Scandal Becomes Her

by Shirlee Busbee

  When Nell nodded, she added, “Well, there’s some who say that Raoul is the Old Earl all over again—and far less generous. The girls that young man has ruined.” She looked across at Mrs. Weston. “I lay the blame squarely on her shoulders—she dotes on her son and will not hear a word against him—she simply adores the ground Raoul walks upon. But then I suppose it’s only natural with Harlan marrying her for her fortune—who else could she love? But, as I said, Sofie and Harlan did well together—even if it wasn’t a love match, they had respect and liking, even a fondness for each other.”

  “I see,” Nell said slowly, identifying with Sofie. Her husband hadn’t loved her, either…Mayhap there was a reason for her cold manner.

  The gentlemen entered the room and the moment for further private conversation was lost. The remainder of the evening passed pleasantly and Nell was almost sorry when her guests departed. But it had been a long arduous day and after she and Julian had waved first the Chadbournes and then the Westons away, she was very glad to seek out her bedroom.

  Mrs. Chadbourne’s words gave her much to think about and after she crawled into bed and had blown out the candle, she considered them. While Julian had not married her for her fortune, it was true that, like Sofie and Harlan Weston, theirs was not a love match. She sighed. When she looked at Mrs. Weston was she seeing herself in thirty years’ time? Lud! She hoped not. She sighed again. The Weston men it seemed were only capable of loving once, that first love ruining them for all others. Harlan and his Letty and Julian and Catherine…

  Julian’s entrance into her rooms ended her unhappy thoughts. Tossing aside his black silk robe, he slid into bed beside her. Nell’s pulse leaped as he drew her next to his warm, naked length.

  Brushing back a few curls that tumbled over her cheek, he kissed her ear and asked, “Happy, Madame wife, with your first dinner party at Wyndham Manor?”

  Trying to ignore the wayward response of her body, she snuggled nearer to him. He did not love her, she thought with an ache in her heart, but he was a good husband. Toying with the thick dark hairs that covered his chest, she said, “It went well, did it not?”

  “Indeed, it did, especially when you consider the dicey proposition that it was—there was every chance that Charles and I would be at each other’s throats—nagged on by Raoul and cheered by Aunt Sofie,” he murmured, a smile in his voice.

  “I like your cousin Charles,” Nell confessed. “He is not as cold and uncaring as he pretends, is he?”

  In the darkness Julian made a face. He’d much rather make love to his enticing wife, but it appeared that she wished to talk first. “That’s Charles’s problem,” he admitted, “he cares too much, but he hides it behind that stone face of his.”

  “But why?”

  “I think, perhaps, because…Aunt Sofie has not always been kind to her stepsons and when her own son arrived…She will do anything for Raoul, but John, Charles and later John’s son, Daniel, could have been torn apart by lions right in front of her and she wouldn’t even have noticed.” He sighed. “It is very hard to like Aunt Sofie at times, but in the main, I’m grateful to her for saving Stonegate and for exerting a bit of stability in that branch of the Westons. I really don’t know what would have happened with my Uncle Harlan if Sofie hadn’t been there. And with Charles…There may be no love lost between them, but she has in the past exercised some control over his reckless ways—even if her methods were not the kindest.”

  “Her fortune?”

  Julian gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, yes, she has beaten him over the head with it more than once. I sometimes wonder how Charles has kept from wringing her neck.” He buried his nose in her hair. “But come, let us talk of other things besides my pack of disreputable relatives.”

  “Such as?” she asked lightly, aware of the growing bulge of his member at her hip.

  “Such as how beautiful you looked tonight…” His hand roamed across her abdomen, “and how nicely my son is growing within you.”

  “Your son?” she hooted. “How do you know I am not carrying a girl?”

  He nuzzled her ear. “Fine, let it be a girl. I have no objections to having a house full of charming Amazons. I shall look forward to it, but I trust that in time you will give me an heir.” His mouth found hers and he kissed her deeply, passionately. His hands slid up and under her nightgown, cupping her breasts. “And it is not,” he breathed against her soft mouth, “as if making a baby is such an arduous task.” Lifting her gown off of her body and tossing it aside, he murmured, “In fact, I can think of nothing more pleasurable.”

  His head bent and he captured one tempting nipple between his teeth. “Hmmm, sweet,” he muttered, curling his tongue around the swollen nub. “Sweeter than spring strawberries.” He suckled, pulling hard, sending streaks of delight shooting through Nell’s body.

  In the summer, she thought dreamily, it would be their child who suckled so lustily and her breath caught as she imagined a tiny dark head buried against her breast. Then one of Julian’s hands slid lower to the thatch of curls between her thighs and thoughts of summer and babies vanished like smoke in the wind and she gave herself up to the magic of making love with her husband.

  Later, they lay together, replete and languorous, basking in the sweet aftermath of their mating. Nell’s head rested on Julian’s shoulder and she savored the moment. They were so right together in so many ways, she thought, and yet there was a chasm between them. A chasm that had a name: Catherine.

  Nell’s enjoyment in the moment disappeared, just the mere idea of Julian’s first wife destroying her peace. Sofie Weston’s words came back to bedevil her, to taunt her, adding to her unhappiness, and she moved restlessly at Julian’s side.

  “Be still,” muttered Julian. “You are wiggling like an eel.”

  Nell concentrated on keeping her body motionless, but the harder she concentrated, the stronger the urge to wiggle grew. Finally she gave up and scooted away from him.

  Julian raised up. “What is the matter?”

  “Nothing,” Nell answered quickly. “I just cannot be still. I have, I suppose, too many things on my mind.” Like your first wife. Your Aunt Sofie’s comments. And the knowledge that you will never love me—no matter how kind you are, how fond you may be of me. Nell wrinkled her nose. Odd how she’d never realized before what a milksop word “fond” was. She suddenly hated it.

  In the darkness Julian frowned, sensing that there was more behind her words. “Does something trouble you, Nell? The nightmares, perhaps?”

  “No. Not the nightmares. I have not had one in weeks.” She hesitated. “Which means, no doubt, that I will have one soon.”

  She hoped she’d distracted him, but he pulled her back against him and asked, “If not the nightmares, then what else is on your mind that will not allow you to lay peaceably by my side?”

  Nell detested tattletales, but she couldn’t help blurting out, “Your Aunt Sofie reminded me tonight that this was not the first time that you had looked forward to the birth of a child…and that those hopes ended in tragedy.”

  “That woman!” Julian growled, a note in his voice making Nell very glad that she was not Sofie Weston. “I may save Charles the trouble of wringing her neck.” Nell believed him. He took a breath, saying in a calmer tone, “Rest assured that I shall have something to say to my dear Aunt Sofie when next I see her. In the meantime, put her nonsensical and, I might add, vicious comments from your mind. She has always been a troublemaker—pay her no heed. This is our child and what is between us has nothing to do with the past.”

  Nell wanted to believe him. Part of her did. Yet he was wrong. The past had everything to do with them and as long as Catherine’s specter hovered between them…

  Nell was not a coward, yet she was clutching her courage in both hands when she asked, “Did you love her so much?”

  “Who?” Julian inquired, completely at sea.

  Baldly she said, “Catherine.”

  Julian stiffened. Biting back
a curse, he jerked upright and running an agitated hand through his hair, demanded, “What the hell does she have to do with us? She’s dead, Nell. She’s dead and buried. Forget her!”

  “Can you?” she asked tightly.

  Just the mention of Catherine’s name filled him with rage and remorse. What he and Nell had together was precious and clean and honest. He wanted nothing to touch that, nothing to tarnish it. And bringing Catherine into their lives, their marriage, could certainly do that, he thought mirthlessly. Remembering the ugliness, the lies, the lovers she’d paraded before him, he wondered how he could ever explain to Nell everything that Catherine had been without sounding weak and pitiful—or like the cuckold he’d been? Nor could he bring himself to speak aloud his darkest fear: that the child Catherine carried and that he mourned to this day might not even have been his. How could he ever speak aloud of his loathing for a woman he had sworn to respect and protect all of his life and had failed…miserably, completely? If there was one thing he did not want to discuss with his second wife, it was his first wife. But Nell had asked a question and she deserved an answer. Could he ever forget Catherine? No, he thought wearily. She had sunk her claws into his very being and had stripped away his pride, his manliness, and very nearly destroyed him. No, he would never forget Catherine.

  “No, I cannot forget her. I will remember until my dying day her and the child that she carried when she died, but she has nothing to do with us,” he said heavily, standing up and pulling on his robe. “This is our marriage…and our child. I beg you, leave my past where it belongs. Understand me: accept as I have the fact that she is dead and buried and nothing will change that.”

  Well, there you have it, Nell thought bleakly. He’s admitted it. He will never forget the heavenly Catherine. What hope is there for me? None. Defeat washed over her and Nell turned her head away. “Oh, I understand perfectly,” she muttered, wishing him a thousand miles away. She made a great act of yawning. “Forgive me, my lord. I am very tired.”

  Julian hesitated, but the note of dismissal in her voice was not encouraging and he did not want to part from her this way. He didn’t, he realized, want to part from her at all. What he wanted was something he’d never wanted from any other woman; he wanted to lie beside Nell the entire night, to feel her warmth against him, to listen to her soft breathing and to know that she was near his side all through the long, lonely, dark hours of the night.

  Just the mere mention of Catherine’s name, he thought savagely, had ruined any chance of Nell welcoming him back into her bed tonight. By heaven, but he wasn’t going to let that witch reach out from the grave and destroy his only chance for happiness. Damn her black soul! Try your wiles, Catherine, but you will not win this battle, he vowed.

  Surprising both of them, he tossed aside his robe and climbed back into bed beside Nell. Pulling her against him, they lay spoon fashion. Julian kissed the top of Nell’s head. “I, too, am tired and can think of no more delightful place to sleep than at my wife’s side.”

  Nell tried hard to cling to her hurt and anger, tried hard not to be pleased by his words, but it was impossible—she loved him. Her breath caught sharply as she realized that it was true: she did love him. Madly. Passionately. Completely. Awed she lay there reveling in his big, warm body pressed against hers. She loved this man. When it had happened she did not know. Perhaps from the moment she had first seen him looking like a desperate highwayman? Or had it been on their wedding night when he had kissed her so passionately? Made her so very aware of him as a man? Mayhap later still, when he had first made love to her? She didn’t know when the fierce emotion that beat in her breast had begun, she only knew that she loved him with every fiber of her being.

  Her jaw clenched. And he loved another. But it was with her that he lay—not a dead woman, and she took hope from that. She had months, years in which to make him love her…and Catherine had none. A little smile curved her mouth. And she carried his child. She fell asleep, a smile on her lips, her husband’s arm wrapped around her, his hand lying protectively over her womb.

  There was no warning. One second she was sleeping deeply, dreams of her child, dreams of the day when Julian would declare his love for her drifting rosily through her mind and the next…She was there, watching in that smoke-stained dungeon, her ears assaulted by the woman’s shrieks, her eyes fixed on the bloody rampage only a mind devoured by feral madness could inflict upon another human. Nell fought to escape the ripping talons of the nightmare, but they held her fast, forcing her to watch the horrible things done in that horrible place. She shuddered as the Shadow Man turned aside from his victim and reached for a different toy, a thin-bladed knife honed to razor sharpness…

  As always he was in shadows, no way for her to identify him beyond his height and breadth of shoulder and yet when he had turned for that knife, something tugged at her brain and her breath caught. She knew him. She could not name him, but a bone-deep certainty flashed through her that she had met this man, had talked with him. Her Shadow Man was someone she knew.

  In her sleep, Nell tossed wildly, panting softly. Julian awakened the second she had shuddered. Cursing under his breath, knowing it was the nightmare, he found a candle on the bed stand and quickly lit it. In the faint light, her face was contorted by fear and revulsion, and he reached out to touch her, to reassure her. But at his first gentle caress, she screamed and jerked upright, her eyes wide-open, but seeing nothing.

  “Nell,” he cried softly, “wake up. It is the nightmare. You are safe. Wake up, darling. Wake up.”

  But she could not, her gaze locked on a vision of unbelievable savagery. In all the nightmares, over all the years, she had never witnessed such ungovernable violence. Always before, no matter how vicious the act, there had been a pitiless curiosity emanating from him, as if he was intrigued by the reactions of the women to each new torture. But tonight there was no curiosity, there was nothing but a blind, mad urge to hurt, to rend and tear.

  Kind words and gentle strokes were having no effect on Nell and in desperation, Julian slapped her across the cheek. She gasped, gagged and her gaze cleared. White-faced and shaking, she threw herself into Julian’s arms. Sobbing against his shoulder, she muttered, “It was awful. Awful. I cannot bear this.”

  Julian held her, waiting for the worst of the storm to pass. All he could do was give comfort and he did that by holding her close, murmuring to her and stroking the tousled tawny locks. “Hush, sweetheart. You are safe. I have you and I will not let anyone hurt you. Hush, now.”

  Eventually her sobs lessened, but her clutch on his arms did not. She raised her head and in the flickering golden light from the candle she whispered, “I know him, Julian.”

  His eyes locked with hers. “You saw his face tonight?” he asked sharply. “You know his name?”

  Nell shook her head. “No. Not that, it is just that at one point I felt instinctively that I knew him. That I had met him, talked with him.” A shudder rippled through her. “He is someone we may have talked with in our very home.”

  Julian frowned. “But if you didn’t see his face, how do you know he is someone you’ve met?”

  “I can’t explain it,” Nell admitted. “It’s just something that I know to be true.” Urgently, she added, “We know him. He is no stranger to us.”

  Julian studied her pale face, seeing the streaks from her tears, the remembered horror in her eyes. He had already accepted the fact that by means and methods that went beyond normal understanding his wife had an unexplainable connection to the man who had murdered his cousin and tried to kill her by throwing her over a cliff. Nell’s nightmares revealed that the same man, a monstrous creature, had for years been murdering innocent women in some dark dungeon. Having accepted all of that, it was not so hard for Julian to believe in what Nell claimed: that the man they sought was someone they knew.

  “Very well. He is someone we know.” He sent Nell a grim look. “But that helps us little if you cannot identify him.”

&
nbsp; “I know,” Nell said mournfully. “If only we could find the dungeons! If we knew where they were, whose they were, we would know the name of this monster.”

  “Has it occurred to you that we have no idea where these dungeons might be?” Julian asked. “To be sure, we have explored the ones here at Wyndham Hall and excluded them, but good God! There are old, forgotten dungeons spread across the breadth and length of England! We could search out every dungeon in Devonshire and your madman could be in Cornwall for all we know.”

  Nell sat very still, her head cocked to one side as if she was listening to some faraway voice. Eventually she looked at him and shook her head. “No. I cannot identify him or them, but he is from this area and the dungeons are here, too.”

  Julian sighed. “And how do you know this?”

  “I just know it!” she snapped. “I’ve told you—I can’t explain it. Any of it. I only know what I feel, what my instincts tell me. And my instincts tell me that he and that hellish place are here in this area.” She bit her lip. “The nightmares have always been terrible, but the ones I’ve had here…I cannot explain it, but they are more intense…as if I am nearer to the source and because of that the impressions, the feel of them is so much stronger, more powerful.” Mournfully she added, “I don’t know how to make you understand, but I am not imagining any of this. You do believe me, don’t you?”

  Wearily Julian nodded. “Yes, I believe you. I don’t want to, I’ll admit that much, and everything that you’ve related to me flies in the face of reason but what you’ve told me about John’s murder convinces me that there is some link between you and his murderer. And if I believe that much, then it is not so difficult to believe all the rest, incredible though it may be.” He covered her hand with his. “We are in this together, Nell, and together we will find this monster…and his cursed dungeons.”