Lady Iona's Rebellion (31 page)

“I accepted this marriage. My fairytale marriage! Me, an heiress whose father came from a humble mining family. What was I to do? Break my family’s hearts and trample their hopes because I learned the fairytale was a lie? In the end, you and I both got what we wanted—you took my fortune to fritter away and I got a title and the life of a peer.”

“You let Nathan take the blame?” Iona asked.

“At the time, it seemed reasonable. I felt no fondness toward my future brother-in-law. He was a bounder, a cad like his brother. Let Miss Hartfield have a terrible life with him. If not for the two of them, my beautiful illusion wouldn’t have been ripped away—not like that. If I knew she was going to refuse Nathan’s marriage offer and take her own life, I might have acted differently.” She sighed. “I hope I would have.”

“What are you saying?” the Marquess whispered. His gaze swept over to where Nathan was seated. “What is she saying?” he asked more forcefully.

“I’m saying I feel lucky that my love for Edward wasn’t as irrevocable as Miss Hartfield’s,” Maryanne said, her words clipped and quickly spoken. “He was the one who seduced the miller’s daughter, not Nathan.”

“Nathan…” The Marquess’s lips quivered as he swallowed hard. He dragged his hand over his mouth and shook his head as if he didn’t know what to say. The room was silent until he slammed his fist against the dinner table, making the plates jump and clatter. “But you were… You claimed…”

“Maryanne is speaking the truth?” Iona asked Nathan once she had enough of this drama.

After glancing around the room, Nathan nodded awkwardly. Her heart went out to him. A little boy’s fears and hopes were sketched on his stricken brow. He turned to his mother, whose expression was still tightly pinched and whose brows were still deeply troubled. He reached out to her with the tentative care of a child with a broken toy, hoping his parent could magically repair the damage.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said.

For too many thundering heartbeats nothing happened.

And then, silently, his mother broke into a sob and pulled her youngest son into her arms.

From over the Marchioness’ shoulder, Nathan’s celestial blue gaze met Iona’s. She saw a tear sliding down his cheek a moment before he turned his head away.

C
hapter Twenty-One

In the explosion of emotion that followed Maryanne’s announcement—mostly aimed toward Edward—Nathan rounded the table, grabbed Iona’s wrist and whisked her from the room and out of the madness of his family’s house. This was a deeply personal family matter that didn’t need to be sullying her ears.

The topic of discussion was shocking enough. Not only had his father launched into roars of anger over Edward’s callous treatment of Miss Hartfield, he’d also decried how—just a couple of weeks ago—he’d been compelled to pay a high sum of money to the illustrious actress, Rose Darly, in order to keep her and Edward’s scandalous affair from going public.

In the blessed silence of the night, heavy clouds marched across the sky high above them with the stately grace of soldiers on review. A low thunder rumbled through the air.

Despite the threat of rain, determination drove Nathan as he charged across Brock Street and deep into the damp grasses of Crescent Field. Once they were far beyond the reach of the road, he released Iona to give her a chance to catch her breath.

He wanted nothing more in the world than to take her into his arms and kiss away the concern that had creased her brow. But when he moved toward her, she held up her hands and kept him at arm’s length.

“Why?” she asked, her petite chest fluttering with her quickened breath. Lightning streaked crossed the early evening sky. “All these years…why did you let them believe the worst of you?”

His reasoning had once seemed so simple. He’d done what he needed to do.

A trio of cows hurried past them, the bells around their necks ringing as the beasts sought shelter from the imminent storm.

“What else was I to do? Let Edward turn Miss Hartfield out of Callaway Abbey and leave her to struggle on her own? How could I let that happen?” Perhaps, in trying to escape his wild youth, he had been grasping for crumbs of redemption. Or perhaps it had been yet another ploy to get his father to take notice of him.

“You should have told your parents the truth!” she shouted. A surprising rage shuddered through her.

“Why? What good would have come from that?”

She shrank away. Hell, he didn’t mean to scare her. He dredged in an uneven breath and ran his hand through his hair, tugging until his scalp stung.

“Right or wrong, Iona, I chose to own up to Edward’s mistakes with the hope that my father would see that I was taking the responsible path…that he’d see me. But it didn’t work out that way. All my life it’s been the same.”

“Oh, Nathan…”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“Good, because I have no intention of giving you any.” She shoved his chest. “You are a foolish, foolish man.” She shoved him again. “And now you finally have your family. This is all your fault!”

He grabbed her wrists before she could take another swing at him. “What in blazes are you angry about?”

She blinked furiously. “If you had told your parents the truth all those years ago and let Edward’s wedding day fall to pieces, those rumors wouldn’t have torn apart your reputation.”

“And?” Nathan prodded, still confounded by her anger.

“And I wouldn’t have sought you out for lessons, because you wouldn’t have been branded a dangerous rogue in the first place. If you’d told the truth, we wouldn’t be in this trouble right now. Forced into marriage indeed!”

“That’s true. If I hadn’t done what I did, we wouldn’t be engaged right now. Instead you’d be planning a wedding with your stodgy cousin, Lovington.” He cupped her cheeks with his hands and made sure their gazes were touching. “Is that what you wanted?”

“Of course not.” But then again he already knew that.

“What has upset you, Iona? Tell me.”

“I didn’t want this!” She flapped her hands helplessly. “I thought you’d become a shameless rogue, a rake…and I had sought to use you! If not for your battered reputation, I would have never chased after you. Don’t you see?”

“I’m afraid I do.” Guilt was eating at her. She was still hiding in her gilded cage, afraid to leave the safety of the known. His graceful songbird desperately needed the freedom to fly.

“Good.” She crossed her arms and stubbornly turned her head away.

He didn’t understand it, didn’t even bother to question it but he knew deep in his heart he was the only gentleman who knew her well enough to be able to give his spirited Iona her wings.

“The scandal wasn’t your fault, Iona. The moment I saw you at the beginning of this summer I knew what I was going to do. I chased you with one goal in mind—marriage.”

“No,” she whispered.

“We’re both guilty. Does that make you feel better? You wanted to use my scathing reputation to free yourself from an unhappy engagement. I wanted to use your spotless reputation, hoping to clean some of the tarnish from mine. I hoped, rather naïvely I suppose, that if my family saw that you could accept and love me that they would too.”

“But my reputation is now as tattered as yours…and it’s all my fault. I seduced you.”

Nathan pressed a finger to her lips. “You worked a miracle for me. My father addressed me by my name and didn’t curse me with his next breath. And my mother—did you see her?—she hugged me.”

“It wasn’t me who worked that miracle, Nathan. The truth simply needed to come out. In order for those wounds to heal, the truth needed to be told.”

“Even so.” He tilted up her chin. “You fought like a beautiful harridan for my honor. I came to Bath looking for a proper wife. What I found was a daring, sensual lady. Oh, my sweet, I am the luckiest man in England.” He brushed her lips with a grateful kiss.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “And now you have everything you could possibly want.” She sounded utterly miserable about it too.

“I love you,” he insisted, pulling her into his arms. “Don’t worry about your reputation. I hope you haven’t so quickly forgotten my rogue’s lessons. As long as we have each other—and our love—we can weather any storm.”

Iona didn’t want to hear this. Couldn’t hear this. Not because she didn’t share the emotion. Her heart ached. The tender organ was filled with so much love for him it literally ached. But sometimes love wasn’t enough.

What would happen to them once they were married and her wants and desires were swept away by his life? Would she grow to resent him? To hate him for keeping her from ever discovering just how far her independence could have taken her?

It broke her heart to even imagine what that seed of resentment might grow into.

A crash of thunder shook the ground.

“There is a burning question I should have asked you over a week ago.” Holding her hand, Nathan sank down onto one knee. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

“Please,” she sobbed, “do not torment me like this. The first banns have already been read. The ceremony is going to be held in a week and a half. There is no backing out now.”

She ripped away from him and started to run home. Nathan chased after her, grabbed her shoulders and spun her around.

“There’s no guarantee that this course you’ve set for yourself will make you happy,” Nathan said.

“Don’t you think I already know that? Don’t you understand that I’ve been promised all my life that if I simply did as I was told and kept silent about my desires that my obedience would be rewarded? That I’d be happy?”

She stomped her pretty foot. “I’m not happy, Nathan. I’m restless. And I want more. More freedom. More choices.”

Her curled fist touched her heart. “I want the opportunity to try.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “How will I know who I’m supposed to be if I’m never given the chance to find out?”

Nathan closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. To that, he had no answer. He wanted to give Iona the sun, the moon, the stars—her freedom. How could he possibly take that away from her? She deserved to be her own person. She deserved to at least have the chance to find her own path.

He’d be no better than the bucks and beaus spending countless hours trying to seduce her into marriage if he was to take her freedom away from her. He’d accomplished what no gentleman could, he’d won her heart. But without her happiness, it was an empty victory.

“If you don’t wish to marry me, just say the word. Just say the word and I will walk away.”

“You cannot, your reputation, your family. They have only just accepted you again. Whether I want it or not, there is no backing out of this.”

“None of that matters, Iona. If you don’t wish to marry me, I will disappear from England. I will take all the blame.”

Thunder crackled just as the sky opened up and sent the late summer rains flooding down on them.

“I don’t want you coming to me out of a feeling of duty,” he said. “I would rather spend the rest of my days wandering aimlessly on the Continent than have you do that. Don’t you understand? A marriage involves two individuals working together, making decisions together and, yes, giving up their independence so they can be together.”

“I don’t want to be alone.” He barely heard her whisper.

“That isn’t enough! I’m not willing to be your least objectionable option!”

“You’re not the least objectionable—”

“If you come to this marriage with doubts, you will eventually end up hating me and yourself. And I wouldn’t be able to survive that. Not after living all these years under the heel of my parents’ scorn. So if you don’t love me and truly don’t want this marriage, have a little compassion on me and let me know now. Not after the wedding vows have been said and our union sealed.”

He steadied himself for the worst. “So tell me the truth, Iona. What do you want?”

Rain mixed with the tears pouring down her pale cheeks. She blinked up at him. “What do I want? I’ve been waiting for years for someone to ask me just that,” she said quietly.

His heart sank.

“My greatest desire has been to explore my passion for sculpture and to learn how to coax beautiful figures from stone. And I don’t want to leave my family. They have been my life for so long that I cannot imagine living apart from them.”

“I see,” Nathan said.

So that was it. This was to be goodbye. He turned to plod up the hill and back toward the Royal Crescent.

Iona grabbed his wrist. “When I thought your father was going to send you away, none of that meant anything to me. My world came tearing apart when I thought I might never see you again.”

She turned her face into the driving rain. “I know now that I am strong enough to live a life without you…”

He tried to pull away from her but she wouldn’t let him go.

“But such a world would be horribly incomplete.” She wiped the damp hair from her face. “You make me complete, Nathan.”

He gathered her into his arms and, lifting her off her feet, swung her in a wide circle. “I promise, my love, your dreams will always be safe with me.”