Father didn’t jerk to attention, didn’t gasp, didn’t so much as blink. He just sighed again. “Please, Stella. He had his emotions firmly in hand, he spent hours on his knees to keep his focus where it belonged. He did not begrudge what the duke had. He only wanted to have such faith too. And he confided in me just this morning—”
His voice broke, but he sniffled and smoothed out his features again. “Just this morning he said he could see how His Grace needed such faith to get through these times. How relieved he was to realize it has aided him and Her Grace as they’ve fallen in love.”
“No!” She didn’t mean to scream it, but a whisper wouldn’t have been ardent enough. Nothing would be ardent enough, but it helped to grab the nearest thing at hand—a clipboard—and fling it to the floor. “No. He doesn’t love her. He can’t love her, they aren’t meant for each other. It was all a mistake, all a terrible mistake. They shouldn’t have wed. It was a mistake. A mistake! I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t . . . I love him. That’s all that matters. Love. All is fair, as they say, in love.”
Father’s brows had knit, drawing lines in his face that had already deepened in the past few hours. They made him look as ancient as Grandmum, as doddering. As if he even remembered what it meant to be in love—if he’d ever known. No doubt he’d married Mother simply because she was an appropriate choice. Propriety—it was all he ever cared about.
“Stella.” Father shook his head. “Lower your voice, I beg you. Sit down. And please don’t say such things. You don’t love him—”
“I do! Who are you to tell me my heart?”
His visage went fierce. “Your father—that’s who. Though heaven knows you always resented being born to the steward instead of the lord. And that’s all this talk is about—you wanting the life of a lady.”
“It is not what it’s about! I wouldn’t care if he was a stable hand or a miller or a . . . a pickpocket. I love him, and he ought to be married to me, not that spineless Highland goat!”
Father washed pale, and his eyes went large. “She doesn’t mean it, Your Grace. She is . . . It’s just a tasteless jest.”
Something inside went from sparking and hot to cold as a stone. Slowly, Stella turned. And there, staring at her as if she were a stranger speaking Swahili, stood Nottingham. His hand was still on the knob she hadn’t heard him turn, and he had frozen in the doorway.
At least the she-goat wasn’t with him. Stella lifted her chin and refused to let any embarrassment creep in. What had she to be ashamed of? She was every bit the lady Rowena was. Perhaps she hadn’t been born to a nobleman, but her family was as fine as those moody Kinnairds—better, really. And she at least knew how to conduct herself in society. How to stand without cowering. How to greet lords and ladies without stuttering or lapsing into an incomprehensible accent.
She met his stare, though she nearly took a step back at the look in his eyes. Horror was the only word to describe it. Horror, at her! His old friend. The girl he had teased all their lives. Had flirted with long before Rowena ever entered the picture. Had said time and again would steal some nobleman’s heart—and who could he have meant but himself? Why would he have given her that book, that inscription?
Forcing a swallow, she drew in a breath. “I’ll not apologize for my heart, sir.” There, see? Even now, she could speak without trembling, without quaking. She could hold herself erect. Not like her. “I’m only sorry I didn’t confess my feelings long ago, before you were forced into this awful marriage.”
He slid inside, pulling the door shut behind him. “I wasn’t forced into anything.”
Sending her gaze to the ceiling, Stella waved that off and pivoted. “You were—by her circumstances, if not her father. But that which is between us is stronger than—”
“Miss Abbott, there is nothing between us.” He looked at her as if she were a wild animal that might attack at any moment. As if he weren’t the one attacking, spitting out Miss Abbott like stones meant to build a wall between them. As if she weren’t his Stella-bell, hadn’t always been. “Aside from friendship. You have always been like a sister to me, but—”
“A sister?” She advanced on him, fisted her hands in his lapels. The closest she had been to him in a decade—but it wasn’t how she’d always imagined. He wasn’t gazing down at her with longing. He wasn’t pulling her closer. His hands gripped her wrists, but not to hold her there—to push her away. Something hot and desperate dug its claws into her chest. “Darling, please. Give me a chance. I’ll prove we’re meant to be together. You deserve better than her, some rag tossed aside by a Scottish laird. You deserve—”
“Stop.” He forced her back a step, forced his jacket from her grasp—and looked at her as he’d never done before. With a thundering anger. “It was you. It was you who told Lady Pratt about Kinnaird.”
She tugged against his grip, but he held her fast. “For all the good it did—she’s useless. I don’t know why you fear her.”
“Have you any idea what you’ve done?” Now he released her and stepped back as if she were a leper, that horror in his eyes again. “What you’ve brought upon us? Don’t you realize that that is most likely why your brother lies near death?”
“You think Lady Pratt did this?” And she should let him—she should. It would serve the woman right if they somehow pinned it on her. But those claws kept digging, her insides getting hotter. Bubbling, until the absurdity of it all came out in a wretched laugh that pierced the room a second before she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Stella.” Father appeared at her side, his face frozen in a mask of dismay. “Stella, what have you done?”
Why must he look at her like that, why must they both look at her like that? As if she were the one who had betrayed them. As if all this were her fault. She shook her head, and then shook it harder when it did nothing to make those bubbles stop overflowing. “Nothing.” Her voice didn’t sound right. Too high, too insistent. “I did nothing.”
But they stared at her, both of them. They stared, and their faces both screamed that she was a disappointment. That she was worthless. That she was riffraff. “It wasn’t my fault.” Couldn’t they see that? “I was only trying to undo a wrong. You shouldn’t have married her, Nottingham. Surely you know that. It was a mistake, and as soon as you’re free of her, you’ll thank me for it.”
The muscle in Nottingham’s jaw ticked. “I don’t want to be free of her, Miss Abbott. I love her.”
She winced at the blow. “No. No, you can’t. All those times you told me how beautiful I am, all the jesting about me marrying a nobleman—”
“Oh, Stella.” Father pressed a shaking hand to his forehead. “You knew they were just that—jests. You knew he was complimenting you as he does Lady Ella.”
Nottingham’s nostrils flared. “You thought . . . Miss Abbott, I am sorry if I misled you. I promise you, it never once occurred to me that you would take my words as anything but those of a brother.”
Misled her? Brother? She jerked her head to where Geoff lay in a stark white hospital bed. A silver coin over the hole in his skull, as if that could save his life. That life on the cusp of extinguishing. And Nottingham meant to tell her it was all for naught? That he didn’t even love her?
“No.” Now her voice was only a whisper nearly lost in the new shaking of her head. “All I’ve done to try to win you. All my hours of planning, and you expect an apology to make it better?” It all came boiling up, over.
She flew at him again, not really seeing anything but the fog. The same fog that had blinded her when she’d had him in her sights. Now she had only her fists and her nails, though she couldn’t seem to get any purchase with them. Her feet were stuck in a morass, vines gripping her waist. “No!” Struggle as she might, she could barely reach him. The hateful, traitorous man. “I wish I’d killed you! I should have aimed at you from the start rather than that worm of a wife you love so well! It should be you on that bed, not Geoff!”
The vines sudde
nly dropped, and she fell forward, her knees striking the cold tile floor.
“Stella.” Father. It had been his arms holding her back. Now he recoiled from her when she looked at him. “What . . . what are you saying?”
What? What had she said? No . . . no, she couldn’t have . . . A sob ripped its way past her lips. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to . . .”
“You just said you tried to kill the duchess.” Father’s voice shook. “Stella . . . why? Why would you throw your life away like this?”
What did he mean? “I haven’t. I was only . . . I didn’t mean to hit Geoff, Father. You must know that.”
He shook his head. “Is that supposed to console me? You tried to kill a duchess. A duke. You’ll be imprisoned—”
“No!” She looked to Nottingham, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. His was locked on Geoff. “You can’t turn me in. You can’t. I didn’t mean to hit him. I didn’t mean . . . It’s all a big mistake. You can’t. You can’t.”
Father’s face adopted the same somber lines he had worn at Mother’s funeral. “I’m sorry, Stella. But you’ve left us no choice.”
Brice squeezed his eyes shut, but it didn’t go away. Didn’t change. He pressed his palms to his temples, but the pressure didn’t ease. One of his best friends—his oldest friend—still lay near death . . . and it was still his fault.
Rowena’s hand rubbed circles on his back, just as he had done for her when she was the one reeling. Little comfort came. “I shouldn’t have . . . I don’t know. I never considered she would . . . What have I done, Wena? I’d thought it all in good fun. Innocent, harmless.”
“It was.” Her burr came through, melodious and comforting. “’Tisn’t yer fault how she took it, mo muirnín. I’ve heard the things ye’ve said to her. Ye did nothing wrong.”
Then how had it all turned into this? And how could Rowena now say there was nothing wrong with the way he’d always flirted and teased, when it had caused her such confusion? He shook his head and opened his eyes, though the sight of Ella, eyes red, curled up in a miserable ball in the corner of his sofa, did nothing to ease him. “Ella-bell?”
She shifted, looked to him. “I didn’t have the least suspicion, Brice. Shouldn’t I have? We spent all our days together these past months, and yet . . . she never breathed a word. Not a word, not about anything but the position awaiting her and the gentlemen she hoped to meet in Hertfordshire.”
He had no answer. They had all, it seemed, failed to see the disturbed depths of Stella Abbott. Though perhaps her father had at least had an inkling. He had expressed concern over her desires, hadn’t he?
And he had been the one to call the constable on his own child. To hold her still until Morris arrived, all the while watching over his other child in the hospital bed.
Lord, that poor father. Give him your succor. Save his son. I beg you. And Stella . . . I don’t know what to pray for Stella. She was dangerous, clearly. Somehow able to admit to an action without accepting any responsibility for it. Something, somewhere, had gone awry inside her. Heal her too, Father. He didn’t know how else to phrase it.
Rowena, perched on the arm of his chair, feathered her fingers through his hair. Funny how she’d been the calm one when he came home and broke the latest terrible news to everyone—including that she had been the one Stella had meant to kill at the start. While everyone else fell apart, himself included, she’d been the one to comfort and assure. He leaned in, rested his head against her side. “Perhaps we’ll wake up and find this whole day a bad dream.”
Rowena trailed her fingers down his neck. “No. But what we’ll find is that the Lord is still lord. He isn’t cruel or absent, He’s directing us. Even in this. He’s leading us to the place He needs us to be.”
Ella sniffed. “That sounds like something Geoff would say.”
“And so it is. Something he said to me that first night at Castle Kynn. I wasna so sure I believed him at the time. But I’ve seen the truth of it since. And truth doesna change at the next crisis.”
He wanted to pull her into his lap and hold her tight. He wanted to smile at how she’d grown. He wanted to cry at how her new strength had to be tested now, like this.
“He’ll recover. He will, I know it. Terrible as it seems, a head wound can be better than one to the chest or stomach.” Ella unfolded her legs and pushed herself to her feet. At once determined and so very sad. “I’ll leave you two to find what rest you can. Sorry to have intruded so long.”
“Ye’re no intrusion, Ella.”
But the knock at the door felt like one—because anyone knocking would be a news bearer. And he couldn’t fathom that any news to come would be good. Still, he had no choice but to bid, “Come in.”
Mrs. Granger stepped half in, her gaze settled on Rowena. “Pardon me, Your Graces, my lady. But there’s a visitor.”
Who, that the staff wouldn’t have turned them promptly away on a night like this? Brice drew in a deep breath, praying it was the Staffords, somehow knowing they’d need the support of friends. “Who is it?”
Her focus stayed latched on Rowena. “It’s your father, Your Grace.”
Twenty-Five
Rowena padded down the stairs, wondering where her peace had gone. Up in their rooms, with the horror of the day upon them, she had felt the Lord’s hand, felt His presence, though logic said she shouldn’t. She’d been able to push aside the sickness that wanted to churn—and the tears that wanted to come at realizing Stella Abbott had wanted her dead. She’d been able to hold tight to the hope that Mr. Abbott, who had so recently claimed to believe in the miraculous, would pull through.
Yet hearing that her father was at Midwynd shattered it all.
“It’s all right.” Brice gripped her fingers in his and kept pace beside her. “I’m here with you. He can’t harm you. He has no control over you.”
“Aye. But why is he here?” Not more bad news . . . Please, God. But what if something had happened to Annie? Why had he come a week before he and Elspeth were scheduled to bring her, but alone? She held fast to Brice’s hand and wished the stairs would go on forever.
But they ended too soon, and then the hallways refused to stretch into eternity. In but a few moments she stood before the parlor door, wondering why she’d rather face Stella Abbott with a gun in her hands than the man who had raised her.
Brice lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to her knuckles. “When you’re ready.”
She would never be ready to face her father again, apparently. It would have been easier with Annie as a buffer between them, her happy chatter covering the fact that Rowena had nothing to say to the Kinnaird, and he likely had nothing to say to her.
Except here he is. Indulging in a deep breath, she straightened her spine, squared her shoulders, and set her chin at what she hoped was a confident angle. “I’m ready.”
Brice, however, held her in place. She turned her face to him, ready to ask what the matter was, but his lips settled on hers before she could speak. A soft kiss, and yet one that strengthened. Not just her, she saw when he pulled away with a bit of light back in his eyes, but him too.
“Rowena.” His voice was as soft as the kiss, barely a whisper in the hallway. His fingertips traced her cheek. “I love you.”
Her breath balled up. He’d said before that he would love her—he’d spoken of giving her his heart. But he’d never stated it so simply, so truly. He loved her. A sentiment that man waiting in the parlor had never once expressed. One her mother had said often enough, but which she had disproven with her choices—for didn’t love put the other person above one’s own desires? Malcolm . . . Malcolm had claimed it, but it had been a lie.
Had she ever really been loved before now by anyone other than Lilias? For who she was—strengths and weaknesses, both? For all she could be and all she had overcome?
She cupped his cheek, too, and looked deep into his chocolate eyes. “Tha gaol agam ort.”
His lips twitched u
p. “Which means?”
“I love you.”
“That’s what I hoped it meant.” He wrapped his arms around her, seemingly content to ignore their guest who was no doubt pacing the parlor impatiently. “I should really learn a bit of Gaelic.”
She looped her arms around his neck. “I’ll teach you. Let’s start with An toir thu dhomh pòg?”
He did his best to imitate her and then lifted his brows. “What did I just say?”
Smiling felt odd today. But she must take whatever joy she could find, whenever she could find it. “You said, ‘Will you give me a kiss?’ And the answer, Duke, is yes. I will.”
He was chuckling as their lips met again. “A very important phrase indeed. I shall have to perfect it.” For now, though, he held her close and kissed her deeply, sending tingles along her nerves.
Rowena held tight and let the realization come that she wanted more than his kisses. That if he had been killed today, she would have regretted not being his wife in the physical sense. She would have been sorry she hadn’t invited more than kisses that made her senses swim. Perhaps the fear still lurked somewhere inside . . . but he never lit the panic anymore. He banished it.
When they stepped apart, she could sense the calm again. She could grip his hand, manage a tight smile, and nod. She could face her father.
Brice opened the door, and she stepped through without a tremble.
Douglas Kinnaird wasn’t pacing. He was standing at the window, staring out into the darkness, and when they entered, when he turned, it wasn’t with a scowl for keeping him waiting. It was with a sigh that sounded . . . relieved. “Rowena. Nottingham.” He greeted them with a bare nod. “Forgive me for dispensing with pleasantries—but ye’ve trouble coming. Malcolm is on his way.”
The calm fled again, and Rowena stumbled in its absence. “Now?” Catherine had said . . . but then, why should she believe anything that woman said? Or perhaps Miss Abbott had contacted him. It didn’t much matter who, really. Just that.
The Reluctant Duchess Page 32