Don’t be a ninnyhammer, she scolded herself. Of course Harry isn’t dead.
She had no more time for wild speculation as Martin returned, followed into the room by the large, imposing man whose familiar form made her senses swim. Just the sight of him turned her dizzy in ways that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Curling her fingernails into the seat cushion beneath her, she fought to remain calm.
Dark and beautiful as a warrior of ancient myth, Rafe dominated the room, resplendent in buff pantaloons and a blue cutaway coat that enhanced the luxurious green of his eyes. For an instant, she let herself savor the sight of him, lapping him up the way a cat would a dish of cream.
“Mr. Rafe Pendragon, my lady,” Martin announced.
Working to regulate her features, she strove not to allow so much as a single emotion to show. She couldn’t afford to let Rafe know she still harbored feelings for him, and that in spite of everything, including his cutting rejection, love lingered even now in her heart.
Securing her embroidery needle in a pin cushion, she moved her sewing frame to one side, retaining her seat in a wing chair beneath a bright side window.
“Shall I bring refreshments, my lady?” the butler inquired.
“No, thank you, Martin,” she said in an implacable tone. “Mr. Pendragon will not be staying long. You may leave us now.”
The servant bowed and exited the room, quietly closing the door behind him.
Rafe raised a brow at her inhospitable statement, but decided not to take offense. Clearly, she was less than overjoyed to see him, and he couldn’t entirely blame her. After all, he’d cast her aside the last time they’d met, even if his motives had been noble ones.
Striding farther into the room, he couldn’t help but be struck by Julianna’s beauty, lush and vibrant as an exotic hothouse flower in full bloom. If it were possible, she was even more ravishingly exquisite than before.
His pulse quickened, his blood warming as he let his gaze sweep over her. Was his awareness of her stunning looks simply a reaction to his having been parted from her these past few months? Or was she truly that much more beautiful? The result of impending motherhood perhaps. Some women glowed when they were expecting, and apparently, Julianna was one of them.
Without thinking, his gaze lowered to her waist, searching for evidence of a pregnancy. But her figure appeared as always, with no discernible changes.
What a picture she made, he thought, seated within a circle of warm afternoon sunlight—an elegant woman in an equally elegant setting. Refined and airy, the room suited her, the walls painted in delicate feminine shades of pink and cream. A pair of caryatids flanked the white marble fireplace, the toga-draped ladies giving the illusion of holding the mantel aloft. Sleek-legged Chippendale furniture upholstered in green and beige stripes was arranged in comfortable groupings, with several soft Aubusson carpets spread over the polished wood floors.
When his eyes met hers, her chin came up.
“Well, Mr. Pendragon,” she said, “are you going to do nothing but stare at me, or have you something to say? You really ought not be here, you know. I thought we had agreed you would not visit this house.”
His lips tightened. So we’re back to formalities, are we? “My pardon, Lady Hawthorne, but I did not think a note appropriate under the circumstances, and I rather doubted you would appreciate me crawling through your bedroom window in the dark of night. Or do I mistake the matter?”
A rosy flush burnished her cheeks. “You most certainly do not.”
Glancing away, she curled a hand against the material of her skirt. A pretty shade, he mused, the color not so different from the one she had worn on their very first meeting all those long months ago.
He linked his hands loosely at his back. “Your brother came to see me yesterday.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Did he?”
“He challenged me to a duel in defense of your honor.”
Her gaze flew to his. “Where is Harry now? Is he all right?”
“I have no idea where your brother might be, and he was extremely well the last time I saw him, although a bit out of temper.” He paused. “You don’t really imagine I accepted his challenge, do you? Please credit me with having more sense than to fight a young man barely out of leading strings.”
“Yes, of course. It is just that Harry can be rather impetuous in his actions at times and, well, he should not have involved you. He had no cause.”
“No cause? From what he told me, he had every cause. Were his assertions untrue? He says, madam, that you are increasing. Was he in error? Are you carrying my child or not?”
A panorama of emotions flickered across her features, as if she were debating whether or not to answer him. Finally, she nodded. “Yes, it would appear that I am.”
Her confirmation knocked aside the tenuous hold he’d been keeping upon himself. Crossing to the chair directly across from her, he sat down hard, his knees suddenly unsteady despite the fact that she had said nothing he did not already know. Still, her confirmation scattered any last fleeting possibility that Allerton had been wrong after all.
Julianna toyed with a piece of ribbon on her dress. “I realize the news must have come as a great shock. It certainly knocked the wind out of me, and I’m the one who’s enceinte.” She paused, something fierce suddenly flashing in her eyes. “But if you imagine for so much as a minute that I lied to you about believing I was barren, then I—”
He cut her off with a hand. “I do not. I know you honestly thought yourself to be at the time. What possible reason could you have had to do otherwise? No, madam, if anyone was tricked it was you. Apparently your late husband was a considerably less potent lover than either of us imagined. Obviously far less potent than I.”
Julianna flushed at his indelicate remark, but seemed to unbend a bit realizing he was not going to blame her for the pregnancy.
“How far along are you, by the way?”
“Roughly three months. I’m not certain precisely when I conceived, though I assume it must have happened during one of our last times together.”
Perhaps our very last time, he thought after a quick calculation.
Clasping her hands in her lap, she twisted her fingers together. “I am sorry Harry brought you into this. He did so expressly against my wishes.”
“Which means, I assume, that you were not going to tell me about the baby,” he murmured, sudden anger rising inside him. “Didn’t you think I had a right to know? I am the father after all.”
She looked him squarely in the eye. “I didn’t think you would want to know; many men would not. And you made your feelings toward me quite plain at our last meeting. I hardly expected you to be overjoyed by the news that I’m increasing. I assumed it would be the last thing you would wish to hear considering your feelings about bringing unwanted, illegitimate children into the world.”
A pronounced silence settled between them.
“You are right,” he said. “I do not like the idea of bringing an illegitimate child into the world, which is why I have come here today.” Shifting forward, he reached out and took her hand. “Julianna, will you marry me?”
Breath caught in her chest, the strength of his touch warm as a brand against her skin. For a long moment, she couldn’t decide which she found more startling—the delightful sensation of his hand clasp, or his unexpected question.
Marry me, he’d asked?
Once, she would surely have leapt at the offer in spite of all the impediments that stood in the way of their union. For the promise of his love, she knew she would have been willing to turn her back on the life she had always known in order to forge a new one with him—Society and its rules be damned.
But Rafe did not love her, she reminded herself, and as honorable as his proposal might be, it came from a sense of duty and pride. For all the real sentiment involved, he might as well have been arranging one of his many business dealings. There would likely have been more genuine pleasure at the anti
cipated outcome.
Her hand grew cold inside his own.
“I realize marriage was not in either of our plans,” he continued, “but then neither was the idea of having a child. Circumstances have changed now, however, and so must our priorities. I am sure you agree.”
A shiver rose beneath her skin, making her wish she had her shawl.
“There is still time for a church wedding if that is what you would prefer, but I think it would be wisest not to wait. As it is there will speculation, what with the baby already three months along. I think a special license is our best option.”
A wry laugh nearly escaped her lips. He hadn’t even waited to hear her answer, the conclusion apparently foregone in his mind. After all, what woman would refuse to marry the father of her baby in order to give the child a name?
Well, my baby can have my name, she decided in a sudden stubborn burst of defiance.
With a tug, she freed her hand from Rafe’s. “I thank you for the honor of your proposal, but I am afraid I must decline.”
He stared at her, puzzled disbelief on his face. “Excuse me? What did you say?”
Squaring her shoulders, she met his gaze. “I said that I will not marry you.”
His dark brows twisted into a scowl. “Don’t be absurd. You have to marry me. You’re having my child.”
“You have done as duty requires and offered to accept responsibility for the baby. I do not wish to wed you, however, so I hereby free you of your obligation. You may leave now, your conscience absolved of any guilt. I will see to the baby.”
He sprang to his feet, an expression as black and fearsome as a thundercloud descending over his features. She trembled, reading the anger that snapped like a pair of whips in his eyes.
“See to it how?” he demanded. “I can tell you’ve done a measure of thinking on the subject, so what are your plans?” Suddenly he paled. “Good God, you’re not intending to give the baby away, are you?”
She flinched as if he had struck her. “No, I would never do that.”
“Then what?” he asked, towering over her. “Surely you cannot think to openly have the child. Even as a respected widow, Society would never condone such an act.”
“I am well aware how Society would greet such news.” Turning her head, she glanced toward the window. “I am considering a trip abroad.”
“Abroad? Where abroad?”
“Italy perhaps.”
“Italy!” he blustered. “Out of the question. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a war going on. What if your ship was attacked? What if it sank? No, you are not going to Italy.”
“Scotland, then. What harm could come to me there?”
“None, except you’ll have to live among the Scots. As a rule, they don’t have a great love for the English aristocracy, and since you won’t be staying with some rich lord, you might not find it to your liking. Especially since you’ll be pregnant, with no husband in sight.”
“I’ll tell them I’m a widow, which is no lie since that’s exactly what I am. I just won’t mention that my husband’s been dead these past five years.”
“Or that you’re carrying your lover’s baby.”
“You’re not my lover anymore,” she shot back.
“True enough. But that baby you’re carrying is as much mine as yours, and I have a say in its upbringing.”
“You have no say.”
A muscle rippled in his jaw. “I will once I am your husband.” His eyes narrowed. “Or are you trying to arrange matters so you won’t have to go abroad at all and you can still keep the child?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m talking about you and another man. I understand you’ve been very cozy with Lord Summersfield again. Is that your hope, that you’ll be able to marry him instead of me?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Lord Summersfield! Where on earth did you get such a notion?”
His eyes sparked deep green with a glare she might have mistaken for jealousy had she not known better. “Never mind how I came by the information,” he said. “Is it true? Are you going to marry Summersfield and somehow convince him that my child is his own? Is that why you’ve been seeing him, because you’re pregnant and in need of a husband?”
“How dare you! I have not been seeing him or any other man. I don’t know where you would get such an insulting idea.”
“The newspapers have it all wrong then about him dancing attendance upon you again. Or did he ever stop?”
A raw shiver of despair ran along her spine. “Get out.”
“Not until we have this settled.”
Leaning down, he set his hands onto the arms of her chair, boxing her in between. “Whatever other ideas you may have, you are going to marry me, Julianna. Summersfield and Italy and Scotland, those are fancies that are never going to happen. This baby is mine and will be raised as my child. My legitimate child. Your only task is to decide when and where we will be wed.”
“I am not marrying you.”
“Fine. I will make all the arrangements for our nuptials, then. You can busy yourself by selecting a gown and having your personal items packed for the move to my house.”
Her heart beat painfully beneath her breast. “You cannot force me to marry you.”
“That is true, I cannot. But I can inform everyone of your acquaintance that you are with child. My child. An ad in the Times should do the trick very nicely.”
His threat drove the breath from her lungs. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would dare anything for the sake of my son or daughter.”
“But you would be ruining more than my reputation. You would ruin my family as well.”
“Regretful but necessary. Of course, you can prevent it. You have only to say the word. So I ask you again, Julianna. Will you marry me?”
In that moment, she knew why he was called The Dragon. She’d heard he could be ruthless, even cruel, but until this moment, she hadn’t realized the depths to which he would go to have his way. She had never known he could be so heartless.
She wanted to tell him to leave, wanted to toss his ultimatum in his face and dare him to actually follow through on it. But what if he did exactly as he promised and broadcast their affair and her pregnancy before the entire world? Rafe didn’t strike her as the sort to make idle threats. When he pledged something, she suspected he did not back down.
If there were only herself to consider, she would have cast caution aside and told him to take himself and his marriage proposal and jump into the Thames. But she did not live in a vacuum, and her actions would affect others, most particularly those she loved, like Harry and Maris.
Even more, she had her child to consider. If the truth was universally known, her baby would forever be labeled a bastard, shunned and ridiculed, condemned to walk through life with a burden she had forced upon him as surely as if she had fastened the chains herself.
How could she do that to her child? How could she ruin his life simply because marriage to his father would surely break her heart?
Her shoulders sank in defeat. “All right, Rafe, I will marry you.”
With a satisfied nod, he straightened to his full height.
“But know this,” she continued in a low voice as he began to move away. “I will never be your wife.”
He stopped. “What?”
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “You may force me to the altar but you cannot force me to pretend happiness inside this sham of a marriage.”
“Julianna—”
“If you do this, know that I will hate you.”
She saw a flicker of regret move across his face, or at least imagined she did. An instant later, the look was gone, an impenetrable mask in its place.
“That is, of course, your choice, madam.” Stepping back, he bowed. “I will apprise you of the wedding details shortly. Good day, my lady.”
Refusing to return his farewell, she watched as he made his way from the room. Only after she heard him leave
the house, followed by the sound of his carriage wheels moving away, did she let loose the torrent of emotion bottled up inside.
Burying her face in her hands, she began to sob.
Chapter Nineteen
MR. RAFE PENDRAGON to see you, Your Grace,” announced the Duke of Wyvern’s very proper butler from the doorway of the duke’s palatial study.
Of course, everything about the duke’s ancestral home was palatial, from the main entrance, whose drive was flanked by four hundred giant oak trees, planted in the eleventh century by the first duke himself, to the sprawling expanse of the more than 250 rooms that made up the regal home known as Rosemeade.
Rafe watched as his friend, Anthony Black, glanced up from the stack of letters before him, a smile breaking across the duke’s dark-haired, saturnine countenance. After tossing his ink pen onto the surface of his desk, a massive hunk of polished wood that was said to have been carved from a lightning-felled great oak nearly three hundred years before, Tony rose to his full six-foot-three and came around to greet him.
“What an excellent surprise!” he declared, reaching out to clasp Rafe’s hand for a hearty shake. “I was starting to go mad from the plague of correspondence my secretary has heaped upon me. You are just the excuse I need in order to take a break.”
A smile curved over Rafe’s mouth. “Glad I could provide a welcome interruption.”
Tony glanced across to his butler. “That will be all for now, thank you, Crump.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
With a bow, the servant withdrew, leaving the two men alone.
“So, what brings you out of the city in the middle of the week?” Tony asked, his footsteps silent on the plush blue-and-gold Turkey carpet. “You don’t generally have time for a visit, even if Rosemeade is little more than a three-hour journey from London, give or take a bit of traffic.”
“There’s something I need to discuss.”
“Ah. Port or whisky first?” the duke offered, opening the glass doors to a tall satinwood liquor cabinet that stood along one wall.
“Whisky.” Accepting the drink a minute later, Rafe dropped down into a chair.
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