A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  “I’m not having this discussion here.” She took a step toward the carriage and he blocked her path.

  “Who?”

  Bridget met that sharp demand with a stony silence. And at last, he accepted the unwanted truth he’d fought since Colin slid that note across the table—she’d met a man. Primitive rage pounded like a drum in his head and pulsed in his veins. Growling low in his throat, Vail spun back and stalked toward that hated townhouse.

  “Vail,” she shouted after him.

  He did not break stride, but rather finished his march. Reaching the front door of that residence, he knocked hard.

  “Vail,” she cried, grabbing at his arm. “Stop.”

  Shrugging off her touch, he pounded. At his side, Bridget wept and, through those noisy tears, pleaded. She was determined to keep her secrets. She’d already made him for the fool. He would be damned if she made him a cuckold or—

  The door opened and he froze mid-knock.

  A plump, gray-haired woman stared back with a like shock as his own. What in blazes? She looked to Bridget. “My lady…what…?”

  The sharp staccato of footsteps sounded down the corridor as a small boy came racing forward. He charged past the older woman, his eyes brightening. “Mama, you’ve come back.”

  Mama?

  Stunned, Vail swung his gaze about, looking for the errant mother this child spoke of, and only finding one—Bridget. The boy tossed himself into her arms and she immediately held him close.

  And the world ceased spinning. She had a child. By the looks of his size, he was near in age to Erasmus’ years when he’d passed away. But…Vail glanced around, dazed. It was impossible. He’d been wrong about many things where Bridget was concerned, but there’d been no mistaking that the woman he’d made love to on his desk had been a virgin. He looked to his wife, but all her attention was reserved for the bright-eyed child in her arms.

  “Who are you?”

  Vail tried to scrap together a coherent reply to the boy’s world-wary question as he tried to sort through this equally peculiar reunion and meeting. “Vail Basingstoke, Lord Chilton.” It was a bloody miracle that he was even certain of that, anymore. “And who are you?” he asked the more important of the questions.

  Bridget held his gaze over the child’s head. “This is Virgil,” she said softly. “My son.”

  Chapter 20

  Despite the late hour and the frequent noisy yawns from Nettie, Virgil prattled the whole carriage ride from Lambeth to Mayfair. And never before had Bridget been gladder for his penchant for talking.

  Her skin burned with the intensity of Vail’s stare trained on her, just as it had been since he’d ushered her and her family into the hired hack. After the unexpected reunion on those porch steps, he’d instructed Virgil and Nettie to gather their belongings and return to the hack. Had his orders been harsh and cold, it would have been easier than the gentleness of his tone when he’d spoken to her family.

  “That is why you didn’t come today, then, isn’t it, Mama?” Virgil piped in cheerfully. “All day I was angry with you for not visiting but you were really preparing to bring me and Nettie with you.”

  Opposite her, Nettie wrung her hands together frantically; a cryptic worry in her eyes.

  Seemingly content without a reply on Bridget’s part, Virgil swung his line of questioning to a stoic Vail. “You married my mother?” His earlier childlike excitement gone, Virgil looked at Vail through narrowed eyes.

  He nodded slowly. “I did.”

  Her son frowned and glanced up at Bridget. “Is he a good man?”

  Her throat worked painfully. “He is,” she promised. The only male Virgil had in his life before this moment had been the thankfully fleeting visits from his father. How very much he deserved a man such as Vail. Yet, any hope of a family with him had been doomed from the moment Archibald had set foot inside her cottage with his demands.

  Virgil continued to peer at the baron, searchingly. “Well?” he demanded. “Is my mother right? Are you a good man?”

  Her husband carefully removed his gloves and stuffed them away in his pocket. “I can tell you that I am, but it is far wiser for you to look at a person’s actions, rather than listen to their mere words,” he murmured.

  She flinched at that veiled indictment of her character.

  Thankfully, Virgil abandoned that dangerous line of querying. “What about the gentleman who hired you to examine his collection? Does that mean you aren’t going to be working for him, anymore?”

  Vail sharpened his gaze at those revealing words.

  “This is His Lordship,” she said weakly, praying her son would reveal nothing else, uncertain how to stymie his words without attracting Vail’s further notice. “He is—was—my employer.”

  Some of her son’s earlier chill dissipated. “You like books like my mother, then?”

  Vail nodded. “I do.” He paused. “And do you have your mother’s skill with those books?”

  “I do.” The little boy puffed out his chest, proudly. “I’m quite good at it, too. I started helping when Mr. Lowell first—”

  “There’ll be time enough for talk with His Lordship, later,” Nettie murmured, with that interruption ending the free rush of information her son handed over at Bridget’s expense.

  Virgil again looked to her. “Does this mean we’ll not have to be parted anymore? That we’ll be together?”

  She brushed a stray curl back from his brow. “That is just what it means,” she said gently, giving him that assurance when she couldn’t say that. At last, her son settled into silence and, with the noisy roll of the carriage through London, she stared out the window. The truth was, for Virgil’s worrying and his questions, she didn’t truly know what would come in the days ahead with Vail or Archibald. The only certainty was the uncertainty now facing them. In the past, where that would have riddled her with terror, having Vail in her life eased the fear that weighted her shoulders. He might hate her, but seeing him usher off an old maid and small child to a hack had proved he would always help. She caught her chin in her hand and stared out the window at the passing streets. Vail was not one who’d be able to deny others in need. She’d thought that kindness was a gift only extended to his brothers and sisters but tonight, helping Virgil inside the hack, she’d seen the truth of his character. Her heart filled with overflowing love for him.

  They arrived at Vail’s townhouse. Glad for the night cover that kept Society’s prying eyes from their coming home, Bridget accepted Vail’s hand. Next, he helped Nettie, then Virgil out. Rejoining the driver, coins were exchanged, and as Vail spoke with the man, Bridget pressed ahead with Nettie at her side.

  “You need to tell him, girl,” the nursemaid spoke in low tones.

  Keeping her eyes on Virgil dashing ahead, she nodded. “I know. I will. I—”

  “Should have told His Lordship before he found out for himself,” Nettie chided, peeking over her shoulder. “He’s a handsome one,” she added, off-topic. “And kind to the boy.”

  “He will…would be good to him,” she murmured.

  The front doors were opened by the second-butler, Mr. Hammell. As he ushered their party in, several footmen rushed outside to assist with their meager bags. It was a testament to the professionalism of Vail’s staff that not a single one of the servants gave an outward indication that there was anything extraordinary about their employer and his new bride arriving with a pair of strangers and their tattered possessions.

  “Hammell,” her husband said from over her shoulder as he entered. “Help Mr. Hamlet and…?”

  “Nettie, Your Lordship. My name is Nettie,” the old servant replied.

  “Miss Nettie, to guest chambers until something more permanent can be readied for them.”

  That was it. Knowing nothing more than that these people were her family, even with all that had passed, he’d still make that offer? Her heart filled with love for him all over again.

  Her son yawned loudly and scratch
ed at his head. “My name isn’t Hamlet.”

  Vail sharpened his gaze on the boy.

  “It’s—”

  Nettie promptly placed her palm over his mouth, muffling that reply. “The lad’s tired. We’ll speak more with His Lordship tomorrow.” She favored him with the same quelling look she’d used on Bridget when she’d misbehaved.

  Frowning around her hand, he muttered something, the words lost.

  Vail’s keen eyes missed nothing. He carefully took in every nuance of their language and their bodies’ movements.

  “If you’ll follow me?” Hammell motioned to the stairway leading to the main suites and, grateful for that brief reprieve from her husband’s questioning, she fell into step beside her son.

  “My lady? If you would join me in my office?” Vail called out.

  She jerked to a stop, her foot poised over the first stair. Of course, it was both foolish and wrong to expect she was deserving of a reprieve. Given he’d followed her and then everything he’d discovered, he would rightfully have questions—ones he was entitled to have answers to. Nonetheless, Bridget struggled to swallow around the unease choking off her throat.

  Several steps ahead, Virgil looked down questioningly. She gave him a reassuring smile and then feeling much the way that ill-fated Queen of France had marching up those steps to the guillotine, Bridget turned back to join her husband.

  “Vail,” she began when they started ahead.

  “Not a word, madam,” he bit out. “Not a single bloody word.” She flinched at the fury pulsing in his smooth baritone. “I’ll not have this discussion before a houseful of servants.”

  Her heart sank. There were too many lies for them to overcome and certainly for him to forgive. That reality was etched in the granite-like set to his chiseled features and that telltale tick at the corner of his eye.

  They reached his office and he drew the door open. She hesitated. “Get. Inside.”

  Flinching at that icy veneer that she’d come to despise, wanting him to be the man he’d been all her weeks here prior and just before in the hack with Virgil. On numb legs, she forced herself ahead.

  Vail closed the door behind him with a quiet, ominous click. “Well?” he demanded, bringing her reluctantly back to face him. He leaned against the wood panel; arms folded, one leg propped in a negligent pose belied by the piercing intensity of his eyes and tone.

  She’d an entire ride here to prepare a reply. Nay, she’d had nearly a month. But in that time, she’d not allowed herself the possibility of telling him the truth of who she was. Her tongue grew heavy in her mouth. I am a Hamilton. I am from a family of attempted murderers and rapists, and—Bridget pressed her eyes tightly closed. I am the thief of the family.

  “A son,” he spat the word like a profanity. “That child is no more your son than he is mine.”

  She recoiled. He could have struck her and it couldn’t have hurt more. She’d given up everything for Virgil. “How dare you?” She charged forward, coming so close the tips of their shoes brushed.

  “How dare me?” A mocking laugh burst from his lips. “Everything about you has been a lie.” The fight seemed to go out of him. “Everything.”

  That agonized whisper ripped through her. He was hurting. I did this to him. I have hurt him. She was no different than Adrina. “You are right.” His body coiled tight again. “I deserve that. Your condemnation and doubts.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I may not be the woman who gave him life, but I have loved him and taken care of him as though I did. I held him when he was sick and cheered as he took his first steps and cried as he spoke his first word.” Her chest heaved. “And I would not let you take the one thing I’ve done right in my l-life,” her voice broke and she spoke around the tears clogging her throat. “And make it wrong.”

  Vail gripped her shoulders as he’d done at Lambeth, but this time there was gentleness there. “Then make me understand,” he pleaded.

  Forcing her eyes open, she searched for a proper place to begin. She sucked in a steadying breath. “My name is Bridget.” She needed him to know that at least was true. “I was born to a noble family.”

  He instantly stiffened.

  When still he said nothing, she pressed ahead with her hated telling. “My parents had little use for me.” That much was true. “When they saw…when they saw…” She briefly palmed her marked cheek. His gaze slid over to the crescent birthmark.

  How many years she’d spent letting that mark define her? Vail had never looked upon it as though it had mattered in any way and, for it, she herself had ceased to believe it did. “It is a family one,” she explained. “Every one of our ancestors was cursed with that crescent, but theirs were always here.” She touched her opposite wrist.

  Realizing that she rambled, Bridget immediately ceased, and let her arms fall. “When I was four, they learned I was partially deaf. It didn’t matter I still had use of one of my ears. Lords didn’t marry cripples,” she repeated that hollow echo her father had hurled at her head. “I was…sent away to the country. I never left.” After that moment, in the whole of her life there’d been just two times she’d gone anywhere—very briefly to London with her babe, and then back to Leeds, and now the time she’d spent here. Disquieted by his penetrating stare, she wandered to a nearby Tole tray table. Absently, she traced her fingertips over the rider painted in red.

  “Who is your family?” he demanded.

  She stilled. Of course, he’d ask that question. As a nobleman with business connections all over England he’d certainly expect to know a member of the peerage. And yet, the minute she revealed the truth to him she’d cease to matter to him.

  “Bridget.”

  She started, having failed to note his approach. He stood a mere foot away, tension rolling from his frame in waves. Shaking her head, she continued with her own order of the telling. “One day, a young woman arrived at my family’s countryseat.” Bridget hugged herself as the remembered horror of that day assailed her. “She was weeping and ashen. She had a babe in her arms. She’d said my…my brother was…” Her teeth chattered at her family’s propensity for evil. “That my brother had raped her.”

  Vail drew back, shock slackened his jaw.

  “She threatened to kill the babe if he didn’t take it.” Bridget looked down at the floor, hating the earliest memories of her son’s life. And yet, he was here because of them. And she could never, ever regret that he’d been given life.

  What evil had his wife known?

  …I suspect understanding why she required those funds, is as important…

  This is what Huntly had spoken of.

  The earlier fury that had sent him to his office with her, dulled with every revelation.

  The lady was of the nobility. He’d known that nearly from their first meeting by her cultured tones and literary mind, but he’d allowed himself to believe that she was perhaps the daughter of an impoverished lesser lord. Mayhap a country squire as Adrina had been. He’d not, however, allowed himself…any of this.

  This ruthlessness she spoke of: parents who’d shun their child and treat her as though she were dead to the world and a brother capable of the greatest evil.

  Vail brushed his knuckles under her chin, forcing her gaze up. “And you took the babe in.”

  Bridget offered a shaky nod. “I-I brought him to London. It was the first I’d ever been there since I was a child. It was so noisy and dark and wet. It rained the minute the mail coach arrived and continued until…” She clamped her teeth tight stymieing her rambling. “He wouldn’t take him,” she whispered. “I couldn’t reason with him. I couldn’t make him do right. He said if I was so very worried about the babe, then…”

  “You could take him,” he quietly provided.

  Biting her lower lip, she nodded.

  What that must have been for her, a sheltered young woman, alone…with no resources. The air lodged in his chest. “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  S
eventeen. When most young women were making their Come Outs, sipping lemonade at Almack’s and strolling Hyde Park, she’d been caring for a motherless babe. Where he? He’d been too busy wooing a grasping woman to look after anyone, except his own desiring.

  “The boy…your son, Virgil is why you came here.”

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she nodded.

  …People are no different. You cannot neatly file them as sinners or saints. We are all simply people, flawed by our own rights…surviving in an uncertain world…

  She’d accused him of seeing the world in black and white, and for his insistence on the accuracy of that viewing of people and life around them, she’d been correct. There were shades of gray in between what he’d previously taken as certain truths.

  He registered the absolute stillness and looked to his wife. A battle warred in her expressive eyes. “Oh, God.” She searched about and then slid into a nearby King Louis XIV chair. “I want to tell you all,” she explained pleadingly. “I want to tell you everything and know that it will be all right.” A sob burst from her throat. “But how do I do that?” she begged. “How can I give you the answers you deserve if it might hurt my son?”

  What battles she’d fought and continued to, on her own. Initially, he’d only wanted answers to assuage his own frustrations and anger. Now, he wanted to take the burden that she’d carried for too many years. Heart splitting in two, Vail stalked over and knelt beside her chair. He gathered her hands in his. “Tell me,” he urged. “Not because you believe I deserve answers, tell me because you want me to share whatever this is.”

  “My brother…” She exhaled slowly through her compressed lips. In her eyes, he saw the battle she fought. Vail waited in silence, giving her the time she required. When she spoke, her voice emerged as a threadbare whisper. “My brother threatened to take Virgil if I did not… steal your Chaucer.”

  Vail sank back on his haunches. Given her earlier deception, everything Bridget gave him could be a lie. It could be a thief’s attempt to play upon his sympathies and yet—