A Forbidden Love

by Alexandra Benedict

  The cold, businesslike tone of his father squeezed at his heart. “You cannot mean this.”

  “I suggest you pack up your London household and depart as soon as possible. Don’t give the gossip mongers more fuel to keep this atrocious tale alive. The quicker you depart, the quicker the talk will burn out.”

  Banishment? To never see his family again? Surely his father was just angry and overreacting. He couldn’t mean to cast him away like this.

  Anthony tore off the blasted neck cloth that was suffocating him, and wound it around his palm instead, his fingers turning a bright crimson red.

  “Father—”

  “Do not try to contact me again. If you have any business regarding the estate, contact my land steward or my lawyer.” The earl’s hard voice dwindled slightly as he ordered, “Now leave.”

  Anthony was torn. He wanted to stay and fight with his father, to make the man see reason. But the earl’s hands were visibly trembling. He was trying to keep his emotions under a tight hold, and Anthony feared, if he pushed his father any further, those emotions would burst and trigger an apoplexy.

  In the end, he held back what he wanted to say, and, somewhat dazed, left the study in long, fluid strides.

  Banishment? The word had such a deafening ring to it. A sense of finality where Anthony saw none. His family was among the living. To cut himself off from them as though they were dead was unthinkable. True, he had not always been on good terms with all his kin, but he could not imagine losing them all forever.

  He would try to reconcile with his father. Anthony was adamant. He would give the aging earl some time to recover from the surprise of what had happened, and then he would strike up communications. A letter at first. Perhaps a brief visit during the holidays. Surely by then the anger and hurt would have diminished somewhat.

  Anthony wasn’t entirely certain his conviction wasn’t misplaced, but he held onto the hope nonetheless, that one day his family would forgive him.

  The sight of a pale Ashley standing at the far end of the corridor roused within Anthony a brutal instinct for survival. If she abandoned him too, he would be lost. It would break his heart to never see her or his beloved nieces again.

  “Don’t say it!” Anthony barked the moment he reached her and she opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t you dare tell me you will never see me again!”

  A sob bubbled to the tip of her tongue, and she bit her trembling bottom lip to quell the sound of her sorrow. “I have my girls to think of, Anthony.”

  He grabbed her by the upper arms. “The girls are too young to bear any scars from this event. By the time they reach marriageable age, this will all be forgotten.”

  “But your wife will always be a gypsy. That will never change. Not even in fifteen years. Oh, why did you do it, Anthony?”

  “Ash, please, trust me. I had to do it. There was no other way to save…”

  “To save what? Our family name? Your pride? Did you think of any of these things before you married the girl? Were you foxed, is that it? There is a way to end the marriage, Anthony. A procedure you could initiate.”

  “No.” He released his hold on her arms. He was numb and cold and he couldn’t take much more of this. “I have to go, Ashley. But I will see you again.”

  He moved toward the entrance, not sure he had the strength to make it back to his own townhouse. His brother-in-law met him at the door rather than the butler. Daniel held out his hand, which Anthony silently accepted.

  “Give it some time,” Daniel said in a hushed voice. “It might all work out in the end. I don’t know why you did it, but I’m sure you had your reason.”

  Anthony mustered a silent nod of appreciation before he left the building. He remained on the front stoop for a while, just staring at the storm clouds brewing in the distance.

  As the fog lifted in his mind, he became more aware of the passing whispers and looks of disdain.

  He had known Sabrina would be subjected to those very looks and whispers, but he had not anticipated he would be the recipient of them as well.

  By taking an outsider for his wife, he had become an outsider himself.

  And Anthony wasn’t so sure he could live with that.

  Dark clouds whirled, as a fork of blue light stabbed into the earth, followed by the distant groan of thunder.

  Sabrina was traveling to her new home. And she had been traveling to it in silence. Anthony spoke scarce a word to her, with reason, though. The confrontation with his family had been ghastly. That they’d abandoned London in such haste told her so plain enough.

  She looked over at her husband. A brooding faerie king, lost, and bewildered at his loss. He had once had everything and everyone at his beck and call, and now such certainty was gone.

  Her heart ached for him. She understood the turmoil swirling in his soul. She understood the time he’d need to come to terms with all that he had lost. She, too, had fretted in silence. Anthony was no different in that respect. And yet, he was different.

  Something about him had changed. Perhaps his grief had altered him. Or perhaps it was just the jitters of a naïve wife making her imagine such a thing.

  But in truth, that fledging hope of marital joy she had nurtured in her heart seemed to be dwindling.

  Such tenderness he had shown her on the night before their wedding. Such devotion…such love. Had it all been in her mind? She’d not had a kind look from him all day, nor a word of encouragement. Just one little gesture was all she needed to know everything was going to be all right.

  But her husband had withdrawn into his woe, leaving her to fuss and obsess over the same redundant thought: He loathes me.

  She tried to dismiss the terrible notion. After all, this was the man she loved. This was the man she was sure loved her in return—in part anyway. He had given up so much for her. Surely it was done out of some feeling of love? Surely love could not dwindle and die so quickly?

  But one event repeated itself over and over again in her mind, rousing her doubt. Prior to their leaving London, Vincent had come to call on Anthony, desperate to see his best friend. But Anthony had barred him from the townhouse.

  Now Sabrina was left with the irksome task of trying to figure out why Anthony had turned so cruelly against his dearest comrade. Was the viscount merely miffed at Vincent’s lack of supervision on the night she was abducted? Or was Anthony furious that Vincent’s carelessness had eventually led to his marriage?

  She didn’t want to dwell on it. But she knew it might be true. Anthony might regret having married her. And if it was so, that hope for a salvaged future would be nothing more than a wistful memory.

  The horses cantered at a steady gait, turning a bend and clearing a wooded grove. In a lush valley, a small manor house came into view. Well, small in comparison to Anthony’s other country estate. But it was still a good deal grander than anything Sabrina had ever imagined she would end up living in.

  The home was quaint in appearance, two levels high and built entirely of stone. The greenery blanketing the walls was thick, concealing much of the rugged gray stone beneath, which occasionally peaked through a sparse patch of ivy.

  A pepper of servants lined up in front of the house, seven to be exact. The ladies were smoothing their aprons, the men fingering their lapels, and such fussing prompted Sabrina to do a little grooming of her own.

  The carriage rolled to a halt. Anthony was first to step down, leaving her inside the vehicle to comb her fidgety fingers through her mussed hair. Next, she tended to the crinkles in her skirt, then checked to make sure her boots weren’t too muddy.

  Satisfied she was presentable, Sabrina took a hesitant, and rather uneven, step out of the carriage. All eyes went to her. Big round eyes of astonishment.

  It shouldn’t bother her, being gawked at in such a manner. It wasn’t the first time eyes had broadened upon hearing her announced as the new viscountess.

  But it did bother her. It made her feel an imposter. As if she had no earthly
or divine claim to be Anthony’s wife.

  “Mrs. Chadwick,” said Anthony, a cool and official tone to his voice. “As head housekeeper, you will oversee the servants until my butler arrives from London with the remainder of my belongings.”

  Mrs. Chadwick gave a deep curtsy. “Aye, my lord.”

  “You will also report all domestic matters to Lady Hastings, and follow her explicit directions in the governing of the household.”

  Mrs. Chadwick gave the flustered Lady Hastings a critical eye, but then nodded in obedience.

  Sabrina, on the other hand, wasn’t so agreeable. Her heart was in her throat. She knew nothing of running a household. She had never even lived in a house before! It was her custom to do everything for herself, from laundry to cooking to cleaning. She couldn’t ask anyone else to do it for her, nevertheless order someone about. She was better qualified to be one of the servants, not govern them. And that disparaging truth had her opening her mouth to protest such an arrangement.

  But Anthony had one more order to dictate.

  “And Mrs. Chadwick, see to it that the local seamstress is summoned in the morning. Lady Hastings is in dire need of apparel befitting a viscountess.”

  Sabrina closed her mouth, her heart sinking to her toes.

  Chapter 30

  T he flames spit and crackled, puffing warm air into the spacious room. Sabrina crouched before the fire, her back to the window and the wild spring storm soaking the land beyond. In her hand she held a towel, wrapped around the handle of an iron pot. And in that iron pot bubbled some sugar, slowly melting to the golden thickness of honey.

  At the sound of a cough and the shuffling of papers, her eyes abandoned the snapping flames in favor of the restless man shifting only a few feet away from her.

  Anthony was engrossed with a stack of calculations. A list of past market sales, of tenant names and rent dues, of servant wages and household expenses. He appeared lost. But she could offer him no help. She could gather meadow grass and twist it into rope. She could spot a prize thoroughbred in a crowd of endless studs. She could even grind a dead lizard into powder and turn that powder into a magical potion. But what good would all those skills do her here?

  Another garbled cough drifted through the room. For much of the evening, Anthony’s cough grew more frequent and more intense. Back in London, after the visit with his parents, a fierce spring storm had lashed out at him, and ever since, he had shown signs of an approaching sickness.

  On that matter, at least, she was quick to find a remedy.

  Sabrina poured the melted sugar into a glass, then added a few tablespoons of honey, followed by some water. Stirring the concoction to a gooey consistency, she abandoned the hearth and walked over to the desk, setting the glass on the parchment-littered surface.

  “Drink this,” she instructed.

  Anthony gave the glass a curious inspection. “What is it?”

  “A remedy for the cough.”

  After a brief pause, he shrugged, and drank down part of the potion. Resting the half empty glass on the desk, he returned to his work, surveying the stack of papers in front of him.

  Sabrina pretended his stiff demeanor didn’t mean anything, that Anthony was just brooding and she should let him brood in peace, give him some time to get adjusted to his new life—with her. But despite her attempts to rationalize his cold behavior, the gnawing fear in her chest intensified, cleaved to her heart with a vicious hold.

  He blames me for the loss of his family, his friends…his life.

  Her fingers curled into her palms. What right did he have to blame her? She had lost everyone dear to her, too. Or did her grief and suffering mean nothing because she was a gypsy?

  Sabrina gave a weary sigh. There was a dark cloud of misfortune hovering above her head, always threatening to shower her with another tragedy. She was tired of it. It was time she moved out from under it.

  For far too long she had trusted the members of her kin to take care of her. For far too long she had accepted whatever fate had thrown her way. Her wants, her dreams were always a nuisance, conflicting with her ordained destiny.

  But now there was neither kin nor destiny to determine the course of her life. Now there was only her heart to guide her. And her heart yearned to fight for Anthony. To claw and to battle through his doubt and fear, to yank him from his oppressive grief. It was time she did what she wanted. And what she wanted was her husband’s heart.

  “It’s late,” she said softly, and placed a gentle hand on his wrist. “Why don’t you put the papers away until morning?”

  “Go on to bed.” He shifted his hand, reaching for another leaf of paper. “I have a lot of work to do.”

  As did she. It would not be easy dragging her husband from his melancholy. He was evidently resistant to any such attempt.

  But it would be a worthy fight.

  “I don’t know which bedroom is ours,” she said, hoping to draw him out of the study; hoping a night’s rest, together in each other’s arms, might offset the sorrow in his heart and bring a new sense of hope to their marriage.

  For a moment, Anthony abandoned the study of his papers, lifting his eyes to meet hers. And they were such dark eyes, shadowed by the flicker of candle flame. “Your room is at the end of the corridor. Ask the housekeeper to show you the way.”

  And he was back to his examination of property taxes and estate dues.

  Was that it? she wondered. One abrupt announcement of their separate bedrooms and she was to accept their wedded life was over? That he no longer cared anything for her?

  Not bloody likely.

  She drew in her grief like a whirlpool would a lost ship, her features settling into peaceful repose.

  Lightning engulfed the room, and her eyes briefly lit upon a bright red cushion at the far end of the study.

  She headed for it, her fright of storms replaced with anger. Red-hot anger. Anger that she could lose the most precious being in her life because of his own stubbornness.

  The pillow sailed through the air. It missed its intended target—Anthony’s head—but landed within a few feet of him, and so still accomplished its goal, which was to gain the viscount’s attention.

  “Something troubling you?” he drawled.

  “Why did you marry me?”

  A light was back in his eyes. A fire. Something other than empty pain. It was a relief to see, even if the fire was directed at her.

  “Do you think me such a blackguard that I would allow an innocent woman to be murdered?” he said.

  “Duty? Mere duty made you save my life?”

  “What else?”

  What else indeed. He had forsaken his privileged existence out of a sense of obligation? She didn’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it.

  Her own eyes sparked with fire. “So what do you plan to do with me now?”

  “I don’t plan on doing anything with you.”

  She made a prominent noise of disbelief, something akin to a snort and scoff. “You’ve given me command of the servants, you’re going to take away my clothes in the morning and replace them with gaji rags. And you want me to believe you’re not planning anything?”

  The papers slammed onto the desk. He was out of his chair and moving toward her. The flames hissed and danced as he sauntered past the hearth, his large body stirring up a breeze, fanning the dwindling fire to life.

  “Those gaji rags are the attire of a viscountess,” he said with unsteady calm, coming to a stop only inches away from her. “Command of the household staff is the duty of a viscountess. You are a viscountess.”

  “No, I’m not!” She fanned out her skirt. “This is who I am, Anthony. A gypsy. I don’t know how to be a viscountess. And changing me into one won’t bring your family back. They will never accept me no matter what clothes I wear or what chores you give me. I will always be an outsider.”

  Something flashed in his emerald eyes. A sense of understanding? Or of pain? Or perhaps a combination of the two?
She couldn’t tell. And she didn’t have a chance to ask him.

  He turned away from her.

  She reached out for him. He stiffened at her touch and she withdrew her hand from his arm.

  “Anthony, I know what you’re feeling.” She moved to face him, his brooding features aglow from the bouncing firelight. “I lost my family, too. But you still have a home.” And her hands swept over the room to indicate her point.

  His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “A house without a family is no home. Those were your words.”

  “I could be your family.”

  She wasn’t sure he had heard her, she had uttered the proposition so softly. But then his eyes lighted on her, a rather stunned pair of eyes, and she realized he had heard her clearly. And it was the truth. It was all she had ever wanted from him. A life together. A family.

  She’d been aware of that desire for a long time now, ever since the day they had talked of faeries and nymphs. It was then she had realized how much she wanted to be with Anthony. It was then she had bemoaned how impossible it was to be with the man she truly wanted, since neither of their worlds would accept them as a couple.

  But now, both rejected, they had a chance to build their own world. One with no social bonds. One where they could find joy again.

  Sabrina rushed on with her argument, wanting Anthony to see he had not lost everything after all. “You still have me and you still have a true friend.”

  The thoughtful look he gave her quickly turned to one of confusion. “Who?”

  “Vincent.”

  The rough edge to his voice was back, any wistful contemplation wiped clear off his face. “Don’t mention that scoundrel’s name.”

  “That scoundrel is more of a friend to you than any lofty gajo in London. That scoundrel came to your door, hoping to see you and make amends. He wants to remain your friend. You’re a disgrace because you married me. I’m no fool to that truth. But by staying at your side, Vincent risks your disgrace becoming his, yet he still won’t abandon you.”