Franklin was right, he didn’t deserve her.
But he wanted her. And he needed her.
He lifted his feet off his desk, and swallowed the last of the brandy, when a letter upon his desk, atop a stack of unopened missives, caught his eye. He recognized the handwriting on the address as his mother’s and wondered why she might be writing him. He couldn’t ever remember receiving a letter from her before. He never had, he was sure.
Curiosity momentarily outweighed all those devastating thoughts of Nicole and the sorry state of his marriage. He retrieved the envelope and tore open the seal, pulling out a two sentence note, signed by his mother.
Your wife is here, though I cannot say why. I insist you fetch her, posthaste.
Of course, it made sense as she was, effectively, family, and was for certain in a place Trevor would never have thought to look.
The dowager’s house, about forty minutes north of the city, upon a fresh horse, took Trevor not more than thirty minutes to reach. Almost as if she’d advised her staff to be waiting for him, the door to the modest but elegant country house was pulled open, even as he left his tired steed alone in the drive.
He’d visited so rarely, he hadn’t any idea of her butler’s name but asked that his horse be tended while he sought his mother.
“In the parlor, my lord,” advised the butler, a surprisingly young and handsome man. He lifted a hand and pointed away from the wide foyer. “Second door, just there.”
“Thank you.”
Trevor found his mother lounging by herself, a sherry in one hand, a book in another. Seeming to recall her once telling Nicole that she certainly did not read novels, he was surprised to see the book was just that, as he couldn’t imagine what else A Sicilian Romance might be, if he’d read that title correctly. She snapped the book closed and laid it upon the side table, face down.
“I believe you’ve lost something,” she said in her enigmatic way.
“So I have.” He was weary now and had still to convince his wife to come home with him. He didn’t suppose he had the energy to deal with his mother’s unpleasantness before that. “Where is she?”
“Not, how is she? Or, why is she here? Very curious, indeed.”
“I’d rather have those answers from her.” He scraped a hand over his face and jaw, impatient to find Nicole.
“Upstairs, likely asleep by now,” his mother finally offered. And as Trevor pivoted, she called out, “Don’t make the mistake your father did.”
He was quite sure he didn’t need a lecture from his mother and turned back toward her, allowing his expression to say so.
She smirked but otherwise ignored his dry look and forestalled him. “Did you ever wonder what came first, your father’s unfaithfulness, or my wretchedness?”
He had not. He’d absolved his father years ago for his infidelities, knowing how very difficult his mother could be. But as it seemed he would pay a price to her for taking in Nicole, he shoved his hands in his pockets, and gave her a shake of his head.
“I thought not.” She lifted a hand and smoothed the gray hair away from her face. “I was very young when we married, and so in love with him.”
Trevor’s gaze snapped to her face, to her eyes, at the break in her voice.
She continued, “He was much like you, tall and handsome, hard to resist. I absolutely adored him.” With a sharply indrawn breath, she told him, “I didn’t find out that he’d not given up his mistress until about a year into our marriage. I cried and begged and pleaded, and he promised he would. He never did give her up. Honoria was her name. When all was said and done, when he died, she’d actually had more of him that I ever did. And he’d added others, even if they didn’t last. But she always did. She came to his funeral, wailed openly upon the casket. As if the grand open secret of the Earl of Leven’s proclivities throughout the years hadn’t been bad enough, she did that to me, cementing my humiliation. I’ve never had set foot inside the city again if not for your betrothal and wedding.” She breathed harshly, as if this confession had taken any small amount of stamina she’d had. “The sister was undoubtedly unsuitable for you. But when you married this one, honestly I hoped you had a chance.”
Trevor slumped onto the arm of the chair next to him. “Mother, I had no idea—”
She waved this off, so much anger in her still. “But now I see you’re just like your father, not chasing the skirts, I’ll give you that. But you haven’t a clue what to do with a good woman, one who clearly adores you. You’ll ruin her, I suspect, as your father did me. Take a good look, son, this is what happens to us, when we’re spurned and unloved and broken. We turn bitter and ugly, reject any form of love. It’s just too painful. At a certain point, it just becomes so much easier—so damn safe—to be callous, keeping everyone and everything at a distance.”
He was at a complete loss for words, staring at her, seeing a trace of tears water her eyes.
She swiped impatiently at her eyes, stiffened her lip. “But there you have it, and that’s what you’ll have, a mean and wretched wife, if you don’t figure this out now.”
“I aim to,” he insisted, frowning.
She fluttered her hand again, dismissively. “Then go, go to her. The fact that she came here tells me exactly how awful you’ve been. She didn’t want to be found by you, for whatever you’ve done to her. You’ve likely got half a chance to fix it. Get on with it.”
Almost as if she were a whole new person, or if he absolutely saw her that way, he asked, “You like her, don’t you, Mother?”
She wanted to smile, at his assumption, or at his wanting her approval, he could not know, and then she did not, held the smile away from him yet. Instead, she said, “She talks entirely too much, has my kitchen in an uproar, and her needlework is beyond unfortunate.” And then, with a rare softening about her once pretty features, “But it’s very hard not to like her.”
Trevor couldn’t say he recalled ever seeing such bemusement upon his mother’s face. He stepped forward and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “We’re all going to be just fine, mother. I’ll make sure of it.”
She nodded, one tear finally fell away from her tired eyes. “Third door on the right, son.”
He proved how dastardly—and desperate—he was by not rapping upon the door to announce his presence. He had some fleeting and frightful vision of her hearing him call a greeting through the door and jumping up to secure the lock. He couldn’t take that chance, and quietly pushed open the door to show him only a pitch black room. Closing the door behind him, he waited until his eyes adjusted, until he could distinguish Nicole’s slender form in his mother’s guest bed.
She stirred not at all, so that Trevor came close and stared at her for quite some time, his hands shoved into the pockets of his breeches. He spent some time trying to recall the first time he’d ever met her. At the time, his interest and purpose had been set upon Sabrina, so that, honestly, he recalled only her personality from that very first meeting. But of course, that was half her allure, being at that time—before he’d stolen so much of her liveliness and friendliness—such an open book. And beguiling, so much so that when’ he’d noticed her at the Clarendon ball, he realized she was so much more than merely Sabrina’s younger sister. So damnably exquisite, so perfect for him.
Having kicked himself enough over the past year and a half with would haves and should haves, he spared himself further torment with the one constant that had been screaming in his head since the moment his lips had first touched hers: that he should have, at that instant, realized the full extent of her hold over him, and his feelings for her, and have called off the betrothal to her sister. He’d been overwhelmed by his reaction to her then, but it would have behooved him to have examined it more closely at the time, to have thought of the grand picture, and not only of Leven.
If only....
He was reluctant to wake her, and then anxious to do so. She looked so damn peaceful, her brow unwrinkled, her hair wildly cast about her
head and the pillows and the bed. Carefully, he perched on the side of the bed, and gently moved the thick locks away from her face. She slept on her stomach, her slender arms hugging one pillow.
But wake her he did. Her long lashes fluttered, and she blinked several times. Sorrowfully, she startled with a certain annoyance to find him sitting beside her. More gloomily, she pushed his hand away.
“If you touch me again, I will scream this house down.”
Sighing, having expected no less than this response, mournful though it was, he stood and afforded her at least a modicum of distance. He sat in the chair near the window, where the closed drapes provided no light, and watched as she scrambled to sit at the side of the bed, finding her dressing gown at the foot and swiftly donning this, effectively closing herself off to him.
“I only want to talk,” he said.
“I think we are beyond that or can dispense with the pretense that it will do us any good.” While still sleepy, her tone was yet sour.
“Will you at least allow me to explain my...latest screw-up?” He supposed his own voice reflected his weariness, his fear that no words could fix now the total of his misdeeds.
“Honestly, Trevor, there is no need.”
“Nevertheless, I will explain it, and I beg you to listen. Things left unsaid are just as wounds left untreated. They fester.”
“I fear I cannot stop you.”
He saw that her shoulders fell forward, as she sat and watched him in the near total darkness, which showed not much more than their silhouettes.
“Nicole, this is the rest of our lives, decided right here, right now—by what I say, and what you choose to hear.”
“I wish I’d thought to instruct you similarly on our wedding day.”
“You’re angry, and you have every right to be.” He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, threaded his fingers together. “I promise you I’ve only been an idiot because I honestly didn’t know where I stood with you. If I knew that you loved me, I’d have no fears, no doubts. I would be so very sure...and secure. But I don’t know that, and I can only live on hope for so long. I felt like I was barely treading water with you, and every ripple was like a behemoth wave crashing over me. I overreacted.” She said nothing, moved not at all, so that he pressed on, “I’ll preface the next part with, I now realize my mistake, but Nicki, when I saw that man leaning into you, when I heard your answering laugh, I...I didn’t stop to think. I jumped to conclusions and they were wrong, in a shamefully similar manner to how I treated you at the time of our wedding. And...I don’t need an explanation from you—I honestly do not—but I feel these things will just hang between us until all the facts are known...or told.”
He wished for light now, to see her, to try and determine her reaction, and then was glad there was none, which might have partially aided her calm manner, and level tone, when she said, “That man—Nester, by the way—did get fresh with me. There is no justification for his behavior, but I’ve given it some thought, and had concluded that because I was dressed quite plainly, and because I had donned a mop cap, as might any household maid, he might have assumed I was just that. When he...propositioned me, I was so startled, I just laughed. It was so ridiculous, of course. I thought, well, this is going to make for an awkward environment for him, once he realizes what he’s done. That was it.”
Calm, indeed. But underneath, he heard well the anger still. As he’d said, he didn’t need the words, he just wanted everything out in the open.
“Regarding our forced marriage, and my role in that,” she continued, to his surprise, and with a glaringly less level tone, “it is true that Sabrina—”
“Nicki, I don’t need—”
“Oh, but you do!” She threw at him, her tone piercing. “You’ll never forgive me, but I want you to know how wrong you were about me. I found Sabrina sobbing just that afternoon, and she begged me to please speak to you, to beg you to call it off. She wanted me to remind you that you were ruining her life, and only because you needed money. She was, as you know, in love with Marcus. Naturally I agreed to help my sister. I meant only to do as she asked, beg you to consider those other than yourself. Honestly, I was so in love with you, it was all I could do not to beg you to marry me instead. But I did not. I could not force you to love me, after all.” She stopped, and sniffled. “I imagine it was Sabrina who’d arranged for her and father and her godmother to ‘discover’ us. I’m not sure how she could have known that we...that you and I might...that they would walk in on what they did.”
“That was my fault,” he admitted, without shame. “There were a few occasions that your sister caught me staring at you. I thought I’d hidden it well, my desire for you.”
“Very well,” she said, seeming to have control of her emotions once again. “And there you have it, all exposed now. No more guessing. I suggest we forego pretending this has a chance, with such an ugly and tainted history, that would only infect any future.”
Trevor stood and reached her, went to his knees before her. With his hands on her legs, ignoring how awfully his wife stiffened at his touch, he said, “But Nicki, I want to fix it, not sweep it away, like it was nothing.”
“The truth as I know it, is this: you will, despite a full accounting just now, neither forgive nor forget what nefarious part you believe I played in our wedding, and your purpose currently has nothing to do with me, or us, but is only about begetting an heir.”
“Nicki, do you hear yourself? You are angry for my asinine assumptions and what they’ve done to us; yet, you’re committing the same crime.”
She brushed his hands away from her thighs, and stood, stomping away from the bed, away from him. “You want to stay married to create your heir and not for any other reason! Do not pretend otherwise!”
Trevor stood as well, and stalked her, but was shown only her back as she hugged the far bedpost. “I don’t give a damn if we never have a child, or if there be ten! I used that as a way to get you in my bed. You’d have fought with yourself until kingdom come before you allowed yourself to be loved by me. Yes, you are that stubborn. So I made the choice yours and dangled a carrot of a child before you! And admit it—you’re glad I did. You want the lovemaking as much as I. You may cling to your supposed hatred of me, but your body is past it and knows what it wants.”
She whirled on him. Tears glistened in her eyes. “It is not love that brings you to my bed at night!”
Trevor threw up his hands. “Dammit, Nicki, open your eyes! I was trying to make you fall in love with me again!” He shouted.
“And this is how you do it? By duplicitous means and shouting at me?”
“I was desperate—not exactly clever! I won’t change, Nicole. I rage and react, and I make mistakes. I think you do the same. And I love you all the same, because or in spite of—it doesn’t matter. I love you, as you are.” When it seemed she would say nothing, just stared at him with watery eyes, he heaved a heavy sigh, and ran his hand through his hair. “Damn it, Nicki. I love you. I can never undo what I’ve done to us, to you. Not a day goes by that I don’t revile and castigate and kick myself for my poor suppositions, and the actions I took because of these. Call me an idiot. Call me a jackass. Call me unsuitable or unworthy. I don’t care. But I need you to know that I loved you then, and I love you now. And I will not allow you to end this marriage. I just won’t allow it.” And then, roughly, while he met her gaze, “I will not—cannot—be without you.”
They stared. Ragged breaths met in the air between them. Trevor’s nostrils flared. Nicole’s lips quivered. He uttered, harshly, “I do not care if there is no child. Ever. I only want you.”
Her shoulders slumped. She dropped her face into her hands and cried. Some garbled statement was breathed. He thought it might have been, “I want so badly to believe you.”
Trevor took her in his arms, pressed her head against his chest, ran his fingers through her hair, and whispered, “Shh,” while she continued to weep. She was soft and pliant in h
is embrace. Fear diminished as hope surfaced.
“It’s terrifying, the exact extent of how much power you hold over me, because I love you so.”
He realized this was not exactly a declaration, but only his darling little wife giving voice to well-founded fears, ones he only wished he could put to rest. Alas, “Nicki, I can’t undo it. I can only show you, every day, all the rest of our lives, that I will never break your heart again.”
He pressed his chin against the top of her head and breathed again.
Chapter Sixteen
Four Weeks Later
If at any time in the past year he had thought Nicole beautiful—and there had been dozens of such occasions, he knew—every instance paled in comparison to how she looked just now. She stood at the top of the stairs, her gaze on him, while Lorelei made one final adjustment to the arrangement of her hair, standing just behind Nicole.
Every curl was swept neatly away to the back of her head, allowing her face and not her hair to be the focal point. Her shoulders were bare, the sparkling and threaded bodice of emerald green rounding softly over the swell of her bosom, the gauzy sleeves meant to drape just over the top of her arm, as if fallen off her slim shoulders. The combination of the severe but flawless hair style and the decadent fabric and color of the gown highlighted to perfection her mesmerizing green eyes and the full pinkness of her lips.
Even from the distance of the entire stairway between them, he was sure he read nervousness in her gaze. Her bright eyes did not look over his person but maintained contact with his gaze, waiting for his reaction. Trevor had all he could do not to let his jaw gape. He had to convince himself that truly, there wasn’t time to dash up those steps and whisk her back into her room, and show her exactly how exquisite, how captivating she was.
When She Loved Me (Regency Rogues: Redemption Book 1) Page 23