Scandalous Brides

by Amanda McCabe

  The drawing room doors opened then, to admit the gentlemen who had concluded their rituals of port and cigars. Deidra glanced at them briefly before turning her smile back to Carmen. “I presume then that we must soon lose your delightful company to the lure of travel and variety. What a great loss to England.”

  Carmen eyed her companion impassively, thinking, Why, the little baggage! She almost laughed aloud at these attempts to be rid of the foreign interloper. “That is very kind of you to say, Lady Deidra.”

  “Well, I am very happy, Condesa, that we had this chance to chat. I am certain we shall see each other again, before the weekend is concluded.”

  “I am sure we shall.”

  Deidra nodded and rose to cross the room in her graceful pink flutter. She took Peter’s arm with her small hand, and stood on tiptoe to speak quietly in his ear.

  Carmen looked away, into the flames that leapt high in the marble grate. She could feel a headache forming behind her eyes, a sharp pain born of confusion, exhaustion, even apprehension. She was just gathering her book and shawl, to make her excuses to Elizabeth and then retire, when she felt a warm, masculine hand alight briefly on her shoulder.

  She turned, almost hopeful, to see Viscount Huntington standing behind her. Peter was still across the room, with Lady Deidra.

  Carmen forced herself to smile in welcome, and patted the arm of the chair that had been recently vacated by Lady Deidra. Huntington, after all, was a very amiable gentleman.

  He sat down shyly. “I saw that you were conversing with the Clearbridge Pearl, Condesa.”

  “Is that what she is called? I found her more of a ...” Carmen paused. “Rose.”

  “Oh, yes. That, too. She is much admired. Young fops compose odes to her eyelashes, that sort of thing. They say she has had twenty offers.”

  Carmen laughed. “Was one of them yours, Lord Huntington?”

  He looked affronted. “Lud, no. I couldn’t tolerate being leg-shackled to such alabaster dignity my whole life, even if she would accept my addresses. Pardon my saying so, Condesa.”

  “Of course. But why would she not accept your addresses? You seem a very nice young man to me.”

  He blushed a bright pink, all the way into his cravat. “I’m not top-lofty enough for an earl’s daughter!”

  “Ah.”

  Then Elizabeth interrupted their conversation, swooping down upon them with folded bits of paper clutched in her hand.

  “Oh, Carmen, there you are!” she cried. “Do forgive me, Huntington, for stealing her away, but I simply must beg her assistance in setting up my game.”

  “Elizabeth,” Carmen protested, “if it is charades, I do not know how...”

  “Not at all! I would not have charades at my party. This is tableaux.”

  Carmen did not see how that was any different. “Tableaux?”

  “Yes. Here, hold these papers for me.” Elizabeth had gathered a crowd with her enthusiasm, and she now clambered onto a chair to make her instructions heard. “Every team will be assigned a scene from Greek mythology to enact. The team which is the most dramatic, the most convincing, shall win the prize!” A small murmur of excitement arose, and she raised her hand for silence. She flashed a brilliant smile at Carmen, and then turned one onto her brother. “I shall assign the first scene to none other than my own brother, Lord Clifton, who, along with the Condesa de Santiago, shall enact Endymion and Selene!”

  Carmen closed her eyes. She could hear Lady Deidra’s hissing whisper, “Well, this is a most shocking pastime! I must say I had hoped Lady Elizabeth would show more propriety, despite being an artist.”

  Yet, even with her eyes squeezed shut and her ears trying to do so, Carmen could feel the weight of Peter’s regard from across the room as he watched her. When she opened her eyes to look back at him, to beseech him to talk some sense into his sister, he winked at her!

  “Psst! Carmen! Are you awake?”

  Carmen rolled over in her bed and blinked sleepily, certain she must be dreaming. But when she pinched herself, it did not go away. Elizabeth still stood at her bedside, wrapped in a cloak, a lantern held aloft.

  “I am now,” Carmen said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “Whatever are you about, Lizzie?”

  “Some of us are going out to look at the moon from the medieval ruins nearby. It is full tonight, you know. So romantic!”

  “The ruins? But it must be after midnight!”

  “Nearly two, I believe. Do you want to come?”

  Carmen glanced at her window, at the bar of silvery moonlight that spilled from between the velvet drapes. She could feel the old excitement of adventure tingling in her fingertips again, something that had not happened for so very long.

  The fact that this adventure was looking at the moon at two in the morning rather than facing French guns made it all the better.

  “I may as well, since I am already awake.” She climbed out of the bed and reached into the wardrobe for a plain muslin day dress and her cloak.

  The others were already waiting for them on the drive. There was Georgina Beaumont, who carried a large picnic hamper; Nicholas, with a bottle of champagne; Lord Huntington, and Miss Dixon. And Peter.

  Lady Deidra and her mother were nowhere in sight.

  Elizabeth and Nicholas led the way down a narrow, tree-lined pathway that veered off of the main drive, closely followed by the chattering, laughing group. Carmen and Peter brought up the rear.

  “I saw that Robert Means declined Elizabeth’s invitation,” she said quietly.

  “Yes. I do believe that he has kept his word to me, and retired to the country for good. I went to see him after—well, after we spoke in my library. He promised he would leave London.” Peter’s hand sought hers, warm and reassuring in the chilly darkness. “He will not be bothering you again.”

  Carmen squeezed his hand. “He never bothered me. That is what makes his lies so very shocking.”

  “Perhaps even more shocking than that I would believe them?”

  “Perhaps,” Carmen whispered.

  Peter jumped lightly over a fallen log, and reached back to assist Carmen, swinging her up into his arms.

  When she was on the other side of the log, he did not release her, but held her against him. Carmen looped her arms about his neck and looked down at his lovely, patrician face, illuminated by moonlight.

  “I can never say I am sorry enough, Carmen,” he said softly. “I should have had more faith in you, in our feelings for one another.”

  “So you should have,” she answered lightly. “But I have already forgiven you.”

  “Come along, you two!” called Elizabeth. “No lagging behind, if you please. What kind of chaperone do you think I am? Even if I am an artist!”

  The others shrieked with laughter.

  Peter placed Carmen on her feet and wordlessly offered his arm. She took it, and they walked together into the clearing where the medieval watch tower, half ruined, stood sentinel.

  Some of the others were already climbing up inside the tower, and their laughter cast a warm golden glow over the ancient stones. A stream rushed along behind it, its gurgle and tumble mingling with that laughter.

  The moon bathed the whole scene in a gentle, silvery luminescence, giving it the unreal atmosphere of a painting.

  Carmen thought it the perfect setting for a reawakening love.

  Georgina leaned out of a window at the very top of the tower, her long red hair falling over her shoulders. “Look!” she called. “I am Rapunzel!”

  Carmen laughed as she took in the whole enchanted, fairy-tale scene. “Is it not wonderful?”

  “Lovely,” Peter said. “It is an enchanted night.”

  “That is exactly what I thought.” Carmen looked up at him, to find he was watching her. “I am so happy we are sharing this together, Peter. I thought never to see such a thing with you again.”

  “Neither did I, Carmen,” he answered. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a tender, lingeri
ng kiss to her wrist. “Neither did I.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “ ‘Endymion the shepherd... the moon Selene, saw him, loved him sought him... Kissed him, lay beside him.’ Hmph.”

  Carmen tossed aside the volume of Theocritus she was perusing over her morning chocolate. She slid down among the mound of pillows on her bed, and turned her face into the lavender-scented linen with a giggle.

  Nothing, not even hiding her face, could erase the persistent vision of Peter clad in nothing but a brief, a very brief, chiton. And perhaps a pair of sandals.

  She was beginning to suspect that Elizabeth, seemingly so very charming and sweet, was nothing but an imp.

  Endymion and Selene, indeed! Carmen shuddered to think of what Elizabeth might conjure up next, in her misguided scheming.

  “Carmen?” Elizabeth knocked softly at the door, seemingly conjured by Carmen’s thoughts. “Are you awake?”

  “No,” Carmen called.

  Elizabeth came inside anyway, already carefully coiffed and dressed in blue muslin and a lacy shawl. “I so need your assistance in organizing today’s excursion!”

  Carmen pulled the bedclothes down from over her head, and peered at Elizabeth over the edge. “Not if it involves bloody tableaux.”

  “Tsk tsk. Wherever did you learn such language? And the tableaux are our grand finale for Sunday.” She paused. “Though today would be an excellent opportunity for rehearsal. I was thinking of a small picnic at the tower we went to last night. The day looks to be a wonderful, sunny one, and you should see the tower in the light!”

  “That does sound delightful,” Carmen answered reluctantly.

  “I knew you would think so! Now, I must tell the others, so that we may be off directly after breakfast.” Elizabeth began to turn away, then paused, reaching into her pocket for a small bundle of letters. “I very nearly forgot! These came for you with the morning post.”

  Carmen took the letters from her, but waited until she was alone again to peruse them. One was from Esperanza, with a carefully penned postscript from Isabella, detailing all they had been doing in Carmen’s absence (a pantomime at the Sadler’s Wells Theater seemed foremost among them). There were also two missives from friends in Paris, full of lively and amusing gossip.

  And the last—the last was written on cheap, smudged paper and sealed with black wax.

  Carmen dropped the letter, one hand pressed to her mouth to stifle a cry. How could they have found her. How could they have known where she was?

  They were everywhere now. She was safe nowhere.

  “I believe I owe you an apology, Carmen.”

  Carmen, who had deliberately wandered from the others on their picnic excursion in order to be quiet and think, whirled around with a gasp at the unexpected sound of Peter’s voice. She crumpled the letter in her hand, pressing it tightly against the folds of her skirt.

  He stood at the edge of the small circle of trees Carmen had found beside the stream, poised hesitantly, as if unsure of his welcome and prepared to instantly depart.

  He was so achingly handsome, with the sunlight falling across his windswept golden hair, gilding it like a Greek icon. Carmen could almost have wept at his loveliness.

  “Another apology?” she said. “What have you done this time?”

  “For Lizzie’s—overly eager behavior. She has the artistic temperament, you know, and once she has a goal in mind she will not relinquish it.” He paused, watching the stream just beyond her figure. “I had the impression that she made you uncomfortable with her silly tableaux, which she no doubt learned about in Italy, and I wanted to be certain you knew you were under no obligation to go along with her. I could speak with her.”

  “Oh, no,” Carmen protested. “I would not like to ruin Lizzie’s plans. Unless, that is, you do not wish to participate in the tableaux.” She glanced at him to gauge his reaction, but his expression was only very polite.

  Then he smiled, the odd, crooked half smile that always made her stomach leap into her throat with no warning at all. “And forfeit the sight of you in a chiton, Carmen? Certainly not.”

  “How very strange.”

  “Strange? That a man should want to see you in a chiton?”

  Carmen laughed, her mood instantly lightened. “I should hope not! Only odd because I had thought exactly the same about you. But I added sandals to the ensemble.”

  Peter’s eyes widened, and Carmen feared she had ventured too far into flirting. It was early days yet, after all. She turned away to look at the water. “Is it not lovely here? So very peaceful.”

  “Beautiful.” Peter moved to stand behind her, his breath warm on her cheek. “I used to come here often.”

  “I thought that Elizabeth and Nicholas only recently purchased the property?”

  “Oh, yes. But it is only a short ride from here to Clifton Manor. Old Lord Mountebank, the former owner, never cared if we ran wild here as children.”

  “Clifton Manor. Your home.” Peter had spoken to her often of Clifton Manor while they were in Spain. He had told her of the house, of how it began life as a Tudor manor, the long-ago dowry of an Elizabethan bride to the second earl, and of how each earl had added to it until it was a sprawling amalgamation. He had told her of the hidey-holes he and Elizabeth had found as children, of the great gardens, and the lake with its Oriental summerhouse.

  She had always felt as if she could see it, touch it, feel its spell woven of so many generations of love and laughter, reaching out to enfold her in its history.

  Once, for a brief while, she had thought to be its mistress. To belong there, as Peter and Elizabeth did. To watch her children playing in the gardens.

  Then she had known she would never live there.

  “Yes,” said Peter. “My home.”

  Carmen sat down on the grassy bank of the stream, tucking the thick green velvet of her habit beneath her against the damp. “Was it still all you had dreamed of when you returned there after Spain?”

  He sat beside her, his long legs in their fashionable doeskin breeches stretched out before him. “Clifton had not changed at all. That is the beauty of it. It was still as green and peaceful as ever. It even smelled the same, of wax candles and beeswax polish. But I had changed. So much, too much. That I had not counted on. I had foolishly thought that when I came home I would be the same as before I left. I would forget the war and be at peace.”

  “Yes,” said Carmen with a sigh. “I felt the very same, when I went home to my family’s house in Seville. I thought I could rejoin society, be a devout Spanish lady again.”

  “When did you go back?”

  “After I learned that you were dead. I was so exhausted, so ill. I only wanted to go home. Though my parents were long dead, I still thought of that house, so dark and quiet, as home. The places I had known as a child. I, too, thought I could forget and be at peace. So I went back, and I never spoke of what had happened, not to anyone.” Her fingers closed tighter about the crumpled letter she still held in her hand. The edges of the paper cut into her palm. “I only discovered, as we all must, that peace is only to be found in my heart. And my peace had gone.”

  Peter leaned back on his elbows to look up at the sky above them, covered by the interlocking branches of the tress. The laughter of the group could be heard faintly as they climbed up inside the tower. The two of them seemed enclosed in a world of their own, though.

  “Did Elizabeth tell you how I was ill when I returned home?” Peter said.

  Carmen looked down at him, at his beautiful, still face. “Nicholas said that it was difficult for you. That you were not at all yourself. Did you have a fever from your wounds?”

  “I was ill in my mind. I could not forget you, never leave what had happened between us behind me. It made me cruel, especially to my poor sister. All I could ever think about, ever see, was you.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “And I you.”

  He touched her then, his hand warm on her arm, burning through the hea
vy fabric of her sleeve. She leaned against him and closed her eyes, letting herself feel, just for the moment, a measure of the security she had longed for for so long.

  “This place,” Peter said. “Does it not remind you of another we have seen?”

  She smiled without opening her eyes. “That river in Spain, near your camp. Where you asked me to dance . . .”

  “And asked you to be my wife.”

  “And I said yes, yes, yes!”

  “And where I kissed you...”

  Carmen laughed. “I do believe we did much more than kiss!”

  Peter laughed, too, a rich sound rusty from disuse. “Oh, yes! I also recall that.”

  Carmen opened her eyes and smiled at him. How could anyone call him the Ice Earl, she mused, when he was as golden and alive as the sun.

  He gently reached up and touched her face, cradling her cheek in his palm as if it were the most precious, fragile crystal. “Carmen. Are you truly here with me, alive, or are you another dream?”

  “I could ask the same of you,” she murmured. “I dreamed of a moment like this one so often during these years. Am I awake? Is this real?”

  “Does this feel real to you?” Peter sat up and touched his lips softly to hers.

  It was so strange, so familiar, so thrilling. Carmen leaned closer into the kiss, opening her lips under his inquisitive pressure. Her fingers reached to touch the satin of his hair, to feel him against her...

  “Lord Clifton? Are you here?”

  “I say, Clifton? Are you hiding from us?”

  Carmen gasped at the sound of voices—Lady Deidra and Viscount Huntington. She pulled her mouth from Peter’s, drew out of his reaching arms to scramble to her feet. She brushed at her skirts, frantically trying to disentangle leaves and grass from the velvet.

  It was a hopeless cause. She simply looked too much like a woman who had been rolling about on the ground, right to the guilty flush she was sure must be staining her cheeks.

  “What was I thinking of?” she muttered. “Anyone could have seen us! What a scandal! What if ...”