The Wicked Truth

Bearsden had stood vacant since Neil’s maternal grandparents died. He felt no sentimental attachment to the place and should have sold it long ago. Still, for some twisted reason, he’d kept it cared for, and even visited occasionally. He doubted Terry knew the property existed.

How would Lady Marleigh explain to her young lover an absence of a week or so from town? Yes, this ought to work. If Neil could just keep her here in the country awhile, word would get around that she had struck up with another paramour.

No one would take her seriously even if she told exactly what had happened. Who would believe it if she named him as her abductor? A respected physician stealing away with the likes of her? Neil could hardly believe it himself. Or countenance the fact that he’d really done it. Leaning his head to one side and clasping his hands across his middle, he allowed himself to doze….

Neil awakened with a start, almost falling out of the wing chair. The patter of hurried footsteps on the bare floor of the hallway brought him to his feet, running. He tore out of the room and down the hall, catching her at the top of the stairs. Clamping his arms around her, he forced her forward against the banister.

She landed a backward kick to his knee that almost sent them both plunging headfirst over the rail. Neil tumbled her to the floor facedown, clutching her this way and that, struggling to subdue clawing hands and kicking feet.

Lord, she was strong! It was like trying to stuff a wildcat into a sack. His fingers closed over hers, squeezing them into fists while he threw one leg over both of hers. She finally went limp, her back heaving against his chest. Neil relaxed his hold and started to speak. She leaned forward and bit the back of his hand.

“Ow! Damn you, stop! Stop it! I’ll thrash—”

She bit harder. He clamped his own teeth over a mouthful of her curls and yanked her head back sharply. She let go of his hand with an ear-piercing screech. Neil rolled sideways and landed on top of her, their hands imprisoned beneath her and her face pressed to the hardwood floor. “Be still or I’ll throttle you, you wildcat!”

All the life seemed to drain out of her once more and she stopped breathing. Silence reigned for a full minute. He frowned down at her. Was this another trick to throw him off guard? The one eye he could see didn’t blink, but stared at the wall. Tears poured out in a steady stream, but she didn’t sob. Didn’t move. He could feel the rapid beat of her heart under their joined hands.

“Will you fight if I let you up?” he asked.

No answer.

“I won’t hurt you.”

She still said nothing, just stared at the baseboard, weeping silently.

“I promise I won’t hurt you.”

He gave up waiting for an answer and moved off of her. She sucked in a deep breath and shuddered, making no move to rise. The shirt he’d put on her had become wound around her waist, so her lower body was bare. Neil froze at the sight of her pert little buttocks. He fought the sudden stirring in his groin.

Fury at his unwanted arousal made him gruffer than he meant to be. He yanked at the tail of the shirt to cover her. “Get up!”

Slowly she pulled herself to her knees and stared at him, wide-eyed and tense. Her lower lip trembled and the tears continued to freshen and fall.

The sight undid him completely. He caught her to him and held her as he would a frightened child, smoothing her soft curls and pressing her face against his chest. “Don’t cry. Please don’t.” Gently, he lifted her, carrying her back to the bed.

She made no attempt to get away, no move at all, as he settled onto the edge of the mattress beside her. Still, her eyes never left his, and he hadn’t yet seen her blink.

“All I want to do is talk to you,” he explained, keeping his voice soft and using his best doctor-patient tone. “That’s it—lie back and take a deep breath. Another. It’s all over now.” He stroked her wet cheeks with the back of his fingers.

“Get it over with,” she whispered. “I don’t want to…dread it anymore.”

“What?” he asked, still soothing her with his hands, patting, caressing. “What shall I do?”

“Kill me,” she squeaked. Her chin lifted and her eyes narrowed in a brief show of bravado.

“Don’t be absurd!” He grunted in disbelief, shaking his head. “Surely you don’t think…? I have no intention…I’m certainly not going to kill you. What gave you that idea?”

She wore the look of young men after their first battle-uncertain that they had survived it and already dreading the next one. “You said you’d do anything! And even before that I knew it was you who… The boat, the knife and the chocolate…” Her voice dwindled on a defeated sigh.

“What the devil are you talking about?” She must be in shock. God, he hadn’t meant to frighten her this badly. She really believed he wanted her dead for some reason. Well, he remembered, he had implied…no, had actually threatened her.

This was really getting out of hand. No one, even someone like her, deserved to feel such fear.

“I don’t want you to die,” he said earnestly, hoping to ease her mind, convince her. Ought he to use her Christian name? Patients always responded better to the familiarity. “Do you understand me, Elizabeth? You are in no danger. I just don’t want you to marry my nephew. That’s the only reason I brought you hens—simply to get you away from Terry. That’s all, I swear.”

She didn’t believe him. He could see her disbelief and virtually smell her fear. The poor thing still expected a death blow at any moment.

“Look, you little dimwit, if I wanted you dead, you’d never have awakened. Don’t you see? I could have done you in a hundred times over, dumped you somewhere and dusted my hands of it. You needn’t be afraid, Elizabeth. I do not want you dead.”

For a long minute she studied his face intently, biting her lips and breathing hard. She shifted uncomfortably and straightened her back. When she finally spoke, her words were soft. “Would you…leave me alone then? Please?”

He understood immediately. She had been abed all night and most of the morning without relieving herself. She looked somewhat calmer now, sane enough to trust to herself for a while.

Hopefully.

Neil glanced at the room’s only window, which he knew from experience was impossible to coax open. Should she break it, there was a thirty-foot drop beneath. One who clung to life so tenaciously was hardly suicidal enough to jump.

“Certainly. We can talk downstairs. There are towels on the stand, water in the pitcher, and the necessary room’s in there.” Neil waved as he stood up. “Your bag’s in the wardrobe. Why don’t you dress and come down to the study when you feel up to it? The door will be open. If you need to rest awhile, it’s all right. I won’t disturb you.”

She still didn’t fully believe him. Neil dragged forth the practiced reassurance he doled out like laudanum to the wounded. “I promise you, you’re safe, Elizabeth. My word as a gentleman.” Ha! She’d surely credit that after his conduct up to this point.

“Will you let me go?” She sounded a bit stronger, he thought, but very doubtful.

“Of course I’ll let you go,” he answered patiently. In about a week, he purposely didn’t add.

Slowly he descended the stairs, lost in his thoughts. “Lord, what have I done?” he asked himself, rolling his eyes heavenward. “This is sheer madness.”

Here was a side of himself kept well buried since he was a child. It had emerged only once in the intervening years.

With Emma.

Recklessness and disregard for consequences had already ruined his life twice. How many lessons did one need?

First his mother had left him, unable to deal with the wild child his aged father had spoiled rotten. How well he recalled the last incident before his father died.

Neil had had the best of intentions. Listening for days to his mother bewail the fact that she needed a grand hunt scene painted for the dining room, he had sought to oblige. He knew exactly how, he’d thought, after weeks of watching a visiting artist capture his mother in oils. His own attempt on the wall above the buffet wasn’t bad for a five-year-old. She didn’t agree. After her screaming fit, Neil made hasty amends. Mother must be pleased.

“What takes paint away, Jed?” he had asked the footman.

“Bird shit,” the disgruntled man replied, busy scrubbing the nasty stuff off the lord’s glossy carriage.

Well, chickens were birds, Neil reasoned. He’d visited the henhouse and set to work on the unwanted picture that very afternoon. Now that he looked back, he wondered that Mother had stayed as long as she had.

Married at sixteen to a man three times her age, Norah Guest Bronwyn had probably whooped with delight when her husband expired six years later. Until she realized she was only a dowager countess, stranded in the country with her own little hellion and an eighteen-year-old stepson—the new earl—who loathed her.

Without a word of explanation, Norah had packed her things and Neil’s, deposited him at a second-rate boarding school and hared off to God knew where. He hadn’t seen her since. But later, as a man, he’d met dozens of women just like her.

As far as he knew they were all like her—flighty, shallow, feather-headed females set on taking all they could get at the least possible cost.