He hobbled toward her, one arm around Niall for support, his eyes fastened on her—feral and alert. Not the eyes of a man trapped for hours beneath a pile of crushing stone.
He winced as he took a jarring step and she realized he couldn’t put his weight on his right foot. She hastened forward, slipping her arm around his waist and closing her eyes in one long blink at the solid sensation of him alongside her body. He was whole. Alive.
“You look good in trousers,” he murmured near her ear, stirring the hair that hung there loosely.
She snorted. Of all the things she’d imagined him to say, that had not been among them.
“I shall wear them every day for you then.” She smiled up at him as they eased off the rocky ground.
He turned to look at her, his face completely absorbed in the study of her. “Are you making promises?” he asked, bewilderment in his voice.
She swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. Was he simply stunned that she was here? Or was there something more to his reaction? Did he not want her here?
Emotion swelled through her and her body trembled, the ordeal of the last hours catching up with her.
Hope filled her, eclipsing everything else. She wanted to hold him, talk to him, say all those things that desperately needed to be said. But Mrs. Willis was suddenly there, all efficiency as she took charge, sweeping Logan into the foyer, brushing Cleo aside so that she might assist him up the stairs. Just as well, she supposed. She was so shaky, her legs possessing all the consistency of pudding. She wouldn’t want to risk losing her grip on Logan as they ascended the steps.
Cleo followed, letting Mrs. Willis direct. Logan needed tending and she was the best person to see it done. As he was carried up the stairs, he looked back several times, his gaze finding her. She resisted the impulse to rush after him and pour out her soul, confess her fears and proclaim her love. That was a selfish need. Logan needed to be taken care of first. The needs of her heart could wait.
“Come.” Abigail was at her side, taking her by the arm. “Let’s get you changed and freshened up. I imagine you could use a bath. When was the last time you ate?”
Cleo looked longingly after Logan, mumbling some inane response.
Abigail followed her gaze. “Mrs. Willis will care for him. Let’s take care of you so that you may be there for him when she’s finished.”
She glanced down at her filthy person and grimaced. Abigail made good sense. And she would like to look her best when she begged his forgiveness and asked for another chance as his wife. With that thought, Cleo permitted Abigail to tug her away, wincing when she grasped her gloved hand.
“What’s this?” Abigail pulled her glove free and hissed a breath at the sight of Cleo’s ravaged palms. Even with gloves, her palms were raw with broken blisters. “Come. Logan’s not the only one requiring some nursing.”
As she was pulled away in the direction of Abigail’s chamber, she glanced down the length of corridor. Logan was already out of sight and her heart squeezed. As grateful as she was that he lived, this wasn’t precisely the sweet reunion she had imagined.
Logan barely withstood Mrs. Willis’s examination. He ground his teeth through all her poking and prodding, if for no other reason than to get through her inspection as hastily as possible. The more he complained, the longer she would linger over him, convinced he was mortally wounded. He hadn’t lived his entire lifetime at McKinney without coming to know how the woman operated.
“I need to see Cleo. Where’d she go?”
“There now.” Mrs. Willis rose from where she’d wrapped his left foot tightly in bandages. “Not broken, I believe. Just sprained and mightily bruised. It will take a while to heal fully, but you’ve always been a strong lad.” She motioned to a crutch propped against the edge of the bed. “When you’re fit to rise, you can walk with that. Belonged to my nephew Joseph when he broke his leg. Remember him? Great lumbering ox was always clumsy.”
“Good.” He began to rise, reaching for the crutch. “Now let me find Cleo.”
She pushed him back down by the chest. “You’re not going anywhere. Your sister’s looking after her. She’ll come to you soon enough.”
He growled low in his throat, but knew better than to raise a fit with Mrs. Willis. In his present condition, he wouldn’t get two feet before she dragged him back to bed by the ear.
Nodding, he forced out the words, “Very well.”
She eyed him dubiously, and he wondered if he’d surrendered too soon. “I’m hungry,” he volunteered. “I could use some food. The quicker to regain my strength.”
Mrs. Willis nodded once, obviously satisfied, as he knew she would be. “That’s a good lad. I’ll be back with a plate for you. You just rest here and wait.”
He nodded, struggling to maintain a neutral expression on his face as she ambled from the chamber.
As soon as the door clicked shut, he slid his legs over the side of the bed and reached for the crutch. Propping it beneath his arm, he began a slow, limping walk from the chamber.
Cleo couldn’t be far. He assumed Mrs. Willis meant Abigail was looking after Cleo. Josephine could hardly look after herself much less someone else. In his anxiousness, he simply opened the door to his sister’s room.
Abigail spun around, startled. “Logan!” she uttered his name quietly, and he immediately saw why.
Cleo had fallen asleep upon the bed wearing only a robe, her hair still wet from her bath. Dark smudges marred the tender flesh beneath her eyes.
“Leave us, Abbie. We’ll stay the night here.”
Abigail gathered up the garments Cleo had worn before her bath, pausing to look down at her sleeping sister-in-law. “She just sat down for a moment, and then she was asleep. She’s had quite the day.” Abigail’s gaze slid over him. “You both have.”
“She came back,” he murmured.
“She never stopped, Logan. She pulled stones alongside the men. She was like a woman possessed.”
His gaze devoured Cleo as she slept upon the bed. He wasn’t surprised she possessed such tenacity and determination. He’d seen evidence of that since he met her. He was only astonished that he was the recipient of such steadfast resolve . . . that she should care about him that much.
Abigail glanced from him to Cleo upon the bed. “Are you certain you want to sleep in here? I can have someone carry her to your chamber.”
“No.” He wouldn’t stand idle and helpless as someone else carried her for him. No one would hold her but him. Seeing as he was in no condition to do so at this time, they would spend the night here.
“Very well. I’ll keep Willis away.” Abigail hugged him quickly. “I’m so glad you’re safe, brother.”
As his sister left the room he snatched a blanket off the nearby chaise and limped the remaining steps to the bed. Lying down beside his wife, he covered them both with the soft fabric.
Sighing, he felt his beaten body finally ease and relax. Draping an arm around her waist and holding her close, he inhaled her clean scent and forgot all of his aches and pains. The elation in his heart eclipsed all else.
“Logan?” she murmured sleepily, lifting her head.
He looked down at her face, brushing a wet strand of hair from her cheek. “I’m here.”
“I thought I was dreaming.” Her eyes blinked with alertness.
“No dream.”
“How . . .”
“Did you think I could stay away from you?”
Emotion brightened her gaze. “You’re not angry at me . . . for leaving you?”
He stared into her eyes for a long time, the knowledge seeping into his bones that she was the one. The woman he was born to love. The woman he was meant to live out his life with. And that just maybe . . . she felt the same way. “You came back.” His thumb brushed her bottom lip. “That’s all that matters to me. That’s everyth
ing.”
A sob choked her throat and her lips quivered. “I never should have left. I was scared. I was running away . . . too scared to give us a chance. To take a risk. When we returned and I learned what happened, that you were buried under that wall, I thought it was my punishment for turning away from you . . . from denying what I felt. I love you.”
“No punishment,” he muttered fiercely, holding her face in both hands and kissing her roughly. He broke away to rasp against her lips, “I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you. Because if you ever try to leave again, I’ll chase you down and drag you back home—here where you belong.”
She snuggled closer to him, her face upturned to his. “I’ll never leave again.”
“I’ve always wanted you, Cleo. You just had to let go . . . and let me love you.”
Her eyes shimmered wetly in the dim room. “I’m letting you.”
“And I’m yours. Forever.”
“I love you, Logan.”
He smiled and kissed her again, long and deep. “It’s about time you said it.”
Epilogue
One month later . . .
Cleo looked up from her knitting at the sound of wheels rolling into the courtyard. She was attempting to make Logan a scarf but so far it more resembled a lopsided belt. She gave it one last disapproving glance before rising to investigate the noise outside. She was almost to the window when the drawing-room doors burst open.
“Stop right there,” her husband directed, wagging his finger at her. His handsome grin belied his commanding tone.
“What? Who’s here?”
He seized her hand. “Come and you shall see.” Pulling her behind him, he hastened through the foyer and stepped outside.
Several carriages filled the courtyard. A dog barked anxiously around the wheels. Cleo held up a hand to shield her eyes from the rare brightness of the afternoon.
A carriage door opened. She grew breathless as one groom handed down a small child. And then another. And another. Bedraggled children began to spill out from the other carriages. They were the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
“Cleo!”
She choked back a sob as the little bodies ran over to her and embraced her so fiercely she nearly lost her balance. Tears blinded her.
She turned to face her husband, blinking through the deluge. “You did this?”
She’d spent the last month writing letters to her family, to Roger, receiving no response. She’d begun to fear that her stepfather had changed his mind.
Logan reached out and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Yes. I would do anything for you, Cleo.”
A sob escaped her then. Logan pulled her into his arms for a long hug, his hands strong and warm on her back. In that moment, she believed this man could do anything. He’d saved her family. He’d saved her.
The children clamoring for her attention finally forced her to pull away. “Yes, yes, my loves! Welcome home!”
They clapped gleefully, but in their joy she read the desperate relief on their faces. Down to the youngest one of them, they each knew they were safe now. Everything was going to be fine. Her heart clenched as she thought of her mother, missing her. She should be here, too . . .
Then suddenly Cleo saw her emerge from the last carriage.
“Mama,” she whispered hoarsely, unable to believe that she was here. She was free. Her gaze shifted to Logan again, knowing, understanding that somehow he had done this . . . For her.
I love you. She mouthed the words to him over the happy din of her siblings and he nodded, his hand closing around hers, the pulse of his heart fusing to her own, matching the beating rhythm.
“I love you, too, Cleo.”
They may argue the precise shade and design, but London’s
finest dressmakers all know . . .
Scandal Wears Satin
by New York Times bestselling author
Loretta Chase
On Sale Now
Read on for a sneak peek!
For the last week, the whole of the fashionable world has been in a state of ferment, on account of the elopement of Sir Colquhoun Grant’s daughter with Mr. Brinsley Sheridan . . . On Friday afternoon, about five o’clock, the young couple borrowed the carriage of a friend; and . . . set off full speed for the North.
—The Court Journal, SATURDAY 23 MAY 1835
London
Thursday 21 May 1835
Waving a copy of Foxe’s Morning Spectacle, Sophy Noirot burst in upon the Duke and Duchess of Clevedon while they were breakfasting in, appropriately enough, the breakfast room of Clevedon House.
“Have you seen this?” she said, throwing down the paper on the table between her sister and new brother-in-law. “The ton is in a frenzy—and isn’t it hilarious? They’re blaming Sheridan’s three sisters. Three sisters plotting wicked plots—and it isn’t us! Oh, my love, when I saw this, I thought I’d die laughing.”
Certain members of Society had more than once in recent days compared the three proprietresses of Maison Noirot—which Sophy would make London’s foremost dressmaking establishment if it killed her—to the three witches in Macbeth. Had they not bewitched the Duke of Clevedon, rumor said, he would never have married a shopkeeper.
Their graces’ dark heads bent over the barely dry newspaper.
Rumors about the Sheridan-Grant elopement were already traveling the beau monde grapevine, but the Spectacle, as usual, was the first to put confirmation in print.
Marcelline looked up. “They say Miss Grant’s papa will bring a suit against Sheridan in Chancery,” she said. “Exciting stuff, indeed.”
At that moment, a footman entered. “Lord Longmore, your grace,” he said.
Not now, dammit, Sophy thought. Her sister had the beau monde in an uproar, she’d made a deadly enemy of one of its most powerful women—who happened to be Longmore’s mother—customers were deserting in droves, and Sophy had no idea how to repair the damage.
Now him.
The Earl of Longmore strolled into the breakfast room, a newspaper under his arm.
Sophy’s pulse rate accelerated. It couldn’t help itself.
Black hair and glittering black eyes . . . the noble nose that ought to have been broken a dozen times yet remained stubbornly straight and arrogant . . . the hard, cynical mouth . . . the six-foot-plus frame.
All that manly beauty.
If only he had a brain.
No, better not. In the first place, brains in a man were inconvenient. In the second, and far more important, she didn’t have time for him or any man. She had a shop to rescue from Impending Doom.
“I brought you the latest Spectacle,” he said to the pair at the table. “But I wasn’t quick enough off the mark, I see.”
“Sophy brought it,” said Marcelline.
Longmore’s dark gaze came to Sophy. She gave him a cool nod and sauntered to the sideboard. She looked into the chafing dishes and concentrated on filling her plate.
“Miss Noirot,” he said. “Up and about early, I see. You weren’t at Almack’s last night.”
“Certainly not,” Sophy said. “The Spanish Inquisition couldn’t make the patronesses give me a voucher.”
“Since when do you wait for permission? I was so disappointed. I was on pins and needles to see what disguise you’d adopt. My favorite so far is the Lancashire maidservant.”
That was Sophy’s favorite, too.
However, her intrusions at fashionable events to collect gossip for Foxe were supposed to be a deep, dark secret. No one noticed servant girls, and she was a Noirot, as skilled at making herself invisible as she was at getting attention.
But he noticed.
He must have developed unusually keen powers of hearing and vision to make up for his very small brain.
She carried her
plate to the table and sat next to her sister. “I’m devastated to have spoiled your fun,” she said.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I found something to do later.”
“So it seems,” Clevedon said, looking him over. “It must have been quite a party. Since you’re never up and about this early, I can only conclude you stopped here on your way home.”
Like most of his kind, Lord Longmore rarely rose before noon. His rumpled black hair, limp neckcloth, and wrinkled coat, waistcoat, and trousers told Sophy he hadn’t yet been to bed—not his own, at any rate.
Her imagination promptly set about picturing his big body naked among tangled sheets. She had never seen him naked, and had better not; but along with owning a superior imagination, she’d seen statues, pictures, and—years ago—certain boastful Parisian boys’ personal possessions.
She firmly wiped her mind clean.
One day, she’d marry a respectable man who would not get in the way of her work.
Not only was Longmore far from respectable, but he was a great thickhead who constantly got in one’s way—and who happened to be the eldest son of a woman who wanted the Noirot sisters wiped off the face of the earth.
Only a self-destructive moron would get involved with him.
Sophy directed her attention to his clothes. As far as tailoring went, his attire was flawless, the snug fit outlining every muscled inch from his big shoulders and broad chest and his lean waist and narrow hips down, down, down his long, powerful legs . . .
She scrubbed her mind again, reminded herself that clothing was her life, and regarded him objectively, as one professional considering the work of another.
She knew that he usually started an evening elegantly turned out. His valet, Olney, saw to it. But Longmore did not always behave elegantly, and what happened after he left the house Olney could not control.
By the looks of him, a great deal had happened after Olney released his master yesterday.
“You always were the intellectual giant of the family,” Longmore said to the duke. “You’ve deduced correctly. I stopped at Crockford’s. And elsewhere. I needed something to drive out the memory of those dreary hours at Almack’s.”