"And what a tragedy that would have been. We might never have met."
Lottie had misjudged him. He was quite capable of being sardonic.
Ignoring her glare, he planted both palms on the desk. "Have you any idea what an untenable situation you've placed us both in, Miss… Miss…?"
"Fairleigh," she offered, bobbing him a one-handed curtsy that would have done Miss Terwilliger proud if Lottie hadn't been trying to hold up the bodice of her dress with the other hand. "Miss Carlotta Anne Fairleigh. But my family and friends call me Lottie."
His disparaging snort told her what he thought of that. "Yes, they would, wouldn't they? So, Miss Fairleigh, have you no care for your good name? Your reputation? No one ever truly appreciates their reputation until they've lost it. Trust me. I should know."
"But I haven't lost anything," she protested.
"Yet," he bit off through clenched teeth. As he came around the desk and started toward her, Lottie began backing toward the open window. "Just what would you propose I do with you now, Miss Fairleigh?"
She mustered up a hopeful smile. "Since chopping me up and hiding my body in the ash bin would be far too much bother, you might try smuggling me back into my aunt's house before Sterling misses me."
"Sterling?" he echoed disbelievingly, continuing to advance on her. "That wouldn't be Sterling Harlow by any chance, would it? The Devil of Devonbrooke himself?"
She waved away his concern. "Oh, he's not nearly so fiendish as all that. My parents died in a fire when I was only three. Sterling's mother, Lady Eleanor, took us all in, but she died when I was ten and Sterling has been both a brother and a father to me ever since he married my sister, Laura."
The marquess glowered at her. "Then you won't mind if I drag you over there by the ear and demand he give you the sound spanking you deserve."
She swallowed, her smile growing more wan. "Maybe the ash bin wouldn't be such a terrible fate after all."
His shadow fell over her. She half expected him to pitch her out the window, head first, but he simply scooped up the fallen mantle and swept it around her shoulders. She could feel the heat of his hands even through the soft, woolen folds.
"There's one thing you failed to explain, Miss Fairleigh. Why did you let me…?" He lowered his gaze to her lips, a fringe of thick, dark lashes veiling his smoky green eyes. "Was that to satisfy your curiosity as well?"
Unable to resist the compulsion, Lottie moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "No," she said softly. "It was to satisfy yours."
He was going to kiss her again. The knowledge darkened his eyes a heartbeat before he admitted it to himself. This time, he gently framed her face in his hands and kissed her as if it was her first kiss and his last. As he swirled his tongue through the warm, honeyed depths of her mouth, the most extraordinary thing happened. An array of golden notes poured through Lottie's veins, glorious and sweet, soaring on wings of melody. It took her a dazed moment to realize the music wasn't coming from her heart, but from the ballroom of her aunt's mansion.
"Oh, no!" She clutched at Hayden's muscular forearms, blinking up at him in wide-eyed horror."The musicians just struck up the first waltz! I should have already descended the stairs! Everyone should be admiring me! Sterling should be leading me out onto the ballroom floor for the first dance!"
Hayden was gazing over her shoulder and out the window, his expression inscrutable. "I'm afraid he might be otherwise occupied."
Lottie slowly turned to the window and gazed upward, an icy ball of dread already forming in the pit of her stomach. Even from their angle, she could see that the sitting room was no longer deserted. On the contrary, it appeared to be thronged with people.
But Lottie only had eyes for the pale, spidery figure garbed all in black who was hunched in front of the window with Lottie's own opera glasses pressed to her eyes. Lottie held her breath as Agatha Terwilliger handed the tiny binoculars to the tall, golden-haired man standing rigidly at her side.
It was too late to slam the window and jerk the drapes closed. As Sterling lifted the opera glasses, all Lottie could do was stand frozen in Hayden St. Clair's embrace.
Chapter 3
I fear my innocence was exceeded only by my impetuosity…
"THE GIRL IS RUINED. UTTERLY RUINED." Agatha Terwilliger lifted her quizzing glass and surveyed the occupants of the elegant drawing room of Devonbrooke House with a jaundiced eye. "It's just as I feared. I always knew she'd come to a bad end."
At that dour pronouncement, Harriet's sniffling spilled over into a sob. She was stretched out on a divan upholstered in green-and-gold striped damask, her face blotchy from weeping, her ankle propped on a bolster and swollen to twice its normal size. "You mustn't blame Lottie. It's all my fault! I'm the one who ruined everything! If I hadn't got scared and gone after her, then stepped in that hole in the side yard and made such a muddle of things, no one would have ever known she was missing."
"And if I and my companions hadn't heard you whimpering and moaning, you might still be lying in the grass like a beached cod," Miss Terwilliger snapped.
Duly chastened, Harriet subsided into hiccups.
Lottie's brother, George, fished a monogrammed handkerchief out of his waistcoat and handed it to Harriet. Having been named after St. George, he never could resist coming to the rescue of any damsel at the mercy of a dragon. "You mustn't blame yourself, Miss Dimwinkle," he said. "Miss Terwilliger was the one who raised the alarm when she failed to find Lottie in her room. If she hadn't been so persistent, none of Aunt Diana's guests would have even known my sister was missing." He leaned against the mantel with the world-weary grace he had affected in Europe, raking a lock of sandy hair out of his eyes. "Perhaps the situation isn't as grave as we fear. This is hardly the first scrape Lottie has gotten herself into."
"But it may very well best be the last." Miss Terwilliger folded her tiny, birdlike hands over the top of her cane and fixed him with a withering glare. "Tell me, son, does impudence run in your family?"
George's jaw tightened, his sullen expression making him look more twelve than two-and-twenty. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, plainly aware that any reply he could make would only prove her point.
From an overstuffed wing chair in the corner, Lottie watched the drama unfold. She sat with her bare feet tucked beneath the hem of her nightdress, a cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders, and afluffy gray kitten curled up in her lap. Cookie, the beloved old maidservant who had practically raised her from a babe, had shuffled in only minutes ago and pressed a mug of warm chocolate into her hands. So far, being nearly ravished by a nefarious murderer wasn't much different from having a nasty head cold.
But that was only because her guardian had yet to make an appearance since bundling her into a carriage and having her whisked away from her aunt's house. The last she'd seen of Sterling, he had been striding back up the walk toward St. Clair's house, her babbled explanations still ringing in his ears. She took a nervous sip of the chocolate, trying not to imagine what might be transpiring between the two men.
The ormolu clock on the mantel ticked away several more tense minutes, accompanied by Harriet's incessant sniffling. Miss Terwilliger's fuzzy white head drooped, her black lace cap sliding over one ear as she lapsed into a doze.
They all jumped when the front door slammed. There was no mistaking the resolute click of Sterling's heels as he crossed the marble foyer. The kitten leapt out of Lottie's lap and scurried under the nearest ottoman. Lottie wished she could do the same.
She sat up as Sterling and Laura appeared in the arched doorway. Although a few stray threads of silver tarnished Sterling's tawny hair, his golden good looks had lost none of their gleam in the ten years since he'd wed her sister. And if not for the worriedfrown creasing her brow beneath its cascade of rich brown curls, the willowy Laura could have easily been mistaken for a debutante herself instead of a mother of two. Even as a child, Lottie had always been round and curvy, where Laura was slender.
/>
Lottie kept her voice as bright as possible. "Oh, there you are! I thought you were going to stay out all night. Where are Nicholas and Ellie? Didn't they come home with you?" She had hoped the presence of her exuberant niece and nephew might temper the pall of dread that had fallen over the house.
Laura handed her mink-trimmed pelisse to a waiting footman, refusing to look at Lottie. "The children will be spending the night with their cousins. Under the circumstances, Diana felt it was the very least she and Thane could do."
Lottie sank back in the chair. Harriet's snuffling was torment enough. She didn't think she could bear anyone else blaming themselves for her bad judgment.
While Laura perched on the edge of a creamcolored sofa, still avoiding Lottie's eyes, Sterling crossed to the towering secretaire in the corner and poured a generous splash of brandy in a glass. He drained the glass in one swallow, his broad shoulders beneath his black tailcoat rigid with tension. Lottie's heart sank even further. Knowing his wife didn't approve of them, Sterling rarely indulged in strong spirits.
Cookie bustled into the drawing room, carrying a tray. She leaned over Lottie, her plump face wreathed in a tender smile. "There now, pet. Would you care for some nice warm gingerbread to go with your chocolate?"
Sterling swung around, clutching the glass in his white-knuckled grip. "For God's sake, would you stop pampering her! That's what got us into this bloody mess in the first place!"
Lottie froze, her hand halfway to the tray. Even Harriet stopped sniffling. The echo of Sterling's shout hung in the silence. In the ten years since he'd been Cookie's master, Sterling had never once raised his voice to her.
The old woman slowly straightened, her quivering chins held high. "As you wish, Your Grace." She bobbed a formal curtsy, her knees creaking from the effort, then turned and marched from the room.
Sterling's shoulders slumped as he watched her go. But it was Laura who finally spoke. "You might as well stop torturing yourself and everyone else, darling. You refused to breathe a word to me all the way home. But you can't keep what happened between you and the marquess to yourself forever."
Sterling rested the empty glass on the secretaire before facing them all. For the first time, he looked every minute of his thirty-eight years. "Lord Oakleigh says he has no intention of taking another wife. He claims he did not compromise your sister and he refuses to offer for her."
Harriet gasped, going so pale that George was compelled to exchange his handkerchief for the bottle of smelling salts Miss Terwilliger tossed to him.
Lottie drew in a shaky breath of her own, trying to convince herself that the emotion coursing throughher was relief. "That's all very well and good," she announced, tired of everyone talking about her as if she were invisible. "Because I wouldn't have had him anyway. He's nothing but a stranger to me. And an ill-tempered stranger at that."
They all turned to look at her.
"You needn't look so shocked. I told you that I tore my dress while I was climbing out the sitting-room window. The man may be a boor, but he's not a liar. He's innocent. He did not compromise me."
Laura's soft brown eyes sharpened as she studied her sister's face. "And can you deny that he kissed you?"
To her horror, Lottie felt her cheeks heat. Her sister's challenge summoned up other unbidden memories. Hayden St. Clair caressing a lock of her hair as if it were spun from the finest gold, the aching loneliness in his voice as he had gazed at her, the beguiling tenderness with which he'd cupped her breast.
It took a tremendous effort, but she forced herself to meet Laura's gaze. "And what's the harm in an innocent kiss? I dare say that George has stolen a few of them in his day. And no one is forcing him to marry anyone."
Her brother took a sudden and intense interest in the carved molding around the chimneypiece.
Sterling shook his head, his expression grave. "I'm afraid this man stole more than just a few harmless kisses. He also robbed you of any hope you might have had of making a decent match."
The certainty of his words made even Laura blanch. "Perhaps we shouldn't be so hasty to judge, Sterling. What if Lottie's right and it was nothing but a harmless kiss? Surely there will be other offers."
"Oh, there will be offers, all right," Sterling replied bitterly. "But not the sort we'd hoped for. By tomorrow morning, all of London will be reading about your sister's ruin in the pages of the scandal sheets."
Lottie exchanged a sheepish look with Harriet. Perhaps this was to be her punishment for all the hours the two of them had spent poring over those very newspapers, giggling over others' indiscretions.
"I don't see why I should have to wed at all," she said. "Surely there are other fates for a woman besides matrimony."
Miss Terwilliger banged the tip of her cane on the floor. "For once, the chit is right. Just look at me. I'm living proof that a woman doesn't require a man to lead a long and satisfying life."
As the shriveled little husk of a woman drew a yellowing handkerchief from her reticule and honked loudly into it, Lottie tried not to shudder.
"We appreciate your point, Miss Terwilliger," Laura said gently, "but no respectable family or establishment is going to hire a governess or teacher with a scandal in her past. Especially not one as lovely as our Lottie."
"I don't have to be a wife or a governess," Lottie protested, feeling her first twinge of genuine excitement. "Why, I could be a writer just as I've always dreamed! All I would require is some ink, some paper, and a small cottage by the sea somewhere."
Miss Terwilliger snorted. "I'd hardly call that ridiculous scribbling you do writing. Not with all of those wailing white ladies and vengeful dukes wandering around castles with their heads tucked under their arms. That sort of drivel is suitable only for lining birdcages."
Before Lottie could object, the timid Harriet piped up in her defense. "I like Lottie's stories… even if they do give me nightmares and make me sleep with the covers over my head."
"Carlotta's talent is not at issue here," Sterling said sharply. "Her future is." When he dropped to one knee in front of Lottie and took her hands in his, she almost wished he'd go back to yelling. His anger had always been easier to bear than his disappointment.
"You still don't understand, do you, poppet? This isn't like the time you tied the basket of frogs to Lady Hewitt's train or the time you hid the fox from Lord Draven's hunt beneath your bed. I can't fix this. I can't make it go away. All of my wealth, my titles, my political weight, my social standing — it's all worthless in the face of a scandal such as this. A reputation isn't a torn gown that can be mended with a needle and thread. Once ruined, it's forever lost." He reached up to stroke her hair, his amber eyes stricken by regret. "In all these years, the only thing I've never been able to protect you from has been yourself."
Lottie pressed his hand to her cheek, overwhelmed by the sense of helplessness that had brought this powerful man to his knees at her feet. As Laura bit her lip and Harriet reclaimed George's handkerchief and buried her face in it, Lottie was forced to blink back her own tears. "I'm so sorry. I wanted to make you proud tonight. Truly I did."
The effort Sterling put into his tender smile broke her heart anew. "I know, sweetheart. Now why don't you run along to bed and get some sleep while your sister and I decide what must be done."
* * *
… while your sister and I decide what must be done.
The utter finality of Sterling's words made even the thought of curling up in her cozy canopied bed impossible. She couldn't shake the suspicion that Sterling had already reached some irrevocable decision about her fate. Just as soon as George had escorted Miss Terwilliger to her carriage and two footmen had carried Harriet to a guest bedchamber, Lottie came creeping back downstairs, thankful that all the lamps in the foyer had been dimmed for the night.
The towering drawing room doors were still open. She slipped behind one of them and peeped through the crack between door and hinge.
Sterling was seated at the secre
taire, his hand moving rapidly as he scrawled something on a piece of stationery.
Laura was pacing behind him, her lovely face shadowed by agitation. "We should be relieved, shouldn't we? After all, this Lord Oakleigh is hardly the husband we would have chosen for Lottie. What do we know of him besides what's been written in the scandal sheets?"
"One can hardly rely on the tabloids for taking an accurate measure of a man's character."
Lottie wondered if Sterling was remembering the scandal his and Laura's own hasty wedding had ignited. The scandal sheets had refused to believe a notorious rakehell like the 'Devil of Devonbrooke' could have lost his heart to an orphaned rector's daughter without some subterfuge on her part. Of course, the true story was twice as shocking as what they'd printed.
"Perhaps it's just as well that he refused to offer for her," Laura said. "How could we have asked Lottie to marry a man who didn't want her?"
Her sister wasn't entirely right, Lottie thought with a dark shiver. Hayden St. Clair did want her. Just not for a wife.
"A man who might never love her?" Laura finished.
Sterling dipped his pen in a bottle of ink and continued writing. "Many long and solid marriages have been built on far more stable foundations than love."
"Not ours," Laura reminded him softly. "And not Thane's and Diana's. Or even Cookie's and Dower's. We're the ones who taught Lottie that love is the only foundation for a marriage. How could we be so cruel as to ask her to live the rest of her life without it?" Laura rubbed his rigid shoulders. "Why don't we just skip the Season and all go back to Hertfordshire in the morning? We've always been our happiest there. With enough time, some new scandal should drive all thoughts of Lottie and this marquess from everyone's mind."
Sterling reached back to pat her hand. "Time will solve nothing, my dear. I'm afraid that society has a very long and unforgiving memory. Hayden St. Clair should know that better than anyone," he added bitterly. "On the contrary, it will only be a matter of time before the less scrupulous gentlemen of our acquaintance come beating a path to our door, whether it be right here in London or in Hertfordshire. They will murmur their regret over our difficult situation. They will offer our Lottie their sympathy, their kindness, their protection. But they will not offer her their good names."