After the Kiss

by Joan Johnston

  “You believe the solution is to get her married as quickly as possible to someone else?” Marcus asked.

  “I do. Although that may not be as simple as it sounds. The scandal surrounding her is bound to make finding an eligible suitor difficult.”

  Marcus lifted an eyebrow. “You told me the scandal in her background was of no import.”

  Julian pursed his lips. “Perhaps that was an understatement.”

  “The scandal is ongoing?”

  Julian nodded. “No one knows what caused the Earl of Sheringham to disinherit his son. Sadly, I believe the surrounding mystery has kept the scandal alive long past a time when it should have died a peaceful death. Eliza has lived under that cloud since she was a child.”

  “A Child of Scandal,” Marcus murmured. “The sins of the fathers visited upon the sons.”

  “Or in this case,” Julian said, “his daughter. As you have no doubt discovered for yourself, Eliza can be perfectly amiable. Or as contrary as the most stubborn army mule. Although she has never caused a scandal, she carries the taint with her wherever she goes. Her looks are odd, and her height makes her freakish.”

  Marcus opened his mouth to interrupt, but Julian held up a hand to stay him.

  “She does not suffer gossips gladly, and many in Kent have felt the whip of her tongue. The highest sticklers will never make her welcome. And she has no dowry to speak of. Tell me, Marcus, what does she have to attract a gentleman who wants a comfortable wife?”

  “Miss Sheringham is an Original,” Marcus said. “She should be valued for her uniqueness, not rebuked for it.”

  Julian snorted. “I will not argue the subject. You win too often.”

  “What makes you think she will find a man willing to make her an offer at the Duke of Braddock’s house party?” Marcus asked.

  “Everyone knows it is a matchmaking event. It could be no secret, with every eligible gentleman in London invited. The betting book at White’s is full of wagers as to which single gentlemen will come away engaged,” Julian said with a grin. “Eliza will never have a greater selection to choose from. Surely someone who attends will overlook the scandal and desire the woman. It is too bad you will not be there.”

  Marcus had previously told Julian he was heading to the countryside to hide. “It seems I will be there, after all,” Marcus said. “My brother convinced me I must attend. I was headed to Somersville Manor when I encountered your cousin and made the detour here to help her find you. We are both late, you realize.”

  “I will be on my way soon enough,” Julian said. “As soon as. Eliza is disguised as a young man, I am taking her directly to my great-aunt’s town house in Berkeley Square. I will arrive an hour later to greet my cousin, Miss Sheringham, who has been visiting our great-aunt, Lady Sophia Minton. I am sure I can convince Aunt Sophie to chaperon Eliza on our journey to Sussex. Though, in my experience, it will take Sophie—or should I say her maid, who is at least as old as she, though neither of them will reveal how old that is—an entire day to pack.”

  “I had better get my own party organized and on the road before my brother misses me and begins to worry,” Marcus said.

  “Why would he worry?”

  “I have his twin daughters with me, Lady Regina and Lady Rebecca.”

  “Have you hired on as a nanny, Marcus?”

  “They are no longer babies, Julian. Young ladies, if you please. But a challenge to be sure.”

  Julian laughed. “You ought to make a good father, Marcus. You’ve been playing the role with your brother’s children long enough to—”

  Julian shot Marcus a stricken glance. “I did not mean to imply … I would never suggest …” He huffed out a breath. “Damn it, man. You know what I mean.”

  Julian had obviously heard the rumors that Blackthorne’s twins had been sired by his younger brother. Marcus had never really thought about it, but now he realized Julian had believed them. Not without good cause, Marcus conceded.

  Julian knew, better than most, that Marcus was capable of seducing another man’s wife. Julian had been witness to the Beau’s trysts with numerous married ladies. Julian knew the depth of Marcus’s cynicism about marital fidelity: it did not exist in his social class, so far as Marcus could tell. As long as one was discreet, it was perfectly acceptable. Many a lord had second, third, or fourth children who were not his own without social stigma for husband or wife.

  The Beau’s perfidy in the eyes of the ton was in broaching a married woman before she had presented her husband with his heir. A married woman within the prohibited consanguinity for marriage. A married woman who happened to be his brother’s wife.

  Marcus sighed.

  “I do not blame you for it, Marcus,” Julian said. “She was very beautiful.”

  “Thank you for that,” Marcus said, his lips twisted in the mockery of a smile. But he would rather Julian had not believed him capable of it.

  You will make a good father.

  Marcus did not intend to marry, and he did not wish to sire bastards. He had faced the fact he would never have children he could call his own. But when he was far away from home and memories of Reggie’s and Becky’s gamine grins and childish antics warmed his heart and made him smile, he wished things had not turned out as they had.

  Marcus reached out a hand to Julian, who clasped it. “I will see you tomorrow.”

  “If nothing else goes awry,” Julian said.

  At that moment Julian’s door opened, and Marcus saw Miss Sheringham, resplendent in male attire. She looked almost as jaunty as she had the first moment he had laid eyes on her, with one obvious difference.

  Miss Sheringham had been crying.

  “Was your visit with your cousin everything you hoped for, Miss Sheringham?” he asked.

  She smiled tremulously. “Absolutely. Julian could not have made me feel more welcome.” Her red-rimmed eyes and splotchy face told another story.

  Marcus felt two simultaneous urges. To draw Miss Sheringham into his arms to comfort her. And to plant his friend a facer. He resisted both.

  Marcus shifted his gaze from Miss Sheringham to Julian and back again. Both of them were purposefully staring at the toes of their boots.

  So. More had passed between them than Julian had revealed. Perhaps Julian had kissed her. After all, Marcus had found her quite irresistible.

  Or she had kissed him, expecting a proposal. Which had not come.

  Marcus reminded himself that Miss Sheringham was no longer his problem or his concern. She had her cousin to take care of her now. If he did not leave immediately, he was liable to get himself back into a situation he was well out of.

  “Good day, Miss Sheringham,” he said. “Julian, I will look for you tomorrow or the next day.”

  He hurried away before he did something he knew he would regret later.

  Reggie and Becky had promised Griggs they would lie down for an afternoon nap in their upstairs room at the Bull and Bear. But the moment he took himself off to the pub below, they tied several sheets together and escaped out the window. It was not difficult. They had perfected the technique at home, quite scaring the wits out of Miss Higgenbotham, the governess who had preceded Miss Balderdish.

  Becky held tight to Reggie’s hand as they walked the dirty, noisy streets of London. Becky grabbed her nose to keep out the stench of the running sewers that edged the cobblestones.

  “What are you doing?” Reggie asked.

  “It stinks!”

  Reggie sniffed mightily, sucking up coal dust and bits of hay and other less salubrious debris. “It is all part of the adventure. New sights, new smells, new—” Her nose wrinkled, and she sucked a floating piece of straw into her mouth before it exited along with a clarion sneeze.

  From all around them, as far away as the other side of the street, they heard a chorus of “Bless you,” “God bless,” “Let the devil go, child,” and “Bugger, that was loud!”

  Becky snickered. “Is that part of the adventure, too?�
��

  “You are not supposed to know what that means.”

  “You told me,” Becky countered.

  “I can see I should have kept it to myself. If Father ever found out, he would—”

  “Look, Reggie.”

  Reggie looked where Becky pointed. A baker’s cart was being rolled down the street. It was stacked high with tarts and biscuits that smelled as sweet as the ones Cook baked at home.

  “I’m hungry,” Becky said.

  Reggie’s stomach growled at the sight of the biscuits. “Me, too. But we haven’t any money to buy anything.”

  “Come on. I have an idea.” Becky dragged her sister over to the baker’s cart, where a little coltish charm and two identical toothsome smiles garnered an already-broken biscuit they could split between them.

  “Maybe we should have waited for Uncle Marcus to go sightseeing,” Becky said through a mouthful of butter biscuit as they continued their way down the street. She looked behind her but could no longer see the Bull and Bear. “We might get lost.”

  “Oh, fudge,” Reggie replied. “All we have to do is ask, and someone will tell us the way back. Besides, Uncle Marcus only came to London because of Eliza. He probably would have found a way to get out of taking us to see the sights.”

  “But he promised—”

  “He has broken promises before. Remember when he said he would buy us matching ponies?”

  “Father forbade it,” Becky reminded her. “Surely you must recall how long and loudly Uncle Marcus argued with him? Uncle Marcus said he had promised us, and we would be disappointed. Father would not be moved.”

  “I had forgotten that. What about the time Uncle Marcus promised to take us on a picnic?”

  “If it did not rain. It rained,” Becky pointed out.

  “What about the time …” Reggie searched her mind, but could come up with no other examples of her uncle’s perfidy. “Very well. He usually keeps his promises. I still say we are better off to look on our own while we can.”

  “Do you think he will marry her?” Becky asked.

  Reggie wrinkled her nose at the abrupt change of subject—or it could have been the pile of waste in front of the butchers store. “Think who will marry who?”

  “Do you think Uncle Marcus will marry Miss Sheringham? He seemed to like her well enough.”

  “Uncle Marcus will never marry,” Reggie said certainly. “I was listening through a crack in the door when he told Father so.”

  “He could change his mind.”

  “I would not count on it,” Reggie said.

  Becky sighed. “I just thought it would be nice to have Eliza in the family. Then we could have braids all the time.”

  “At night, when Father could not see them,” Reggie reminded her.

  “I wouldn’t care,” Becky said dreamily. “Just imagine how lovely it would be.”

  “I guess it would be kind of nice,” Reggie said.

  By the time Becky stopped daydreaming about “Aunt Eliza” and looked around her again, the street had narrowed considerably. The buildings were so close-set and narrow the sun did not reach the ground. The cobblestones lay in eerie shadows. Becky shivered, though it was not really cold. “Where are we, Reggie?”

  “We are seeing the sights in London,” Reggie answered, Her cheerfulness seemed forced to Becky. She glanced around anxiously, afraid to stop and ask questions, but equally afraid to keep walking. There were fewer people than before, but they wore shabbier clothes and had cunning looks on their faces. “Maybe we should go back, Reggie. We have no idea where the performing horses are, or the Tower, or anything.”

  “We could ask,” Reggie said.

  “I would be too frightened.” Becky avoided making eye contact with any of the wretched dregs of humanity who passed by them. She had never encountered the like at Blackthorne Abbey. Here children and adults alike looked skinny and sharp-set and altogether frightening. “What if someone tries to kidnap us?” she whispered.

  Reggie laughed. “What a ninny you are! No one will dare to bother—” She broke off as a dirty, unshaven old man bent close to leer at her, assaulting her nose with an awful, fetid smell. The stench was caused, she realized when he grinned, by a mouthful of rotted teeth.

  She fought a huge sneeze and lost.

  The old man drew back too late. Reggie watched as he wiped his face with a ragged sleeve.

  “You’ll pay the shot for that, little pigeon. See if you don’t!”

  Reggie quickly tightened her hold on Becky’s hand. “Excuse me, sir,” Reggie said with all the hauteur of a duke’s daughter. “I apologize for any inconvenience.”

  While the old man stared at her, transfixed, she gave him the cut direct. Which meant dragging Becky across the street, nose in the air, chin high, and eyes forward.

  Unfortunately, with her nose up, she could not watch out for offal on the street. She felt something squishy give way under her foot and looked down. “Oh, fudge!”

  “I don’t think so,” Becky quipped, shooting her sister a grin as the odor of fresh manure wafted upward.

  Reggie grimaced and freed her shoe. Her patent leather half boots would never be the same. She heard a sound behind her, glanced over her shoulder, and gasped. She tightened her hold on Becky’s hand and increased her pace.

  “What’s wrong?” Becky asked, slowing down to discern what had spooked Reggie.

  “Keep moving! We are being followed.”

  Becky glanced behind her as she was dragged along. “By the woman in the red shawl?”

  “No. By that disreputable old man—” Reggie shot a look over her shoulder and realized the old man had been joined by a woman in a red shawl. She met Becky’s frightened gaze and yelled “Run!”

  They refused to let go of each other’s hands, so they were frequently slowed by objects and people as they threaded their way through alleys and byways.

  “They’re catching up to us,” Reggie cried. “Run faster!”

  “I cannot run any faster!” Becky grabbed her side where the pain was excruciating, her legs churning to keep up with her sister. “Why haven’t we reached the Bull and Bear?” she asked between aching breaths. “We must be going the wrong direction.”

  “We can worry about that later,” Reggie said, huffing and puffing with the extra effort of pulling Becky along.

  As they turned a corner back onto the main road, a ruthlessly strong hand grabbed Reggie by the shoulder, wrenching both girls—connected by the unbreakable grasp of their hands—to a stop.

  Becky shrieked in terror as she tried to yank her sister free.

  Reggie balled her hand into a knotty fist and turned to confront their attacker.

  Chapter 8

  Marcus headed back to the Bull and Bear with the distinct feeling he had left something important behind. He should have been glad to be rid of Miss Sheringham. He would be a fool to pursue the acquaintance. It would be downright dangerous to seek any kind of private interview with her in the midst of a house party intended to match young ladies with eligible partis.

  His interlude with Miss Sheringham must end here in London. When he arrived at Somersville Manor, he would be best served to keep an entire roomful of bachelors between them.

  But curiosity ate at him. He had seen crying women before. Their noses got runny, and their eyes got red. Miss Sheringham had wiped her nose and blotted her eyes, but unless he missed his guess, she had done a great deal of weeping.

  Had Julian given her a dressing-down for disguising herself and traveling to London? He imagined her giving as good as she got. But that did not explain the tears.

  Had she proposed to Julian and been refused? He chuckled at the image of Miss Sheringham on bended knee. He would not have put it past her. Or had she merely been distraught because Julian, the man she supposedly loved, had refused to come up to scratch?

  Marcus would never know. Because he had no intention of approaching her to ask.

  “Where the bloody hell have
you been? Where are my daughters?”

  Lost in thought, Marcus was jerked to awareness by the familiar—though unusually harsh—voice. When he looked up, he still did not believe what he saw.

  Alastair sat atop a mammoth, dappled gray creature that most resembled a medieval warhorse. Blanca was, in fact, a descendant of the fierce breed used by Blackthorne knights centuries ago to fight in heavy armor. Alastair’s powerful body was tensed for action, his muscles taut.

  Marcus’s eyes widened when he realized the stallion was not the only medieval accoutrement his brother had brought to London with him. Tied to the saddle near his knee was an immense, jeweled sheath that held the Blackthorne Sword. The deadly Spanish steel blade, with its ruby-encrusted, gold-chased grip, had been handed down from generation to generation since Henry II had presented it to the first Duke of Blackthorne.

  For as many years as Marcus could remember, the sword—whose name, Beastslayer, was etched in the blade—had hung on the wall at the entrance to Blackthorne Abbey. Why had Alastair brought Beastslayer to London? Was he planning to loan it to the British Museum for exhibit?

  Marcus opened his mouth to ask but realized, even before he spoke, that Alastair had brought the sword for a much more sinister reason. His brother looked ready to eat nails and spit fire. And slit gullets.

  But whose? The answer seemed unpleasantly obvious. His.

  Marcus felt a chill run down his spine. He was a brave man. But death looked back at him from Alastair’s eyes.

  He shook off the feeling that he was in any danger from his own brother. They had fought over differences in the past. Both were handy with their fives. But neither had ever threatened the other’s life.

  Where are my daughters?

  Marcus felt sick. Alastair had entrusted the twins to his care a mere two days ago. If his brother did not trust him to keep them safe for longer than a day, he should have said so before the three of them left Blackthorne Abbey, instead of running after him as if he were a thief who had stolen the family jewels.