From her vantage point, Rowena could not clearly see James’ face. Something flickered across it: pain, or confusion, or doubt, she could not tell, but she could hear his words, and his laughter.
“Once you get the clothes off, all women are very much the same,” he joked.
There was no decision: just action.
“Well, I am glad that I know that now,” Rowena said icily as she pushed the door open and strode in. “I had known that marriage was not the destination of our voyage together, but I had hoped to be treated a little better on the way.”
James’ eyes were wide with dismay and he rose from the bed hastily with his hands raised as though to stop her barrelling at him.
But she had no intention of going anywhere near him. Hope had died within her, and all she could do was treat him as disdainfully as he had treated her.
“Rowena, I – ”
“To hear oneself spoken of like a piece of meat is incredibly unkind,” Rowena said quietly, staring at his cool eyes. “I hope that you never experience it as I have.”
There was silence. Nothing moved and no one spoke for a full minute. Rowena kept her gaze on his, hoping for…she knew not what. A confession of love? How could it happen, hearing what she had just heard? Regrets? She did not want to hear that he regretted their lovemaking. No, there was nothing he could say, nothing at all that could make them what they had been, to take them back to what they once were.
“I think I will see where Adena has got to.” Luke rose awkwardly and despite the pain in his leg, hobbled to the door, closing it behind him.
James had no idea how to respond, but he knew how his heart moved: astonishment at her reaction, and joy, almost relief that Rowena Kerr clearly had feelings for him.
“I admit myself surprised,” he said finally, as the two of them stood together alone in the room where they had shared so much. “I…I had not realised that you cared for me so.”
“You should not have expected anything less,” Rowena countered, the anger in her eyes refusing to dissipate. “Do you think I give myself to any man, to anyone I meet?”
The memory of her above him, of her discovery of her own body, of the pleasure rising in her, the flutter of her eyelashes, the moaning in her throat, made James smile.
It was the wrong thing to do, and he knew it immediately.
A flash of anger burst across her face. “Do you think that this is a laughing matter, sir? I suppose it must be, when any woman is exactly the same, once her clothes are off.”
His smile vanished, and instead nausea rose up in his throat. By God, she had heard that – and if she had heard that, then she had heard all.
“Rowena,” he began, but he was interrupted.
“Can you even comprehend how rude and dismissive your words are?” Rowena spoke with an air of finality that hurt James, but she continued, “I do not think you can. I do not think that it even occurred to you that there was another person that you were injuring.”
James coloured, and took a deep breath. It would take much to admit this to her – it was a strain to admit it to himself. “Rowena, I…you have to understand. ‘Tis difficult for me to speak of my true feelings to anyone, let alone a stranger I had just met – not you!” He said hastily. “Dewsbury. I did not want to appear…well, weak before him. To let him see how greatly I cared for you, for him to know how desperately I wanted you…”
His voice trailed off as he saw the anger rise in the woman he loved.
“Being true to your own feelings would have been the honourable thing to do,” she said coldly. “If you had any, that is.”
A spark of anger rushed through James now, and he could not help but say, “Feelings? Rowena, you barely comprehend your own feelings, so do not tell me what my own are. Three days ago, you thought you were in love with someone else! I thought that I was nothing more than an itch you wanted to scratch – how could I assume that you cared for me?”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew that they were the wrong thing to say. The outrage in her eyes, the bristling of her shoulders, was enough.
“I apologise, Rowena, I – ”
“I have no wish to stay here a moment longer,” she said curtly, striding forwards and grabbing her luggage in one hand.
James tried to move towards her but she was too fast for him, stepping through the door and down the stairs as he called out, “Rowena!”
There was no reply, and he hurtled to the door, but had to pause for a moment as stars appeared before his eyes. He had lost too much blood to be running after anyone, but he must get to her: Rowena Kerr could not leave the King’s Head Inn without knowing his true feelings for her.
He would not let her.
“Rowena!” James called again as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and he started to move again, losing ground as she almost ran through the inn.
By the time that he had stumbled outside, Rowena was being handed into a coach by the Marquis of Dewsbury, a look of revulsion on his face as he beheld the staggering Viscount.
“Rowena, wait!”
But she did not wait. She did not even look back, and as the Marquis settled himself into the coach after her he tried to run forward – and the coach pulled away.
James, Viscount of Paendly, stood in the courtyard of the King’s Head Inn for above ten minutes, watching the road that Rowena Kerr had taken, left with nothing but a freshly bleeding arm and a secret bleeding heart.
9
When Rowena opened her eyes, she once again had to remind herself exactly where she was.
She would have expected the room to feel familiar, now that she had been staying with Adena for nigh on a month, and yet it still felt strange, alien. Someone else’s room, as though the real owner had just stepped outside for a moment. As though they were going to open the door at any time and express surprise that there was someone else in their bed.
But the green curtained windows were hers now, as was the large bed covered in blankets, and the small dressing table at one side of the door. She knew each inch of this room, and yet it was not her room.
Her room was still at her parents’ house. Rowena grimaced, and tried to sit up in bed, but her lethargy was too overpowering, and she fell back onto the pillows. She could rise in five minutes or so. There was no rush, after all. Nowhere to be. No one to see.
The sadness that had been kept at bay by sleep crept over her once more, and Rowena tried to shake it off. She was not in love with James, she reminded herself, as she was forced to do every morning. He had just used her for her body. He had not cared for her a jot.
A memory of that night – that wonderful night – rose up in her mind. The gentle kisses on her lips, and then the not-so-gentle kisses down her neck, and towards her –
The rush of heat and love that always accompanied these memories died away almost instantly as the sadness returned. It had meant so much to her, that night. But it had meant nothing to him.
It made her feel a little sick to think that she would never see him again.
Rowena lay, dull and depressed, in the large bed for another two hours, until the chiming of eleven by the clock in the hallway forced her to accept that she could no longer laze about in bed.
It did not take her long to dress – what care should she take, after all? She was going to see no one special. Luke and Adena had few visitors to their London home, if any, so Rowena was surprised to see her friend bidding farewell to a striking woman, tall and slim, in the hall.
“You must write,” Adena was saying, and there was a catch in her voice as she embraced the stranger. “You must promise me, even if it takes an age for the letters to reach me: I must know how you do there.”
“You have my word,” the woman replied as Rowena reached the bottom step. “I promise you, Adena, if this was my will – ”
Her words were cut off as Rowena stepped into the drawing room. Luke looked up at she entered, and smiled gently.
“Good morni
ng.”
“Only just,” Rowena said with an answering smile. Throwing herself into a chair, she asked quietly, “Who is that woman in the hallway?”
If she did not know any better, she would have said that Luke hesitated for a moment before answering, but answer he did. “Miss Margaret Berry. A school friend of Adena’s, I understand, or some such thing.”
Rowena glanced to the door, now closed and barring any sight or sound of the beautiful stranger. “She did not seem particularly cheerful.”
Luke barked a laugh. “No, well, she would not. She is emigrating, against her wishes. ‘Tis a curious tale, and not one for me to tell. Toast?”
His hand moved to ring the bell, but Rowena shook her head. “No, I thank you. I feel a little queasy, and would rather have tea than anything to eat.”
“Nothing to eat again?” Adena strode through the door shaking her head at her friend. “Really, Rowena, you will fade away completely if you do not eat something!”
“Do not scold me,” Rowena replied placidly, knowing her friend too well to take her seriously. “I am quite well, I just have no appetite this early in the morning.”
Adena raised an eyebrow. “My girl, ‘tis nearly midday!”
A rush of affection rose up in Rowena’s heart to be spoken to by her friend – who was, though she would not remind her of it, two full years younger than herself.
“My girl?” Rowena smiled, the first smile for a few days.
Adena seemed to know what she was thinking. As she sat down in a chair opposite her friend, she laid a plate of buttered bread on her lap, and had the good grace to smile demurely.
“Well, as a married woman, you know, I can dictate almost anything to you.”
Rowena tried to ignore the pain that this remark gave her. She had dearly wanted to be a married woman herself, but James had not wanted that. He had not wanted her.
In an attempt to stave off the pain that was maiming her heart in that moment, she smiled bracingly and said, “Adena Garland, as you once were, I had only eloped for two days – two days, mark you – and you had already got married!”
It was through a medley of pain for herself and happiness for her friend that Rowena watched Adena beam at her husband.
“When you know,” she said quietly, “you know.”
Luke rose from his chair, dipped his face to his wife’s and gave her a passionate kiss, and return to his seat without a word.
Impossible as it was to not look at this display of affection without envy, Rowena was captivated by the devotion that Luke showed to his wife – his bride, for now it was but six weeks since they had married.
Sadness, envy, joy, it was all confused within her heart, and there was no control of it. There seemed to be no control of her emotions at all, recently.
A cup of steaming tea had appeared by her side, she had not noticed how, but as she raised it her lips, Rowena found that she could simply not take a simple sip. Placing it beside her, undrunk, her gaze wandered around the room and lingered on the window. Faces, blurred through the glass, strode past them.
One day she may see someone she recognised: James, perhaps.
At once she tried to force that thought from her mind. James did not know that she was here, no one did. And even if he did, he would not come here. He had not wanted her.
It was at that moment that Rowena became aware that she was being watched. It started as a prickling at the back of her neck, and then a heat across her cheeks. She looked around.
Adena was watching her carefully, with a knowing look on her face. Opening her mouth, she said kindly, “Luke, be a darling and go away.”
Rowena could not help but roll her eyes at the way her friend addressed her husband, but he seemed to enjoy it more than anything else. Laughing, he rose and kissed his wife on the cheek before inclining his head to her, and leaving the room.
Adena watched the door close, and then turned to her friend. “Should we call a doctor?”
Rowena laughed, and shook her head. “Now, where on earth have you got that idea from?”
“You have not looked well since we returned here,” countered her friend. “I have a little medicine, but you I think need the benefit of an expert.”
A flush of heat moved through her cheeks as Rowena felt herself under the fiery gaze of her friend. She returned sarcastically, “I must be lovesick.”
But her words did not have the response that she had expected. Adena rose slowly, and made her way to her friend, seating herself beside her.
“That is not,” Adena said quietly, “exactly what I had in mind.”
The seriousness of her expression was enough to make Rowena hesitate. “What you had in mind?”
Adena nodded, and lowered her voice, even though they were the only ones in the room. “Rowena, I would not ask this unless I…I absolutely had to. When was the last time that you had your flux?”
Rowena felt her cheeks pink, but thought about it carefully – and her mouth dropped open as she spoke without thinking. “You know, I think that it was over seven weeks ago.”
Adena whistled, and Rowena’s thoughts became frantic and panicked. “No, that cannot be right; I must have miscalculated. I am tired, that is why I cannot remember properly. I am sure that I have had one in that time, I just cannot recall…”
Her voice disappeared as she thought about it again. No, she had recalled correctly. She had not suffered her flux since she had been brought here by Adena and Luke – and before then, it had been a few weeks before she had eloped with Mr Bentley. That was at least six weeks, perhaps seven.
“You have been lethargic and nauseous ever since we returned here,” whispered Adena, her eyes not leaving her friend. “Since we returned from the King’s Head Inn.”
“Yes, but…” Rowena tried to calm her frantic thoughts. It could not mean – Adena could not mean what she thought she meant. It was not possible.
“It is possible,” Adena said quietly, as though reading her friend’s thoughts. “’Tis true, it would be unusual, but plenty of women have fallen with child from just the one lovemaking.”
“Fallen with child,” whispered Rowena, her eyes growing wide. “With child. Child. Adena, I cannot be pregnant!”
But it was possible – and not only possible, but probable. Oscar Bentley had barely touched her, and James, Viscount of Paendly, had very definitely touched her. She was pregnant: pregnant with James’ child, and he did not know.
Her instincts almost overwhelmed her, and she felt a need to tell him immediately – but then her pride returned. She could do this on her own, just as she had been about to make her own journey home before he get involved.
“I can do this,” she found herself saying to an astonished Adena. “I do not need him.”
They both know who ‘him’ was, he needed no name.
Rowena saw Adena bite her lip. “My dear, your parents have disowned you. Your name is disgraced throughout London, throughout the ton. You can stay here, hide with us as you have done for the last month. Have the child here, secretly. No one needs to know.”
Tears were threatening to escape from her eyes now, but Rowena was determined to hold them in. “The father of my child – the father of my child should know.”
It hurt to even think that the life growing inside her would not know its father, would not be known by him – but to have him back in her life, to see him again, it would tear her apart with the pain, knowing that he did not love her.
Adena shook her head sadly, and clasped her friend’s hand in hers. “You still love him.”
It was impossible to deny. Rowena nodded jerkily as the tears finally fell. “But I can never tell him. How can I tell him about this child?”
“You will have to, eventually,” countered Adena softly. “One day, the child will need to know – better to tell James now, than – ”
“No,” interrupted Rowena, and this she knew with all her soul. “James would not hear me; he would just think that I
am attempting to trick him into wedlock. And besides,” and the tears flowed freely now, “he met me after a failed elopement with another man. Why should he even believe that the child is his?”
“No, I promise you, I have had enough.”
The serving man looked sceptical, but James was determined. He had already drunk four whiskeys; another would be too much.
“As you wish, my lord,” whispered the man with a bow, and he departed from the room.
James sighed, and looked around him. The club was quiet, as it always was, with old men reading the Times and the Observer. Almost nothing moved, save for the slight nods that rippled around the room as another old man wandered into the room, and he was acknowledged by his peers.
Back to his normal, boring life. James could almost laugh at the despair of it all. Nothing had changed, and he was right back to where he had started.
Dark brown eyes, long blonde hair, a sarcastic laugh: this memory flashed through his mind, and James smiled at the very remembrance of Rowena Kerr. To think that he had known her as Rebecca Kirkland for the first two days of their acquaintance. To think that he had gone four weeks without seeing her.
To think that he would never see her again.
His depressed heart was weighed with sadness whenever the idea of her crossed his mind, and it was impossible not to consider her each day, now that he had returned to London. He had been so sure that he would encounter her here; he had almost hoped that he would see her.
And yet the days had gone by, and not only had there been no sight of her, but no sound, no murmurings, save for the gossip of the town that whispered that Miss Kerr had been despoiled by a gentleman in the country.
“I never had any intention of marrying her, and that was never promised. Understand man, she wanted me to make love to her, and I was not strong enough to say no. Once you get the clothes off, all women are very much the same.”
Bitterness unconnected to the whiskeys bit into his throat. To think that he had said such a thing: to impress a Marquis, no less, what a fool he was! Attempting to be strong and masculine had, in the end, cost him the very woman that he loved, rather than secured or impressed her.
Ravishing Regencies- The Complete Series Page 42