Proper Scoundrel

by Annette Blair

  Marcus’s heart hit the side of his chest with a thud when he found them asleep on Jade’s bed, looking like mother and child ... and pup. A family.

  His family.

  His.

  By the tear tracks on both faces, it looked as if something momentous had taken place.

  The minute Lacey told him that Emily had asked for her mother this morning, he’d come looking for her. He could just imagine what must have transpired.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and twisted one of Emily’s golden curls around his finger and she opened her eyes. “Hi Emmybug. You all right?”

  Emily peeked behind her and saw Jade still asleep. She put a finger to her lips. “Shh. Mama’s sleeping.”

  Jade opened her eyes at that and regarded him. She must have told Emily about her mother, a task he didn’t envy. Now Jade was Mama and he was Papa, except that Jade thought their becoming a family was impossible, and Lord how he prayed she was wrong.

  Seeing Jade and Em like this filled Marcus with hope. “We can do it,” he said, not imagining how, but wanting desperately to make it happen.

  Jade kissed Emily’s nose. “Want to take Papa and Mucks for a walk while I get dressed?” She rose from the bed, giving Marcus a tantalizing glimpse of the woman beneath the damp dressing gown.

  “First, the three of us can move your things into the bedroom next door, my little Kitten,” Jade said, “so I can hear you, if you need me during the night. Then perhaps we can have a picnic on the beach?”

  With the resilience and trust of a child, Emily nodded and handed Mucks into Marcus’s keeping, while she scrambled from the bed. “Come Papa,” she said taking his hand, and filling him with pride.

  Marcus cupped Jade’s cheek, his love for her more consuming than the physical. It actually rose to a spiritual plane, a place he’d never been, nor aspired to be, but a gift he accepted as a blessing.

  “We can do it,” he repeated, before he left. We have to, he thought.

  There must be a way.

  Ten minutes later, looking fresh as springtime, Jade descended the stairs into the foyer and sat beside them on the bottom step. “Ready for—” Mucks began barking, as ferocious as any half-pound mite on short legs, and loped for the front door.

  Before Marcus reached it, the door opened and it hit the wall with a reverberating crash. Two men pushed their way inside, both older, one unkempt, in need of a wash and full of bravado, which proved some ale must actually have missed his coat and slid down his gullet.

  The second man was dressed a great deal better. A dandy. “I want my wife,” he demanded. “Who’s in charge here?”

  Emily came for the growling Mucks, and Marcus swept them into his arms. Jade positioned herself beside them.

  The dishevelled man turned to his cohort. “She ain’t y’wife till y’pay me for’er.” He nodded at Marcus. “We come for me daughter.”

  Marcus handed Emily to Jade. “I’ll take care of this. Take Em out of here.”

  Jade shook her head, refusing to budge, of course. “This is my house and these women are my responsibility,” she said, frustrating, but not surprising, Marcus.

  Several people apparently heard Mucks barking and the crash that followed, so a crowd had gathered. Garrett wheeled his chair around the corner and stopped ahead of the rest. “What’s going on, Marc? Is everything all right?”

  “This ‘gentlemen,’” Marcus stressed. “Wishes to claim his daughter, who is this man’s intended, I believe.”

  “Right’y’are guv’nr.”

  “Who exactly are you looking for?” Marcus asked them.

  “Me girl’s Abby Parg’ter.”

  “Abigail’s your daughter,” Garrett said. “Impossible.”

  “No, Garrett.” Abigail stood trembling on the stairs watching him. “Not impossible at all. I am his daughter.”

  “And soon to be my wife,” the dandy shouted in such a way as to order Abigail to remember it.

  Abigail straightened her spine. “Now that’s impossible.” She returned her gaze to her sire. “I won’t be sold.”

  Her father pulled a pistol from his waistcoat and aimed it at her, catching Marcus completely off guard, but not enough to keep him from stepping in front of Jade and Emily to protect them.

  “’E’s payin’ with coin ’a the realm, me girl,” her pistol toting father shouted, his aim steady. “You do as I say.”

  “I won’t,” Abby said, “You’ll have to shoot me.”

  Her father cocked his pistol.

  “I’ll pay you more,” Garrett shouted, snapping every head his way.

  Abby gasped and grabbed the stair rail for support. “No,” she said, but Marcus didn’t think anyone heard her except him.

  Her father lowered his weapon and rubbed his dirty chin, allowing Marcus to take the pistol from his hand, without protest, for the greedy blighter’s gaze never left Garrett. “Well now, I was after sellin’ ’er for a wife. You’ll have to pay double to have ’er for y’doxy. I gots me pride.”

  “I doubt it,” Garrett drawled. “Name your price.”

  Jade handed Emily to Lacey and cleared everyone from the room.

  “Wait a minute, now,” the rejected bridegroom groused. “A promise is a promise.”

  “Shut y’trap. Y’can always try’n top ’is price, if y’r that ’ot to mount’er.”

  The dandy turned on his heel and left the house.

  Marcus climbed the stairs to Abby as her father and Garrett faced off. Abby trembled with impotent rage, and Marcus wondered who made her more furious, her father for selling her or Garrett for his willingness to purchase her.

  “Garr,” Marcus said. “Maybe you should consider—”

  “Stay the hell out of this, Marc.”

  Abby’s father narrowed his eyes and looked from him to his brother, disgusting Marcus. The bastard actually hoped they would try to outbid each other.

  “Abby,” Marcus whispered. “Let me take you upstairs.”

  She shook her head without taking her gaze from Garr. “Garrett,” she said, a pleading note in her voice. “Please don’t—”

  “You stay out of this too, Abigail,” he said. “This is between me and him.”

  “And me, damn it!”

  Garrett ignored the curse, so out of character for Abigail, he should have heeded the warning. Not his worst mistake today, but right up there at the top of a growing list.

  “I’ll give you a thousand pounds for her,” his idiot brother said.

  “Ten thousand.”

  “Three.”

  “Eight.”

  Tears ran down Abigail’s cheeks and she seemed to become weaker and more dependent upon Marcus’s support with every word they uttered. Still, she wouldn’t allow him to propel her from the stairwell.

  “Five,” Garrett countered. “And that’s twice what I was willing to pay.”

  Abigail’s wail grew from somewhere deep inside her, revealing a grief so keen, Marcus was shaken by it.

  “Sold,” her father shouted with triumph, and Marcus caught Abigail as she fainted.

  Furious at Abby’s father, and his own brother, Marcus carried Abby up the stairs to her room, while Garr stood at the bottom shouting for him to bring her down, and while her rapacious father demanded payment in full.

  Garr sent a note to Seaford Head, Jade later told Marcus, and Brinkley brought five thousands pounds sterling that night.

  Early the next morning, as Marcus watched from Jade’s window, Beecher helped Garr into a carriage so he could drop it personally into Barney Pargeter’s oily hands.

  As they drove off, Marcus wondered how a man as smart as his brother could make such a monumental error in judgment. Then he turned back toward Jade’s bed, where she slept still, Emily beside her, Mucks between them. Em had awakened crying for her mother last night. They’d heard her from here, and he’d brought her in so they could comfort her. Her four-legged escort had tagged along.

  Children and a dog sharing th
eir bed with them and they hadn’t even finished scaling the mountain of impediments keeping them from a future together. Marcus smiled and climbed back into the midst of them to be cuddled, and kissed, licked and kicked, and he cherished every wonderful moment.

  When Garr returned, Beecher left him at the bottom of the stairs, where he remained to shout the house down for Abigail to come and talk to him.

  Despite Marcus’s previous night’s vow never to speak to the fool again, he went running down to push Garr’s chair out the front door. “Are you out of your mind? She’s never going to forgive you as it is.”

  “Forgive me?” Garrett asked, affronted. “For what?”

  “For offering to purchase her, never mind haggling to get her on the cheap!”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Garrett said.

  Marcus laughed. “Look who’s calling the kettle black.”

  Garrett shook his stubborn head. “I never thought I’d ask this, Marc, but will you carry me up there so I can talk to her?”

  Marcus took pity and squeezed his shoulder. “No, Garr. I won’t. She’s—”

  “Why you ungrateful son of a bitch. I never wanted to strike you more than I do right now. You stuck me in this chair. You owe me.”

  Those words echoed loudly between them for longer than Marcus could bear. “Go ahead, hit me,” he snapped. “I’d love an excuse to hit you back.” After a furious minute, Marcus turned and walked away.

  Three days later, Jade sat down beside Garrett’s bed. He looked like he hadn’t bothered to get up or shave, yesterday or today, and it was already afternoon. “You look worse than your brother,” she said. “For all the time you’ve spent in bed, you look as if you haven’t slept a wink. Marcus has circles under his eyes from lack of sleep as well. You two need to talk. He’s guilt ridden.”

  “We both know, Jade, that it hasn’t been guilt keeping Marc awake nights.”

  Jade could barely believe what the gentle Garrett implied, though she realized that powerlessness and panic lay at the root of his rage. So she stared him down silently, though her fury begged to be unleashed.

  He finally had the sense to look abashed, and cleared his throat. “I haven’t been sleeping. I’ve been trying to learn to walk. Damn near broke my neck. How’s Abby?”

  No wonder his frustration, if he’d been trying to walk and failed. “Abby is so upset, she hasn’t been able to keep food down since ... well, to quote her, ‘Since you bought her.’”

  Garrett used a word Jade had never heard and apologized immediately, for that and his previous insult. “I didn’t see myself as buying her. I saw myself as having the wherewithal to rescue her.”

  “To the rest of us, it looked and sounded like a purchase, worse that she was hardly worth the price you were forced to pay.”

  Garrett cursed again. “Has Beecher seen her?”

  “He just returned from Newhaven. He’s looking in on her now.”

  Garrett made to get up. “What about Marc?”

  “He’s taken Emily and Mucks for a walk on the downs. You don’t really blame him for your accident, do you?”

  “Most of the time, no.”

  “You never challenged him to a race, then?”

  “Of course I did. We always—”

  “Don’t you realize that at any time over the years, such an accident might have happened as easily to him when you had issued the challenge?”

  Garrett grimaced. “At some point, I suppose that did occur to me, though not in the last few days.”

  Jade rose, satisfied she’d given Garrett a few things to contemplate. “Talk to your brother. Release him from the guilt plaguing him. He needs your absolution more than he needs to breathe.”

  Garrett closed his eyes. “I know.”

  Jade went upstairs to Abby’s room and met Beecher coming out. “How is she?”

  He shook his head. “To be blunt, she’s in the family way and her heart’s broken on top of it. If this keeps up, she could lose the babe.”

  Jade stepped back. “A baby.” She grasped his sleeve. “How far along is she? Was she ... did she arrive here ... that way?”

  “Two months at most.”

  “But she’s been here three.”

  “Aye, I know.”

  Jade kept remembering Marcus entering Abby’s room the other day. How many times had he done so when she hadn’t seen? “Did she tell you who the father is?”

  “Absolutely refused. Mayhap she’ll tell you.”

  Jade nodded as she turned the knob.

  Abigail began to weep when Jade stepped inside.

  An hour later Jade left Abigail’s room in a daze, and went straight to her own room to pace.

  Betrayed.

  Marcus, The Earl of Attleboro, had fathered Abigail’s child.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jade’s hand trembled as she wiped her eyes with the back of a hand. Marcus had professed to love her while sleeping in Abigail’s arms. With Abby, he had shared intimacy, soft touches, kisses, and more.

  He had fathered another woman’s child.

  Jade wished she’d never seen him slip into Abby’s room.

  Abigail had cried that an Earl was too good for her. Bloody hell! She was too good for him.

  The bastard ran true to his sex after all. All men were created equal.

  Lord, what to do now, Jade wondered ... except she believed she already knew.

  She would make the man she loved marry someone else, of course. They never had a future anyway, and Abigail deserved a father for her child and a husband who would care for them, and no doubt Marcus would do so, once the decision and vows were made, of that Jade was certain. Marcus Fitzalan would nurture a piglet, if ’twas given into his keeping.

  Despite his betrayal, Marcus had re-defined manhood in her eyes, though he did not uphold one of her beliefs—he was not perfect, but flawed. Human. And if she didn’t halt the direction in which her thoughts ran, she’d be forgiving the philandering Earl of Attleboro, the lying bastard.

  She’d come to believe him an exception, a truly good man, and in many ways, he was still the best man she had ever met.

  No, no he wasn’t. Perhaps her original assessment had been correct after all. Men were all rotten. Even Garrett had fallen from his pedestal.

  Jade hated that she’d believed Marcus’s sweet seductive words while he’d been going from her bed to Abigail’s. How many others, she wondered, had he bedded since he arrived?

  She shivered and shut her window, looking toward the downs, wondering where Marcus and Emily wandered. She’d wanted to go with them, but needed to talk to Garrett. Just as well. Now she needed time to gather her scattered wits and summon the strength to give Marcus away.

  As furious as she was with him, she ached for him, even now, to take her in his arms and tell her, she’d made a mistake. Except that she couldn’t have, because Marcus was the Earl of Attleboro.

  Still, deep inside—more fool her—she wanted him to ... love her ... keep her only unto him.

  Jade laughed aloud. She always knew she’d never marry, not with Gram’s secret to keep and a house full of downtrodden women to keep as well. Besides, what man could live in a place as daft as this? The only one she ever wanted didn’t want her, not exclusively, at any rate.

  She marched to the wall with the hidden door cut into it and shot the bolts in place, bottom and top. She’d never sleep in Marcus’s arms again, never feel him deep inside her. A sob caught in Jade’s throat. She swallowed it ruthlessly. She must overcome her weakness for a man soon to be the husband of another.

  He’d have to leave Peacehaven now, but she’d make him marry Abigail first, by God, and take Abby with him. Oh, Lord, and Emily would be heartbroken all over again, a sin Jade would never forgive.

  Fortunately for Jade’s peace and determination, Marcus kept Emily out all afternoon and oversaw putting her to bed, so Jade didn’t have to face him until he sat across the dinner table from her.

  Except for Abiga
il, everyone was present, even Garrett, so this presented as good a time as any to shame the Earl of Attleboro into taking responsibility for his actions. She only hoped that no one else would be hurt by her revelation.

  No use putting it off. What did waiting a minute or five matter? Or a day?

  But perhaps she should wait until tomorrow. Or the day after.