Deceived by Desire

by Marie Force

  “Aubrey.”

  One word from her was all it took to send his heart soaring. He raised his head, saw her looking at him and crawled around the doctor to join her on the bed, taking her into his arms even as his body continued to shake with uncontrollable sobs.

  “Shhh.”

  She was comforting him? That would never do.

  “I’m so sorry, Maeve. You’ll never have to see her again. Whatever she said to you, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing in this world I want more than you and a life with you. Please don’t ever leave me again. I wouldn’t survive without you.” He kissed the tears that slid down her pale face. “I love you more than life itself. You must believe me when I tell you that.”

  “I do.” Though her voice was barely a whisper, the music of Ireland he heard in her words buoyed his battered heart.

  As he clung to her, he didn’t care that they were surrounded by strangers. He didn’t care about anything but her and making sure she had everything she needed to regain her health.

  He held her while she slept, soothed her when she moaned and later, when Derek and Simon arrived with the carriage, he carried her downstairs after expressing their heartfelt thanks to Scroogey and his sister, Eileen. Aubrey snuggled Maeve into his arms for the ride up the hill to Paradis Trouvé where the entire staff rushed out to greet them.

  He refused to hand her over to anyone, preferring to carry her into the house and up the stairs himself. Only when she was settled in their bed, where she belonged, did he release the deep breath he’d been holding for hours by then.

  Derek and Simon came to the door, along with Catherine and Madeleine.

  “How is she?” Catherine asked, her eyes red from lack of sleep and tears on behalf of her friend.

  “She is exhausted and in need of a long rest to regain her strength,” Aubrey told them. “But the doctor assured me she will make a full recovery.”

  “And will she be able to have other children?” Madeleine asked.

  “He said there was no reason to believe otherwise.”

  “Thank God,” Derek said for all of them.

  “And my mother . . .”

  “You needn’t concern yourself with her again,” Derek said. “We made it very clear that we would ruin her on this side of the Atlantic and on our side if she ever bothered you or Maeve again. Your sisters were so upset by what she did to Maeve that they encouraged her to leave before she made things worse.”

  “Thank you,” Aubrey said. “I can never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me and for Maeve.”

  “You both are family to us,” Derek said. “And family takes care of family.”

  “We’ll leave you to get some rest,” Catherine said, squeezing Aubrey’s arm. “Everything is all right now.”

  Aubrey glanced back at Maeve, asleep in their bed. As long as he had her, he had everything. “Yes, it is.”

  Epilogue

  September 1904

  Essex, England

  Riding in a chauffeured motorcar from the train station to Westwood Hall, Derek and Catherine’s country home, Aubrey held his squirming six-month-old son on his lap while Maeve sat next to them, watching with amusement as he struggled to contain the baby’s boundless energy.

  He got that from his mother, who had bounced back quickly from losing their first child, even if they both continued to mourn the baby that had been lost on that long-ago terrible night.

  “He’s going to get the better of you,” Maeve said, her lilting accent even more pronounced after spending a joyous week in Dingle with her family.

  “It’s a good thing the ride is brief.” From the day of his birth, Maximilian Sullivan Nelson had had a mind of his own. When Aubrey and Maeve had discovered they each had a great-grandfather with the distinctive name, they’d never considered naming their firstborn anything else. Max or Maxi, as they called him, had filled their lives with indescribable joy that had helped to temper Aubrey’s grief over the loss of his father the previous fall.

  Per his edict to his mother, he had declined the chairmanship of Nelson Industrial and had gone into business with Derek and Simon, overseeing their interests in the United States while branching out into areas that interested him, including investing in manned flight after Wilbur and Orville Wright had finally succeeded in flying an airplane and returning it safely to the ground the previous December.

  He and his friends from England believed the future of aviation was limitless, and they were determined to be on the leading edge of innovation. They worked well together, had similar sensibilities and trusted each other implicitly. While Aubrey missed working with his brothers in the family business, it had been the right thing to branch out on his own. In a time of tremendous innovation and advancement, he enjoyed having the freedom to pursue projects that interested him. Not to mention, his new arrangement allowed him to work from his home office in New York, where he could be close to Maeve and Maxi during the day.

  When they had first returned to the city, they had kept largely to themselves. The last thing Aubrey had wanted, after the disastrous summer in Newport, was to expose his beautiful wife to any more discrimination or social nonsense. A funny thing had happened, however. The more they avoided society, the more invitations they received, due in no small part to their friendship with the duke and duchess, who had bought a home on New York’s Fifth Avenue so they could spend more time in America.

  “Are you ready to see Uncle Derek and Aunt Catherine again?” Aubrey asked his son.

  He received baby chatter in response and wiped the drool from the little guy’s chin. Teething made for messy business, Aubrey had discovered. He reveled in everything the baby did and quite feared he would spoil him rotten if Maeve were not there to keep that from happening.

  “He wants to see Gracie.”

  Their son and the Eagans’ daughter had taken an immediate shine to each other, sparking talk of future marriages and other such nonsense.

  “I can’t wait to meet Robert and Isabel,” Aubrey said of Derek and Catherine’s newborn son and Simon and Madeleine’s four-month-old daughter.

  Anchoring his son with one arm, Aubrey rested his other hand on the small but growing bump under Maeve’s dress. “I can’t wait to meet this little person,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.

  “Five more months.”

  “I don’t know how I’ll stand to wait that long.”

  “Patience is definitely not your best quality.”

  “You’ve known that about me from the start.”

  “Indeed, I have.” Her smile lit up her face and made his life worth living. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to make her smile.

  After that terrible night last summer, he had shared with her the information Mutt had passed along to him and had heard the tragic story of her friend Padraig’s death and how much it haunted her to this day. Aubrey had known men in school who had seemed to favor other men over women and had witnessed their suffering firsthand.

  The driver took a right turn into the gates at Westwood Hall, and Aubrey experienced a profound feeling of homecoming, knowing he would soon see his closest friends and business partners. It’d been almost two months since they’d last seen each other in New York, and he’d looked forward to this reunion for weeks.

  Derek, Catherine, Simon, Madeleine and the entire household awaited their arrival outside the main entrance. Derek, Catherine and Madeleine all had babies in their arms, so Simon helped Maeve from the car and hugged her warmly. Aubrey would never have the words to properly thank his beautiful friends for the way they had welcomed Maeve into their group.

  He gasped with surprise when Justin came ambling out of the house, drink in hand. Aubrey and Maeve hadn’t seen him since he left Newport the previous summer and hadn’t been told he’d be there when they arrived. They had learned that his father and brother had been killed when they rode into a live electrical line that had fallen in a windstorm the day before the accident. In the past year, Justin
had done his best to step into his formidable new role as the earl, but his burden was obvious to anyone who’d known him before disaster struck.

  Aubrey handed the baby to Maeve and hugged Justin. “What a delightful surprise this is, my lord.”

  Justin scowled at him, just as Aubrey had expected him to when he used Justin’s title. “Drop the formality, Nelson. I’m off duty for a blessed few days.”

  Laughing at Justin’s comical facial expression, Aubrey and Maeve hugged the others and together they went inside to settle the babies with governesses, so their weary parents could enjoy luncheon with their friends. He and Maeve had chosen to travel without a governess, preferring to take care of Maxi themselves.

  “Will they tell us if he’s a bear?” Aubrey asked Catherine, eyeing the stairs.

  “Of course they will.” Catherine patted his arm. “Enjoy a little respite while you can.”

  Aubrey allowed her to direct him toward the veranda on the back of the house where the housekeeper, Mrs. Langingham, supervised the kitchen staff as they put out an informal picnic lunch on a long table. She let out a happy cry when she saw Aubrey, giving him a welcoming hug. Since he and Justin had assisted in caring for Derek after he was felled by influenza, Mrs. Langingham had treated him like a long-lost son.

  Was it any wonder that he loved visiting Westwood Hall so much? “Mrs. Langingham, I’m pleased to introduce you to my wife, Maeve.”

  Mrs. Langingham hugged her, too. “I’m delighted to meet you, my dear. By all accounts, you have made our Aubrey very happy.”

  Maeve’s face heated with the blush he loved so much as she glanced at him. “He has done the same for me.”

  “Come, everyone,” the housekeeper said. “Luncheon is served.”

  The meal was presented buffet style, meats and cheeses and bread and fruit. Wine flowed along with conversation and laughter that made for a perfect afternoon with some of his favorite people. Despite the residual tension in the family after Aubrey’s blowup with their mother, he had remained close to his siblings as well as his nieces and nephews. Though the others remained in touch with their mother, Aubrey did not, and thankfully the others respected his wishes where she was concerned. He would not have welcomed a rift with his siblings and was grateful every day for their support of him—and Maeve.

  Hours later, when he noticed Maeve suppressing a yawn, Aubrey stood, stretched and extended a hand to his wife. “Let’s have a rest before dinner, love.”

  “A rest before dinner,” Simon said, eyeing his own wife. “That sounds like a capital idea.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Derek said.

  Their wives rolled their eyes in unison, setting off a wave of laughter.

  “I assume we’re in my usual room?” Aubrey asked.

  “You assume correctly,” Catherine said. “And Maxi is in the nursery on the third floor, but I knew you’d want him with you at night, so there’s a cradle for him in your room.”

  “Thank you for thinking of that,” Maeve said.

  “Our home is your home,” Catherine said. “Whatever you need, you only have to ask.”

  As they walked upstairs, Aubrey kept an arm around Maeve and pointed out the portrait of Derek’s parents that occupied a prominent spot at the top of the grand staircase.

  “He looks just like his father,” Maeve said.

  “Yes, he really does. He was only six when he lost them to murder, orchestrated by his power-hungry uncle.”

  “I can’t imagine such a thing.”

  “I can’t either. It’s hard to believe that he’s been a duke since the tender age of six.”

  “If anything were to happen to us, I’d want them to raise Maxi.”

  “You would?”

  “I can’t think of anyone better prepared to guide an orphaned child to adulthood than someone who has survived a similar ordeal and gone on to have such a successful life.”

  “You make a very good point, my love. I’ll ask him if they’d be willing, although I have no doubt that they would love him like their own.” He ushered her into the room that had become familiar to him from previous visits, and closed the door behind him, sliding the lock into place to ensure they wouldn’t be disturbed. “However, I don’t wish to discuss the possibility of our premature demise on such a fine and perfect day.”

  “What would you rather discuss instead?” she asked, with the coy smile that made his blood boil. He’d expected his desire for her to wane somewhat over time, but the opposite had occurred. The more he had of her, the more he wanted.

  He went to her, turned her to face away from him and began to unbutton the shirtwaist she had worn for traveling. “I’d like to discuss my lovely, sweet, delectable wife and how much I love her.”

  “I like that topic. Please proceed.”

  Smiling, he kissed the curve of her neck that had held him in thrall from the day they met. Knowing that glorious neck and every other part of her belonged to him and him alone was the best thing in his life. “I love her more than anything in this entire world, except for our glorious Maxi, whom I love equally.”

  “I’ll allow that. Continue.”

  Aubrey laughed at her witty reply. “I love her gorgeous neck and her creamy white skin.” One garment at a time, he revealed her to his hungry gaze. “I love her bountiful breasts and the way they get larger when she’s carrying my child.” He cupped her breasts and ran his thumbs over the sensitive tips, reveling in her gasp. “I love sleeping with her, making love with her, having babies with her, laughing with her, arguing with her, kissing her.”

  She wound her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with the enthusiasm he’d come to expect from her.

  “I love everything with her.” Backing her up to the bed, he freed his cock from his trousers and pushed into her in one smooth stroke.

  When her back arched off the mattress, he marveled at how she was always ready for him.

  “Aubrey,” she whispered.

  “Hmmm?”

  “I love everything with you, too.” With her hand on his face, she gazed into his eyes, staring straight into the very heart of him as only she could. “I’ll never forget the way you protected me when I was at my lowest moment. I don’t know what would’ve become of me if you hadn’t found me in the ruins of your family’s summer home and made up your mind that we were meant to be.”

  “I found my whole life amid those ruins, and I’ll always be thankful that you agreed to be mine.”

  “Best thing I’ve ever done was agree to be yours.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, my love.”

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading Deceived by Desire! I hope you loved Aubrey and Maeve as much as I enjoyed writing them and visiting again with Derek, Catherine, Simon, Madeleine and Justin from Duchess by Deception. Join the Deceived by Desire Reader Group at facebook.com/groups/DeceivedbyDesire to discuss Aubrey and Maeve’s story with spoilers allowed, and the Gilded Series Group at facebook.com/groups/GildedSeries for updates on the series.

  This second book in my Gilded Series took me on an exciting journey through the historical past of my beloved hometown of Newport, Rhode Island. For years, I have wanted to write about Newport’s storied Gilded Age history and the glorious summer “cottages” that are managed today by the Preservation Society of Newport County. I recommend a visit to the society’s website at newportmansions.org to experience the grandeur for yourself. I love all the amazing houses, but The Breakers is my favorite. Several of the houses referred to in this book were given fictional names, such as the Nelson and Russell homes, which didn’t actually exist.

  If you’re ever in the area, I recommend spending a day in Newport touring the mansions as well as other historically significant sites such as the Newport Casino, which is home now to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Also of historical interest are the Redwood Library, Trinity Church, Touro Synagogue and St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, where President and Mrs. Kennedy—as well as
Mr. and Mrs. Force—were married. Newport, the longtime host of the America’s Cup races, is also known as the “sailing capital of the world,” and is home to amazing shopping, restaurants and world-class beaches.

  My late father, George Brown Sullivan, was raised in Newport’s Fifth Ward, where many Irish people resided. It’s still known as the Irish end of town. In his younger days, my father lived on Grafton Street and worked for TJ Brown Landscaping, founded by his grandfather, Timothy J. Brown, in 1901, and run by his uncles, William “Wiggie” Brown and Timothy J. “Kaiser” Brown, during my dad’s time with the company. My paternal grandmother, Margaret Mary Pauline Brown Sullivan, was their sister and kept the books for the company for many years. TJ Brown is one of Newport’s oldest businesses and is still in existence today with fourth-generation proprietors that include Wiggie’s grandson, TJ Brown. As an aside, my twenty-three-year-old daughter, Emily, bears a striking resemblance to my grandmother Margaret. Side-by-side pictures of the two as young girls are quite remarkable!

  My dad’s father, who died when my father was only nineteen, was known as “Scroogey” in the Fifth Ward after playing the role of Scrooge in a school production of A Christmas Carol. By all accounts, he was a kind and generous man who was loved by all who knew him, unlike his namesake. My father’s beloved cousin, Wiggie’s daughter Eileen Brown, was a constant presence in our lives as kids. Eileen’s mother was an Irishwoman named Bridget, who was known to all as Bridie. Bridie married Wiggie after they met while working at Newport’s John Nicholas Brown estate, owned by the family that founded Brown University—not the Browns I was related to! Wiggie and Kaiser had a niece named Kathleen, who was known as Heine, the name her siblings gave her when they couldn’t pronounce Kathleen.

  My dad told stories about working on the grounds of all of Newport’s illustrious homes and had tall tales to tell about the colorful characters who occupied them. He was well acquainted with the homes that provided generous noontime meals for the help, even the guy who cut the grass—and he cut a lot of grass before he was drafted into the army at the end of the Korean conflict and found his life’s work as an aviation mechanic. He talked of driving Cadillacs to Florida for the millionaires he worked for from the time he was nineteen. He delighted in the fact that he parked cars at the Kennedy wedding at Newport’s Hammersmith Farm, the family home of Jacqueline Kennedy’s stepfather, Hugh D. Auchincloss. Hammersmith Farm became known as the “Summer White House” while Kennedy was president, and his yacht, the Honey Fitz, was often docked in front of the home.