Scandalous

by Jenna Petersen

  She swallowed. His words sank into her soul, past the walls of resistance and fear she had erected long ago. She searched his face again. And saw…love. It was something she’d never seen in her father’s face. It was something pure and good that she could no longer deny herself out of fear and empty memories.

  “I won’t let you keep my child from me.” He cupped her cheek and warmth flooded her. “And I won’t let you keep yourself from me, either. I am taking you home. If you don’t believe I love you, I will prove that to you every day. I will say it until you have no choice but to surrender to the truth.”

  Her lip quivered as she finally allowed joy to crest over her like an ocean wave.

  “Just say it once more,” she whispered.

  “I.” He kissed her forehead. “Love.” He kissed her nose. “You.”

  He hesitated at her lips, staring down at her. With a cry, she wrapped her arms around his neck and surged up to meet his mouth.

  “I love you,” she said between kisses. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

  “I know.” He kissed her even deeper.

  As his hot breath warmed her skin and her vision began to blur, a thought raced through her that brought her out of her haze. Placing her hands against the broad muscles of his chest, she shoved back. “Dominic, what about your father?”

  He smiled. “Finding him is a resolution of my past. One I’ve yearned for as long as I can remember. But you…you are my future.”

  She blinked back renewed tears. “And you can still go to him now. We will find him and have all your questions answered, at last.”

  “We will.” He nodded. “But not tonight.”

  Drawing her back into his arms, he kissed her. His love flowed through her, joining with her own until nothing else mattered but the moment. And the future.

  Dominic pulled back the curtain on the carriage window and blood drained from his face. The Vidal town house was shrouded in black, a symbol of grief.

  “Dominic,” Katherine whispered as she touched his hand in comfort.

  He squeezed her fingers. They had anticipated this moment might come after their investigator met them in London. With little understanding for the damage he was doing, the man informed them that Charles Vidal was very ill.

  Still, knowing that fact and seeing proof of it were very different. His heart sank.

  “It’s too late. He’s already gone.”

  “You don’t know that, Dominic,” Katherine said softly. “The house is mourning the inevitable as much as what has already come to pass. Your father may live still. You won’t know for sure until we knock on the door.”

  He nodded at her wisdom even as his heart lurched when the footman opened the carriage door. The first step seemed so far to travel, especially after the long years of waiting. Wanting. Questions rushed through his mind, threatening to overwhelm him.

  Katherine’s hand on his arm brought him back to reality. A chilling reality, but reality nonetheless. “Come, we’ll face this together.”

  He gripped her arm and walked up the steps to the door. His knock was weak and quiet, but within a few short moments, the door opened to reveal a young man. Immediately, Dominic looked to his arm for a band of black and was relieved that he wore none. Perhaps it wasn’t too late, after all.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Vidal,” he said.

  The man looked at them and for the first time Dominic noticed his eyes. Gray like his own.

  “Perhaps you have not heard, sir. He is on his deathbed. He cannot receive visitors of any kind. Only family is permitted.”

  His voice wasn’t unkind, but Dominic winced at this reminder that he was no family to this man any more than he was to his own.

  He fumbled for his card. “I know it is asking very much, but I have urgent business with Mr. Vidal. Perhaps an exception could be made?”

  The other man looked at the card. His eyes widened.

  “You are Dominic Mallory?” he asked slowly.

  Katherine stiffened at his side, gripping his arm tighter.

  “Yes. And this is my wife, Katherine.” He hesitated. “Are—are you Mr. Vidal’s son?”

  He nodded. “I’m Louis Vidal.”

  Dominic’s breath caught. This was his younger brother.

  Louis searched his face, then Katherine’s. “My father once told me if you ever came to call, we were to allow you in. He never told me why. And now you are here.”

  Dominic stiffened at this revelation, but fought to keep his emotions at bay. Obviously, this man had never been told he had a brother. It wasn’t his place to reveal a secret Vidal never told.

  “If you decide to refuse me, I understand,” he managed to say.

  Louis cocked his head. “No. I will respect my father’s wishes. Please come with me.”

  Dominic stared at Katherine as they followed the other man up the stairs to the family quarters. She returned his look with a kind one of her own. She understood how difficult this was and her strength helped him.

  Upstairs in the hallway stood three other men. They ranged in age from their late teens to their mid-twenties. There was also a woman of about Katherine’s age. All wore black and their eyes were rimmed red with sadness. His brothers and sisters.

  Louis paused to whisper something to them, then opened the door to a chamber.

  “Just a few moments, Mr. Mallory,” he murmured.

  Dominic entered the dim chamber slowly. In the moments it took his eyes to adjust to the light, he drew in several long breaths to compose himself. He needed to stay strong.

  “Who’s there?” came a weak, male voice from the bed.

  Dominic’s breath hitched as he gazed upon this man. His father. He was gaunt because of illness, with thinning hair and his pale skin. But his eyes were like Dominic’s and his face held the quiet strength of a man who had seen and done much in his life.

  “You do not know me, sir,” he began awkwardly, finding words hard to come by and so very inadequate. “But my name is Dominic Mallory.”

  For a moment, only silence filled the room. Dominic stiffened. Was he going to be refused? Did his father no longer wish to see him?

  Vidal’s breath faltered on a cough and Dominic took an instinctive step closer.

  “You came because you know.” Vidal’s voice was stronger through the dim room somehow. “You know the truth.”

  Dominic shut his eyes. How many times had he imagined this moment? So many. But in his fantasies, his father hadn’t been dying. And Dominic had always envisioned an angry encounter, not this sense of peace filling him. Of forgiveness.

  “Yes. I know the truth,” he whispered.

  There was a long silence, but then his father raised a frail hand. “Then close the door and come sit beside me, my son.”

  Dominic’s knees nearly buckled. Son. Hands shaking, he reached back and pushed the door shut, then took the first steps toward his father.

  Epilogue

  D ominic stared out the window overlooking the grounds of Lansing Square. The room around him was so silent he could have heard an ant scurry across the floor. Not that Katherine would ever allow ants entry to her home.

  He smiled. Come to think of it, it wasn’t totally silent. No, when he stopped staring out at his estate and concentrated, he could hear other things. In the distance, there was a burst of laughter, both masculine and feminine. Then the sound of a baby’s squeal.

  Both brought a warm, comforting joy to his body. One that just a year and a half before, he wouldn’t have believed possible.

  “There you are.”

  He turned at the voice that interrupted his musings to watch Katherine slip into his study and tap the door shut behind her. Her ebony hair was bound up in a loose chignon, but little strands of it were determined to pull free, winding around her face. She claimed to hate it. He loved it. It brought him to mind of how she looked the first night he saw her, on the terrace in the cold.

  “Yes, I’m here,” he said with a smile as he opened hi
s arms to her. Without hesitation, she slipped into his embrace and stayed there for a few long moments.

  “You know, you’re missing the party. Since it’s in your honor, you might want to think about joining us,” she teased when she finally pulled away. “Birthday Boy.”

  He laughed. His birthday had never been a happy time for him, but last year’s had been more than he could have ever hoped for. And this year’s was even better. He had a child, he had his beautiful wife. He had everything.

  “And when will you give me your present?” he asked with a sinful wink that had her blushing.

  “You got that lovely cigar cutter!” she protested, though he didn’t miss the gleam in her eye. He cocked his head. “Oh, very well,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “You know you’ll have another present. Tonight. Alone. With me.”

  She leaned into him and kissed him, filling him with as much desire as he felt love. He was still taken aback by how easily she could do that. Arouse and fill him with joy in such equal measures. Finally she pulled away.

  “But not right now,” she said, though before she turned to the door, he saw that her eyes were glazed with desire. “Because your entire family is just a few paces down the hall and they wonder where you are.”

  “Very well,” Dominic said with a grin as he offered her his arm and let her lead him down the long hallway toward the sitting room where his guests were assembled. He took a moment to enjoy a long look at his home. Katherine had worked so hard to make Lansing Square perfect.

  And it was. Despite everything, it was where he belonged. Now and forever.

  “There he is!”

  Dominic grinned as he entered the room and was greeted by a playful jeer from the small group of people. His family.

  Julia and Adrian had made a special trip, thanks to the blessing of her doctor, who had reassured the worried couple that their miracle child would survive a brief carriage ride. His sister glowed as she rested a soft hand on the swell of her belly.

  But along with the family he’d known all his life was the one he had just come to know. His brothers, Robert, Jeremy and Louis Vidal, sat scattered around the room. And his other sister, Charlotte, held his son with the care only a beloved aunt could manage.

  How had he ever gotten by in life without these people? He knew the answer. He hadn’t. Until he met Katherine, his life had been nothing but a meaningless blur of desire to find answers, but no joy.

  His wife had changed that, and his new family had accepted him with more love than he ever could have hoped for. It had been their father’s dying wish.

  He brushed away the sadness that always accompanied thoughts of Vidal. Though their time together had been brief, it had been a powerful gift to him. One he cherished.

  “All right, Charlotte Jean,” he said with the admonishing air of an older brother. “I think you’ve had my son long enough. I don’t want to give your maiden heart too many longings when you haven’t yet set a date to marry that scoundrel of yours.”

  His younger sister gasped in a playful show of outrage, but held the baby out nonetheless. “The only scoundrel I know is you, Dominic,” she said with a sassy wink.

  He laughed and took John from her arms. Instantly, the baby giggled and did his all-new trick. Clapping wildly.

  “He approves,” Katherine said at his elbow, before she reached out to pinch her baby boy’s cheek.

  With a laugh, Dominic sat down next to one of his brothers, and enjoyed the beautiful scene of his family.

  “Margeretta, will you take John upstairs please?” Katherine gently placed her baby into the nursemaid’s arms. He only barely stirred, showing her a brief glimpse of the eyes that were just like his father’s. She smiled.

  “Of course, Mrs. Mallory.”

  Margeretta took the sleeping bundle and slipped from the room, leaving Katherine to go on a search for her husband. This was the second time he’d slipped away from his own party, and it worried her enormously.

  When Dominic was with his brothers and sisters, she could see how happy he was, but she was also well aware of how painful his birthday was. Neither Cole, nor his mother, had made any kind of acknowledgment, continuing a coldness that had lasted since their last ugly encounter.

  She slipped into the hallway. She could hear their houseguests in the same sitting room where they’d been gathered earlier, but this time they were sharing drinks before supper. Their laughter warmed her heart, for these were all the people she loved, and more importantly, who loved her husband.

  Almost as much as she did.

  Just as she was about to look for him on the terrace, she heard Matthews clear his throat behind her.

  “Yes?” she asked with a kind smile for the butler.

  He returned the expression with genuineness. “A letter has arrived for Mr. Mallory. From Lady Larissa Mallory.”

  Katherine jolted in surprise but took the missive the butler held out on a small silver tray. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to give it to him.”

  Taking a deep breath, she looked at the letter. Yes, it was Larissa’s soft, flowing hand. The address looked shaky, as if her fingers trembled when she wrote her youngest son’s name.

  With a frown, Katherine put the note in her gown pocket and continued to search for her husband.

  She wasn’t surprised to find him out on the terrace behind the ballroom. The wide stone parapet offered him the best view of the estate, though in the darkness he couldn’t see anything. She adjusted her thin shawl to protect her arms from the spring breeze, then slipped up beside him.

  “This is the second time you’ve escaped me,” she said lightly, watching carefully for his reaction.

  “I could never wish to escape you,” he said with a grin, but behind it was something heated and filled with desire. It almost melted her.

  “But you’re thinking about things that trouble you, and you don’t want me to take on your worries,” she said gently.

  Briefly, he looked surprised, but then his smile grew. “Ah, you know me so well.”

  “I do.” She sighed. “And I have something for you that may or may not improve your mood.”

  She held out the letter. Dominic hesitated and she knew he’d seen his mother’s handwriting. Finally, he took it and broke the wax seal. The letter was short, just one page, and from Dominic’s expression, she couldn’t tell if he was upset by whatever Larissa had written.

  “She wanted to wish me a happy birthday,” he said quietly as he folded the note and put it in his jacket pocket. “And invited me to come to her town house when we return to London next month. She wants to tell me about my father.”

  Katherine bit her lip. “And how do you feel about that?”

  Truth be told, she didn’t know how she, herself, felt. Part of her was angry. It was too late to gift Dominic with knowledge now! Now when Charles Vidal was dead and Dominic had moved on with his life. But part of her knew that Dominic still longed to hear the truth from his mother’s own lips. To have her take his side as she hadn’t his entire life.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted as he reached out to take her hand. “I think she must be very lonely now that Cole and Sarah have gone to the Continent. The scandal over Sarah’s affair last fall put a gap between them.”

  Katherine nodded, thinking of the uproar Sarah’s very public affair with a stable hand half her age had caused. She stifled a smile. Banishment and ruin were only part of what Cole and his wife deserved. Though she knew it was wrong to take pleasure in their pain, she couldn’t help it after all they had put Dominic through.

  He sighed as he looked out at the estate again. “I also know she had word of my reunion with Vidal and his ultimate death. Perhaps her irrational fears of destroying him are gone now that the truth is out.”

  “What do you intend to do?” she asked.

  He shrugged, but as she searched his eyes, she was pleased to see the pain that once filled them when he spoke of the Mallorys was no longer present. He had put it away
in the past where it belonged.

  “I think I’ll go to her. She is my mother. I understand how unhappy she was. And how her actions were, perhaps, meant to protect rather than hurt. I used to think she couldn’t look at me because she regretted my birth…but now, knowing how much I look like my father did when he was younger, perhaps she only regretted losing him.”

  He slipped his arms around Katherine and she snuggled back against his warmth, forgetting about the past. She let out a contented sigh as she looked up at the starry night.

  His voice reverberated against her earlobe. Soft, sensual. “A very long time ago, I saw you looking up at the sky like you are now. And I think I fell in love with you a little at that very moment.”

  She laughed as she held him tighter. “Yes. It does seem like a very long time ago, doesn’t it? Or perhaps only yesterday.”

  “I asked you then what you wished for and you told me nothing. That you had everything your heart desired.”

  Her laughter faded as she remembered her tangled emotions and the groundless fears that had haunted her all those many months before. When she thought of what she almost deprived herself of…what she’d nearly deprived her son of…it gave her a shiver.

  “I didn’t know what I wanted then. I was confused by false worries.” She looked at him. “That night you also told me you didn’t believe in wishes.”

  Now it was his turn to smile. “I was confused then, too.”

  Tears pricked her eyes as she lost herself in a wash of gray. “Then make a wish tonight, Dominic. Make a wish on the stars.”

  He looked up as a streak of light crossed the sky and for a long moment, she thought he was making a wish. But then he bent his head to press a kiss on her lips.

  She leaned up into it with a sigh of surrender. When he finally parted with her, he whispered, “I spent my life wishing for the truth, but I have that now. I wished for a family, but they are all in the sitting room probably making dreadful assumptions about the fun we’re having.”