by Jade Lee
Michael’s hands tightened into fists. “Have you taken leave of your senses? She is an actress.”
“I was his fiancée,” Scher said, her voice so soft as to be nearly snatched away by the wind. “Our banns are no doubt still posted right over there.” She pointed to the board where St. James hung marriage announcements.
“Allow her to grieve at the service as is appropriate.” Brandon stressed the word even though he knew Scher had broken off the engagement. What might have happened was no longer relevant, and Brandon refused to give them the satisfaction of knowing the truth.
“I will sit at the back and be silent,” Scher said, “but I will honor Kit’s life and memory.”
“Your very presence is a dishonor—” Lily hissed, but Brandon cut her off.
“I have the ring Kit gave her. Their engagement ring.” He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up to the light. It was a lie. The cut and setting were the same as Scher’s ring, but the diamond was a good deal more than anything Kit could have purchased. As expected, Lily’s eyes narrowed on the brilliant gem.
“Brandon . . .” Scher began. She was likely going to protest that it was the wrong ring, but he turned to her, speaking over her words.
“It is yours, Scher,” he stressed, praying that she would accept his lie. “Kit gave it to you in good faith, but would you trade it to be at the funeral? To sit inside St. James and honor Kit as you would like?”
She swallowed, and he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. Then they turned together to Michael and Lily.
“Very well,” snapped Lily as she tried to snatch the ring from Brandon’s fingers. “But you sit in the back.”
Brandon was faster than her. Rather than lose the ring, he caught Lily’s hand and held her still in a bruising grip. “No, Lily,” he said softly. “Scher will sit where she chooses and stay as long as she likes.”
“That will not help your political ambitions,” inserted Michael. “Wilberforce is here, as are most of the political families. Appearing to support her so openly will only harm your agenda.”
“On the contrary,” returned Brandon, the truth of his words crystallizing as he said them. “It shows my absolute support of the idea that every man should be allowed to choose his own path, his own bride, without the meddling interference of British society.”
Michael obviously bristled, likely more from the tone than the idea. And Lily remained poised in between them, trapped by her own greed since she would not release her hold on the ring. And into this frozen tableau, Scheherazade once again inserted her quiet words.
“I will sit in the back.” Then she touched Brandon’s arm. “I have lately begun to value compromise.” She looked at Lily. “I will cause no more noise, no further scene. I will not even cry loudly, and I swear to leave directly after the service. And for that, you may have the ring.” Then she turned her eyes back to Brandon. “Thank you, Lord Blackstone. Thank you for being my best champion.”
He frowned at that. There was an extra measure of meaning in her words, a message he could not understand. He leaned toward her a moment, needing to ask, but this was not the place. So he pressed his lips together and nodded to her, pleased by her compliment despite the situation. He released his hold on Lily and the ring, curling his lip only slightly as his sister-in-law secreted the ring into her glove. Then she spun on her heel and stomped directly to the St. James board, presumably to rip down the list of banns. Michael followed his wife a moment later, leaving Brandon and Scher free to climb the steps.
The service proceeded as an aristocratic funeral usually went—with stares and loud sobs, ponderous tedium and a closed coffin. When it was her turn, Brandon escorted Scheherazade to the casket. She lay her gloved hand on the polished wood and whispered something no one could hear. But Brandon was close enough to see the movement of her lips and knew what she said.
“Thank you, Kit, for everything. I am so sorry that I was not the woman you deserved.”
Then he escorted her out the doors. They walked past his sobbing grandmother and furious mother. They ignored the gossiping aristocrats and more gasps of outrage. Brandon took her straight back to the carriage he had hired this morning.
He helped her inside, then gave his instructions to the coachman. Moments later, his plan was set in motion. It would be some time before Scheherazade realized what he was doing. Hopefully at least a half hour before she thought to look out the window and see the scenery. But whether she realized it immediately or not, the end would be the same.
She was coming with him to Pottersfarm. He was abducting her.
They were just outside of London when Scheherazade finally took stock of her surroundings. Her mind had been so full of things—the funeral, Brandon giving over an expensive ring that was not her engagement ring, what they had done together last night. All of it was jumbled together in her thoughts, nothing really preeminent except that Brandon featured in all of it. But it was too early and too complicated to think about him, so she had allowed her mind to drift to Kit and the ring that she still had in her pocket. The ring that she had taken off the day of that terrible tea and had never put back on.
She pulled it out of her pocket now and held it before her. Kit was gone. His plans for the future buried with him. She had resolved last night to look for a future for herself, to no longer exist in the gray life she had lived. It was time to find her own happiness. She shouldn’t have let Brandon give over a different ring while she held on to the real one.
“Here,” she said as she held it out to him. “Perhaps you can switch it later and get back the other one.”
“I don’t want either one of them,” he said, his voice a solid presence in the murky light of a closed carriage. “Kit gave that to you. You should keep it.”
“Kit is gone as is the woman I was when he proposed.” She tried again to offer it to him, but he steadfastly refused to move. “I do not need a ring to honor what he has taught me.”
Brandon arched a brow at her. “And what is that? What have you learned from my feckless cousin?”
She smiled at that. There was no condemnation in his voice. If anything, Brandon’s tone held a gentle respect for his “feckless” cousin. “To try again,” she said. “To learn to laugh without him.”
Brandon leaned forward, his eyes narrowed as he searched her face. “Kit was never beaten down as you were. He never suffered in the way you did.”
Or you, she added silently. Brandon knew better than most the pain of betrayal and loss. “But that doesn’t matter,” she said. “The lesson is still the same. Kit is gone. I cannot have his laughter anymore. I cannot have his passion for life. Not unless I create it on my own.”
He tilted his head, his brow narrowed in thought. “It is funny,” he said softly. “I would say that you taught me that. To keep living despite everything.”
She heard the stress on the word “living” and knew that Brandon had indeed changed. That he would never seek his own end again. “Then Kit is doubly missed,” she said.
He leaned forward and gently wrapped her fingers around the ring. “Keep his ring so that you will remember his lesson.”
She nodded, more because of the warmth of his hand surrounding hers. Once again, she felt cocooned with Brandon, tucked away in a place that was safe for such discussions and self-examinations. She took a deep breath and released it, feeling the tension in her body ease with the movement.
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”
He arched a brow as he pulled back from her, leaning against the squabs. “Do not thank me yet, Scheherazade. Not until you know what I have done.”
She frowned, and at her silent question, he waved to the window. Looking out, she saw that they were nowhere near the Tavern Playhouse. That they were, in fact, leaving London.
“What?” she said as she twisted to the window. “Where are we?”
“I’m taking you to Pottersfarm. It’s a village near Greenwich
where I have a house. Everything is all arranged. You needn’t worry about the playhouse or anything. Just come to my home and rest for a time.”
She didn’t answer, her gaze picking up the green of trees and grass and all sorts of things that were incredibly rare in London. There were still buildings, houses, even inns, but the feel of space out here was marked. She sighed and closed her eyes, dropping her head back against the squabs. What would she give to live out here forever? Could she give up her life in London?
“Please, Scher. I’ll take you back if you want, but don’t you think you deserve a rest? Just for a few days?”
She smiled without opening her eyes. She took deep breaths of the air, enjoying the scent of flowers and sunshine, of less coal and no stale sweat. Of Brandon and his mint. It was perfect. The thought of staying for a little longer in that cocoon of peace with Brandon was beyond perfect.
“Thank you,” she said again. “I would love to visit your home for a while.”
She felt his hand slip over hers, warm and large. Comforting. And without even thinking, she flipped her hand over so she could hold his.
She nearly said it right then. She nearly spoke the words: Yes, I will be your mistress. She wanted to more than anything. Except then she thought of Seth’s boys, of her dead sister, and all the actresses who became mistresses only to become pregnant despite precautions. She could not do it to her future child. And she could not trust in their restraint the next time he touched her. Eventually, there would be a child, and she would not have one out of wedlock.
She pulled her hand out of his, covering the motion by shifting so she could see better out the window. “Green and more green,” she said. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Whatever you want, Scher,” he said softly. “However long you want. This I swear to you.”
She turned back to look at him, seeing that he had somehow guessed her thoughts. He was offering her carte blanche in the literal sense. He would give her everything she wanted for as long as she wanted. Everything, that is, except marriage.
“Not for long,” she said. “Just a few days’ holiday.” Then she turned back to the window to hide her tears.
He must have understood. Indeed, how could he not? They had both been quite clear in their positions. So rather than argue, he shifted so that he could look out the window with her.
“That’s where Bob Neely found his lost hog,” he said as he pointed over her shoulder. “Unfortunately, it had already trampled all of Miss Stevenson’s prize pumpkins. Quite the scandal.”
She smiled. “I hope he has found a way to contain his pig better.”
“No, not really. But as his attempt to make restitution resulted in Miss Stevenson becoming Mrs. Neely, everyone has decided the pig’s escape was a benevolent act from God.”
She twisted slightly, shooting him a look over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t that be an act from Cupid, not God?”
“Hmmm, perhaps it should. Perhaps they should have renamed the pig to Cupid.”
She smiled, relaxing to the side so that he could tell her more. “And what about this patch of land? Is there any great love match to be found here?”
“Sadly, no,” he returned. “This is where I spent an hour watching the progress of a spider attaching a web to my arm.”
“You did not!”
“I assure you I did. On the way from London sick from my wounds. It was at least an hour before I could manage to sit up. The bread you gave to Hank helped enormously.”
Scher smiled. “So he didn’t eat it then. I thought he wouldn’t, but you can never tell with boys that age. Hunger is a powerful thing.”
“He forced it on me. Said he wouldn’t let me make him a liar to Lady Scher,” he returned.
She smiled, the expression easing tension she hadn’t even realized she was carrying in her face. “I hope you rewarded him adequately for his loyalty.”
“He’s eating me out of house and home! Mrs. Wiggins had to double the food budget because of him!”
Her smile widened at that. She wasn’t quite up to laughter, but he made the gray fog lighten with every moment in his presence. They passed the rest of the distance in comfortable discourse. It wasn’t that he was particularly witty in the London way, with sarcasm and veiled innuendo. Far from it. He had a sense of humor completely absent in London. He gloried in the bucolic joys of pastoral life, poking fun at it even as he seemed to admire the quieter rhythms. And as she had never seen this side of him, Scher found herself extremely happy to explore this calmer, happier Brandon.
By the time they arrived at his house, she was in the perfect mood to appreciate its beauty. It looked exactly like an English village manor ought to look. Two stories, green lawn, near to the village, but enough removed to be private. He told her he’d purchased it off a young lord who had decided life here was much too dull.
They disembarked into fresh air, blue sky, and the anxious expression of Brandon’s housekeeper. She was a rotund woman with rosy cheeks who fussed with her apron as she spoke.
“My lord! My lord! I didn’t realize you’d be bringing a guest. Oh, dear. The doctor is here, you know. And he brought his mother, lovely lady. Those foreign ways makes the misses more comfortable even if they are odd. And we’re full up to the rafters, so I had to hire on Missy from down by the church. Oh, dear.”
“Mrs. Wiggins, Mrs. Wiggins!” Brandon said with an easy smile. Even his posture had relaxed. His body somehow looked less predatory Londonite, more country baron. “You look delightful this afternoon. Do tell me that Cook has made those tarts that are so excellent. I’m sure Miss Martin will find them delicious.”
“Oh. Well, as to that, I’m not really sure. I can inquire, of course, but . . .” She looked embarrassed and awkward as the coachman lifted down Scheherazade’s bag. “So you are to be staying, then?”
“The doctor is here?” Brandon put in before Scher could answer. “And he has brought his mother?”
“Yes, my lord. Yes. So you see—”
“We have a lack of bedrooms, then. No matter. Is there any bed at all for Miss Martin?”
“Well, one could be made up in the nursery, I’m sure, as the doctor is sleeping in the room you usually have. His mother has settled in with Nidra right next to the missus. It’s been quite good for her, what with their language being spoken at all hours, but you—”
“Excellent! Put Miss Martin in the nursery then. You won’t mind, will you, Scher? It’s quite clean—”
“Of course I won’t mind—”
“And I shall bunk in the library then.”
Mrs. Wiggins’ eyes widened in horror. “The library, my lord?”
“Of course. There’s an excellent settee in there, as I recall. Quite comfortable. Just get me a pillow and a blanket.”
The housekeeper stared at him goggle-eyed.
“Really, Brandon,” Scher said, touching his arm. “I don’t need to—”
He rounded on her. His movement was slow enough to appear casual, but the intensity that burned through his gaze revealed . . . something. Emotion. Blistering heat. Need? Her breath caught in her throat, and she was stunned to feel an answering swell in her own heart.
“You will stay, Scher,” he said with a falsely casual wave to the sky. “It’s too late to go back now anyway.” Then he sobered. “Please.”
She nodded. “Of course. Now that I have seen this beautiful village, I cannot think to leave. At least not until I have met Mr. Neely’s pig.”
“Oh, and what a story that is!” said the housekeeper as she began leading the way inside. “It’s been the talk of the parish for years.”
They climbed the step to the front door, Mrs. Wiggins chatting the whole way. Scher glanced toward Brandon as she maneuvered the front walkway, only to have her gaze caught and held. He stood there, his body relaxed, but his expression still intense.
“Thank you,” he mouthed.
She nodded and was about to say something, but her words were forest
alled as Mrs. Wiggins turned abruptly.
“Oh, your lordship, you’ll want to see the missus right away. She’s at her best now, after her nap. And this morning was ever so lovely. She likes her bit of home.”
Brandon’s gaze shuttered as he turned his attention to his housekeeper. “Of course. I’ll go there now.” Then he hesitated, turning slightly to Scher. “Would you care to meet . . . my wife?”
The offer was sincere. That much, at least was clear. As was Brandon’s anxiety with that slight hitch in his question. Scheherazade swallowed. Of course she wanted to meet Brandon’s wife. But it wasn’t something to do unprepared. She needed to feel stronger, needed to know how she felt about Brandon before . . .
“Of course,” she heard herself say. Then she was climbing the stairs right beside him, her mind spinning with anxiety.
“Just mind not to make any sudden moves,” the housekeeper admonished. “And mind, my lord, the doctor’s made some changes to the parlor.”
Chapter 23
“Change” was an understatement for what the doctor had done to Channa’s parlor. Brandon stepped into the denuded room and felt his anger start to rise. The place was stripped of all furniture completely! His wife was sitting on the floor like a peasant! Nidra and an older woman, probably the doctor’s mother, were sitting with her . . . folding laundry?
He restrained his fury and a bellow for the doctor, mostly because a shout would certainly startle Channa. But also because there wasn’t quiet enough to speak. Unlike the usual morbid silence, Channa and her companions were chatting with animation, perhaps even girlish excitement.
He frowned and looked closer at his wife’s face. Yes, indeed, she seemed happy. And she certainly wasn’t reaching for her scissors to stab him.
“Quite the difference, my lord, isn’t it?” It was a male voice.
