She didna mean…?
A superior smirk lit Mrs. Jameson’s eyes.
Aye, she did.
She and Quartermain deserved each other, the degenerates.
Mrs. Jameson cast the men a coy glance and slanted her kiss-swollen lips upward.
In invitation?
Was the woman never satisfied?
Plastering a syrupy smile on her face, Arieen stared pointedly at Mrs. Jameson’s attire. “You’ve dirt smudges on the back of your—whatever that filmy thing is you’re wearing. My, I wonder how you’ll explain those away? Oh, and there’s a bit of moss or perhaps spider web in your hair, just here.”
Arieen touched the side of her head, indicating where the stringy substance dangled on Mrs. Jameson’s curls.
Mr. Wallace chuckled as Mrs. Jameson scowled and brushed at her intricately styled hair, while straining to see the blotches marring the back of her gown.
Shoulders bunched, Quartermain lowered his chin, reminding Arieen of a cranky Highland bull. He flexed his fingers, as if barely restraining himself from grabbing Arieen and shaking her.
She wasn’t certain he wouldn’t have, save for Mr. Wallace’s and Mrs. Jameson’s presence.
“No betrothed of mine acts like a common harlot. You’ve much to learn about my expectations, Arieen, and I promise you’ll swiftly modify your behavior once we are wed. I’ve no qualms about keeping you locked in your chamber.”
She reared back, retreating a couple of stumbling paces, her pulse beating a ragged rhythm. He couldn’t be serious.
“I am not marrying you, my lord. My father may covet your title, but I most assuredly do not.” She shoved her hair over one shoulder. “You’ve engaged in one indiscretion after another since the onset of our troth, and I’m positive my father shan’t want that dishonor associated with his name.”
Doubt niggled.
Would Da care?
Oh Guid.
So sick to her stomach was she all of a sudden, she might have truly eaten bad fish.
What if she’d miscalculated?
What if her disgrace was all for naught?
What if Da didn’t care about a scandal?
Nonetheless, she pressed her point. “Our betrothal is at an end, my lord.”
Quartermain’s harsh, mocking laughter sent chills streaking from her neck to her toes.
“You’re more ignorant than I’d imagined. How do you suppose I met your father, you stupid chit?” He leaned in, a cruel smile twisting his lips. “We met at a brothel. Very exclusive, of course. Only the most discriminate of courtesans, but a whorehouse nonetheless.”
A distressed sound, half gasp, half involuntary objection escaped Arieen, and she swallowed the bile burning her throat. Shame condemning her, she couldn’t stand to look at Mr. Wallace.
Mrs. Jameson, on the other hand, appeared unaffected by the viscount’s revelation.
“That’s where your father first approached me about a union between us,” Quartermain said. “He kept offering me larger and larger settlements to take you off his hands. He only cares about the brat in your stepmother’s belly. Hopes it’s a boy he can leave his legacy to. Told me so himself.”
Arieen shook her head, sorrow crushing her chest. “That’s not true.”
Except, even before he married Morag, Da hadn’t been a doting father, and he’d become less so these past few years.
Maybe...
Maybe he hadn’t cared he mightn’t ever see her again if Quartermain did indeed lock her away as he’d vowed. A shudder born of fear and betrayal juddered across her shoulders, and she gulped against the lump blocking her throat.
“Ye’ve said enough, Quartermain.” Disgust laced Mr. Wallace’s words, and his posture had become intimidating as well.
What she wouldn’t give for him to knuckle the arrogant smile from Quartermain’s face. Except striking a member of the peerage had serious consequences.
“It’s Lord Quartermain or my lord, you gutter riffraff.” All aristocratic arrogance, his lordship raked a caustic gaze over Mr. Wallace.
Mr. Wallace’s slow, deprecating scrutiny of the pompous British peer raised him another notch in her esteem. “I generally dinna fawn over horses’ arses.”
The viscount presented his back to Mr. Wallace and seized Arieen’s wrist in a bruising grasp.
“Your esteemed sire isn’t the saint he pretends. Though I cannot say I blame him for tupping trollops, given his fish-harpy of a wife. Tricked him in to marrying her, he said. Claimed she was increasing when she wasn’t, the enormous cow.”
Her father and Morag rounded the house’s corner, and no doubt they heard his lordship’s every word.
Morag clutched Da’s arm, her full face ashen.
Da puffed out his scrawny chest, all self-righteous indignation. “How dare ye speak such codswallop about me and my wife, Quartermain?”
Lord Quartermain released Arieen’s wrist, and she rubbed the reddened flesh. “Don’t pretend offense. You’re not sure the whelp she now carries is yours.” He gave a mocking wink. “But you’re willing to overlook that minor detail if the babe’s a boy.”
“Nae,” Morag choked and stabbed Da with a wounded glare.
Mrs. Jameson sniggered behind her hand, and Mr. Wallace made a harsh disapproving sound in his throat.
The viscount, the evil sot, casually flipped his cloak over one shoulder before proceeding to pull his gloves from his coat pocket.
Da’s pallor now matched his wife’s. He opened and closed his mouth twice as he wiped his broad forehead with the back of his hand.
“My dear, please let me explain.” He reached for Morag’s arm, but she swatted his hand away.
Swaying unsteadily, she snapped, “Dinna touch me.”
Arieen rushed to her side and wrapped an arm around Morag’s thick waist.
“Come. Sit.” She urged her stepmother to the bench, nudging her discarded hat aside to make room.
Releasing a gusty sigh, Morag sat heavily upon the stone, both hands cradling her swollen belly. Eyes shut, she propped her head against the rough bricks and sagged into herself.
She didn’t look at all well.
A crowd had gathered behind them, including the massive Highlander wearing a kilt Arieen had seen earlier. Berget, Emiline, and Douglas hovered on the throng’s outer edge, their countenances taut with confusion.
Summoning his dignity with obvious effort, Arieen’s father focused on Mrs. Jameson and Mr. Wallace for the first time. Brows tugged close in censure, his attention slid over Mrs. Jameson before coming to rest on Mr. Wallace.
“Who are ye, sir?”
Did that mean Da already knew Mrs. Jameson and what her association with the viscount was? And it hadn’t mattered? He still intended Arieen should wed his lordship?
Treachery, sharp and jagged, stabbed her.
“Coburn Wallace.” Mr. Wallace offered nothing more, but his gaze sought the kilted giant’s.
Friends? Acquaintances? Enemies?
None of that signified at the moment.
“Da, let’s find someplace private to talk. Morag doesn’t look well. The study is around the corner—”
Suspicion narrowed her father’s eyes to slits, and he swung his accusing gaze between Arieen and Mr. Wallace.
“Exactly what are ye doin’ out here with my daughter, Mr. Wallace? Are ye aware she’s betrothed to Lord Quartermain?”
“Oh, they were enjoying a delightfully naughty assignation,” Mrs. Jameson offered with a falsely helpful upward sweep of her mouth.
Sounded more like what the tailwag had engaged in with the viscount.
Or wanted to do with Mr. Wallace.
“A last dalliance before she weds, perhaps?” Mrs. Jameson thrust home another barbed jab.
A few of the women huffed, not necessarily in reproach, but in excitement at the succulent tidbit, and another buzz of whispers echoed from those gathered.
Shock, disbelief, accusation, and finally resignation play
ed across Douglas’s face before he turned his back and disappeared into the night.
Despair engulfed Arieen, and she dropped her chin to her chest to hide her tears. She’d tarnished more than her reputation tonight. She’d lost a dear friend—a cost she foolishly hadn’t counted.
Mouth pinched tight, a distressed sound escaped Morag.
Holding her icy hand, Arieen pleaded, “Da, please. Let’s go inside. Morag needs to lie down.”
True bafflement knitted her father’s wiry brow. Head cocked, his little eyes unblinking, he peered upward, birdlike at Mr. Wallace. “A tryst? But that’s no’ possible.” Bewildered, he faced Arieen. “Ye’ve no’ left the house for a month. How do ye ken him?”
“I don’t.” She sent Mr. Wallace a desperate look. “I mean, we met a few minutes ago.”
Och, that sounded bad.
Really bad.
A cunning look entered Quartermain’s eyes as he lazily assessed the others gawking at the tragedy playing out before them. “Do you mean to tell me I caught you in a passionate embrace, your bosom practically exposed, with a man you’d never met before?”
Humiliation sluiced Arieen, the truth of his accusations rubbing her raw. Dash her impulsiveness. She’d managed to immerse herself into this mess. She’d just have to figure a way out.
He threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, this is too providential to be true.” After a few more hearty guffaws, he brought his humor under control. “I cannot possibly take such an immoral creature to wife.”
Oh, praise Guid.
“My lineage must remain unblemished,” he said, “and such a woman casts a sinful shadow on the viscountcy and my honor.”
“Never mind your rutting and philandering and how those have tarnished your already dingy honor,” Arieen snapped. She ought to be appalled she’d spoken so rudely to a peer, but she wasn’t in the least.
Rage sharpened the viscount’s features. “Have a care you don’t push me too far.”
His carefully modulated voice sent chills down her arms, and she curled her toes in her boots against the instinctive urge to retreat.
Fear mingled with her relief.
He’d publicly rejected her. Her goal had been accomplished—but she worried it might be at a far greater price than she’d anticipated.
Arieen tucked her arm behind Morag, intent on helping her stand.
“I do, of course, expect to receive the dowry in full per our agreement, Fleming.” His lordship adjusted his mask upward on the right side.
Partially hunched over Morag, Arieen twisted to stare at him fully. Jaw slack she steered her gaze to her father.
Eyes bugging from his head, he opened and closed his mouth several times. His face as red as a skelped arse, she feared he might be in the midst of apoplectic fit.
Why hadn’t she considered this?
Och, how could she have?
She didn’t know the exact terms of the marriage settlement. There must’ve been a clause regarding breaking the troth, and Quartermain had seized upon it like a starving dog thrown a bone by the butcher.
Hypocritical toad.
“After all, I didn’t breach the contract, Fleming,” Lord Quartermain said with a haughty upward angling of his jaw. “Your daughter did.”
“That’s a lie.” Arieen jerked upright. “You were out here with her.” She stabbed her pointer finger at Mrs. Jameson, affecting an innocent mien.
“Miss Fleming, I cannot countenance what you infer,” Mrs. Jameson said. “Are you casting aspersions on my reputation? When his lordship and I clearly saw you, in scandaleux déshabille?”
Now the uppity bint tossed her French around?
Jaw tense and frustration thrumming through her veins, Arieen pressed onward. “Mr. Wallace and I heard you in the act, and it’s not the first time you’ve been indiscreet either, my lord.”
Ach, how it galled to have to defer to his title when he was no gentleman.
“Truth be known, I’ve lost count of the number of times,” Arieen said.
“Ah, but did you actually see anything?” Quartermain’s tight smile betrayed his motives, his utter aristocratic arrogance. “For I certainly saw you.”
Arms folded, Arieen directed an impatient scowl at him. She wasn’t playing his game. Ironically, she had the witness she’d desired. Yet apparently, when it came to men of power, even with proof, they escaped justice. But a commoner such as she? Well, she was guilty until proven innocent.
“Mightn’t you have been mistaken, Arieen?” Quartermain asked, condescending derision dripping from each word. “After all, you were a distance away and obviously otherwise engaged.”
How could he become impossibly smugger? Jaw clenched she fought an overwhelming urge to tell him to go bugger himself.
The planes of his face hard, Mr. Wallace shook his head, and rubbed his jaw.
“Nae. I ken well the sound of barnyard matin’. The squawks, and gruntin, and...” He arched a russet eyebrow at Mrs. Jameson. “Most especially the swine-like squeals.”
More titters and chuckles filled the air.
Mrs. Jameson finally took offense, and after leveling him a withering glare, flounced away, her nose pointed high.
Faces rapt, the other onlookers remained rooted in place. Berget and Emiline exchanged anxious glances and clasped hands. Arieen foolishly hadn’t considered how her ruination would affect her friendships.
Stupid, stupid lass.
Every door might be closed to her now. Including Berget’s, as she had returned to her parents’ house when her husband died, and his eldest son had booted her to the curb.
Lord Quartermain pulled on his other glove. “I’ll come ’round tomorrow morning, Fleming, and we’ll discuss the settlement details. The courts take breach of contract seriously. And I’m happy to say, they tend to look more favorably on those of noble birth.”
His oily smile curdled the contents of Arieen’s stomach.
“I’d say this worked out very well, indeed,” he said to no one in particular. “My purse will be filled, and I don’t have to marry the Highland wench, after all.”
He delivered the last with such contempt, Arieen fully understood what she’d barely escaped. The viscount loathed her as much as she despised him. Given his cruel streak, God only knew what he’d have done to her if they’d actually wed.
Looking well-pleased, he strode away.
Arieen whipped around to face her father and was gratified to see Mr. Wallace’s glare burning dual holes into Quartermain’s back.
Morag moaned, clutching at her stomach.
“Morag?” Trepidation suffused Arieen. First a flush of heat fired behind her breastbone, spreading to her limbs, then icy cold chilled her heart, dampening her underarms.
Dear God, the babe wasn’t due for another month.
Da rushed to the bench and dropped to one knee. “Is it our wee bairn, my love?”
“Dinna ye, my love, me,” Morag spat, perspiration beading on her brow. “Tellin’ his lordship ye dinna ken if the bairn is yers.” Her voice turned plaintive. “How could ye, Robbie?”
Mouth pulled downward and shoulders slumped in shame, he hung his head. His wig slipped forward, and he impatiently shoved it farther up his forehead. “He lied. I swear.”
Had he? Arieen no longer knew what to believe.
“I dinna say all the things his lairdship said I did. I was pished, though. Ye ken how men are when they’ve been quaffin’ a dram or two.” At her stony stare, his demeanor became wheedling. “I was desperate for him to accept Arieen and wed her before the bairn came, just as ye’d asked.”
A penetrating chill seeped into the marrow of Arieen’s bones, but not from dread. Da’s public admission caused her heart to cramp, an unrelenting punishing vice of betrayal. This wasn’t the time to dwell on her hurt though. Morag was in labor.
“Da, we need to get Morag home and send for the midwife.” Arieen moved to slip her arm around Morag’s shoulders, but her stepmother shoved
her away.
“This is yer fault,” Morag said, her face contorted in pain, her eyes squinted and accusing. She licked her lips, her wild gaze darting here and there. “If ye’d hadn’t lied, this upset wouldn’t have happened. I may lose another bairn,” she moaned. “I shall never forgive ye, Arieen. Never.”
“Nae, my darlin’ lass.” Da awkwardly patted her shoulder. “We’ll get ye home. Everthin’ will be fine. Ye’ll see.”
The glower her father directed Arieen might as well have been a rusty sword hurled to her middle, such did it impale and gut her.
“My wee bairn. My wee bairn.” Rolling her head from side to side, Morag groaned again.
Arieen staggered to her feet. Tamping down fear and bile, as guilt brutally accused her, she turned to the crowd. “Someone, please have our carriage brought around to the entrance at once.” Thank God their house was only a few blocks away. “And can someone else go for Howdie Smellie? She lives on Cumberland Lane.”
She ran her damp palms down her skirt, surprised to find they shook. She’d never forgive herself if something happened to the baby.
Mr. Wallace motioned to the tall man, and at once the Scot strode forward. “Graeme, go for the midwife. Take her directly to the Flemin’ residence. Also, ask a footman to have their carriage readied immediately.” Mr. Wallace briefly studied Morag’s puckered face. “Ask Broden McGregor to fetch Doctor Ballingall as well.
Howdie Smellie wouldn’t like that. Nevertheless, Arieen couldn’t deny her relief another who knew something of childbirth would also attend Morag.
“Ye cannae miss McGregor,” Mr. Wallace said. “He’s strutting about dressed as an Arabian sheik.”
“Aye, Coburn, I saw McGregor earlier.” Thumbs linked inside the wide leather belt at his waist, Graeme kept one eye on Morag. “But ye came with me. How will ye get home?”
Mr. Wallace raked a hand through his hair. “Dinna fash yerself. I can always hire a hackney. Now go. Please.”
“Aye, then.” Graeme hurried away, and a couple of guests followed.
To Redeem a Highland Rake: A Historical Scottish Romance (Heart of a Scot Book 2) Page 4
