Secret Life of a Scandalous Debutante Read online

  The maid was quick. She bobbed a curtsy. ‘She was up here for a while, said she was going to rest. But she came downstairs and said she was too restless and that she was going for a walk.’

  ‘And you let her?’ Beldon snapped. ‘After the events of today, you let her go walking on her own?’

  The maid looked crestfallen and he regretted his tone. ‘Milord, she said she’d stay in the gardens near the house,’ she managed to stammer.

  ‘Is she there now?’ Beldon’s suspicions began to grow.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the maid said meekly.

  ‘She could be anywhere. Search the house; perhaps she’s curled up in a sitting room with a book or has fallen asleep.’ Beldon put on a façade of false cheer. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll search the grounds.’ He’d never asked her to reveal the diamond’s hiding place. He wished he knew. If the diamond was still here, Lilya was, too. She’d never leave without it. He had no way of knowing, but felt in his bones that she was gone.

  Beldon headed downstairs. There was no time to lose. In the study, he unlocked the safe where he kept his pistols. At the front door, he grabbed up his recently discarded cloak. Outside, he cast his eye skywards. The skies were darkening both with the night and rain. It would be wet before long. But Lilya was out there, and he had to find her before Christoph or she did something they’d all regret. Armed only with his pistols and thoughts of finding Lilya, Beldon walked away from all that he knew into a most uncertain night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘I am to meet my wife, a woman with long dark hair.’ Beldon asked for the fifth time, water flowing in thin steady rivulets from his cloak to the innkeeper’s floor. His chase had led him to Falmouth with its harbour and port, confirming his suspicions: Lilya meant to run. Knowing made him impatient. Every minute wasted in another dead end put her further from him. But he was certain she was in Falmouth and he’d search every inn until he found her.

  In that at least the soaking rain had been his friend. He knew firsthand the sudden onset of a summer storm had made the coastal road nearly impassable. There would be mudslides before the night was out in places where the road curved sharply along the cliffs of the coast.

  This time he was in luck. ‘Ah, yes, a lady arrived earlier. She asked for a private parlour.’ Beldon’s hopes soared. Lilya would not risk sitting in a public room. She was too smart for that.

  The innkeeper led him down a short hall away from the noise of the main room to a small chamber, warm with a fire. Beldon motioned for silence when the innkeeper would announce him. ‘She has not yet dined?’ Beldon asked in low tones, noting the lack of dinner items.

  The innkeeper shook his head. ‘She has not been here long and she was wet clear through, the poor dear. She said there’d been a carriage accident, a broken axle or some such.’ The innkeeper looked at him sharply, suddenly curious. A husband should know these things. Why hadn’t he been travelling with his wife?

  Beldon improvised quickly. ‘Yes, she was on her way home from visiting her sister. One of her outriders sent word to me to meet her here since the accident prevented her from journeying further.’ Lies were tricky things.

  ‘Dinner for two would be in order, the best of what you have, and a bottle of wine.’ Beldon suppressed a smile at how quickly the innkeeper was placated. Dinner for two in a private parlour was far more lucrative than one woman alone who was taking her time before ordering. Beldon pressed some money into the man’s hand and sent him away.

  Beldon studied her briefly in silence. Her back was to him, her travelling cloak spread before the fire along with a set of clothes. Her toes were balanced on the fender, lapping up the warmth while her half-boots dried. But there was no mistaking the alertness of her body—she was not asleep nor was she relaxed.

  All about her were signs that his Lilya was an incredible woman. She had smartly engineered an escape in short order and had clung to the fortitude needed to see it through. Travelling the Cornish roads in poor weather was no mean feat even if she’d managed a ride with a passing wagon. That the escape was from him did not sit well, but he could still admire her.

  A beautiful, resourceful woman was rare indeed. She was probably armed as well as resourceful, Beldon reminded himself. He had no desire to end up skewered with one of her throwing knives.

  He coughed discreetly at the doorway before moving forwards. ‘Lilya.’

  She started at the sound, a hand instinctively reaching for the knife at her calf, her body in a smooth half-crouch before he could clarify.

  ‘It’s me, Lilya.’ He swiftly removed his hat, showing her all of his face.

  Her posture relaxed. But she did not throw herself into his arms, did not run to him in relief the way she’d turned to him today in the stable yard. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

  Beldon forced a smile. ‘That’s hardly a warm welcome. I’ve braved the Cornish roads and most of the inns between here and Pendennys for you.’ He shrugged out of his wet things and made himself at home, keeping a firm rein on the emotions simmering beneath his casual façade. Anger warred with relief. He’d found her, but how dare she think she could leave him, even if her sentiments were of the noblest degree.

  Dinner arrived, a delicious roast with carrots and potatoes, and a rich red wine. Beldon poured the wine and held out a chair for her by the fire as if nothing were wrong. ‘Come and eat, you will need your strength and we have much to talk about.’

  Beldon was furious. His show of nonchalance did not fool her for a moment. Lilya tentatively took the seat he offered. She had seen him angry before. He’d been angry the night he’d caught Christoph stealing a kiss in the garden. But she’d not ever seen him like this, feral power without even the veneer of manners to dull its potency. Had such power always been there, effectively subdued into something more socially manageable? It was hard to imagine that the gentleman who waltzed divinely was also capable of such primal reactions. One automatically assumed a polished gentleman of Beldon Stratten’s calibre had had such base instincts bred out of him. But such an assumption was clearly false. It made him all the more attractive to her and her pulse quickened at the prospect.

  It occurred to her as well as she pushed her meat about her plate, waiting for the other proverbial shoe to fall, that his assumptions about her were perhaps flawed, too. Constrained by society’s looking glass, perhaps he struggled to see beyond her fragile beauty, struggled to see the strength within. He knew she was no wilting violet. He had witnessed proof on several occasions, but still had not accepted it. What kind of shrinking female carried a knife and used it with accuracy?

  Lilya set down her fork. It was time to deal with those assumptions. ‘I have to leave. You know this. No one is safe while I am here. We were fooling ourselves.’ But what a pity to leave now, when there was so much more to Beldon Stratten to discover.

  ‘A few weeks, Lilya?’ Beldon put down his own fork and folded his arms across his chest, eyes blazing. ‘A few weeks was all it took for a man to rip asunder what God had joined together? You would abandon your husband?’

  The words shamed her. Her anger flared. Did he really not understand the reason she fled? ‘It is out of devotion that I leave you. I will not see you dead. In the end, your title cannot protect me or you. We had hoped it would. Today proved we were wrong.’ Oh, how she’d wanted to believe such protection was possible. But words were only words, titles or not. They were not shields for the reality that hunted her.

  Beldon nodded, his eyes hard jewels that intently studied her. ‘And the “in sickness and in health” part? “In good times and bad? For richer or poorer?”’ he challenged. ‘Did those mean nothing to you as well?’ He paused and said slowly, ‘Or did you think they meant nothing to me? Is that it, Lilya? Do you doubt me?’

  ‘You were raised a gentleman from birth and taught a gentleman’s code without ever truly choosing it for yourself. You do what is “right” without questioning it. You champion me be
cause a gentleman should. You did not seek this marriage of your own accord. You should not be bound to it.’

  Cold fury simmered along the tight muscles of his body; she could visibly see it in the corded strength of his arms. But she would not flinch, she would not give up the table first, although her instincts screamed she should get up and create space between them.

  ‘Lilya, do you love me? You see, I must wonder when you think so little of the characteristics I possess, noble as they are.’ His voice sent an icy tremor through her. ‘It is a wonder you consented to marry me at all seeing the low esteem in which you hold my code of conduct.’

  Is that what he thought? How could he believe for a moment that her desire for him was feigned in any way? How could a body fake such responses? That she would have allowed him access to her body, to her heart, in the most private of ways, only to mislead him?

  She rose, unable to remain seated in her agitation.

  ‘There is much you might question, but not that, never that, Beldon.’ She shook her head in disbelief that he would even think such a thing.

  ‘How could I not love you? With you, I found all things: passion, a lover, a friend. I had never thought to experience that for myself. How could you even doubt that I love you?’

  ‘You love me, and yet you reject me.’

  ‘Because my love will destroy you, Beldon. Even now you seek to do the gentlemanly thing without realising what it will cost you.’

  ‘And living without you won’t? Won’t destroy me?’ Beldon’s voice was a fierce growl. ‘You think I married you out of a need to protect, out of a need to fulfil a social obligation because that’s what a gentleman does when a damsel is in distress.’ His tone softened slightly, his eyes going to the tourmaline bracelet. ‘Do you know when I bought that? I sent for it the day after we’d gone to the jewellers’. You see, I’d already decided you were the one, before I bedded you, before Christoph was caught skulking upstairs the night of the reception. I’d already decided.’

  ‘Even more reason to let me leave now, Beldon. You made that choice before you knew everything. You are sticking to it now out of stubborn pride because a gentleman never goes back on his word,’ Lilya cried. Why did he have to make this so difficult? She just wanted to save him—was that so hard to understand?

  With a swift movement he grasped her wrist, the bracelet sliding towards her elbow. ‘I have only one heart, Lilya. I have given it to you—why is that so hard to accept? Why will you so eagerly throw it away and doom us both to separate lives of misery?’

  ‘You can’t have me and Pendennys both. Whoever is looking for me will always start there. Even if Christoph is eliminated, others will come, others will follow his trail and it will always lead there, it will always lead home.’ The home he loved would become a prison for them both and it would slowly deteriorate.

  Five heartbeats spanned the silence.

  ‘I know.’

  She was not ready for his answer. She’d expected him to argue, the old, tired and now patently false arguments of protection, that no one dared to hurt a peer of the realm. But she had not expected this. The answer was admittance, but it was not a defeat.

  Beldon dropped her wrist and strode to the door, locking it with a resounding click.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lilya queried, watching this potent man advance on her, desire rising as his hands went to the buttons of his damp shirt.

  ‘I am going to make love to my wife; afterwards, we’re going to plan our future.’ He seized her about the waist and ravaged her mouth with a kiss, but she recognised at once his anger was gone, replaced by something else more primal and just as fierce. There’d be none of the gentleman in this coupling tonight and her body welcomed it. He pushed her back to the table, her buttocks meeting the hard wood, his hands shoving up her skirts, both of them breathing hard with their arousal.

  ‘The dishes,’ she managed between savage kisses.

  ‘Damn,’ came the muttered expletive. Beldon turned her away from him, his erection hard against the bunched folds of her skirt. He had her skirts fully pushed up to her waist in a moment, the warm air of the room a teasing caress on her bared skin, his intentions clear. He meant to take her from behind the way a stallion takes his mare. A forbidden thrill coursed through her as she braced her arms on the table. Beldon’s arm was about her waist, steadying her, supporting her against the onslaught of his body. She felt the nudge of his manhood against her, then she took all of him, revelling in the force of her lover’s prowess until her cries could not be contained and he spilled himself in her, pumping his seed to the very core of her being.

  They stayed that way for a while, with him locked inside of her, her body pressed against the warmth of his, both breathing hard. Lilya recognised through the mists of her passion that something extraordinary had happened. This had been a coupling of both body and mind. Here, amid the roughness of their loving, they had seen each other plain, perhaps for the first time, both of them naked beyond the literal sense. The gentleman and the delicate débutante had been set aside so that a man and a woman could take their place. She wanted that man beyond all reason and he wanted that woman. For now that was enough.

  Recovered, Beldon made a bed of sorts for them on the floor with their dried cloaks. She rested her head against Beldon’s shoulder in the firelight, overcome with a new satisfaction.

  Beldon’s hand gently stroked through her hair, idly combing it with his fingers. ‘Do you have everything with you? Is there anything back at the house that you need?’

  ‘No,’ she answered. She meant it, too. In a matter of hours, the world had become infinitely simpler. The wardrobes of gowns had been replaced by two serviceable carriage dresses and a single pair of boots, her father’s legacy and a few pocket-sized personal items.

  Beldon nodded, his profile limned in the firelight to reveal the proud bones of his face. ‘Good, then we are ready to die for our love.’

  ‘As I am sure you’re aware, you’ll have to explain that statement.’ Lilya sat up, shaking her hair back from her face. What did he intend?

  There before the fire, Beldon outlined a simple plan, made no less extraordinary for its simplicity, but perhaps the more so by it. ‘We head to Roseland and then take a ship. Once on board, we send out word that we’ve been lost at sea,’ he began. ‘We will have simply disappeared. We’ll be at the bottom of the ocean along with the diamond.’

  ‘And what then? When we’re “dead”, I mean?’

  ‘Then we can go anywhere we like, as long as it isn’t England. We could go to South America, I have mining interests there in the British holdings in the Argentine and there’s quite a Cornish population there. We could go to America and run a horse farm. The options are endless even within our limited parameters.’

  It went without saying that parts of the world were definitely off limits. They could not risk going east to the Continent or staying in the British Isles. The enormity of his plan was not lost on her.

  ‘What of Pendennys? We cannot be convenient ghosts.’

  ‘I have named young Alexander the heir. He will inherit and, until he comes of age, Valerian will be my custodian.’

  It was as it should be, no one would find fault with that. Baby Alex was his closest male relative. Valerian would be a legitimate trustee for the estate until then. Pendennys would not suffer. But Beldon? She reached for his hand. He was giving up more than a title for her.

  ‘I know what Pendennys means to you.’

  ‘And I know what you mean to me,’ Beldon replied.

  What she’d always meant to him. She could see that this was not a hastily concocted plan. For all its simplicity, the believability of it required forethought and detail. He’d been planning this for a while. He had to have been to have a will, to have decided that he would walk away from Pendennys. For her. And in true Beldon fashion, it was all orchestrated for efficiency. He had thought of everyone’s needs. No loose ends we
re left untied.

  ‘Do you have the papers with you?’ She was curious to know just how organised he’d been.

  ‘Yes.’

  The single word overwhelmed her. In the rain, in the dark, after having his estate threatened, he’d thrown on a cloak, mounted his horse and simply rode away with his future tucked in his pocket to follow her.

  ‘Incredible,’ she breathed. ‘Absolutely incredible.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Christoph had come to the conclusion over coffee in the morning that the baron was either incredibly stupid or incredibly canny. Last night’s torrential rain would have stopped any sane man from further adventures and maybe it had stopped the baron. Pendennys had left last night and not come back.

  There were lots of reasons the baron hadn’t come back. Most of them had to do with the realities of the weather. Darkness was hard enough to travel in without the mud-drenched roads. He’d probably holed up in an inn somewhere to wait out the storm. There were countless inns and small towns up and down the coast. It was impossible to know how far he’d gone and where he’d stopped. Chances were he’d be back in the morning.