Lady Gone Wicked Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Get Scandalous with these historical reads… How to Ensnare a Highlander

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  The Scoundrel and the Lady

  The Elusive Wife

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Bright. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 105, PMB 159

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Scandalous is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Nina Bruhns

  Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill

  Cover art from Hot Damn Stock and Deposit Photos

  ISBN 978-1-64063-477-0

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition February 2018

  For my girls

  “You do not have to be good.

  You do not have to walk on your knees

  For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

  You only have to let the soft animal of your body

  love what it loves.”

  —Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

  Chapter One

  Hampshire, England, 1817

  Nicholas Eastwood was a man who knew how to earn what he wanted. This, in his estimation, was what separated the wheat from the chaff, gold from the ore, and second sons from firstborns.

  And he had earned this.

  His fingers tightened on the letter. Outside the coaching inn, the night wind howled as it whipped across the Hampshire hillside. It sounded like trumpeters heralding a hero’s welcome after a hard-won battle.

  Or a dying cat.

  It did not matter.

  All that mattered was the letter he now held in his hand. He read it again.

  My dear sir,

  A year has passed since our fateful meeting, but rest assured it has not been forgotten. I owe you my life, and my thanks. I want to repay my debt, but how does one put a value on a life? Gratitude is not enough.

  My well-intentioned prying into your affairs leads me to believe you are not in want of funds. If I am in error, tell me, for my fortune is at your disposal.

  Very few things in this world are beyond price. Life, as aforementioned. Love, which I give you as freely as a father gives a son. And a title of the peerage. I hope the latter would satisfy my debt quite nicely. It has come to my attention that our Prince Regent has been rather generous with granting marquessates of late, particularly to those who fought during our battle with Napoleon. You have served the Crown well, my friend, and I would be honored to request the Prince Regent name you the Marquess of Rain.

  Send word when you return to London.

  Arthur Pendleton, Duke of Montrose

  A title!

  And not just any title. He would be a marquess, only one rank lower than a duke. More important, he would be two ranks higher than his twin brother, Nathaniel Eastwood, Viscount Abingdon. His own father, the Earl of Wintham, would have to bow to him. The man who had banished him from the family estate at the tender age of twelve would have to go in second.

  Yes, a marquessate would suit Nick very well, indeed.

  And he deserved it, that was the important thing. The title hadn’t been bestowed upon him when he was still a squalling infant by virtue of being born twelve minutes before his brother. He had risked life and limb as an agent for the Crown, first during the wars with France, and then in India. He had earned that title with blood and sweat and snake bites.

  He shuddered.

  By God, how he hated India.

  But he was home now, in the idyllic Hampshire town of his childhood. His lodgings were only two miles from Haverly, the Wintham estate. What had begun as a spy hunt mere weeks ago had ended in a bruising fistfight with Nate. The fight had been a long time coming—more than fifteen years—but it was done now, and the sooner Nick returned to London and claimed his new title, the better.

  There was just one small matter to attend to, one loose end that he could not leave dangling. It was not a matter of morals so much as practicality. Loose ends had a way of becoming weblike as they unraveled. He would not like to find himself entangled.

  She was alive, despite all arguments to the contrary. He had seen her with his own eyes, standing at a distance the morning he fought his brother. The shock of it had been enough to give Nate the upper hand. Which had been a new experience for Nick. He’d never lost before. It had been quite unsettling.

  And now he must see about the girl. She couldn’t continue to wander Hampshire like a ghost of sins past.

  But first he would read the duke’s letter just one more time.

  A knock on the door distracted him. He frowned. The clock had just struck ten, an unusual hour for visitors. Who else could it be but his infernal brother? He wrenched open the door.

  It was not Nate.

  Instead, there was his loose end, looking very much untied, given the pistol she pointed at him.

  “Adelaide,” he said with far more calm than he felt. He reached for the pistol.

  “I—”

  There was a bang and a moment of searing pain.

  She did not finish her sentence.

  But then, he supposed, she did not have to. The bullet made her point quite nicely.

  Chapter Two

  Adelaide Bursnell knew she was not a good girl. A good girl would not have been seduced by a man she hardly knew. A good girl would not have surrendered her virtue without a wedding ring. A good girl would not have faked her own death rather than return to her family in shame and humiliation. A good girl most certainly would not shoot her former lover, no matter how much he deserved a bullet to the flesh.

  And yet, if the red liquid spilling from Nick’s arm was any indication, she had done just that
. She stared hard at the crimson seeping through the white linen of his sleeve, willing it to go back where it belonged. When it did not, she did the only thing she could do when confronted with such ugliness of her own making.

  She fainted.

  Or she tried to, anyway. A good girl would have been able to accomplish a ladylike swoon, she had no doubt. But Adelaide was not a good girl, and the best she could do was a facsimile of the real thing. Her eyelids fluttered closed and her body swayed delicately before collapsing in a silken heap on the floor.

  His footsteps came close and paused. The cool metal of her pistol slipped from her grip. She held her breath. Maybe he would leave to find help and she could make her escape? But no. She heard a clunk as he set the weapon down somewhere—a table, perhaps. Then his footsteps returned.

  Drat.

  Nick nudged her hip with the toe of his boot. She ignored it. He nudged harder. When she still did not respond, he squatted down and shook her roughly by the shoulder. She opened her eyes, and there he was, so close that he filled her vision, blocking out the room and all its contents. All she could see were his ice-blue eyes and scowling lips. Even with the purple bruise on his cheek and the small cut above his left eye, he was beautiful.

  Her heart raced. She commanded it to stop that nonsense forthwith.

  “Adelaide,” he said in that rich, growly voice that did nothing to slow her heart rate. “You can’t faint. I’m the one who’s bleeding.”

  “Yes, but I can’t do anything about that,” she said. She permitted herself a small sense of—well, not victory, exactly, but rightness. Here, at least, she was just as she should be. Ladies were supposed to be decorative, not useful. They could paint watercolors, play the pianoforte, or sing. Matters of blood and guts should be left for the men to handle.

  Nick made a sound of resignation. Then in one elegant motion, he scooped her from the floor with his good arm and deposited her on a hard wooden stool—across the room from the pistol, she noted. Apparently he was leaving nothing to chance. He moved away abruptly and she teetered briefly at the sudden loss of support before she gained her balance.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Anything I can use as a bandage.”

  He wouldn’t find anything. The hired rooms were nice enough, but it was still a coaching inn. There was a bed, a writing desk with a chair, and this absurdly tall stool upon which she now sat. Adelaide crossed her legs at the ankle to keep from swinging them like a child. She detested high stools. They made her feel so small. Which she was, but there was no need to rub salt in the wound.

  Nick must have come to the same conclusion about the lack of bandages, because he stripped off his torn shirt and ripped it in half with his teeth. He handed the cloth to Adelaide. “I’m a man of many skills, but tying a knot with one hand isn’t one of them.”

  Such a humble man, her Nick.

  No, not her Nick.

  She took the linen, wrapped the cut, and tied the knot with as much efficiency as she could muster given the exceedingly trying circumstances of him standing too close and smelling too good. He winced. Perhaps she had pulled the knot a little tighter than strictly necessary.

  “Your family believes you are dead,” he remarked.

  “And your family believes you are a murderer,” she returned.

  “It seems that both our families are veritable fountains of misinformation.” He flexed his wounded arm—to see if it still worked, she imagined. The muscles bulged and relaxed. “Shall we enlighten them, do you think?”

  “I haven’t a choice,” she said frankly. Nick was a soldier and a spy and heaven knew what else. He would divine the truth regardless. “A woman in my position has precious few options.”

  “Adelaide.” His voice was gentle. “I did not receive your letter. I would have come, had I known you were with child.”

  Would he have, truly? She found that hard to believe. He had left like a thief in the night, somehow managing to sneak into her aunt’s home to slip a note beneath her pillow. Yet he hadn’t woken her. He hadn’t said goodbye.

  But it was the contents of the note that had broken her heart. There were no words of love, only polite regret. And then the address at which to reach him, should the need arise.

  She didn’t suppose Nick counted love as a need.

  But perhaps he would have come, had he received her letter. As the son of an earl—a fact he had not divulged during their ill-fated affair two summers ago—he knew what was expected of a gentleman. He would have married her out of guilt and a strong sense of duty, if nothing more. And then what? He would not have stayed long enough to be a true husband and father. He would have left them both to do…whatever it was he did, now that the war with France was over.

  Perhaps if he had received her letter, she would not have been sent to that horrible nunnery for her confinement. Perhaps now her arms would not feel so achingly empty without a child to hold. But what did that signify? She could not live in a world of what-ifs.

  “What’s done is done. It does not matter now,” she said. “The babe did not survive his birth.”

  He glanced sharply at her. “I had heard the same about you. Yet, here you are, with a pistol, no less.”

  A shiver of trepidation ran down her spine. Why was he looking at her as though awaiting her confession? She would not confess.

  When she said nothing, he continued, “You blame me for his death. Is that why you tried to kill me?”

  “I did not try to kill you,” she said, because she hadn’t.

  She had found his room at the inn and knocked on the door, pistol in hand. She had only wanted to frighten him, but then he had opened the door. She had forgotten how large he was. And then…and then…

  Well.

  How was she to know that the blasted thing would go off from such a little squeeze?

  It had been a mistake, and an unfortunate one, at that. Now what was she to do? She could not hope to best Nicholas Eastwood in either physical strength or a battle of wits. The pistol had been her one hope to emerge the victor. She glanced desperately to where it lay useless on the table. She must get it back. She must.

  “Hmm,” he said, and then he did the last thing she would ever expect.

  He stepped away from her, toward the window, and turned his back.

  She saw her chance.

  Chapter Three

  Nick had learned a great many things during his years of service to the Crown. Such as always look behind you. And even seemingly inconsequential information is useful to someone. Most important, and quite relevant to his current predicament—never turn your back on a woman who shot you.

  He stared out the window and listened. There was a soft thud, then the rapid footfalls of a smallish lady running on her tiptoes. A scrape of metal and wood, more footfalls, and finally the quiet creak of the stool.

  He turned around and once again found himself facing the barrel of a pistol.

  “Ah,” he said, endeavoring to look surprised, because she would expect that. “Have you decided to kill me, after all?”

  “I am not here to kill you,” she said. “I am here to negotiate.”

  He crossed his arms, ignoring the sharp stab of protest from his wound, and regarded her carefully. The woman who faced him now was much changed from the girl he had met in Cornwall two years prior. Then she had seemed to him like an angel, an ethereal creature of goodness and joy.

  She was an angel still, but the avenging kind who burned cities to the ground and turned people to salt.

  It was no more than he deserved. He had played his role to perfection—the dashing, mysterious agent of the Crown. Hers had not been his first seduction, after all. He knew how to instill desire in every look, urgency in every word. Danger lurks behind every shrub. We only have tonight. Let me have this one sweet moment before death comes for me. He had said it all before.

  For the first time, that summer, he had actually meant it.

  He had not beh
aved as a gentleman ought, but a gentleman’s rules were easily forgotten when one presumed to be dead within a fortnight. He had taken every precaution, of course, even leaving her with the address of a business partner—one could not receive letters if one were dead.

  He had not expected a letter from her any more than he had expected to survive his last assignment.

  And now she was here to negotiate.

  Fascinating.

  “The pistol is unnecessary, angel. I’ll marry you,” he said.

  The pistol wavered slightly, but did not lower. “Marriage? To you?” She frowned. “That would be very disagreeable. No, thank you.”

  This time his look of surprise was sincere. “No?”

  She shook her head. “You would make a very bad husband, Nick. Surely you know that.”

  Actually, he had never given the matter much thought, one way or another. “Would I?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Then what are you here to negotiate, exactly?” he asked and waited to hear the precise terms of his surrender. Of course he would give her whatever she wanted.

  “Money,” she said flatly.

  Except that.

  “How much?” he asked.

  Her gaze slid sideways before returning to meet his eyes. Her chin tilted. “Five thousand pounds.”

  A large sum, but hardly exorbitant. If used frugally, it would allow her to live comfortably for many years. It would tie up his loose end quite nicely, really. If she had been someone other the daughter of a viscount, and his brother’s future sister-in-law, perhaps he could even have said yes.

  But this was Adelaide.

  “Money is for whores,” he said. “Marriage is for ladies.” It was ridiculous that he needed to explain this to her.

  She dismissed his lecture with a wave of her hand. “It is all the same.”

  He tried to decipher her meaning. Were ladies whores, or was marriage a monetary transaction? Perhaps she meant both?

  “Scandal is a difficult thing to keep hidden, you understand,” she continued. “I must find a means of supporting myself, or I must marry—before it catches up to me.”

  He frowned. Her scandal was his scandal. Scandal went hand in hand with notoriety, and that was something he wished to avoid at all costs. When war ended, enemies still remained. And then, of course, there was the issue of the marquessate. He would prefer the proceedings go smoothly. Until the letters patent were signed by the prince regent, scandal must be avoided.