“Tonight,” he repeated grimly.
“Can it not wait until the morning? I fear my parents will be overset if we simply disappear.” She worried her lip, knowing that her mother and father would think the worst. Not to mention poor Helen.
He withdrew from her and lowered her to her feet, keeping her steady when she would have lost her balance. “You either leave tonight with me, or you stay here forever.”
She blanched, not expecting an ultimatum from him, not after what had just transpired. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious, Tia.” His mouth was set in a grim line. “Make your choice.”
Chapter Twelve
Her choice hadn’t been difficult. Indeed, it had scarcely been a choice at all.
Tia had said hasty goodbyes to her family—not that poor Bingley would recall it, for was still quite befuddled with drink—and Heath had whisked her away back to Chatsworth. Her homecoming had been bittersweet since her husband had chosen not to ride in the carriage with her but to brave the increasingly wintry weather on his own mount.
And he’d scarcely spoken more than half a dozen words to her in the day since their return.
She’d breakfasted that morning alone. She’d taken tea alone. And now she sat alone in the small drawing room she preferred for its cheery, striped wallpaper. Beyond the windows, the countryside was covered in the peaceful mask of snow. Flurries continued to fall, rendering the ground of Chatsworth House quite picturesque. Perhaps a turn in the gardens was in order. At the very least, it ought to do something to cut away at the listlessness that had been dogging her ever since the day before. She rang for her jacket, hat, and muff, and in a trice she was stepping out into the cold air. The snow fell around her as she walked.
The passionate Heath who had taken her so boldly in the drawing room at Harrington House had gone back into hiding. She began to wonder why he had even come to fetch her. Had it been mere possessiveness? Rage at the possibility of her taking a lover? She supposed she’d never know, for he refused to enlighten her beyond his pronouncement the evening before of, “Madam, we are home.”
Tia didn’t know which was worse, his silence or his anger. Her shoes crunched in the snow as she meandered around a fountain, her thoughts heavy. Anger she could manage. She almost wished he would rage at her, yell at her, anything other than his calm avoidance. It was as if she had ceased to exist.
Perhaps for him she had.
The notion gave her pause, sending a shiver through her that had nothing to do with the frigid air. His sudden arrival at Harrington House and his demand that she return with him had filled her with foolish expectations once more. She’d thought that it had meant something, that she meant something to him. Something more than mere chattel. She’d hoped too that it would ease the tension between them, but that hadn’t happened. Instead, the tension had only seemed to grow worse.
“Tia.”
Startled, she turned at the sound of his voice. Her husband stalked toward her through the snow, his expression determined. He wore only his shirtsleeves, trousers and waistcoat. Snow clung to his golden locks. Her heart fluttered as he approached her. She couldn’t help it. She would always love him so, regardless of whether or not he would ever forgive her or even care for her at all.
“Heath,” she greeted softly, her breath making a delicate fog on the air before her.
“Why the hell are you wandering about in the snow?” he demanded, his tone as surly as ever. “You’ll take a chill. Come in at once.”
“I’m properly dressed,” she argued, uncertain if she should be warmed by his concern or if it was merely driven by a selfish need not to feel responsible for another woman’s illness. “If anyone is in danger of taking a chill, surely it’s you.”
He held out his hand to her. “Come in at once.”
Tia could be every bit as stubborn as he when she chose. She shook her head. “No.”
“Tia.” He caught the crook of her arm. “Come inside.”
“I’m enjoying the snow,” she insisted, digging her heels into the snow in protest. “It’s very beautiful, don’t you think?”
“It’s cold is what I think. You can admire it from the window, wife. Now come along, blast it.”
“You haven’t called me that in quite some time,” she said, still ignoring his request. She wanted to shake him, bring him back to her. Do anything to snap him from this frozen state. “I thought maybe you’d forgotten.”
“I’m more than aware that you’re my wife,” he said grimly, as though the fact gave him no pleasure. “I’d never forget I wedded such a wrong-headed minx.”
She searched his gaze, so vivid, so blue. “Perhaps you regret marrying me. I daresay I’ve caused you nothing but trouble.”
He ran his thumb along her jaw, tipping up her chin. An errant snowflake settled on her nose and melted. “I regret many things that have come to pass between us, Tia. But marrying you isn’t one of them.”
She longed to believe him, oh how she did. Unable to help herself, she reached up to run her fingers along the abrasion of his neatly trimmed beard. The sensation was as familiar as it was beloved. “What do you regret?”
Heath stared down into the beautiful face of his wife. The woman he loved. Words clamored to reach his tongue. He’d spent the last day alternately chastising himself for once again playing the ass, and formulating what he would say to her. How he could attempt to win her.
What did he regret, she had wanted to know.
He would begin with the simple. Seeing her with Denbigh had brought out the savage in him, and he had no wish to lose control in such a manner again. He’d had ample time to consider precisely what he’d seen, and while he was certain that Denbigh’s motives hadn’t been innocent, he was equally certain that Tia’s had been. But still, he wasn’t yet ready to believe the earl’s claim that Tia loved him. Surely she would have told him herself if it were true.
Admittedly, he’d done little to earn her love. He would begin now and continue for the rest of his days.
“I regret my reaction to discovering you’d sent away my paintings to the Grosvenor Gallery,” he said at last. “I’m sorry I was so harsh and unyielding.”
She smiled softly, snowflakes studding her lashes. God, she was a beauty. “I never should have sent away your paintings without your knowledge. It was wrong of me.”
He shook his head. “You were right to do what you did. I’ve decided to allow my pictures to be exhibited.”
She raised a brow, looking startled. “Even the one of Bess?”
“Even that one.” He cleared his throat, attempting to find the proper words. After he’d removed his head from his own arse, he’d come to the realization that there was no harm in displaying his work for all to see. Indeed, it had once been his dream to do so. In many ways, Tia had helped him to reconcile the man he was now with the man he’d been. “After the exhibition is complete, I’ll have it delivered to her family. I should think they might find joy in it.”
“Truly?” Tia searched his gaze in that way she possessed, seeing more of him than he wanted her to see.
“Truly.” He paused, searching for the proper words. “Someone once told me that I cannot hold on to the past forever. I find she is right.”
“She will be very pleased to hear that.” She ran her fingers across his mouth and he couldn’t resist catching them there. He kissed them once because he couldn’t help himself and twice to help temper the sting of the cold air.
Damn it, she made him weak. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and carry her to his chamber. That long-ago day in the gardens at Penworth returned to him. She had been an ethereal beauty then. He’d been drawn to her, ignorant of just how much she would come to mean to him in the ensuing months. Just how much she would change his entire world.
But there was something he needed to know for certain. It wouldn’t alter the way he felt for her, but a man needed to know the lay of the land. He rubb
ed his thumb lazily over her lower lip. “Tell me, Tia. Do you still love Denbigh?”
“No,” she denied without hesitation, warming his heart with reassurance. “I loved him with a girl’s naïve infatuation. Now I am older and wiser. I know the difference between true love and a mere childish fancy.”
He kissed her then, taking her mouth the way he longed to take her body. With passion and possession. She tasted of the sweetness of her morning chocolate, the fresh coldness of snow and something that was uniquely her. Their tongues tangled, and she stepped closer, her corseted curves pressing into him in a way that made him go rigid in spite of the nip in the air.
She didn’t love Denbigh. Thank Christ, because if she did, he would have had to ride to the bastard’s estate and beat him to a bloody pulp. She was his, damn it, and he wasn’t about to lose her. He’d almost lost her once because of his own foolishness. He wouldn’t be so stupid ever again.
A gust of wind blew against them and Tia shivered into him. Blast her, she was going to catch her death out in this wintry weather. With great reluctance, he pulled away from her, ending the kiss. Her Cupid’s bow was perfectly pink and slightly swollen from his kiss. Her eyes sparkled up at him with a mixture of unshed tears and the effects of the wintry air.
She blinked and a tear slipped down her cheek. He caught it on his thumb.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately. I’ve never been such a watering pot before.”
It occurred to him then that he’d never—not when she’d injured her ankle, not when he’d found her shivering in the hunting cabin in East Anglia, and not even when he’d been unkind to her—seen her weep before. The sight cut at his heart. Damn it, he would never again be responsible for her tears, he vowed. Nothing and no one would be the cause of her pain ever again. Especially not him. She shivered again, reminding him that they had tarried in the elements overly long.
“We’ve lingered in the cold long enough,” he told her. “Come inside with me.”
When she looked as if she would have argued, he took her hand and tugged her along with him as he beat a hasty path back to the doors. He’d be damned if he allowed her to take ill now that he had her back where she belonged. Besides, if she was chilled, he had more than one way to warm her.
A slow truce had begun blossoming between Tia and Heath. She smiled to herself the next morning as she made her way to the breakfast table. She put the slight upheaval in her stomach down to her fluctuating emotions. Lord, she’d been a ninny lately, crying one moment and laughing the next. She didn’t know what had gotten into her, but she had a feeling it had everything to do with being in love.
And in love she was.
She was more hopeful now than ever that she wasn’t alone in her feelings. She was certain she’d spied a glimmering of something in his eyes yesterday in the snow. He had kissed her with so much sweet passion that it had made her cry. And last night, he had made love to her so tenderly, holding her long afterward almost as if she were precious to him.
She smiled again as she entered the breakfast room to find him waiting there for her, handsome and grinning back at her like a lovelorn suitor. She hadn’t dared to believe that he would come for her at Harrington House. Indeed, she hadn’t dared to believe he would even miss her. But he had. And she was back where she belonged.
“Good morning, darling,” he greeted her softly, standing to acknowledge her entrance.
“Good morning,” she returned, thinking that it was indeed a very good morning. She’d awoke to his kisses and they’d made slow, heart-melting love before he’d left her to get ready for the day. Gone were his hours of poring over estate matters in his study. It even seemed that the tension between them had lifted like a fog.
As she crossed the room to join him, something odd happened. Her head suddenly felt too light for her body. She swayed, dizzied, and a wave of nausea assailed her. Oh dear. She pressed a hand to her stomach, thinking that Bannock had laced her far too tightly that morning.
Heath’s gaze met hers as she stilled, uncertain if she was going to cast up her accounts or faint dead away. She’d never felt anything like it.
“Tia?” Worry creased his features as he hurried toward her. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t know. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t find the words. Any words. And then, her ears began ringing and her vision darkened round the edges. The last coherent thought in her mind was that her dratted corset must surely be the culprit.
Then, everything went black.
“Are you certain?” Tia asked the village physician Heath had summoned to her side against her protests to the contrary. She’d told him that her corset had merely been too tight, but he’d reverted to his ducal arrogance and had ignored her completely.
It would appear now that Heath hadn’t been wrong. Something more than a mere corset was at play. Something wonderful. Something she hadn’t so much as considered.
The kindly elder man closed his doctor’s bag with a snap. “Quite certain, Your Grace. All the signs are here. I expect His Grace will be most relieved.”
“Yes,” she agreed, feeling dazed by the news he had just delivered to her. “I daresay he will.”
She wasn’t ill. She was with child.
She was carrying Heath’s babe. The knowledge filled her with wonder, excitement. Contentment. She had never conceived during her marriage to Stokey, and later, she had made certain her lovers took precautions. She and Heath had been intimate for months without change in her courses. She had simply closed off that part of her mind, the fragile maternal hope that she might one day bring a child into the world. It had been far better to think it impossible and avoid disappointment than to anticipate an event that would not be forthcoming.
But now it had.
“You will want to rest, Your Grace,” the doctor reminded her, gathering up his bag to see himself out. “Fainting is quite common for a woman in your condition, but we don’t want you to injure yourself.”
“Yes,” she agreed, scarcely hearing the man with her mind whirling. She wanted to see Heath. “Will you send the duke in to me on your way out? I should very much like to tell him the news.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” The older man smiled. “And may I be the first to offer my felicitations?”
“Thank you.” She smiled. She knew women who had been enceinte. So much made sense to her now. Her weepiness of the last few weeks, her changing moods. What a fool she’d been not to notice.
The door had scarcely closed on the doctor’s back when it flew open once more to reveal Heath. His hair was askew, his eyes clouded with worry, a frown curving his sensual lips.
“Tia.” He rushed to her side and took her hands in his, bringing them to his lips. “My God, I can’t lose you. Not now. Not ever, damn it all. You must get well. Tell me you’ll get well.”
“I shall get well,” she reassured him, struck by how very concerned he was for her. Her heart gave a pang in her breast. She caressed his bearded cheek. “You needn’t fear.”
“Whatever it is that’s caused this, we will get through it together.” He kissed her palm.
“Of course we will,” she began, only to be interrupted.
“No, darling. Let me finish. I need to tell you what I’ve been meaning to say for days. I should have told you a long time ago, but I was too bloody stupid to realize that what was right before me was what I’d wanted—what I’d needed—all along.” He paused, seeming to collect himself as the tears she’d been attempting to squelch sprang free. “I love you, Tia. You’ve brought me back to myself in ways I never imagined possible. You’ve helped me to heal, to move forward. I love your stubborn, infuriating ways. Devil take it, I even love that you never listen to me when you think you know better. I love you so much, and I can’t bear to lose you.”
“Oh, Heath.” She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You’re not losing me. I’m not ill.”
He stare
d at her as if she’d suddenly announced her desire to jump out the nearest window. “You’re not ill?”
“No.” She smiled, her heart so filled with happiness that she feared it would burst. “I’m with child.”
“With child?” A slow, beautiful grin spread over his face. “You’re having my babe?”
“Yes.” She nodded, unable to say more past the emotion clogging her throat.
“My God.” He let out a whoop and crushed her in a hug. “That’s wonderful news. Why the devil didn’t you say so sooner?”
Tia laughed. “I would have, but someone interrupted me.”
“I suppose I did,” he said wryly, drawing back to search her gaze. “Are you happy, darling? I know we haven’t always had the smoothest of rides, and I know I’ve been an utter ass, but I swear I shall make it up to you.”
“I’m very happy,” she assured him, framing his face in her hands. “Happier than I’ve ever been.”
He kissed her swiftly, and it was passionate, open-mouthed. His tongue slid against hers and she welcomed the invasion, wanting more. When at last he tore his lips from hers, they were both breathing heavily, staring at each other with a newfound connection.
“There’s something else I must tell you,” she told him, ready to say the words she’d been keeping to herself for far too long.
“Good Christ woman, what can it be?” he demanded, every inch the duke. “I’m not certain my heart can withstand any more scares.”
“I’m in love with an arrogant, domineering duke who is too stubborn for his own good and who creates the finest paintings I’ve ever seen.” She smiled as comprehension dawned in his eyes. “I think I’ve loved him since the moment he carried me off to my chamber and undid half my bodice.”
“That is most fortuitous,” he drawled, “because I have it on good authority that the same duke is in love with a lady who has a penchant for spraining her ankle and redecorating his house.”
Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3 Page 76