A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal (39 page)

It would mean his freedom to take this money Grimston offered. And her own, as well. Walk away free and clear of this mess. No courts or judges to concern her. No more agonizing nights pretending to be somebody she wasn’t, fearing of how she might disappoint somebody. How she might drive a man—her husband—to turn away from her, or worse yet, to regret his decision to stay by her side.

Taking Grimston’s offer would be a favor to Simon, really. He needed money. He needed to profit by marriage.

But taking Grimston’s money and walking away from Simon … Hadn’t another woman done the very same?

Her stomach cramped; her eyes began to burn. She bit down on her cheek, dragging in a hard breath, resisting the tears. The woman he’d loved once—she had done this to him. She’d broken his heart. He hadn’t said much on the subject, but that song, that achingly sad song, had told her everything.

“Time is up, Miss Whitby.”

She opened her eyes and looked Grimston in the face. She’d be a fool not to take his five thousand pounds. If she turned down his offer and her future fell to tatters, she’d never be able to blame anyone but herself. This moment, in retrospect, would have been her doom.

“All right.” She managed a single nod. “I’ll accept your offer if it means I can leave this place right now.”

He broke into a wide smile. “But of course. I’m very glad to hear that wisdom has prevailed.” He rose, flipping out the tails of his jacket, and then turned on his heel, snapping his fingers at her. “Follow me,” he said.

She understood her part well enough. Head bowed, she trailed him into the hall, where he announced that there had been some mistake; the spoon had not been stolen, only lent unwisely. Dismissing the inspector’s blustering protest with cool efficiency, Grimston then took her by the elbow and escorted her in a hard grip out the door and into his coach.

Increasingly she felt sick. Five thousand pounds: a bloody fortune and her freedom to boot.

On the other hand … Simon.

He’d lied to her, yes.

But then he’d told her he’d never let her go.

Could it be that she believed him? Now that her fears and doubts in him were put to the test, she couldn’t hold on to them. All she could think was how gravely this betrayal would strike him. The devil might have designed it. To do to him exactly what that other woman had done … even if the gain to her would be immeasurably great, her freedom and a fortune …

God help her. God
damn
her. She couldn’t bear to lose her freedom but she couldn’t bear to buy it if her soul was the price.

“Where are we going?” she asked, once they were closed into the dark little compartment and bouncing down the road. Her voice sounded properly shaky, as well it might. One moment she felt numb, the next, inclined to hysterical laughter. She couldn’t believe what she was about to do. She was a thrice-damned idiot.

“I am taking you to my lawyers,” Grimston said, “where you will sign a document disavowing your former claim, and receive a bank check to reward your good sense.”

She nodded and settled back against the squabs. Tears pricked her eyes—tears born of disbelief, of dumb amazement. Simon had been right; she loved him, there was no other explanation for this, yet she’d mistrusted him, reviled him, because it was easier by far to hate him. Of course it was easier to mistrust than to love. She’d seen firsthand the hells into which a heart could lead. She’d seen where love had taken Michael’s wife.

Yet here she went, tripping down the same path for Simon’s sake! Twenty years from now, no doubt, she’d still be cursing herself for this unforgivable stupidity.

When the coach took a sudden, sharp turn, she manufactured a choking noise.

“What is it?” Grimston asked.

“Nothing,” she whispered.

A brief silence fell.

She took a deep breath, willing all this pain, this confusion and despair, into her stomach. If only she could rid herself of them and feel nothing at all—not even love. Especially not love.

She retched.

“Good Lord!” Grimston snapped straight. “Are you going to be sick?”

“Think it’s—the nerves,” she mumbled.

He banged on the roof. “Do not vomit in this vehicle,” he said sharply.

“No, no—” She clutched her stomach and heaved again as the coach slowed.

“Open the door!” he shouted, and then the cool
night air was flooding in, and strong hands wrapped around Nell’s waist to lower her to the ground.

She bent double as though to puke, and then straightened with her elbow aimed straight for the footman’s groin.

The man howled as the blow connected. She hiked up her skirts and started to run.

Grimston’s roar echoed after her down the street: “You are making a grievous mistake!”

She didn’t waste her breath on a reply.

Simon spotted Nell in the road, stumbling to a stop, her hand lifting, waving tentatively at his vehicle, as though she feared he wouldn’t stop. His rage was an animate, living creature that had overtaken any part of him that he recognized. He banged the roof and did not wait for the vehicle to slow; he opened the door and leapt down onto the pavement, catching her by the elbows as she sagged against him.

Her warmth, her cheek beneath his, was the first clear and clean sensation he’d felt for an eternity it seemed. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

She was breathless, her body shaking with exertion, her skin damp with sweat. He pressed his lips against her brow, his hands flexing on her arms, straining not to tighten too fiercely, not to hurt her.

“I’m—fine,” she gasped. “Please—let’s go—he was turning the coach—to—follow me.”

“Grimston,” he said.

She nodded against his chest.

He would rip the man limb from limb. He would cut that bastard’s heart out and feed it to the crows. He lifted her, ignoring the way she jerked, her startled exclamation, and installed her in the vehicle. “Take
her home,” he said to the staring coachman, who had twisted from the waist to peer at these curious events.

“What—” Nell leaned forward, the light from the streetlamp on the pavement behind him lending her face a bluish hue, rendering in chiaroscuro her panicked expression. “You come with me!”

“You said he is coming,” Simon said flatly. “I need to—speak with him.”

Her eyes rounded. “Not now! Simon, please—”

Please
. Her voice broke on that syllable. He sucked in a long breath.
Please
. She’d been arrested. Katherine had sent a goddamned
note
. A note to break these tidings, a slip of paper that had lain in the entry hall hidden amid a pile of bloody
invitations
for—he knew not how long.

“Please,” she repeated, and her voice snapped him back from red reverie: he looked at her, exhaled, and bounded into the vehicle, slamming the door shut himself.

As he sat down on the bench beside her, the vehicle launched forward, jolting her into him. He felt the contact like a shock, a blow to the brain; his intentions shifted, resettled; he drew her to him so fast and forcefully that she made a small sound of protest.

On a long breath, he forced his grip to loosen. His fingers threaded through her hair; he stared unseeing at the window as her breath puffed against his throat in ragged, uneven pants.

“How long?” he asked.

“What?”

“How long were you there?”

“Oh. A … few hours?”

He gritted his teeth. What to do with this emotion: he held very still, not even daring to breathe for a
long moment, because his muscles were knotting and balking and she leaned against him, fragile, shaking, he was going to kill Grimston subtly; the man did not deserve a trial or a notorious death; he deserved to be stamped out, exterminated like a rat, in some back alley execution.

She tried to pull away. He stopped her, and then caught himself and let her go. She would be angry at him, no doubt. She had every right to rage. She was his wife. She was …
Nell
, he had let her spend hours alone, surrounded by enemies—”I didn’t know,” he said hoarsely. “I promise you—the moment I found out, I came. The carriage was already readied—I was going to look for you—my God, had I not thought to look at those letters, I’d have gone in the opposite direction, to Bethnal Green—”

His throat closed. The prospect of her running alone in the dark—not encountering him—fleeing from Grimston—caught by him—

“It’s all right,” she said softly. She shoved a hand across her nose and blinked at him. The curves of her face, the wideness of her dark blue eyes—he was not going to recover from this: the agony of helplessness in which he’d sat right here, not minutes ago.

He exhaled. Marshaled his thoughts. “Why did they take you?”

Her breathy laughter hitched. “You didn’t know? The spoon. Grimston says I stole it.”

He nodded. He could not take his eyes off her. “Are you all right? Did anyone lay a hand on you?”

She blinked. “No. I’m … fine.”

Of course. She was always fine. “Are you
all right
?”

“Yes,” she said after a pause. “Yes, Simon: I mean it.” A frown dawned on her brow. “Come here,” she
whispered, and then contradicted herself by moving back into his arms.

He closed his eyes as he held her. His pulse was finally slowing. “When I read Katherine’s note—” He swallowed. “Nell, I might have—” He felt a shudder move through him. Words defied the experience.

“I can guess,” she murmured. Her face turned, her nose pushing hard into his chest. “He offered me money to leave you,” she whispered.

Fleeting surprise flattened into black humor. Of course Grimston had offered her money. He’d been the messenger sent to Maria, too, so many years ago.

But unlike Maria, Nell had refused his bribe.

He turned his face into her hair, breathing deeply. Nothing in the world had ever felt so right as her in his arms.

“What will we do?” she asked.

We
. Never had a word sounded so sweet. “It’s a lunatic charge,” he said. “We’ll put them on Michael.” And he would deal with Grimston.

She shook her head. “Michael was in Ramsgate when the spoon went missing. And I can’t have the Crowleys involved.”

None of this interested him. He wanted her home, upstairs, as far from the exits as possible, with every door between her and them locked, bolted; he wanted to have her squarely, securely, ensconced. Miracles were to be guarded. He would guard her with his life.

“Not right now,” he said. “Later, we’ll discuss it.”

“But—” She sat up, pushed away from him. “I
can’t
involve the Crowleys. There’s no way to disprove it.”

“I’ll make it go away.”

“But what if you can’t?” Her wide eyes searched his.

“I can.” If he could do anything, put his mind and all his energies to anything, it would be this.

She stared at him a moment longer. Opened her mouth as if to reply—then seemed to think better of it. With a sigh, she rested her head again on his shoulder, exactly where it belonged.

T
his time, Nell didn’t let him keep her out of his conference with Daughtry. When the lawyer arrived and Simon tried to dispatch her upstairs, she stood firm. She kept her composure when Daughtry said, “Plainly speaking, this looks very bad.” When he said, “It would be irresponsible of me to suggest that these charges do not deserve your grave concern,” she received the words calmly.

Simon did not.

He lost his temper, though the lawyer wasn’t the man who deserved his abuse. She listened to his anger, so different from Michael’s, words without fists, the cold beneath it harder and more dangerous than Michael’s fire—but not to her. It was clear to her suddenly that he’d never be a danger to her.

The lawyer tried to defend himself. She could see in his uneasy, sidelong glances toward her that he was censoring what he really wanted to say. He wanted to urge Simon toward that annulment, no doubt. “I must remind you,” he finally said, red with frustration, “of the provision we once discussed. If your financial concerns are paramount, then you must consider … that discussion.”

Simon cursed. “Absolutely not.”

Well, yes
, she thought. It had come to that, now.

She slipped out. Simon caught her on the stairs. His hand closed on her arm to commandeer her progress, to direct her, to make it seem, maybe, as though
she moved at
his
bidding. He was, after all, the Earl of Rushden.

She didn’t fight. She came to a stop. “He’s right,” she said. “Nothing good can come of it now.”

“You cannot mean to give up,” he said.

“It’s not giving up. It’s sound strategy.”

His voice came in her ear, a raw whisper. “God damn you, Nell. Do you not understand that I’m in love with you?”

She stared unseeing, straight ahead. Those words. “I wish you weren’t,” she said. It made everything so much harder.

Abruptly his arm was beneath her knees; he was scooping her up, lifting her. As he looked down at her he showed her the face of a savage. “You’re not running away,” he said.

She turned her own face away. As he carried her, stone busts marched by, eyeing her from their comfortable pedestals.
In love
, he’d said.