A Scandalous Lady Read online

  “Her scrawny ass? She wouldn’t have brought in that much, and she knew it. In fact, most time she’s more trouble than she’s worth. Always dreaming, trying to put on airs like she’s better than everyone else.”

  “But you threatened her with prostitution anyway.”

  “She took risks, but she had a wild streak. She needed to learn her place.”

  Then why was he so insistent on having her back? Why go through all the trouble?

  Then it hit him. “How long was she with you? Ten years or so? That must have given her some ranking in the band. The others probably looked up to her.” In fact, he’d bet the castle that without her there to rally them, Swift’s income was beginning to suffer. “How’s the band now, Jack? I’ll bet you’re losing knucks left and right.”

  And Troyce knew then that he’d hit the mark. Swift charged, but Troyce was ready. He crouched low, caught Swift around the middle, and threw him over his shoulder. Swift bounced up and charged again. Brawn to brawn, wit to wit, the men wrestled for power, slicing each other with the mutual hatred in their eyes, growling into each other’s faces. Troyce managed to push Swift off. He suffered two sturdy blows to his face, before slamming his shoulder into Swift’s gut and tackling him to the muddy ground.

  And years of pent-up rage poured from his fists. For his parents, his grandfather, the title he never wanted, and the position it had put him in now. For villagers who hated him, a decrepit old manor house that drained his soul, and a marriage he dreaded with every fiber of his being.

  But most of all, the rage consuming him was on Faith’s behalf, for all she’d endured in her short life. He saw a little girl with amber gold hair, wandering around a cemetery, searching for the family who’d abandoned her. And he saw her at ten years old, selling matches on the street, her stomach pinched with such hunger that it made her easy prey for the wiles of a snake like Swift. And he saw her as she grew from girl to woman, desperate enough to keep herself off the streets that she took risks beyond reason.

  And he saw a lovely young woman beneath a staircase, a wreath of orange blossoms in her hair, watching rainbows dance.

  I used to dream of being a princess.

  His own actions toward her sickened him. He’d been so worried about what Faith might have been trying to take from him that he hadn’t given a single thought to what he was taking from her when he’d seduced her on the deck of his ship last night.

  She’d promised herself never to become what Jack would have made her. And she’d broken that promise. For him.

  A goddamn title. That’s what he’d been trying to hold on to.

  She’d been trying to hold on to herself.

  Gradually, he realized that his fists were no longer making connection with a solid object, and that someone was struggling to contain his flailing blows.

  “Lord Westborough, stop! You’ll kill him.”

  He went still and stared unseeingly at the face in front of his. Then the haze slowly receded from his eyes, and Bear’s frantic features came into focus. With deep, heaving breaths, his gaze swept the crowd surrounding him, their expressions fearful. Mothers held tight to their children. Crones leaned into burly, middle-aged men. Youngsters stared at him with mouths gaping and brows raised.

  Then he looked down at the mess he’d made of the man beneath him and was sickened.

  Troyce rose abruptly and backed away. No one said a word as he stood in the midst of them, dragging his bloody and swollen hand down his equally bloody and swollen face. Nor did he say anything to them.

  “Bear, I hereby appoint you village magistrate. Your first task is to dispose of that.”

  “Aye, milord.” He inclined his hairy head in the first gesture of respect Troyce had seen since stepping foot back on Westborough lands after an eight-year absence. “What do ye want me t’do with him?”

  Bear could throw him to the sharks for all Troyce cared. Except, that would be too easy. He remembered Faith’s concern over Swift’s band, and feared what might happen to any who remained in the tunnels if they weren’t cared for. “Lock him up tight somewhere until arrangements can be made to transport him to London.” He’d use whatever power he had as a peer to see Swift prosecuted. He wasn’t sure what he could do for the rest of the youngsters, but at least he could assure that Swift’s days of preying on the weak and helpless were over.

  The crowd parted as he made his way back to the livery where his horse waited. He didn’t even bother with a saddle; just swung onto his bare back and clucked him into motion.

  He arrived at the house a short time later and after washing up in the stables so he’d not frighten anyone else, he let himself into the house.

  Millie was in the entryway, dusting the tables.

  “Where’s Faith?”

  “Upstairs, milord.” The feather duster went slack in her hand, and her brow creased with worry. “What has she done wrong this time?”

  “Nothing—this time it’s I who did something wrong.” Troyce took the stairs two by two. He passed Devon as she was coming down.

  She held up her hand to stop him. “West, I need to speak with you.”

  “Not now, Devon.” Pushing past her, he continued up the stairs.

  He found Faith in the tower room, scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees.

  Feeling awkward and unsure of himself, Troyce stood in the doorway, his shoulder braced against the jamb. In his lifetime, he’d faced raging storms, violent blizzards, and typhoons powerful enough to make an iron man quake. Yet nothing nature could throw at him compared to the turbulence created in him by one wisp of a woman.

  “Faith,” he called softly.

  She stiffened, but went on as if he hadn’t spoken.

  “Faith, I owe you an apology.”

  She dropped the scrub brush into the bucket, wiped her hands down the front of her apron, then after getting to her feet, reached for a folded square of linen. “You owe me nothing, milord.”

  “Will you look at me?”

  She sighed, turned, and gasped. “Crikey, what happened to yer face?”

  He smiled at the blunted massacre of vowels. “ ’Tis nothing, love. A minor squirmish in the village.”

  “This weren’t caused by no minor squirmish. Ye look as if ye been trampled by a team of plow horses!”

  He closed his eyes, her touch on his face as close to heaven as he’d ever get. Damned if the temperature of his blood didn’t rise—among other things. “Faith, stop.” He gripped her hands within his own, drew them away from his skin, and stared at the work-worn palms. “There’s something I must tell you. What happened in the boathouse . . .” As he stroked her fingers, the memory of her clutching him in the throes of passion . . . “What happened between us should never have happened.”

  She went still, dropping her hands, then her gaze. “No, it shouldn’t have. Your future bride would be sorely disappointed if she knew her groom was tumbling the hired help the night of their betrothal.”

  “You know?”

  “Servants talk, Baron. Did you think I would not learn of the reason for such a grand affair?”

  “I wanted to tell you. If you’ll let me explain—”

  “You owe me no explanation.”

  She started to walk away from him, but he pulled her back and searched her eyes. Flat, emotionless, she stared back at him. “I have no choice, Faith. If I do not marry, I’ll lose everything.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” But he could see that she didn’t. And he took responsibility for it.

  He let go of her hand and strode slowly to the window. A flock of gulls hovered above the rocks jutting into the Channel below. A sailboat glided through the water. Troyce sighed. “I was barely twenty-one when my grandfather started pressuring me to marry. Twenty-one, Faith. Hell, I’d not even sown my oats yet, why would I want to tie myself down with a wife?

  “The pressure continued, and a year later, he issued an ultimatum—marry a woman who met his standar
ds or he would cut me off. She had to be of noble blood, virtuous of character, and wealthy in her own right.”

  “Why of his standards? Why not marry for love?”

  “Because,” Troyce turned to face her, sat on the window ledge, and crossed his arms loosely over his chest, “my father had defied him by marrying my mother and lived in misery for the rest of his life. I swore then that I’d not make my father’s mistake, but neither was I going to let some crotchety old Frenchman tell me how to live. Hell, I was young and arrogant and quite full of myself. I’d never wanted the title and didn’t want the old man’s money. I told him so, and vowed then and there to make my own fortune so neither he nor my parents could ever use it as a weapon against me. I went to America to learn of ships. My mother was horrified, my father ambivalent. Miles and I had a grand time.” He found himself smiling at the memories.

  The smile faded. “Then . . . my mother died, my father grew ill. Westborough fell to ruins. The villagers raided the place, stole everything that might have saved their miserable lives. Most left after that, but some stayed on. They blamed my father for abandoning them and accused me of deserting them. And they were right. I should never have left. I should have accepted my duty. Instead, I ran from it, and I failed them.” He silently begged her to understand. “I cannot fail them again, Faith.”

  “And I would not expect you to. They depend on you.”

  “Why are you being so damned agreeable?”

  “Do you expect me to forbid it? To fall to my knees? Beg you not to break my heart? I won’t do it. If I was foolish enough to fall in love with you, it’s my own fault. As you’ve so oft reminded me, milord, I am naught but a servant here, at your beck and whim until I repay the amount stolen from you in London.”

  For several long moments, neither spoke. Troyce considered telling her that he’d developed feelings for her as well, but he wasn’t sure if he would call it love. What was love, anyway? Besides, what purpose would it serve? Would it change anything?

  No. Because no matter what he felt, he still couldn’t have her.

  So he did the only honorable thing he could do. “There’s something else I must confess, Faith. Your debt to me is clear.” A knot rose in his throat. “You are free to go if you wish.”

  She choked on a laugh. “I want no favors, Baron. I told you, I won’t be your whore.”

  “It’s not a favor, Faith. I told you that when the money that was taken from me was repaid, your debt would be clear. I reclaimed the money from Swift when I went to London.”

  He watched her calculate the days in her mind and felt his heart sink as her temper rose.

  “You kept this from me?” she whispered. “You’ve had the money for weeks, and yet you let me believe that I was still indebted to you? Why? Why would you do that to me?”

  “Because I was afraid you would leave.” Because it kept her close. Kept her indebted. What a bloody arrogant ploy. When had he become such a pompous ass? When had he sunk to the depths of the Jack Swifts of this world? “If you choose to leave now, I wouldn’t blame you. I will not force you to remain here against your will.”

  “And where the bloody hell am I supposed to go, Baron?”

  “Wherever you wish. Maybe you could search for your family.”

  “I told you, I’ve no desire to search for them.”

  “My original offer still stands, Faith. You’re welcome to stay here at Westborough for as long as you wish. You could live in the cottage, if that’s what you want, and continue working in the manor. I can’t pay you now, but until such time as I . . . as I marry, you would at least have food and shelter and clothing.”

  He expected her to stay on? Watch him marry another woman? Cater to her and the children they would one day have? Go on and pretend as if nothing had happened on the decks of La Tentatrice?

  He was staring steadily at her, as if waiting for her to decide, when Devon appeared in the doorway of the tower room.

  “Troyce, I must speak with you.”

  “Not, now Devon.”

  “ ’Tis important.”

  Grateful for the reprieve, Faith started out the door, only to find her way barred by Lady Brayton.

  “No, you should stay, Miss Jervais, since this concerns you.” To the baron, she said, “This was found in Faith’s room this morning.” She opened her palm and in it glittered the diamond brooch.

  Faith felt every drop of color drain from her face. A roaring began in her ears, dimming the conversation around her.

  “She’s stealing from us—from me.”

  “Like she supposedly stole your gown?”

  “I was mistaken on that, but there is no mistake now. It was found in her room, on the floor under the bed.”

  “That doesn’t prove she took it.”

  “Then perhaps you should ask her.”

  “Faith?”

  She forced herself to look at him, at his tight jaw, his tense shoulders.

  “Can you explain how Devon’s brooch came to be found in your room?”

  Look what I found, Fanny!

  Put it back, Scat.

  Why hadn’t he returned the baubles where he’d found them like she’d told him to? Her imagination conjured his young face, white with terror, ghostly screams of help, the clank of iron bars shutting, so vividly that she jerked.

  “Faith?”

  “It was me,” she whispered.

  The baron went still. “What?”

  “It was me. I st-st-stole it.”

  The room got so quiet she could hear her heart beating. Ticking. Like minutes on the clock of her life.

  “I don’t believe you,” the baron said.

  That she was able to keep her tone calm, flat, amazed her when every nerve screamed in panic. “I said I did it, Baron. Have you ever known me to lie?”

  “Then say it again—without stuttering this time.”

  She pinned him with blazing eyes. “Go to hell!”

  “I know you didn’t take this gewgaw any more than you took Devon’s dress. So who are you covering for? Is it the lad?”

  The room started to spin. He didn’t believe her. The blimey son of a bitch still didn’t trust her word, and Faith didn’t know if she should laugh in joy or wail in sorrow.

  When she refused either to reaffirm or retract her statement, his mouth flattened, and with determination in his stride, stormed between her and his sister, out the door.

  “What are you going to do, West?” the duchess cried.

  “Something I should have done long before now.”

  Faith didn’t begin to worry until late the next morning when the baron still hadn’t returned. She told herself that he was a grown man. That he could take care of himself. But it wasn’t like him to leave without a word to anyone.

  Hoping to take her mind off the heap of worries piled on her plate, Faith alternated between pacing the tower floor and cleaning in a frenzy.

  “Zounds, Fan, take a look at these!”

  She glanced across the baron’s study, where Scatter, who was supposed to be helping her dust the frames depicting the de Meir line, was instead reaching for one of a pair of ornamental cutlasses set on brackets attached on the wall. “Don’t touch those, Scat. We’re in a deep enough pot of boiling water.”

  He ignored her, as usual, and lifted one of the curved swords from its holder. “Do you think we’ll go to prison, Fanny?”

  “You aren’t going anywhere.” What would happen to her, she couldn’t begin to guess. “It really bothers me how the duchess’s brooch could have been found in my room.”

  “It was in the sack with the rest of the swag when I put it back in the stables.”

  “And you swear you put it back?”

  “I swear on me life. Now the whole swag is gone again. I’m betting someone swiped me spoils, just like I told you they would.”

  Aye, and that’s what really had Faith perplexed. Someone in Westborough was stealing. It wasn’t Scatter. And it sure wasn’t her.
r />   But someone was.

  Sometimes she thought the best thing for all of them would be if she and Scatter just padded the hoof, like in the old days. What stopped her, she couldn’t say. Maybe it was the fact that so much still lay unsettled between her and the baron. Or maybe it was that running seemed an admission of guilt. Or maybe it was just the not knowing who—or why—someone wanted her gone so bad that they’d make her look like she was stealing. Whatever the reason, she remained at Westborough, waiting for the lord of the manor to return. Then, and only then, when she could tell him to his face that she was leaving, would she leave.

  “Scatter, I told you not to touch those,” she scolded him as he stood in the middle of the study, swishing the cutlasses through the air like a swashbuckler. “Now put them away before you get hurt—”

  One of the swords clattered to the floor.

  “Or they get broke.” And she wound up in debt to the baron again.

  Sighing, she stepped down off the stool and picked the weapon off the floor.

  “On guard!” Scatter immediately struck the pose.

  “It’s not ‘on guard’, it’s en garde, ye little bugger. Now for the last time, put them away.”

  “Aw, come on, Fan! ’Member when we saw those sword-fighters down in Covent Garden?” He danced from one foot to the other. “Swoosh! Swoosh!”

  She popped the flailing blade aside with the one in her hand. “Move, ye little leech.”

  “I see you’re no better at sword-fighting than you are at banister-riding.”

  Faith spun around. “Your Grace!”

  Lady Brayton entered the study and stopped beside Scatter. Her hair was perfectly coifed as usual, her gray silk gown immaculately pressed. She took the cutlass from Scatter and ran two fingers down either side of the dull, curved blade.

  Not a word had been spoken between them since Lady Brayton accused her of stealing the brooch, but the woman’s animosity hadn’t lessened. Seeing her holding the sword, watching her slide her fingers down the curved blade, glimpsing a mysterious glint in her eyes made Faith wonder if, like the baron’s, Lady Brayton’s anger was the kind that simmered below the surface.