Chapter 5

“Wherein Ella’s dreams come true, in nightmarish fashion.”

Ella sat on the scales, shivering. She was too dazed to do anything but whatever Oscar told her. Terror at the reality of what she’d done held her brain captive. She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. If she tried to open her mouth her teeth chattered, so she kept her jaw clamped shut. She clutched Virago’s saddle to her chest, holding it tight as though it were keeping her afloat. In some dim recess of her mind she heard someone addressing her, but she couldn’t grasp who or why.

Before she could figure it out, Oscar was there, his hand on her arm, dragging her off the scales, his hand at her back as he propelled her through the crowds. All she could see were boots as she kept her head down, concentrating on keeping one foot in front of the other as Oscar forced her through the throngs of people.

All at once there were cobbles beneath her feet and she glanced up from under her cap, recognising the King’s Stables. If she could just get changed and stay out of sight, they were free and clear.

She’d done it.

The stall was dim and so quiet the silence seemed to ring in her ears louder than the screams of the crowd had as she crossed the finish line.

She’d done it.

It wouldn’t sink in.

Oscar was speaking to her, but she couldn’t make out the words. With a supreme effort she tried to concentrate as he shook her by the shoulders.

“Damn it, your clothes. Where are they?”

Ella gestured to where she’d hidden them—a lifetime ago—and Oscar moved forward, only to freeze in place. She followed his gaze to the floor and the little pile of dark curls. His jaw tightened, and he turned back to her, ripping the cap from her head as he stared at her shorn locks.

“By God, Ella….”

He swallowed down whatever he might have said next but the furious look in his eyes was not encouraging. He kicked at the little curls, sending them into the straw and stirring up dust until they’d disappeared. Then he snatched up her clothes.

“Come on,” he snapped, gesturing for her to move.

Except she couldn’t. Her body trembled, a bone-deep shaking that she couldn’t seem to halt, and she didn’t quite know how she was standing up. At that thought, her knees seemed to agree that it was rather too miraculous, and her legs buckled.

“Damnation!” Oscar exclaimed, throwing her clothes in a pile beside her.

“We’ll have the world and his bloody wife in here any moment. You have to dress and get out of here.”

She nodded, her fingers trying to reach for the silks to pull them over her head. The sudden thought that she was naked beneath made her flush and hesitate.

“You should have thought of that before,” he said, his voice low and angry. “Right now, I don’t know whether to murder you or….”

He threw up his hands and it grieved her not to discover what the other option was.

“Why did you do it, Ella?” he asked, his voice low as he tugged her boots off.

Ella almost laughed at that, but it would have been a bitter sound. Instead she just shook her head. So, he didn’t know. Didn’t have a clue.

Because I love you, you blind fool. Because I’d do anything for you, no matter how idiotic or scandalous.

She was almost angry at him for that, though it wasn’t his fault. He’d not asked for her love any more than she’d chosen to love him. It was beyond her control. If she could make it stop she’d do it in a heartbeat, but that wasn’t her decision to make. Her foolish heart had never listened to her, always leading her into trouble before her brain had time to catch up and scream at her to stop.

Oscar moved behind her, and in one swift movement, tugged the silks over her head. Ella gave a little shriek, covering her breasts with her arms.

“I’m not looking,” he muttered, scattering her clothes as he searched for her undergarments.

Her shift was tugged over her head, trapping her arms within as he moved to her feet, tugging off her breeches. She fell back in the straw before she could get her arms free of the shift, as he manoeuvred her like an oversized doll, all the while cursing under his breath.

He didn’t look at her, not at her… just got the job done.

Ella remembered a silly daydream she’d had once, of her and Oscar in the stables. Oscar had confessed that it had been her all along, that he’d loved her from the start. He couldn’t marry Pearl; he wanted her and her alone. He’d kissed her, tumbled her into the straw….

A sob caught in her throat as he flung the breeches aside. There was not the least amount of romance in this situation. If the sight her all but naked hadn’t moved him at all, then he simply didn’t see her like that. He didn’t see her at all. He never had, and never would. Which was how it ought to be.

Oscar was marrying her sister, her beautiful, glamorous sister, and even if he had noticed her, even if in some strange alternate reality he’d loved her, there was nothing Ella could do about it.

She swallowed hard, battling to keep the sob from escaping but the tears streamed down her face despite her best efforts. He didn’t even know why she’d done what she had. No doubt he believed it was just her hoydenish nature kicking up a lark.

She’d won the Craven Stakes.

Her… little Ella Aldous.

She’d done that, for him, because she loved him… and he didn’t know it was the reason she’d risked everything. Ella touched her hands to the ragged ends of her hair; she probably looked like a scarecrow now. Not that she’d been a beauty before but… she’d cut off her hair—for him, risked her bloody stupid neck—all for him. Her body shook with exhaustion and shock and misery, and then he looked up.

“Ella!”

The appalled look in his eyes only made things a thousand times worse and Ella couldn’t hold back any longer. He would announce the date of the wedding later today, and that would be an end of it. Any silly daydreams would have to die for good. No matter; they had always been ridiculous.

She sobbed, her anguish at knowing she’d lost him too overwhelming.

“Ella, don’t,” he pleaded, sounding wretched, but she couldn’t stop. She cried and cried, great, heartrending sobs that wracked her body.

A moment later and she gasped as Oscar pulled her into a hug. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe he had any romantic intentions, but the shock of being in his lap and held in his arms in nothing but her shift… her tears stopped abruptly as wonder took over.

He rubbed slow circles on her back, one hand stroking her hair as he pulled her head against his shoulder.

“Foolish little Bug,” he said, his voice soft. “It’s all right. It will be all right.”

She smiled despite her misery. It wouldn’t be all right, not ever again, but it wasn’t his fault.

The scent of sandalwood and freshly laundered linen rose from his body, and she savoured it. His fine coat was soft beneath her cheek, his arms around her strong and sure. She could hear his heart beating, and the heat of his body through the layers of his shirt and waistcoat as she clung to him, committing every detail to memory.

She looked up, wanting to see his face, just for a moment, and was caught by the look in his eyes. Perhaps he too had just realised that she was so close to him, in his lap, in his arms… all but naked. For a moment, tension stretched between them, a shiver of anticipation racing down her spine… and then he looked away, and it was gone.

“Come along, Ella, we really must—”

She frowned as he broke off, and felt the sudden stiffness of shock jolt through his body with surprise. He reached for her dress, flinging it across her as Ella looked up, startled to see him gazing across the stall in horror. Her head whipped around, and she gave a little shriek of dismay as she discovered they were not alone.

***

It was a nightmare.

The desire to believe that was overwhelming, but Oscar could not close his eyes and hope it would go away.

He was in the straw of the King’s Stable, with his fiancée’s sister in his arms. Oh, and she was practically naked. Her clothes were scattered around the stall as if they had discarded them in a fit of passion, and Ella was clinging to him, flushed and breathing hard….

The words I can explain rose to his lips only to die. What could he say? That he hadn’t just tupped his sister-in-law, carried away in the face of his triumph? Oh, no… you see, she was actually the jockey who had ridden Virago to victory, and he was just trying to cover that fact up before anyone discovered it and there was a bloody enquiry.

Yes, that sounded much better.

Oscar swallowed. He could feel the flush creeping up his neck, a dull, hot red that made his skin prickle.

The Duke of Ranleigh, the Earl of Falmouth, and the Earl of Eghampton—Ella’s bloody father—stood staring down at them, wide-eyed with shock and disbelief. No, strike that, Ranleigh looked more amused than shocked, but Ella’s father looked stunned beyond belief. He kept opening and closing his mouth, which might have been entertaining in other circumstances.

“Well, Rothborn,” Ranleigh said, with the slightest lift of one eyebrow. “I had come to congratulate you, but I see we are a little de trop. I believe you can rely on our discretion. Falmouth,” he said, turning to his companion. “Perhaps we should leave Rothborn and Lady Ella to… er, discuss things with her father?”

There was an enthusiastic murmur of assent from the earl at this idea and the two of them gave Oscar civil nods, for all the world as if they’d been chatting at Almack’s. They turned to leave but, before they could, the nightmare descended into farce as Pearl walked into the stall with her best friend Miss Langton in tow.

“Oh, good afternoon your grace,” Pearl said to Ranleigh, the smile on her lovely face falling away as the look of horror in Ranleigh’s eyes dawned on her.

To give him his due, Ranleigh did his best to turn her before she saw, but the scream of enraged horror that echoed through the stables was ear-shattering. Worse was the glee in Miss Langton’s eyes as she hurried away before anyone could stop her. She was a bitchy little tattle monger, and any hope they could hush the story up died a thousand deaths.

Ella began to cry again, and Oscar could feel her misery, her slight frame racked with sobs as she clung to his coat.

“Get dressed.”

George Aldous, Ella’s father had ceased his goldfish impression and now looked ready to do murder. He snarled, the words hard, clipped, and full of disgust as he looked upon his daughter. Ranleigh and Falmouth were dealing with Pearl—how Oscar didn’t know—but they’d ushered her away. Small mercies.

Ella seemed to shrink into him under the weight of revulsion in her father’s expression and Oscar tightened his arm about her. For all that this ridiculous situation was entirely her bloody fault, he didn’t want to see her unhappy. The answer was staring him in the face and the irony of it wasn’t lost on him. He wouldn’t see Ella ruined, not for anything in the world.

“I’ll marry her, of course.”

His prospective father-in-law gave a snort of disgust.

“Damn right, you will,” he said, the words a growl. “How in the name of God you could do this when you’ve left a beauty like Pearl dangling for bloody years…. Is this why?” he demanded, gesturing at them both, his rage growing by the moment.

“N-No!” Oscar stammered, indignant and doing his level best to remember he was a bloody duke and not a foolish boy caught with his trousers down in the stables. Appearances be damned.

“Then why?” her father shouted, the words an explosion of incomprehension. “Why in the name of everything holy would you want her over Pearl? Are you mad?”

Oscar felt the shock of those words as they struck Ella and felt a sudden surge of fury. He didn’t want to marry Ella, not in the least, but then he hadn’t wanted to marry Pearl either. At least Ella wasn’t a cold little bitch. She certainly didn’t deserve to be treated like she was nothing in the light of her golden sister.

“That’s none of your damned business.” Oscar’s voice was hard and equally angry, and he squashed the niggle of guilt that told him it was every bit her father’s business. He was a bloody duke and he’d been committed to marry into their family. Well, by God he would, just not the sister they’d chosen for him.

“I will call on you this evening at six o’clock to discuss the details of our marriage. Good day, sir.”

The earl looked like there was a great deal more he wanted to say on the subject, but for the moment he held his tongue, and stalked out of the stable.

Oscar swallowed, numb with shock. First things first.

He unpeeled Ella’s fingers from his clothing and carried on tugging her clothes on.

She stared at him, frozen with shock, wide-eyed.

“Y-You don’t have to do it, Oscar. It doesn’t matter. I’ll go away. The scandal will die down. I was never g-going to marry anyway. No one would have me, you know that…. J-Just marry Pearl.”

“Damned if I will,” he snapped, furious now. “And have everyone believe I ruined you and then threw you aside? What the devil do you take me for? Good Christ, is it not bad enough they’ll think I seduced a… a child! You’d have me throw you over and still marry your sister? My God, I’d never be able to hold my head up again. How I’m to do it now is beyond me!”

He jerked her dress over her head, silencing further protests before she emerged again, struggling to get free.

“Shut up!” he warned, knowing his emotions were too far beyond his own control.

He’d do or say something unforgiveable if she pressed him now. This was all her bloody fault. What had possessed her to do something so… so utterly beyond the pale? Even by Ella’s standards, this was outside anything a rational person would contemplate.

“I’m s-so sorry, Oscar. I knew how important the race was, though, and when I saw W-Willy was ill, I… I just wanted you to win.”

Oscar snorted, shaking his head.

“It was just a bloody race, Ella, not life or death. You could have broken your stupid neck; do you realise that? We could be carrying your lifeless corpse off Rowley Mile right now. Do you think that would have pleased me any more than being forced to marry you? What a bloody mess you’ve made.”

Oscar snapped his mouth shut, aware that he was being cruel now and regretting it.

He dared a look at her, seeing her grey eyes swamped in misery, her face pale and wan. She looked about twelve, with her dress all askew and her ragged locks in disarray, more like an urchin than a lady.

Oscar sighed and rubbed a weary hand over his face. He took a moment to breathe deeply, steadying himself before he dared speak again.

“It’s all right, Bug,” he said, not wanting her to suffer any further. She was just a foolish child and there was no point in being angry with her. It wouldn’t change anything. “Everything will be all right.”

He reached out and gave her hand a brief squeeze.

“Now, tidy yourself up and for Heaven’s sake put your bonnet on. You look like someone attacked you with garden shears.”

With his best effort at a reassuring smile, he got to his feet, and left her alone.