Page 23 of Lady Frederica and the Scot Who Would Not
“I suppose. We were out there for a moment when we first got here, and he got suddenly very excited and asked me to go find the six women I just told you of. Gossiping matrons, the lot of them.”
What the hell was Brooke planning?
“Freddy is on the terrace,” Lady Guinevere said, the mild concern in her voice not coming close to the panic that exploded in Gabe’s chest. “What’s going on?” Gabe heard Lady Guinevere ask, but the question came from behind him. He was already racing toward the terrace.
“No one will believe I willingly let you seduce me,” Freddy said, her tone hushed but her fists pummeling Lord Brooke’s back as he strode with her, thrown over his shoulder, toward the well-lit garden just below the terrace.
Brooke laughed. “Won’t they? Your skirts are tied in knots, your hair is unbound, and you’ve no bloody stockings or slippers on. You don’t look like you were trying to get away from me; you look as if you were willingly rolling on the grass with me.”
Panic rioted within Freddy. He was right. No one would believe her. No one. And even if they did, it would hardly matter. There would be a scandal, and her sister’s chance at wedding into Lord Asterly’s stuffy family would be lost. Vivian would never forgive her, and who could blame her? All Freddy had been asked to do was behave properly until Vivian was wed, and she’d been unable to give her sister that small consideration.
“What do you plan to do?” She struggled against him once more, but it was useless. The man had an iron grip on her.
“Wait for it,” he said, sounding very, very smug.
Up above, music and laughter washed out into the air, breaking the silence of the garden. The terrace door had been opened. Then all at once, it seemed a cacophony erupted, as if the party had been moved onto the terrace. Freddy’s world tilted once again, as it had moments before when Lord Brooke had captured her as she’d attempted to run from him, when the man finally set her down.
Dizziness washed over her as she came upright, her feet sinking into damp grass. Before she could lodge any sort of protest, Lord Brooke captured her face between his palms and slanted his mouth over hers. It was the second time she’d been kissed without her permission. Rage filled her, and just as she drew her fists back to pummel him some more, he was suddenly ripped away from her, and there stood Beckford, looking every inch the dangerous lord of London’s underworld.
Fury flooded his features, and as his eyes swept over her, his ire seemed to become a living, breathing part of him. He roared and shoved Lord Brooke backward. Unfortunately, the man grabbed Beckford’s coat, and they both went tumbling to the ground. But Beckford came up on top and then let his fists fly. They met their mark with fearsome accuracy. One hit. Two. Three. Four.
Shouting came from above her, and the clamoring of many people descending the stairs echoed around her. Freddy felt frozen, unable to move. She was in awe of the ferocity with which Beckford fought for her, and she was horrified that her foolishness had caused all this.
Beckford sprang to his feet, slamming one foot into Lord Brooke’s chest. “Don’t ever touch her again.” He was no longer speaking but snarling. “Ever. She is under my protection.”
The possessiveness in Beckford’s tone made Freddy’s knees feel weak.
“Do you hear me?” Beckford demanded. “She is mine.”
“I heard you,” came an older woman’s voice, full of sharp scorn and mirth, from Freddy’s left.
Freddy snapped out of her stupor and turned, meeting the shredding gaze of Lady Portsmith, theton’sbiggest gossip. Lady Portsmith need not have told a single soul, though, for standing around her were five other gossips, as well as a host of other people, including Guinevere, Carrington, Vivian, Lord Asterly, and his mother.
His mother swept an impervious gaze over Freddy, shook her head, and said, “Come along, Asterly.”
To his credit, Lord Asterly hesitated, but then released Vivian, whose arm he’d been holding. With a look of sorrow, he followed his mother away from the crowd and toward the stairs.
“Freddy, are you all right?” Guinevere asked, rushing toward her at the same time Lord Brooke was rising to his feet.
“Of course she’s all right,” he muttered, jerking on his cravat. “She implored me to meet her out here, and she kissed me, and then this man beat me. I’m the one who’s been harmed. If I’d known the two of them had a relationship, I never would have agreed to meet her—the strumpet.”
Freddy would have slapped him, except Beckford sent his right fist straight into the man’s nose. The powerful punch sent Lord Brooke backward, down, and silent, but the damage had already been done to Freddy’s reputation. And it was grave.
Chapter Eight
“This is worse than I predicted!” Freddy’s mother declared, sweeping into the breakfast room two days later holding what appeared to be a gossip sheet in her hand.
Not for the first time in the last two days since the debacle at Guinevere’s ball, Freddy wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole.
Her mother stalked toward the breakfast table, stopped at the chair opposite Freddy, and shook the sheet at her. “You have ruined yourself, and you have ruined your sister’s chance at happiness!”
“Darling,” her father started, but her mother turned her outraged look from Freddy to Papa.
“Don’tdarlingme, Fairfax.” Her dire tone and her use of Freddy’s father’s title instead of his Christian name, George—how she usually addressed him in private—indicated just how vexed her mother was. “You—” she pointed at Freddy’s father “—will try to placate me, say I’m being dramatic, come to Frederica’s defense, but I am not being dramatic, you cannot make me feel better, and there is no defense for how selfishly your youngest daughter has acted!”
With each word her mother spoke, her voice rose in pitch so that Freddy was certain it was high enough to cause crystal to break. It certainly made Freddy’s ears hurt, and she sank lower and lower in her seat. Her mother was right, and her father’s silence and thin-pressed lips were damning affirmations that he agreed. Papa usually did come to her defense, but now he just stared at her, eyes full of disappointment.
Her quick-witted mother smelled victory and seized it. She slapped the gossip sheet down on the breakfast table making the china rattle and Freddy twitch. “Do you know what Lord Asterly told your sister this morning?”
