The Wickedest Lord Alive (33 page)

Xavier was already moving before Lizzie had time to react. He swept Lizzie out of harm’s reach, then turned to see his mother rolling on the floor, screaming in agony, consumed in brandy-fueled fire.

He started toward her, but Lizzie yanked on his arm with all her might, shrieking. “No, Xavier! The brandy. You’ll burn too.”

He looked around wildly. “The curtains!” he yelled.

Stomach churning, Nerissa’s screams ringing in his ears, he pulled Lizzie away from the fire, toward the long windows that opened onto the terrace. The heavy damask curtain came away with one hard yank, but when he turned back to where his mother lay, the flames had flared into a conflagration, accelerated by the great quantity of brandy that had spilled over the floor.

Fire licked the library walls, spreading through books like a bright, pitiless monster determined to consume everything in its path.

Nerissa’s screams had ceased. He couldn’t see her for smoke and fallen debris. She would be dead already. She must be, but he had to know. If there was the slightest chance he could save her …

He heard Lizzie scream. “Xavier,
no
!”

He was coughing and choking and the doors to the terrace opened and his cousins were there, shouting his name, but he needed to go back. He needed to save her. He needed …

He couldn’t see or breathe for the smoke, and the air they’d let in merely fed the flames. Then there were strong hands, two pairs of them, gripping his arms, hauling him back through the windows into the night.

As the fireworks lit up the sky behind him, he watched the end of everything he’d been fighting his whole life.

Chapter Twenty

When they had done all they could at the villa, the Westruthers repaired to a house Beckenham had found for them on Marine Parade.

Lizzie was bone-weary, but her blood seemed to course through her too rapidly to allow her any rest. Her mind buzzed with questions and flashes of memory from the terrible night they’d endured.

They were all of them disheveled, but Lizzie and Xavier were the worst. Yet even charred and weary, with his hair a wild mess, Xavier still looked like that fairy-tale prince she’d dubbed him long ago.

He was hers. He loved her. And now they both knew it.

Her fear that he would consider his duty done now that she carried his child had vanished altogether when she’d seen his face tonight, when she’d stepped out of her hiding place with that pistol in her hand.

He’d said he loved her. The man who had professed not to believe in tender emotion between a man and a woman.

When Beckenham offered everyone refreshment after their ordeal, Xavier said, “Please, yes.” And with a wry twist to his lips, he added, “Anything but brandy.”

Lizzie took his hand—the one that was not raw and blistered with burns—and squeezed it.

Xavier might sound flippant, but she didn’t doubt he was shaken to the core by what had occurred. The sight of his mother, golden flames licking over her crimson gown, was so harrowing, Lizzie was certain it would figure in their nightmares for a long time to come.

Thank Heaven there had been no other fatalities. Everyone had been outside watching the fireworks, even most of the staff. The rest had managed to get out of the house in time.

The house, however, could not be saved. There would be no more orgies at Lord Steyne’s Brighton villa, but Xavier did not seem to mind.

Lizzie’s relief at the outcome was tinged with guilt, but nonetheless very real. She had come to Brighton that night fully prepared to kill. She’d steeled herself to remove from Xavier’s life the one thing that would always stand in the way of his happiness. She’d been prepared to defend him with lethal force because she’d known that he, loving his mother as he did, could not adequately defend himself.

But she would not wish upon her worst enemy such a death as the one Nerissa had suffered. Not even upon the woman who had tried to make Lizzie miscarry her child.

As the others talked and recounted the events leading up to that evening, Lizzie drew Xavier’s hand to her belly and placed his palm flat upon it.

There was no bump there yet. But she had not bled after that perilous fall, and the physician had assured her all would be well.

Xavier turned his head to gaze at her, eyes red-rimmed from the smoke but brilliant with emotion. Softly, he said, “I never knew I could love someone like this.”

Joy made her face glow as if lit from within. “Nor did I.”

He touched his forehead to hers. “Perhaps the poet has a point after all.”

By silent, mutual consent, they rose together and left the rest of the company without a word.

No one stopped them. The tragedy of the evening overwhelmed any thought of propriety.

Their lovemaking was careful and quiet that night. Xavier stared into her eyes as he loved her, stroked into her slowly, thoroughly, making bliss ripple and flow through her like warm rivers of honey.

His kiss was soft and deep. He cherished her with gentle caresses that made her crave and burn and sigh with a hunger that was almost, but never quite satisfied.

The pace was slow, inexorable, measured. Her climax echoed far off like distant thunder, and as he slid in and out of her, he seemed to draw it closer by infinitesimal degrees, and all the while it expanded and built, until it took her like a tempest, thrashing her senses, saturating her with pleasure, breaking her apart.

Their gasps mingled, their bodies ignited, their souls twisted together and fused into one. And then they fell, together, into an abyss of sated oblivion.

*   *   *

When Xavier woke the next morning to the mourning cry of seagulls, he didn’t know where he was. One inhaled breath and the smell of smoke brought nightmarish images crashing into his brain.

His mother was gone.

Somewhere inside him was a lost little boy who still bunched up his fists and met the world with a stony face and tried not to want his mama’s love.

He was denied that love forever now. He’d been denied it from the second he was conceived. But the malevolent presence that seemed always to hover over him like a bird of prey had vanished, never to return.

His mother had died by her own hand, and that was a fitting end for one such as she.

A slender arm curved around him. Soft breasts pressed against his back as Lizzie hugged him tightly and dropped a gentle kiss on his nape.

The part of him he’d never known was empty filled up with love. His for her, hers for him, theirs for the blossoming life within her womb.

He turned in her arms to gather her to him, to kiss her, feel their love course back and forth between them like the ebb and flow of tides.

There was not enough poetry in the world to describe this feeling. He certainly couldn’t find the phrases to do it justice.

“Lizzie,” he said. And that word seemed to contain everything that was important in the universe.
“Lizzie.”
He kissed her again, then raised his head to hold her gaze. “I love you. I shall commission Cyprian to write an ode to your marvelous eyes.”

Epilogue

Not even when he waited for death in that book room at his Brighton villa had Xavier been so utterly afraid.

The labor had been a long one. It was hours ago that he’d been excluded from the chamber where Lizzie strained and cried out and sweated and ground her teeth.

He’d wanted to break down the door they barred against him, but the Westruther women who excluded him were a formidable force. Besides, he did not wish to create a commotion when Lizzie needed to focus all her energy on delivering their child.

Beckenham’s hand descended upon his shoulder as Xavier stood staring into the flames of the fire. “Courage, man. All will be well.”

Xavier looked up and could not seem to summon a sarcastic rejoinder. He merely nodded his thanks.

Griffin, Lord Tregarth, gave a rude harrumph. “Talking doesn’t help. Nothing helps. I’ve been through this three times, and it never gets any easier.”

Davenport said doubtfully, “We could start a fight. Take your mind off things.”

“Do strive for some semblance of civilization, Davenport,” said Montford, looking pained. “I did so hope Hilary would have cured you of this penchant you seem to have for disturbing the peace.”

The room subsided into silence, but for Lydgate tapping his fingertips on the table beside his chair.

“Will you stop that?” snapped Beckenham.

“What? Oh.” Lydgate folded his hands together, cast his blue gaze to the ceiling, and began to whistle.

“Do you
want
me to plant you a facer?” said Beckenham.

“Montford said we are not to brawl,” Lydgate pointed out.

“I’m sure His Grace would make an exception in your case,” muttered Beckenham.

They all fell silent.

“It’s going to be a girl.” Xavier spoke into the hiatus, his voice a trifle hoarse. “We’ll call her Prudence after Lizzie’s mother.”

“A girl, you say?” said Lydgate, patting his coat pockets for his notebook. “Interesting. I’m running odds at ten to one it will be a girl.”

Davenport grinned and stretched his legs out before him. “A pony says it’s a boy.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Lydgate, licking his pencil and jotting down the bet. “Becks? What do you say?”

“I cannot think of anything less appropriate to wager on,” said Beckenham heavily.

Tom Beauchamp, who had been about to place his own wager, abruptly closed his mouth.

“Besides,” said Beckenham, “the odds of it being a boy or a girl are even, everyone knows that. It’s a ridiculous thing to bet on.”

Xavier wanted the baby to be a girl. One with strength and courage and a heart that was good to the core, like his Lizzie. A girl with fey green eyes …

If the child was a girl, he might assuage his guilt over the way he’d begun this marriage. A girl would never doubt she was loved for herself and not because she was the heir Xavier had so desperately desired.

Not that he wouldn’t love the babe if he was a boy, of course.…

With a start, he realized that until that moment, he’d never thought of how he would be as a father. Hopefully a damned sight better than his own father or Lizzie’s had been.

And if that little person did not come squalling and kicking into this world soon, he was going to expire of anxiety. Either that or murder Lydgate.

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside, and the library doors were flung wide.

A phalanx of grinning, disheveled females stood at the door.

There was Georgie, looking pale, her nose suspiciously red. Rosamund, her cap askew, radiant with joy, and Hilary, laughing and crying at once. Clare and Aunt Sadie were hugging each other.

Relief swept through Xavier so hard, he needed to tighten his grip on the mantelpiece to steady himself.

Rosamund yelled at the top of her lungs, “It’s a boy!”

While the men erupted into cheers and slapped his back and each other’s, Xavier stood frozen for several seconds, trying to take in the news.

“Mother and baby are well,” put in Aunt Sadie.

Safe.
She was safe. She was well. The baby was healthy.

The noise died down, petering out as everyone waited for his reaction.

“Xavier?” Rosamund held her hand out to him. She laughed a little uncertainly. “Xavier, say something, for goodness’ sake!”

“Thank God,”
he said, and it was the most devout and heartfelt statement of his life.

Then he strode through the crowd of womenfolk and took the stairs at a run.

“Funny, poignant, and sizzling with passion.”

—
The Romance Dish

Don’t miss the previous novels in this stunning series by Christina Brooke

LONDON’S LAST TRUE SCOUNDREL

THE GREATEST LOVER EVER

And her Ministry of Marriage novels

HEIRESS IN LOVE

MAD ABOUT THE EARL

A DUCHESS TO REMEMBER

Available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

About the Author

Christina Brooke is a former lawyer who staged a brilliant escape from the corporate world and landed squarely in Regency England. She lives in Australia with her husband, two sons, and an ancient Great Dane cross called Monty. Christina loves travel, window-shopping in antique stores, pink champagne and fine Swiss chocolate. She especially loves hearing from readers. You can find Christine on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, or “at home” on
www.christina-brooke.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE WICKEDEST LORD ALIVE

Copyright © 2014 by Christina Brooke.

All rights reserved.

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