Scandalous Love (20 page)

Only her mother was
oblivious, and at that moment, Jane led Nicole toward the stairs.

A silence descended upon
the group left standing alone in the foyer. The Duke met Nicholas Shelton's
stare, which was cold and angry. He flinched inwardly. Even before Nicole's
disastrous faux pas, the other man had known that he and Nicole had not been
innocently alone all this time. The Duke had sensed it the moment he appeared,
and now Shelton's suspicions were confirmed.

When Nicholas Shelton
spoke, his tone was as frosty as his pale grey gaze. "Perhaps His Grace
would care to join me in the library? I should very much like to learn all about
Nicole's fall from her horse."

The Duke almost winced.
He had not a doubt that if he did not convince Shelton that his daughter had
not been ruined, a disastrous clash would occur. "Nicole is very
fortunate," he said politely. "Had I not taken the situation firmly
in hand, she would not have been so fortunate. But I can assure you that she
has not been harmed, and that she is in no way any the worse for what befell
her."

The Earl of Dragmore's
expression did not change. "I see," he said, his jaw tight. "Hopefully
there will not be another incident of this nature." His gaze locked with
the Duke's. "The consequences would be more than unpleasant,
I
assure
you."

"Of course
not," Hadrian said stiffly. The Earl was well within his rights, but the
Duke did not like being threatened, regardless of how justifiable the threat
was.

Shelton nodded and
turned abruptly, limping slightly from the pulled muscle in his leg. The Duke
watched him leave, finally allowing himself to feel the full brunt of his own
anger, and practically all of it was directed at himself. The fact that he had
very nearly ruined Nicole consumed him, as did how she had misconstrued his
intentions.

"You had better
start thinking about Elizabeth," Isobel said from behind him.

It was another warning
and his temper exploded. "I am marrying Elizabeth in June," he
snapped. "I have not forgotten that tor a second. And then all shall be
well, shall it not?"

Isobel looked at him
sadly.

"For everyone shall
be happy, shall they not?" His jaw clenched. "Or should I say—almost
everyone?"

He strode away, his
steps hard and angry. He had not meant to let his temper take over like that,
but it had, and with it had come knowledge of his deepest, most secret
feelings, which he did not want to confront. But it was too late. Everyone
would be happy when he married Elizabeth. Everyone except himself.

For he was no longer
looking forward to his upcoming marriage. Suddenly it loomed before him as
nothing more than an ultimate act of self-sacrifice.

It was not until late
that evening that Isobel was finally awarded the peace and privacy of her own
apartments, her guests having finally retired to their beds. Alone at last, she
was finally free to think—and to worry.

She stood in front of
the vast, marble-mantled hearth in her sitting room, staring at the dancing
flames. Gone was the convivial gaiety which had marked her expression earlier
and in its place was grave concern. Her blue eyes were anxious and she worried
the rose-colored sash of her silk peignoir.

Isobel was no fool. She
had never been one, although, at one time, when she was young, she had been
naive, innocent and gullible. Francis had changed that quickly enough—she had
been introduced to life's unpleasant side with little ado, and she had learned
and adjusted swiftly. Now she was in her mid-fifties and not merely a Dowager
Duchess, but an educated, experienced and intelligent woman, and something of a
businesswoman as well. Few women had experienced all that she had, and Isobel
knew better than most that life forever dealt wild cards, especially when one
least expected it.

Hadrian had fallen for
Nicole Shelton and it was obvious. It was equally obvious that the poor young
woman was wildly in love with her son. And they made such a striking couple, in
ways that had nothing to do with their individually astounding good looks.
Isobel was sad.

She was no stranger to
illicit love, nor to heartbreak. She knew too well the overwhelming pain
forbidden love
generated.
Although the pain would die a slow, lingering death, the sadness at what could
not be would never die, at least, for her it hadn't. Her heart ached now for
her son. She desperately wished that Hadrian was not in love with Nicole
Shelton, to spare him the grief that was certain to be his fate.

And poor Elizabeth. It
was a terrible triangle, for Isobel knew how dearly Elizabeth loved Hadrian.
Hadrian would never jilt her, Isobel was certain of that, he was far too
honorable. Just as she had been too honorable to run away from Francis. Like
mother, like son. It was frightening.

Isobel sank onto a
chaise, feeling the urge to shed tears. Her emotions were raw, as if she were
in her twenties again, as if she were that young woman falling in love for the
first time and tortured with her own illicit feelings for a man who was not her
husband. His image loomed before her as if it were only yesterday that they had
been together—tall and powerful, brown hair streaked gold by the sun, his face
weathered and rugged yet compellingly attractive. Her heart clenched painfully.
She realized that she was wrong—the pain never died.

She did not wish such an
ill-fated love upon anybody, and certainly not upon her son or Elizabeth, nor
even poor Nicole Shelton, who did not deserve all that her life had so far
meted out to her.

Isobel knew only too
well how love knew no bounds. Love did not submit to reason or to logic, it
defied all attempts at being circumscribed. Hadrian was powerful, noble and
honorable, but he was only a man. He would never intend to ruin Nicole, but
having seen them together, having felt the tension between them, how much
longer would it be before the inevitable happened? Hadrian would survive such
an indiscretion much more easily than Nicole, and it was not Isobel's place to
worry about the other woman, but she did. It wasn't fair, but then, life was
rarely fair.

She closed her eyes,
thinking of Hadrian—but not the man who was her son, rather, his namesake. Not
for the first time, and not for the last, she wished desperately that she dared
to tell her son the truth. Yet she, who had never been a coward before, was a
coward now. She was afraid to witness his shock, worse, afraid of the revulsion
he might feel, and she was afraid to lose his respect and his love. No, she
could never tell him, not even when he had every right to know, and the truth
had nothing to do with trying to teach her son so he would learn from her own
past mistakes. Because had she the opportunity to go back thirty years, she
would change nothing.

The Duke of Clayborough
could not sleep.

He had stopped at the
Stafford residence twice that day, as he had on his way back to London
yesterday, but both times Elizabeth had been sleeping and he had not spoken
with her. Even had he wanted to disturb her, he would not have been able to,
for she had been dosed with laudanum for the pain that was suddenly and
constantly afflicting her.

It was several hours
past midnight. Alone in his high-ceilinged bedroom with only the Borzoi for
company, Nicole's exotic image haunted him, and with it, Elizabeth's pale, delicate
one. No small amount of guilt tormented him, and no small amount of confusion.
He could no longer escape the truth.

No woman had ever
haunted his waking—and sleeping—moments the way that Nicole did. No woman had
ever created such enormous lust within him, and worse, no woman had ever caused
him to behave as abominably and dishonorably as he had with her. He was furious
with himself for responding to her the way that he had—for
allowing
himself
to respond to her the way that he had.

Leaving his bed, the
Duke slipped a velvet paisley robe over his naked body. He paced to the
fireplace, where the Borzoi thumped his tail in a happy greeting. The Duke
reached down to pet Lad's large head. "I no longer know who I am," he
admitted to the dog.

Every meeting they had
ever had replayed itself instantaneously through his mind. It was not the first
time, but the zillionth. It was torture. His body was tortured.

Was he like his father
after all? Had Francis been so obsessed by his young paramours that he could
not help himself but to consort with them and cuckold his mother? Perhaps
Francis had been tortured by his morals as well. Perhaps father and son were
more alike than anyone knew.

If there was any reason
to stay away from her it was this one, his own fear of turning out to be a
replica of his father, a man he could still hate to this day with no remorse.
Clearly he harbored within himself a dark side, one he had obviously inherited
from Francis, one which he must, at all costs, subdue.

"Damn her," he
said to the dog and the fire. Then he grimaced. "No, it is not her
fault—it is
mine."

Now Nicole Shelton
sought to re-enter society and gain a husband. The Duke knew he should not be
angry with her for such legitimate interests, but he was. Had she hoped he
would be a suitor, despite Elizabeth? That he would throw over one fiancee,
only to take another? He believed so.

His pulses had quickened
disturbingly. The Duke paced faster, the Borzoi watching him with hopeful
interest. The fire was dying to a soft glow. The Duke ignored the chill seeping
into the room. He was determined not to question his own reactions. Absolutely
not.

The Clayborough motto of
"Honor First" was not just embossed on his coat of arms, it was
emblazoned on his heart. No matter how he might now feel about his upcoming
wedding, he would not—could not—break the engagement. But what about Nicole?

He closed his eyes. She
wanted a husband. Every woman he knew wanted a husband, she was well within her
rights. She hoped to re-enter society successfully. Now she could do so because
he had extended his patronage to her. He could extend it even further. He could
be even more than honorable, he could be charitable—he could encourage suitable
prospects.
He could even find her a husband.

It was the right thing to
do. Somehow, Hadrian knew it in his heart. Yet the very idea was terribly
distasteful. And the more aware he was of how bilious he found the role of
matchmaking to be, the more determined the Duke became to aid her by finding
her a proper husband.

The Duke had scheduled
business engagements for all of the following day. Therefore he returned to the
Stafford residence early the next morning, hoping that this time he might be
able to visit Elizabeth. As it turned out she was awake and eager to see him,
according to her father, the Marquess of Stafford. Hadrian had only to look at
the man to know that she had not improved during the past few days. The
Marquess was red-eyed, as if he had not been sleeping well and his face was
drawn. In the few short weeks since Elizabeth had become visibly ill, he had
aged twenty years. Hadrian exchanged a few polite words with the man, and was
shown upstairs by the butler.

He stopped in the
entrance to her sitting room, motioning the butler to leave. Elizabeth appeared
to be sleeping. She reclined on a large chaise, covered with a heavy violet
angora blanket. She was terribly pale and frail-looking, dwarfed by the chaise,
which made her seem even more tiny and fragile. His heart clenched. She looked
much, much worse, and for the first time since she had become so obviously ill,
fear for her seized him.

Sensing his presence, or
perhaps hearing him, she opened her eyes. The Duke came swiftly forward,
managing a bright smile. It took her a moment to focus, then she smiled too.
"Hadrian." With that one word—his name—she expressed all of her
feelings for him and all of her pleasure at seeing him.

"Hello, Elizabeth,
I did not want to wake you." He sat down on an ottoman, pulling it up
beside her.

"I am glad you
came."

He managed not to show
his distress. Her voice was soft, breathless, barely audible. "Are you
feeling better today?"

Her eyes shifted away
from his. "A little."

He knew it was a lie.
And Elizabeth never lied. His fear increased, chilling him. He took her hand.
"Shall I tell you about the hunt?"

She nodded, the movement
eager yet slight.

For a few minutes he
proceeded to regale her with a description of the hunt. Her eyes almost shone
as he described the more difficult fences he had taken. When he paused, she
smiled. "It sounds wonderful. I'm so glad you went, Hadrian."

Holding her hand,
looking into her adoring eyes, hearing her selfless words, he cursed himself
for all the disloyal thoughts he had been having—and his disloyal behavior.
Elizabeth did not deserve him, she deserved better, but she was engaged to him,
and he owed her his loyalty. His determination to see Nicole wed increased.

"Hadrian,"
Elizabeth said, hesitantly. "What will you do if—if I die?"

Hadrian froze. "You
are not going to die," he said, horrified. She was expressing the terrible
fear he had and was too cowardly to face.

A slight sheen of tears
appeared in her eyes. "I fear you are wrong."

He swallowed, gripping
her hand. "You must not even think this way," he said firmly, but
God, she looked like she was dying. No one had ever looked closer to death's
door.

She blinked, turning her
head away. "I don't want you to grieve," she said unsteadily. "I
want you to be happy, I have always wanted you to be happy. You are young and
strong and already you have waited far too long to get on with your life."

"Elizabeth,"
he protested, ashen.

A tear slid down her
cheek. "Do you think that I don't know? I know that you are not really
happy, Hadrian, I have always known it, from the time I was a small
child."

He could not speak.

More tears fell. "I
wanted so much to be the one to bring happiness into your life. But it's not
going to be."

He gripped her small
hands.

"You need a son.
You should marry quickly and have a son." Now she was crying. "I
wanted to be your wife, I wanted to be the one to give you a son, I wanted to
make you happy. But for some reason, God is not going to let it happen."

Anguish flooded him and
he took her into his arms. She was as fragile and thin as an undernourished
waif of ten. He held her gently, the only time he had ever held her since she
had outgrown her pinafores, other than the one time he had kissed her on her
eighteenth birthday. How could she talk like this?

"I don't like this
kind of talk, Elizabeth," he managed. "You are young and you are
certainly not dying. We shall be married in June, and you shall give me a
son." He stroked her hair. "You are wrong, you make me very
happy."

She leaned back to look
at him and he saw that she was still crying, but silently now. "I don't
want to die. I love you so. All I've ever wanted was to be your wife. Oh,
Hadrian! It is not fair!"