by Devon, Eva
He lifted his hand to gently cup her cheek. “Let’s not think about it, let’s think about something pleasant right now.”
“Oh?” she teased, enjoying the feeling of normalcy. “And what is that?”
“Our child,” he said. “How marvelous it will be when it grows.”
She tsked playfully. “You, Your Grace, are astonishing.”
“Thank you, I always try to be singular.” He stroked her cheek. “And you are just as I am, just as we’ve always known each other to be.”
“I wish we didn’t have this shadow hanging over us,” she said suddenly, unable to stop herself. And she knew she shouldn’t, but asked, “Can’t you confide in me?”
“Is that what you truly wish?” he asked, dark emotions dancing over his face.
“Tell me something,” she whispered.
He dropped his hand from her cheek and let out a long, resigned sigh. “I’m afraid there could be madness in my family.”
“You are?” she breathed, feeling the floor spin beneath her. She blinked.
“Yes,” he said simply, his face growing guarded.
“Your mother?” she asked.
“No, not my mother, my dear, not my mother.” He pressed his lips together. “My father.”
“How very terrible for you. I’m so sorry that you were given such reason to be concerned. Can you tell me more about it?”
“I can,” he said, “but don’t you think we could spend this evening in each other’s arms? I would far prefer that, Penelope.”
“Well,” she replied, blushing. “What ever shall we tell Thomas if we were to do that?”
“Well, I think I shall manage to sneak over when all are asleep.”
“I suppose you could,” she said. “Thomas need not know. Or if he does, there really is no scandal in us being together since we’re going to be wed, and you’ve publicly declared it. But could you tell me some more of this secret in my arms?” she asked.
“You are very persistent,” he stated.
She brought a hand to her lips, realizing she had pressed too hard. “I’m sorry if you don’t wish me to be.”
“No, it’s one of the things I admire about you,” he said. “You see, my father refuses to leave the castle.”
“What do you mean he refuses to leave?”
Rafe stared at her for a long moment, and she felt herself willing him to continue.
“There came a time, and just about everyone knows this, when he never left our castle,” Rafe began slowly, darkly. “He never left the estate.”
Rafe licked his lips and looked to the fire. “His world grew smaller and smaller. He would go out for long walks every day, but he would refuse to go to the village. He would refuse to go to London. He would refuse to fulfill his seat in Parliament. Soon. . .”
“Go on,” she encouraged gently, barely daring to breathe.
“It happened slowly, over years,” he continued, his voice almost empty of emotion. “I can remember, as a child, when my father would still go out, and he seemed to enjoy it. He traveled all over the country. He visited his constituents.”
Rafe smiled at the childhood memory. “He adored helping people. It was something that made him feel very alive, but then there would be days when he wouldn’t want to leave the castle, and some days he wouldn’t even want to leave his chambers. Now, when I was very small, I didn’t notice this.”
A dry laugh escaped him. “Obviously, I spent most of my time in the nursery or playing out of doors on the vast grounds of our estate. Then I went away to school. . .” Rafe’s voice grew cold. “And I went away to war. So I did not really understand the depth of the problem until my mother began writing me letters. Letters which told me something was terribly amiss. She insisted I come home.”
He wiped a hand over his suddenly pallid face.
“When I did arrive home finally,” he continued, “I found a man that I barely knew. My father was completely paralyzed by the idea of having to leave his own chambers, and it was becoming very difficult because he tried to do everything from his rooms, writing letters and having people come and visit him, but it’s not possible to run a dukedom that way.”
A muscle in Rafe’s jaw tightened. “Everything was falling apart, Penelope. The lives of the tenants. . .”
“I’m so very sorry,” she said, wishing she could console him.
A knock upon the door brought Thomas, carrying a tray. “Hot negus and soup for you this evening. And, Your Grace, Miss Finley,” he added. “It truly is a pleasure to have you here on your way to such a happy occasion.”
Penelope forced herself to smile at him. “Thank you, Thomas. I look forward to seeing you many, many times, in the future.”
Thomas blushed. He gave a bow of his head and exited the room.
“You’ve already won him over,” Rafe said with a bit of a smile, despite the haunted look in his eyes.
She laughed. “I like people, and generally, they like me.”
“Certainly true,” Rafe said, crossing to her and taking her hands in his. “I like you a good deal.”
But still, his stomach tightened. What would happen to him when she found out the truth? She was responding well now, but she didn’t know the extent of it.
“I can’t explain to you, Penelope,” he whispered hoarsely as if being sucked back into memory, “how difficult it was to see him like that. My mother would try and try to persuade him to leave his rooms, and that’s when the madness would show itself. He would become extremely agitated, deeply upset, sometimes violent. He refused to get out of bed and wouldn’t change his clothes.”
Penelope’s heart sank as she listened to him. How she wished she could make his suffering disappear. She’d never known anything like it. How she wished she could free him of it.
But all she could do was listen, so she murmured, “Go on.”
Rafe closed his eyes. “His hair would become, well really. . . He could not take care of himself, and he would stop responding to us. He wouldn’t write letters; he wouldn’t answer letters. He wouldn’t see any of his friends who came to call.”
The muscles in Rafe’s jaw tightened, and his whole face seemed to darken with his own horror. “And so we began to tell people that he was simply sick.”
“Sick?” she echoed, a sort of dread building deep within her.
“Yes,” he said flatly as his eyes snapped open. “Mama and I took up most of the work. What I had not realized is how much Mama had been doing over the years. My poor mother, in the name of love for my father, had virtually been running the entire dukedom, which is an almost impossible task when one cannot go to all the places one must when one is a duke. She’d even been signing his name in a desperate attempt to keep him afloat.”
“I see,” she breathed.
“I don’t think you can,” he countered gravely, “unless you’ve actually been at the helm of something as large as this. When you think about the fact that Thomas is in here, is upon my lands, yet we are still a day’s ride away from my estate. That should give you some scope of it. We take care of hundreds and hundreds of, well, thousands of people,” he said.
“I admire your mother already for it,” Penelope said truthfully.
“Thank you,” he said. “She is the person I do think I admire most in the world aside from you.”
“Aside from me?” she said. “No. It sounds as if your mother deserves the admiration far more than I.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “She certainly has worked very hard, but, Penelope, I do admire you.”
“I admire you too, Rafe, and I admire you more for finally telling me these things now that you seem to trust me, and it gladdens my heart. I’m sorry your father died like that.”
Rafe stilled. He stared at her.
Silence filled the room. Silence so thick it felt as if she was suddenly slogging through mud.
“Rafe?” she queried.
A resigned stare, a stare of one who had seen hell,
met her gaze.
And then she knew: he had not told her his secret yet.
“Tell me, my love. Tell me now,” she urged.
And then she did something she did but rarely.
Penelope prayed.
Chapter 19
Rafe swallowed back the bile rising in his throat.
Damnation, could he tell her? Could he truly tell her?
What if she didn’t believe him?
“Penelope,” he said softly.
“Yes?” she asked, winding her small, perfect hand with his.
He thought back to that day as a boy when his father had left him standing at the entrance of their castle. . . as his fingers had been left unclasped.
The words seemed to catch in his throat, but he could not bear to keep it from her any longer. “What if I told you that my father wasn’t dead?”
“What?” she gasped.
“What if I told you that my father had not died, but was still very much alive?”
Her gaze widened, and for one moment, he was certain she would call him mad.
Instead, she held his hand tighter. “Tell me more, my love.”
“You believe me,” he rasped.
“Of course I do,” she said firmly. “Why would you lie about something like this? How terrible for you.”
She shook her head then, her dark curls dancing about her face. “I don’t mean it like that,” she said. “I would be so glad if my mother was still alive, so you must too be delighted that your father is still with you.”
“I am,” he said. “But it is a great secret to bear, and one that people cannot know.”
“I see,” she said. “He’s that unwell that he cannot leave at all?”
Rafe nodded. “It was finally a decision we made. My father was the one who suggested it, to fake his own death, to pretend that he had died, so he could be left alone in the castle and at peace, knowing that I would take up the dukedom. The most awful part of it is I can’t speak of him.”
Rafe felt the weight of his secret, the pain of it dissipate as he spilled it all out to her. “I can’t speak of my father to anyone,” he confessed. “Not even the memories. Because I might suddenly make a mistake and suggest that my father is still very much alive. Which would mean my mother and I and my father had perpetrated a great fraud upon the people of England.”
Gently, she cupped his cheek with her palm. “Thank you for trusting me with this. And is this what you felt you needed to show me? Because you thought I mightn’t believe it?”
“Yes,” he said. “I wanted to show you my father. When we get to the estate, I will take you to him, and you will see what you might be marrying.”
Her heart slammed in her ribs then. “I don’t understand.”
“That sort of thing, that can run in families.” His hand tightened about hers. “Penelope, you must understand that.”
She failed to see the terror of what was driving him, but driving him it was. “I do know that melancholia can run most deeply in families. Surely, you don’t think that would be a reason for which I would choose not to wed you, do you?”
“I do,” he returned gravely. “I wish you to understand the depth of the problem that could become of us.”
Her heart bled for him and she grabbed his shoulders, wishing she could shake sense into him, but knowing that wouldn’t work. “I could never turn away from you.”
“Don’t say that, Penelope,” he fairly growled. “Don’t say until you know. I’ve seen my mother over the years struggle, and the truth is I wish I could take that all away from her. I wish I could send her to Paris and give her freedom and happiness and pretty gowns and good company and friends. But she has none of that because she chooses to take care of my father.”
“That’s right,” Penelope said with sympathy but no indulgence. “She chooses, she chooses to be with him. She must love him a great deal.”
“They love each other very deeply,” he agreed. “But my father is also tortured by the knowledge that he does this to my mother. He’s tried to make my mother leave several times, but she refuses to go.”
“Then she is obviously happy in the choice that she has made,” Penelope pointed out.
“Is she?” he asked, blankly. “I don’t know. Her love is so great that she cannot choose anything else.”
“Rafe, I love you,” she said, unable to stop herself.
“Don’t say it,” he said. “Please.”
“I must because it is true,” she continued. “Would you have me lie to you?”
“Perhaps,” he said. His beautiful, proud shoulders sagged. “I lie to everyone. I’ve lied to almost everyone about one of the most important things in my life. You could lie to me about this. You could lie to me and tell me you don’t love me, Penelope, because I would hate to do to you what my father did to my mother. Love doesn’t solve everything. Or didn’t you know, darling girl?”
“I do know,” she said, tears stinging her eyes. She didn’t give way to them. “But I can’t lie to you about this. Let me take the chance. Let me make the choice to love you, to be your wife, and to be with you, always.”
He held her tightly then, enfolding her against his fortress of a chest.
“I will let you take that chance after you have seen him and after you have met my mother,” Rafe whispered against her coiled hair.
“Fine,” she said. “I agree. I take up your challenge.”
“Oh,” he groaned. “Not a challenge, Penelope. For with you, I know that you will take up a challenge and meet it head on.”
“Rafe, this is about our future, and I want you to know that I will always choose you.” She pressed her face tighter to his heart. “I think I would have always chosen you, from the first moment I met you.”
Rafe winced, savoring the feel of her against him.
Savoring it as if he might lose himself forever at any moment. What was he doing?
This was supposed to have been meant to just simply be an affair of convenience, of joy.
No, that was a lie too.
He’d known from the moment he met Penelope that she was different, that she was his destiny, but he’d been so certain he could be strong. He’d thought he was going to be able to protect her from him, to keep her away, to keep her away from the madness that might come.
She tilted her back and studied him before she said, “I see it on your face, Rafe. It’s not going to happen to you.”
“And if it does?” he demanded, knowing she could make no such promise.
She bit her lower lip then rushed, “Then we shall take care of you, and we shall work out a plan.”
“That’s not good enough,” he countered tightly. “I don’t really wish my child to see me fall apart as my father did.”
“You cannot control life,” she pointed out, mercilessly.
“I’m a duke, damn it,” he snapped before he groaned at the absurdity of his statement. “I should be able to control it.”
She laughed wryly. “There are limitations to even your power, then.”
Even as he smiled down at her, he whispered, “This is no laughing matter, Penelope.”
“Forgive me,” she said. “It is my answer to life, to laugh. I don’t think that I could face breaking down in tears at just this particular moment.”
He nodded. “Forgive me. You’re right, of course. One must face tragedy with a bit of resilience.”
“This isn’t a tragedy, Rafe,” she replied. “Your father is safe and, from what I can understand, at peace.”
He ground his teeth together before stating, “It’s not how we’re supposed to live, Penelope.”
“Supposed to!” she scoffed. “Is that what you’re so concerned about? The man I know? Supposed to! If you were so concerned with supposed to, you and I would not even be in this room together at this time.”
A grin pulled at his lips, and for a moment, his heart lightened. “You do have a certain logic about you that one can’t ignore.”
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bsp; “It is something that I’ve always had, Rafe. You know that.”
“It’s true, and it’s why I do love you.”
She narrowed her eyes then batted her lashes dramatically. “I beg your pardon?”
He blew out a sight then confessed boldly, “I love you, Penelope. There’s no denying it.”
“Then, let us be free of all this nonsense!”
How he wished he could!
“I can’t explain it to you,” he rushed. “The wild raging inside me, the fear.
“I am a soldier and a duke, one of the greatest men in the realm, and I say that not out of arrogance, but out of fact.” Rafe felt his throat tightening, but he forced himself to continue. “Yet, I am afraid. I’m afraid that, one day, I will start to long to stay inside my home, that I will no longer wish to go to London, that I won’t go to Gentleman Jackson’s or to the races or ride down Rotten Row. That I will give it all up, that I will stop going to balls, that I will wish to stop going to dances with you. Can you imagine such a thing?”
She did not reply for a long moment. And then, instead of false platitudes as he expected, she stated, “Rafe, if suddenly you feel as though you only wish to dance in our home, then I will dance with you there.”
“You are making light of it, Penelope! You cannot understand the depth of how difficult it is for my mother.”
“My heart has chosen you,” she replied without apology.
“All right, then,” he said softly, unable to argue further. “Proclaim your love for me, then. I dare you.”
“I love you, Rafe.” Her eyes softened with passion, and her words took on the tone of a vow. “I love your originality, the passion you have for your news sheets. I love the way that you want to help the people of England, no matter their status, and I love the way that you are always open to listening to me and knowing me. And I know that you will love our child just the same.”
He winced. “You make me sound a saint.”
“A saint?” she said before she chortled. “No, you’re still an arrogant ponce, but I adore you all the same.”
He laughed then, a deep sound that broke the tension in his body. “Thank God for you, Penelope. But it is true, what I said before.”