“Forgive me for raising such a distressing subject.” Jack begged. “It is just that I do not understand why you refused to let me help you as you have helped me in my time of need. I was not in a position to assist you and Frederick after Uncle disowned him. If I had been, you may be certain I would not have hesitated. I know Frederick would have wanted me to do everything in my power to help you, if only you will allow me.”
Annabelle gave a convulsive nod. “I know he would want that. He was always thinking of my welfare when he should have attended more to his.”
She walked over to the cradle, which stood within reach of the bed, and carefully lowered the baby into it. Their conversation appeared to have lulled little Sarah to sleep.
Once free of her precious burden, Annabelle sank onto the edge of the bed. Her earlier air of serenity now gave way to weariness and grief. The sight brought a heaviness to Jack’s chest and a strange ache to his arms. He took several steps toward her then hesitated. A force within seemed to propel him forward only to collide with an invisible wall.
Annabelle rested her forehead against her palm and spoke in a soft, plaintive murmur. “I suppose you believe it is pride that prevents me from accepting your help.”
“I would not blame you if that were true.” Not wanting to wake the baby, Jack pitched his reply low as well. “I refused to accept any further charity from my uncle after I came of age. He had always made clear his low opinion of me while I was growing up. I could not bear to be beholden to him any longer. But surely you cannot regard me in that light. I have always thought well of you and believed my cousin was a lucky man to have you as his wife.”
If he’d hoped his remarks might comfort Annabelle, he was sadly mistaken. Her shoulders heaved and a single ragged sob broke from her lips. She instantly stifled it, but not before the sound stabbed Jack in the chest.
He stumbled to the bed and sank down beside her. “Forgive me! I did not mean to make you feel worse.”
In the past he had always retreated at the first threat of feminine tears. In his experience, they were a snare to get more than he was able to give. Yet he trusted that was not Annabelle’s motive. She had long since demonstrated she did not want anything from him.
“I know.” She drew a quivering breath and gathered her shaken composure. “But I want you to understand. Perhaps I do have more pride than someone in my situation can afford. But part of the reason I could not accept your help was because I do not deserve it.”
Jack tried to disagree but she remained insistent. “I blamed the earl for driving Frederick to war, but I know I am as much to blame. I should never have let him persuade me to wed, knowing his father would object and how much that could cost him. It was for my sake that he returned to Portugal.”
Her voice trailed off, strangled by the emotion that tightened her throat.
“Rubbish.” Jack patted the back of her hand, which rested on the bed between them. “If you had refused his proposal, Frederick would have gone off to war in an effort to forget you. Or he might have done himself an injury. He was besotted with you for as long as I can recall. Your marriage was the greatest happiness of his life.”
Clearly he had as much to learn about comforting a lady in distress as he did about caring for an infant. Rather then cheering up as he’d hoped, her lovely features crumpled and her expressive eyes brimmed with more tears than she could blink away.
Only once before had he seen Annabelle weep. Years ago, when she’d been tormented by two young brutes who were her cousins. He had stepped in, threatening them with imaginative bodily harm if they ever made her cry again. After they fled in mortal terror, he had offered her his handkerchief.
To his intense confusion, she’d pitched herself into his arms and soaked his waistcoat with her misery. He might have run off as fast as her cousins, but he knew how it felt to be unwanted, living on the charity of relatives. He’d masked his true feelings with a show of boisterous indifference. But that day it seemed as if young Annabelle wept for both of them.
“Buck up, old girl.” Jack thrust his handkerchief toward her then sprang from the bed.
He did not care to risk a repetition of what had happened the last time he’d done that. Back then, he’d scarcely been aware of her as female, except that she was different from him and therefore a potentially dangerous enigma. That had been uncomfortable enough. Now he was far too aware of Annabelle as a woman—and a desirable one at that.
Jack could not understand what had changed. He only knew it was wrong for him to be so intensely drawn to the woman Frederick had loved.
Buck up?! If there had not been a sleeping infant present, Annabelle might have bombarded Jack Warwick with the heaviest objects she could throw.
Where was the young hero who had saved her from the hateful bullying of Ralph and Reggie, then held her gently while she wept her heart out? Would Jack have offered her his sympathy that day if he’d known her tears were not provoked by fear, misery or loneliness? She had resolved never to surrender to those, knowing it would only make her situation worse.
It was Jack’s heroic intervention that had unleashed years of stifled tears. The precious assurance that he considered her worthy of his protection had touched the tender heart she’d guarded so fiercely. From that moment, she had begun to love him—not for his handsome looks or reckless charm, but for the valiant, caring heart he took such pains to hide from the rest of the world.
What had happened to his heart since then? Had years of living in his uncle’s household, always compared unfavorably with his cousin, built up layer upon layer of protective armor around it until nothing could penetrate? No doubt Jack had long since forgotten how he’d once rescued her. If only she could forget, it might be easier to live in his house and care for the child who might well be his.
Now her guilt and thwarted love merged to create a powerful alloy of anger.
Careful to keep her voice low, she balled up Jack’s handkerchief and hurled it at him. “You buck up! You never could understand how I feel about anything. Go away and leave me in peace!”
She expected him to slink away, bewildered by her reaction and perhaps fearful that she might desert him and the baby after all. To her surprise, he held his ground. “You’re right. Though to be fair, does anyone truly understand what another person feels? I cannot make proper sense of my own feelings half the time.”
He nodded toward the cradle. “That is one of the things I like about this little one. She cries when she is uncomfortable, smiles when she is pleased and laughs when she is amused. It is all so straightforward.”
He had a valid point but that did not soothe Annabelle’s ruffled spirits. “What a shame the poor child has to grow up and realize her mother abandoned her, forcing her father to take responsibility for her. How unfortunate that she will bear the stain of illegitimacy and never quite fit into respectable society, no matter how hard she tries. Then her feelings will be troublesome and complicated, not worth the bother of trying to understand.”
Jack flinched at her words, a reaction that brought Annabelle a contradictory mixture of satisfaction and shame.
“It has nothing to do with worthiness,” he insisted. “Besides, I will not let Sarah grow up the way you and I did.”
Annabelle had never heard him sound so determined since the day he’d made those gruesome threats against her cousins. He might not know the identity of little Sarah’s mother, but clearly he believed he was her father. He intended to protect her just as he had protected another young girl, long ago. Did that mean he cared for the baby? Or was it only a compulsion of the strong to protect the weak?
Jack shook his head with a rueful grimace. “One thing I cannot understand is why you are always so vexed with me these days. We used to be great friends, you and I and Frederick. Did you resent having to include me when you wanted him to yourself?”
How could one man be so blind?
“No!” The word burst out of Annabelle louder than she inten
ded. She cast an anxious glance at Sarah’s cradle but the child did not stir.
“No,” she repeated more quietly. “I never thought any such thing. We were only children back then.”
That was true. But it never stopped her from sometimes wishing Jack and Frederick had not been such inseparable companions.
Jack heaved a sigh. “Then you must think it unfair that I returned from Portugal unscathed while a far better man lost his life there.”
This time Annabelle was better prepared to keep from crying out her denial at the top of her lungs. She replied in a quieter tone, but no less emphatic. “That is not true. I was delighted and relieved when you escaped the war unscathed!”
She did not dare confess the whole truth or he would despise her almost as much as she despised herself. If one of the Warwick cousins had to die in battle, she was grateful it had not been Jack. What kind of wife did that make her?
“Not entirely unscathed,” he muttered. “My ridiculous ideals suffered a mortal blow.”
Annabelle knew Jack was referring to the infamous Convention of Cintra. He had resigned his commission to protest the scapegoating of General Wellington by his superiors.
Clearly she must give him some believable reason for her animosity. How could she confess that she resented him for inspiring feelings in her that he could not return? It would sound ridiculous and unjust, because it was. He had never set out to win her heart. He could not force himself to care for her that way, any more than she had been able to make herself love Frederick the way a wife should.
She must stop blaming Jack for her folly. “I am sorry I have not been as kind a friend to you as I once was and as you have always been to me. I suppose I did not approve of the way you chose to live your life after you left the army and came into your inheritance from the other side of your family.”
“My mother’s side, you mean.” Jack’s tone hardened. “You needn’t avoid mentioning her. I have caused enough scandals of my own that I would be a hypocrite to continue condemning hers.”
Whatever indiscretions he’d committed, Annabelle doubted they could compare with his late mother’s. Unlike that lady, he was not about to desert an innocent child, even if she might not be his. “Is that why you chose to live such a wild life? So you could understand what made your mother behave as she did?”
This was the longest conversation they’d had about truly important matters in many years. Though it stirred up feelings Annabelle would have preferred to keep comfortably buried, she could not regret the opportunity to exchange confidences with Jack once again—even if hers were more guarded than they ought to be.
Jack gave a shrug that reminded her vividly of his youthful self, on those rare occasions when his careless good humor had given way to sullen defiance. “I choose not to examine my motives too closely. Perhaps I acted as I did because that was how I knew everyone would expect me to behave.”
If that was his reason for embracing the life of a rake, Annabelle found she could understand and even sympathize. No matter how hard he’d tried to behave well as a child, so many people had ignored those efforts to focus on his occasional lapses. Sooner or later, young Jack must have realized it was easier and more amusing to do the naughty things that were expected of him.
Her turbulent feelings now under better control, she rose from the bed and approached him the way she might have done to a wild creature. “Frederick always thought the best of you and so did I. That is why it vexed me to watch you waste your life when you could have done something worthwhile.”
All that was true, Annabelle assured her uneasy conscience, even if there was more to it than she could bring herself to admit.
Incomplete though her answer was, it seemed to satisfy Jack. His grim expression softened. “You are right, of course. Though you know as well as I, it is easier to believe the worst about ourselves than the best.”
Annabelle nodded. “In some cases the worst is true, but not in yours. I know you are capable of being so much more than an idle wastrel.”
“I hope you are right about that.” Jack stood straighter and raised his chin. “Because I mean to try. I know it is what Frederick would have wanted. With Sarah’s arrival, I have even more incentive to change and become a responsible father.”
He extended his hand to Annabelle. “I will need your help to succeed. I will need you to believe in me again if you can.”
Much as Annabelle wanted to agree, she feared where it might lead. Before she could think it through, instinct compelled her to take Jack’s hand, signaling her acceptance of his overture.
He smiled down at her with comradely fondness that fell short of the response she’d once wanted from him. She knew Frederick would wish her to help his rakish cousin reform his ways. For her part, Annabelle longed to see Jack Warwick become the kind of man she’d always believed he could be.
But what then? How could she hold herself aloof if they resumed their close friendship and Jack became the kind of man she could not resist?
Was it possible a more mature, responsible Jack might be able to care for her in a way the charming scoundrel had not? Even if he could, which she had ample reason to doubt, Annabelle knew her late husband would never approve of a romantic connection between his cousin and her. Nor should he. After all the misfortune their marriage had brought him, she did not deserve to have her foolish girlhood yearnings rewarded.
Chapter Six
WHAT A DIFFERENCE it made to his whole outlook knowing Annabelle did not hate him or resent his safe return from the war that had killed her husband. If she believed in him, Jack knew he could mend his ways and become more like Frederick. Something else compelled him to try—his growing attachment to little Sarah. He was not the only one in the house who had fallen under the spell of the baby’s sparkling eyes and contagious smile.
As Jack peeped into the small sitting room where Annabelle and the baby spent most of their days, he found Gabriel helping to feed the child while Godfrey hovered nearby.
“I believe I am finally getting the knack of this!” Gabriel eased the pap boat away from the baby’s lips and handed it off to Jack’s valet, who whisked it away to the kitchen to be cleaned.
“May I hold her for a bit?” he asked Annabelle.
“Indeed you may.” She beamed at the young man in a way Jack did not altogether care for. “I am certain Sarah would like that.”
She transferred the baby into Gabriel’s waiting arms with considerably more ease than the first time she’d passed the child to Jack. Simply remembering that incident roused Jack. He tried to think of something loathsome to quench the fire in his loins.
Annabelle glanced up and noticed him standing in the doorway. The smile she had lavished on Lord Gabriel lost a little of its luster, but did not disappear altogether. “Hello there. Are you going out?”
Jack nodded. “Finding Sarah’s mother may not be as urgent as it was at first. But it must be done if only to be certain which one of us is her father.”
More than ever Jack was convinced he must be, but he wanted to be sure. Only yesterday Rory had informed him Lady Eustace was back in town. Being a young widow with a good income, her ladyship managed to keep up the appearance of respectability while spreading her favors as freely as she chose. She and Jack had enjoyed a brief liaison. If Annabelle’s estimate of the baby’s conception was correct, it was just possible Lydia Eustace might be Sarah’s mother, though he rather hoped not.
“I wish you luck,” said Annabelle. “I hope the interview will not prove too awkward.”
Jack gave a rueful shrug. “If it does, I have no one to blame but myself for my past behavior.”
“That is not for me to judge.” The words had barely left her mouth when Annabelle raised her hand to smother a yawn. “Forgive me. I do not find your company tiresome.”
“But you are tired, are you not?” Jack chided himself for not noticing the dark circles under her eyes that betrayed a lack of sleep. “Has the baby been keeping
you awake?”
After that first night under his roof, Annabelle had insisted she did not need any help with the baby after her last feeding. Jack had assumed it must mean Sarah slept peacefully until morning. Now he wondered if it was because Annabelle feared he might try to slip into her bed again.
“Only last night,” she admitted. “I fear the poor wee thing may be cutting teeth, the way she gnaws at that coral ring you bought her.”
“I didn’t hear a sound.” Jack hoped Annabelle knew he would have come to her aid at once if he had.
“I could not let her cry and wake the whole house.” Annabelle yawned again.
“How did you keep her quiet?” Jack recalled what a difficult task that could be.
“I walked with her and rubbed her back. All the while I sang softly to her, until she finally went back to sleep.”
Jack’s hand itched to cup Annabelle’s cheek but he restrained himself. “After this, you must fetch me if she wakes at night.”
“What good would that do?” Annabelle inquired with a weary half-smile. “No sense both of us losing sleep.”
“I can walk with her while you rest,” Jack insisted. “I am getting better at handling her.”
“So you are.” She glanced toward Gabriel, who held the baby and spoke quietly to her. “All of you—even Rory much as he protests she cannot possibly be his.”
Somehow his friends’ improvement did not please Jack as much as it should have. “As soon as I return from paying my call, I will take charge of Sarah so you can have a nap.”
Annabelle claimed it was not necessary but Jack refused to listen. He kissed Sarah goodbye, then headed away to call on Lady Eustace, determined to get the interview over with as quickly as possible.
The lady appeared to have other ideas when she welcomed him effusively in to her Mayfair townhouse. “My dear Mr. Warwick, what a pleasure to see you again after all this time! I hope you have been well.”
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