by Emma Wildes
“I especially don’t want one.”
That was clear enough. Robert stifled a laugh. “Point taken.”
“Brianna is furious with me.”
Ah, so this was about his brother’s lovely wife. No surprise. She was the center of his life,
whether he admitted it or not. Robert cocked a brow. “Since you seek my counsel, am I allowed
to ask why?”
“I hired someone to follow her and she somehow became aware of it.”
Rarely had Robert seen Colton look so uncomfortable. It took a moment to assimilate the
information. Robert was mystified. “Why?”
“Because the inept bastard slipped up, obviously.”
“No, I meant why would you ever hire someone to follow Brianna?”
“Because I thought . . . no, I wondered if perhaps . . . oh hell.” Colton shoved his fingers into his
hair and said heavily, “I worried she might be unfaithful. I was wrong, as it turns out, but she
isn’t in a frame of mind to forgive me. We’ve barely exchanged a word in two days.”
“Unfaithful?” Robert stared, not sure how to react. “Brianna? Why the devil would you think
that?”
“I obviously had some compelling evidence or I wouldn’t have taken things so far,” Colton
muttered. “It turned out just to be a misunderstanding of gigantic proportions, but I still say it
isn’t surprising I came to the conclusions I did. That aside, I need to find a way to reconcile with
her. I requested an audience so I could formally apologize, but she refused. I am, quite frankly,
surprised she hasn’t left me and gone without permission to Devon and her parents.”
The note of despair in his brother’s tone did not escape Robert, though he was stunned that
Colton, who usually thought everything through with a thoroughness that bordered on obsession,
had made such a grave mistake. When deep emotion was involved, it was clear Colton wasn’t
quite as keen-minded.
Brianna would never even consider infidelity. Robert knew it as certainly as he knew the tide
would come in on a predictable timetable. She was deeply in love with his brother—probably
almost as much, Robert realized, as Colton was in love with her.
“She hasn’t left,” Robert ventured to guess, “because even though you’ve hurt her and insulted
her integrity—then even worse, demonstrated an ignorance of the depth of her feelings—she
loves you enough to stay. I am going to wager that as much as you wish to endeavor to make this
right between you, she wants it even more. That is to your advantage.”
A flicker of relief washed over Colton’s face. “Do you think so?”
“It doesn’t mean you won’t have to grovel, Colt, and as far as I can tell, being an exalted duke
does not train you in the art of groveling.”
His brother gave a small grunt. It was hard to tell if it was assent or the opposite. “I think I am
willing to do whatever it takes. I do not want her unhappy with me, but I especially do not want
her unhappy. I have no idea how to rectify the situation.”
“I may have a few thoughts.” Robert felt a slight smile curve his lips. Soothing ruffled females
was something he’d done before, and actually, he thought he was rather good at it.
“Excellent,” Colton said. “Help me and I’ll do my best to make sure Sir Benedict doesn’t wring
your neck when you impart to him your wish to marry his daughter with all due speed.”
They were upstairs in her father’s study.
Robert, her father, and the Duke of Rolthven.
Rebecca sat in the music room, idly toying with the keys of the pianoforte. At least she’d stopped
pacing. That had become exhausting, and she could swear she’d worn through part of the rug.
She couldn’t believe it was finally happening. It was like a dream. Robert Northfield had come to
formally ask for her hand in marriage. Robert.
A wicked rake, a scandalous rogue, a libertine of the first order—or was he? When she suggested
the other night—when she’d snuck away from the ball and almost encountered catastrophe with
her inopportune arrival at an event where apparently proper young ladies were not welcome—she
was willing to consider a stop at his townhouse before he returned her home, he had refused,
insisting he could wait.
Not very rakish. She loved him all the more for it. And even more for allowing himself to be
persuaded otherwise.
It was just as she’d told her mother. Robert had an overall gloss of easy charm and careless
behavior, but underneath she’d known the substance of the man. He’d been gentle, ardent, and
though she’d demanded wickedness in his arms, what he’d given her was instead exquisite
pleasure and tenderness. He would make the perfect husband; she knew it.
Now, as long as her father felt it also, she might end up being the happiest woman in England.
But it was hardly a given. She’d turned down far more eligible gentleman with bigger fortunes,
and even more elite places in society. Nor did any of them have his less than pristine reputation.
Unable to take it any longer and needing to soothe her soul, Rebecca picked up the first piece of
music she could find and began to play. It was an unfinished piece she’d been working on weeks
ago, before she’d slammed into the man of her dreams while trying to escape Lord Watts. She
hadn’t made progress since that definitive moment.
Her hands stilled when the door opened.
Not until Robert leaned an elbow on the instrument did she realize she was holding her breath.
“Very nice. Yours?” he murmured.
She registered the faint smile on his well-shaped lips and elation soared through her. “Mine? Care
to clarify?”
She meant a great deal more than the unfinished quartet.
He nodded slowly, looking impossibly handsome with his golden brown hair and intense blue
eyes. “Yours.”
Had her father really agreed?
“I suspected as much from the very beginning.” He smiled in the way only he could, a tantalizing
lift of one corner of his mouth. “I’ve wondered if perhaps you’d composed the music you played
for us at Rolthven.”
“It’s an unladylike occupation to compose music, I realize.” Her heart had started a hammer
staccato in her chest.
“I like it when you are unladylike.” Robert’s voice held a sultry note. “The other night comes to
mind. I actually believe you promised me you would be unladylike on a regular basis. I’m going
to hold you to that vow, you know, as well as the others we will make to each other.”
Thinking of the book and its outrageous suggestions, Rebecca blushed. She said in a hushed
voice, “I take it, since you are still here, my father was . . .”
“Agreeable?” He looked amused as she trailed off. “Not at first, I admit. But between your
mother—who was true to her word and intervened—and my father’s friend Sir John, who is also
a friend of your father, I at least have had some aid in repairing my reputation. There are other
mitigating factors like the fact your cousin, who got me into trouble with your father in the first
place, hasn’t shown much Christian rectitude in that he’s now bound for the colonies rather than
face his recurring gambling debts. Your father has reluctantly decided I might not be such a
blackguard after all.”
Robert had finally told her, in the aftermath of
their lovemaking, why her father held such a
dislike for him. She had been furious on his behalf at her weak cousin for assigning blame to
someone who had done nothing but try to help him. “I’m glad he knows the truth.”
“Colton, also, has an amazing presence when necessary.” Robert grinned. “He was the one who
pointed out the merits of a hasty marriage, lest I lure you to more reckless behavior. He didn’t say
so, but my older brother essentially implied that unless they lock you away, given my reputation,
how could your father be sure a scandal didn’t linger in the future? Why not a marriage instead,
to forestall any catastrophe?”
“You haven’t lured me into anything,” Rebecca protested. “I told my mother the truth. Quite the
opposite. I was the one who asked you.”
Robert just lifted a brow. “I don’t care if your father knows whether or not his worries have
substance. Colton’s method of subtle persuasion worked.” He smiled. “No one understands better
than my respectable brother what strikes terror into the hearts of other respectable people.”
He came around the pianoforte and sat down next to her on the bench. One long finger reached
out and struck middle C. The note quivered in the room. Rebecca could acutely feel the press of
his muscled thigh against hers. He turned, so close she could see the blue of his eyes with vivid
clarity. “You are sure,” he asked softly, “you want this?”
She could, she realized, quite possibly stare into those mesmerizing eyes forever. “Yes.” No
hesitation.
“I have no practice.” He grimaced. “Well, I have no practice being a husband, something you
might wish to note.”
“Usually one doesn’t,” she said with all due practicality, “when one marries for the first time.”
He smelled marvelous. She was learning that enticing, spicy masculine scent. Who would think a
member of the male species, which favored horses and rooms full of tobacco smoke, could smell
so wonderful?
As if they were in sync in some mystical way, he leaned forward just enough and said, “I like
your perfume. That first night, in the garden, I think it was what I couldn’t forget about you
afterwards. That, and the unique color of your eyes.”
He was going to kiss her. She desperately wanted him to kiss her. And then to lean her down on
the bench and take her again as he’d taken her the other night. “I shall endeavor to wear that
particular perfume all the time.”
“And your hair.” He lowered his head just a little.
“I analyzed the color in my mind. I’d never done that before. That alone should have told me
something. A grown man sitting around philosophizing about the hue of a woman’s hair has
some sort of affliction.”
“It isn’t a disease.”
He touched her chin. “Isn’t it?”
She was no match for him, but she really didn’t want to resist him in any way, so what did it
matter? Rebecca licked her lips. “What color is it?”
“What?” He seemed focused on her mouth.
“My hair.”
Robert brushed his lips against hers, apparently mindful of the open door to the music room. “Oh.
I’m still not sure. I may have to study it for the next fifty years or so.”
“That sounds lovely,” she whispered. “Is this really happening?”
He laughed, a low, heated sound. “I keep asking myself the same thing.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The true test of a man’s affections is his ability to
apologize when he is mistaken. If he does so, if he is
sincere, you will be able to tell from the look in his
eyes. I can’t describe it, but trust me, you will know.
Love has a luminescence all its own.
From the chapter titled: “Does He or Doesn’t He?”
Brianna paused in the door of her bedroom. It was occupied, which she had expected, but she
hadn’t expected her husband to be the occupant. An evening gown was laid out on her bed, and
Colton sat in one of the chairs by the fireplace, his gaze fixed on her as she stood in the doorway.
He looked relaxed, his hand cupping a snifter of brandy, but there was a set to his shoulders that
told her the nonchalance was feigned.
“Are you going to come in?” he asked as she still stood there.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. How long was she permitted her affront? His suspicions had been
unforgivable. Absolutely so.
Except she worried she already had forgiven him. She missed him. To a certain extent, once her
outrage had faded to misery, she understood his doubts maybe a little. It didn’t excuse him, but
Brianna did suppose her inexperience had been part of the problem also. All she’d wanted was to
please her husband. It had sounded simple at the time.
It wasn’t at all simple now.
“It’s your bedroom. You’ll have to visit it eventually,” he said in a mild tone. “Aren’t you going
to change to go out? You must come in here to do so.”
That had been her intention, since even if her personal life was a shambles, it would make matters
worse to have everyone in society know it, and she’d accepted an invitation already. “Where’s
my maid?”
“I dismissed her for the evening.”
His presumption made her blow out a short breath. “I suppose I can do my own hair.”
“Or not do it at all.”
“Colton—”
“When my father died, I was lost.” The words fell quietly into the room. “I don’t expect that
tragedy to absolve me, but I do request, as your husband, a chance to explain my recent actions.
Can’t you grant me that much?”
He never spoke of his father. And the word request held a humility that spoke volumes. Brianna
moved into the room, shut the door, and without speaking sat down at her dressing table, facing
him.
Whatever came next, she needed it. They needed it.
“I was only twenty.” He smiled faintly. “Your age, I suppose, so maybe you can imagine it. I feel
vastly older sometimes. Suddenly all these people depended on me. He was strong. Vigorous.
There was no reason to think my father would come down with a cough and be gone within
literally a few days. I didn’t believe it had happened until my mother turned to me, weeping, and
asked me what we were going to do. Everyone was looking at me, to me, for direction. That was
when I realized I really didn’t know.”
Brianna watched her husband struggle to reveal his feelings and knew— knew—that if he wished
to apologize, this was the best way possible. For if he mouthed platitudes and tried to explain his
actions, she might think it was an excuse to put the unfortunate incident behind them.
But this, no. This cost him.
Colton glanced away, and she could swear she saw a slight sheen to his eyes. “I didn’t know what
to do. I’d known I would probably be the Duke one day, but neither my father nor I ever
imagined it would happen as it did. Oh yes, I’d been tutored and taught and advised, but never
once did anyone tell me the transition would hurt so damned much. Being an heir is an abstract
concept. Inheriting is something else altogether.”
“Darling,” she said in a husky voice, her anger evaporated by his raw expression.
“No, let me finish. You deserve this.” He swallowed, the muscles in his throat ri
ppling. “I think
that day I felt betrayed to an extent. By him. By his dying. Ridiculous, isn’t it? I was young, but
already a man. It just wasn’t supposed to happen so soon. He should be alive now. I had to set
aside my grief; there was no time for it. So I threw myself into the role of duke in the best way I
knew how, and I think maybe I forgot about some other important things in life. Lucky for me,
you are doing your best to remind me.”
She was frozen. Colton, the one she knew, didn’t do this. He did not open up his soul.
“So, may I perhaps beg of you a little forgiveness for my stupidity? I tend to try and make sense
out of everything. Your actions, no matter how captivating and enjoyable I found them, confused
me.” Her husband looked at her, his lean body tense in the chair. “I really can’t excuse myself for
thinking the worst, but I feel vulnerable with you in a way I haven’t experienced for a long time.
Nine years, in fact. Add in this coming child and the sense I had you were keeping something
from me, and I had that same feeling of being overwhelmed. So I did my best to take control of
the situation in the only way I knew how. I am an idiot, but at least I am an idiot who loves his
wife to distraction.”
She’d been paralyzed before, but now she couldn’t move if she wished it.
“I must,” he said, the words an obvious struggle, “or I would not be able to act in such an
irrational manner.”
Brianna adored him all the more for his typical logic surfacing even as he attempted what was
turning out to be a very effective apology.
Then he devastated her with the most compelling statement of all. “I didn’t realize this had
happened to me. To us.”
She sat poised on the bench before her dressing table, her hands folded calmly as she looked at
him. But there was nothing calm about the flutter of her heart. “Didn’t know you loved me?”
He was handsome, powerful, wealthy . . . everything a man could hope to be. Still, he seemed at a
loss. Then he rubbed his jaw and said raggedly, “I didn’t realize it. And yes, Brianna. God, yes. I
love you.”
It got easier.
Saying the words to Brianna hadn’t ever really been the problem. It was admitting he loved her to
himself that had been the barricade between them. They loved each other. That was even more of