“Read that one again, Cook,” one of the scullery maids demanded, pointing over a footman’s burly shoulder.
“Read it yerself,” Cook snarled, leaning forward until her bony nose practically touched the table. “I ain’t done with this one yet.”
“She can’t,” the footman said. “Her mum never taught her how to read.”
The maid gave his liveried bottom a firm pinch. “But she taught me other things, didn’t she, Mac?”
As they collapsed on each other’s shoulders in a giggling heap, Cook handed a cheap broadside over her shoulder. “Here. Take this one. It’s got pictures.”
“Oooooh!” Cooing in unison, they snatched the broadside out of her hand, nearly ripping it in two in their eagerness. Lottie inched forward, her own curiosity getting the best of her. She turned her head this way and that, but could only make out a crude caricature of a man and woman.
“Will you just listen to this?” One of the maids who evidently could read held up a rumpled newspaper, her eyes glittering with excitement. “ ‘Before trapping him into marriage, she was rumored to have enjoyed a number of liaisons with other men, including a brief dalliance with the king himself.’ ” Several of the servants gasped. “ ‘Her former lovers claim that her lusty appetites were exceeded only by her ambition.’ ”
Lottie winced in sympathy. Once she might have pored over the broadside with a lurid hunger even greater than theirs, but now she felt nothing but compassion for its ill-used victim. No woman, however impure, deserved to have her reputation tarred with such a black brush.
Cook snorted. “Whirlwind courtship indeed! More like a spider spinning a web for the fattest, juiciest fly it could catch.”
“Ha! Listen to this!” Another pamphlet emerged from the fray. “ ‘After one torrid night of sin, the resourceful rector’s daughter found the randy nobleman to be the answer to all her prayers.’ ”
“She don’t look to be prayin’ in this picture!”
The footman held up the broadside, bringing the drawing into vivid focus. It depicted a young woman with enormous eyes, an exaggerated topknot of curls, and a jutting bosom, down on her knees before a sneering gentleman. The footman was right. She was most definitely not praying.
Lottie touched a hand to her stomach, feeling suddenly ill. Her hasty marriage might have placated the more reputable papers, but not these common rags. This was exactly what Sterling had sought to protect her from. He’d been willing to kill or risk being killed to silence these ugly voices forever.
“No wonder the master don’t seem in no hurry to welcome her into his bed,” one of the gardeners said. “He’s probably afraid he’ll catch the French pox.”
“Or he might be waitin’ to make sure she ain’t got some other gent’s get in her belly!”
They all burst out laughing, but the scullery maid’s cackle died on a shrill note as she turned. The color drained from her ruddy cheeks, leaving them white as chalk. At first Lottie thought she’d caused the violent reaction, but the woman’s horrified gaze was riveted on something just over Lottie’s left shoulder. One by one, the servants nudged each other into silence.
“Would anyone care to explain the meaning of this?” Hayden’s measured words cracked like gunfire in the sudden hush.
Lottie must have swayed without realizing it, for her husband’s hands closed firmly over her shoulders, steadying her. Although her first instinct was to sink into him, to absorb both his warmth and his strength, she forced herself to remain upright. He was accompanied by a scowling Martha and a white-faced Mrs. Cavendish.
Newspapers and pamphlets quickly began to disappear under the table. “We was just havin’ a bit o’ fun, m’lord,” Cook whined. “We meant no harm by it.”
As the footman sought to tuck the broadside behind his back, Hayden reached for it.
“No!” Lottie darted forward and snatched the paper from the servant’s beefy fist, wadding it into a ball before Hayden could see it.
Catching her by the wrist, Hayden tugged the broadside from her rigid fingers. As he unfolded it, she was tempted to close her eyes before he could realize what he was holding, but pride kept her burning gaze fixed firmly on his face.
As Hayden studied the crude drawing, a flush slowly crept up his throat. He lifted his dark-lashed eyes to hers, crumpling the paper in his fist. Despite the violence of the gesture, his voice was gentle as he said, “I’m so sorry. I had hoped to spare you this.”
Every trace of that gentleness vanished as he returned his attention to his staff. “Who brought this rubbish into my home?”
No one even dared to breathe.
Moving to Cook, he held out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she drew the yellowing newspaper out from under the table and laid it across his palm. He tossed it on the kitchen fire without even bothering to glance at it. The other servants wasted no time in rising to file past the hearth, casting each newspaper, pamphlet, and broadside on the flames until the stench of burning newsprint filled the air.
Hayden swung around, his eyes pitiless. “Mrs. Cavendish, I hold you personally accountable for the actions of your staff. Would you care to identify the culprit who brought this…this refuse into my house?”
The housekeeper actually took a step backward. “B-b-but, my lord, I knew nothing of this until Meggie came to fetch me, just as she did you. How on earth am I to find the guilty party?”
Martha was scanning the servants’ downcast faces one by one, her eyes narrowed. “You just leave that to me,” she muttered, disappearing down the darkened corridor that led to the servants’ quarters.
As the painful silence stretched, the footman ducked his head sheepishly and jerked his thumb toward the hearth. “Everybody knows they make up half that rot, m’lord. We meant no disrespect to her.”
Hayden took a step forward, tension coiled in his every muscle, and for one dark moment, Lottie thought he might actually lay hands on the man. “Her? Do you mean my wife, perchance?” The possessive gleam in his eye gave Lottie a delicious little thrill. “Your mistress? The marchioness?” Hayden’s frosty gaze swept over the rest of the servants. “The lady who has the power to dismiss the whole sorry lot of you with neither references or wages?”
They all looked so wretched that Lottie was about to reassure them she had no intention of doing any such thing when Martha came marching back into the kitchen, dragging a sobbing young maid. The girl’s ill-fitting mobcap had slid down over her eyes. All that was visible of her face were two quivering lips and one very red nose.
“I’ve found our culprit!” the old nurse announced triumphantly. “All it took was a sound pinch and she confessed to having those nasty scandal sheets squirreled away in her valise. Well, you wicked girl, have you anything to say to your mistress before she sends you packing?” Martha gave the maid a shove toward Lottie, snatching away her mobcap.
The girl squinted at Lottie through her tears, her limp brown hair plastered to her head and her round face blotchy from weeping.
Lottie gaped at her. “Harriet?”
“Lottie!” With a broken wail, Harriet came barreling into Lottie’s arms, nearly knocking her off her feet.
Chapter 12
His cruel, yet handsome, visage began to haunt my dreams, as well as my waking hours…
MARTHA LOOKED UTTERLY AGHAST. “MY LADY, whatever are you doing? Surely you don’t know this creature?”
“I most certainly do.” Still reeling with shock, Lottie wrapped a protective arm around the sobbing girl and glared at the nurse. “This creature is my dearest friend in all the world—Miss Harriet Dimwinkle. Her father is a magistrate in Kent.”
“A magistrate?” As Martha went stumbling backward, Cook shoved a chair beneath her.
The old woman sank heavily into it. Judging from the bruises on Harriet’s arms, some faded and some fresh, it wasn’t the first time she’d been pinched for one infraction or another. And judging from Martha’s glazed eyes, she was already entertaining
visions of herself imprisoned in the stocks of some idyllic English village.
Although Mrs. Cavendish clucked disapprovingly, her eyes glinted with triumph. “You should have listened to me. I warned you that nothing but trouble would come from hiring the silly—” As Lottie turned her glare on the housekeeper, Mrs. Cavendish smiled through clenched teeth. “—the dear girl.”
Two more chairs were quickly provided for Lottie and Harriet. Lottie gently guided her friend into one of them and sat down across from her.
She chafed Harriet’s trembling hands between her own. “I thought you’d gone home to Kent. How on earth did you come to be here?”
“I’d be very interested in hearing the answer to that question myself,” Hayden said, fishing a handkerchief out of his waistcoat pocket and handing it to Harriet. He leaned against the stone hearth, looking even more infuriatingly masculine than usual in this feminine domain.
“I ran away,” Harriet blurted out between breathless hiccups. “I let the duke and duchess believe I was returning to my family, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go back there. I knew how disappointed my parents would be to find me back on their doorstep. They were so hoping I’d find a husband in London to take me off their hands!”
“But how did you get all the way to Cornwall without even a servant to look after you?” Lottie asked.
“Your sister put me on the coach to Kent, but I crawled out the other door and traded my best brooch for a ticket on a mail coach traveling to Cornwall.” Harriet honked loudly into Hayden’s handkerchief. “I knew no one would miss me.”
“You poor dear.” Lottie brushed a limp lock of hair from Harriet’s eyes. “What happened to your spectacles?”
“I took them off on the coach to polish them and this rather large gentleman climbed in and sat right on top of them. Instead of apologizing for crushing them, he yelled at me for being stupid and careless.” Fresh tears flooded Harriet’s eyes.
Lottie squeezed her friend’s hands before she could start wailing again. “Why didn’t you come to me right away? Why did you feel you had to masquerade as a maid?”
Harriet shot Hayden a furtive glance. “I was afraid he’d send me back to my family.” She leaned closer to Lottie, lowering her voice to a stage whisper clearly audible to everyone in the room. “Or make me disappear.”
Hayden rolled his eyes. “As fascinating as your adventures may be, Miss Dimwinkle, you still haven’t explained how you came to be in possession of those broadsides and scandal sheets.”
Harriet lifted her damp brown eyes to him. “They were selling the horrid things in the street in front of the inn while I was waiting for my coach. I spent my last shilling buying up as many as I could afford so no one else would see them. I was going to burn them the first chance I got.”
“But you didn’t,” Hayden gently reminded her.
“To be honest, I forgot all about them. What with all the dusting and sweeping and shouting…”
“And pinching.” Lottie shot Martha a reproachful look.
Harriet shrugged helplessly. “I’ve no idea who stole them out of my valise and left them out for the other servants to find. Who would do such a cruel and wicked thing?”
“Who indeed?” Lottie murmured, feeling her mouth tighten.
Too late, she realized Hayden’s speculative gaze was locked on her face. When he pushed away from the hearth and strode from the kitchen without a word, she had no choice but to follow.
They found Allegra in the schoolroom, sitting at her little wooden desk in a pool of sunshine. She was copying numbers from her primer into a blank ledger in neat columns. Her dingy stockings were both pulled up and a faded lavender ribbon held her cloud of dark hair out of her face. Lottie’s doll was propped at the desk beside her, wearing a matching ribbon in her scorched yellow curls.
As Lottie entered the schoolroom, Allegra beamed up at her. “Good afternoon, Mummy. Is it time for my lesson?”
“You might say that,” Hayden said, stepping around Lottie in the doorway.
As his imposing figure cast a shadow across her desk, Allegra’s smile faded.
“Have you anything to say for yourself, young lady?” he asked.
Allegra slowly closed the primer before rising to face her father. She didn’t waste her breath denying his unspoken accusation. “I won’t say I’m sorry because I’m not. I thought they should know. I thought everyone should know just what sort of woman you’d married.”
Lottie fought to keep her temper in check. “You might be too young and naive to realize this, but the stories they print in those sort of papers are not only unkind, but untrue. The only way they can turn a profit is by spreading lies about innocent people.”
The girl reached beneath her primer and pulled out another pamphlet. Judging from its ragged condition and the dirty little fingerprints that stained it, it appeared to have been read more than once.
“What about this story? Is it a lie as well?” She began to read, both her voice and her hands shaking. “‘Many still remember when Oakleigh employed his lethal charms to woo and win the heart of the exquisite Justine du Lac. His new bride had best beware. It seems that falling in love with the Murderous Marquess is only one short step away from falling over a cliff. Or being pushed.’”
For one terrible moment, Lottie couldn’t even look at Hayden. All she could do was hold her breath and wait for him to burst out laughing, to rumple his daughter’s hair and scold her for paying any heed at all to such nonsensical rubbish. All it took was one look into Allegra’s stricken eyes to know that she was waiting for the same thing. And that she’d been waiting far longer than Lottie had.
Lacking the child’s patience, Lottie turned and boldly looked at him.
“Go to your chamber, Allegra,” he ordered, his face as striking and expressionless as a mask. “And remain there until I send for you.”
A strangled sob tore from Allegra’s throat. Hurling the pamphlet to the floor, she went tearing past them and out the door. Shooting Lottie an unreadable glance, Hayden turned on his heel and followed.
Hayden drove his horse across the moor through the gathering dusk. He knew he could ride until they were both lathered with sweat, but there would be no escaping that moment in the schoolroom when Lottie had turned to look at him. In the years since Justine’s death, he’d grown accustomed to every sort of look imaginable—curious peeks, sly glances, suspicious glares. He’d even managed to steel his heart against the shadow of doubt that bruised his daughter’s eyes every time she lifted them to his face.
But when Lottie had turned her uncompromising blue eyes on him, begging—no, demanding—the answer to the one question no one else had even dared to ask, he had felt the defenses around his heart shudder as if from some terrible blow.
Shifting his weight and tugging on the reins, he wheeled the bay around at the edge of a dank bog and sent him thundering back toward the manor. He might be willing to risk his own neck by charging through the marshy turf, but he was not willing to risk the horse’s.
He should have known Lottie wouldn’t flinch from any challenge. To a man who’d spent the last four years measuring his every breath by what it would cost him, her reckless courage was both infuriating and irresistible.
Hayden almost wished he’d seen some damning trace of fear or loathing in her eyes. Perhaps then he could dismiss her as coolly as he’d dismissed the rest of his passions. But the possibility that she might believe whatever he told her—might believe in him—posed a temptation he had not anticipated. A temptation even sweeter and more dangerous than the luscious curves of her body.
Leaning low over the horse’s neck, Hayden drove his mount past the house and toward the cliffs, seeking to remind himself just how high the cost of surrender would be.
She stood at the very edge of the cliff, gazing down into the churning cauldron of the sea. Wave after wave crashed against the jagged rocks below, flinging sprays of spume high into the air. A cool cloud of mist rose t
o envelop her, clinging to her skin and molding the gossamer silk of her nightdress to her breasts and thighs. Although she shivered, she did not retreat. She’d dreamed of such unbridled wildness all of her life. While one part of her longed to escape the dark and windy night, another part of her yearned to throw her arms wide and welcome it, to give herself over to its all-encompassing embrace.
She slowly turned. He was there, just as she knew he would be, a darker shadow against the inky blackness of the sky. As he reached for her, she took one step closer to the edge of the cliff. But they both knew she would not flee. She could resist him no more than the tides could resist the relentless tug of the moon. Melting into his arms, she turned her face up to receive his kiss.
He took her mouth, softly and tenderly at first, then wild and rough, his tongue plundering its eager sweetness. She clung to him, returning his ardor with desperate abandon, knowing it would never be enough until every inch of their flesh was joined, until she surrendered to his will and took him deep inside of her. She ached everywhere he touched—her lips, her breasts, the hot, damp flesh between her thighs. Once he might have been content knowing he possessed both her body and her heart, but tonight his kiss demanded no less than her soul.
The wind grew even wilder, seeking to wrest her from his arms. But she knew she had nothing to fear, for he would never let her go. At least that’s what she believed until he tore his mouth away from hers and gave her a gentle shove. As she teetered there on the edge of that precipice, her arms still reaching for him, the last thing she saw was his face—both beautiful and chilling in its utter absence of regret.