An Invitation to Scandal (31 page)

He had saved her in any number of ways since that night. He still tried to save her now.

“I owe you so much,” she whispered.

Nicholas shook his head. A lock of dark hair fell across his brow. Her fingers itched to brush it back, but she knew if she did, she would be lost.

“I had no right to take what I did from you. What if you are with child—”

“I am not.” A wave of sadness washed over her. How she would have loved to have Nicholas’s child growing inside of her. Forget the scandal, forget the total and utter ruin it would rain down upon her and her family. For one selfish moment she allowed herself to wish, and to feel the disappointment of that wish going unfulfilled.

He hesitated, then, “It’s for the best.”

But in his hesitation Abigail sensed he too shared the same loss as she. A profound sadness filled her.

“I wish I had not wasted so much time being angry with you. I knew well before I forgave you that you did not carry all the blame. I just couldn’t bear to see my uncle in such an unfavorable light.”

“That is perfectly understandable.”

She nodded. “Perhaps. But it doesn’t excuse my behavior. Especially when you tried to save me from my foolishness time and again.”

He lifted one eyebrow and a thrill surged through her. Oh, how that one movement affected her. Spoke to her. “I took part in that foolishness, if you’ll recall. I am no hero.”

“I do recall,” she said, placing her hand against his chest, unable to help herself. She needed to touch him, to feel him. She slipped her fingers through the opening in his jacket and held her palm against his heart until she could feel its steady beat. “I recall every minute of it and I relive it each time I close my eyes. I crave the touch of your hand on my bare skin and the feel of your lips on mine. I can barely sleep because each time I try I can feel the weight of you upon me and when I awaken I am faced with the knowledge that moment will never come again.” Her voice caught.

“Abigail.”

She shook her head, unable to stop the tears from flowing. She did not even try. They had been bottled up inside of her since the night of his betrothal to Miss Caldwell and she could contain them no longer.

“No. I have lost you. Through my own stupidity, I have rendered our situation irretrievably broken. You are forced to marry a woman who has blackmailed you into a betrothal. And I am to live the rest of my life knowing if I had only acted sooner, if I had told you it didn’t matter what she did or who she told, then maybe, just maybe, we could be together now.”

He pulled her to him and let her cry, murmuring nonsense into her ear that she did not even hear. She let the warmth from his body make her feel safe, as if it could hold back the future. A foolish illusion, but she gave in regardless, just for a moment, to make things bearable.

“I would never allow you to sacrifice yourself for me,” he said.

A soft breeze caressed her face and mist swirled around them. Soon the sun would break through the clouds and the fog would dissipate. She must be gone before then, or risk them being seen. Their time grew short.

“It would be no sacrifice.” Abigail lifted her head and brushed at her eyes with her gloved hand, sniffling slightly. Her eyes stung and she knew they were likely puffy and red. “I must look a mess.”

Nicholas peered down at her and a small smile touched his lips. He cupped the side of her face with his hand and shook his head. With his thumb he brushed away what remained of her tears.

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

“Ah, then I’ve fallen in love with a blind man.”

His smile grew. “You love me.”

She swatted at his chest and sniffled again. “Of course I love you, you idiot. I have loved you longer than I care to admit.” Her heart throbbed and ached in her chest, a constant reminder of what could have been. And what would be. “And I will love you for longer than I think I can bear.”

“I do not deserve you.”

“You do not deserve Miss Caldwell. If I thought you could be happy perhaps it would not trouble me so, but I feel my actions have—”

“I could never love Miss Caldwell,” he said. “And marriage to her will be a misery. But I would go through a thousand miseries if it would keep you safe and give you a chance at a better life. Just promise me, please, that you will grasp that life. Do not sell yourself short. Do not marry Lord Tarrington. I could not bear it if you were unhappy too.”

Abigail pushed away from the safe cocoon of his arms. How could he so willingly accept his fate? How could he tell her not to be unhappy when they both knew by marrying Miss Caldwell he consigned himself to a lifetime of grief?

“Lord Tarrington has proposed and I have until the week’s end to give him an answer. It will mean my family stands a chance at recovery. We could pay off Uncle Henry’s creditors and start anew.”

“Even at the price of your own happiness?”

Abigail looked down at the ground between them. Did it even matter? Lord Tarrington or someone else. Either way, it would not be Nicholas.

“Is that not what you are doing by marrying Miss Caldwell?”

“Abigail, please…”

She held up her hand to ward off what he was about to say. She had not come here to discuss that. She had asked him here for one sole purpose. To know for certain they had done all they could do. “Am I too late then? Do we stand no chance at all of reversing this mess?”

She had scoured her mind time and again, trying to come up with way to reverse what had been done, but every idea fell apart in the face of one insurmountable fact. The engagement had been announced. Only Miss Caldwell could break it now, and Abigail well knew the woman’s desperation. Knew it and understood it, though she despised the methods used.

She hated the pain etched into Nicholas’s handsome features. His hands fisted at his sides as if he wanted to strangle the fates that had led them here. She couldn’t blame him. She felt the same way. It seemed a cruel twist of fate to give them love only to snatch it away in such a calculated manner. Fate was not at fault. In the end, much like everyone else in this sad little tale, they had been the authors of their own downfall.

Now the time had come to pay the piper.

“It is then,” she said, in the face of his silence. She swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke past the next round of tears threatening to dissolve her composure. “Well do not worry about me. I will be fine. I am a survivor.”

Had she not proven that already? She had survived her father and brother’s early deaths, her uncle’s suicide and the scandal that followed. She’d survived losing the man she loved to another woman and she would survive marriage to Lord Tarrington.

Somehow, some way. She just didn’t know how as yet.

“No!”

Nicholas stepped forward and cupped her face in a gentle embrace. Before she could speak, his mouth was upon hers, suffocating her gasp of surprise. He kissed her with wild abandon until her knees weakened and she clung to him for support. Her lips parted and his tongue plundered, tasting, teasing, urging her to do the same. They became entangled in each other, tongues and limbs and pain. Everything entwined together until there was no telling where one began and the other left off. Abigail wanted to disappear inside of him, let him carry her in his heart for all eternity. Maybe that would be enough.

When their lips finally parted, something wrenched from her chest as if he had taken her heart from her. It didn’t matter. Without him she had no use for it.

Nicholas rested his forehead against hers. “Promise me, you will not accept Lord Tarrington’s proposal. Just give me a few days.”

“A few days to do what?” To prolong their agony?

He shook his head and his bright silvery eyes caught hers. They sparkled and burned with need and hope and want and something else she couldn’t put her finger on. Desperation perhaps.

“I have an idea. It is not without risk and I do not know if it will work but, please, promise me you will not accept Lord Tarrington’s proposal until I at least try. Promise me, you will not make any decisions until you hear from me.”

Abigail stepped away from him and tried to ignore the small ember of hope fluttering to life deep inside her heart. “What are you planning?”

He shook his head. “I cannot tell you. Not yet.”

Abigail laughed, a silly, hopeful, little sound. “But—”

“A chance. That is all I ask.”

A chance. It was all she had wanted.

“I will give you whatever you ask of me.”

He rushed forward and kissed her again with determination and passion. Something in his kiss fortified her spirits, made her believe in possibilities. The ember of hope caught fire and raged to life.

“I won’t let you down,” he said. “I love you and I won’t let you down.”

Before she could change her mind, he turned and strode away. His declaration echoed in the mist and wove around her heart.

He loved her.

She smiled and hugged her arms around herself as if she could hold in the words forever and never let them go.

He loved her.

And she would risk it all to keep it.

* * *

Nicholas lifted the brass knocker on the bright red door and let it fall twice. A moment later he stood in the receiving room, ornately decorated, yet somehow lacking the true elegance he expected its owner had wished to achieve.

“Have you finally come to your senses?”

Nicholas turned to face his old mistress, and for a fleeting moment he wondered what he had ever seen in her. It mattered not. Not anymore. What he wanted from her now he would pay any price for.

He smiled broadly. “In a manner of speaking.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Sir?”

An agitated major domo appeared at Nicholas’s shoulder.

“Yes, Humphries,” he said. “What is it?”

But Humphries did not get the opportunity to inform him. The situation snowballed far too quickly and despite being involved in the situation, part of Nicholas felt like a spectator, watching as Opal strode into the men’s club, her eyes wild and her hair disheveled as if she had just tumbled from her bed.

“Is it true what I hear?”

“Madame, you cannot be in here.” The major domo tried to grasp her arm, but Opal shook him off and hissed. Humphries took a step back as if she were a serpent with a lethal bite. He was not far off in that regard. Indeed, Opal appeared as if she could spit venom and draw blood in that moment.

She advanced on him, every eye in the club firmly upon her. “Is it true you are engaged to marry your precious Miss Caldwell?”

The crowd’s attention quickly shifted focus, boring into him as they witnessed the spectacle. A time had existed when such a scene would not have fazed him in the least. He had reveled in the embarrassment these incidents caused his father with a selfishness that now embarrassed him. But he intended today’s performance for a different audience. “Calm down, woman. You forget yourself.”

“I forget myself?” She leaned forward, her ample bosom threatening to spill out of her risqué gown. Crimson red trimmed with black lace. A whore’s outfit. Nicholas silently applauded her choice of costume.

She seethed at him, then drew herself up to her full height, impressive in a woman, and enhanced by the full mane of hair flying freely about her head. She knew how to play to a crowd, to draw their attention and she did so now. The ten thousand pounds he’d promised to pay her for the performance and passage to Paris where she could start over were obviously strong incentive. When she left London, she would leave an indelible memory in all of their minds, making her last moments there a thing of myth and legend.

“You fool. Do you honestly think Miss Caldwell will consent to the marriage when she learns you still frequent my bed?”

Nicholas’s heart slowed to a crawl. He had not given Opal any particular script to follow, only the instruction the show had to be grand, public and scandalous. He must tread carefully.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “You have me mistaken for someone else. I have not frequented your bed in nearly a year.”

She laughed, a throaty guttural sound that was both sensual and threatening.

“Is that so? Because you seemed quite charmed last night as I wrapped my legs around you and rode you like a stallion. You begged me for more, in fact.”

Humphries approached her again but her cold glare held him off.

Nicholas rose from his chair. “My dear, I can assure you whoever you had your legs wrapped around last night, it was not me. But then I expect so many men pass through your bedroom it is difficult to keep track.”

The palm of her hand cracked across his cheek with stinging force. He gritted his teeth and played along. “Then tell me where you were last night? Prove to me it was not in my bed.”

Nicholas swept an arm wide. “I was here, of course,” he said. The lie tripped easily off his tongue. He’d made a point of staying home, despite Spence’s urging that he to join them.

Opal boldly faced the men present while Humphries stood ineffectively wringing his hands. “Which of you remembers seeing Lord Blackbourne amongst you last evening?”

Before anyone could vouch for him out of a misguided sense of solidarity and ruin everything, Nicholas grabbed Opal by the arm and dragged her in the direction of the door.

“Let me go! Are you all going to stand there as he manhandles a lady?”

Nicholas barked out a laugh and raised his voice. “I’m certain if there was a lady present they would indeed not allow such behavior to occur. But there is no lady here, just a whore with too much imagination for her own good.”

A footman opened the door as he approached and Nicholas hauled Opal over the threshold, though he propped one foot against the door to keep it open. He did not want to lose his audience.

“Go home, madam,” he said, ensuring his voice carried back into the club. A club which had grown silent of droning voices, giving him a rapt audience. “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss private matters.”

She gave him a sly grin and winked and he responded with a slight nod. Their business had concluded. Their story ended. She’d get what she wanted—a fresh start, a new life. Nicholas could only hope the theatrics played out here today would afford him the same.