A Matter of Choice (30 page)

“Several men escorted him home,” Chardwell answered. “He’s been confined
to his house with guards posted at every entrance to make sure he doesn’t leave.”

“Good.”

He braced his hands against the fireplace mantle and dropped his head between his outstretched arms.

Chardwell’s supportive fingers clasped his shoulder. “Why didn’t I see this coming?” Joshua whispered to his friend. “I should have known he’d lost his grip on sanity when he tried to bankrupt the estates rather than allow me to inherit them. I should have—“

Chardwell tightened his grip on Joshua’s shoulder. “It does no good to live in the world of ‘should haves’, friend. You reacted as any son would have. No one wants to believe the worst of their father. No one wants to take that final step until they are forced to.”

Joshua stood straight and raked his fingers through his hair. “Well, I don’t have a choice now, do I?”

Chardwell shook his head. “After what happened tonight, no one will question what you have to do.”

Joshua knew that was true, but it didn’t make what was to come easier. “I only wish—“

He turned when the door opened and Jenkins led the doctor in.

“How is she?” he said, crossing the room in long, anxious strides.

“She’ll be fine,” Doctor Maddox said, straightening his jacket. “Make sure she gets plenty of rest.”

“Oh, we will,” one of Allison’s sisters said through her tears. “We’ll take turns keeping her to her bed.”

When Joshua turned around, there were tears on everyone’s faces, including the men’s in the room. “Is she awake?” he asked, already making his way to the door.

Doctor Maddox smiled. “She’s waiting for you.”

That was all the permission Joshua needed. He raced across the room and took the stairs two at a time. He needed to see her. Needed to make sure she was all right.

He’d come so close to losing her. He wasn’t sure how he would have survived if he had. He wasn’t sure
if
he could have survived.

He raced to her room and opened the door without knocking. “Allison.” He rushed to her bedside. “Oh, Allison.”

He knelt at her bedside and gathered her small hand in his larger one. “Why, Allie? Why did you do it?”

She smiled, her grin a feeble attempt to try to convince him she wasn’t in pain. Her eyes, though, gave her away.

“I had to. Your father intended to kill you. I couldn’t have survived a lifetime without you.”

“Oh, sweetheart. You’ve never been more wrong. I’m the one who couldn’t have survived.

She tried to lift her hand to touch his cheek, but she gasped in pain, then lowered her arm. “I should have believed you when you told me you’d been drugged,” she said when she recovered her breath.

“My father contrived a very convincing plan. Even I didn’t believe he could hate me that much.”

“Why? What reason could he have to want to destroy you?”

“He doesn’t believe that I am his.”

“Surely he doesn’t—“

“Doubt my parentage? Yes, I think he does.”

He stood to straighten the covers then walked to the window and looked outside. The sun was just rising, beautiful shades of purples and pinks lightening the sky.

“I remember when I was small,” he said, bracing his palm against the window frame, “my mother sat me down one day and asked me who my parents were. I was quite young, perhaps seven or eight, but old enough that I’d been taught my ancestry. I was also old enough to remember the tears that streamed down her face.

“I answered I was Joshua Camden, the second son of the Duke of Ashbury. She made me repeat it twice more, telling me before she left not to ever doubt that I was the Duke of Ashbury’s son.”

“But you don’t think your father believes you are his?”

He shook his head. “I think he believes my mother cuckolded him. That would explain everything. Why he never accepted me. Why mother had to escape from him so often and took me with her to Graystone Manor. Why Philip was taught everything and I excluded from even the basic knowledge concerning the Ashbury holdings. Why my father couldn’t tolerate the thought of me inheriting everything upon his death.”

He pounded his fist against the wall. “Bloody hell, but he must have made her life miserable. And neither Philip nor I were old enough or perceptive enough to realize it.”

“You can’t blame yourself, Joshua. You were so very young. How were you to know?”

He breathed a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. But I wish I had. Maybe I could have done something to make her life a little more bearable.”

He walked back to the bed. “Can you imagine how furious he must be, thinking that all his Ashbury holdings are going to a bastard son?”

“Where is your father?”

“They took him home. He’s being watched. You don’t have to fear him any longer.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said, “I’m...” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“You’re tired. You need to rest. I’m going to let your family see you for exactly one minute, then I’m leaving orders that you are not to be disturbed.”

He leaned down and kissed her, then opened the door to let her family in. They surrounded her bed and made her reassure them several times that she was all right. Just when he was ready to tell them their time was up, Chardwell stepped up beside him.

“You’re needed at Ashbury House.”

“What happened?”

“They found your father a few minutes ago. The doctor thinks he doesn’t have long to live.”

Joshua reached out to steady himself. He needed to go to him. He didn’t want his last memory of the two of them to be filled with angry words.

“Joshua? What’s wrong?”

He looked at the worried expression on Allison’s face then rushed to her bedside. “I have to leave you for a little while, but I’ll be right back.”

The furrows above her eyes showed her worry. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Father. Chardwell will explain.”

He kissed her tenderly. “Make sure she rests,” he ordered over his shoulder, then rushed from the room.

“Joshua?”

He stopped at the sound of her voice and turned back.

“Take care.”

He smiled. “I love you, Allie.”

“And I love you,” she whispered.

He took one final look at her resting on the bed, then rushed from the room.

How could he be so lucky to have found her?

His heart thundered in his chest. Someday, if he were fortunate enough to have a son or daughter, he swore they would be surrounded by love. How could it be any different with Allie as their mother?

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The sun was beginning its descent below the horizon, turning the sky a beautiful mixture of pinks and blues and brilliant oranges. She’d fallen asleep several times since Joshua left to see his father, but each time she woke with a start. She relived last night’s nightmare, only this time she wasn’t the one who the Duke of Ashbury shot. It was Joshua. And he didn’t survive.

She focused her gaze on the door and waited for the knob to turn. Eventually, it did, and Joshua entered.

His face was drawn and pale, his eyes lacking their usual luster. The forlorn look etched on his face tore at her heart.

“Joshua?” He looked as if the ordeal with his father sapped the strength from his body.

His eyes closed. When he opened them a tear fell from his lashes. “He’s dead, Allie.”

She extended her uninjured arm and reached out to him.

He closed the gap between them in two long, weary strides, then grasped her hand and sat beside her on the edge of the bed. “He took his own life. He thought I’d be pleased.”

He rose from the bed and walked to the window. The last rays of dying sunlight filtered through the window panes now, the dimness covering the room in a peaceful calmness.

“He thought I would be pleased because I’d have it all, even though he died believing I didn’t deserve it.”

He turned to face her. “He thought Mother had foisted another man’s brat on him. He took his life because he couldn’t bear to think of me as the next Duke of Ashbury.”

“Oh, Joshua.” Her heart ached for him. Her arms were desperate to hold him.

“And yet he loved her. He told me he did. But he refused to believe that she loved him. Instead, he chose to believe some vicious Society gossip.”

She couldn’t stand to watch him hurt without trying to comfort him. “Come here.” She held her arm out to him.

He came to her bedside.

“Remove your shoes. And your coat.”

He placed his jacket and his waistcoat over the chair near the bed. Then untied his cravat. When he finished, he sat on the side of the bed next to her and removed his shoes.

“Now, lay beside me.”

He shook his head. “I won’t chance hurting you.”

“I need you, Joshua. I need you and you need me.”

He sighed in resignation, then cautiously lay down next to her. He took care not to touch her, but she would have none of it. “Hold me.”

He shook his head.

“Hold me,” she whispered again, and he gently wrapped her in his arms and held her next to him. There was a little pain when she tucked herself close to him, but not more than she could stand. She leaned closer and kissed the crook of his neck. “Each of us has a choice in the decisions we make.”

“I know we do, but how could he choose to believe the gossip of strangers over the denials of the person he loved?”

“It happens all the time. I nearly made that same mistake. I nearly lost you.”

“That wasn’t the same. You saw us with your own eyes.”

“Yes, but I
chose
not to believe you when you told me what really happened.”

He hesitated for several moments, then asked the question she knew he eventually would.

“What changed your mind?”

“I was forced to make another choice: I could either believe what I thought I saw and live the rest of my life without you. Or I could choose to believe that you would never break the promise you made me before we married and spend the rest of my life with the man I love.”

He lifted his head and looked down at her. “I love you, Allie.”

“I know you do. And I love you. We both chose to love each other a long time ago. I just forgot for a little while. But I’ll never forget again.”

“I know you won’t. Because I’m going to spend every day for the rest of my life showing you how important you are to me.”

She turned her gaze to the flickering candles lighting the room.

“Tomorrow will be a new day, my love,” she said, drawing his lips close to hers. “Perhaps you should begin tonight by reminding me how much you love me.”

“It will be my pleasure,” he whispered against her lips. “Loving you will always be my first choice of important tasks I need to accomplish each morning when I wake and each night before I fall asleep.”

And he kissed her.

The End

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Laura Landon enjoyed ten years as a high school teacher and nine years making sundaes and malts in her very own ice cream shop, but once she penned her first novel, she closed up shop to spend every free minute writing. She has written more than a dozen Victorian historicals.

Laura loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her by visiting her web site at www.lauralandon.com.

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Also by Laura Landon

MORE THAN WILLING

SHATTERED DREAMS

WHEN LOVE IS ENOUGH

coming August 2011

WHERE LOYALTY LIES

To Jim and Roxann, the best family anyone could ask for. Your love and support means the world to me.

All my love.

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Regency Romance Historical Fiction

www.lauralandon.com

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

A MATTER OF CHOICE

Copyright © 2011 by Laura Landon

First print edition

ISBN 978-1-937216-10-8

All rights reserved. 

No part of this book may be used in the context of another work of fiction without written permission of the author or Prairie Muse Publishing.

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