“Dr. Sheffield has told me,” he said at last, his accent more pronounced, his voice deeper, darker.
Even his beloved, familiar scent seemed to take on a new note with her eyes closed. Her every sense was painfully heightened, her heart a painful danger she had worn on her sleeve for far too long. Always, always belonging to him.
And never, ever had he given himself in return.
“I suppose you are happy,” she managed to whisper. “You have what you wanted.”
“Sí.”
She inhaled sharply at his acknowledgment, for it cut her as surely as any blade. “When will you go?”
“Dr. Sheffield says you must rest for a day or so to make certain all is well with the babe after your fall,” he told her. “I will begin the preparations for our return to London.”
“London,” she repeated, her lips feeling numb. She opened her eyes at last, unashamed of her tears. They tracked down her cheeks. “Why London?”
“I will not have you alone here. My sister and your mother will attend you for your lying in, and you must be wherever they are.” His dark gaze burned into hers, a frown on his beautiful lips. “Why tears, querida? Are you ill? Is it the babe?”
Tears because you are leaving me, you foolish man.
Tears because I love you, and you will never love me in return.
“It has been a trying day,” she lied. “I am emotional and tired. I wish to rest.”
“Are you certain you are well? The doctor assures me you are in fine health, but you must promise to tell me, Catriona, if anything is amiss,” he pressed.
How tender he was. How caring.
But of course, none of it was for her.
“When are you leaving for Spain?” she asked.
He clenched his jaw. “I will see you settled in London, and then I will leave. You will send word to me upon the birth, and if the child is not a boy, I will return if I am able.”
There it was, the blow she had been anticipating. The final confirmation of all her fears. How could she have forgotten she was nothing more than a broodmare to him?
“Of course,” she managed to say, though her heart was breaking.
It felt as if a dagger had been lodged in her chest. And it was—a dagger of her own making.
“Querida,” he began.
But she could not bear to hear another word from him. “I do not wish to talk more now, if you please. I am tired, and I must rest.”
He pressed a kiss to her brow. “I will have your woman attend you.”
“No,” she said. For as much as she enjoyed the company of her lady’s maid, she could not bear it now.
All she wanted was to be alone.
“Catriona.” He frowned down at her, his gaze searching. “You are not acting as your normal self. Is something hurting you?”
Only my heart.
“Nothing.” She forced a smile for his benefit. “Thank you, Alessandro. Please, all I need is some rest. My head is aching from the fall. A little quiet, and I shall be fine.”
“Very well.” He frowned down at her, looking for a moment as if he were about to say more.
But in the end, he simply stood and walked from the chamber, leaving her alone in a grim echo of what would soon be a far more permanent departure.
She waited until the door clicked closed before rolling onto her side and curling into a protective ball. Burying her face in her pillow, she wept, both with joy for the new life inside her and with despair for the man who would never love her.
*
He was going to be a father.
Again.
Alessandro walked from Catriona’s chamber, uncertain of where he was going. All he knew was that his feet were going. His legs were striding. He was moving forward, hurtling to a destination.
A myriad of emotion assaulted him. Happiness. Awe. Fear. Regret.
Someone was speaking to him, but he was so caught up in the tumult of his thoughts, he scarcely heard their words. Female, he realized. Olivia.
He stopped halfway down the massive, spiral staircase which was the center of Marchmont, one of its crowning glories. Also, where his sister had taken a fall in her youth, so severe it resulted in the fracture of her limb. Such stately elegance, carved mahogany shining once more, and yet also the source of great grief.
How fitting.
He turned back to find the picaro at the top of the stairs, her young face pale, her countenance worried. “My lord, how is Lady Rayne?”
Before him stood evidence of his wife’s innate goodness. This child, whom no one had loved or cared for, was now fuller-cheeked and well-dressed and groomed. She was now loved. If he had ever harbored concern about Catriona’s capacity for maternal care, it was long gone.
“She will be fine, child,” he told the girl, though he was not as certain as his words suggested.
There had been an undeniable sadness in her demeanor. She had reassured him, repeatedly, that all was well with her. And yet, her eyes had told a different story. The haunted look he had recognized deep within their blue depths had returned. This time, he very much feared he was the source.
“She is not going to die, is she?” Olivia asked, an unmistakable tremble in her voice.
Cristo.
The child’s question took the air from his lungs. Instantly, he was catapulted back to the day Maria had breathed her last. How pale she had been. How still. Just like their son.
Everything within him seized. He could not speak. Could not allay the child’s fears. Because he had seen death before. He had lost a wife to the childbed. Had lost a son. And for some godforsaken reason, he had never before contemplated the full implications of getting Catriona with child.
That she would face the same dangers and risks Maria had.
That she, too, could perish.
“Come now, Miss Olivia,” said his wife’s lady’s maid, appearing in the hall above. She cast a gentle arm about the picaro’s slim shoulders, drawing her into her form for reassurance. “Lady Rayne shall be just fine. Is that not right, my lord?”
“Yes,” he forced himself to say, but the word was like a splinter in his tongue, with a matching one every bit as sharp in his heart. “She will. Perdóneme.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned back to the stairs. Somehow, he made his way down them. Blindly, his breath arrested in his chest, his heart thumping wildly. Bleak emotions stronger than ever churned through him.
By the grace of God, he reached the bottom of the stairs without toppling down them, and without recalling a moment of how he had gotten there. But his legs had a mind of their own, and they were moving still. Carrying him to the door. As far away as he could go. As fast as he could get there.
Johnstone appeared at his side. “Lord Rayne, is something amiss? Algo anda mal?”
“Sí,” he bit out, striding past the butler, scarcely even taking note of his attempt to speak his language. “Everything is wrong.”
He did not bother to wait for a response. He could not bear it. He needed to escape this house, these walls, all the reminders of who he was, what was expected of him. Marchmont felt as if it were strangling him. The obligations, the pain of his past, all his losses, his sins, the battles he had fought, the depravities he had committed, jumbled together into a sickening knot in his gut.
For a moment, he feared he would cast up his accounts.
And then, he was out of doors, gulping in the fresh Wiltshire air.
But he was still moving, still going.
Where, he could not say, only that he needed to leave.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The journey back to London had proved even more arduous than the trip to Wiltshire had been. Perhaps because this time, Catriona was with child, and the rocking movement of the carriage, coupled with the biliousness she could not seem to shake, made her stomach heave every few miles. And perhaps because the pace they had set—she, Sadler, and Olivia—was grueling. And most certainly because her heart had been das
hed into a million tiny, jagged shards by her husband.
Even breathing hurt. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her nose was puffy from all the tears she had cried between Marchmont and the sooty, foggy, busy streets of Town.
By the time she reached London and the Mayfair front door of Torrington House, she was sure she looked a dreadful sight. She had not been able to hold down a bite to eat since Basingstoke, and the last decent meal she had consumed before that had been a meat pie of questionable culinary delight in Salisbury. Even the tea she had attempted to consume had revolted against her in disgusting fashion, leaving her weaker and more miserable than she had been at the onset of her journey.
Worse, she was sure there was at least one vomit stain upon the hem of her traveling gown, and it was entirely possible the sour stench assaulting her nose on the odd breeze originated from her.
Thankfully, she was known to the butler, who showed her into the blue salon to await Hattie with an unperturbed smile of welcome. If he thought it odd she made her call accompanied by her lady’s maid and a child who clutched a small cage in one hand bearing a pet mouse, he said not a word.
But then again, he was in the employ of Torrie, and everyone know the Viscount of Torrington was a ne’er do well of the first order. Or, at least, he had been. Until the accident. Hattie’s letters to Marchmont had been sparse and spare of word concerning her brother, and Monty, being Monty, had not bothered to write her more than a handful of lines, none of which contained any news of note. Even her mother’s letters had been laden with unimportant meanderings on the weather, which seemed a favorite subject of hers.
She could only hope Torrie had improved, and that she was not about to thrust too great an encumbrance on an already burdened household. When the butler took his leave, Catriona commenced pacing, wringing her hands as she worriedly wore tracks in the thick Aubusson.
“Do sit down, my lady,” urged Sadler. “You’ve had so much upset these last few days, and what with all the travel and your sicknesses, it is not good for the babe. You look frightfully pale.”
But Catriona could not bear to sit after having been forced to ride for two days across the countryside once more. Alessandro’s carriage was well-appointed, it was true, but not even the most expensive traveling vehicle could atone for hours spent upon one’s rump.
“I am fine, Sadler,” she reassured her. “Thank you for your concern.”
“You does—do—look like you may be about to cast up your accounts,” added Olivia, her lip curling in distaste.
The mere mentioning of vomit was making her feel as if she may have to empty her stomach all over again. She pressed a hand over the sickly swirl and swallowed against a sudden knot of queasiness.
“I am fine,” she reassured everyone, which was all she seemed to be doing since discovering she was with child.
And which was always the worst sort of prevarication.
She was not fine.
Indeed, she was the furthest from it. She was miserable, physically and emotionally. Drained. Terrified. Elated. Lonely. Lovesick. Grief-stricken. Awed. Tired yet unable to sleep, hungry yet unable to eat. Overjoyed at the tiny life beginning inside her, yet despairing over what it meant for her marriage. She longed for the man she loved, and yet she could not have him.
“You doesn’t—ahem, don’t—seem fine,” Olivia countered, still having quite a lot to learn about her manners. “Have they got any cats here? Ashes can’t live beneath the same roof as those furry little killers.”
It occurred to her, rather belatedly, that Hattie did have a cat. A great, fat, snowy white beast called Sir Toby. The creature was most disagreeable. It only liked Hattie and not anyone else.
“There is one,” she managed to say past a fresh wave of sickness. “But fret not, for the thing never leaves her chamber. It’s a most disagreeable cat.”
“Tell me you are not speaking of Sir Toby Belch,” Hattie said as she swept into the room, looking utterly fetching in an evening gown of pretty pink silk with a rich floral motif overlay in gauze.
The contrast between her dark hair and the pale pastel of her gown was arresting. Her hair was artfully curled around her heart-shaped face, and she had never looked more beautiful. Catriona took one look at her beloved friend and burst into tears.
“Oh, my darling,” Hattie crooned, sweeping her into a violet-scented embrace. “Why are you crying?”
She could not seem to find the words, nor to form them. The tumult of the last few days descended upon her all at once, and here, in her friend’s arms, she felt the first bit of comfort she had known since the moment Alessandro had informed her he would be returning to Spain as soon as possible.
That everything they had shared meant nothing to him.
That she meant nothing to him.
Whilst he meant everything to her…
“I am abysmal at choosing men to fall in love with,” she managed through her sobs.
“There, now.” Hattie passed a soothing caress over her back, calming her. “Shrewsbury was a rotter, I will own.”
She had forgotten all about the marquess.
“It is not Sh-Shrewsbury,” she sobbed, aware she was making a mess of her dear friend’s elegant gown.
Her emotions were as unpredictable as the weather.
“I gathered as much.” Hattie drew back, her brow knitted in a frown as she studied Catriona’s face. “I was only attempting to make you smile. You look as if you have just left a grave. Tell me what Rayne has done, and together, we will come up with a fitting punishment. I would say Montrose should meet him at dawn, but we all know how that went the last time round.”
Monty. Wild, madcap, beloved Monty, who was the reason for all this, indirectly. She loved him and she hated him, all at once.
“This is all Monty’s fault,” she said on a sniffle. “If he had not been sotted—”
“You do realize every bad turn in Montrose’s life begins with just such a phrase, do you not?” Hattie interrupted with a small, sad smile.
“How is the viscount?” Catriona asked then, reminded, instantly, of one of Monty’s most egregious sins.
Hattie’s smile vanished. “He is not yet himself. Though whether or not that is a boon or a curse remains to be seen. But enough of our scapegrace brothers. Tell me what has brought you here. Is your honeymoon over?”
“What’s a honeymoon?” Olivia asked.
Hattie’s attention was diverted to the child for a moment, her eyes narrowing upon the cage. “Who is the miscreant, and why is she carrying a rat about? Has she no notion of the pestilence they carry?”
“Here now, Ashes ain’t no rat,” Olivia said, forgetting her lessons in her umbrage.
“Ashes is not a rat,” Catriona somehow found the presence of mind to correct her charge. To Hattie, she added, “Ashes is a mouse. Olivia’s pet.”
Hattie raised a brow, her gaze flicking back and forth between Catriona and the child. “And who, precisely, is Olivia again?”
“Olivia is Rayne’s ward,” she explained, though it was perhaps not entirely legal just yet. It would be legal, she vowed. She would not be separated from the child. Olivia needed her.
And the truth of it was, she needed Olivia, too.
“I see.” Hattie’s frown returned. “That is not the reason, surely, for your upset?”
“No.” She took a deep breath. “I am leaving Rayne. Before he leaves me. And I do not wish him to find me, should he attempt it. That is why I am here. If I go to Riverford House, he will find me, and if I go to Hamilton House, he will find me there as well. I hope we might be able to remain at Torrington House until Rayne returns to Spain. I cannot bear to see him again. If you cannot accommodate us, I understand. After what Monty has done…”
“What Montrose has done will be his to answer for, one day,” Hattie said coolly. “You are like a sister to me, and you are welcome here regardless of your scoundrel brother, as ever. Now tell me, if you please, why you have come. What has Rayne don
e to chase you from your very home before he leaves for Spain? I thought freedom was what you wanted most.”
“It was,” she agreed on a sniffle. “Until I fell in love with him. Until I realized he will never be able to love me in return. I can only blame myself. He never wanted anything from me but an heir, and now he is returning to Spain.”
“Poison seems a fitting punishment,” Hattie said. “Not enough to kill him, of course, but enough to make him virulently ill.”
Her friend was not serious. Was she?
The room was beginning to spin about Catriona before she could contemplate anything else, and she knew what was going to happen next.
She recognized the signs. Her body went hot, then cold. She tried to take a deep breath, to regain her calm. But just as before, the weakness caused by her inability to keep sustenance where it belonged made her all too susceptible.
“Catriona!”
“My lady!”
“Lady Rayne?”
Blackness overtook her. The concerned trio of voices were muted by the sudden roar of oblivion. She pitched forward into the darkness.
*
His wife had left him.
Alessandro could scarcely believe it even now, two days after the discovery, as he rapped on the London door of Hamilton House. Of course, Catriona had not been in residence at Riverford House, where he had expected her to retreat. When he had reached his townhome and found it empty save the servants he had left behind, a blinding sense of despair had hit him for the first time.
She could run so far, so fast, he could never find her.
And he had only himself to blame.
The door opened to reveal the stern butler he had faced on many occasions. “Lord Rayne,” he greeted.
“Is Lady Rayne within?” he asked, daring to hope.
The butler frowned. “No, my lord. She is not.”
“What of Montrose?” he tried next.
The butler’s stony expression did not alter. “I am afraid His Grace is not currently at home.”
He would be willing to bet Marchmont that Montrose was passed out in a stupor somewhere. The hour was unfashionably early.
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