Abigail’s stomach roiled at the mere mention of food.
“You’ve not left your rooms since last evening. You cannot remain in here forever.” Her cousin’s hesitant words slashed into Abigail’s private agony.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The gods angry at her silent deception, mocked her.
“Oh, Abby,” Beatrice whispered. She settled her hands upon Abigail’s shoulders, and rested her cheek against her shoulder. “Lord Redbrooke loves you. I’m certain of it.”
The words twisted the knife inside her breast. “He doesn’t, Beatrice.” Her voice broke.
He’d loved his Emma Marsh. Abigail, why she’d never been anything more than an impudent American who’d teased her way into his affection. He cared for her, but love? No, he had not loved her before, and most certainly not after, this.
“He does.” Beatrice’s tone shook with earnest insistence. She forced Abigail around. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Abby. He’s always been a stodgy, pompous bore. Now, he smiles. That is because of you.”
Abigail stared blankly at a point beyond Beatrice’s shoulder. If Geoffrey had loved her, that had been before he’d known he was carrying on with a fallen woman. The proper gentleman she’d first known would never have sullied his presence with her wicked self.
She swallowed. “A man such as Lord Redbrooke can never wed me. I…” Her words died on her lips. Beatrice was innocent, unsullied, and Abigail could not share the shame of what she’d done.
“You need to speak to him.”
Abigail again folded her arms to her chest. “I can’t,” she said brokenly. She squeezed herself tight. “I can’t bear to witness his derision.”
Beatrice slashed the air with her hand. “Bahh, you are no coward, Abby. He loves you. And you love him. And if you do not speak to him, you’ll forever regret your cowardice.”
Her cousin’s words penetrated the thick fog of despair that shrouded her thoughts. What if Beatrice were right? What if none of it mattered to Geoffrey? Perhaps he cared for her more than he cared about the gossip that clung to her name.
She shoved aside the misgivings that swiftly followed that hopeful thought. “I need to see him.”
A smile wreathed her cousin’s cheeks. “Yes, you do.”
“Now.”
Beatrice’s smile dipped. “Now?” She looked to the window. Another rumble of thunder shook the foundations of the house. “You can’t.”
Abigail glanced over to the pellets of rain that lashed against the window. It would be the height of foolishness to venture out in such a volatile storm. Only a woman with little regard for her reputation or the threat of scandal would risk being seen visiting the viscount’s residence.
Then, Abigail had thrown away her reputation long ago. “I must.” She grasped Beatrice’s hands, and with her eyes, silently beseeched her cousin for assistance.
“Oh, Abby,” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Think of the scandal.”
A sound half-sob, half-snort wrenched from Abigail. “There can be no greater scandal than the one of my past. No one will be out on this night. I’ll go by hackney. Please, Beatrice. Please,” she implored, squeezing Beatrice’s hands.
Beatrice’s concerned blue eyes ran over Abigail’s face, and Abigail knew the moment her cousin capitulated. “Oh, dear.”
Abigail flung her arms around her cousin. “Thank you.”
Her cousin continued to trouble her lip. “You’ll need to go through the kitchens. I’ll have one of the footman hail a hackney.”
Abigail nodded, for the first time since last evening, humiliation buoyed with a budding sense of hope. She would speak to Geoffrey. He would understand. She would make him. “Go,” she urged, lest her cousin change her mind.
Beatrice hesitated, and with a curt nod, fled.
Abigail hurried over to the rose-inlaid armoire at the center of the room, and threw the doors open. She reached inside and shoved aside gowns, pushing them out of the way. She grasped her black, muslin cloak and pulled it out.
She remembered the moment Geoffrey had tossed aside propriety to wade into the lake at Hyde Park and rescue her lace. Hope grew and blossomed within her chest. If he loved her as Beatrice said, then perhaps he’d wade deeper into the quagmire of scandal that was her life.
Abigail draped the cloak over her shoulders, and clasped the fish hooks at her throat. She took a deep breath, and pulled the hood overhead. Her uncle and cousin had been good enough to not speak to her of their hasty flight from Lady Ainsworth’s; they would surely desire an audience with her sometime, in order to address her fate. Abigail suspected they would pack her up with the same swiftness as her parents had. As it was, she’d already greatly compromised Beatrice’s ability to make a match.
Abigail opened the door, and peeked first left and then right. When she’d ascertained the hall was empty, she slipped outside and made her way swiftly down the long corridor. The muslin fabric rustled in the quiet like the shot of a cannon and with bated breath, she expected discovery to come at any moment.
But it didn’t, and Abigail continued forward, taking the servant’s passageways lower into the house, and into the now silent kitchen. The fires in the kitchen had long since gone cold. Abigail’s eyes struggled to adjust to the dim light.
A flash of lightening lit the sky and spilled light into the room.
She gasped, and slapped a hand to her breast as the bluish-white light bathed Beatrice in an eerie glow.
Beatrice held her finger to her lips. “Shh,” her cousin mouthed. She motioned Abigail forward.
Abigail raced into the kitchen and wrapped her arms about Beatrice.
“You must return quickly,” Beatrice whispered against her ear, the words muffled by the muslin fabric. “Father mustn’t discover you gone. The hackney is waiting at the end of the street.” She touched her hand to Abigail’s cheek. “It is horrid weather, but I can think of no other way to make sure you remain unseen. One of the servants will follow you for protection, Abby.”
Abigail nodded. Tears of gratification clogged her throat.
Her cousin offered a tremulous smile. “I know,” she whispered. “There is no need to thank me. The driver has your destination.” She gripped her forearms and gave a slight squeeze. “Now, go!”
Abigail fled through the opened door. A blast of wind sucked the breath from her lungs. It whipped the fabric of her cloak and skirts wildly against her ankles. She raced down the pavement; her slippers sank into ice-cold puddles. A gasp escaped her as she stumbled. Abigail quickly righted herself and peered into the sheets of rain, sending a silent thanks to the heavens when she spied the hackney.
She raced the remaining distance and skidded to a stop in front of the conveyance. The driver tossed the door open, and quickly handed her inside.
He closed the door, and a moment later, the carriage rocked forward.
Abigail huddled against the side of the carriage, seeking warmth and finding none in the hard, wooden seats of the hack. She resisted the urge to glance out the curtained window, into the empty streets.
Her reputation could hardly be shredded any more than it had this evening, but she still needed to protect her uncle and his family from further shame.
As the carriage wheels rolled through the muddied puddles of the London streets, her mind turned over what she would say to Geoffrey.
She smoothed her palms over the front of her cloak. She’d tell him all…as she should have, when he’d made his honorable intentions toward her clear. She would tell him of Alexander’s betrayal, the shame of what she’d done…and he would understand. She would make him. Because the alternative was not to be countenanced.
The carriage rocked and swayed. Abigail gasped as her hip bit painfully into the side of the carriage.
“Whoa,” the driver shouted against the roaring wind.
The carriage righted itself and a sigh of relief escaped her as it continued down the streets, until it came to an abrupt stop
directly in front of a white stucco townhouse.
Abigail gripped the side of the seat to keep from careening forward.
Suddenly the brashness of her actions just now, the boldness in coming here, and worse the fear of Geoffrey’s response, turned her to stone.
The driver pulled open the door, and there was no turning back. Rain poured inside the carriage as he extended his arm to help hand her down.
Abigail pulled her cloak close, and sucked in a breath, accepting the driver’s assistance. The pads of her slippers sank into a cold puddle upon the cobbled road, and she trembled from the chill of it.
The driver nodded up at the only townhouse with candlelight blazing in the windows.
She raced the short distance to Geoffrey’s home; her feet splashed and sprayed water as she ran.
Abigail came to a jerky halt at the front door. She raised her hand and knocked just as a bolt of lightning crashed around her, drowning her efforts. Abigail pounded again.
The fury of the storm was her only response.
She turned out and peered through the torrents of rain at the hackney that had driven a short way up the street.
The door opened, and she spun around to face an older gentleman. The servant’s gaze took in her thoroughly rumpled cloak and his eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
She tipped her chin up a notch. “I must see Lord Redbrooke.”
The servant’s nostrils flared in surprise. He hesitated and for a long moment she thought he might turner her away like some street urchin who’d tried to infringe upon the viscount’s palatial townhouse. But then, he nodded and held the door open.
Abigail swept inside.
***
From where he sat in his library, a half-drunk decanter of brandy at his feet, Geoffrey stared blankly down at the box in his hands. His jacket lay in an untidy heap alongside the bottle.
With one hand, Geoffrey reached for the bottle and took a swig. He’d ceased to feel the burn of the alcohol long ago. Vision blurred from too-much drink, Geoffrey set his drink down on the table next to him and passed the small package back and forth between his hands. He absently studied it, and then set it down.
Geoffrey’s gaze fell on the leather book of Greek mythology that sat beside him. He picked it up and fanned the pages. He’d foolishly invested time in reacquainting himself with all those puerile stories of Dionysus, Ariadne, and Theseus. What an imprudent fool he’d been. And for what purpose?
For her.
It had been for her.
All of it.
Geoffrey stood and hurled the volume across the room. It hit the solid plaster hard, and then landed with a quiet thump upon the floor.
An ugly laugh built in his chest, half-demonic to his own ears. The close rumble of thunder, followed by the crack of lightning fueled his pained fury.
Since he’d learned the truth of Abigail’s deception last evening, he’d expected he should feel a sense of relief at being spared her scheming machinations. Yet, the jagged agony and humiliated hurt of her betrayal had not lessened. He suspected it never would.
Rather, it had seemed to intensify with the raging storm outside.
His butler Ralston’s cry of shock from somewhere within the house, penetrated Geoffrey’s stupor, and he furrowed his brow.
What the hell had ruffled his normally unflappable butler? Geoffrey yanked the door open hard enough it threatened the hinges, and strode from the room.
As he stormed down the hall toward the foyer, Ralston’s insistent tone grew increasingly in volume.
“What the hell is the meaning of this?” Geoffrey bellowed from the top of the stairs. If it was his bloody brother-in-law again, by God he would toss him out into the street.
“If you’ll wait here. I’ll see if His Lordship is receiving callers,” Ralston said in a stiffly disapproving tone.
“Ralston…” He staggered to a halt. The air left Geoffrey on a hiss.
Abigail shoved back the hood of her black muslin cloak. She glanced up the long, winding marble staircase and held her palms up as if in supplication. “Geoffrey.” Even with the space between them, her whisper reached him.
And for the tortured pain she’d brought him, Geoffrey ached to close the distance between them and take her into his arms and make her forget there was ever another man who’d known her body and held her heart.
His bleary gaze fixed on those outstretched hands and he tortured himself with the insidious thoughts of her with another, and all warmth died inside him.
Geoffrey gripped the rail and stood there, unable to move. All the while, Abigail studied him with wide, wounded eyes.
A growl worked its way up his throat. As though you have a right to be wounded, Abigail.
Geoffrey folded his arms across his chest. “Well, madam? What is the meaning of this improper visit?”
A gentleman should be sensible, and avoid impassioned decisions.
4th Viscount Redbrooke
~23~
Abigail’s heart thumped to a stop inside her breast.
Geoffrey stood at the top of the stairs, but he may as well have stood on the opposite side of the world. The white cambric shirt, opened at the collar, revealed the stiff tension within his muscle-hewn frame. He remained frozen, as though he’d been turned to stone by the serpent-headed Medusa.
A wet strand of hair fell across her eye and she brushed it back.
Geoffrey ran a dark, cursory stare of that single lock. Her toes curled within her wet slippers as she considered how she must appear to him, with her hair hanging limply, shamefully down her back.
She cringed as Geoffrey’s gaze, teeming with hot loathing, scraped over her face.
“Geoffrey,” she said, hating the way her voice cracked.
The servant gasped, and a mortified heat rushed her cheeks at having been discovered calling upon a gentleman and using his Christian name.
“That will be all,” Geoffrey called, almost bored, from where he stood, hand resting casually, elegantly upon the rail. He made his way swiftly down the stairs, and all the hope, all the dreams she’d carried in her heart since Beatrice had made her mad prediction about the viscount’s feelings for her, died as he stopped before her.
He raked his cold stare over her trembling frame, and she tugged her muslin cloak closer. “Madam, I do not know the meaning of your visit.”
“I needed to speak to you Geoffrey. Please,” she implored him, holding her palms up.
He folded his arms across his broad chest, and arched a single, chestnut brow. He, in his dry, immaculate fawn-colored breeches and white cambric shirt, looked so coolly perfect and elegant. His perfection only served to highlight the fact that she now stood before him, a bedraggled mess amidst a puddle formed by the water that clung to her ruined skirts and soaking slippers. “Well, madam.”
Madam. He uttered that word as though it were a vile epithet.
“Please, Geoffrey…”
“Madam, it is late. I am tired. And you…” he peered down his aquiline nose at her. “And you are making quite a mess of my marble foyer.”
She flinched, his words hurt like he’d physically struck her. How can you be so coldly unforgiving? How when I love you as I do?
He took a step around her, and Abigail dimly registered that he’d reached for the door handle. “No.” Abigail held a hand up, begging him with that staying motion to please hear her out.
Geoffrey stopped, his hand remained on the door, as though one wrong word on her part, and he’d throw the door open and toss her onto the steps like yesterday’s refuse.
“Say what it is you’ve come to say and be done with it?”
Abigail’s throat burned with the realization that he’d not grant her a private audience. He’d make her spill her shame here upon his foyer. Her back went up. Well, that was fine. She’d braved a far greater humiliation than this.
“There was a man,” she blurted.
His body went taut. The well-chorded muscles of his chest str
ained against his white cambric shirt, the only telltale indication that he’d heard her words.
Abigail took a deep breath, and searched for the resolve to tell the story. “I loved him.” She grimaced. “Or I believed I did.” She hadn’t truly known love. Not until Geoffrey. She knew that now.
He remained silent, but he did not open that door and so she had to believe that meant something. She sucked in a breath. “He was my brother’s dearest friend.” Her gaze slipped away from Geoffrey. “I believe he saw me as nothing more than an inconvenience. He began to visit my brother more and more. Only I soon realized, it was too see me. He brought me flowers, and told me wicked, little jests, and teased me quite mercilessly.” Abigail’s gaze skittered off to the wood panel of the door just beyond Geoffrey’s shoulder. She focused on the white polish of the wood door to spare herself the wintry disdain she saw etched upon the sharp planes of Geoffrey’s cheeks. Odd, she’d expected the recounting of events to hurt greater than this. “Papa and Mama didn’t approve of him,” she said at last.
An odd, garbled kind of laugh seemed to work its way up Geoffrey’s throat and lodge there. She jerked her gaze up and found that mocking sneer on his lips. “Oh?”
Just that one derisive utterance; a clear indication that nothing she said next would matter, but still, she’d not leave until she’d said it all.
Abigail thought to the great many arguments that had ensued over the suitability of Alexander as a match. “He was the illegitimate son of a powerful and wealthy barrister from Connecticut. It didn’t matter,” Abigail said quietly. It had never mattered. Oh, it had to Mama and Papa but not to her. “My parents claimed he merely sought the wealth that marriage to me would bring.” All the burning resentment she’d carried for so long had gone, instead replaced by recognition with the decisions she’d made. “It turned out my mother and father were indeed, correct. Alexander had planned it all. We were attending a soiree at one of the homes of a leading member of society. Alexander lured me to the host’s library and fool that I was, I went.”
She could and would forever regret her personal folly, but she now accepted her own culpability in that one, great mistake. As a woman, she’d made the choice to follow Alexander. “We were…” She felt herself coloring. “Discovered,” she finished lamely.
Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous Page 19
