Suzi Love

by Embracing Scandal

  Julia shook her head. “No, no, Celeste.” She raced towards her, fists flailing. “This isn’t fair. First Cayle, and now this. I suffered your pitiable husband’s groping. I bedded those others for blackmail. Without me, none of this would’ve been possible. You need me.”

  “I need neither of you. You thought yourselves better than me. Now you’ll suffer an unfortunate accident and I’ll be left to mourn, quite bereft. And quite, quite rich.”

  “No,” Julia screamed again.

  In a moment of blind rage Julia lunged at Celeste, causing her pistol to discharge. For the second time in an hour, somebody fell to the ground. Unlike the baron, Julia survived. Ear-splitting shrieks and the blood running over the shoulder of her gown were a testament to the fact that she was wounded, not dead.

  • • •

  Even louder noises sounded from the bushes, the scuffles and loud wails almost drowning out Julia’s caterwauling. With a wave of her now unsteady hand, Celeste signalled her men to investigate the increasing sounds of flesh connecting with flesh, more screams, and then silence. Another man stepped into the light, surrounded by a group of tall figures that dragged Hetherington’s estate men into the clearing.

  The leader’s confident voice rang out, a welcome intrusion into the nightmarish situation Becca had been enduring. “Julia! Stop that noise.”

  “Cayle!” Becca forgot all her hard-learned lessons about being a lady as she yelled out to the dishevelled man striding purposefully across the clearing and then sagged with relief when he rushed to her side. Strong arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close enough and hard enough against his chest that she could only breathe in the masculine scent of her hero and inhale his familiar essence.

  Her white knight reeked of dirt and sweat and horse and gunpowder, his clothing was torn and filthy, and she’d never known anything so sweet. Clutching him tightly with both hands, she was able to relax her guard, finally. She was safe. He’d come to save her.

  “Is this a private performance,” Cayle asked the assembled crowd in a droll voice, but still managing to keep his arm firmly around her shaking body. “Or can any amateur actor go on stage for the final act of this bizarre play.”

  Lifting her head enough to glance around, Becca saw that his brothers and Winchester and three others accompanied Cayle. All of them had that same look of authority that Cayle wore like a second skin, so she recognised them as his friends from the continent. Yet, it was obvious these capable looking men were a lot more. Associates in his trading business, yes, but Becca was certain they also dabbled in the same intrigues as Cayle himself.

  Winchester surveyed the scene with amazement, watching Lord and Lady Hetherington where they stood near Julia who lay on the ground, crying and moaning about her bleeding wound. “This whole evening, this entire situation,” Winchester gestured to the clearing, “has played out like a Drury Lane melodrama. There are more twists and turns in this plot, more intrigues, more dastardly villains, than even the best of playwrights could conjure.”

  “I never guessed,” Brian said. “I knew Julia was a scheming bitch — ” He glanced at Becca. “Pardon me. A scheming woman, but I never suspected she’d be so underhanded.”

  “We stupidly never delved into how deeply her gambling debts ran,” Tony added.

  “If we had, we may’ve prevented this farce proceeding.” He swept into a low bow before Becca.

  Brian dipped his head as he stood beside his brother, both looking saddened and chastened. “Please, accept our humblest apologies for allowing you to become caught in this web of deceit. One instigated by a member of the St. Martin family.”

  Tony and Brian both bowed again before Becca, their formal movements strangely in keeping with all the other absurdities that’d happened in the space of a few hours. When they walked away to take care of their stepmother, she edged closer to the comfort of Cayle’s hard body, revelling in the warmth and strength emanating from him.

  “Sweetheart, tell me, did they harm you?”

  For once in her life, Becca couldn’t speak. She simply shook her head and gazed up at him with wide-eyed, blatant, open-mouthed admiration. Squeezing her arms in as tight a clasp as she could manage around his lean waist, she flattened herself against Cayle’s body, content for once to let a man take total charge.

  This man. Her man, her warrior, her saviour.

  Winchester snapped out several orders and the others rallied. When the chaos and confusion of figures settled, Becca noticed both Hetheringtons being led away by men in constabulary uniform. Cayle’s brothers helped Julia to her feet and attempted to staunch the flow of blood from her shoulder.

  Becca unfurled herself from Cayle and went to his stepmother, who flinched. But instead of delivering the blow Julia expected, Becca bent to the hem of her own gown and lifted the wet outer garments away to grasp her petticoat. With a loud wrench, she ripped a strip of lawn from the bottom and stood to face Julia.

  Wadding the linen into a ball, she pressed it to Julia’s shoulder. “Flesh wounds bleed profusely and hurt like the devil, but at least you won’t die from it.”

  Overcome by the dire situation, Julia sobbed even louder. Raising one arm to her stepson, she begged, “Please, you have to help me. We’re family.”

  His face hard, it wasn’t the Cayle that Becca knew, but a stern Duke of Sherwyn who addressed the woman his father had inflicted upon his family. “You will be fortunate if I can keep you out of prison for your part in this sordid affair. Nevertheless, to protect the family name of which you’re so enamoured, I shall endeavour to do all in my power to see that at least you do not go to the gallows.”

  Julia keened and wailed even louder. “No, I’ll do anything. Go anywhere. You are Sherwyn. You can save me.” The younger St. Martin brothers watched. Julia turned her pleas to them. “Brian, Anthony, I am your mother.”

  “Stepmother,” Tony corrected in a cold voice.

  “You’ve never been a mother to us,” Brian said. “All these years, you either ignored us or reviled us to our father. We’ll be thankful to rip you from our lives.”

  “Here, here,” Tony agreed, patting his brothers on their backs.

  “You should be thankful that Becca is a true lady, Julia,” Cayle said. “Any other woman who’d been so wronged by you, wouldn’t trouble themselves to tend to your gunshot wound.”

  At his signal, two men stepped forward to escort Julia away. Everyone moved towards the carriages and horses, relieved to be leaving the cottage and its memories behind.

  Cayle clasped Becca’s hand again and kept it in his solid grip.

  Glancing down at their entwined fingers, she recognised that she was as reluctant to release him, as he seemed to be to let go of her. She let out a long relieved sigh that it was over, finally over. Life at Grosvenor Square could return to normal.

  Chapter 24

  Becca followed orders and changed out of her wet gown before rejoining the enlarged group gathered in a secluded upstairs sitting room at Hetherington House. She felt over-cosseted when her family fussed around her, fetching her drinks and making her warm. Still, it was the sort of smothering that felt good, comforting.

  Below, the house had emptied of neighbors invited for the ball and house guests had been dispatched to bedchambers, despite their avid curiosity about the goings on. The local magistrate had attended the ball and he’d quickly asserted his authority when the miscreants were returned to the house under guard.

  The Hetheringtons were sent ahead to London while a doctor attended to Julia’s superficial wound. She, and the others involved, had then been bundled into conveyances for the journey to London. And probably prison.

  “Bennett’s been remanded to his lodgings to await a full hearing into his involvement,” Winchester confirmed. “His explanation that the men were blackmailing him over his predilection towards redheaded women rang true, but can’t excuse him fully.”

  With a sideways glance at Becca, who sat tucked warmly by h
is side, Cayle muttered, “As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t excuse him at all. The man’s a danger to himself and others.”

  “I can’t imagine Margaret will continue their betrothal when she learns of his obsession,” Lottie said.

  Laura glanced first to Becca, next to Cayle, and then grinned. “Although red hair is certainly worth obsessing over, don’t you think, our dearest duke?”

  Cayle took this good-natured teasing in his stride, bending a little to nuzzle the red hair that Laura was referring to. “Definitely my favourite colour.”

  Becca almost purred like a well-fed kitten when he kissed the top of her head. She felt safe at last, and content.

  “And what will eventuate for Lord and Lady Hetherington,” Aunt Agatha asked Cayle.

  He shrugged. “My friends are accompanying them to London and the judiciary will decide. As they hold titles, leniency may be anticipated.”

  “By the way Lord Hetherington was crowing and unburdening himself of his misdeeds when he left,” Brian said dryly, “he may find himself in deeper trouble. Especially when those they swindled get wind of the details.”

  “But when they discover the large number of men of the higher ranks who were being blackmailed, the authorities may prefer to sweep the entire affair under the carpet,” Winchester commented.

  “I thank God that Celeste Hetherington’s true nature was revealed in time.”

  Becca shook her head. “I was flabbergasted when she chanted like a loony about how she was the greatest queen England had ever seen. She’ll probably spend her days chained to a cot in an asylum for the criminally insane.”

  When Lottie yawned widely, Aunt Agatha struggled to her feet, Laura rising to assist her. “It is well past time we retired. Before you seek your bed, Becca, could you pen a short note to Michael to be sent with a courier at daylight? If he hears of this before we can send an explanation, he’ll be racketing down here to rescue us all.”

  Becca stood to peck her aunt on her wrinkled cheek. “I will, aunty. And I’m certain Michael will desert Oxford for London the moment he hears the news regardless of what I say, so we should expect a visit from he and Jonathon tomorrow evening.”

  Becca and Cayle said their goodnights to the others who all made beelines for their rooms, exhaustion catching up with them.

  • • •

  Left alone with Cayle, Becca bit her lip in agitation. Taking his hands in hers, she started, “Cayle — ”

  “Yes, sweetheart. Are you sure you’re recovered?” He drew her down to the settee again, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead. “Are you warm enough?”

  His tenderness made it more difficult. She tried again.

  “It’s time, past time, that I explain the truth, the whole truth, about us, about myself.”

  He moved her into a long soft kiss, then drew back to look deeply into her eyes.

  “Becca,” he said, in a very solemn tone. “I know all I need to know about you. You’re brave.” He kissed her again. “And loving.” Another kiss. “And I was scared to death for your safety. This time, I thought I’d lost you. When I rode to the cottage, I envisioned you lying on the ground in a pool of blood, dead. I saw Julia lying there and at first, I thought it was you.

  My heart stopped beating.”

  Becca groaned. He was saying everything her womanly side longed to hear, but what she must confess might ruin their relationship, shatter his trust in her.

  “Cayle,” she tried again, “you don’t understand. I’m trying to explain that all our money, all the family’s investments, future ventures — ”

  “Are controlled by you. Yes, I know.”

  “You know? You already know that I do the planning, the investing?”

  “Well, of course. I wasn’t going to embroil myself in any situation if I wasn’t in possession of all the facts. It was easy enough for us, my friends and I, to dig it out.”

  “But how? How did you know it was me and not Michael when most of the consortium didn’t discover the truth?”

  “Ah, but they’re not trained to unravel mysteries. My friends and I are. Besides which, Michael may be a well-rounded Oxford scholar, but he doesn’t have your level of intelligence when it comes to mathematics and commercial forecasting. And Jonathon is going to be a brilliant engineer but he also doesn’t hold your particular skills. I recognised at once, the first night we became reacquainted, that the young bluestocking I used to know had matured into a woman who was both shrewd and capable. And above all, intriguing.”

  Becca narrowed her gaze at him. “I’m revealing my secrets, yet, I suspect that you’ve more secrets to reveal than I do.”

  Cayle smiled and shrugged. “Perhaps I’ll share them with you. Later.”

  Becca scowled. “I was prepared to reveal my innermost thoughts, my most secret of secrets, yet you only say, perhaps you’ll share yours. I don’t consider that a fair exchange.”

  “You, my sweet little liar, haven’t revealed everything to me,” he said, leaving Becca confused.

  “What more do you want to know? You already know about the society, my friends, the ones at those houses gentlemen visit. And the coffee houses at the Exchange. All my deepest thoughts have been exposed.”

  Once more, he gave her that enigmatic look, the one that shouted to her that he knew more than she did. “A sitting room isn’t the place to discuss the rest. You can whisper it to me later, in another setting altogether.”

  He ran his hands up and down her back, distracting her. She needed her wits about her to decide if he was urging her to reveal her feelings for him. But even now, she worried that her time with Cayle had come to an end. He was free of Julia, free to pursue his life. It was time he selected a wife, and Becca fretted that his earlier proposals had been forced upon him by time and circumstance. She needed to know if he still wanted her now for anything but her willing body in his bed.

  Testing the waters, she asked with hesitancy, “Cayle, by another setting, do you mean my bedchamber?”

  “That’s exactly where I intend for you to unburden that last secret, my love.”

  Automatically, she said, “Do not call me — ”

  “Shush! I’ll call you my love, my sweet, sweetheart, and every other endearment that comes to mind. Tonight, I was terrified for you. Indulge me, come to bed with me and let me whisper words of love in your ear until morning.”

  He helped her to her feet and led her along the corridor to her room. Becca felt safe and secure, warmed by his attentions. But still, a piece of the puzzle eluded her. What did he mean? What more did he want her to reveal?

  She’d faced not just one gun tonight, but three. She didn’t know if she had enough bravery left inside her to expose her raw emotions to Cayle. But when he locked the door and turned to her, he was wearing his heart on his sleeve for her to see. He loved her.

  It was written across his face as plain as day. Her own heart flipped over in her chest. Her breath caught. Everything she’d always wanted may still happen. She wanted it so badly.

  • • •

  Cayle stood with his back to the door and stared at Becca in awe. Not for his Becca had there been any faint-hearted vapours when she was kidnapped and held at gunpoint. No. She’d done what she always did. Stood strong in the face of adversity. And thank God for her stubborn will. It had kept her alive, brought her back to him. She slipped the wrapper off her shoulders to reveal an old-fashioned nightgown. There was nothing seductive about such a garment, yet the sensual picture she presented mesmerised him.

  The tight band of pain around his chest finally loosened and allowed him to draw his first liberated breath since coming upon her at the cottage. Even as he’d stepped into the clearing to face Lady Hetherington and her drawn pistol, from the corner of his eye he’d watched Becca. Watched for any sign of injury whilst the angst of thinking her harmed was unimaginably painful. The unbearable weight of the last traumatic weeks dropped from his shoulders, leaving him lighthearted as he’d
not allowed himself to be for so long. In his relief, he felt almost dizzy, though, like Becca’s knight of old, he felt invincible.

  With her beside him, they could conquer all foes, solve family problems, save the downtrodden of their world and still have time enough for loving. The sort of loving that kept them together for the rest of their lives. As husband and wife. Now, he just needed to convince stubborn, freckle-faced Lady Rebecca of that.

  “Cayle, you asked me once if I’d marry you.”

  Hardly daring to breathe, he bit into his bottom lip as joy radiated through him. Maybe he wouldn’t have to abduct her, run her off to Gretna Green after all. He’d been prepared to do anything to secure her, to make her his. Even if it had meant an elopement and another scandal. All he could think about was keeping her safely with him, forever. Never again, could he remain at arm’s length and he well knew it. He needed her, desperately. In addition, he reverently hoped that she’d realised how much she also needed him.

  “I do remember,” he agreed, striving for a casual air. “And I asked more than once.”

  Inside, his nerves were strung tighter than a bow. He wanted her, yet, he also wanted to know that she came to him of her own free will and not because she’d been forced into it to ensure her safety. Even little teeth came out to worry her lower lip, a sure sign his beautiful Becca was nervous. How well he knew her. How he wanted to ease any worry from her mind. Despite that, he forced himself to remain perfectly still by digging his fingers into his thighs.

  “I … I thought — ”

  “Yes?”

  “I thought perhaps we could come to some arrangement.”

  “An arrangement?”

  She gave a little nod and swallowed, visibly. “Yes.”

  “I offered you an arrangement once before, I recall, and you turned me down. Rather insultingly.”

  At this instant, she looked truly troubled. He almost gave in and let his instincts take over. All he wanted was this wonderful and enigmatic woman in his arms, warm and safe. Yet for her, pride was all that’d kept her going for many long months of being gossiped about, pointed at and ridiculed. She’d been betrothed to a cad and he’d dumped Becca and married a richer woman. But Becca, proud and defiant, had held her head high for and pretended it was of no consequence. But the rejection had wounded her and diminished her self esteem and he never wanted to suffer again.