His mouth twisted into a mirthless smile. “Now that would be ironic. Rothsburgh’s by-blow as my heir.”
“Hugh—”
“Don’t worry, Elizabeth. If you are, I’ll acknowledge the child as mine. It’d serve Rothsburgh bloody right, though, if his bastard child ended up with my name. That would piss him off no end, I would imagine. It would be poetic justice for both of us, don’t you think?”
Tears pricked and she turned away. She probably deserved Hugh’s censure. And she should be grateful to him for his…consideration, crudely stated though it was. Nevertheless, it hurt to hear him talk so cruelly about the man she loved, especially because James had taken such wonderful care of Annabelle.
“For God’s sake, Elizabeth, if I give you until dawn tomorrow to say goodbye to him, will you stop blubbering?”
She swung around to face him again, relief and fragile hope flickering within her. “So James is all right then?”
“As far as I know…Well that’s not strictly true,” he smirked. “I’m sure Rothsburgh’s got more than a few bruises and a sore head.” His eyes narrowed and he raised an eyebrow, his expression now cynical. “It may surprise you, but I’m not entirely stupid, Elizabeth. If I only have a decade or so left on this earth, I certainly don’t want to cut it short by having Rothsburgh’s murder on my hands. He’s not worth swinging for, believe me.”
She frowned then shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why would you do this?” She didn’t trust him. He must have some other agenda. It was not like him to make concessions. Especially about something like this.
He gave her a mocking smile. “So distrustful, my dear wife. But you’re right. I’m not giving you this opportunity out of the goodness of my heart.”
“Then why?”
He cast her a flat look, his contempt clear. “Well, it’s not like I’m in any fit state to get a healthy child on you now, am I? You said a moment ago you might be pregnant. Well, I intend to make sure that you are. I’ll be buggered before I let the title go to some thin-blooded distant cousin of mine that I’ve never even met. I’d rather have a bastard for an heir than none at all.”
So there it was. She was nothing but a brood mare to him after all. It shouldn’t surprise her that he was willing to do just about anything, or let her do anything, to ensure the Beauchamp line continued on, even if the child she bore wasn’t his.
She bit her lip again with the effort it took to stem the sudden sting of bitter tears. She was relieved that he didn’t want to take her to bed. She should be thankful that she was going to see James one last time. But Hugh was making her feel…dirty…and worthless.
This was more like the man she knew. She had been foolish in the extreme to expect anything else from her husband.
He was right. He was nothing but a self-centered, arrogant prick.
Hugh sighed heavily, as if bored. “Devil take you, Elizabeth. Will nothing please you? I’ve given you permission to fuck yourself stupid all night, and still you’re not happy.”
“I will do as you bid, husband.” Try as she might, she couldn’t hide the note of sarcasm in her voice.
“Yes, you damn well will.” He gave her a long look. “There will be terms, though. I won’t have you running off again. You owe me. I won’t be made the laughing stock of the ton like Rothsburgh.”
“Of course, my lord. I wouldn’t want to be the one to dishonor your family name after all.”
His cool blue gaze hardened. “Even though I said before that I preferred this feistier version of you, I’d watch my tongue if I were you.” He picked up his brandy and eyed her over the glass. “Now go and summon a footman. There are things that need to be arranged.”
Elizabeth inclined her head, then turned away. There was nothing left to say, because in the end, she couldn’t turn down the only chance she would ever have to say goodbye to James. Whatever the terms. Whatever the reason.
She would seize happiness while she still could, because come tomorrow, it may never be hers again.
* * * *
“I’m verra sorry to disturb you, milord, but there’s a footman at the door, claimin’ to be from the Earl of Beauchamp’s household. An’ he’s most insistent tha’ he hand delivers a message to you, and only you.”
What the hell?
Rothsburgh cast aside the tumbler of whisky he’d been drinking in a pitiful attempt to deaden his physical, if not emotional pain, and leapt from his seat. Striding past Malcolm, he quit the library and made straight for the vestibule. Sure enough, just outside the door stood a poker-faced servant attired in the Beauchamp household livery.
“I’m Lord Rothsburgh. What do you want?” he demanded. It was eight o’clock at night, almost exactly four hours since he’d last seen Beth.
Four hours since his life had been ripped apart.
After he’d come to in the abbey—he suspected he’d only been unconscious for a short time—he’d spent the next few hours single-mindedly pouring as many resources as he possibly could, into locating Beth—only to be informed an hour ago by Colonel Dixon of the Scots Guard that Lord Beauchamp was indeed in Town and that he, Rothsburgh, didn’t have a hope in hell of getting Beth back. She was another man’s wife, and that’s all there was to it. Dixon could do nothing.
His friend wouldn’t even tell him where bloody Beauchamp was staying.
“I dinna want a duel, or any other crime of passion on my doorstep, Rothsburgh,” he’d said sternly. “My advice to you, my friend, is to forget her. Go home an’ drown yer sorrows. I’m afraid ye canna do anythin’ else.”
Despite what Dixon had decreed, Rothsburgh couldn’t let it lie. He would find Beth, if it was the last thing he did. No matter the cost. Even if he could never see her again, he had to know that she was safe. He’d already sent his own spies out into the night to find her. But now, ironically, there was one of Beauchamp’s lackeys at his very door.
So what the devil was Beauchamp up to now?
“My lord.” The man bowed and offered him a sealed envelope.
Rothsburgh snatched it from him—he was beyond caring about appearances—and hastily scanned the parchment.
It was from Beth. Thank God. He dropped his head. He felt like he could breathe again.
He read the message again and then addressed the footman. “I agree to the terms,” he said tersely.
“Very good, my lord.”
Rothsburgh then turned to Malcolm, who had been lurking at a discrete distance during the odd exchange. “I’m going out,” he said in a voice loud enough for Beauchamp’s footman to hear. “If I’m not back by seven o’clock tomorrow morning, you are to inform Colonel Dixon of the Scots Guard. And tell him it would be best to check with Lord Beauchamp about my whereabouts as the first port of call. Is that understood?”
“Yes, milord.”
Ignoring the pain in his torso—Rothsburgh suspected he had at least one cracked rib—he threw on a coat, then raced out of the front door of his town house. At the bottom of the stairs waited a plain black carriage—a carriage that was quite possibly the same one that had spirited Beth away only hours before.
Seeing no sign of the thugs that had beaten him earlier, in or outside of the conveyance, he leapt in. The liveried footman slammed the door and he momentarily hoped to God this wasn’t another trap. But then, for Beth, it was a risk he was more than willing to take.
For her, he would do anything.
Chapter Eighteen
Hugh had permitted her to take a room at the White Horse Inn, Edinburgh’s largest coaching inn at the bottom of the Royal Mile, but a stone’s throw from Holyrood itself. Too restless to sit, her body a mass of raw nerves and strange jitters, Elizabeth paced the relatively well-appointed room—ironically it was the inn’s bridal suite—praying that James would come.
What if his injuries were worse than Hugh had let on? What if he hadn’t been at home when Hugh’s servants had delivered her message? What if he’d had enough of the whole sordid business and of her?
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She could understand if James had. But to the depths of her bones, she knew that he would come for her. Try to rescue her.
But that was impossible.
There was no chance that she would be able to escape from this room, let alone this inn. Hugh had covered every contingency. All of the inn’s exits, including the mews directly below the second-story window of this room, were being discreetly guarded by his henchmen, all of them armed. Unless James brought half the garrison of the Scots Guard with him, there was no way out for her.
But then, after receiving her note, James wouldn’t have had time to assemble his own men anyway. And Hugh’s staff were under strict instructions to abort the whole plan if they suspected that James had done so.
Hugh would not be duped again.
While she waited, she fell to contemplating just how she was to explain the real reason for this meeting. Her note had provided the scantest of details, and James would have questions. He was too canny to accept her written reason for the assignation—that Hugh had graciously permitted her a chance to bid him a final adieu—at face value. He knew Hugh too well to believe such a bald-faced lie.
Her gaze fell to the rather large four-poster bed in the center of the room where her discarded gloves, veiled bonnet, and cloak lay scattered across the scarlet counterpane. Could she actually tell James, my husband wants to make sure you have impregnated me because he cannot?
She shuddered just thinking about what James would make of that. Of the dark thunder that would appear in his eyes.
At that moment, her agonized musings were interrupted by the sound of male voices in the corridor. The lock was tumbled and as the door swung open, her breath hitched.
“Beth.” James appeared in the doorway, his dark eyes grazing over her with unconcealed emotion—relief, hope, hunger…
And then before she could draw another breath he was on her, his arms crushing her to his chest, one hand pushing into the loosely arranged bun at her nape as his mouth covered hers. Claimed her again.
He was all right.
She sagged against him, relief and desire making her head spin. Her hands fisted into the lapels of his coat and she kissed him back, their meeting such a frantic tangle of tongues and mashing of lips, she was barely conscious of the door being closed behind them. Of the scrape of the key as Hugh’s servant locked it from the outside.
But the noise seemed to rouse James. He dragged his head up and brushed the back of his bruised, split knuckles against her cheek. “I don’t know what is going on right now. But I’m just so damned grateful to see you, at this very moment, I don’t care.”
“I feel the same way.” She reached up and lightly traced the strong angles and planes of his face with trembling fingers, noting a cut through his left eyebrow and bruising beneath the stubble along his jaw. A split and slightly swollen lower lip. “I thought those men were going to kill you, James.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, pressing his jaw into her hand. “So did I, when I first saw that pistol pointed straight at my chest. But I’ve learnt a thing or two on the battlefield, thank God.”
“So it would seem,” she said, continuing to catalogue his injuries. She pushed her fingers into his dark, silky hair, noting that he winced a little when she found a rather sizeable lump on the back of his head. “And considering what was done to you, you’ll be pleased to know that MacSweeney—the man from the park—he’s now sporting a broken nose and his accomplice has two black eyes.”
“Excellent.” James’s mouth tilted into a brief half-smile before he opened his eyes. His expression sobered. “Tell me what this is all about, Beth. None of it makes sense. That Hugh would permit this…this meeting, after going to the trouble of snatching you back like that. I don’t understand.”
“I know.” It was difficult to hold his gaze. She didn’t want to tell him the truth. But she would.
James frowned, his eyes narrowing as he searched her face. “He hasn’t hurt you has he? Because if he has—”
“No. He hasn’t,” she said hastily, caressing his hand as his grip tightened on her shoulder. “And he’s assured me that he won’t. He’s unwell. He knows he can’t be…with me any longer.”
A muscle worked in James’s lean jaw. “I wish I could believe that. If I had my way, you’d never have to suffer his presence again.”
“James—”
“It’s all right. As much as I’d love to put down your cur of a husband, I won’t…” His expression suddenly changed, his brow creasing with exasperation. “How did he find you, Beth? He must have been looking damned hard to locate you so quickly. You’ve only been gone a few months. And you’ve been so careful.”
Elizabeth grimaced. “I’m afraid it was Blaire. When he first arrived at Eilean Tor, I wondered if we’d perhaps met at one time. I wasn’t certain. But he obviously did recognize me, and told Hugh when he returned to London.”
James nodded, his mouth a grim line. “I should have called the bastard out.”
“It’s too late now,” she said with a small shrug. “What’s done is done.”
“Yes. But what now, Beth? I still don’t understand why Hugh has allowed this…” he flicked his gaze around the room before returning to her, “…at all. What’s the catch? You and I alone, under lock and key. What is your husband up to?” He suddenly released her and began to stalk about the room like a caged beast, testing the door handle, flicking the blood-red damask curtains aside to look out the window before turning back to her.
She swallowed past a suddenly dry throat and met his gaze. Now for the hard part. If he decided to leave now—even though she would likely shatter into a thousand pieces as soon as the door closed behind him—she would understand.
“Hugh wants an heir…desperately,” she admitted, her heart beating strangely, an erratic nervous stuttering in her chest. “And as you know, he can no longer produce a healthy child.”
A muscle flickered in James’s jaw again and his eyes darkened. “So your husband wants me to be the stud bull,” he stated flatly.
Her voice was the faintest of whispers. “Yes…”
“Sweet Jesus.” James ran a hand through his dark hair then sought her gaze. “I haven’t asked you this before…but are you already with my child, Beth?”
And there it was, the question she had longed to be asked by him, and to answer, but now hid from. Elizabeth’s hands fluttered involuntarily to her stomach, and James’s gaze followed the movement. Admitting such a possibility felt like a betrayal of the worst kind, now that she was returning to Hugh.
“I honestly don’t know,” she said, as heat suffused her cheeks. This should be a joyous moment, this sharing of special, secret knowledge. But it wasn’t. Hugh had twisted everything. Put a stain upon it. “There’s a chance I might be. But I won’t know for certain for another week or so.”
He nodded once. Looked away. Swallowed.
God, why doesn’t he say something?
* * * *
“James…” Beth’s voice trembled and the sound of it pierced his heart.
He was being an ass, letting her hang like this. None of this was her fault. But to think that Beauchamp had stolen her back, simply to use her and the perhaps of a child—their child—for his own selfish purposes.
He wouldn’t allow it.
He clenched and unclenched his fists, relishing in the pain as the torn flesh across his knuckles protested. He wanted to hit something, break something. If he could find out where her husband was staying he would take great pleasure in eviscerating him. Slowly. Preferably with a blunt instrument.
“I will find a way to get you out of this,” he grated out, hating the fact that he sounded so tense and angry, that he was hurting Beth. But he couldn’t help it. There was a darkness in him that he couldn’t suppress. It squeezed his chest, crushed the air from his lungs, turned his blood to hot acid.
Beth shook her head, her grey eyes as tormented as the sea beneath Eilean Tor, her mouth a sad, ti
ght line. “How, James? There’s no possibility of escape from this inn. Will you kidnap me on the road back to London? Snatch me from Harcourt House in the dead of night?”
“If I must.” God, I have to or I’ll die.
“Hugh will have me watched and guarded night and day. Any plan you devise will end in certain disaster.” She took a shaky breath and lifted her chin, her eyes shimmering with tears. “You must forget me, James. There is nowhere that we would be able to go that he wouldn’t follow. Not Scotland, not France, not Italy. It was one thing to be your mistress…in secret. But Lady Beauchamp cannot run off with Lord Rothsburgh. Think of the scandal—”
“I don’t care about the opinion of society—”
“But what about your family, James? Your sister and brother-in-law, and their children? Annabelle? They would be subjected to untold censure by the ton. They don’t deserve that.”
Rothsburgh ran a hand down his face, fighting against a rising tide of bitter anguish. She was right. He hadn’t considered them before, but now that he did…
Damn her husband to hell.
“James, I understand that you’re angry. And you have every right to be, given this new scheme of Hugh’s is nothing short of…diabolical.” Beth’s voice was low and breathless, her cheeks wet with tears that now spilled freely. She closed her eyes and her throat worked before she spoke again. “If you’ve had enough of this. If you want to leave now…”
“God in heaven, Beth. Of course I don’t want to leave,” he cried, lunging toward her, grasping her shoulders. “Don’t you understand? I never want this to end.”
For one fraught, suspended moment, he stared at her; her grief was starkly etched across her face, mirroring his own emotions exactly…
And then he was kissing her, his mouth hungry and demanding, his entire body aching with need for her, this woman like no other who was being torn away from him. His hands grasped her head, his thumbs angling her jaw upwards to better plunder her mouth. It was a hard, angry, uncompromising kiss, but she didn’t seem to mind. He felt her grip the back of his head, dragging him closer as she moaned into him and lashed her tongue against his. Only when he needed to breathe did he break the rough, desperate clash of their mouths and instead rained kisses over her face—her eyes, her cheeks, her temple, her jaw. Tasting her sweet alabaster skin, the salt of her tears.
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