Page 58 of Enlightened
Murdo reached across the table, seizing Kinnell’s upper arm and yanking him forward till their faces were inches apart.
“You are not innocent!” he hissed. “You are a vicious bastard. You were vicious when you were a boy, and you’re still vicious now. If you think I’ve forgotten the misery you heaped on me when I was smaller and weaker than you, you are very much mistaken.” He pushed his face closer. “Believe me, nothing will give me greater pleasure than to put a bullet in you and remove you from the face of the earth. Whether or not you agree to my terms, your wifewillbe freed from this marriage. The only thing that’s standing between you and your very imminent death is my wish to remove her from this house today. So I suggest you make the most of my very generous offer. I only have to wait another day or two to kill you, and I’m beginning to think it may be worth it.”
When he released Kinnell, the other man fell back against his chair with a thud. His face was white with fear.
“How am I supposed to divorce her?” Kinnell mumbled at last.
“You can name me as her paramour. I won’t protest. Given what happened at Culzeans last evening, you’ll have ample evidence to support your case, not to mention the sympathy of your peers. Elizabeth will be maligned as an adulteress, of course”—he looked Kinnell directly in the eyes—“but I’m sure she’d rather live with disapproval than fear.”
“It’ll cost me a fortune.”
Murdo shrugged. “You can afford it. Sell her jewellery. She doesn’t need it anymore.”
Kinnell’s lips thinned, and his eyes glittered with malice. “You’ll be maligned too. You’ll beruined. No one in polite society will acknowledge you again.”
For an instant, Murdo paused. It wasn’t long enough for Kinnell to notice, but David saw the brief hesitation, and he knew that in that instant Murdo counted the cost of all this to himself.
Then Murdo smiled.
“Touched as I am by your concern, I can assure you that you don’t need to worry about me,” he said coolly. “Now, if you are prepared to accept my offer, Mr. Lauriston here will draw up an agreement while we wait. If not, I’ll be seeing you on Hampstead Heath at dawn. What’s it to be?”
Chapter Nineteen
Whereas: the First Party acknowledges and admits that he has conducted adulterous relations with Lady Elizabeth Kinnell…
The ink was still wet on Murdo’s and Kinnell’s signatures when Kinnell turned on his heel and strode out of the study. When they followed him out a minute later, he was already gone. The butler, however, was hurrying towards them.
“Sir Alasdair has suggested that you wait for her ladyship in the hall,” he said when he reached them. “If you would care to follow me, she will only be a few minutes.”
And whereas: the Second Party acknowledges that he has subjected the said Lady Elizabeth Kinnell to cruel and inhumane treatment…
The butler wasn’t wrong. Less than ten minutes later, Elizabeth appeared at the top of the stairs, walking behind a stiff-faced footman, her head bowed. When she reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up, she gave a tremulous smile, only to flinch at David’s indrawn breath and Murdo’s hissed curse.
She was in a sorry state. One eye blackened, her mouth swollen and cut. God only knew what other injuries her clothing disguised. David could only hope that the child she carried was unharmed.
Now, therefore, the parties do hereby agree as follows…
It was just as well Kinnell had already removed himself, or David would have launched himself at the man, bad leg be damned. Suppressed rage had him clutching too tightly the agreement he’d just drawn up, and he had to force himself to loosen his grip. The agreement was for Elizabeth’s protection, after all. He folded the papers and tucked them into the pocket of his coat before stepping forward.
“Elizabeth,” he said. “I’m so sorry I led him to you.”
“David.” Her voice was little more than a breath. “Am I allowed to go with you?”
Her cautious hope was unbearable.
“Yes. Come on. Euan’s waiting outside.” He steered her across the hall towards the front door, Murdo following behind. A blank-faced footman swung the door open for them.
(First) The Second Party undertakes, entirely at his own cost, and within one month of execution hereof, to present a petition to the Court of Session in Edinburgh for dissolution of the marriage between the Second Party and the said Lady Elizabeth…
As they crossed the threshold of Kinnell’s house, Elizabeth made an inarticulate noise somewhere between a sob and a sigh of relief, clutching at David’s arm with gloveless fingers. It was only then that David realised that Kinnell was turning her out in the clothes she’d been wearing when she was snatched—no bonnet or gloves or cloak, just a plain muslin dress that was wholly inadequate for the biting March weather.
“Wait a moment,” Murdo said behind them when Elizabeth shivered. He shrugged off his coat and tucked it about Elizabeth’s shoulders. “That’s better.” He smiled. “Come on, the carriage is waiting a little way down the street.”
As soon as Murdo’s coachman saw them, he jumped down from his perch to open the carriage door, and Euan started forward from his seat in the corner.
“Thank God, Lizzie! Oh Christ, what has he done to you? Are you all right?”
She fell into his arms, half sobbing, half laughing, Murdo’s coat listing off her narrow shoulders to land on the carriage floor as David and Murdo climbed in after her, slamming the door closed behind them.