How to Handle a Scandal (23 page)

What if it could always be like this? She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. His eyes were closed, a contented smiled hovering over his lips. Might he not want such domestic bliss, too? Might he not, after all, change his mind about what their marriage meant?

No
, she told herself firmly. He wouldn’t. Never mind that he’d given no indication that he had any intention of staying in England—she needed only to consider how assiduously he was avoiding being guardian to Rex to accept that he sincerely wasn’t interested in anything that resembled family. What he and she were doing was about play and fun and making a baby, and that was all it could be. It would have to be enough.

Eliza rolled over in bed the next morning to find Tommy just coming back into the room. He’d apparently gotten up, dressed, and left without her even noticing. From the quality of the light coming in the window, it appeared that the sun had only been up for a short time.

“You’re up early,” she said as he came near the bed. She tried not to feel disappointed that he’d been so able to abandon her. She missed the warmth of his body next to hers. Sleeping with Tommy was so much better than sleeping with a hot brick that she already worried about how deprived she was going to feel that winter when he left.

But since she didn’t want to think about any of that, she didn’t. She was now Unvirtuous Eliza, and Unvirtuous Eliza made bold decisions without fussing about consequences. Unvirtuous Eliza valued pleasure and happiness and indulgence, and she only cared about right now, which was, after all, the only thing anyone had. Why had she been such a fool before?

“Just thought I’d put out a few clues for the treasure diggers,” he said.

“Clues?” He sat down on the bed and began tugging off a boot.

“A couple of pirate-type maps that lead to some buried clues out in the wilds. The usual sort of treasure-hunt things.”

She pulled the blanket more closely around her shoulders against the chill and watched him pull off the other boot. “The children will love that.”

He shrugged. “It was nothing.” He dropped his boot on the floor, and when he pulled his shirt over his head, her heart gave a happy skip.

“It wasn’t nothing,” she pointed out, running a hand up his bare back, which was warm and so pleasingly hard. “You had to get up early to do it. Where did you get the idea?”

He turned around and leaned over her, the muscles in his chest and shoulders bunching. “It was something my mother did to amuse me when I was a boy.”

Eliza smiled, imagining him as a boy. “Will was twelve years older—did you ever wish for siblings nearer your own age?”

“Not really. I guess my mother entertained me quite a bit. She was rather playful for an adult, now that I think about it.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I thought the treasure hunt might entertain the children. Will always says that ‘Happy children make for happy parents,’ and perhaps we’ll all have a better chance of finishing a conversation—and maybe keeping Rex from getting any bad ideas—if they have something to do.”

She pulled him close and kissed him. “Very sensible and considerate of you.”

He grinned. “It was, wasn’t it?” As he kissed her neck, she thought about how he knew quite a lot about her island childhood and how she’d come to be Will’s ward, but she knew very little of his early life. He’d never talked about it, even when they were younger.

She pulled him onto the pillow next to her. “What was your father like?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I don’t know anything about him, or your mother, really. You never talk about them.”

He sucked his teeth. “That’s probably because they died years ago.”

So bluntly said. But she knew he’d been young when he’d lost them. “I’ve always had a sense that there was a great deal of love in your family in the years before your mother died.”

He rolled onto his back and crossed his arms. “I had a very happy boyhood. My mother died when I was seven, my father when I was fourteen. I loved them both and have always felt lucky to have had them as parents.”

“And yet, when I ask you about them, you cross your arms and stare at the ceiling.”

He rolled his head on the pillow and looked at her. “Why are you quizzing me about this, and so early in the day?” He smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkling and making him look so carefree and happy that she questioned her feeling that a shadow had come over him a moment ago. He rolled onto his side. “And when I’ve come back to bed specifically to ravish you.”

He didn’t give her a chance to reply, but applied himself so adeptly to ravishing her that she forgot about noticing anything but his body and his devilish charms.

* * *

“I congratulate you on how civil you’re being to Louie,” Eliza leaned close to whisper to Meg two nights later as another lovely dinner drew to an end. Eliza and Tommy had invited the local doctor and his wife to join them for the evening, along with the Smythes, a neighboring family who had two daughters and a son of marriageable age. With dinner over, people were getting up to adjourn to the drawing room for dancing.

Meg gave her a look. “I hardly want to be a damper on the party.”

Eliza glanced toward where Louie and Will stood talking with Dr. Hall, the Smythes’ handsome son Adam, and Ruby. “I know you wouldn’t do that.” Which didn’t mean she thought Meg was above giving Louie discreet looks of disgust, though Eliza didn’t think she’d done so that night. “But really, Louie looked quite content to be sitting next to you. I’m sure I saw him smiling at you.”

“Gildenhall smiles at everyone.” This was just the sort of thing Eliza would expect Meg to say about Louie, but something about her demeanor looked different, and Eliza peered more closely at her friend. Good heavens, was Meg
blushin
g
? Calm, collected, in-control Meg, blushing at the mention of the most roguish rogue in the
ton
?

“You can remove that matchmaking gleam from your eyes, Eliza Halifax,” Meg hissed. “I’m merely being civil to him, as you urged me to do. You know I have always barely tolerated him.”

“True,” Eliza said. Though it was possible that Meg might be persuaded to change her mind, because Eliza knew Louie could be very persuasive if he wished. Perhaps, with the proximity forced by the house party, something was developing. And if that
was
happening, Eliza certainly didn’t want to interfere, because she found the idea of them together extremely interesting.

An arm curled possessively around her waist as Tommy caught up to them. “The waltz is mine,” he said. “Don’t even think about dancing it with Louie or that overly handsome Smythe boy.”

“He’s not a boy,” Eliza pointed out, then laughed at the dark look coming over Tommy’s face. “But he’s not swashbuckling.”

“Darned right,” he said smugly.

Tommy needn’t have worried about Louie dancing the waltz with her, Eliza noticed with a hidden smile as she twirled around the room a little later in his arms. Louie danced it with Meg.

Blissful days passed. With their friends and family around them, Eliza felt that the time was touched with a golden glow. The crisp, bright autumn days were spent exploring the countryside, hiking about all day and eating enormous meals when they got home. Nights they spent lingering at the dinner table with glasses of wine, then sitting around the drawing room fire afterward, talking and laughing. Eliza knew she wasn’t the only one who felt that it was a fine thing to have the family all together. She’d caught Tommy’s eyes lingering affectionately on his family many times.

And each night, she and Tommy made love.

Life with him felt like being a happily married couple—if she ignored the fact that, though she’d come to care deeply for him, she didn’t know how he felt, or whether he might change his mind and stay. They simply lived in the moment and didn’t talk about the future, which suited Eliza, because she didn’t want to think about going back to the life she’d known in London without the purpose Truehart Manor had provided.

The children continued in their quest for treasure, having formed into two teams equally determined to strike pirate gold. Though Marcus and Rex both maintained a careless attitude, as though they were partaking because there was absolutely nothing else to do, they still applied themselves with competitive intensity to digging the deepest holes as fast as possible.

Rex seemed to have understood at least the virtue of not biting the hand that fed him, because he had not said or done anything terribly rude. Eliza had invited him to go walking with her on several afternoons, and she’d found him to be charmingly curious about nature, even if he hid his interest around the other children.

He seemed pleased each time she invited him, standing up a little straighter as though aware of special favor being bestowed. Though he also tended to talk almost entirely about himself. But he was young, and surely with guidance, he would grow to consider others more. If, that was, there would be someone appropriate in his life to guide him.

Eliza and Meg were watching the children’s digging efforts one afternoon as they sat on the terrace with mugs of hot cocoa, wrapped in blankets against the chill of the autumn afternoon. The trees had changed into brilliant reds and golds and soft yellows, and the remains of a misty morning were finally burning off in the warmth of the sun.

In the near distance, Marcus, Susanna, and Vic were at work on a new hole whose location Marcus had determined by measuring off a precise number of paces from a nearby juniper bush. Rex and Heck were equally busy at the north end of the wilds, having paced themselves off as well using their own map.

“They don’t seem to find it odd that both groups found treasure maps, both of which purport to lead them to the location of some buried treasure,” Meg observed.

Eliza smiled. “Heck and Vic don’t know enough to question it, and the older children probably think it’s a lark. But I did overhear Marcus asking Tommy about what kinds of booty Flaming Beard might have been likely to have. And I’m sure that after what they all had to go through to get the maps, they want to believe they’re real.”

“It was brilliant of Tommy to hide them in the dungeon and drop hints at separate times to each group about how the pirates probably spent a lot of time down there.”

“It was,” Eliza agreed, then shuddered. “The dungeon is horrible. I merely peeked down there once when I first toured the manor, and I saw a spider the size of my hand.”

Eliza could feel Meg’s eyes on her. “Tommy seems like a man who would really enjoy fatherhood.”

“I know.” Tommy might say he didn’t like children, but he was wrong. She’d seen the sort of playful, thoughtful, good father he might be. But each time she was tempted to spin fantasies about the future, she reminded herself that arranging things for children to play with wasn’t the same as committing to be a part of their lives day in and day out. Children needed guidance and got sick and grew into people their parents sometimes didn’t understand. Eliza was ready to say yes to all of that, but Tommy wasn’t.

“He’s pretty irresistible,” Meg said.

“He’s a charmer.” It would be so much easier if he weren’t.

“He’s more than that,” Meg insisted. “He’s smart and thoughtful and good-hearted. And let’s not forget swashbuckling.”

As if Eliza needed Meg to point that out. “I know.”

“I suppose it’s too early to know whether you’re increasing?”

Eliza nodded. Whenever she allowed herself to think that she might already be carrying Tommy’s baby, she got so dreamy that she could hardly pay attention to anything, so she didn’t allow herself to daydream much. She’d just remind herself that Unvirtuous Eliza didn’t worry about the future.

Meg slid a sideways glance at her. “Don’t you think he might change his mind, if there was a baby? Everything’s different now.”

Eliza sighed. “If he stayed, it would have to be because he wanted to stay. Even if there is a baby, I’ve assured him that I will be fine raising him or her on my own. I don’t want him to feel trapped.”

Meg stared at her uncomprehendingly. “But you care for him—perhaps more than you want to admit. Wouldn’t it hurt to know that he wouldn’t be sharing a child with you, the way Will and Anna do?”

Eliza could feel her throat begin to tighten and fought against it. “Yes. But I’m trying not to think about it.”

Meg leaned closer, so that her shoulder brushed Eliza’s. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I’d been thinking for a while that you weren’t really happy at Truehart Manor. The brothel incident put you in a difficult situation, but you’re making the best of it, and there’s an awful lot to respect in that.”

“Thank you,” Eliza said quietly. “But I wish I hadn’t made such a mess of things at Truehart Manor.”

“Helping the girls was a more complicated undertaking than we’d realized. We both made mistakes, but we meant well.”

“I made far more mistakes than you did,” Eliza said.

“You have to stop looking at it that way.”

“I still want to help girls like the ones we were helping.”

“Then you’ll figure something out.”

Eliza felt touched by Meg’s faith in her, even if she didn’t see how to make something out of the future. Which was why she wasn’t going to think about the future—or at least not until after Tommy left.

But it was getting harder to tell herself she didn’t care for him.

Eliza and Meg watched as Marcus and Rex began to dig faster, clearly showing off for Susanna. Though the two boys seemed to have become fast friends, Eliza supposed it was a good thing the house party wasn’t going to go on for too much longer, or there might be trouble.

“So,” she said, “is there something going on between you and Louie?”

When Meg didn’t reply right away, Eliza looked at her. Did Meg’s face look pink?

“Something between me and Gildenhall?” Meg laughed, and it
sounded
genuine. “Why should there be?”

“I don’t know. But when you were dancing together the other night, you looked happy.”

“It was just the wine.”

“I see,” Eliza said. Though Meg seemed emphatic, Eliza wasn’t entirely convinced.

Meg excused herself a few minutes later to see to some correspondence, but Eliza stayed outside. The air was growing almost cold, but it was quiet in the wilds now because Vic and Heck had been led, protesting, inside for naps, and the older children had gone off to look for balls with which to bowl.

Eliza was fairly certain that Will and Anna were “napping” while their children napped. Louie and Ruby had announced after lunch that they were going into the nearby town and hadn’t been seen since. Eliza loved the cheery clamor and bustle of all those people under her roof, and she knew she’d miss them terribly when the party came to an end in a few days, but she needed a little space to think.