Ripe for Scandal (25 page)

There was only one inn within easy reach of the estate so it hadn’t been hard to track down a likely source of information.
All he’d had to do was wait and stand a few rounds to the likeliest candidates. When a groom in the earl’s employ had broached
his third pint and begun loudly talking about his recent trip south, Granby had paid and invited the man to join him by the
fire.

“What prompted such a trip at this time of year?” Granby said. “The mud alone must have made the journey quite dismal. I wouldn’t
be traveling myself, except that I got word my mother is very ill.”

“Some Scot,” the groom said, ale sloshing off the edge of the newly arrived mug. “Showed up with a brat, claiming
it was Mr. Sandison’s. You should have seen Lord Souttar.” The man paused and glanced around the taproom before adding sotto
voice, “Desperate to keep his father from finding out.”

“Why would Lord Souttar care if their father found out his brother had a bastard?”

The footman grinned and downed half the mug of ale. “Wasn’t the babe that caused the stir. It was the mother.”

“The mother?”

The footman frowned into his beer. “Not su’posed to tell anyone. Hs’lordship made me swear.”

Granby signaled for another mug. The man finished what was in his current one and reached unsteadily for the next.

“His lordship made you swear to keep it from the earl?” Granby prompted.

The footman nodded. “Big secret. Mother’s not dead. Makes Mr. Sandison a bi—a big—a—a something terrible.”

“I think bigamist is the word you’re looking for.”

CHAPTER 35

M
y sister’s what?” Lord Leonidas struggled to contain his temper. The banked coals of betrayal that he’d been carefully maintaining
flared into open flame.

“Bastard,” Roland Devere said grimly, mouth pressed into a hard line. “That’s the latest on-dit. Heard it from several people
last night at Lady Dalrymple’s. Everyone claiming not to believe it, but whispering about it all the same.”

“Where do these kinds of rumors come from? It’s ridiculous. When would Beau have had time to accomplish such a feat without
the entire world witnessing it?” Leo raked both hands through his hair, gripping his skull hard. This was madness. Pure and
simple.

“Proof is hardly needed.” Devere shook his head slightly, his own annoyance clear. He’d been the only one to stand by Sandison,
and this was his reward. “And she does disappear for months every year. She spends the entire winter out of sight in Scotland.”

“
Everyone
spends months in the country,” Leo protested.

Devere leaned in across the table, his expression utterly serious. “Beau’s sudden marriage to a younger son with no fortune
or prospects. That alone was enough to set tongues wagging. And now there’s a baby always at her knee. People are saying Sandison
was bought and paid for. And that you had a hand in it. Helping your closest friend to a honey fall, and your sister out of
a horrible predicament.”

“That’s absurd.” Leo ground his teeth, repressing the urge to take his frustration out on his friend. Coming to blows with
Devere wouldn’t help anything.

“Agreed,” Devere said. “But just because it’s absurd, doesn’t mean it can be laughed off. What the hell is Sandison thinking?
It’s not surprising that he might have a bastard—”

“Or four,” Leo interjected sourly.

“—tucked away, but even Sandison wouldn’t be fool enough to try and house it with his wife. Least of all when he and Beau
were already drowning in scandal broth. Lady Cook was in alt as she spoke of it.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Leo said, rising quickly enough that his chair scraped loudly across the floor, drawing the attention
of the rest of the room. Leo stared out at them. His friends. The League. Sandison’s friends, too. Or they had been, until
Leo had blackballed him. His gaze locked with Anthony Thane. He could tell by the man’s expression that he’d heard the same
ugly rumor and felt just as powerless to do anything about it.

Leo turned and strode toward the door. Anthony Thane caught up with him in the vestibule as he struggled into his greatcoat.

“Don’t make it worse,” Thane said, putting a restraining hand on his arm.

“It couldn’t be any worse,” Leo replied. Trust Thane to want to attack the issue calmly. With Thane, everything could be conquered
with logic and wit. All those years in the Commons had deafened him to the call to action.

Thane shook his head. “It could
always
be worse. If life’s taught me anything, it’s taught me that simple lesson.”

Leo arrived home, Thane’s warning still ringing in his ears, to find his wife pacing the length of the carpet in their drawing
room, a letter clutched in her hand. She spun about and held out the piece of foolscap as though it were a snake.

“This came while you were out.”

Leo turned the letter over. It bore no name. Just their London address. He unfolded it and scanned its contents. His blood
went from boiling to icy cold by the time he reached the final paragraph.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Viola said. “Sandison wouldn’t do such a thing. Not to Beau. Not to
you
.”

Leo crumpled the letter in his fist, the sound satisfying in the moment. “I’m beginning to wonder if I know Gareth Sandison
at all.”

Viola shook her head, took the note from him, and tossed it onto the fire. The flames licked over it, slowly turning it to
char. “I shouldn’t have shown it to you. I should have burnt it the moment I read it.”

Leo pulled her into his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head. She was the one solid, trustworthy thing
in his world. “Not showing me wouldn’t have helped. If Sandison really did already have a wife—”

“Then I’ll kill him myself,” Viola said. “But I can’t believe it of him. I simply can’t.”

“Won’t.”

Viola gave him a little shake. “Can’t,” she said with single-minded determination, as though willing the tale to be false
could make it so. “And you don’t believe it either. You’re just too angry to think at the moment.”

“Just for you, I’ll hold off killing him until we have proof, but if a similar note has been sent to the duke…”

“It will take your father at least a week to get here from Lochmaben. And another day or two beyond that to reach Sandison.”

“So we have our deadline,” Leo said, feeling a chill run up his spine. A week. Seven short days to find proof of innocence
or guilt. And no idea where to start, except with Sandison himself.

CHAPTER 36

T
he winter sun broke weakly through the bed curtains, barely diffusing the shadows where it trailed across the bedclothes.
Beau lay still, Gareth curled around her, and watched the light move slowly toward them as the minutes passed. Any moment
it would hit Gareth’s eyes and wake him.

It had taken two days for her to reconcile herself to his machinations and return to his bed, but she couldn’t even pretend
to regret that she’d done so. Sleeping alone had punished her every bit as much as it had him. And to no real purpose, except
that she’d been feeling prideful.

He nuzzled sleepily into the back of her neck, fingers playing almost idly with her nipple. His hips rocked against her, his
erection riding the cleft of her buttocks.

After a moment, his hand left her breast, sliding down to lift her leg, hooking her calf back over his knee. Fingers between
her thighs, cock now riding the valley between them, Gareth kissed his way up her shoulder. His mouth was hot on her neck,
teeth scraping lightly over her skin.

Beau twisted her head just enough so she could kiss him. Gareth curled his body against hers, and then he was inside her,
the shallow penetration just enough to make her crave more. His hand cupped her sex, holding her in place for his thrusts.

She pushed her knee higher, opened herself wider. Gareth’s fingers found her clitoris, riding slickly over the swollen peak
with every rock of their hips. Beau’s release washed over her like a wave—soft, sudden, utterly different from the wild crash
engendered by a frantic coupling.

Gareth held still long enough for the small tremors to abate, and then rolled her under him, his knees on the outside of hers,
and found his own release with long, slow strokes that left Beau shattered and boneless.

“Morning, love.” He kissed her on the shoulder, his weight still pressing her down into their newly arrived mattress.

Beau stretched out her neck, utterly content. “It can’t be morning yet.”

“I heard the clock chime eight some time ago,” he said as he slid off her.

Beau made a wordless sound of disgust and buried her face in the pillow. They’d been up half the night. She had no intention
of getting out of bed until at least noon.

She heard the floorboards creak, and she cracked one eye open just in time to see Gareth pull on his banyan. The heavy silk
slid around him, masking the long, lean lines of his body.

Hers. Beau smiled to herself. Whatever he may have done previously, he was hers now, and she had every
intention of keeping him. He glanced over, caught her watching him, and smiled. She knew that smile. Had seen it often enough
on his face when he looked at other women. Lazy, self-satisfied, possessive.

It was madness to feel warmed by it, but it was impossible to resist.

Beau kept Jamie well back from the cliff’s edge as they took their afternoon walk. He pointed excitedly to the roiling whitecaps
racing toward the beach.

“Waves,” Beau said. “Waves on the ocean.”

“Jamie go ocean.”

Beau shook her head. “Not today, little man.” She tugged back on his leading strings, wrapping them securely around her hand
when he tried to pull away. “Today Jamie will have to make do with the garden before he goes with Peg to take a nap.”

Jamie wrinkled his nose, his expression remarkably like his father’s when Gareth was feeling disgruntled. Whatever Gareth’s
reason for ignoring the child, questionable paternity wasn’t among them. Jamie was clearly a Sandison.

“Mokee go ocean?”

“Monkey most certainly does
not
want to go to the ocean. Monkeys don’t like water.”

Jamie’s face fell and then his eyes lit with clear intent. “Mokee take nap. Jamie go horses.”