heated look in his eyes when he watched her, not caring that she was tormenting him. But then he’d left, and she’d followed with her gaze, spotting the fire in the punch bowl. And then she’d—

“Cold water on hot glass. My fault.” She twisted a hand into the ends of her loose hair. “Was anyone hurt?” she asked in a pained whisper. If someone had been hurt—God,
killed
—because of her stupidity, Elsa didn’t know how what she’d do.

Yes, you do
, said a strange double voice in her head.

Shame and guilt, guilt and shame. Guilt and Shame. Like mythic twins, they resided somewhere inside her, twirling in gossamer robes until her middle knotted, their voices twining in a haunting melody that condemned her foibles and frailties. Guilt and Shame’s song now raised in crescendo until her ears rang.

Elsa’s mouth tasted terrible. Her stomach roiled. She felt the all-too-familiar battle between the muscles in her torso, her lower belly forcing her gorge upward, the ones below her ribs fighting to keep the contents of her stomach contained.

Long ago, she’d learned to hide her next-day vomiting. To a vigilant husband, it was too easily mistaken for a pregnant woman’s morning sickness.

“Mercifully, there were no serious injuries,” Sheri said. “A flutist with a twisted knee and a few cases of chest complaints caused by the smoke.”

None dead. No one too badly hurt. Elsa sagged, the relief easing her stomach, too.

“... some minor structural damage that will necessitate repairs, to say nothing of the fright you gave all those people.”

His soothing voice droned on. Her lids slid shut.

“Elsa!” He clapped in her face. She jerked awake, her fingers flinching tight on the cup she’d somehow managed not to spill.