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‘There.’ The mellow murmur of Bennett’s voice went straight to her heart in that vulnerable moment. ‘That’s better.’ He raised his hand to her cheek in a featherlight caress. Then an irresistible magnetism seemed to draw their lips towards one another.
The first warm, tremulous contact after such a long absence made Caroline’s senses crackle with suppressed desire suddenly reignited. It flared and spread swiftly, until it felt as if wildfire raged through her veins.
The blaze swept through Bennett too. His embrace tightened, as if to claim her. His kiss grew deeper and more demanding, while she ached to give him everything he wanted and more. Her lips parted to invite the hungry thrust of his tongue.
Old desires fused with strange new emotions to make this kiss sweeter and more satisfying than any they had shared before. Caroline savoured it like a serving of her favourite food after a long fast. She sought to hoard the feel and taste of it, knowing this would surely be the last time Bennett ever kissed her. While his lips moved over hers with such thrilling fervour she could pretend that he cared for her in the way she’d once longed for.
AUTHOR NOTE
In most Regency romances the wedding of the hero and heroine is the beginning of their happily-ever-after. But for the Earl and Countess of Sterling it is the beginning of their problems. Wed too quickly, for too many of the wrong reasons, they grow further and further apart—until scandal rocks their marriage, forcing them to choose whether to walk away or fight for a happier future together.
In HIS COMPROMISED COUNTESS the last person with whom Bennett wishes to share a small house on a remote island is the wife he believes has betrayed him with his hated rival. Caroline feels the same about her husband, who threatens to destroy her life of pleasure and part her from her young son. Only when they are thrown together under the most difficult circumstances can Bennett and Caroline begin to confront the problems that have beset their marriage and rekindle the spark of attraction that never quite went away.
I hope you will enjoy visiting the fascinating Isles of Scilly with Bennett and Caroline as they learn the true meaning of love.
About the Author
In the process of tracing her Canadian family to their origins in eighteenth-century Britain, DEBORAH HALE learned a great deal about the period and uncovered plenty of true-life inspiration for her historical romance novels! Deborah lives with her very own hero and their four fast-growing children in Nova Scotia—a province steeped in history and romance!
Deborah invites you to become better acquainted with her by visiting her personal website, www.deborahhale.com, or chatting with her in the Harlequin Mills & Boon online communities.
Previous novels by the same author:
A GENTLEMAN OF SUBSTANCE
THE WEDDING WAGER
MY LORD PROTECTOR
CARPETBAGGER’S WIFE
THE ELUSIVE BRIDE
BORDER BRIDE
LADY LYTE’S LITTLE SECRET
THE BRIDE SHIP
A WINTER NIGHT’S TALE
(part of A Regency Christmas)
MARRIED: THE VIRGIN WIDOW*
BOUGHT: THE PENNILESS LADY*
WANTED: MAIL-ORDER MISTRESS*
*Gentlemen of Fortune
His Compromised Countess
Deborah Hale
MILLS & BOON
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This book is dedicated to my agent,
Pam Strickler, whose support
and wise advice helped me
rise to the challenge of this story.
Chapter One
London—April 1817
With a flourish, someone pulled back the blue damask curtain from the alcove of Almack’s card room, as if it were the stage at Drury Lane. The scene it revealed might have come from any of a hundred sentimental plays—a pair of lovers stealing a passionate kiss. But instead of sighs and murmurs of approval that might have greeted such a sight at the playhouse, this one provoked scandalised gasps followed by brittle, breath-baited silence.
They were as handsome a pair as any actors, the man well built with a full head of auburn hair and fashionable attire that might have won the approval of Beau Brummell himself. The lady wore a silvery-blue gown of the finest silk. Though her face was turned away from the audience for that first instant, her beauty was as obvious to them as her identity. Golden curls were swept up off her long, graceful neck, adorned with the famous Sterling sapphires.
Everyone who caught a glimpse of her must have immediately recognised Caroline Maitland, Countess of Sterling, one of the most celebrated toasts of the ton. They must also have recognised that the man with his arms around the countess, and his lips upon hers, was not her husband.
Surrounded by several of the most voluble gossips in all of London, Bennett Maitland, sixth Earl of Sterling, stared into the alcove, fighting a rising tide of rage and humiliation that threatened to demolish his iron self-control.
He had stubbornly refused to heed Fitz Astley’s sly barbs about his wife’s fidelity, just as he had once tried to deny another of his enemy’s sordid revelations. A revelation that had brought his whole world crashing down. Scoundrel though Astley was, he had not been lying then. Nor was he now. The evidence of Caroline’s promiscuity was presently on display for all to see!
Catching his wife engaged in such wanton intimacy with his bitterest foe was like a jagged knife thrust deep into Bennett’s chest. The once-passionate physical connection between him and Caroline was the only thing that had held their crumbling marriage together. Now she had thrown it in his face and made him question how many other lovers she might have taken, making him the secret laughing stock of London. Yet he would rather have died in jaw-clenched agony than give the man he loathed, and the woman he had come to despise, the satisfaction of knowing how grievously they’d mortified him.
By the time the horrified silence shattered into poison-tipped shards of whisper, Bennett had clamped his gaping mouth into a rigid line. Battling back a suffocating wave of humiliation, he forced himself forwards to seize control of the situation.
By this time, his wife and her paramour had realised they were discovered. Though it was far too late to save her tattered reputation, Caroline pulled away from the scoundrel’s embrace and shrank back, as if hoping she might somehow hide from her husband’s righteous wrath. Fitzgerald Astley had no such scruples. He continued to stand there in a lounging, insolent pose, his mouth twisted in a gloating smirk that Bennett longed to thrash off his face.
‘Bennett, I’m so sorry,’ Caroline murmured as he stalked towards them. ‘I can explain if you’ll only listen. Please don’t make it any worse.’
Her face had paled to a hue of alabaster purity—most ironic, that. Her pallor might have given his wife a deceptively innocent look, except that it made her lips appear even larger and redder than usual, swollen perhaps from the kisses of that despicable cad!
Bennett wished the sight would quench the last stubborn embers of desire he felt for her. Instead he was doubly betrayed by the traitorous stirring of lust in his loins. Part of him longed to seize his errant countess and sear away any memory of Astley’s kisses with the legitimate demands of his own lips.
He managed to resist the temptation.
‘Nothing I do,’ he growled, ‘could make this any worse.’
That was not quite true, but he had no intention of acting as if nothing had happened, simply to spare her the shame she had brought upon both of them.
Astley’s smirk curled into an outright sneer, making his too-handsome countenance as loathsome as Bennett had long regarded it. ‘I suppose you will want to call me out, then, Sterling? Where shall we duel, then? St. James’s Park? Hyde? I do think it rather unjust that I should be singled out when you have turned a complaisant eye upon all your lady’s previous amours.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Caroline cried. ‘I have never been unfaithful to my husband! I didn’t even mean to… You took me by surprise. I only wanted…’
Astley chuckled and wagged his finger at her. ‘I sympathise with your desire to salvage your reputation, Lady Sterling, but I fear our secret is out. I doubt anyone who saw us kissing just now would ever believe you were unwilling. Quite the contrary. Another minute and I vow you would have had the buttons of my breeches undone.’
‘Viper!’ A shriek of tormented rage burst from Caroline as she hurled herself at Astley.
Bennett would have loved to see her scratch the scoundrel’s eyes. But such a spectacle would besmirch his cause even worse than it had been already. Perhaps irreparably.
As Caroline sprang towards Astley, Bennett caught her by the wrist and pulled her back, flaying her with his blistering glare. ‘If you cannot exercise a little discretion, madam, at least do me the courtesy of holding your tongue!’
His words appeared to quench her defiant anger with a deluge of shame. Her body went limp and her free hand flew to her mouth as if to stifle a sob.
Unable to abide any further contact after what she’d done, Bennett let go of his wife’s arm with all the revulsion he might have dropped a wriggling rat. He turned his attention back to Astley, to address his enemy’s assumption that they would duel.
‘You expect me to risk my neck defending my wife’s honour?’ He infused his question with years of accumulated disdain for the pair of them. ‘I would sooner call you out for implying I am such a fool. Even for that, I prefer to strike where it will do you greater injury.’
Though Astley arched a contemptuous eyebrow, Bennett had the trifling satisfaction of glimpsing a quiver of alarm in his enemy’s pale-blue eyes. ‘Indeed? And where might that be?’
‘In your purse, of course.’ Bennett kept his voice low and menacing, but loud enough to carry to the roomful of breath-bated onlookers. ‘I hope this dalliance was worth the damages it will cost you.’
For a moment, the threat seemed to strike Astley dumb.
Instead it provoked a sound from Caroline. Her eyes widened in horror as if she had only now realised all she stood to lose. A whimper like a wounded animal’s broke through the hand she still clamped over her mouth. Fortunately, his earlier warning kept her from trying to speak.
Astley found his voice at last. ‘Sue me for crim. con.? You wouldn’t dare!’
Crim. con. meant a criminal conversation suit brought by a husband against his wife’s lover for monetary damages—a necessary step toward obtaining a divorce. Bennett despised the vulgar colloquial term, which trivialized such a devastating betrayal.
Now it was his turn to sneer. ‘Pray what is to stop me? Given what you just confessed in front of all these witnesses, I believe it would be an easy case to win.’
Leaving Astley to reflect on just how deep a hole he had dug for himself, Bennett turned and strode away through a crowd that parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses. He was not certain whether Caroline would follow or remain behind with her paramour. Indeed, he was not certain which he would prefer. But when he heard the faint rustle of silk and the soft patter of kid slippers behind him, the sounds stirred a flicker of satisfaction from deep within the bitter ashes of his humiliation.
Stalking down the grand staircase, he fixed his eyes straight ahead and set his mouth in a grim line to warn anyone he met against the folly of speaking to him. He was aware of heads turning as he passed, furtive whispers dogging his footsteps.
Gossip travelled fast. By breakfast the tattle would be all over London. By the end of the week the scandal sheets would be lampooning him; the print-sellers’ windows would be papered with vicious caricatures. Though he had striven to lead a blameless life of public service, he would now be pilloried alongside the likes of the Prince Regent and his disreputable brothers!
Was that what Caroline wanted?
Though Bennett could not deny their marriage was an egregious mismatch, they had been happy enough once. Gradually, however, their differences had multiplied and the gulf between them had widened. But when and why had his wife grown to hate him enough to do this? After all he had given her and how little he asked in return, did she not owe him a single scrap of gratitude or loyalty?
A raw April wind blew Bennett’s hair about as he emerged on to the street. Damn! He had left his hat behind.
Well, no matter. He might send a footman to fetch it tomorrow… or not. He had plenty of others, after all. And he’d be hanged if he would darken the door of Almack’s again!
Striving to ignore his wife’s presence, Bennett was relieved when his carriage appeared promptly, in spite of the early hour and their precipitous departure.
‘Back to Sterling House, my lord?’ the coachman called down from his perch.
Bennett gave a curt nod as the footman helped Caroline into the carriage box. ‘Stop by my club first, Samuel. I will provide you with further instructions there.’
Before the coachman could reply, Bennett climbed in after his wife.
The vehicle had scarcely begun to move when Caroline’s voice emerged from the shadow-wrapped depths of the seat opposite him. ‘Please, Bennett, I know you must be as angry and embarrassed as I am by that dreadful scene, but surely you know I never had any intention of kissing Mr Astley.’
Clearly the woman had no idea of his feelings in the matter or she could never make such a ludicrous claim. Bennett leaned back in the carriage seat and crossed his arms over his chest. Did she truly expect him to believe she hadn’t invited and enjoyed that kiss and how many others before it?
Bad enough she had made him a cuckold—he would not let her play him for a fool as well! ‘Are you saying you tumbled into Astley’s arms by accident?’
‘Of course not.’ The pretended remorse in her tone took on a hint of exasperation. ‘When I told him you’d ordered me not to have anything more to do with him, he suggested we slip into the alcove so you would not see us.’
They’d had a bitter quarrel earlier in the evening on the drive to Almack’s, which now felt like a lifetime ago. Spurred by Astley’s thinly veiled accusations against Caroline, Bennett had forbidden her to continue associating with the bounder. She’d had the temerity to flare up at him, demanding to know why she must snub a man who appeared to enjoy her company when her husband did not. She’d extolled Astley’s wit and amiability, bringing Bennett’s temper to the boiling point. When the carriage arrived at Almack’s, she had flounced in, having given her husband no assurance that she intended to do what he’d asked.
Now she had the gall to use his reasonable request as an excuse for her folly? Bennett’s head pounded until he feared it would explode.
‘No sooner had we got in there,’ Caroline continued, ‘than he seized me and began to kiss me. I was so taken by surprise I could not think what to do. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before… at least not in a very long time.’
Like a slap in the face, her words reminded Bennett of the long-ago evening when he’d first kissed her and insisted she must marry him. On that occasion Caroline had not protested or even feigned reluctance, but returned his ardour with an answering passion he had not expected from an innocent young lady. At the time, her fiery desire had not troubled him—quite the contrary. Now he chided himself for not seeing where it might lead one day.
‘So when you say you’re sorry,’ he rasped through clenched teeth, ‘you do not mean you regret what you did. Only that you got caught red-handed this time.’
‘No! I mean… of course I’m sorry it turned into such a scandalous spectacle and embarrassed us both. But I’m also sorry I did not behave with more prudence and propriety.’ Each word sounded more forced than the one before it.
It was clear she didn’t mean a word. His errant wife was only spouting whatever she thought might save her from ruin.
Bennett shook his head. ‘That is the most improbable tale I have heard in a great while. You must take me for a perfect idiot. Though perhaps I encouraged you to think me an easy dupe by not suspecting your prior indiscretions.’
‘What prior indiscretions?’ she demanded. ‘I never committed adultery with Mr Astley, let alone any other man!’
He resisted the temptation to believe her. Now that the wool had been ripped from his eyes, like that curtain at Almack’s, so many incidents that had seemed innocent at the time took on much more ominous significance. Their marriage had long since lost its original enchantment for him. Now he wanted nothing more than to be rid of the wife who had brought further shame upon the family honour he’d worked so hard to restore.
Bennett gave a harsh, mirthless chuckle. ‘I would hardly expect you to admit such a thing, though the truth would make a refreshing change.’
‘But it is the truth!’ She had the devil’s own gall to sound offended by his doubts. ‘I cannot deny I have been admired by other men, but this was the first time matters went so far.’
He did not want to have this conversation with her. It served no purpose but to further inflame the feelings he was struggling so hard to control. ‘Do you reckon anyone in the Doctors’ Commons would believe that after what was seen and heard tonight by so many unimpeachable witnesses?’
His reference to the ecclesiastical court brought a gasp from Caroline. ‘Did you mean it when you threatened to seek damages against Mr Astley?’
Finally the full consequences of her actions seemed to dawn on her.
‘You should know by now, I am not in the habit of saying things I do not mean. Insincerity is Fitz Astley’s forte, not mine.’
Caroline did not bother to defend her paramour, being much more concerned with her own interests. ‘You cannot propose to divorce me over a single kiss I didn’t want and the accusations of a blackguard who would take such vile advantage of a lady.’
Did she not realise there were far worse things he could do than divorce her? ‘I can assure you, a great many Bills of Divorcement have passed through Parliament on the strength of less damning evidence.’
‘But that’s not fair!’ she cried, as if she were an innocent victim.
‘The world is not fair!’ Bennett thundered. ‘As you might know if you would once look beyond the tip of your pretty nose. Every day innocent children are born or sold into slavery, torn from their families at the whim of cruel masters. Have you any idea how much damage you may have done to the Abolition Movement with your wanton, wilful behaviour? Or do you not give a damn?’
‘Of course I do! I have heard and seen and breathed Abolition ever since I was young enough for Mr Wilberforce to bounce me on his knee. But how can I have hurt your cause?’
It galled him to have to explain to her. ‘I have made great progress, rallying support for an Abolition Bill in the House of Lords, which has always been a stumbling block in the past. How effective an advocate do you suppose I will be when it becomes known my wife has been bedded by my most vicious opponent? No one respects a cuckold.’
‘But you aren’t! That’s what I am trying to tell you, if you’d only heed me.’ She leaned towards him, emerging from the shadows into the faint light shed by the street lamps, her arm outstretched.
Bennett resisted the urge to pull her into his arms and reassert his claim upon her, as another part of him longed to do. That was dangerous weakness to which he must not succumb.
Perhaps realising she had exhausted all other means of saving herself, Caroline marshalled her final-line defence. ‘If you divorce me, I may never see Wyn again!’
‘See him again?’ How dared she try to use their son that way, after what she’d done? Her behaviour was a betrayal of the child as much as him. ‘You do not see much of him now that I can tell. You swan into the nursery for an hour or two to amuse yourself. Once you’ve got the boy overexcited and fractious you leave Mrs McGregor to manage him. Wyn would be far better off without a mother who treats him like a plaything to be picked up and cast aside again at a whim.’
Before Caroline could attempt to defend herself from his charges, their carriage came to a stop in front of his club.
‘What are we d-doing here?’ she asked in a dazed, plaintive tone against which Bennett steeled his heart.
The earlier fight seemed to have gone out of her. In a splash of light from the street lamp, Bennett glimpsed her bare arms wrapped around her torso and realised she was shivering.
‘I intend to stay here tonight,’ he announced, then added, ‘You left your cloak.’
‘I d-didn’t think of it until w-we were outside. And I didn’t d-dare go back for fear you’d leave me b-behind.’
He would have been well within his rights to do just that, Bennett mused bitterly. Yet a deeply ingrained code of gentlemanly conduct compelled him to remove his coat and thrust it towards her. ‘Take this.’
Caroline only hesitated an instant before pulling the garment around her.
Now Bennett had one thing left to say to her. Ever since they’d quit Almack’s, part of his mind had remained detached, pondering how best to handle this beastly situation. One step was imperative. ‘You must get out of town first thing tomorrow and stay away until the worst of the tattle dies down.’
Expecting her to object, he was surprised when she replied, ‘Where shall I go? Brighton?
Bath?’
‘Good Lord, no! The gossip will spread there in no time and word of your whereabouts would get back just as fast. You must retire to some place as far away as possible from society.’
He’d considered and discarded a score of options. Now, suddenly, the ideal destination occurred to him. ‘The Isles of Scilly. I have a house there, on Tresco.’
He hadn’t thought of the place in years. Now that he had, it seemed a perfectly fitting destination for his adulterous wife.
How could she have been so foolish and unguarded as to place everything she cared about in jeopardy? As the carriage sped through Kensington towards Sterling House, the harsh tribunal of her conscience chilled Caroline worse than the damp cold of the windy April night.
After all, she was not some green girl fresh from the country in her first Season. Over the years she had seen enough scandal to recognise the impropriety of slipping into that curtained alcove with a man other than her husband. She should have known how incriminating it would look if they were discovered there, even without the kiss.
That damnable kiss! How could she have let it happen? She still found it difficult to reconcile the scoundrel who’d taken such a liberty, then callously dragged her name through the dirt, with the charming gentleman who’d traded witty banter with her over the card table and cast admiring glances at her on the dance floor. She’d thought it was only a harmless, flattering flirtation, like a number of others she’d enjoyed in the past without ever compromising her reputation.
When her husband angrily forbade her having any further contact with a man who looked at her in a way he had not in years, her long-simmering resentment had suddenly come to the boil. She could not simply turn her back on her ardent admirer without a single word of explanation or apology. The last thing she’d expected when he beckoned her into that alcove was to find his arms suddenly around her and his lips pressing upon hers.
For an instant, she’d been too shocked to react. Then she’d been further paralysed with uncertainty and shame, fearing she had led him to believe his amorous attentions would be welcome. When she’d finally come to her senses and been about to pull away, the card room suddenly went quiet and she’d plunged into her worst nightmare.
Would Bennett truly go through with his threat to seek a divorce? Until lately, he hadn’t seemed to care how much other men admired her. She’d once heard it quipped that every gentleman of her acquaintance was besotted with her, except her husband. Though she’d pretended to be amused at the time, those words dealt a humiliating blow. What did it signify how many men desired a married woman if her husband was not among them?
In the early days of their marriage she had eagerly welcomed Bennett to her bed, deceiving herself that the pleasure he brought her was a token of the love he could not express in other ways. Later she’d faced the harsh truth that his ardour sprang from nothing more than physical desire. He had never felt anything deeper for her and he never would. In recent years, even his desire had waned. Caroline wished she could say the same. She had finally succeeded in quelling the feelings for her husband that had only made her miserable. Yet there were still nights when she lay in her empty bed aching for his touch.
Was it possible Bennett knew Astley was lying, but had seized upon this opportunity to be rid of a wife who had proven such a disappointment to him? Hurt and angry as that thought made her, Caroline was far angrier with herself for giving him such a fine excuse to cast her off.
Her husband was right about one thing, unfortunately. If he wanted a divorce, he could likely get one even though she had never committed adultery. Her single public indiscretion would be taken as proof that she must have done far worse things in private. And Astley’s deceitful boasting would be taken as fact, even if he later recanted.
After that, life as she knew it would be over.
As far as society was concerned, she might as well be dead. She would be exiled to the dullest depths of the country, forced to live on whatever pittance Bennett chose to give her. No lady who valued her good name would ever be permitted to associate with such a scandalous outcast. But by far the worst deprivation was that she would never be allowed to see her little son again.
The prospect of losing Wyn battered Caroline’s heart. Bennett had accused her of not caring about their son, but he did not understand.
The moment the carriage came to a halt in front of Sterling House, she hurried inside, throwing off Bennett’s coat. The whiff of his clean, bracing scent that clung to the garment roused a gnawing hunger within her that she’d spent years striving to subdue.
Stopping by her rooms, she bid her maid pack a trunk for the journey on which they would set out the next morning.
‘The Isles of Scilly, my lady? Why in the world are we going there?’
‘It was the earl’s idea, Parker.’ Caroline hoped that excuse would forestall any further questions. ‘We must leave at first light and I’m not certain how long we’ll be gone, so get to work.’
‘Very well, ma’am.’ Parker set about her task with a sulky air.
Leaving her maid to pack, Caroline rushed to the nursery. Though she’d arrived home much earlier than usual, Wyn was already asleep. She crept to his bed and perched on the edge of it, listening to his soft, even breathing.
‘Your papa thinks I don’t care about you,’ she whispered, not wanting to wake her sleeping child, yet hoping some part of him might hear and understand. ‘But I do love you very much and have since long before you were born.’
At first she’d wanted a baby as a way to please her husband and prove that she could fulfil her chief duty as a wife. But when she’d finally become pregnant and felt that tiny life grow and move within her, she began to cherish him for his own sake and look forward to giving him all the love and happiness most of her childhood had lacked.
But nothing had turned out as she’d hoped. ‘I had such a hard time bearing you. And afterwards, you were a fretful little thing and wouldn’t feed properly.’
Caroline heaved a deep, shuddering sigh as she recalled the shrill, angry shrieks of that tiny creature, his face a raw mottled red. The grave, accusing looks of the doctors still haunted her, as they’d shaken their heads and whispered together. She’d felt like such a terrible mother—rejected by her own child when he was barely out of her womb.
Though Bennett hadn’t said so, she sensed he was disappointed in her inability to succeed at something so simple and natural. He’d engaged Mrs McGregor and a wet nurse for her baby, who’d immediately begun to thrive in their care.
The gaiety and admiration of society had helped ease the sting of her failure. But her evening engagements often lasted late into the night, making her sleep the next morning until nearly noon.
‘I visited the nursery as often as I could.’ Her heart ached with the memory. ‘But I was afraid to pick you up in case I dropped you or made you cry.’
His nurse, a brusque Scotswoman who intimidated Caroline no end, had made it clear she wished the mistress would not come to the nursery too often and disrupt the young master’s routine. To her shame, she had allowed herself to be pushed out of her son’s life.
She could not let his father banish her entirely!
Wave after hot wave of anger seared through her. Anger at Bennett, who had stubbornly refused to believe her. His accusations that Wyn would be better off without such a mother had hurt far more than his charges of infidelity. Anger at the law, which punished a wife’s infidelity so harshly while letting a husband take a dozen mistresses with impunity. That same unjust law decreed that children belonged to their fathers—sons especially. A divorced mother was considered an immoral influence, unfit to raise the offspring she had borne. Bitterest of all was Caroline’s anger at herself for not realising how much her harmless flirtations and one moment of heedless impropriety could cost her.
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