A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress

by Elizabeth Beacon

  ‘Yes, which is why you’re walking to my stables to collect your horse and not being carried there by my grooms to be put on it and driven off fast as the nag will go.’

  ‘I’d best be grateful for small mercies, then,’ Wulf said with a rueful grin and decided he’d like this man under other circumstances.

  ‘Don’t try too hard until you’re away without arousing my wife’s suspicion you’re here on a mission of your own,’ Lord Shuttleworth said as if he knew Wulf’s reasons for coming here were only half-unselfish and that was impossible, wasn’t it?

  ‘Consider me warned off, my lord.’

  ‘A shame, but I won’t have my wife or her sister upset if there’s anything I can do to prevent it and that’s a fault I’ve long shared with Sir Hugh and the current Earl of Carnwood.’

  ‘I’m not your equal, my lord, but there’s no need to point it out with every second word. Trust my stepfather to be sure my irregular birth is engraved on my heart, much as Mary Tudor claimed Calais was on hers.’

  ‘It’s not a matter of quality or inequality, but common sense. Tangling with you or your brother now will drag my sister-in-law’s good name through more mud and I can’t have that.’

  ‘Nobody will know I was here if you don’t tell them and I didn’t give your stableman a name.’

  ‘Which was why he sought me out and, as a reward, I’ll be granting him a cottage of his own this Eastertide so he can wed his sweetheart. So some good came of your impromptu visit.’

  ‘I shall preen myself even as I ride away with my tail metaphorically between my legs, my lord,’ Wulf said and was surprised by a bark of genuine laughter from his reluctant host.

  ‘Smug or not, that will be a challenge.’

  ‘I’m used to it,’ Wulf said ruefully and wasn’t that the truth?

  ‘I suppose you must be and as a rule I care more about a man’s head and heart than the way he came into the world, but I know my sister-in-law has been hurt and I care more about her than your sensitivities, so I’m prepared to be inhospitable in your case.’

  ‘I came here on my half-brother’s business,’ Wulf said as his temper began to tug at its tethers. Magnus was ill and Isabella Alstone was clearly in perfect health and coolly composed, so why was she the one who needed protecting?

  ‘And you think me rude to harp on it, but I don’t think you’re sure how you feel about my wife’s little sister, are you, FitzDevelin?’ he added unexpectedly.

  Wulf almost cursed aloud again and gave even more away to this frighteningly acute and deceptively mild-mannered man. ‘What can I say? You threatened me with indignity if I breathe even a bad word about her and now you want to know how I feel. I feel my brother is sad and ill after the abrupt ending of their betrothal, but things may not be as simple as I thought when I rode here to plead his case.’

  ‘Against your own interests as well,’ the man said cynically, as if he knew Wulf’s inner devils lusted for Isabella and never mind fraternal love. ‘I’m in love with an Alstone sister myself, FitzDevelin. Did you really think I wouldn’t recognise the dazed look in a man’s eye when he gazes at one of them as if he hasn’t a hope in hell of ever laying hands on her but can’t help himself longing all the same? I longed unrewarded for three very long years and know everything there is to know about longing and not having, but still doing it.’

  Wulf frowned moodily at the neat stable yard they were nearing so rapidly, aware he’d better guard his tongue even more carefully. ‘I’m not in love. I have no personal interest beyond my brother’s welfare and sanity,’ he bit out, feeling as if the lie might snap back and bite him.

  ‘Then you’re wilfully blind or a fool. I’m not your enemy, but I will be if you harm my wife’s little sister.’

  ‘If my half-brother marries your sister-in-law, I’ll go abroad and none of your kind will miss me.’

  ‘Hmmm, Lord Carrowe makes no effort to provide for your younger sisters, so they’d miss you and Magnus Haile seems to like you,’ Lord Shuttleworth argued.

  This clever man clearly had all sorts of wrongheaded ideas about the passion Wulf had for Lady Shuttleworth’s younger sister. Passion was all it was. He’d get over it.

  ‘Magnus and my mother will find the girls a good husband each and I expect they’ll be abetted by your sister-in-law even if she doesn’t marry him.’

  ‘They’re your family, FitzDevelin, not Miss Alstone’s.’

  ‘Have you tried telling her that?’

  ‘No, I’ve no fancy to get my nose snapped off and you’re right, she won’t let a broken engagement stop her matchmaking,’ Lord Shuttleworth admitted.

  ‘My sisters’ welfare comes first and they’ll do better when I’m gone,’ Wulf said.

  ‘You’re set on leaving England again, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wulf said gruffly.

  ‘Then I must wonder why you came back.’

  ‘So must I.’

  ‘Although the Earl can’t stave off his creditors much longer,’ this lord warned as if Wulf ought to weigh that in the balance when planning his future.

  As if the problem of how his mother and sisters would survive hadn’t haunted him all the way across the Atlantic and back. It was the idea of his mother and sisters being destitute that dragged him back to England, wasn’t it? He’d been desperate not to see his brother marry Isabella. This fiery need for her, from the instant he had laid eyes on her, sent him across the Atlantic in the teeth of winter storms, but it was wrong to have been elated for even a minute when he came back to find the wedding had been cancelled. He rode here dogged by guilt and pity for Magnus’s low state of mind mixed with irritation he hadn’t come here to plead for himself.

  ‘Lord Carrowe has the legal right to dictate his wife and unwed daughters’ lives. He doesn’t thank me for interfering,’ he said carefully.

  ‘You might need help if he’s in the Fleet for debt,’ Lord Shuttleworth replied, taking a visiting card out of his pocket and scribbling on it with a fine silver pencil before he handed it over. ‘Ben Shaw is a lord’s love child but has a powerful enough reach to make your stepfather wary of tangling with him.’

  ‘Thank you, although I’ve no idea why you’d help me.’

  ‘My wife and her sister were neglected and abused by those supposed to care for them as children and I’d hate to see your sisters left vulnerable, even if they are grown-up and too old to be bullied and coerced.’

  Wulf frowned his disagreement because his youngest half-sisters were so terrified of their father they might walk off a cliff if he told them to. The twins were eighteen and Aline seven years older and more stubborn and defiant than her little sisters, but Shuttleworth was quite right and he had to put their needs before his own. Any scheme to leave the country with his mother and three unwed sister would need a lot of fine tuning, and if Ben Shaw, whom he’d already met causally, could help, he’d lower his pride and ask for it if the time came.

  ‘I will put them first,’ he promised curtly as they walked into the stable yard and he thought that he and the Viscount might have been friends in different circumstances.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Another fool’s comin’ gallopin’ up the drive ’ell for leather, your lordship,’ a different groom from the one who had first greeted Wulf told his master gloomily as they waited for Wulf’s horse to be saddled. ‘Seems like a day for them, don’t it, m’lord?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Lord Shuttleworth responded with a frown that made Wulf glad he was playing first intruder today and not second. ‘I’ll see who it is and what he wants while you bring that nag out for this gentleman, Alworth.’ His lordship invited Wulf to precede him out with an impatient gesture.

  ‘Hell and the devil, that’s Gus,’ Wulf was shocked into exclaiming when he saw a hard-ridden horse tearing towards them with his weary rider looking as if he was barely hanging on to t
he reins. ‘What is he doing riding here as if his life depends on it when he’s supposed to be convalescing?’

  ‘The same thing as you, I expect,’ Shuttleworth replied shortly.

  Had Miss Alstone’s family secretly opposed what seemed a perfectly good match to the rest of the world? Wulf felt contrary emotions churn inside him as he waited for Gus to gallop across Lord Shuttleworth’s park and tell them why he was in such a hurry.

  ‘Wulf, thank God I was right although you’re a damned fool,’ Magnus gasped out when he was close enough to be heard.

  He hadn’t bothered with the shave he had needed even when he set out and looked more the wild man than Wulf and quite unlike his usual dapper and gentlemanly self. He wondered fleetingly if Miss Alstone would like Gus better thin as a rake, romantically unkempt, wild-eyed and even looking a little bit dangerous. Wulf’s heart plunged, then hammered to a marching beat at the thought of having to watch them blissfully reunited.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ he said coolly. ‘No doubt you’ll have a warmer welcome.’

  He turned to reclaim his horse and ride away. He could leave Magnus to it now he’d pushed him into doing what he should have weeks ago: beg Isabella Alstone to take him back. Wulf turned away to hide his feelings and Gus scrambled off his horse with such haste Wulf turned to stare at him open-mouthed. Gus seemed more interested in Wulf than finding the woman he had ridden here so hard to see.

  ‘Damn it, Wulf, don’t you turn your back on me as well,’ his brother gasped out as if he was the social outcast of the two of them. He swayed so alarmingly Lord Shuttleworth started forward to stop him falling to the ground as if he was having a seizure. Deeply shocked by his brother’s wild state, Wulf got there first and felt the lesser shock of Gus’s newly bony body under his supporting grip. No woman was worth this much agony, he silently chided his brother, certainly not one who could coolly dismiss his sufferings as if they had nothing to do with her.

  ‘Brace up, Gus,’ he ordered as if impatient instead of sad and furious at the effort it cost him to get out the words struggling on his tongue.

  ‘He’s been murdered, Wulf—dead as mutton,’ his brother managed before he went limp and Wulf was left to wonder for a terrible moment if his brother was mad.

  ‘Who’s dead, Gus?’ he asked urgently as he fought to stay upright under their joint weight. ‘And why would you think he’s been murdered?’

  ‘Saw him with my own eyes, Wulf. My father. Stiff as a doornail and covered in his own gore, but at least he won’t trouble us any more.’

  For a terrible moment relief sang in Wulf’s heart, but he smothered it and shivered when he remembered their startled audience. ‘My brother is not in his right mind,’ he informed the Viscount, not sure a temporary derangement of spirits could cover the fact Gus had given a magistrate good reason to suspect him of patricide.

  ‘The gentleman is exhausted,’ Lord Shuttleworth said brusquely. ‘Alworth, get both these nags stabled, then find a hurdle to carry him into the house to be cared for. We need to get him out of the cold and stop this faint turning to an ague.’

  ‘Aye, m’lord,’ the groom said with one last glance at this latest strange gentleman who seemed only half-alive after his long ride.

  Wulf was battling shock and terror at his brother’s hastily gasped-out words. Magnus must have been struggling with such terror ever since he set out in Wulf’s tracks. No doubt he’d had to deal with the magistrates and get the corpse out of the house before he set the Runners on the killer’s scent. And then he’d set out to fetch Wulf back when he was far too weak from his illness to withstand another shock. He’d always thought Gus the sensible one, a steady hand who would keep the rest of his family functioning despite their father’s worst efforts.

  If the Earl of Carrowe had been murdered, Wulf must get to Carrowe House as fast as he could and whisk his mother and sisters out of there. Torn between his concern for Gus’s welfare and the urgency of getting back to London as fast as he could, he watched Miss Alstone arrive breathless in the stable yard with a familiar thump in his heart even now, when he should have nobler things on his mind than longing for a fine lady in a state of mild disarray. She looked as if she’d been running since she saw Gus dash over the horizon like the hero out of a ballad. She came to a hasty stop to stare down at his unconscious brother as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Not sure if she was delighted or horrified, Wulf used the excuse of brotherly concern not to watch love warm her shocked blue gaze as she examined Gus’s pale face for signs of life and at last his brother blinked and opened his eyes.

  ‘Why have you come dashing all this way in such a headlong fashion?’ she said as if Gus was in a fit state to reply. She seemed to realise he was drifting in and out of consciousness when she shot Wulf an impatient glare instead. ‘What’s the matter with him? What have you done?’ she said and the accusation made his gorge rise.

  How could she think he’d harm his brother when Gus had dared the Earl’s wrath to protect him as a boy and he loved him for it? How could she think him so little? ‘Nothing,’ he said coldly. ‘You should look closer to home for a cause, since I’m told he hasn’t been the same since you jilted him.’

  ‘Be quiet. I won’t listen to you two trading insults at a time like this.’

  Shuttleworth’s rebuke jolted Wulf and the man was right, he mustn’t lose his temper, however much her accusation hurt. He had to keep a cool head and get his brother home as fast as a coach and horses could carry them, since Gus was obviously in no state to ride. Scandal was about to descend on the Haile family yet again and there was nothing he could do to keep it quiet if Gus’s grim tale was true, but Shuttleworth and his family shouldn’t be involved.

  ‘You’re right, my lord, and I’ll be very grateful if you could let us borrow a carriage as far as the next coaching inn.’

  ‘Wait until our local physician arrives, man. The moment he says your brother is fit to travel I promise to set you on your way as fast as can be.’

  ‘As nobody knows who we are here, you can call us Smith or Butcher or Baker if it makes life easier,’ Wulf offered distractedly and gazed down at his brother’s haggard face. If the Earl had really been murdered, the Viscount wouldn’t want the notoriety of having one of the Haile family as his guest and Wulf almost wished Gus would faint properly so he could forget the blind terror on his face when he gasped out his reason for coming.

  ‘Or Candlestick-Maker?’ Miss Alstone offered sarcastically. Her scorn pulled him back into every day, which was where he needed to be if he was going to get his family out of this latest calamity unscathed, so he ought to thank her.

  ‘A bit long-winded, don’t you think?’ he argued against the uproar as three grooms and a footman arrived at the same time as Sir Hugh and his two available offspring.

  ‘Forgive me?’ she asked rather sheepishly, as if she thought her accusations were appalling as well, but he should absolve her, since she’d asked nicely.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said, making it clear he was preoccupied. Magnus helped by jolting out of his trance at the noise and staring about him in a panic. Lord Shuttleworth was right; if this was Gus’s reaction to people who ran to help him, then a party of Bow Street Runners and a constable or two galloping in his wake could send him into a decline. Wulf shuddered for his brother’s life and his sanity and decided who he chose to marry didn’t seem very important now. ‘Quietly, Gus,’ he cautioned as the rescue party eyed his brother warily as if horror might be contagious. ‘My brother exhausted himself tracking me down as our mother has been taken ill,’ he explained as if that was the top and bottom of their woes.

  And it wasn’t an outright lie; the Countess’s usual method of coping with problems was to be too delicate to face them. A murder in the house would require at least a nervous collapse and how her husband would have raged at her for it. At least the Dowager Countess of Carrowe could hav
e hysterics whenever she chose from now on and Wulf doubted he or Magnus had the heart to deny her such a small solace for her hard life under the Earl’s thumb. The word Dowager echoed dully in Wulf’s head as he supervised the lifting of his brother on to the hurdle and soothed Magnus when he protested at being carried about like an invalid.

  The Earl is no more, long live the Earl, Wulf mused numbly as he watched his brother’s pallid face while the little procession slowly made its way to the house. Gresley would inherit little more than his father’s title and Wulf already knew there was no point expecting very much from the new Earl. Gresley had never taken much interest in his younger brother and sisters and Wulf couldn’t see that changing. Gresley would inherit Haile Carr officially and his wife had long ago decided she preferred it to London and the snobbish reminders the high sticklers knew how to make that she wasn’t a born lady even if she was a countess now.

  Indifferent to the new Earl at the best of times, Wulf turned his attention to the half-brother he did love. If Magnus had discovered the Earl’s dead body, it might explain his half-crazed state when he got here. After he ran away from Carrowe House as a lad himself, he’d seen things that would shock a trooper, but Gus was far more sensitive and sheltered than Wulf had been and the Earl was his father. Add the stress and heartache of his parting from Miss Alstone and his illness earlier this year and it seemed little wonder Gus had buckled under the burden of it all.

  ‘Carry him to the green bedchamber in the old wing,’ Lord Shuttleworth ordered as they got Gus up the steps and inside the mansion. ‘I don’t want my wife to get wind of this yet,’ he added. ‘Even without your brother’s current state of health this is an awkward situation for my wife and sister-in-law,’ the Viscount murmured.

  ‘His news has put everything else out of my head,’ he admitted as Miss Alstone’s exasperated snort of impatience seemed almost to argue that propriety and the gossips be damned. However, he couldn’t quite believe in her anxiety for a man she’d brushed aside like a buzzing fly when she broke their betrothal and talked of so coldly not half an hour ago. He wished she’d go away and stop distracting him.