Cheryl Holt (29 page)

“Margaret, please!” She tried to reason one last time.

“Perhaps you should spend your leisure hours pondering Helen.”

She slammed the door and spun the key.

For a moment, she tarried, considering the absurdity of it all. The two women who, for years, had made up her family had simultaneously gone mad.

Strumpets both. She wasn’t surprised by Winnie’s plunge from grace. But Olivia’s? It was too strange to be true.

What a bizarre spiral of events!

Shaking her head, she descended to the lower floors in search of Penny, where she advised her of the plan. Initially, Penny was rebellious, disobedient, but as Margaret explained the necessities, Penny recognized that Margaret’s scheme was for the best, and she conceded that her aid would be imperative.

Satisfied that the details were set in motion so that circumstances would unfold appropriately, she instructed
the housekeeper to prepare supper trays, as well as to provide excuses to the earl for the evening absence of all of them. Then, she went to her room, where she would await the night and a successful outcome.

Edward walked up the stairs of the grand mansion. It was very late, everyone abed, and he tiptoed through the quiet halls.

After his hideous conversation with Margaret, he’d fled the property, although he didn’t imagine he’d slighted anybody. Margaret hadn’t chosen to sup or socialize, either.

With such horrid tidings unveiled, he couldn’t have tarried at the dining table, prattling through an unending meal.

How had he been duped so easily?

Winnie was a whore. A beautiful, licentious, lusty harlot, who seduced men for sexual pleasure.

He didn’t want to believe it—he couldn’t believe it!—but he’d seen the shameful accusations with his own two eyes. He’d listened to Margaret’s stammering, abashed admission as to Winnie’s disrepute, and he yearned to deny Margaret’s veracity, to repudiate every word she’d uttered, but the story had to be true. Who would admit to such a disgraceful family secret if it wasn’t?

Feeling betrayed, violated, he was more furious than he’d been in a very, very long while, though he wasn’t sure why. Just then, if Winnie had been standing in front of him, he’d likely have shaken her until her teeth rattled.

How dare you!
he ached to shout at her. How dare she be dissolute, promiscuous, loose with her favors?

He patted the pocket inside his jacket, heard the crinkle of the letter he’d stuffed there. It had been slipped under his door before he’d left the house. Like a talisman with magic powers, it had drawn him in, though he struggled to resist its appeal. He’d read it over and over until he’d had it memorized.

“My dearest Edward,” the tidy script began.

“I know what Margaret told you about me. It’s not true. I swear it! Please let me explain. I can’t bear it that you’re angry. Come to me. I’ll be waiting . . .”

She hadn’t signed her name, only the initial
W
.

Throughout the evening, questions had taunted him: What was her game? What was she attempting?

Did she hope to beguile him into philandering with her? To what end? What did she really want? Money? An illegitimate child he would be obligated to support? Or was it simpler, more elemental? Did she merely desire him physically?

She loves you; she’s hurting
.

The thought kept blasting through his head with the impetus of a battering ram, so potent and authentic that he throbbed with the revelation.

He was a good judge of character. He was! And during the blissful times they’d passed together, he’d never presumed that she’d had dubious motives. She’d entertained a deep affinity for him; he was convinced of it.

Yet he’d seen the appalling indictment posted to Margaret, had viewed the censure printed in it. Why would Margaret invent such a terrible slander?

At the landing, he dawdled, trapped in his agonizing introspection. In one direction was the lengthy corridor that led to his suite. In the other, the elegant wing filled with slumbering guests. She was so close, and he was anxious to rush to her, to barge in, to denounce her for her sins and command an accounting.

He vacillated, ruminated, vacillated some more, and his decision crystalized.

He had to learn the facts, so he had to ask Winnie. If he looked her in the eye, if he talked to her face to face, there was no way she could prevaricate. She had such an expressive demeanor that she couldn’t conceal the truth.

If he ascertained that Margaret was correct, that Winnie was a woman of base virtue, so be it, but he couldn’t allow her to depart for London without having the situation resolved. His need for reassurance was asinine and imprudent, but he couldn’t put it aside. He’d liked her too much, and couldn’t stand that she might have deceived him.

Prowling into the hall, he slinked toward her and the answers he was determined to receive. Quiet as a mouse, he opened her door and sneaked in. It was warm, and the bed curtains were tied off, a fresh breeze wafting in through the window.

He could discern her form snuggled under the covers, and he suffered a pang of irritation that she wasn’t awake and impatient for his arrival, although he couldn’t have guessed when she’d conveyed the note to him. Very likely, she’d been anticipating him for hours and had given up.

Not wanting to scare her, he crept to the bed and eased himself down. Her back was to him, and he leaned over her, more eager than he should have been for the instant she would discover it was he.

“Winnie,” he murmured, but she was sleeping so soundly that she didn’t stir. He whispered again. “Winnie. It’s me. I’m here.”

She mumbled, rolled over, blinked and blinked. “Lord Salisbury?”

His heart skipped several beats. It wasn’t Winnie!

He was glowering at Olivia, and while he recognized that he’d made a horrendous error, he couldn’t process
the enormity of what had just occurred. For many tormenting, protracted seconds, he scrutinized her, his mind unwilling to grapple with the magnitude of his blunder.

He gawked around the shadowed chamber. Had he ventured into the wrong room? Had he been plunged into some grotesque, mutated dimension?

This couldn’t have happened!

“Lady Olivia?” he stupidly inquired.

“Yes.” She was becoming conscious of her surroundings. “What is it? Is something amiss?”

Without warning, she sat up, and because he was so near to her, their lips were inches apart. Her blue eyes were alert and inquisitive, and she appeared rumpled, adorable. She was clad in a thin, summery nightgown, with tiny straps. Her shoulders were bare, her blond hair unbraided, and it rippled in a golden wave.

The pose was sexy, provocative, for both of them. Their torsos were almost touching, the covers at her waist, and she lurched to grab them, shielding her bosom.

“Pardon me. I . . . I . . .” A sensation of peril swirled over him, and he started to disentangle himself, but it was too late.

Behind him, the door was opening, and he knew his fate was sealed. Propriety required that he vault off the bed, but there seemed no point to denials or disavowals.

Like the biggest fool, he’d walked into a carnal trap. Had Margaret set it to snare him into matrimony? If so, she was much more shrewd and insidious than he could ever have surmised, and though he was sick over what would come next, he had to congratulate her.

If she’d ambushed him, she was a master at cunning. If she hadn’t, she’d still managed to bumble into the
most opportune, fortuitous conclusion of which any family could have dreamed.

It was all Winnie’s doing. She’d enchanted and captivated him beyond his limits, had enticed him as no female ever had. Like one of the Sirens of old, she’d seduced him to ruin, and a ripple of fury swept through him that she had gulled him into the predicament.

He wanted to lash out, to yell and rail at the injustice that was about to be leveled upon him—all because of her—yet he swallowed down his outrage. He declined to let Margaret Hopkins perceive how duped he felt, how powerless to save himself from a destiny he couldn’t abide. The result couldn’t be changed or altered. The only task that remained was to pick up the pieces and manipulate the debacle so there would be minimal scandal.

Was Lady Olivia an innocent or an accomplice? Was she playing her role in the scheme? Doing her best to paint herself the ravished maiden? Or was her agitation genuine?

Narrowing his focus, he evaluated her, and from what he could distinguish, he didn’t assume she was culpable. She seemed downright terrified, and he didn’t suppose anyone could feign that amount of alarm.

She was faultless, little more than a girl, and he couldn’t let her character be soiled or besmirched because he’d acted the imbecile. For what was impending, he had no one to blame but himself.

Margaret traipsed in, clutching a lit candle. She was accoutered in a nightgown and billowy robe, a mobcap over her hair, floppy slippers on her feet. Lady Penelope trailed after her, also garbed in her nightclothes.

He winced. If Margaret had been the lone witness, he might have wheedled his way out of the fiasco, but with
the younger sister observing all, the outcome was carved in stone.

“Olivia,” Margaret said, “we heard a noise. We decided to check on you and—” She halted, her brows flying up in astonishment. “Edward Paxton! My lands!”

“Hello, Margaret,” he replied, resigned.

“Mother,” Lady Penelope piped up from the threshold, “is that Lord Salisbury with Olivia? Why is he in Olivia’s bed? She’s not dressed.”

Margaret used her body to block the aperture so that Penelope couldn’t enter, and Penelope was straining on tiptoe, trying to peek over her mother’s shoulder.

“Penny,” Margaret barked, “go to my bedchamber, and wait for me. I’ll be with you shortly.”

“But what’s going on? Tell me!”

“Penny!” Margaret whipped around and stepped into the corridor, pushing Penny so that she was prevented from viewing the ignominious sight.

They had a torturous, lengthy conversation, with a great deal of hissing and exclamation, and Penelope stomped off in a huff. Then Margaret joined him and Olivia.

Edward had clambered off the bed and was perched next to it. Olivia was under the blankets, trembling, but she hadn’t budged.

Margaret’s umbrage was scarcely controlled. “I’ll not ask what you’re doing in here.”

“Calm yourself,” Olivia counseled. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Really?” Margaret jeered. “It
looks
like Edward has just visited you in your bed.”

“I’m positive he has a perfectly valid explanation.” Olivia glanced at him, imploring him to salvage the mess. “Don’t you?”

He saw no reason to quibble and make the dreadful
incident worse. What was he to utilize as a defense?
I came to tryst with Winnie, but stumbled on Olivia by mistake?

It was a pathetic justification, and he wouldn’t embarrass himself by raising it. Nor would he drag Winnie into it.

“I have no comment.”

“No, no,” Olivia frantically interjected, “I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

“Shut up, Olivia!” Margaret snapped, concentrating her attention on him. “Edward, I never would have expected such behavior from you. I’m shocked!”

“My apologies.”

She approached, the flicker of the candle accentuating the stark lines of her face, causing her to appear pitiless, grim, relentless. “Is there something you’d like to say to Olivia?”

“Certainly.” He turned to Olivia, ready to speak, when she interrupted.

“Margaret, please. Don’t force him into this. I’m begging you.”

“Be silent,” Margaret ordered.

“Margaret!” she tried again.

“Your sister beheld this spectacle, Olivia. Should we leave her with the impression that such licentious conduct is permissible?” Margaret glared at Edward, her wrath evident, giving no hint that she might have ambushed him. “Let’s put this hideous episode behind us. Get on with it!”

“Lady Olivia,” he formally pronounced, spitting out the bitter words, “would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Olivia was horrified, tears glittering in her eyes. A portentous, unvoiced argument flashed between her and Margaret, filled with hidden significance he couldn’t
begin to decipher. For one, insane moment, he thought she would humiliate him by refusing. Her lips were pursed, mutinous, and she was loath to respond.

The encounter grew awkward, and Margaret snarled, “Olivia! Do you truly wish to spurn Lord Salisbury? Should we go back to London without your marrying him, just think of the
consequences
that could ensue.”

Margaret assessed Olivia, another secret communication passing between them. It was as though they were parleying in a clandestine code, for which he did not have the key. Whatever the covert interpretation, Olivia understood the implications to which her stepmother alluded.

Worry and panic surged through her, and he presumed she was being reminded of their financial quandary, about which he wasn’t to have been apprised. She was in no position to reject his proposal.

Gazing at her lap, she plucked at the blanket.

“Well, Olivia?” Margaret goaded. “What’s it to be?”

“Yes, Edward. I’ll marry you.”

Margaret heaved a sigh of satisfaction. “Fine, fine.” Beaming, she clapped her hands, making the candle wobble. “Considering the circumstances, I suggest a hasty, small ceremony, here at the manor. How about this Friday?” She didn’t delay for his opinion. Apparently, it wasn’t necessary. “I’ll send out the notices tomorrow morning. I trust you can arrange the special license?”

Five days
, he mused, calculating the time. Five days to come to terms with the indemnification Margaret had had every right to demand. Five days to persuade himself that Olivia would be a wonderful wife. Five days to adjust to the notion that he was about to commit himself to another loveless marriage.

After meeting Winnie, he’d hoped for so much more.

“I’ll dispatch a messenger directly to the archbishop,” he said. “It can be achieved by Friday without any problem.”