“Now,” came Gram’s strident voice.
Jade rose quickly to her feet—lest she change her mind—and cut the chatter like a blade.
Her family—but not—regarded her as if she’d sprouted horns. Curiosity. Speculation. Impatience. Hunger.
She almost changed her mind ... because saying the words aloud would make them true.
Now or never. Except ... once the accusation had been made, nothing would be the same again. Not for her. Not for Emily. Yet if she said nothing, life for Abigail and her child would be intolerable.
Jade sighed and straightened her shoulders. She cleared her tight, swollen throat. “I have an announcement to make.” Her voice felt and sounded as if she’d swallowed gravel. She cleared her throat again.
Marcus must sense her nervousness, because he smiled and winked at her, swamping her with need.
Mortification, fury at his audacity, fired Jade’s ire. She itched to erase his cocksure grin, caught sight of the serving bowl ... and mushy peas flew across the table.
A horrified gasp sliced the silence.
“Abigail is with child by the Earl of Attleboro!” Jade announced, her sharp words resonating like steeple bells at a funeral.
Garrett cursed, threw down his napkin, and propelled his chair from the room.
Marcus, sitting across from her, oozed slime and fury.
Jade regarded her slathered palm.
Her nemesis pinned her with his stony regard, like a butterfly to a wax slab, until her face must be as red as his, though not as green. Her satisfaction fled on the unsteady wings of uncertainty.
She’d expected Garrett to berate the philanderer. Why had he not?
Marcus patiently raised his napkin and wiped his face. Linen rasped against whiskers. Silence reigned until Marcus, too, quit the room.
The cacophony of voices that erupted paled against the sound of Jade’s heart battering her ribs. She regarded her audience as if they were speaking in tongues. Ivy gave her a sympathetic smile and indicated with a nod that she should follow Marcus.
Because her mind barely functioned and she trusted Ivy, Jade left the room.
In the foyer—trembling with rage, pride, or both—Marcus stood, his gaze trained on Garrett pulling himself from his chair to stand at the base of the stairs. Marcus’s composure suffered a further battering as his brother spent long agonizing minutes attempting to raise a foot to the second step.
As if propelled by grief, Marcus moved forward.
Jade stopped him with an outstretched arm, and, oh, what a look he gave her.
She shivered, chilled to her marrow.
When Garrett finally got his foot on the next step, he crowed in triumph, but his victory was short-lived, for his weak limb failed to support his weight and he faltered.
With a curse, he grabbed the rail with both hands.
“Garr. Let me help.” His veiled plea did no good. Marcus fisted his hands at his side, belying the composure he attempted to project.
“I won’t be carried. Leave me be. No, wait!” Garrett turned. “Don’t leave. Let me apologize first for what I said. My accident was never your fault. ’Twas fate. Meant to be. My haughty self needed bringing down a peg or ten. I needed to come to Peacehaven to heal in more ways than the obvious. That bloody chair got me here. You’ve always been the best brother a man could want. Accept my apology, Marc, and my thanks.”
“I accept both,” Marcus said, his voice thick with emotion.
Garrett nodded. “Good. Now leave me alone. I’ll walk to her, if it kills me.”
“If you’re determined, Garrett,” Jade said. “Let us help. Marcus can support your weight on one side, I’ll support it on the other, but you’ll be doing the walking.”
He regarded them, loathe to give in, but acquiesced with a nod.
Slow as a snail going uphill, Garrett walked up the stairs between Jade and Marcus.
At the door to Abby’s room, Garrett knocked and waited for permission to enter, knowing full well, she couldn’t imagine who stood there.
Dressed in a turquoise dressing gown, her chestnut hair uncoiled and falling free, Abigail caught her breath and rose slowly from her window-seat when they entered ... shocked, elated, fearful, and with so much yearning in her eyes, Jade was embarrassed to witness it.
Garrett actually growled. “You’re carrying my child!”
Spoken with accusation and jubilation, the bald announcement hit Abby like a blow, while it removed a shroud from Jade’s heart.
Garrett was the Earl of Attleboro?
“You can’t run away from the truth of your condition,” he told Abby. “And you’ll not be able to run from me much longer, either. Because of your stubborn determination that I, at least, try, I have been walking. With Ivy’s help,” he added, almost as a caution, “in my own fashion, and very ill. I tried because you locked yourself away up here and I intended to come and talk sense into you ... or kidnap you—and don’t think I can’t. Now we have a child on the way.” His voice softened. “You’d best marry me, Abigail. With practice, I might be ready to walk the floor nights by the time the little scrapper arrives. Ah, love, I can’t wait.”
Anguish ravaging her features, Abigail turned her back to gaze out the window.
Jade wished they could leave the lovers alone, but she feared Abby would bolt if they did. And if she ran now, Jade knew that Abigail would go so far, she’d not be found.
Marcus looked as uncomfortable, but she could tell that he felt they needed to stay as well.
Abigail turned to face Garrett, her anguish replaced with fury. “Do you think that just because you’re the rich and powerful Earl of Attleboro that you can buy people? Well, I’m not willing to be bought anymore than I was willing to be sold. And by God I won’t marry a man who haggles over me as if I were a lame racehorse!”
Garrett winced. “There are those who consider a lame man less than prime stock as well, so I guess I deserved that,” he said.
Remorse etched Abigail’s ashen countenance. “No.” She reached out. “I didn’t mean—”
“I shouldn’t have haggled. You’re right about that.”
Her colour returned in a flash while Garrett’s paled. “I mean I shouldn’t have tried to outbid—Damn it, I would have given anything to free you from that devil’s clutches. I would have beggared myself to do it. Lacking the physical ability, all I had was the monetary power to ... to become your knight in shining armour, if you will, however laughable that may sound.”
Garrett raised an imploring hand, and lowered it. “All I intended, Abby mine, was your rescue, by fair means or foul.” Abby softened visibly.
“I know I bungled it, badly,” Garrett admitted. “But the fact is that I had already asked you to marry me and you ran from me even then, which was before my ... purchase, as you’re resolved to call it. If you have reason for retreat now, you had none, then, that I know of. If you did, you never informed me. You simply disappeared up the stairs where I couldn’t go. If truth be told, I’ve experienced a good deal of wretchedness as a result of your desertion.”
Abigail sighed and turned once more to gaze outside. “I loved you too much to let you marry the daughter of a man who’ll bleed you for money the rest of his life.”
“Loved?” Garrett asked. “Past tense?”
Abby shook her head but she didn’t answer.
“I love you too much,” Garrett countered. “Present tense. To care how often he tries to bleed me for money, as long as I have you. Let him have the money; he’ll still be poor, but we’ll be rich, because we’ll have each other.”
“The mother of your child grew up a guttersnipe,” Abby said with frustration. “Uneducated. Less than nothing.”
“The father of your child grew up selfish and full of his own importance. And most recently, he made the biggest mistake of his life when he reduced the value of the woman he loves more than his next breath, to pounds sterling. The fact is, she’s priceless.
“I
can’t change the past, Abigail,” Garrett continued, “but I can make your future and our child’s better by sharing it with you. And mine, Ab. My future will be hell without you in it. Please rescue me from hell. Please forgive the unforgivable.”
Abigail turned to regard him, and Garrett took a step so strong and full of purpose, Jade and Marcus let him go.
Garrett Fitzalan, Earl of Attleboro, stood straight and proud before the woman he loved, extending his hand as he had done the day he met her. “Abigail Pargeter, would you do me the very great honour of becoming my wife?”
Abby didn’t move, but Jade could practically see her resolve take flight.
“Go away, Marc,” Garrett said as he regarded Abby with piercing intensity. “Take Jade with you. And change your coat. You look disgusting.”
Jade’s heart skipped a beat as Marcus eyed her with the steely purpose that appeared to be prevalent among the Fitzalan men as he closed his fingers around her wrist to drag her out.
Shutting Abby’s door behind them, he advanced. “You thought I was the father of Abigail’s child.” Neither question nor accusation, he made, but a statement gravid with hidden purpose.
Jade began to retreat from Marcus’s advance. “I’d suspected you were the Earl of Attleboro for some time,” she admitted. “And Abby said her child’s father was the Earl.” Lord, he was making her nervous, because it had all been a horrid mistake and he hadn’t—
“You were prepared to give me away,” Marcus said, another statement rife with dubious intent.
“I thought Abigail needed you.”
“More than you need me?”
Jade raised her chin. “I don’t need you.”
Marcus chuckled. “What made you think I was the Earl?”
Jade was affronted he read her so well, and laughed at her bald-faced lie about not needing him. “’Twas said in the village that the Earl owned the railroad, and you do have an inordinate interest in the railroad, Marcus, you must admit.”
“That’s hardly enough to go on.”
“You fit the description as well.”
“Which is?”
“A rascal.” A handsome scamp, she did not say. “A smooth talker and a rich dresser. A top-notch rider. Tall, rugged, dark hair. Brash, cocky.” She emphasized the last with a nod. “The day I hired you, you said you’d been employed by the Earl of Attleboro, but you stumbled over the words, so I was certain—”
“You never considered it could be Garr?”
She shrugged. “A smug scoundrel? That’s you.” A wall came up against Jade’s back. The end of the hall.
Her bedroom door.
Marcus reached over and opened it so she nearly fell in, him right behind, shutting them inside. “I’m furious you thought I could make love to Abby, as if making love to you wasn’t the most outstanding experience of my life and ... destined, damn it!”
Jade caught her breath on a sob. “I ached for you to call it a mistake, to say that you were really ... mine.”
He caught her in his arms. Their lips met like a whisper of wings, gentle, tender, a most satisfying kiss, because she’d thought never to experience it again.
“It’s not a mistake; I am yours,” he all but shouted. “But I may have to beat you for doubting it, and for ruining another of my coats.” He raised a brow and flicked a dry pea off his sleeve. “How many coats is this now?”
“Beat me then,” Jade said twisting from his arms, toppling him backward to her bed, and to his obvious surprise and titillation, straddling him. “Beat me senseless,” she said. “But first, let me just open these ...”
She did all the delicious things to him that he’d been doing to her, and more. She brought his sex to life under her hands and her lips, making him groan and shout and beg to reverse their positions, but she gloried in her power and refused to give up control.
She ravaged him, riding him hard and long, achieving her own climax, over and over, until he lost the fight to outlast her and cried out, giving himself, body and soul, into her keeping.
They reached heaven as one.
Then she allowed him to love her his way, every time he woke her, all night long.
Near dawn, they slept in each other’s arms, sated and exhausted.
The next morning, Jade watched as Marcus roused to a tongue in his ear and called his seducer, “Darling,” then he raised his heavy lids and stared into the big brown eyes of a little red dog.
Jade laughed with her whole heart for the first time in years.
Still smiling about it a day later, Jade knew she’d remember the astonished look on Marcus’s face long after he’d left her. Which he would do, once she destroyed his brother’s railroad.
Chapter Seventeen
Since Garrett demanded to walk, unaided, down the aisle of St. Wilfred’s Parish Church in Newhaven proper, the scheduled wedding of Abigail Pargeter and Garrett Alasdair Fitzalan, Earl of Attleboro, would take place on June 5, three weeks after she accepted his proposal, and three weeks before the South Downs Railroad must reach Tidemills or fail. This gave Jade time to prepare a proper wedding while she devised a plan to destroy the bridegroom’s livelihood.
In the days that followed, turmoil became her alarming companion.
That the railroad was not likely to be Garrett’s only means of income consoled her little. A man who had not walked in more than a year deserved no such abuse. Questioning too deeply the sources of his income would be tantamount to admitting she had not given up her fight. Yet having no notion of the ways the act she must commit could affect Garrett tested Jade sorely.
Destroying him, if losing his railroad could do so, would also destroy Abigail. While Jade’s focus had always been the continuance of her downtrodden society and the care of the women who depended upon it, Jade realized that now the tables had turned. One of her very own had a stake in the opposing outcome.
Still, she supposed she must look to the well-being of the majority, but, oh, how painful her goal had become.
While Jade ruminated on the distressing situation at all hours, preparations for Garrett’s wedding to Abigail took form and shape by day. By night, Jade barred Marcus from her bed, a decision he did not appreciate or understand, though he tried. He truly did. For Emily’s sake.
Jade did not further explain that every time they made love, she became less and less certain of her purpose. That if she welcomed him into her bed, her body, one more time, she would falter in her determination ... which she could never do.
For fourteen long, frustrating nights, she denied her body, and his, sustenance. For eight room-pacing hours during each of those nights, she kept herself from going to him and begging him to make her forget the pain of her own treachery.
Thankfully, during each day, Garrett’s progress, Emily’s kisses, Mac’s warm little body, and Abby’s bright future, managed to distract her.
Working on Abby’s wedding finery, Jade’s women seemed less downtrodden, as if they believed in happily-ever-afters and gentle men once more.
Nothing less than a miracle could have accomplished that.
The upheaval and activity offered Jade a respite from torment. Yet at times anguish dogged her and everything good seemed to vanish.
“What? What did you say, Lester?” Only a portion of her retainer’s comment had penetrated Jade’s fog of anxiety.
“A man in Lewes, I said, asked after the Lady of Peacehaven Manor.”
Lester had just returned from an expedition to fetch the last of their yard goods order, the fabric for Abigail’s gown. “One of them Frenchie dressmakers,” Lester said. “The Mam’selle Liette said she heard a man asking for you at the apothecary. Liette’s sister, Paulette, said as he was a coarse little man with beady eyes and ‘thee snout of thee peeg.’”
Jade’s girls laughed at Lester’s imitation of the dressmaker’s French accent, but Jade felt unaccountably disturbed. “That’s odd,” she said, tearing brown paper off a bolt of white Pekin silk. “Why would someone in
Lewes ask about Peacehaven? Do the Misses Paulette and Liette know the man? Have they ever seen him before?”
“No, Ma’am, but the stranger’s saying as he knows something about your grandfather you might want to hear before certain others do.”
Jade’s head came up with a snap, and the bolt of white silk hit the floor and rolled across the room on its ball-tipped wooden spool, causing no end of anguish to the women in the room.
When Jade recovered it, along with her equilibrium, she offered Abby her abject apologies, but Abby was not near as upset as Jade and the rest of the girls.
Proper Scoundrel Page 20
