“Yes.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes to steel herself for the confrontation. “Bring him to me, please.”
Cleo forced her guilt and panic to subside, eyes still firmly closed. When she opened them, Alex was there, standing before her. His gray eyes were hardened to flinty obsidian, his sulky mouth pressed in a taut line. Her heart skittered and tripped over itself at the welcome sight of him. God, but she had missed him with a desperation she had no right to feel. She owed it to him to remain stoic and keep her distance, but everything within her heart screamed at her to go to him, throw herself into his arms and explain everything away.
“Alex,” she said quietly, acknowledging his presence.
“Lady Scarbrough.” He bowed, solemn and cold. “Please accept my sympathy.”
“Pray don’t act the stranger to me.” Twisting her hands in agitation, she rose from her chair. Though he still towered over her, she felt as if she had regained something of her footing. “We are alone in my apartments.”
“Oh?” He raised a brow. “Is not Ravenscroft hiding himself like a kicked puppy in your bedchamber?”
He had heard already. Well, it was only to be expected. She had made no secret of Julian. After all, had this not been what she intended? She’d set out to make the break easy for him, to deceive him into leaving her.
“You know he is not,” she said slowly.
Thornton strode toward her, still as grim as the black mourning he wore in deference to her dead husband. “Then explain to me what I have heard.”
“I cannot when I don’t know what you’ve heard.” She searched his face for any hint of tenderness, of softness. The man she had come to know and love had dissipated, leaving another in his place.
“That you have taken Ravenscroft as your lover,” he bit out. “That he is, even now, living here under this very roof.” He took her arm in a rough grasp. “Can you deny it?”
“He is under this roof,” she admitted. Even if it was truly better for his career that he make a suitable lady his bride, she would not lie to him completely. She found that she could not.
“What of the rest?” He shook her. “Answer me, damn you, Cleo.”
She would not speak.
“Christ.” He released her and spun away. “I told myself that it was a mistake, that surely you couldn’t be so heartless a bitch. How could you do this to us?”
“Julian has been very kind,” she said through bloodless lips. “I have needed a friend these last few days and you were off with the Prime Minister in the city. What was I to do?”
“Wait for me?” Thornton turned back to her, anguish evident in the harsh planes of his beautiful face. “I asked you to wait.”
“I could not.” Cleo’s voice broke. “I’m sorry, Alex. You are better without me as an encumbrance, I assure you.”
“It would seem so.” He searched her eyes. “Was everything a lie to you? A game?”
“No.” She shook her head, the nausea rising within her once more. “Please leave me now. Further conversation in this direction cannot prove fruitful.”
“Damn it, I deserve to know why, Cleopatra.”
“There is no reason why,” she cried out, tears frustrating her vision. “You are who you are, Alex. I am, even newly widowed, tainted by scandal. We cannot be anything more than what we were. I shall always treasure our time together, but all good things must end.”
“I was willing to give up politics for you.”
“You should not have to.” She threw her hands in the air in a mixture of despair and aggravation. “You have the whole world before you, all of your aspirations, the reform work you love. There is no room for a tarnished widow in all that.”
“You are wrong. I made a place for you.”
“Alex, it took you days to make your betrothed leave Marleigh Manor and to this day, I am not certain that you actually threw her over.”
“I ended any understanding that may have existed between our families.” He was indignant, hovering over her in avenging angel style.
“I will not have you give away everything that is important to you because of me.” She was yelling, but she did not care. Her entire body shook with the exertion, the emotion coursing through her.
“You’re a liar. You’re too damn afraid,” he sneered. “What? Does whoring yourself out for Ravenscroft make you feel better, darling?”
She slapped him. The sound of it echoed in the sudden silence of the room and pulsed in her palm. A wave of sickness assailed her. She pressed the back of her hand to her lips. “Please go.”
His beloved face blurred and swirled before her and she detected the concern in his voice just before she crumpled to a heap on the floor. Her world went black.
*
Despite himself—all inclinations to the contrary, urging him to run, leave her to her bloody lover—Thornton paced outside Cleo’s chamber. Against propriety too, for there was a fusty little country cousin due to inherit the earldom fussing about and eying him like death. There were also the sisters hovering peregrine falcon style, ready to defend. Ravenscroft, the bastard, had pulled himself together from what was likely a gin-soaked reverie to await word as well. The damn doctor had been inside for nearly an hour already.
Thornton wanted to kill Ravenscroft. Trounce him. Break the lout’s nose at the least. Instead, he paced. Christ, what was he, a mother hen? Had he no manly pride? Damn her. How could she have done this? It didn’t bear contemplation and yet, somehow, the whole affair had an off feel to it. The sisters didn’t seem—for all their protective instincts—terribly angry with him. And Cleo herself had been…what? Sad green eyes, wan. Ill.
The door opened and the family physician emerged, middle-aged and dour-faced, hair neatly parted and greased. His mustache twitched as he spoke. “Her ladyship needs rest,” he pronounced.
“Rest?” Thornton bore down on him, prepared to grab his waistcoat and shake information from his wiry frame. “Speak, man. What ails her?”
“Ahem.” The doctor cleared his throat, removed his spectacles and began a slow polishing of them. “It is not my practice to speak so openly of a patient before so many people.”
“They’ll go.” He waved toward the assemblage in a dismissive gesture. There was more to this story than the good doctor was divulging. He could nearly smell it.
“We’re her family,” the sisters exclaimed in unison.
He glanced at them meaningfully. Damn it all, he had no place here and he knew it. But despite what she had done, he loved her. And he wanted word. Now.
“Ravenscroft?” Tia addressed the earl, who shrugged.
“Let the blighter interrogate the physician if he likes,” the earl said, indolence personified.
Killing him would be too reasonable a solution. Truly, the man needed to be tortured. Thornton loathed him.
“Does nothing worry you, you smug son of a…” Thornton stopped himself from completing that sentiment, recalling he stood in mixed company.
“Cousin Harvey?” Tia attempted next.
“Herbert,” corrected the unfortunate fellow. “Earl of Scarbrough now.” With the announcement, he puffed out his puny chest.
“Not a title to wear with pride, old chap,” Ravenscroft commented. “The last one was something of a rotter, I’m told.”
“Now is not the time for your poor attempts at wit, Ravenscroft.” Thornton rammed a hand through his already mussed hair and looked to the cousin Harry or Henry or whatnot. “Lord Scarbrough? As the head of the household, why don’t you escort the ladies and the earl downstairs so they might recover from their shock? I shall escort the good doctor to the door.”
If the new earl found the assortment of characters surrounding Cleo odd, or Thornton’s request a trifle overstepping, he did not show it. Deferring, as Thornton had predicted he would, to higher rank as he was accustomed, the cousin shepherded the sisters and Ravenscroft away. When they had disappeared from sight and hearing, he turned on the doctor.
“What is wrong with her?” he demanded, aware he acted the role of husband and that it must seem odd indeed.
“Not a thing. The countess is, in fact, quite healthy. Given the stress of losing her husband, it is expected, particularly given…” He hesitated.
Thornton’s gut clenched. “Given?”
“Ahem. This is a matter of some delicacy, my lord. The countess requested I keep the reason for her illness to myself.”
“Is it consumption?”
“No.”
Thank God. That had been his initial fear, though there had been no outward sign of the wasting disease. “Then what, sir?” He was fast losing patience.
“This is highly irregular, my lord,” he sighed, wiping his spectacles again. “I gather you and the countess have a friendship?”
“Yes,” he bit out, frustrated and worried.
“She is in a condition, my lord.”
“Condition? Christ, that sounds serious.”
“With child,” the doctor amended in hushed tones. “She requests it remain unknown.”
He couldn’t have been more astonished had Scarbrough risen from his coffin and offered him whiskey. “With child,” he repeated, numb.
“Yes.” The doctor’s face softened. “I trust this news travels nowhere beyond yourself?”
“Of course not.” His mouth was dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth and a tiny seed of hope began sprouting somewhere within him. Irresistible, irrefutable, hope. “Thank you, sir.”
Now one pertinent question loomed. Was the child his? Or did it belong to Ravenscroft?
*
A child. Good heavens, Cleo had not anticipated the news Dr. Redding had delivered. It made sense, of course and she felt the fool for not having realized as much on her own. Instead, she had caused quite an embarrassing uproar. What could she say to Cousin Herbert and Julian? To her sisters and the rest of her family? Her mother would be apt to disown her when she discovered the truth.
Everyone in her family—and truthfully, in polite society—knew she had not even seen her husband for at least a year. Which meant, of course, that everyone would also suspect the child she carried could not possibly be John’s. Still, suspicion was not proof. Though she may be mocked behind her back, she could pass the child off as her husband’s. She would need to do so. Besides, many society wives were rumored to father children by other men. It was almost fashionable.
The door clicked open as she contemplated the uncertainty of her future, revealing Thornton. He was alone, his hair utterly at sixes and sevens and his mouth drawn.
“Please go,” she begged, terrified she would make an even greater fool of herself by bursting into waterworks before him. “I do not care for company at the moment.”
He closed the door behind his back and began a slow, deliberate stalk to her bedside. “That is rather unfortunate for you, my dear, for I am not about to leave.”
She watched him, uncertainty coiling with dread within her. Should she tell him? The last thing she wanted was to entrap him. But neither did she care to prevaricate. A child deserves a father and a father his child, she reasoned. But she still could not form the words.
“I don’t want you here,” she tried.
He scooted a Louis Quinze chair close to her bed and seated himself. His gaze pierced her with a burning stare. “Is it mine?”
The breath left her lungs in one silent whoosh. Either he had guessed or Dr. Redding had divulged her secret against her wishes. She was not yet prepared for this confrontation. Cleo knew not what to say, where to begin, how to untangle the desperate muddle she’d made of their lives. She stared at her left hand, fisted in the bed linen and realized she still wore his ring.
“Look at me, damn it.” He gripped her chin roughly and tipped her face up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Is it mine?”
An admission would entrap him. She stared at him, mute and stricken. She loved him, but she would not have him in this way, when he had no choice. Never did she want to become his life’s greatest regret. And so she knew in her heart what she must do next.
“I do not know,” she told him, voice shaking with emotion.
“Bitch.” His voice dripped scorn.
Cleo flinched as if he had struck her. “I am sorry, Thornton. I think it best for all involved that I present this child as my husband’s.”
“You will forgive me if I don’t agree.”
She’d never heard his voice so cold and passionless. “Please, Alex. Have a care for the child, who is innocent in all this.”
“Precisely. Why subject a child who is likely mine to thinking his father is a drunken philanderer who spent the last moments of his life pinned beneath an omnibus in a Bow Common street?”
“Better subject him to that than to being a bastard,” she returned, her anger rising to match his own.
“I will marry you.”
“And I won’t have you.” Not this way, she wanted to say. Not when I have ruined everything in hopes of giving you what you deserved. Not when you think me the lowest woman on earth.
“You loved me well enough before I went to London. What changed?” He stood and kicked over the chair. “Is he a better lover than me, Cleo? I reckon he’s had the practice, being the whore of all London.”
“Don’t speak that way!”
“Do you love him?” he demanded, fierce and almost a bit frightening in his dark rage.
“I do,” she lied with great conviction. She grabbed up a pillow from her bed and hurled it at him. “You needn’t concern yourself with us. We shall be well. I’ll wed Julian if I must. You may return to your world of politics, where you belong!” To punctuate her speech, she threw yet another pillow. This time he did not duck and it hit him square in the face.
“Get out!” She was screeching now, desperate to make him go away. “I hate you!”
Tia and Helen came rushing into the chamber, their expressions pinched with worry.
Helen rushed to her side, pushing Thornton away. “Here now.” She caught Cleo up in a reassuring embrace. “What’s amiss, dearest?”
“I want to be alone,” she whispered, aware that her emotions were spinning wildly out of control. One moment she wanted to rush to him and explain their troubles away. The next she wanted to make him hate her so much that he stayed gone forever. She loved him and yet she remained afraid to love him. She was no good for him, she knew it. She would not trap him and yet she knew that if he remained for much longer, she would do just that.
“Lord Thornton, you are distressing our sister when she least needs it,” Tia said, voice stern. “I must ask you to leave. You have no business here.”
“I just want the truth, Cleo,” he said, sounding tired. He allowed Tia to nudge him to the door. “You owe me that much, I think.”
Then he was gone and Cleo had two sisters to face.
Chapter Nineteen
Thornton allowed himself to be removed from Cleo’s chamber, but only so that he could go and give Ravenscroft the thrashing he deserved. He found him in the library, dozing in a chair by the fire and launched himself at the sleeping earl, forgetting that attacking an unaware opponent was ungentlemanly. In two punches, Ravenscroft was fully awake and swinging back at him.
“I’ll be raising the child,” he gritted out. “I don’t give a bloody damn if she fancies you. You’re a worthless shite.”
Ravenscroft’s fist connected with his jaw. “What child, you miserable arse? I was sleeping, I’ll have you know. It isn’t done to assault a man in his sleep.”
“The child Cleo’s carrying. The one she says may be yours.” He landed a hefty blow of his own to the blighter’s nose. “I don’t care if you’re the father. I’m marrying her and I’m raising the child.”
“Oh Christ.” Blood dripped from the earl’s nose and his face suddenly leached of all color. “She didn’t say a word about a babe.”
Thornton gave him quarter, actually pitying the sod a bit. He looked as if he was
about to pitch his dinner and damn if his nose wasn’t nearly as straight anymore. In fact, he just may have broken it.
“I’ll pay you whatever you like,” he said, breathing hard with exertion.
“I don’t want to be paid.” He pushed at Thornton. “Get away from me, you bastard. I’m her friend. I’ve never been her lover. If there’s a child, you’re responsible, which means I should be attacking you for dishonoring a lady of my acquaintance.”
“Friend?” That word stopped his world.
“Christ, yes. This was all meant to be a lark, a way of getting you to realize you loved Gladstone’s cabinet more than you loved her because she couldn’t rid herself of that no account husband. But then Scarbrough went and got himself flattened and you showed up and now she’s going to have a child.” He paused to wrestle a white linen square from his waistcoat and hold it to his scarlet-dripping nose. “I hadn’t bargained for this, I assure you.”
“Why would she want me to go back to the cabinet?” His heart had digested the words, but his brain was having difficulties.
“She’s afraid you’re giving up your silly politics for her. Says she’s tarnished or some such nonsense.”
“Jesus, she’s not a candlestick.” Thornton rubbed a hand over his aching jaw. “So you’ve never…”
“Not a bit of it.” Ravenscroft grinned beneath the handkerchief. “Not to say I wouldn’t have, had she been inclined. But no.”
“Then I’m the father.” Pride surged through him. He was going to be a father. There was a tiny, precious life beginning to grow inside Cleo’s womb that had been the product of their love.
But she had lied to him. She had lied and despite her reasons, he could not so hastily forgive her. Since he had not been a part of her life during her first pregnancy and miscarriage, her dishonesty to him now seemed a betrayal of the first order. He was not certain he could forgive her for the hell she’d put him through over her “lark.”
“You’re the father, old boy.” Ravenscroft rose to his feet and offered him a hand.
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