Sometimes actions didn’t always speak loud enough. He should have said the three words.
As he headed downstairs, he resolved to tell her when the moment was right—when there would be no doubt he was speaking from his heart. Then he would ask her to marry him. There was still time, but not a great deal, for after this she could be carrying his child.
At the foot of the staircase he nearly collided with two women who seemed in a terrible hurry to go up. He leaped sideways to avoid being trampled, for they scrambled past him up the stairs as if he were invisible.
He shook his head, about to push the incident out of his mind when he thought he heard one of them call out, “Captain Jordan!”
He turned as they paused on the staircase to peer back down at him. He bowed to Lady Howland and Lady Tyndall. “How do you do, my ladies? And what do you know, Lady Tyndall? Instead of meeting at the side of the road after dark, we’re in a London ballroom! Or at least right outside of one. Surely that’s close enough?” He forced a smile.
Lady Tyndall gawped at him as if he’d lost his wits, which, now that he thought about it, he had. They were still upstairs scattered around his bedchamber along with Felicity’s clothes.
“I wonder if perhaps you’ve seen my son this evening?” Lady Howland queried. “He seems to have disappeared from the ballroom, and you’re not there, either.”
It took all of Jack’s strength to continue smiling as he suddenly recalled that Howland was still upstairs in the bedchamber down the hall from his own. Why hadn’t the mere sight of his friend’s mother jogged his memory about that? He longed to curse. Only the presence of the two matrons kept him on guard at the realization that he was facing a pair of enemies just as fierce and unforgiving as the ones he’d faced time and again on the Peninsula.
“You two haven’t been planning another prank?” Lady Howland narrowed her eyes. “I should think after your years at war, Captain, you, at least, might have outgrown such nonsense.”
“So you should think that, my lady, forasmuch as I think so myself. To answer your first question, your son is upstairs in the second bedchamber on the left as you enter the hallway. He wasn’t feeling well and asked if I could show him to a place where he might lie down for a short while. I’m sure he’ll be back downstairs shortly. He knows his duty.”
Jack knew he was taking a tremendous risk in telling her the truth about her son’s whereabouts, since Felicity was still in the bedchamber next door. But he’d taken the precaution of turning the key in the inside lock before stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him. Thus there was no way these two harridans could burst into that bedchamber, and Felicity knew better than to open the door to them, especially since she didn’t want to marry him or anyone else unless she was convinced that he loved her.
And apparently the only way she would ever be convinced was if he said the words.
Those two harridans, meanwhile, exchanged glances, as if silently asking one another if either should believe him. Briefly he wondered why they didn’t ask about Felicity, and then reminded himself that since they both cut her at the house party, she was officially considered the Duchess of Halstead’s problem—if Felicity could be called a problem. He didn’t exactly wish to ponder that at the moment.
“The second door on the left, you say?” Lady Howland inquired.
“Second door on the left,” he affirmed without hesitation. “It should be unlocked.”
As long as they didn’t ask about Felicity, he saw no need to dissemble. Let them go upstairs and make life hell for Howland. He wouldn’t be any worse off.
The two ladies nodded in unison before continuing up the staircase, while Jack returned to the ballroom, when what he really wanted to do was go back upstairs to Felicity and tell her what was in his heart. And ask her to be his wife. Of course, that meant he’d have to entreat her to unlock his bedchamber door and let him in.
He swept his gaze over the ballroom, but not a single lady caught his eye. He didn’t want to search any of them, because he knew the one he sought wasn’t among them. He’d foolishly left her behind, and he didn’t dare go back to claim her till Howland came downstairs with his mother and the woman once destined to be his mother-in-law.
Jack skirted the perimeter of the ballroom to the doors that opened onto a garden and fresh air and, at this late hour, dark oblivion.
As he stood in the shadows, listening to the strains of Mozart from the ballroom amid chatter and laughter, he thought he heard something else. Something that didn’t come from the ballroom. Something not as festive.
Something that reminded him of the night he’d met Felicity, and had nearly gone deaf from her cousin’s repeated screaming that he now realized must have been affected. Screaming Lady Lydia must have known he was not a real highwayman—or at least that he wouldn’t hurt her, because presumably he’d been under orders from Renton to retrieve only one item.
Only he hadn’t known it at the time. The thought filled him with fresh anger until he realized what he was hearing, and that it was coming from above the ballroom.
From a bedchamber on the next floor.
He’d never heard Felicity scream before, but since she was cousin to Screaming Lydia, it stood to reason their screams might sound alike. And this one didn’t sound so affected.
He dashed back into the ballroom, dodging around too many guests, not caring about the attention he might be drawing even as a tiny voice in the back of his mind warned him that he might not wish to draw too much attention to what he was doing. But the Felicity he knew, the reckless, fearless, wonderful Felicity he loved, would never scream unless—he almost couldn’t bear to think of that right now, even as that same tiny voice tried in vain to assure him that nothing terrible could possibly happen to her as long as she remained secure in his bedchamber.
He reached the foot of the staircase and grabbed the newel post to avoid skidding past. The newel post popped right off. As he pushed it back into place, it occurred to him that maybe it was Felicity’s aunt, Lady Tyndall, who’d screamed. At the sight of Howland? Jack and Felicity had left him on the bed fully dressed. Maybe drinking all that brandy at once had killed him.
If that were so, then wouldn’t Lady Howland have screamed, too?
Jack raced up the staircase, as fast as his pulse. Upon reaching the summit, he was relieved to see no light coming from his bedchamber, while light poured from the next door down, where he’d last seen Howland.
To his bewilderment, even though no light came from his own bedchamber, the door was still ajar. Jack paused to push the door all the way open, panting for breath as he looked into nothing but ominous dark. “Felicity?”
Yet he knew she would not answer. Not from this room. For some reason he might never know, she’d taken that single candle, unlocked the door, and gone into the room where she and Jack had left Howland.
Why? he longed to scream. In God’s name, why?
He rushed down the hallway to the next bedchamber, where he found not only Howland, but Howland’s mother, Felicity’s aunt…and Felicity herself. She was dressed, but her russet hair was wildly disheveled, as if she’d just been tumbling about on a bed—which she had.
She and Howland were on opposite sides of the room, away from the rumpled bed, but it didn’t matter. His cravat was undone and his shoes were off, still on the rug next to the bed where Jack had dropped them, but that didn’t matter, either. Not to the two harridans, one of whom looked ready to beat Howland senseless with her reticule, while the other was threatening Felicity with her fan.
“What’s going on here?” Jack demanded.
Lady Howland whirled on him. “You!” she exclaimed, as if that very common pronoun were an epithet unto itself and he couldn’t possibly be called anything worse. “I think you must know what’s going on, Captain Jordan, since you’re the one who orchestrated this—this—”
“Scandalous tableau,” Felicity supplied, her tone sullen.
“Hol
d your tongue, missy!” cried Lady Tyndall, as she sliced the air in front of her niece’s face with her closed fan. Jack thought she might chop off Felicity’s nose with it.
Howland glared at Jack. “You did this, Jordan. You set me up!”
Disbelief nearly rendered Jack speechless. But not quite. “I—”
“Not a word from you, Captain Jordan!” thundered Lady Howland.
Howland charged him and shoved him with both hands, to Jack’s astonishment. “Don’t play the fool, Jordan! It’s not enough you stole Miss Griffin’s garnet ring at Renton’s behest, thus giving him an excuse to break their betrothal and be free to elope with Lady Lydia!”
Jack swayed before regaining his balance. “At least you blame him and not her.”
“But then you had to lure me into this bedchamber and send Miss Griffin here so she and I could be caught in a compromising situation!”
Rage tore through Jack. He might have punched Howland in the jaw or the nose or someplace, except there were ladies present. That, and Howland probably wasn’t thinking straight after downing all that brandy.
Howland needlessly threw out his arm to point his finger at Jack. “He’s the one who waylaid your carriage, Miss Griffin. I thought it was just a lark, but apparently Jordan had other ideas.”
Lady Howland whirled back on her son, swinging her reticule like a mace, clearly determined not to quit this room until she whacked someone, anyone, with it. “Do you mean to tell me now this was just another one of your childish pranks? I thought you gave those up when you inherited the viscountcy.”
“I did. ’Tis Jordan who never gave them up, but then he has yet to inherit his viscountcy!” Howland cowered before his mother, holding up his hands to ward off her blows.
Jack fought for calm, for the strength not to lower himself to Howland’s level. “Perhaps we should find Lord Rollo and see what he has to say about this. After all, he was in on it.”
“Good luck,” Howland replied with a hiccup. “The day after you left, he absconded to the Continent. Apparently Miss Pitt’s dowry wasn’t sufficient to satisfy all of his creditors.”
Jack shook his head. Was he the only one of the capering trio from his youth to take responsibility for his actions? “But why would I do what all of you accuse me of doing?”
“Do you deny now that you were my highwayman?” Felicity cried.
Jack started at Felicity’s careless use of the possessive pronoun. Or was she being careless now? It was hard to tell, since she was so distraught. And that, he knew, was his fault entirely.
“I will never deny that,” he declared. “But why would I send you—”
“Don’t you dare say a word to her!” Lady Tyndall stormed up to him, flicking her closed fan this way and that till Jack wondered if he was about to lose a nose.
“Why would I send her into this bedchamber to be compromised by Howland?” he bellowed. “When—” How could he possibly explain to them that he’d just compromised Felicity himself—and with more than a stolen kiss?
“Don’t say a word, Captain Jordan,” she warned, her voice hoarse, her eyes glistening in a way they hadn’t when he’d made love to her. Then they’d shone with naked love for him.
Now they swam with anguish, as his heart foundered.
She’d never wept before. At least not since Jack had known her. And she’d had so many reasons to shed tears all that time, beginning with the theft of her ring and the ostracism she’d endured at the house party before she was ignominiously expelled.
Instead she’d bravely kept her tears at bay until this evening.
Until he broke her heart.
He feared if he told her now the three words she deserved to hear, that she’d think he was only saying them out of desperation, to spare his masculine pride the blow of losing her to a rival—a rival who’d once been a friend.
“It matters not how or why you did whatever you did, Captain Jordan,” said Lady Howland, swinging her reticule from her wrist as if she wished it were Jack on a gibbet. “Lady Tyndall and I came into this room to find my son and her niece together—”
“I never went anywhere near him!” Felicity burst out. “I only came in here to—”
“I told you to hold your tongue!” Lady Tyndall shrilled.
“Why won’t you let her speak?” Jack demanded. “If you don’t want me to explain, then why don’t you allow her to explain?”
“There’s nothing to explain. What we saw upon entering this bedchamber was quite self-explanatory, and the less said about it, the better.”
Lady Howland grabbed her grown son by the ear. “I was hoping you’d find an heiress this evening, but not in this manner. Nevertheless, you shall obtain a special license on the morrow and marry the girl.”
“She’s no heiress!” Howland protested, as he twisted out of his mother’s grip.
“On the contrary, my lord,” said Lady Tyndall. “Her other aunt, the Duchess of Halstead, has recently given her a generous dowry.”
Jack heard his sister’s voice behind him. “Whatever is going on?” Samantha demanded. “Jack, I saw you running out of the ballroom as if there were demons after you.”
He could end all of this and claim Felicity once and for all simply by stating the truth, as shocking as it would undoubtedly be to the two older women, and mortifying to Felicity, who’d already exhorted him to say nothing about it. He didn’t want to do that to her. And he didn’t think that what they did earlier was anyone’s business but his and Felicity’s. Yet all he had to do was confess that he’d just taken her virginity in the room next door. There might even be a bloodstain on the bedding to bolster his case.
But that wouldn’t necessarily prove to her aunt or Howland’s mother that he was the one who’d compromised her. They’d discovered Felicity in this bedchamber with Howland, while regarding Jack as the one who set the stage for what they’d gulled themselves into believing took place. Why the devil had she unlocked his bedchamber door and gone into Howland’s?
Lady Tyndall grabbed Felicity’s arm. Felicity made no effort to shake her off, nor did she look at Jack as her aunt dragged her across the room to the doorway.
But she did shoot a sharp glance at Howland. “That ring you were going to give Lydia. The one that originally belonged to Lady Martha Griffin. I want it!”
“Good, because I can’t afford to buy you a bigger one unless I can have your dowry now,” he retorted, his face almost a sneer. “And that’s the only reason I’m marrying you, otherwise I’d be utterly overjoyed to let your aunt send you into oblivion as she originally planned.”
Neither of them liked each other. Neither wanted to marry the other. If Howland and Felicity had anything in common at all, it was their freshly spawned animosity toward Jack. At least hers was justified.
A thoroughly bewildered Samantha stepped to one side as Lady Tyndall and Felicity stormed out of the room and down the hallway. Jack felt as if Lady Tyndall was dragging more than just her niece—she was also dragging his heart away. At some point he’d surrendered it to Felicity and she didn’t even know she had it.
He himself never knew it until this moment.
Lady Howland reached for her son’s ear again, but he batted her hand away. “Please, Mama. You know I can’t return downstairs looking like this.”
“Go with her, Samantha,” Jack put in, as Lady Howland whisked out the door. “Your guests will be wondering where you are. And I don’t want you to see what happens next.”
“You mean this?” came Howland’s voice, and a flash of pain exploded on one side of Jack’s head as he toppled over to the floor, nearly knocking down his sister in the process.
Samantha shrieked, but instead of crouching down to fuss over her brother—which he was grateful she didn’t do—she lifted her skirts and leaped over him as if he were nothing more than a pile of rubbish as she bounded to the far side of the room.
God knew he certainly felt as if he were nothing more than a pile of rubbish.
But even though he didn’t need or even want her to fuss over him, Jack still couldn’t help feeling just a bit annoyed that she didn’t even seem inclined to do so. He propped himself up on one elbow. “What, you’re just going to leave me lying here when—” A shadow fell over him and he swiftly threw one leg up in the air and kicked with all his might. Howland yelped and tottered to the floor.
Jack scrambled to his feet as Samantha picked up the ewer from the washstand in the corner. “If you’re going to throw that on someone, throw it on Howland—he’s the one who’s foxed.”
She shook the ewer. “It’s empty.”
“Then I’ll just crack it over his head.” Jack yanked the ewer away from her. With his other hand he rubbed the throbbing spot above his ear where Howland had punched him. Fortunately it was just a glancing blow that had knocked him off balance. He hurt more from the fall to the floor. Ewer in hand, he stood over Howland, who sprawled flat on his back, his bloodshot eyes wide with terror. How tempting to step between his satin-clad thighs and give him an even deadlier kick! But Jack wouldn’t attack a man when he was down, and certainly not in front of his sister.
“Stop this, both of you,” she chided. “I want to know what happened up here tonight, and if I’m missed downstairs, I don’t doubt that eventually everyone will come flocking up here to see for themselves, so one of you’d better start talking now.”
“Then let’s wait,” said Jack. “Maybe we can charge admission and raise enough so Howland won’t need to marry an heiress.”
Samantha only planted her fists on her hips and glared.
“You know, that seems a capital idea,” rasped Howland from his spread-eagled position on the floor.
Samantha’s fists remained on her hips as she continued to glare.
Jack handed the ewer back to her. “Upon my word, I did not send Felicity into this bedchamber, except to carry the candle while I brought Howland in here to recover from his melancholy. She came back on her own, after I returned downstairs. The question is why.”
The Highwayman's Lady (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 24
