by Cheryl Holt
“Lord…Stafford?”
Her pulse pounded with dread.
As they’d tossed out words like harlotry and fornication, it had never occurred to her that they were referring to her trysts with Nicholas Price.
Her relationship with him had been fueled by love and affection. At least on her end. She shouldn’t have dallied with him, but she’d done it with the best of intentions. She’d thought he would marry her. She’d thought her esteem was fully reciprocated.
She’d been dead wrong, but she’d proceeded with high hopes and big dreams.
The vicar’s allegation made their association sound sordid and obscene. He made it sound…criminal.
A woman couldn’t blithely consort with a man. There were laws banning it. There were morals to prohibit it. There were community standards of decency and decorum to follow. There were church teachings as to sin and damnation.
Still, she blustered, “Lord Stafford and I are friends. He helped me financially when my sisters and I were in dire straits. He let us live here at the manor, and he gave me a job as his secretary. I worked for him.”
“Flat on your back, it would seem,” Vicar Blair vulgarly retorted.
His cold certainty rattled her.
“Name one witness who can speak against me! Name one witness who ever observed so much as a glance between us that was inappropriate!”
“Actually,” Benedict Mason said, “I am that witness. I was happy to impart all that I discovered about the two of you.”
“You!” she huffed. “I scarcely know you. What basis could you have to accuse me of anything?”
The vicar picked up a stack of papers and waved them at Emeline.
“Mr. Mason has penned an extensive deposition. Shall I read some of it to you?”
Emeline panicked. She was cornered and couldn’t decide her course of action.
She understood that she had to deny and deny and deny any affair, but at what cost? If she asked him not to read from the deposition, was she implicating herself? If she brazened it out and urged him to go ahead, he might spew embarrassing personal details. She’d likely faint.
She could think of nothing worse than to stand before the three of them while Oscar Blair recited a list of her transgressions. What could Mr. Mason possibly have told him? It had to be very, very bad.
She thought of Nicholas Price, the man she’d cherished, the man she’d presumed would be her husband. He was in London, leading his rich, indolent bachelor’s life while she’d been left behind to face disgrace and humiliation all alone.
Was he aware of what they were doing? If he wasn’t, and he ever learned of it, would he even care?
She didn’t suppose he would. He’d be wed soon, and once he was, she’d be a distant memory, just one gullible woman in a long line of gullible women who’d crawled in and out of his bed over the years.
“You don’t have to read it,” she said.
“Why is that?” the vicar queried. “Is it because you know what it contains?”
“No, I just rather you didn’t.”
He started anyway. “’On Tuesday last, I, Benedict Mason, land agent for Nicholas Price, Lord Stafford, was in the hall outside the earl’s library. The door was ajar, and I could hear him talking to his brother, Mr. Stephen Price. To my extreme surprise, they were discussing the earl’s tenant, Miss Emeline Wilson, a single, unmarried lady whom the earl had brought to reside in the manor with him.’”
The vicar paused. “Shall I continue?”
“There’s no need,” Emeline pleaded.
Vicar Blair kept on. “’Mr. Stephen Price asked the earl about a sexual liaison he was pursuing with Miss Wilson. The earl boasted about the relationship and shared numerous salacious descriptions of Miss Wilson’s anatomy. He also provided several vivid accounts of the carnal acts in which the pair had regularly engaged.’”
Emeline gasped. She hadn’t meant to; the sound emerged before she could hold it in.
“He was boasting, Miss Wilson,” Mr. Mason said, “and he was quite pleased with himself. He was eager for his brother to know all.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“The earl is a hardened soldier,” Mr. Mason pointed out. “What on Earth were you thinking, involving yourself with someone like him? Did you imagine yourself clever? Did you imagine yourself discreet? How could you presume you would never be found out?”
Emeline began to shake. Her legs felt rubbery, as if they might give way, and she stumbled over to the chair she hadn’t wanted to use. She eased herself down.
What to do? What to do?
Vicar Blair riffled the papers again. “Apparently, you’ve been well paid for your whoring. So far, you’ve received a new wardrobe, both for yourself and your sisters. Next, you’re to receive a house and a stipend and a—”
“Stop it!” she cried. “It wasn’t like that!”
“Wasn’t it? When a female spreads her legs for a man, then is paid for her efforts, it is prostitution, Emeline. It’s no different than if you’d been lurking in the shadows at Covent Garden, and he’d tossed you a few pennies when he was through.”
The sheriff added, “Whores are hanged for less.”
Ashamed and mortified, she stared at the floor. She realized that she ought to be refuting the allegations, but Vicar Blair was so sure. She couldn’t guess how to temper his opinion. In his view, she’d already been tried and convicted.
And what purpose was to be gained by contradicting Mr. Mason’s version of events? Emeline had sinned with Nicholas Price. She had lain with him outside marriage. She had dishonored herself with immoral behavior. All of their claims were true, so how could she insist otherwise? It seemed futile.
“I would like to contact Lord Stafford,” she said. “I ask that I be allowed to write to him.”
The vicar scowled. “Write to him? What for?”
“He would tell you how it actually was between us.”
“We know how it was,” Vicar Blair sneered.
Mr. Mason inquired, “Have you seen the London paper?”
“No, when would I have?” she replied.
He had a copy of it, and he whipped through the pages, searching for the one he wanted. As he located it, he shoved it in her face.
She tried to skim the article he indicated, but as she noted the subject, her vision blurred, and she couldn’t make out the words.
“The earl has been called back to active duty,” Mr. Mason explained. “He won’t be able to return to London in August for his wedding as he’d planned.”
“So?” she mumbled. “How would that concern me?”
“He has moved up the date. It’s to be held this Friday.”
Vicar Blair snickered. “Do you really suppose, Emeline, that he’d care to hear from you just now?”
He’d moved up the date? He’d be wed on Friday?
After Lady Veronica visited Stafford, Emeline had understood that he was destined to marry the beautiful, rich girl, but she hadn’t truly believed it would ever transpire. In some silly feminine part of her brain, she’d assumed he wouldn’t proceed, that he would recognize his mistake and come back to her.
Instead, he’d flitted off to London and decided to wed earlier than previously scheduled. Much earlier than scheduled.
Her shaking increased, and she was trembling so violently that she could barely remain in her chair.
“I should like to see my sisters,” she said.
“That won’t be possible,” Vicar Blair responded. “Considering the gravity of your conduct, I have determined you to be an unfit guardian. They have been taken from you.”
“What? No!”
“Such young, impressionable children have no business being raised by you.”
“I want to see them! Where are they?”
“Currently, they’ve been conveyed to the poorhouse. Ultimately, they will be remanded to an orphanage in London.”
Emeline was so enraged that she jumped up and lunged at B
lair, but this time, Sheriff Pratt was prepared for an outburst. For such a large man, he reacted very quickly. He grabbed her arms and forced her to her knees so she was prostrate in front of the vicar, as if begging his forgiveness.
“Harlot!” Vicar Blair charged. “Harlot be damned!”
Exuding wrath, he rose and loomed over her as Emeline hissed and wrestled against Sheriff Pratt’s tight grip.
“I demand to speak with my sisters!” she shouted. “I demand to contact Lord Stafford.”
“I am disgusted to the marrow of my bones,” the vicar shouted back. “Get her out of my sight.”
He stormed from the room as Emeline struggled to break free and chase after him, but the sheriff was much too strong.
Though she scratched and fought, he bound her wrists with a rope, then he wrapped a bandana over her mouth to stifle any cries for help.
He hustled her out the rear door to a waiting carriage. He picked her up and tossed her into it, then he climbed in after her.
The driver had anticipated their arrival, and he cracked the whip, the horses lurching away at a fast clip.
In an instant, Emeline vanished from Stafford, and it just so happened that the stable yard and park were empty of onlookers so there were no witnesses to what had occurred. She might have been a ghost, disappeared into thin air.
Chapter Twenty
Jo trudged to the vicarage, wishing she had somewhere else to go. She was so miserably unhappy, and in light of some of the awful moments she’d experienced in her life, she hadn’t imagined she could ever again be so dejected. Yet apparently, there was no end to the low points that could arrive.
Stephen Price had been gone for two weeks. He’d burst across the sky like a comet, and in the process, he’d wrecked everything.
After her husband’s death, when she’d moved to Stafford, she’d carefully constructed a world for herself so she could survive the humdrum years. That world was painted in boring shades of tan and gray. Nothing exciting was supposed to occur.
She was a woman who’d lusted after much, but who had never been able to grab hold of what she truly wanted. She’d learned to settle; she’d learned to do without.
Stephen had shaken up her staid existence, and she felt as if she’d been scraped raw, her yearnings exposed. She’d become a roiling torrent of dissatisfaction.
She approached the house, and there was a carriage parked at the gate. Her brother climbed out and motioned to the driver who clicked the reins. The vehicle started toward her.
As it rattled by, one of the Wilson twins popped up in the window.
“Mrs. Merrick!” she cried, appearing terrified. “Mrs. Merrick, we don’t know what’s—”
An older matron lunged up and yanked her inside. The curtain was jerked shut, and the carriage kept on.
Jo turned and glared at her brother. He was watching it rumble off, a grim smile on his arrogant face. Unease swept over her.
There had always been rumors of his autocratic behavior, of his stepping beyond the bounds of conduct permitted a preacher, but no lapses had ever been proven. It was all gossip, allegedly stirred by the less-pious members of the community who didn’t like him.
With no earl in residence, he’d seized an enormous amount of authority, and he wielded his power without supervision or restraint. What sort of trouble could such a despot instigate? The possibilities were frightening.
“Where are the twins going?” she asked, hurrying to him. “Who was that woman?”
“Leave it be, Josephine. It’s none of your affair.”
“Tell me.”
“You will not question me! You know better.”
He marched into the vicarage, and she followed, running to keep up.
Ignoring her, he hung his coat on a hook, then went into his study. He poured himself a brandy and sat at his desk. To her assessing eye, it looked as if he was celebrating.
What on Earth had he done?
“Is Emeline all right?” She pestered him even though he’d insisted she not. “Has something happened?”
“Josephine!” he snapped. “Be silent.”
“I demand to know what is occurring.”
“If I thought this was any of your business, I would confide you.”
With her mood being so sour, she was too annoyed to be circumspect. They might have had their first quarrel ever, but any bickering was forestalled by a knock at the door.
The maid answered it, and shortly, Mr. Mason was shown in. He was as smug as her brother.
“Hello, Mrs. Merrick,” he said.
“Mr. Mason.”
She tried to smile but couldn’t manage it. She wasn’t glad to see him and couldn’t pretend.
Over the past few weeks, he’d invited her on numerous outings, but she’d deftly devised pretexts to avoid him. She hadn’t had to be alone with him a single time, but she couldn’t demur forever. If she wasn’t more sociable, Oscar would order her to fraternize.
“You’re particularly fetching this afternoon,” he told her.
“Thank you.”
He was always unfailingly polite, and it was disconcerting to have compliments spew from his cold, cruel mouth.
“If you’ll excuse us, Josephine?” her brother interrupted. “Mr. Mason and I have important matters to discuss.”
“Certainly.” She was relieved to have a reason to flee the room.
She walked into the hall and pulled the door closed, and as she was moving away, she noted that the latch hadn’t caught. As she reached to shut it again, she realized that it was ajar and their conversation audible. They were chatting quietly, and when they mentioned Emeline, she couldn’t help but listen.
“Is she gone?” her brother asked.
“Vanished like smoke.”
“Any problems? Any witnesses?”
“No. Sheriff Pratt whisked her away so fast that my head is still spinning.”
A sheriff? A sheriff took Emeline away?
“I only deal with professionals,” Oscar bragged.
“Pratt is very good. Emeline kicked and fussed, but she was too small to put up much of a fight.”
“I’m delighted to be shed of her—and so easily, too. I should have taken action months ago.”
“What about the twins?” Mr. Mason inquired.
“They’ve been seized, and I’ve arranged transport to the London orphanage tomorrow morning.”
“So…all three have disappeared, and it will be ages before anyone notices they’re missing. This has been a fine day’s work.”
“I agree.”
“If any curious busybodies ever come sniffing, we’ll simply shrug. Why would we know anything about Emeline Wilson? I heard she has family in Sussex. Perhaps she went to stay there.”
“I heard the very same,” Oscar said.
They chuckled, and there was a clinking sound as if they were enjoying a toast.
Jo began to shake with fury. Emeline had been arrested? She’d been physically overpowered? The twins were being shipped to a London orphanage?
Decades of repressed rage bubbled up inside her. Every slight, every insult, every abuse surged to the surface, and she was hopping mad.
She laid a palm on the wood of the door and shoved it open with such force that it whipped around and smacked into the wall behind. Both men jumped, but their guilty expressions were quickly masked.
“What have you two done?” Jo seethed.
“Go to your room, Josephine,” her brother commanded.
She focused her livid attention on Mr. Mason. “I will not leave until you confess your behavior.”
“Go!” her brother hissed.
“What if I don’t? Will you call in your sheriff and have him wrestle me to the ground?”
Mr. Mason frowned at Oscar. “Maybe I should explain it to her.”
“No, it would be better if you left. I’ll handle it.”
“If you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“She’s in
a temper,” Mason pointed out, “so she isn’t thinking clearly. We can’t have her blabbing to the whole town.”
“She won’t,” Oscar replied, and it sounded like a threat.
“I saw the twins in the carriage,” Jo said. “I’ll never be silent about it.”
“Dammit, Blair!” Mr. Mason muttered. “You only had to rid us of two young girls. You couldn’t do it without being observed?”
“I won’t be lectured by you,” Oscar huffed. “Now leave us so that I may deal with my sister.”
Mr. Mason turned to Jo. “We’ll talk later.”
“I’d rather have the barber yank out all my teeth,” she retorted.
He clicked his heels together and bowed, but didn’t offer a goodbye. She stood, facing her brother, until the front door closed.
A deadly pause descended, then her brother rose, wrath wafting off him.
“Get down on your knees!” he roared. “Get down and beg the Lord God to forgive your vanity! How dare you sass me! How dare you shame me while we have company!”
He started toward her, looking dangerous, as if he might strike her.
At every other occasion in her life, Jo had folded before him, but not this time. She ran to the fireplace and grabbed the iron poker. As he lunged for her, she swung it at him.
“If you touch me,” she warned, “I will beat you bloody.”
“You haven’t the temerity for violence,” he blustered, but to her stunned surprise, he took a step back—as if he was afraid of her. His tepid reaction bolstered her courage.
“Where is Emeline?”
He smirked, refusing to say, and she swiped the poker across his desk. Ink pots, brandy glasses, and a tea tray went flying.
The maid rushed in. “Mrs. Merrick? What is it? What’s happened?”
“Get out!” Oscar yelled, and the girl blanched.
“Don’t move,” Jo told her. “Stand here and listen to what your vicar has done to Emeline Wilson and her sisters. He was just about to boast of it.”
“You will not ever,” he raged, “mention that harlot’s name in my home again.”
On hearing the obscene term, Jo and the maid gasped.
“What do you mean?”
