Cowan twisted, spotted him. Her cheeks washed as pale as Rowena’s. “Yer Grace—I . . . she . . . It isna what it seems.”
He held up a hand to stop the tumble of words and took one more step, just enough to emerge from the dressing room and into the bedchamber. But he couldn’t bring himself to step any closer. Not just then.
Love her.
His nostrils flared. But the facts still managed to crystallize in his mind. “You were attacked.”
Not her fault. He knew that. Wouldn’t judge her. Not for the violation, not for the result.
But for the lies, the tricks . . . the quick plot for a marriage to cover up those consequences—his chest burned at those. And how many prayers had he offered up, that if he were right about his suspicions, this consequence wouldn’t be an issue?
Love her.
Rowena’s hands shook as she gripped the blanket—looked to the floor, as she hadn’t done around him in days. “Aye. As ye figured out long ago.”
“When?” He hated to ask, didn’t really want to know. But he had to. Whatever he did, whatever decisions he made, he had to know. “When did he . . . ?”
Cowan covered her mistress’s hands with hers and raised her chin. “Just a fortnight before you arrived, Yer Grace. Near enough that no one would know the difference, no one would think it not yer bairn.”
Not his bairn. No, not his babe. Some monster’s, who would attack a girl who’d dared to trust him. Who would hurt her, abuse her, misuse her. All no doubt to force her to marry him. Oh, but Lilias Cowan and Douglas Kinnaird had outsmarted the monster, hadn’t they? “That was your plan all along. Force her to marry me so you could pass off the child as mine.”
God, why? When I prayed, when I did as you urged me, when I married her to protect her? Why?
Cowan went even paler. Rowena’s shoulders slumped, and tears slipped down her cheeks. Accusations, those.
Love her.
His wife shook her head. “I didna ken if I was with child or not, Brice. I didna, I swear to you. And I didna have any intentions of lying. If I had kent, I would have told you. I couldna keep that from you.”
No, not when she was too terrified of a man’s touch to allow the full cover-up Cowan no doubt had intended.
“Then our wedding night . . .” Her breath was heavy and tremulous, like it had been each morning when the sickness—oh, that wily sickness—struck. She pressed a hand to her stomach. “I thought it my monthlies. I did.”
Love her.
His insides felt hollow. Burned out.
Cowan rubbed a hand over Rowena’s back. “We’re at yer mercy, Yer Grace. I beg you—”
“No.” Tears streaming unchecked—either at the topic or from the sickness she seemed determined to hold in check—Rowena scooted away from Cowan, to the edge of the bed. “No, ye canna ask him to raise this child, Lil. Ye canna. I will raise the babe. I’ll love it. I’ll not judge it for its father . . . But it’s too much to ask of Brice. He deserves better than this, better than me.”
Love her.
Pressure mounted behind his nose. His choices were few and stark. He could divorce her, and make it clear in a court of law that the babe she carried could not possibly be his. That meant exposing what she had suffered to the world. Exposing that their marriage had been, thus far, a farce. Preserving the Nottingham line.
He could put her away quietly, a separation but not a legal one. Not have to face her, but still support her and the babe. Still be bound as the legal father to the child, which meant if it was a boy, that boy would still be his heir. The next duke.
He could keep Rowena as his wife but insist she go away somewhere to give birth to the child, and then find a home for it, praying no one ever found out. Force her to abandon her baby.
Or he could let the deception do its work. Let the world think the babe his. Be the child’s father. Be Rowena’s husband.
Love them.
Not since his own father lay lifeless on the steps had he so wanted to weep.
“And Joseph was minded to put her away quietly . . . but an angel appeared to him in a dream—”
He shook away the old story. He was not Joseph. How could the Lord expect him to be? Why, why would He ask him to do this, when all he’d ever wanted was a wife to love him, his own children darting about his feet? To preserve the centuries-old legacy of Nottingham and keep the duchy in the Myerston family for another three hundred years? If he’d known seven weeks ago what was truly at stake . . .
Would he have disobeyed the Lord? The Lord, who knew the moment that life was conceived?
Brice’s eyes slid shut. She was his wife. Was this meant to be his child?
Love them echoed on within him.
He swallowed, and it felt like a rock stuck in his throat.
Pay attention. He saw her as she had been that first day at Gaoth, little more than a shadow. Protect her. The terror, the devastation when Kinnaird had wrapped his hands around her throat. Trust her. The hope that had dared to bloom in her eyes as he took her away from Lock Morar. Listen. The disappointment he’d caused every time he ignored her concerns. Stay with her. The way she’d begun smiling at him these last few days. Love her. Those endless eyes, regarding him a moment ago with a resignation that said she expected the worst. That she still thought it was all she deserved.
Brice forced himself to draw in a deep breath and let it seep back out. He wanted to slam into his own room and let the injustice of it all fill him. He wanted to scream that he’d done his best to protect her, but this was too much. He wanted to tell that voice inside to shut up, to leave him alone, to let him be angry and hurt for once.
Maybe it would be excusable. Maybe it would be understandable.
So why did the echo of her words break his heart even more than the realization of what they’d done?
He opened his eyes again and looked at her. At the defeated slope of her shoulders, at the hopeless bend of her neck. The pale cheeks, the fingers twisting around themselves. Just like the first day he’d met her.
No—she wouldn’t turn into that girl again. Not on his account. If he did that to her, he’d be no better than Malcolm Kinnaird. No better than Lochaber. And he had to be better—because that wasn’t who he was, and because he had sworn not a week ago that he’d prove that very thing to her.
He abandoned his spot and moved to the bed, forced his knees to bend, his hand to reach out. He settled on the side of her away from Cowan and rested his hand on her knee. Rowena looked up into his eyes, hers shining silver behind the magnifying tears.
Cowan muttered something in Gaelic. Then in English, “I beg you, Yer Grace, make no hasty decisions. Consider what ye’ll do.”
He didn’t spare a glance to the woman but rather kept his focus on his wife. “I don’t need to consider it.” He did, of course. It would take hours of prayer and consideration to figure out how to live out the promise he was about to make. But that was between him and God—no one else. “I would never punish you for another’s sins, Rowena. I’m your husband. I will love you. Protect you. Remain at your side. And I will be the best father any child could ever want.”
Her arms came around his neck, and she sobbed into his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didna ken. That it was possible, aye, but . . .”
He splayed a hand across her back and held her tight for a moment. But he wasn’t quite as strong as his words. He drew away with a shaky smile and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “God knew. He knew, and He put us together. He told me to marry you.” And he intended to have a long conversation with the Lord about that when he was alone.
He needed to be alone.
Rowena sniffed and pressed a hand to her stomach. “It willna be easy for you. I ken that. But I . . . I thank you for being willing to try.”
Brice summoned a smile. “I certainly have some digesting to do. But we will be all right, darling. We’ll be a family. We’ll be happy together.”
She nodded, nostrils flaring.
Then, apparently unable to control it any longer, she made a mad dash for the lavatory.
Brice sighed, rubbed at his face as he stood, and turned toward the door that connected their suites.
“Yer Grace.”
He paused but didn’t turn more than a quarter of the way around. Just enough to see Cowan twisting the bedsheet between her hands.
“Ye’re smart enough to ken it was me who planned it all. I’ll not lie and say otherwise. Rowena ne’er would have done such a thing. Ye’re a good man to forgive her, accept her . . . but I understand if ye willna offer the same to me. If ye . . . if ye want me to leave.”
And take from his wife the one person who had loved her all her life? He wasn’t such an ogre. Even if he had no desire to talk to the woman at that moment. “You would do anything for her—I realize that. And I even appreciate it. But Cowan . . .” He met her gaze, felt his spine stiffen. “Don’t ever lie to me again.”
“Aye, Yer Grace. Ye have my word.”
It would have to do. With a quick step, he passed through the door to his room and closed it softly behind him. Davis wasn’t within yet, and he didn’t ring the bell to call for him. He just slid into the nearest chair, braced his elbows on his knees, and buried his head in his hands.
He had been so sure that he wouldn’t have to worry about this, even having discerned what he did. So sure the Lord wouldn’t punish him with another man’s child. And yet here he was. Barely making any progress as a husband, but now he would be a father.
Centuries of expectation settled on his shoulders. Centuries of the same bloodline, passed down from duke to duke. Why, why must he now accept that Malcolm Kinnaird’s son could well be the next Duke of Nottingham? Was it wrong of him to pray the babe was a girl instead, as it had apparently been wrong to pray it didn’t exist? Why, God? Why is this your plan for us?
A warm breeze passed over his heart. A warm thought filled up the hollow inside. Because I can trust you with them. Because you need them. Because the life you will live together is better than the lives you could live apart.
He steepled his hands and let his chin rest against them, staring blindly at the unlit hearth across his room.
It wasn’t how he’d wanted his life to go. Wasn’t what he’d dreamed would happen, even when he obeyed the urging to marry Rowena. He’d thought they’d just get to know each other. Fall in love. Start a family of their own.
Love her.
His lips curved up. He’d always thought love to be something that just happened. Or, as he’d said to Cayton that day at Whitby Park, an action they could take until their hearts caught up with their hands. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was a choice. Maybe it was as much about determination and dedication as discovery. Maybe it wasn’t a feeling, wasn’t an emotion—if it were, it would be changeable, fleeting, like anger or happiness or sorrow. But it shouldn’t be. Couldn’t be. Love had to be firmer than that. Which meant that love, like faith, couldn’t be based on feelings.
It had to be based on what didn’t change. On what he knew. And he knew that Rowena was the wife God intended for him.
He leaned back in the chair and rested his head against it. Looked at the mural some duke of ages gone by had commissioned for his ceiling.
He would love her. He would love the child. He would trust that the Lord knew best.
He would . . . even if he couldn’t feel it right then.
Twenty-One
Rowena folded her coat-clad arms over her stomach and let the brisk wind off the Channel whip away some of the nausea. It made a difference, somehow, knowing why she was ill. Made her realize there was no point in huddling in her room, afraid of spreading some dreadful disease.
The sunshine was already doing her good, as was the bracing air. She stooped to pick up one of the smooth, polished pebbles of the beach and held it tight until her fingers gave it warmth. Then she stroked her thumb over the even surface.
It looked so lovely and easy, this stone. Yet she knew it had become so only through years of tumbling about in the water, all its rough edges being sanded away. Were she Ella, she would find hope in that—the certainty that something good waited on the other side of the trials.
She slid the stone into her pocket and turned her face up to receive the sunshine. He hadn’t come last night. Rowena had dismissed Lilias, had crawled into bed, had lain there waiting for the door to open between her room and his. But Brice hadn’t come.
She understood—she did. He was being tossed about now, too, as surely as these stones in the tide. The news he had received yesterday . . . He had reacted nobly, but the commitment certainly would be easier to say than to live. To feel. She must give him time.
But she had missed his arms around her—and had been so terrified of falling asleep and falling back into the claws of the nightmare, of screaming and thereby obligating him to come when he didn’t want to, that she had scarcely slept more than a few minutes at a time.
“Your Grace?”
Starting, she spun around, digging up a smile when she saw Mr. Abbott jumping down the short embankment between Midwynd lawn and this last section of beach before the land rose too steeply away from the Channel to grant easy access. Up on the bench overlooking the beach, Lilias still sat, and Mr. Child with her. They hadn’t much liked the idea of her coming all the way here on her own, but she still thought it rather an overreaction that the butler had taken an hour away from his duties just to chaperone her.
Mr. Abbott came to a halt a few feet away and stooped down much as she had done to pick up one of the smooth brown stones.
“Good morning, Mr. Abbott. Taking some exercise?”
“Not exactly. I will be giving the girls their marksmanship lesson in a few moments and thought to seek you out first and invite you to join us.”
“Kind of you.” She looked past him, along the coastline to where Brighton was just visible in the distance. From here she could barely make out the distinctive onion dome of the Royal Pavilion, harkening to a land she had seen only in books. The pier stretched out into the water though, unmistakable. So very different a view from what could be seen from the shores of Loch Morar. “But you needna teach me, sir. I learned long ago how to handle a weapon, along with all the other Highland lasses.”
“I didn’t know that you’d feel up to it in any case. But we were all so glad to hear that you had got up and come outside today.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his gaze flicking out to the water before settling on her again. “I have been praying.”
Why should that make him so nervous? “Thank you. I am much improved.”
“Not just for you. For . . .” He turned to face the Channel and flung the stone, skipping it twice over the waters before it sank. Sighing, he turned to her again. “For my own faith as well. I have been thinking on what you said—that I do not believe in the unseen.”
“Oh.” She slipped her hand into her pocket and gripped the stone resting within. Perhaps she ought not to have said such a thing to him. But who would have thought he would do anything other than dismiss her words?
Mr. Abbott called up a tight smile but directed it to the gulls that landed noisily a few feet away. “You were right. As much as I admire those who believe so completely, I . . . I think some part of me thought it could be achieved only by someone else. Or only if I met a specific set of criteria. That maybe if I studied enough, learned the proper words, it would come. That He would come and reveal himself to me. I thought it could only happen in a few specific, orderly ways. And I completely dismissed that there may be an enemy working against Him, even though Jesus spoke of it at every turn.”
A blast of cool air made her shiver. “Ye canna have one without the other.”
“Exactly.” His gaze locked onto hers again, and again he looked as he had that night at Castle Kynn when he spoke of empty places. “I wanted to ignore the darkness that underscores the light. I wanted to control how the light might show itself. That was wrong of
me. But, Your Grace . . . I do have faith. I have faith in the miraculous. In the unseen.” Fervency lit his words now, and his eyes to match.
She nodded and wished the wind would cease. “Good.”
“I don’t pretend to understand what kernel of truth might lie in our legends and myths. In our curses and blessings. But I promise you I will never again dismiss such tales as pure superstition.” He held up a finger, brows raised. “So long as you don’t expect me to throw salt over my shoulder. Or refuse to go to sea on a Tuesday.”
“Friday.” She bit back a grin. “But, aye, I grant that those things are superstition.”
A smile softened his countenance as the breeze toyed with the hair beneath the brim of his hat. “Then we have reached a truce. And I thank you, truly, Your Grace, for making me dig deeper. For making me put my hand more firmly in the Lord’s.”
Rowena wrapped her arms tight about her middle. How was it her words had achieved such a thing in this man, yet she still felt so uncertain?
Mr. Abbott motioned toward Midwynd. “May I help you back up the bank, Your Grace? You look chilled.”
Lilias would no doubt be insisting she return in a few moments anyway—except that she looked deeply engrossed in whatever conversation she was having with Mr. Child. Still, Rowena nodded. “Aye, thank you.” She walked on her own over the smooth, damp stones but accepted his hand up when they reached the two-foot cliff. She had yet to see the real cliffs in the area—white chalk ones much like Dover’s famed precipices. They would visit them when Annie arrived, though.
“You know . . .” Once on even ground again, Mr. Abbott released her hand. “I have been studying the lore of the British Isles this past week, trying to find a way to prove to you it was nothing but nonsense.”
Only because he had begun where he did was she able to smile. “I daresay that made for an interesting week’s reading.”
“That it did.” His eyes went thoughtful. “They all seem to hinge on the basic belief that there are spirits that prowl around tormenting us, and that we must guard against them. Scare them away.”
The Reluctant Duchess Page 27