One Night Of Scandal (35 page)

As the carriage hurtled across the moor, Hayden gazed out the window as he'd done for most of the journey, his profile as bleak as the winter sky. He'd barely spoken a word to Lottie since they'd left London, retreating back into that wary shell where she had first found him. But when she reached for his hand, he took it and laced his fingers tightly through hers.

As they turned into the manor's drive, a winter squall seemed to be blowing in from the sea. Rain scented the chill air and the rising wind whipped the naked branches of the orchard trees into a dancing frenzy.

The carriage rolled to a halt. Before Lottie could even gather her skirts, Hayden had flung open the door and was racing toward the manor, shouting his daughter's name.

Lottie reached the house just as Martha came bustling into the foyer to find her master standing there, hatless and frantic.

"What on earth are you doing here, my lord?" she asked, her round face wreathed with shock. "If you'd have sent word that you were returning so soon, we would have prepared your— "

Hayden caught her by the shoulders before she could finish. "Is Allegra here, Martha? Have you seen her?"

Martha blinked dazedly. "Allegra? Of course Allegra's not here. She's in London with you."

Lottie glanced desperately around the foyer, her gaze finally settling on the mirrored hall tree, where a stack of unopened envelopes lay, awaiting Hayden's return. "The mail, Martha," she said urgently. "Has the mail arrived today?"

"Why, I believe so. I sent Jem to the village to collect it over an hour ago." She waved a dismissive hand. "There was nothing of any import — just a few notices and a letter from your cousin Basil."

Lottie and Hayden exchanged a wild look.

"Allegra!" Hayden shouted, starting up the stairs.

"Allegra!" Lottie echoed, flying down the corridor that led to the kitchens.

They met in the music room a short while later, both hoarse and out of breath.

"I can't find a trace of her anywhere," Hayden admitted, his face reflecting his despair.

"None of the servants have seen her either." Lottie shook her head. "Oh, Hayden, what if we were wrong? What if we're here and she's somewhere in London — lost and frightened and all alone."

Hayden gazed up at Justine's portrait, his hands clenched into fists. "But your niece swore she was coming here to see her mother."

The words had barely left his lips before he slowly turned to look at Lottie, the dread in his eyes chilling her blood to ice.

* * *

Allegra stood at the edge of the cliff, her traveling cloak billowing in the wind. She looked very small and very fragile against the roiling backdrop of sky and sea. Making a small, strangled sound in the back of his throat, Hayden started forward. Lottie grabbed his arm, pointing at the loose rocks beneath his daughter's feet.

They crept forward as one, terrified that their approach would startle her over the edge.

When they had drawn close enough to be heard over the roar of the waves crashing against the jagged rocks below, Hayden gently called out, "Allegra."

She turned, the sudden motion making her sway. Hayden's muscles went rigid and Lottie knew it was taking every ounce of his self-control not to spring forward and try to snatch his baby up into his arms. Tears misted Lottie's eyes when she saw the ragged doll Allegra was clutching.

"Allegra, darling," Lottie said, smiling tenderly at the girl, "your father and I have been so very worried. Won't you come here and let us have a look at you?"

Allegra shook her head fiercely, the wind whipping her loose hair across her tear-streaked face. "I don't want you looking at me. I don't want anyone looking at me."

Lottie and Hayden exchanged a bewildered glance. Stretching out one hand, Hayden began to inch closer to Allegra. She recoiled, skittering even closer to that deadly abyss. As he froze, his hand still outstretched, Lottie would have traded ten years of her life to be spared the look she saw on his face in that moment.

"Are you afraid of me, Allegra? Is that it? Are you afraid of me because you think I hurt your mother?"

She shook her head again. "I know you didn't hurt her. I heard you and Lottie talking. I know the truth now. I know exactly who killed my mama."

Hayden could barely choke out the word. "Who?"

Allegra lifted her chin, looking her father in the eye. "I did."

Hayden took two more steps toward her, unable to stop himself. "Of course you didn't! How can you say such a ridiculous thing?"

"Because it's true! I couldn't understand why she loved me so much on some days, but couldn't seem to stand the sight of me on others. One day I stood outside her door for hours and I cried and I begged her to come out and play with me. But she wouldn't. So I got mad and I shouted, 'I hate you! I hate you! I wish you were dead!' " Allegra's chest hitched with a broken sob. "And then she was."

"Oh, honey." Hayden dropped to his knees in front of her, blinking back his own tears. "You didn't kill your mama. You're not to blame for her death. Your mother was very sick and she didn't know any other way to end the pain." He shook his head helplessly. "She loved you so very much. You were the light of her life. If she hadn't been sick, she would have never left you. She would have never left either one of us."

Lottie squeezed Hayden's shoulder, knowing it was the first time he'd ever said those words and believed them. He wasn't only exonerating Allegra; he was forgiving himself for all the sins he'd never committed.

He stretched one trembling hand toward his daughter. "Please come here, sweetheart. Come to Papa."

Allegra's face crumpled. She reached for him, but in that moment, a violent gust of wind caught her cloak and tugged her backward. Her feet began to slide on the loose rocks. As her legs pedaled madly, fighting for balance, Hayden lunged for her and Lottie lunged for Hayden.

Allegra screamed, the shrill sound the stuff of nightmares. Hayden caught the front of her cloak inhis fist just as Lottie's doll slipped out of her arms and went plummeting toward the crashing waves below. The three of them teetered there, trapped in a battle with the wind. Digging her fingernails into the back of Hayden's coat, Lottie gritted her teeth and tugged with all of her might, knowing he would never let go of his daughter, not even if he had to go over the edge of that cliff with her.

Terrified that she was going to lose them both, she clenched her eyes shut and whispered, "Please, oh dear God, please…"

At that precise moment, a wild surge of jasmine-scented wind propelled Allegra up and into her father's arms. All three of them went tumbling backward, collapsing against the rocks.

"Oh, Papa!" Allegra cried, throwing herself into Hayden's arms for the first time in four years.

Wrapping his arms around her, he buried his face in her tangled hair. "It's all right, baby. Papa's here. He'll never let you go."

Trembling with relief and astonishment, Lottie glanced toward the cliff. The ethereal outline of a woman was drifting in the air. As she smiled and nodded without a trace of mockery in her sparkling violet eyes, Lottie finally understood the message she had returned to deliver — in death she had finally found the peace that eluded her in life.

Lottie slowly nodded back at her, accepting Justine's unspoken blessing to make this man and child her own. By the time Hayden lifted his head, she was gone as if she had never been anything more than a wisp of cloud drifting across the stormswept sky.

As Hayden reached for Lottie, drawing her into their enchanted circle, she smiled up at him through a shimmering veil of tears. "It's all right, Hayden. I understand now that Justine will always be your first love."

He cupped her cheek in his hand, his green eyes both fierce and tender. "Justine might have been my first love, but you, my sweet Lottie, will be my last."

As his lips brushed hers, his kiss flooding her with wonder and hope, the sun broke through the clouds and a merry measure of piano music drifted to their ears.

Hayden froze. "Did you hear that?" he asked, looking around wildly. "Do you think it was a ghost?"

"Don't be silly, Papa," Allegra said, tilting her nose in the air.

Exchanging a grinning glance, she and Lottie finished in unison, "There are no such things as ghosts!"

Epilogue

From the society page of
The Times,
London, May 26, 1831:

Lady Allegra Oakleigh, the lovely young offspring of one of our fair city's most respected citizens, made her debut into society tonight at the home of the infamous Devil of Devonbrooke. She began the evening with a performance of Beethoven's "Tempest" on the pianoforte. When the guests, which included the king, were stunned into silence by her brilliance, her proud papa leapt to his feet, shouting, "Bravo! Bravo!," then proceeded to lead the crowd in a round of thunderous applause.

Her delighted stepmother, renowned author of
Lord Death's Bride
and
My Darling Bluebeard,
rarely left her husband's arms during the dizzying round of waltzes and quadrilles. When asked what she was working on next, she simply beamed up at her doting husband and replied,
"A Happy Ending."

Author's Note

In
One Night of Scandal
, Hayden's first wife, Justine, suffered from bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depression). Until recent decades, it was not known that bipolar disorder was caused by chemical imbalances in the brain— imbalances that can be effectively treated with medication just like heart disease, kidney disease, and diabetes.

Even today, the disease, which affects over two million adult Americans annually, is frequently misdiagnosed as depression or schizophrenia. If you or a loved one are experiencing marked fluctuations in mood, characterized by bouts of depression followed by periods of euphoria, insomnia, irritability, racing speech and thoughts, grandiose delusions, impulsiveness, poor judgment, reckless behavior, and in the most severe cases, paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations, please consult your physician or visit
www.bipolarawareness.com
for more information.

Today, adequate medical treatment can offer something Justine could only dream of…hope.

Godspeed,

Teresa Medeiros

December 9, 2002

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Claire DeAngelis, for giving me back my music; Jean Willett, for reading all of my different versions of Chapter One; tammy rae Cowan, for her faithful prayers, and the good Lord, for answering them; and my own "Mirabella," Buffy, who came into my life just when I needed her mischief the most.

My heartfelt gratitude goes to Carrie Feron, Andrea Cirillo, and my darling Michael, for believing in me.

About the Author

TERESA MEDEIROS wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one and has since gone on to win the hearts of both readers and critics. Her fourteen novels have appeared on all of the national bestseller lists, including the
New York Times
. She has won numerous awards, including two Waldenbook Awards for bestselling fiction. You can visit her website at www.teresamedeiros.com.

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Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ONE NIGHT OF SCANDAL.
Copyright © 2003 by Teresa Medeiros. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.

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Palm Reader January 2005 ISBN 0-06-082923-0