Linnie was dead. The very female around whom he had woven impossible dreams. But Evie was alive. His wife. He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. And suddenly, he knew.
He wanted no other.
Chapter 29
The day dawned bright and golden, warming the late winter nip in the air. The snow had begun to melt. It was a perfect day for the outdoors. Mr. Murdoch swept clean the small lakeside dock and double-layered it with blankets.
Evie felt as happy as she could given the numbness encasing her heart. Her friends worked hard to cheer her, distracting her with their conversation and antics, exclaiming delightedly over Mrs. Murdoch’s cucumber sandwiches spread out before them. Everyone in the world who mattered to her surrounded her. She steered her thoughts from Spencer, deliberately refusing to lump him into such a category. She would not think about him. Soon, he would fail to matter. Soon, she wouldn’t think of him at all.
She need only continue telling herself this for it to become true.
She had a full life. Plenty. Enough. People who loved her. Nicholas, the Murdochs, Amy, Fallon, Marguerite. Even Aunt Gertie, lucid and fairly good-spirited, had emerged from her room with the departure of Georgianna. Nicholas and Jillian chased each other over the lawn, Amy in close pursuit, warning them not to fall on the slushy ground.
It was a fine day.
Mr. Murdoch set up a target for the ladies. Given what had happened last time Aunt Gertie held a bow and arrow in her hands, she was not permitted to shoot. Marguerite took turns with Fallon.
At that moment, Mrs. Murdoch arrived with another tray of food.
Fallon patted her stomach. “I’ll need to let my dresses out.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” the housekeeper replied, grinning her apple cheeks. “Find myself doing the same once a year or so. Mr. Murdoch simply claims I give him a bit more to love that way.”
“Your Mr. Murdoch sounds a splendid man.” Smiling, Fallon reached for another sandwich. “I can hear Dominic saying the same thing.” The two women shared a knowing glance, the kind only two women completely confident in the love of their men could share. It made Evie feel a little lonely. She dropped her gaze and played with the hem of her dress.
“What’s he doing here?” Evie’s gaze snapped up at the sound of Mrs. Murdoch’s biting voice. “Oh, the absolute cheek!”
Evie followed her housekeeper’s gaze across the lawn.
Spencer strode in her direction with long, purposeful strides, Mr. Murdoch close on his heels, his face red with anger.
Evie rose unsteadily to her feet, her pulse spiking against her throat at the sight of him. Even from this distance, those green eyes of his looked brighter, more vivid than she remembered within his handsome face. His hair blew about his head as he walked. He looked haggard, severe. Lips hard and unsmiling. Still, her heart beat faster as he cut a swift path down the incline to where they picnicked.
Fallon swept to her feet and thrust Evie behind her towering person. “Spencer, I presume? I shall handle this, Evie.”
“Fallon, that’s not necessary—”
“You’ve no business here,” Fallon announced as he drew near.
He blinked, eyeing her Amazon of a friend. The Murdochs joined Fallon, standing on either side of her, forming a wall before Evie. She peered over Fallon’s shoulder, her heart thundering loudly in her ears.
Fallon waved a hand, gesturing for him to leave in the direction he’d come from. “You can’t break her heart and then stroll back in here like nothing happened.”
He stared hard at Evie where she peered over Fallon’s shoulder, his green eyes startlingly intent. “Did I break your heart?”
The deep sound of his voice—the question he asked—sent a ripple through her.
Fallon and the Murdochs glanced back at her, waiting for her to respond.
Tension weighed the air. She stared back at Spencer, unnerved by his stare.
“Evie?” he pressed, pushing for her answer.
She wet her lips. “Go home, Spencer.”
He said nothing; he merely stared. And stared.
“Stop looking at me that way,” she snapped.
“What way?”
“As if what I feel . . . what I say . . . suddenly matters to you,” she choked.
“It does matter,” he declared.
Fallon snorted.
Evie crossed her arms tightly, defiantly over her chest and looked away, unable to bear the earnest expression on his face.
“I have to know,” he demanded, his voice desperate in a way that made her tremble. “Did you love me?”
The question jolted her. Why did he care?
She shook her head, unable to answer.
“Do you love me, Evie?” he repeated, spacing each word.
“That’s a fine thing for you to ask now,” Marguerite called indignantly from where she stood close to Aunt Gertie.
“The better question is how you feel about her,” Fallon inserted.
Heat crawled over her cheeks. “I can speak for myself. You two don’t need to protect me.”
“What are you doing here?” Aunt Gertie demanded, stalking forward to stand beside Marguerite. “You’re not welcome here.”
Amy and the children joined the growing crowd, too. Voices ran over each other, irate and indignant on her behalf, flogging Spencer as effectively as a whip.
Evie’s head began to spin. She longed to simply run away. Disappear from a situation that was quickly spiraling out of her control.
Spencer scanned the small army before him before settling his glittering gaze back on her. “Evie.”
She couldn’t hear him above the din, but she read her name on his lips and her heart lurched. The pale green of his gaze searched her face. “Please. I need to talk to you,” he said.
She shook her head and inched back a step, unwilling to let herself melt, to soften at the mere sight of him. He’d destroyed her when he’d left. She had just begun to believe she would survive losing him. She couldn’t risk letting him back in again.
“Just go, Spencer,” she pleaded.
He stared hard at her before shaking his head. He lifted his voice above the others’. “You don’t want that, Evie. You want me to stay.”
She closed her eyes in a pained blink.
I do. I do.
“You heard her,” Aunt Gertie growled, one reed-thin arm waving. “She wants you to go. Now off with you.”
Eyes still locked on Evie, his jaw hardened as he announced, “I’m not leaving until I’ve said what I came to say.”
“You’re not lord of the manor here,” Mr. Murdoch proclaimed as he began pushing him back toward the house. Spencer struggled to break past the burly man, his face tight with frustration.
Something twisted inside her at the sight.
After several yards, he broke free.
It all happened very quickly then, descending from bad to worse.
“Off with you now, or I’ll shoot!” Aunt Gertie threatened, snatching the bow from Marguerite’s hand and hastening forward.
“Gertie, no!” Evie gasped, struggling past the barricade of bodies. “Don’t!”
“Go ahead,” Spencer flung out, still advancing, his glittering eyes locked and hungry on Evie. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Marguerite lunged after Aunt Gertie, reaching her the precise moment she let her arrow fly.
Helpless, Evie watched, her heart a wild bird fluttering in her chest as the arrow curved in a whistling arc through the air toward Spencer.
The arrow struck him—grazed his arm and then skipped across the lawn until it landed, imbedding itself weakly in the earth.
Hissing from the burst of fiery pain in his arm, Spencer clutched the flesh wound with one hand. Blood blossomed over his right sleeve. He pulled back his hand and examined the crimson staining his fingers.
He felt his features slacken with surprise. “You actually shot me.” He looked up, staring at Evie’s aunt with inc
redulity. “Again,” he repeated.
“My aim was off,” Aunt Gertie huffed.
“What were you aiming for?” he called.
Gertie’s chin lifted. “The heart, of course.”
“Enough!” Evie pushed through the throng. Her voice sounded strangely choked, like she was weeping. He saw at a glance that she was. Tears streamed down her face as she arrived at his side.
Scowling, she gingerly touched his arm, muttering, “I can’t believe she shot you again.”
His gaze devoured her, absorbing everything as she peered through his torn sleeve at the wound. She gasped when he stroked a tear from her cheek. “I would suffer an arrow a third time if it meant I could keep you.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “Don’t be daft.”
Despite her words, he saw that she shivered, and against logic, hope blossomed in his heart.
“I’m sorry, Evie. I’ve been a hardheaded fool.”
She motioned to his arm with a shaking hand. “We need to get you inside and tend to this.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, ducking his head to peer into her eyes, his voice starkly intense, desperate and hungry. He leaned close enough for his forehead to brush hers. His hand lifted to circle her neck and hold her close.
As she stared at him, her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. “Don’t. It hurts to breathe when you look at me like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, happy to keep saying it. As long as it took for her to believe him, to forgive him, he would say it.
“Why?” she asked in a breathless voice. “What are you sorry for?”
“I should have listened to you. I should have understood.”
“But I was the one who lied to you. Like everyone else in your life—”
“And I was the stubborn fool.”
A small smile played on her lips. She glanced down at his bloodied arm. “Well, a man who would agree to being shot with an arrow a third time could well be called a fool.”
He didn’t smile, only stared at her in that starkly intent way. “I don’t want to live without you.”
Her eyes held his, the light in the blue depths glowing fiercely.
He sucked in a deep breath. “I love you, Evie. I love you, Evelyn Lockhart. I’ve never loved anyone before you. I’ll never love anyone after.”
She released a strangled sob, giving her head a small shake. “You—”
“I said I love you. Nothing else matters.”
With a happy sob, she nodded, smiling hugely, as if words escaped her.
Then he was kissing her, hauling her into his arms, indifferent to his wound, to their rapt audience.
Dimly, over the intoxicating taste of her mouth, he heard her friend Marguerite mutter, “I suppose this means we’re supposed to like him now?”
The redheaded Amazon laughed. “Oh, Marguerite.”
“Should I shoot him again?” Aunt Gertie shouted.
“Miss Gertie, don’t you dare—give me that thing!”
Evie smiled against his lips. He didn’t need to look to know they were confiscating her aunt’s bow and arrow. At least he hoped so.
“I think I’ve some ground to cover with your friends,” he murmured.
“They’ll love you.”
“Indeed.” He nibbled her plump bottom lip. “How can you be so certain?”
She curled her hand against his cheek. “Simple. Because I do.”
He pulled back, drowning in her blue eyes. “Say it.”
“I love you, Spencer. I love you.” She kissed him again, pulling away when her friends and family broke out in an embarrassing display of applause. “Perhaps we should retire inside where I can patch you up—”
“And we can be alone.”
She smiled saucily. “Precisely.”
Hours later, Evie finally found herself alone with her husband. She exhaled, both relieved and eager for their solitude.
The bedchamber hummed in the silent wake of noise and activity. Everyone had taken it upon themselves to trip into their chamber, one after the other, and verify that Spencer was comfortably ensconced and well on the mend. Nicholas had been the last to leave, carried away asleep in Amy’s arms. He had snuggled close to Spencer’s side, content as Spencer assured him he would not leave anytime soon and he would most certainly be up and about to take him fishing.
Her heart expanded even further at the memory of Spencer’s deep voice asking Nicholas to call him Papa. The only thing sweeter had been the look on her son’s face. She felt that same joy in her heart still. She doubted anything would ever rob her of it.
“Alone at last,” he murmured.
“You do not mind, I hope. Solitude may be hard won, especially with Nicholas about.”
“He’s my son now. I want him around.”
Her heart squeezed. That was enough. Enough that he loved her son. Could she be so greedy to hope he loved her? Truly loved her? By the pond, he had claimed to, but she still grappled with the reality of it all.
Lifting her nightrail to her knees, she crawled in bed beside him and pressed her lips to a spot on his flat belly, delighting in the way his tight flesh quivered beneath her lips. “Does it hurt here?”
At his groan, she looked up to where he splayed so deliciously upon her bed, his dressing robe parted wide, the sheets loosely bunched at his waist.
“Everywhere,” he sighed. “It hurts everywhere.”
She smiled, propping her chin on his chest. “Then I suppose I must kiss you everywhere.”
He tangled a hand through her hair, his green eyes hard with a desire she remembered . . . felt echo in the melting of her bones. “I suppose you must.”
“And you won’t tire of such treatment?” she queried between nibbling and lingering kisses.
“Tire of this? Kisses from the wife I love? Adore?” His green eyes darkened. “Never.”
His words made her flesh tremble, her heart shudder.
She eased away, sitting back on her knees, hovering over the glorious stretch of him. “Why, Spencer?” she shook her head, felt her hair toss against her shoulders. “I lied to you—”
“Only because you were caught in the tangled web you created to save Linnie, your family . . . Nicholas. It was a great sacrifice, Evie. A noble thing. I see that now.” He swallowed, the tendons of his throat working, his eyes suspiciously moist. “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever known, and I am the luckiest of men to have such a woman for my wife.”
“Oh, my,” she sighed, her hand lowering, shaking, to his chest, directly above his heart.
He grinned. “Does that answer your question, then?”
She started to nod, then stopped. Biting her lip, she glanced away.
There was still one thing . . .
“Evie?” he prodded. “If there is more on your mind, then speak of it. I want nothing more between us.”
“Linnie.” She said her sister’s name solemnly, as if afraid to mention her. “I’m not her, you know. Not the one you dreamed of throughout the war. Not the—”
He sat up on his elbows, wincing at the movement of his injured arm but not dropping back down.
Her hand flew to his bandage and the fresh spot of blood staining the stark white. “Spencer! Down with you—”
“Let us be clear.” He gripped her face with his hand, his large palm chafing her cheek as he held her stare with his glittering one. “You are more than I ever dreamed. More than I deserve. That’s why I came back. Why I couldn’t stay away. I shall spend the rest of our lives loving you so fiercely that you shall not breathe a single moment without knowing you are loved, adored, and valued above anything else in my life.”
Shattered, astonished, she stared at him.
And then they were kissing, heedless of his wound, of anything save each other.
She knew he spoke the truth—felt the truth of his words resonate deep in her soul.
She knew him. He was her heart. And she, his.
“Spencer,
” she sighed, her eyes drifting shut into sweet, peaceful dark . . . where only wonderful things awaited her.
Acknowledgments
Each book has its different journey, each with its own joys and pains. I have several people to thank for taking this book’s journey with me. To my editor, May Chen, for understanding and seeing so much in these pages . . . and being able to convey it all to me so that I can see it, too. Thank you! Maura Kye-Casella, for being the kind of agent who always calls, and leaves me smiling when I hang up.
Despite the hours that I sit alone typing at my keyboard, writing is never a solitary process. For those who have held my hand, brainstormed and saved me in one form or another through the writing of this book: Tera, Carlye, Lindsay, Vicki, Kate, Robyn, Ane, Jane and Ginny. I’m so lucky to have all of you in my life.
And to my wonderful husband and children—you are my life, and the life of every book I write.
About the Author
SOPHIE JORDAN, a former high school English teacher, resides in Houston with her family. When she’s not writing, she divides her time between inventing what she likes to call culinary masterpieces—her husband won’t always agree—and visiting her family’s pecan ranch in the Texas Hill Country. Sophie also writes paranormal romances under the name Sharie Kohler (www.shariekohler.net).
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By Sophie Jordan
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
IN SCANDAL THEY WED. Copyright © 2010 by Sharie Kohler. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.