Sweetest Scoundrel

by Elizabeth Hoyt

She should’ve felt fear at the possibility. Instead all she felt was a wild joy. Oh, let him have given her a child! If he had, then she would have someone of her own when at last they parted. She was a bastard of one of the most notorious aristocrats England had ever produced. She had no reputation to destroy.

  But she was lonely—she could admit it now. She needed something—someone—more than a stray dog and three servants.

  Eve propped her arms on his chest and watched him, his thick lashes resting on his cheeks. He looked so tired. He’d been working nonstop since she’d met him, always worried about his gardens.

  He, too, had no one of his own. Did he want someone?

  If he did, he hid it well beneath declarations that the garden was the only important thing in his life. Eve wondered if he knew himself if he needed someone.

  Perhaps he didn’t.

  At that moment Asa opened his eyes, green and glazed with weariness, and she said, unable to stop herself, “Your garden is everything to you.”

  He didn’t even look surprised at her words. Perhaps it was always on his mind, Harte’s Folly, even when he lay in bed with a woman.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s my food, my drink, my air.”

  The words were said simply, stated like a fact: the sky is blue; Harte’s Folly is Asa Makepeace’s air.

  She rolled to lie beside him. “I’m sorry.”

  He turned his head to look at her, puzzled, maybe a little affronted. “Sorry? Why? It’s beautiful, the most wonderful place in—”

  “London, I know.” She shrugged. “And it is, a truly magnificent place. But I and every other person in London can go and see the gardens and then go home again. You can’t.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, simply watching her with wary green eyes. Perhaps he already knew what thrall the gardens held him in.

  She hesitated, then said low, “I saw what the fire today did to you. I was afraid that you wouldn’t survive if the gardens burned again and the theater was destroyed.”

  There was silence in the bedroom, and then he said, “You’re being melodramatic.”

  “Am I?” She traced the edge of his nipple. “I’ve come to know you, Asa Makepeace, over the last weeks. You’re hotheaded, stubborn, willful, not always correct, but entirely certain of your course. Sometimes you frighten your theater folk with your roaring, but they adore you anyway. You’re kind to animals and small children, and you’re intelligent, brave, and driven.” She paused, looking at him. “I like you; I might even, given the chance, love you.” She was watching him, so she saw the flicker of alarm in his green eyes. She shook her head. “But I won’t let myself, since that’s not what you want. But you, Asa, you deserve more than a business in your life.”

  “Deserve?” he scoffed. “You make it sound like I’m a martyr to the garden.”

  She smiled a little sadly then. “Aren’t you?”

  “No.” His eyes narrowed then. “What about you, then?”

  She blinked. “What do you mean?”

  He waved a hand around her bedroom. “Perhaps you should worry more for yourself than me.”

  She pulled back, feeling hurt.

  But he’d hit his mark and wasn’t afraid to stab deeper. “What do you have besides your house, your servants, and a brother you’re insanely devoted to?”

  She gasped. “I love Val—”

  “Why?” He sat up, uncaring of his nudity. “Montgomery uses you as he uses every other person in his life. Does he even love you?”

  “Yes.” Why was he doing this? Digging into her life, her secrets?

  “Because he gives you money and a house?” Asa sat in her bed, big and male and entirely out of place here in her feminine room, and made these nasty accusations as if he had every right.

  “No.” Her voice was raised, but she couldn’t stop herself. “No. He loves me. He’s the only one who has ever loved me. He was there when—”

  She stopped, the words swelling, blocking her throat.

  For a moment there was silence as he stared at her as if assessing her.

  Then he abruptly pulled her into his warm, strong arms.

  He stroked the hair back from her face, and said, “Tell me.”

  It was time.

  She inhaled. Where could she start? How could she make him understand? “My father had an estate in the country. Well, several estates, of course, but I grew up at only one—Ainsdale Castle. My mother was nursemaid to Val when he was small. My mother…” She hesitated, for she’d never said it aloud.

  She’d never said any of this aloud. The secrets she’d grown up with had penetrated her skin, growing within like a bloody, parasitic vine.

  “My mother was not entirely right in the head,” she said carefully. “She liked to pretend that distasteful things simply didn’t exist. I don’t know if she consented to the duke’s advances or if it was rape, but he kept her for some time. Certainly until I was conceived and then after for a while. I think… no.” She took a deep breath. “I know that he kept me and my mother in Ainsdale Castle purely to spite his wife, the duchess. Val’s mother. She hated the duke and loathed me and my mother. We kept to ourselves mostly, in the nursery wing. Val was there when I was very young, before he was deemed too old for the nursery. Then I saw him only once in a while. I think the duchess tried to keep me from him. I was fed and clothed and educated a bit—the duke even hired a tutor for me for a year or so—but it was cold in that house. So very cold.”

  She was panting now and stopped to catch her breath. This—saying these things—was making her hot. Making her sweat. They said poison could be sweated from a body, and perhaps that was what she was doing:

  Sweating the poison of her childhood, her conception, her life, from her body.

  “He was an evil man, the Duke of Montgomery,” Eve whispered, and she was glad that Asa held her, for she wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to say the words out loud otherwise. “He beat servants, raped women. Hurt children.”

  The hand in her hair stilled for a split second, and then resumed stroking. “Hurt in what way?”

  She swallowed. Her throat was closing, cutting off her breath. No one ever talked about it. She wasn’t supposed to talk about it.

  “Eve,” Asa said, his voice deep and calm and right there. “Tell me.”

  She dug her fingers into the muscle of his chest, holding on, making sure she couldn’t be flung loose from him. “He belonged to a secret society. They called themselves the Lords of Chaos. I think… I think they identify themselves with the tattoo—of a dolphin. Once a year, in spring, they would meet at Ainsdale Castle. The duchess always made sure to absent herself during that time, and they would… would…” She inhaled and said it, like vomiting bile, “They would drink wine and revel for days and days and there would be women and…” She swallowed. “And children.”

  There was silence in the bedroom. He’d even stopped breathing, and Eve knew suddenly that she’d disgusted him with her revelation of what she’d sprung from.

  Of the filth she’d been conceived in.

  She pushed, trying to leave his arms, trying to get away from what she was.

  What she’d been.

  But he only tightened his arms around her, holding her fast, and she realized he was speaking almost sternly. “Hush. Hush now. I’m not leaving you until you tell me everything this time, Eve.”

  She relaxed all at once then, almost as if his matter-of-factness had calmed her. “There’s more.”

  “Tell me,” he ordered.

  She licked her lips, bracing herself. “Every spring when the duke’s club met, my mother would hide me in Ainsdale Castle. Not, you understand, in a secret passage or room. She just locked us away in the nursery and we would pretend we didn’t hear the sounds coming from without.” She shivered. “Sometimes the sounds were horrible.”

  He stroked the hair back from her face, saying nothing.

  She inhaled. “But one spring he came for me. The duke. He said I sho
uld be part of his… festivities. So I was dressed in a new frock, my hair put up, and I went downstairs to dine with them all, lords and ladies and women from the street, and children too scared to cry. All the men were wearing masks. Terrible masks, in the shapes of horrid animals—strange dogs and leopards and baboons—all except the duke. He wore a plain mask, of a beautiful man with grapes in his hair. The food was exquisite but I couldn’t eat. I was afraid I would vomit it back up.”

  He pulled her closer, his big chest a warm, safe haven.

  “But the duke said I should drink wine so I had a glass and sipped from it. Later there was dancing and music and… it was very loud and some of the ladies took off their clothes. Some of the lords as well—all but their awful masks. And then the duke let loose his hunting dogs in the hall.”

  “Jesus.”

  She swallowed, her breaths fast and shallow. She had to finish this and then perhaps she would forget it finally. Never think of it again.

  Never dream of it anymore.

  “The dogs leaped toward me and the children and we ran, for we could do nothing else. Behind I could hear someone sounding a hunting horn and one of the children fell. The dogs attacked her and there was blood—so much blood that I don’t know if…” She gulped air. “I kept running. I thought perhaps if I could get to the nursery I could lock the door behind me. I ran and ran, up the stairs, holding my heavy skirts away from my feet. But the hall was dark—all the candles put out by the duke’s order—and I became turned around. I ran into a hall and realized I was cornered. When I turned the dogs were already on me. I thought they would tear me limb from limb. They were barking madly, foam dripping from their jaws, and I could smell their breath. But one of the masked men laughed and called them away. He was wearing a hound’s head. He said that I was his now. That he’d caught me like a hare and now he would feast. He…”

  Her breath caught on a sob. Asa framed her face with his big palms and brought his forehead to hers, as if he was trying to give her his own strength.

  “He ripped my new dress,” she whispered, her breath mingling with Asa’s. “He threw up my skirts and put his hands on me, forced my legs apart, and put his fingers in me. It burned. It hurt so much and I screamed. He slapped me, and my head spun and I saw blood. The man had blood on his mask, on his clothes, in his hair. I thought that he was the devil and that he would kill me. But then a miracle happened. Val was there. My brother took hold of the man’s shirt and threw him from me. He chased the bloody masked man away and then Val picked me up and took me. I don’t remember where, but I was safe. Val saved me. The next day he sent me to Geneva.”

  “Thank God,” Asa whispered, kissing her face, holding her cheeks with his big palms. “Thank God for your vain, crazy, loyal brother.”

  “You see,” Eve gasped. “You see why I love him? Why I owe him everything?”

  “Yes,” Asa said. “I think I might love the bastard myself.”

  She almost laughed at that, but then he was kissing her and the memories fled as she opened her mouth beneath his. He kissed her as if he were giving her back life and love and happiness. As if he were all that was right in the world and he meant to share it with her.

  There was a rap at her bedroom door and Ruth’s voice called, “Pardon me, miss, but Alf is ’ere with a letter from your brother.”

  “Oh.” Eve tumbled from the bed, searching for her wrap. “Tell Alf I’ll see him in my sitting room.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She whispered to Asa, “I won’t be long,” as she pulled her wrapper about herself.

  Then she slipped into the hallway.

  Alf was locked in a staring contest with Henry when she entered the sitting room.

  “Is it true?” Eve asked. “You have a letter from my brother?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Alf said gruffly, holding out the letter.

  Eve took it and opened it with a letter opener, then held it close to a candle so she could read it.

  The letter was short and to the point:

  Viscount Hampston was the man that night.

  There was no signature, but Eve knew Val’s handwriting well enough. She drew in a breath, and as she did, behind her Asa’s voice suddenly growled,

  “I’ll kill him.”

  EVE STARTED AND turned to look at him, but Asa was examining the letter. “When did you send a query to your brother?”

  Eve frowned. “Yesterday.”

  “How did this arrive so soon? I thought Montgomery was on the Continent?” He glanced at the boy.

  Who shrugged. “I just delivers ’em.”

  Asa grunted and threw the letter down. “Hampston’s a danger to you. I’m going after him.”

  “He’s a viscount,” Eve said, her voice very small. “You can’t attack him. You can’t, Asa.”

  That remained to be seen, Asa thought grimly, but he didn’t want to distress her any more tonight. “Hush. He’ll not be allowed anywhere near you in any case.”

  “I really don’t think he’s planning on hurting me,” Eve said slowly. Her brows were knit as she stared at the letter. “He didn’t make any move against me when he saw me in the garden.”

  “He kept asking if you remembered him,” Asa growled. The mere memory made him want to hit something. “Bloody hell. I need to dress.”

  He turned to stride back down the hall to her bedroom and the rest of his clothes—he’d thrown on only shirt and breeches to come to the sitting room.

  “You can’t go.” Eve had followed and she stared at him from the bedroom doorway, looking betrayed. “Now? It’s the middle of the night. We were attacked last time we traveled at night.” She held out her hands, palms uppermost. “Stay. Just for the night. Stay, Asa.”

  He couldn’t help it, he looked toward the door. He felt torn. He wanted to stay with her, wanted to protect her. He turned to her. “Damn it, Eve.”

  She looked at him—just looked at him. “Don’t leave me.”

  He closed his eyes and felt the sweat on his back. What if Hampston fled in the night? What if the bastard got away and continued to haunt Eve?

  But she was looking at him with wounded blue eyes and he couldn’t turn away from her. “I’ll stay.”

  “Thank you,” she said simply. She inhaled and waved to the door. “Let me write back to my brother—a short note only—and I’ll send Alf on his way.”

  Asa followed her back into her sitting room, reluctant to let her out of his sight now.

  The boy was still lounging against the wall as if he was used to waiting on lover’s tiffs.

  Eve went to her table as they both watched her, and swiftly penned a letter before sanding and sealing it.

  She handed the sealed letter to Alf. “Be careful in the streets.”

  Alf looked contemptuous. “Nobody bothers me, ma’am—’specially if they don’t see me.”

  And he left.

  Eve shook her head. “He’s very self-reliant, but he’s also very young. I worry about Alf sometimes.”

  Then she looked at Asa and smiled, though the smile was tinged with sadness. She held out her hand to him. “Come to bed.”

  “I HAVE HIM,” Alf announced three days later from the doorway to the Harte’s Folly office.

  Eve started and glanced up from her desk. She had been rather deeply immersed in the accounts.

  “Have who?” Asa asked sharply, across from her.

  He’d been as surly as a lion with a thorn in its paw for the last several days, all because he couldn’t find Hampston. The viscount seemed to have disappeared or at least left London, which Eve was secretly and rather shamefully relieved by.

  She didn’t want Asa arrested, or, worse, killed by the aristocrat.

  Alf gave him an impatient look. “The agent.”

  Eve frowned, confused.

  But Asa stood from his table. “Hampston’s agent?”

  Alf grinned. “The same.”

  He leaned out into the hall and jerked his chin at someone.r />
  Mr. Vogel and Mr. MacLeish frog-marched a man into the room. He was quite an ordinary man—slight, but not small, dressed in a workman’s clothes—but his eyes were angry and scared.

  “This is Oldman,” Alf said. “Least that’s the name ’e gave. I found ’im this morning underneath the new stage tryin’ to light a barrel of gunpowder.”

  Without saying a word, Asa took two strides and struck Oldman in the face so violently, the man was torn out of Mr. Vogel’s and Mr. MacLeish’s hands and thrown against the wall.

  Eve sighed. “I’m not sure how that helped.”

  “It helped me,” Asa said, shaking his hand. “I feel better now.” He bent, addressing the fallen man. “When did bloody Hampston hire you?”

  “Dunno what yer talkin’ ’bout,” the man on the ground said.

  “Viscount ’Ampston,” Alf drawled. “You told me not five minutes ago that’s ’oo paid you. Are you changing your tune now?”

  Asa raised his fist.

  “No!” Oldman sighed. “’Twas ’Ampston who paid me true enough.”

  Asa straightened and slowly smiled at her. “We have a fucking witness.”

  Eve smiled in return. “You’ll take the viscount to court?”

  Asa shook his head decisively. “Me against an aristocrat? Not bloody likely. The court probably won’t even see me. But I have a few friends.” He glanced at Eve. “’Pollo for one. His brother-in-law is the Duke of Wakefield. With a witness to what Hampston planned—what he did—against my gardens, perhaps he’ll hear my case.”

  Eve frowned. “But what can the Duke of Wakefield do?”

  Asa grinned, quick and sly. “What can’t he do? He’s near the most powerful man in England.” He shrugged. “And if the duke won’t help me, well. As I’ve said, I’m not averse to punishing the viscount myself.”

  Her heart constricted at the thought of him putting himself at risk. “Try the duke first.”

  He cocked a wry eyebrow at her as if he knew her thoughts. “As you wish.” Asa grabbed the man’s collar and hauled him up. He glanced at Alf, Mr. MacLeish, and Mr. Vogel. “You three come with me. You can serve as witnesses as well—you heard him confess.” He frowned then as he looked at Eve. “Damn it, I forgot you haven’t Jean-Marie with you.”