Page 25 of A Winter Scandal

The others all went still. Finally, Myles said softly, “Bloody hell.”

“Exactly.” Gabriel took a healthy swig of his drink and set it down on the table. “You saw him. Blond hair. Blue eyes.”

“Any number of people have blond hair and blue eyes,” Myles pointed out. “Why, Jocelyn’s hair was blond.”

“Dark blond. His hair is pale.”

“Still. Hair often darkens as one gets older, doesn’t it? Doesn’t mean it was necessarily Alec’s.”

“What the devil is wrong with you?” Ian glared at Myles across the table. “Why do you defend that bastard?”

“I am not defending him. I am simply pointing out there are other blond-haired, blue-eyed men in the world.”

“How many of them were engaged to my sister?” Gabriel’s words came out hard and flat.

Myles flushed and looked away. “Yes, you are right. I’m sorry. Of course, if the baby is Jocelyn’s, it wouldn’t make sense that the father was anyone but Rawdon.”

“But …” Alan frowned. “If the babe was Rawdon’s, why the devil would Jocelyn have left? Wouldn’t she want to marry him even more then?”

Gabriel nodded. “Exactly. Think about that: my sister ran away rather than marry Alec. One would assume that a woman who is carrying a man’s child would be more likely to marry him, not less. Obviously Jocelyn didn’t love the man, didn’t want to be with him, didn’t want him raising their child. Otherwise she would not have left.”

Myles stared at Gabriel. “What are you saying?”

“I am saying that it makes no sense for a woman to run away from a man she had given herself to freely. But it makes a great deal of sense if he had forced her.”

There was another shocked silence around the table.

Myles pushed back from the table, looking troubled. “Gabe, no … surely not.”

“I don’t know what else to think.” Morecombe’s dark eyes were hot and hard. “Would any of your sisters have run away from their husbands two weeks before they were supposed to marry them?”

“God, no. They were all over the moon about it, could hardly wait for the day.”

“Obviously Jocelyn was not, and there must have been some reason for that. The note she left said she would be happier this way. It would have to be a pretty miserable life she was facing if bearing a child out of wedlock, all on her own, seemed a more attractive option than wedding an earl.”

“I think you’re right,” Alan agreed. “Only thing that makes sense. Get a girl pregnant, and they’re yammering for you to marry them. No woman wants her child to be a side-slip.”

“Nor do they want to be considered a trollop themselves,” Gabriel added. “Her leaving indicates more than that she simply preferred not to be married to Rawdon. She would have had to have hated—or feared—him.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Myles agreed. “But still … Rawdon?”

“Why do you find it so hard to believe that the man is a villain?” Ian burst out.

“Why do you find it so easy?” Myles retorted. “Alec was our friend!” He glanced around at the others. “Am I the only one who remembers that?”

“Oh, no, I am well aware of it,” Gabriel retorted with some bitterness. “I am the one who befriended him, who brought him into our circle. I am the one who introduced him to my sister. Indeed, I practically shoved her at him! I’ll never be able to forget that.”

“I’m sorry, Gabe. You know I mean you no disrespect. And it makes sense that Jocelyn ran away because he mistreated her. But, bloody hell, it’s hard to believe that Rawdon would have forced himself upon anyone, much less your sister.”

“We obviously did not know him nearly as well as we thought,” Gabriel replied.

“You know what his family is like, Myles,” Ian pointed out.

“Yes, I know his father was a proper tyrant, from the few things Alec told us about him. But Alec despised the old earl; that was clear. And just because the Staffords have a … a dark history—”

Ian snorted. “They were a bloody violent group—literally. If I remember correctly, the first Earl of Rawdon kidnapped his heiress bride.”

“Several hundred years ago,” Myles shot back. “Those Northern lords were all practically brigands. But it isn’t as if they are carrying out border raids these days.”