A Scandalous Marriage (20 page)

“Oh, I asked, Leah. I offered you everything.”

“Or were you just rebelling against your family by chasing the Carrollton chit?”

Her barb struck home. His hands clenched into fists. “Astute, Leah, very astute. Do you have any other theories you wish to convey?”

“Yes,” she said. Tears of anger stung her eyes. She battled them back. It was important that she appear in control in front of him. “I believe you wanted a child more than anything. That’s why you knew none of your former lovers had become pregnant. Because it mattered to you. Nor did you mind the rumors circulating that you had fathered children.”

That last had been a blind stab. She was surprised when he drew back as if she’d physically assaulted him.

He straightened. “Ben is mine, Leah. I felt him draw his first breath, here in my hands. If it hadn’t been for me, he would not be alive. I have more right to him than any other man alive. Or Draycutt, for that matter.”

He was right.

The ugliness of her doubts assailed her. She sat on the edge of the bed, her legs weak, like two straws that could no longer hold her weight.

Devon crossed to stand in front of her. “Grandfather is dying, Leah. He’s always missed his son, but right now, he feels it more keenly than before. You heard him call me Robin. Perhaps I am wrong, but the man I saw today is a shadow of the man I once knew. He’s carrying deep regrets, and I don’t want him to die that way. If it gives him peace during the last moments of his life, why can’t we pretend? It will only be for a matter of days.”

“But it’s not the truth, Devon.”

“To the devil with the truth! The truth never got anyone anywhere. Look at you. Has the truth served you well?”

“What you are doing is wrong. I fear the consequences.”

Devon knelt in front of her. “I took a vow to protect you. I won’t let anything happen. It is only for a short time, Leah. You saw him. Can you deny him this last happiness?”

The tears did come now. She couldn’t hold them back. She swiped them away with one hand. “But can I trust you?”

It was a rhetorical question, asked of the world in general, but her husband’s answer was very personal.

“I’m not the one who took a lover, Leah. I’m not the one who betrayed the other.”

There it was. The anger. She’d sensed it in him from the beginning, and now it spiraled around her, threatening her. “Is that what this is about?” she whispered. “Are you punishing me?”

He came to his feet with a growl of outrage. When Leah held up her hand as if to ward him off, it made him even angrier. He crossed the room, putting distance between them. The air vibrated with tension.

Just then, someone knocked at the door. Leah jumped, while Devon whirled to face the intruder.

“Come in,” he barked.

The door opened, and a maid timidly stuck her head around it. “I beg pardon, my lord. But Mrs.

Knowles sent me up to see to Lady Huxhold’s needs.”

Leah averted her face, afraid the maid would notice her crying. She anticipated that Devon would send her away. Instead, he gruffly said, “Then do it. Whatever she wishes, do it.”

“Yes, my lord.” The maid hesitated.

“What?” Devon snapped.

“I beg pardon, my lord, but Dr. Partridge told me that Lord Kirkeby is asking for you. He wondered if you could come across the hall.”

Her words had a sobering effect on Devon’s anger. “I will go to him now.” He paused. Leah could feel him look at her, debating whether or not to say anything.

To her relief, he left without saying a word. In the wake of his departure, she felt exposed, confused.

“My name is Meggie, my lady. May I get you anything? A tray of supper perhaps? I don’t believe anyone from the family is dining downstairs this evening. We’ll all be waiting and praying for Lord Kirkeby.”

Hunger was the last thing on Leah’s mind. She almost said it to the maid, and then she remembered Ben.

“Yes, a tray would be nice.”

“Anything in particular?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Leah answered. “I’m not a finicky eater. But wait,” she said as the maid started to leave. She could almost hear Old Edith’s approval as she added, “Include a glass of ale.”

“Yes, my lady.” The maid left.

Leah lay back on the bed, exhausted.

The words she and Devon had thrown at each other chased themselves in her head. He was wrong, so wrong to use Ben. How could she trust a man who would do that? Especially when what she wanted from him was something he refused to give—his trust.

She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes, the room was dark save for the brightly burning lamps. She sat up. The pins had fallen from her hair, and it hung halfway down her back.

On a desk in front of the room’s double window was a pitcher and several covered dishes on a tray.

Leah rose slowly, assuming that Ben had woken her. Then a knock rattled the door. Ben still slept.

She had just started for the door when it opened. Lady Vainhope stood before her. Hanks of her usually perfectly coifed hair stuck out in different directions. Her eyes were red-rimmed and angry.

In the flickering of the lamps, she appeared as a thing possessed.

“I knew you were here,” she said accusingly to Leah. “You can’t hide from me.”

“I was asleep. I didn’t realize anyone was at the door.”

“There are many things you don’t realize. But mark my words and mark them well—you will never be the marchioness of Kirkeby. Never!”

With that promise, she slammed the door shut.

The noise startled Ben. He cried. Leah ran to him. She swept him up in her arms. Poor, poor baby. So young to be played for such a pawn.

“Nothing will happen to you,” she whispered. “Nothing.” She was shaking. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the washbasin. Her face was pale, her eyes dark and hollow, and suddenly something inside of her snapped.

Lady Vainhope would not harm her child. She would sell her soul to the devil before that happened.

And maybe she had already. After all, she’d married Devon.

Was it only yesterday that she had naively hoped he would fall in love with her? Again, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. He’d said this morning that she had a new maturity—but what had she done with it?

Seven months ago, she had taken charge of her fate only to find herself back where she’d started—

living her life according to the whims of others.

Her baby watched her, his solemn gaze slightly out of focus. He depended on her. She was his world.

Fierce pride filled Leah. She’d made her mistakes, but Ben wasn’t one of them. And if she couldn’t have Devon’s love, she would have his respect—even if she had to leave him.

She would have thrown her and Ben’s meager possessions into a basket and charged from the house…

except for something that Devon had said earlier. The words tickled her memory. She concentrated and then realized Devon had admitted that he had not taken a lover since their parting. At the time, she’d been too wrapped up in guilt to realize what his words meant.

Suddenly, Leah realized she had been on the verge of making a mistake. She wanted a family for her son, a home, happiness. It would not come without a price… and perhaps her liaison with Draycutt had been necessary. It had given her Ben. In a roundabout way, it had also brought her and Devon together.

Leah had always believed in God because such a belief was expected of her. But now, she saw a pattern in her life that she had not anticipated. Those frightened prayers she had repeated over and over when she had feared herself lost and alone had been answered. Not in the way she had expected, but they had borne fruit.

The realization renewed her courage.

She pushed the crib from the nursery into the bedroom. She’d take no chances with Venetia’s threats, but she would not run.

Sitting at the writing desk, she found a heavy cream-colored velum and writing quills in a drawer.

Carefully, she dipped a quill in ink and penned a note to her parents.
I have arrived in London,
it began.

She signed it, sanded it, and waxed the envelope. The hour was half past nine. She rang for Meggie and said, “See this is delivered to Carrollton house on Cheswick Street.”

“Yes, my lady.” The maid left.

My lady.
The title gave her a sense of her place in the world. What had Devon said? A viscountess didn’t need to answer to anyone. She wondered if that meant she could create another scandal or two as she learned to exert her own independence?

The idea made her grin. Her debutante days were over. Instead, she began to relish a newfound sense of purpose. Whether Devon realized it or not, they were destined to be together. She and Devon and Ben.

With that thought, she set off to find her husband.

Devon kept lonely vigil by his grandfather’s bedside. A single candle on the table close at hand provided a small circle of light. The room was too hot. Or was it the tension humming inside him that made him so uncomfortable?

Dr. Partridge reported that his grandfather had fallen into a deep, uncomplicated sleep shortly after his argument with Venetia.

“I gave him a bit of laudanum, too, of course,” Dr. Partridge had added. “Although she seemed more upset than he did.”

Rex had left for haunts of his own. Dr. Partridge had confided that Rex didn’t usually linger around the sickroom. It was just as well with Devon. He wasn’t in the mood for his cousin’s false heartiness.

No, he wanted time to be alone. Leah’s words still rankled.

For a year he’d been telling himself her misplaced loyalty to her brother was the reason she’d refused to run away with him. Now, he knew differently.

“She doesn’t love me,” he said to his unconscious grandfather. “She never loved me.” He didn’t like hearing the sound of those words in the air.

What kind of a buffoon was he to tie himself to a woman who dared to accuse him of the basest motives? Of course, what bothered him was that she was right. He
was
lying to his grandfather.

And maybe to himself.

A clock ticked from one of the dark corners of the room. Devon listened to it, counting out the minutes, the seconds.

Ever since his parents’ deaths, he’d felt like an outsider. Therefore, he’d behaved like an outsider. He’d rebelled because it was the antithesis of what his grandfather had wanted… or so he had thought.

What if Leah was right in other ways, too? What if he’d assumed the role of footloose rake not to irritate his family but to prove his manhood?

Last night, lying in bed watching his wife nurse their son, he’d felt part of a family. Those moments had seemed almost sacred and more intimate than any sexual encounter he’d ever had.

He wanted children. Hordes of them. Legions of them. Only a man who feared he’d never see his seed grow to fruition could understand the depth of Devon’s need.

Ben erased that fear. Ben could be his future, his legacy.

“And I want Leah.”

There. He’d said it… and he hated himself for his weakness.

The door behind him opened. Devon didn’t turn. He assumed it was Dr. Partridge until a tingling awareness and the scent of honeysuckle warned him differently. He half rose from his chair. “Leah?”

She stood just outside the ring of light, Ben in her arms. Her dress’s dark blue velvet blended into the shadows and made her seem a creature of the night. Her eyes reflected the candle flame. Her hair curled down around her shoulders, a curtain of shiny, ebony silk, just as he’d dreamed of it.

This morning, at the inn, she had appeared an uncertain Madonna, a woman lost before a sea of men.

Now, she reminded him of a warrior queen. Her bearing hinted of an iron will and confidence.

She came forward. He straightened, waiting for her to state her purpose, to throw more recriminations at him. She shocked him when she raised herself up on tiptoe and kissed him.

I must be dreaming,
Devon decided even as he instinctively placed his hand on Leah’s waist and kissed her back.

This was no apparition. This was his wife. His
willing
wife. She broke the kiss. Ben, still cradled in her arms, wiggled.

“Hold him,” she whispered. “He is yours. A bond between us.”

Devon took his son into his arms. “Why are you doing this? What changed since earlier, when you accused me of every crime you could think of?”

“Your aunt.” She told him then of Venetia’s threatening her.

“And so you have come to me,” he stated, the cynicism in his nature urging him to be wary.

“I’m not afraid of her, Devon. Or anyone else. But I have reached a decision. You are my husband. I am willing to trust that you will let no harm come to Ben.”

“You couldn’t have doubted that?”

She sat down in the chair. He sat on the edge of the bed across from her. Their knees touched. She looked over to his grandfather. “Are we disturbing him?”

“No, he can’t hear us.”

Leah still lowered her voice. “I feel as if I have been lost for a very long time and am just realizing that there was purpose to my journey.” She placed a hand on Ben’s head. “This baby is
ours.
Out of all the men I have known, you are the one I wish to raise him. I want you to teach him to be the man you are.”

“What kind of man is that?” he asked from a hollowness in his own soul.

Leah smiled. “A man who embraces life.” She placed a hand on Devon’s arm. “This evening, I saw something of myself in your aunt. She has wasted her life yearning for something she cannot have—the title, if not for herself, then for her son. You, on the other hand, created your own destiny. You didn’t wait. I didn’t realize it then, but when you told me of your plans that wonderful afternoon at the wharf, you changed my life. I followed your example. I was afraid, and yet I tried.” Silent tears welled up in her eyes and started rolling down her cheeks. “Ben is alive because of you. Now, I want you to save him from becoming like Lady Vainhope, or my brothers, who waste their time over what can’t be changed.

Or my parents, who are disappointed by the past and see no future. You must teach Ben to determine his own fate. He needs you more than he needs me.”