Secrets of a Scandalous Bride Page 24

  It was the height of irony. If Leland Pymm behaved with any sort of honor toward the woman he obsessively loved—by defending her or even remaining silent in answer to these accusations, he would unknowingly condemn himself.

  It was a gamble only a mudlark would take. A man used to risking his life, risking his love when others would not dare.

  “He has the audacity to speak of honor,” Pymm finally said through clenched teeth. “Don’t you know, Manning, that no one cares about your lunatic ravings? You’ve done nothing with your life but groom horses at best. At worst, you are a petty criminal and now a slanderer. Any imbecile knows that most Englishmen possess French relations somewhere in their family tree. Get out of here before I demand reparation in so public a place.”

  Rowland watched the prince glance at his royal guards. He had but a moment. He took a smooth step closer. “And yet,” he said with a quiet viciousness devoid of any cockney, “you have used this knowledge of her French relations to blackmail Elizabeth Ashburton into marrying you. Do you deny it?”

  A wave of shocked whispers erupted from the crowd.

  The prince shook his head and sighed loudly. “Blackmail? Good God, Manning. You do like to tread the line of disaster. You now dare accuse our dear Pymm of such an atrocity?” But Rowland could see a hint of doubt blooming on the prince’s face.

  Pymm attempted to speak but Rowland continued, far louder, and without a trace of his former fabricated inebriation. “The general secretly holds letters…letters no one has ever seen, and he has suggested privately to Miss Ashburton that she and her father were traitors. He did it to force her to bend to his will—using blackmail. Well, Pymm, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot threaten her in secret, and now defend her in public. Or perhaps you can, since you have done so. But the one person you will answer to is me.”

  Still staring at Pymm, Rowland nodded to his brother and Helston, who brought forward the two portmanteaus.

  Pymm’s anger took control. “What have you there? Let me guess. Alleged blackmail money?”

  The kill was sickeningly sweet. “Actually, I am curious to hear you explain why you have suddenly delivered seventy thousand pounds to me.” He refused to give him a chance to speak. “Is it not the money you authorized from the royal treasury to silence me? To make me go away?”

  Pymm’s eyes widened as the full weight of Rowland’s accusations rolled through his consciousness. He gritted his teeth in frustration and then smiled. “You’ve lost your mind, Manning. You know very well that money is in payment for the eight hundred horses you were contracted to provide our country’s cavalry.” He sighed heavily, frustrated beyond endurance.

  The prince scrunched his brows in confusion. “Why would you scrape my coffers to purchase horseflesh in this time of peace, Pymm?” He scratched his chin. “I am baffled. Displeased, actually. I loathe wastrels. Indeed, it almost makes me regret your elevation.”

  Manning would have chuckled if he had not been so terrified of failing his objective. The Prince Regent was not known for any remote form of personal parsimony. However, someone else dipping into the royal treasury was another matter altogether. Prinny clearly held blackmail a distant second in importance.

  “Your Majesty,” Pymm said stiffly, “the contract was drawn many, many months ago. Well before we had a notion we would drive Bonaparte so quickly through the Pyrenees.”

  Rowland Manning took the chance of a lifetime, swallowing back fear as he watched his beloved’s desperate expression. “Majesty,” Rowland said quietly, “I am returning this gold to you. It is not in payment for the horses your military legally contracted me to provide. A very kind Lieutenant Tremont—he is here tonight, in fact—informed me not two months ago that the contract was rendered null and void when peace was declared. These guineas are without doubt naught but blood money, brought to me tonight to keep me silent. I will not allow it to touch my hands. I beg you to take it—all of it.”

  The prince pursed his lips. “So you would refuse seventy thousand pounds? And keep eight hundred horses unfit for anything but war?”

  “Eight hundred and twenty, Your Majesty,” he emphasized with expert reluctance. “But I do it for England. And I do it for her.” He nodded toward Elizabeth. “I do it for the daughter of a noble British company commander, who is not here to protect his innocent daughter from the likes of that damned blackguard Leland Pymm.”

  The prince raised his hands to silence the shocked sounds from the guests and shook his head slowly. “Manning, you will ever and always be confounding. But I will admit that you amuse me like no other.” His voice deepened. “And I shall have a full and thorough review of any and all of these charges. But first I must hear from Miss Ashburton.”

  Rowland had a crushing desire to leap onto the dais and wrest her away from Pymm, whose eyes were bouncing around, looking for escape and not finding any.

  The prince continued, “I see but two choices before you, my dear. You must either refute Mr. Manning’s allegations of blackmail and marry General Pymm, or you will implicate Pymm and take on the reformation of this horse trader before us. I fear you must choose if you want to keep a shred of reputation after today. So, which is it?” The Prince Regent, along with the hundreds of guests, leaned forward to hear her answer.

  Pymm’s countenance was wild now, and Rowland would have rushed to her side and pulled her into his arms—out of harm’s reach—if six royal guards did not stand between them.

  “Well?” the prince asked.

  All this time, the archbishop had stood slack jawed during the exchange. “Miss Ashburton,” he finally rasped, his sonorous voice quite gone, “you have nothing to fear. Tell all of us the truth.” He offered her his aged hand and she took it, her hand fluttering.

  “Your Majesty, since the day my father died at Badajoz, General Pymm has insisted he has letters from my mother’s relatives that would compromise my father and me.” She looked at her fingers, and Rowland’s gut twisted. “I’ve never seen these letters, but I do have French relations. Indeed, the one in question is General du Quesne, although I have never met him or had any correspondence with him. And I have never for a moment doubted my father’s loyalty to England. The general implied that my only recourse was to marry him, and that it was my father’s dying wish, despite the fact that my father had refused General Pymm’s offer for me not one week earlier.”

  The prince was, finally, shocked. “But why did you not come forward, if you are innocent?”

  She laughed without any humor. “Because I doubted anyone would take my word over that of the most decorated war hero of the century.”

  “Well, I shall show you that you are wrong, my dear. Pymm, you will bring these purported letters to me personally in the next hour. My guards shall help you,” he said sourly. “But you shall first tell everyone assembled if there is any indisputable proof that Elizabeth Ashburton or her father are guilty of crimes against the crown. And I warn you now that if you dare utter a single falsehood, I shall demand the return of every medal you possess.”

  Leland Pymm, third son of a minor baronet, directed his gaze to a distant corner and said not a single bloody word.

  Just as Rowland had thought.

  The Prince Regent reached forward and snatched the patent letters of nobility from Pymm’s numb fingers. “You are hereby stripped of the duchy for behavior unbecoming. I shall see to the rest after I see the letters.”

  Pymm’s countenance blazed. “And so this is how a grateful nation rewards its servants for single-handedly leading a nation to victory over its enemies?”

  There was the smallest sound of someone clearing his throat and all eyes turned to Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, who stared at Leland Pymm with a granitelike countenance.

  The prince shook his head at Pymm. “You are a fool. I regret I did not see it before now. Guards, search his affairs and return this man to me along with every piece of correspondence you can find,” the prince instructed. “Yo
u there, Mr. Manning. Come forward.”

  Rowland could have almost pitied the madman at the sight of his agonized expression if he had not wanted to horsewhip him even more. He crossed paths with Pymm and the latter sneered as if he could read his thoughts. Rowland saw nothing except Elizabeth, waiting for him, uncertainty on her fair features. Relief flooded him as he reached her side, yet he dared not touch her, dared not utter a whisper in her direction.

  Prinny had no such qualms. “Now, Mr. Manning, please keep in mind that I am fatigued by the folly of this day. But I recognize that no matter the reason why you have chosen to return this money that found its way into your possession—blackmail or otherwise—in the end you have done a noble deed. I like that.”

  Murmurs of approval erupted all around the chamber.

  And then the unmistakable voice of the damned dowager duchess piped up. “Will you in your great wisdom reward him then, Your Majesty?”

  Prinny lifted a diamond-encrusted quizzing glass to his eye and fixed it on Ata in a great show of annoyance. “Hmmm. Well, I suppose he has saved our nation a great deal by eliminating the need to reward a blackguard like Pymm, if he has the right of it. Might as well not waste what is left of the day. What shall I do for this man before us?”

  “Well, Your Majesty,” Ata inserted without hesitation, “bastardy is the very backbone of many of our great nation’s bloodthirsty thirteenth-century dukes.”

  Rowland froze and then noticed Helston’s horrified expression.

  “Yes, well, I think we have enough dukes as it is, madam. I do believe your grandson would agree.” A smile overspread the prince’s flushed face. “But I have an excellent notion now that you mention it. There’s a long-standing vacancy at St. James Palace. It is yours, Manning, if you should fancy it.”

  “Majesty?” he whispered with as much deference as he could muster, despite the rasp in his voice.

  “Master of the Horse.”

  Something welled up inside of Rowland’s throat. For the first time since he could remember, he couldn’t speak.

  “Well, say something, man. What? Is the Balreal viscountcy that comes part and parcel not sufficient? Or is it the income you find lacking?”

  “Income?” his voice was nearly gone.

  “Well, it might not be seventy thousand a year, but it is somewhat in the vicinity if I remember correctly. Of course, you would be required to oversee all of the royal household needs pertaining to carriages, horses, including the royal horse guards, and the like. Will it not suit?” The prince said it all with as much dry wit as the conferral of a windfall demanded.

  Ata meekly began, “Is there not a residence that conveys with…Er, what of Pymm’s property? Shall it—”

  “Madam,” the prince interrupted dryly, “there is no freestanding residence for the Master of the Horse. Royal apartments shall have to do. And, after all, the man does have a stable to run, apart from the aforementioned royal duties. The land I reserved for Pymm shall revert to the crown.”

  The prince offered the back of his hand to Rowland, who was too stunned to speak. A small, knowing smile appeared at the corners of the royal mouth.

  Helston moved to within a few feet of him and whispered, “Kiss His Majesty’s hand, you idiot.”

  Rowland managed a stiff approximation of the formality.

  “Very good, Manning. I trust you shall do the viscountcy proud. Helston shall undertake to refine your manners, I daresay.”

  The duke’s eyebrows nearly rose to his hairline, and Rowland could have sworn he heard Helston say something very like, “Not another bloody friend,” under his breath before he bowed. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  “Well then, I find I’m at the limits of my patience and munificence. I shall leave you all to make as merry as you choose, while I retire to pray for a return to some semblance of normalcy in the natural order of things—where generals behave with dignity and horse traders are the panderers we know and love.”

  The Prince Regent swept from the room in all his splendor, leaving the beau monde in attendance with enough scandalous gossip to entertain themselves for the next decade or three.

  “And just where do you think you’re going?” Ata’s tone and the words were all too familiar to Elizabeth.

  She had attempted to slip away from Carlton House a mere quarter of an hour after the Prince Regent’s departure. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of events, Elizabeth could not keep the frozen smile on her face before the masses. Rowland had sensed her careening emotions, and without a word he had whisked her beyond the gilded screens in the Throne Room to the hidden exit and the fresh air she craved. They should have known better.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Ata blocked their entrance into Rowland’s closed, dark blue Berline coach. “The guests are but a few moments behind you, and they would seize any new bit of tittle-tattle if you dared to leave together unescorted.”

  Elizabeth hazarded a glance at the face of the man who had saved her. She felt as if she was in a dream still, for he had not directed more than a few syllables toward her.

  “Well, I’m leaving,” Rowland said darkly. “Can’t stomach another moment of that god-awful fawning.”

  “Yes,” Ata said, “well, you should have thought about that before you put yourself up as London’s newest hero.”

  “I shall go with him,” Elizabeth murmured softly.

  “Absolutely not,” Ata insisted. “If you think your every step was commented on before, Eliza, you have no notion what it will be like after today.”

  Elizabeth could barely speak. “But, I don’t care what they—”

  “No.” Ata was deep into diatribe. “He must court you properly. He may call upon you in a few days, or in a week, when the madness of this day wanes a bit, and then—”

  Rowland leaned down and grasped Ata by her petite waist and hauled her into his carriage. The dowager was so shocked that aside from one very unladylike oath, she took a seat inside and fumed silently.

  Rowland then looked at Elizabeth, that dearly familiar sultry half smile etched on his face. “Your turn.” He swung her up into the darkened interior, his large hands gripping her waist. A moment later, he was beside her and closing the door smartly.

  As the carriage jerked forward along the crowded roadway, Elizabeth checked the small window and saw a flood of guests leaking from Carlton House’s magnificent entrance.

  Ata was now muttering. “And by the by, young man, you are not to think about climbing the trellis again.”

  “Never fear, madam. I don’t fancy more of those bloody thorns in my arse and—”

  “Your elocution lessons”—Ata interrupted—“shall begin tomorrow. Luc’s patience will be sorely tested, but—”

  “Madam,” Rowland growled, “I am not in the habit of enduring lectures. You shall remain silent now for I must speak to Elizabeth. I have something of great importance to—”

  “Oh…” Ata interrupted and perked up with a knowing smile. “I see. Well, then, go ahead. You have my permission. I shall just help you over the rough spots—guide you in case—”

  Rowland effectively cut off Ata by rapping on the ceiling of the carriage with his knuckles. The Berline swayed and drew to a stop. He sighed heavily and stared at the dowager, whose look bordered on petulant.

  Elizabeth’s heart raced, her voice stuck in her throat. Ata’s dark, beady eyes glanced first at her and then at Rowland.

  With greater kindness than Elizabeth thought him capable, he spoke to Ata. “I understand you have a fondness for driving, madam?”

  Ata immediately brightened. “Why, indeed I do. But what has that to do with—”

  “You shall join Lefroy on the bench outside. And he shall teach you everything you need to know about—”

  “Impertinent pup. I don’t need any driving lessons. I’ll have you know that—”

  “Do you want to drive the team or not?” he interrupted impatiently.

  Elizabeth watched Ata stutter for the fi
rst time ever.

  “Oh, very well. But don’t think I don’t know what this is all about. And if you muddle the proposal, it shall be your own fault, Mr. Manning. I could have helped you. None of the other roosters knew the smallest thing about how to go on. I’d hoped to save you the trouble.”

  He looked at her wolfishly. “Perhaps I’m not a rooster.”

  “Really?” Ata said with doubt.

  “Perhaps I’m the fox.”

  Ata barked with laughter.

  His hungry gaze swept over her, and Elizabeth suddenly felt very shy in the enclosed space.

  “Perhaps, I don’t stop until I get what I want,” he continued. “Snatching things, whether I have a right to them or not, is my speciality, or haven’t you heard?”

  Ata’s eyes widened. “Well, we shall just have to see how effective your unconventional methods are, Mr. Manning. Eliza, I shall come to your aid at the first squawk.”

  Elizabeth watched Rowland assist Ata to the outside driving bench with a surprising amount of gentleness. She heard his strict instructions to Lefroy. And then he was alone with her. Across from her.

  They gazed into each other’s eyes for so long, her vision blurred.

  “You’ve said naught but three words,” he said in his gravelly low voice. “Are you all right?”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, afraid to let the torrent of gratitude and even stronger emotions past her defenses. Yet, she could not stop her eyes from welling.

  “Tears?” He sighed. “Hell.”

  She blinked rapidly and turned partially away from him to swipe at her face with the back of her gloved hand.

  “You’d better stop for I haven’t a handkerchief,” he murmured.