With sleep playing elusive that evening, Missy had not much else to do but think as she lay twisting under the linen sheets gracing the bed in the guest chamber. She thought of Lady Victoria and her unborn child. James said it wasn’t his but how did she know he was being truthful? He had children—two daughters—he intended to claim. And their mother, who was she? A woman he had cared for years ago? How long ago? Did he have feelings for her still? A piercing pain rent her heart at the nameless and faceless woman who had borne him children. Something she would never do.
A well of tears spilled from her eyes and tracked down her cheeks. Did he make a sport out of impregnating young ladies and leaving them to stew? It had been only by the grace of God she hadn’t met a similar fate.
The chamber door glided open and Missy started violently, the feathered quilt pulled up to her chin, her eyes wide. Before a sound passed her parted lips, the light in the hallway illuminated James’s unmistakable form before he stepped in and closed the door.
Missy keenly remembered a similar scene from just days before…and how it had ended. It was definitely an incident she couldn’t bear to repeat.
“I saw your light,” he said softly, approaching the bed, his stockinged feet treading quietly across the carpeted floor. He wore a dressing robe, his hair was ruffled, and a day’s worth of whiskers shadowed his jaw. He looked sad, weary, and bereft, and for one moment Missy’s heart contracted painfully for him. She had experienced the same acute sense of loss of a parent when she was just eleven years. The pain never completely went away no matter the age. Then she remembered. She remembered if she allowed it, this man would break her heart all over again.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, her voice slightly scratchy from recent tears.
He stood regarding her, his lids at quarter-mast, the tightness easing from the sides of his mouth. She recognized the unmistakable signs of arousal as his pupils dilated, the heat sparking in his eyes. Missy’s breasts peaked and she immediately scooted over on the bed as if inches or even feet would negate her body’s response. James took in her action with mild surprise and amusement.
“I wanted to speak with you without a houseful of people present,” he said, his gaze seeming to burn through the pink counterpane she clutched to her chin. “I didn’t trust myself in approaching you with others around.”
Missy watched him closely, not saying a word or moving so much as a muscle.
“We need to marry,” he said, sinking onto the edge of the bed, his body now too close, too familiar.
The silence that followed was deafening.
“Why?” Missy finally asked, in a toneless voice.
His eyes widened a fraction as if surprised by the question. Then he braced one hand on the other side of her tense form and he leaned in, his mouth hovering only inches from hers.
“Because—”
Missy ducked her head underneath his spread arm and scrambled to the other side of the bed, the quilt edging down to reveal bare arms and a translucent cream nightdress.
“Because you may have gotten me with child? Or perhaps you are afraid that my brother will beat you bloody again? What reason do you have now?” she charged.
James straightened, his gaze never straying from her. “I don’t give a fig whether you are expecting or not. As for your brother, my decision has nothing to do with him. I care for you more than I’ve ever cared for any woman in my life. As much as I wanted it to, it hasn’t gone away. My feelings have only grown stronger these past months.”
It would be so easy to succumb to his words when he looked at her as he was doing now. But she knew what she could expect from a marriage with him. Just as his mother had said, James didn’t have it within himself to be faithful. He didn’t love her. She would be sharing him with his mistresses. And his children. Would he even tell her about them? As his wife, wouldn’t she have the right to know of their existence and that he intended to acknowledge them as his own?
“Just when exactly did these feelings grow stronger? Was it when you started courting Lady Victoria only days after bedding me?” she asked with heavy sarcasm, her brow quirked. “Or perhaps it was when you escorted Lady Willis home after the supper party? No, I am wrong. It must have been when you told me that you didn’t love me and all you felt was lust. You said you’d never marry me.” By the time she finished her damning speech, her voice was thick with emotion. The truth of her words was even almost too much for her to bear.
James’s gut twisted in agony throughout her scathing indictment. When she listed them so succinctly, his actions appeared more than damning and less than caring. But he had been driven by guilt, his own stubborn willfulness, and circumstances beyond his control.
Reaching across the bed, he gave her hand a firm tug and pulled her resistant body close to his. “I was a fool. The situation with Lady Victoria—”
“I do not want to hear about your affairs. The days I cared about what you did, and with whom, are over. The only thing I want you to do now is to leave me alone. You were right all along when you said I was young and too naïve to know about love. I acted utterly selfishly in thinking I could force you to love me.” The latter she had learned over the course of the last month.
“No, that is not true. I do love you—”
Missy interrupted with a high laugh, pushing herself up into a sitting position, the quilt forgotten and pooled around her hips. His gaze zeroed in on taut buds pushing up against her nightdress. He felt the familiar quickening of his pulse as his blood rushed thick and hot through his veins and his eager member jumped to attention.
“You don’t love me,” she scoffed.
Aroused, angry, and not thinking clearly, James grabbed her hand and roughly placed it on the rigid heat of his erection. He felt her fingers’ involuntary clench and almost groaned aloud at the searing lust that tore through him like a runaway cart plummeting downhill.
Wide, startled eyes stared up at him through the dusky light. Then her countenance changed and through his silk robe and linen drawers, he felt the sweep of her hand sliding the length of his cock.
“This,” she said softly, giving him a brief squeeze, “is a man’s reaction to any desirable female.” She pulled her hand away abruptly, tucking it securely at her side.
In an ironic twist, not only had she thrown his own words back in his face, but so had she thrown back the only declaration of love he had ever made to any woman. His ardor immediately cooled as he blanketed his emotions behind a mask to hide the searing pain shredding his heart like shards of glass. She couldn’t have made herself any clearer than she did now.
Slowly he rose to his feet, ignoring the tight knot in his stomach and what felt like a gaping hole in his chest. “Then I will not bother you again,” he said hoarsely. Without glancing back, he departed the room.
After the door closed softly behind James, the first tear was joined swiftly by another, until a torrent ran down her cold cheeks. Laying her head on her pillow, Missy cried herself to sleep, her heart in pieces.
She had left.
James wasn’t surprised when Armstrong informed him. Early the following morning well before the cocks had stirred, the viscountess and Missy had set off back to their estate in Devonshire. The viscountess had, naturally, left a note apologizing for their hasty departure but nothing else. No reason. But he knew what the reason had been. Missy.
Determined not to allow the knowledge to weigh on him, he performed his host duties like an automaton. By the end of the day, all of the mourners had cleared the premises. He was alone again.
Two days later, James stood in a small office at Our Lady of Fatima School for Young Ladies. He awaited his sisters on a scarred chair in an office equipped with solid but worn antiquated furniture.
The first glimpse of them had him mildly surprised. They looked nothing as he’d expected. They had hair the color of dark gold, which hung in perfect spirals down their backs. He knew their age to be fifteen but the dewy softness of t
heir cheeks made them appear years younger. And their eyes…identical…were the purest powder blue he’d ever seen. All in all, they had an almost exotic beauty to them with their dusty rose complexions, high cheekbones, and full pink lips.
Lord, for fifteen years his father had kept them a secret. How he would have enjoyed having sisters all those years. And just like that, he made the decision not to leave them here. They were his sisters, illegitimacy and dubious lineage notwithstanding, and he had the financial means to raise them as proper young ladies. If nothing else, they deserved to be raised in something better than the sterile environment of a boarding school.
“Charlotte and Catherine, this is your brother, James Rutherford, the new Earl of Windmere.”
Now, which one was Charlotte and which one was Catherine? James assessed them, wondering how he would ever come to tell them apart. Both stood behind Mrs. Doubletree, the headmistress, their reticence obvious by the nervous flutter of their hands and their peeking eyes.
Mrs. Doubletree gently urged them forward until they came to stand directly in front of him, their expressions anxious. He wanted to ease their fears as much as he could.
With a welcoming, easy smile, he said, “I have never been fortunate enough to have a sister. Now I can claim two.” They continued to watch him with those gorgeous blue eyes. “You will both come and live with me at my home in London.”
Mrs. Doubletree started and her eyes widened in shock. Her jowls shook gently, her chest heaved—abundant as it was—and James thought briefly she’d keel over on the spot.
She darted him a questioning look and he gave a curt nod in response. “After we’re finished here, my sisters shall pack their belongings.”
Both girls stared at him wide-eyed, as if they, too, had a hard time taking in the enormity of what he was saying.
“Would you like to come and live with me?” He hadn’t even asked them if they wished to live in London with him. Regardless of his title and the blood they shared, he was still a stranger to them. They might not want to leave the familiarity of their school.
His sisters exchanged a look he could not decipher, and then turned and gave him tentative nods. James smiled broadly, relief easing the tension he hadn’t known had formed in his shoulders.
“Have you ever been to London?”
Charlotte—or at least he thought it was Charlotte—nodded shyly. “Once, two years ago.”
They had lived their entire lives in England and had been to Town only once. Well, by the time they reached the age for a proper come out, it would be as if they’d lived there all their lives. He felt more determined than ever that they would enjoy a life as dictated by their grandfather and father’s stations and titles.
“Mrs. Doubletree told us our father is dead.” Catherine stated matter-of-factly.
“Yes, unfortunately, that is true.”
She eyed him as if she was trying to decide whether she found him trustworthy or not. “We can’t remember our mother. Did you know her? Or perhaps you could tell us about our father? We didn’t know much of him.”
Mrs. Doubletree turned, an embarrassed flush on her face. “Now Catherine, that is quite enough—”
James held up his hand. “No, please, madam, that is quite fine. I’m sorry but I was never acquainted with your mother. However, I’m certain she was a lovely woman. As for our father, he was a very generous and amiable man. It would appear, however, that I didn’t know him as well as I thought.”
“The girls can have their things packed in no time at all,” Mrs. Doubletree said briskly. “Go on girls, your brother is a busy man.”
“Do not rush on my account, we have plenty of time,” James said smoothly, irritated by the woman’s tone.
With two hurried curtsies, the girls departed.
It required precisely a half hour for his sisters to pack. When they emerged from their stark, white-walled chamber, the footman carried only two pieces of luggage out to the carriage. That everything they owned could fit in such small trunks caused his stomach to knot. Most girls he knew could fit but only two or three gowns in luggage that size. But that would soon change. They would have everything girls of their age should have and more.
After his sisters exchanged stilted farewells to the woman who’d been responsible for their care and schooling for the past ten years, the three set off for London.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“James is back in town,” the viscountess announced from the bedchamber door.
Missy spared her mother a glance but kept her face expressionless. After a week of absence, she had heard of his return and the two young girls who’d accompanied him—his new wards. But she didn’t care. She was on her way to America in two days. Cousin Abigail was due to arrive that evening. Her plans were set; James could do as he pleased. He didn’t love her. He didn’t love her.
The viscountess entered the chamber and closed the door. She stepped daintily over several large portmanteaus and then pushed aside a leather valise on the bed before taking a seat beside her daughter.
“Mama, I don’t want to discuss James. What he does and where he goes is none of my concern. I no longer have the same feelings for him as I did once.” She held up a silk flowered shawl she was considering for her trip.
No, her feelings were not the same. They had in fact grown into those of a woman’s feelings, a woman who was now well acquainted with the sexual pleasures that accompanied true love. But she was sure in time those too would fade. She sincerely hoped they would.
“My dear, he wants to marry you. I would say that says something about his feelings.” The viscountess said gently.
To look directly into her mother’s green eyes was to reveal all of her heartfelt pent-up emotions. Missy averted her eyes and busied herself folding the shawl to rest it atop the feathered quilt.
“He doesn’t love me anymore than he loved Lady Victoria. He doesn’t want to marry me for the right reasons. And none of this matters, as I have no intentions of marrying him. I told you as much. The only reason he persisted is because he felt honor bound to do so.” She gave the shawl one final pat before glancing over at her mother.
The viscountess gave a small, almost sad smile. “I know you, Millicent, and I know you would never give your heart so easily nor would your feelings change so quickly.”
Missy laughed darkly, and then sat mute and unmoving. Her mother did know her too well. She turned to her. “I want the kind of marriage you and Papa had. I saw the way he adored you and you him. I could not bear to settle for anything less than that. Please say you understand my reasons, Mama. You do understand why I was forced to turn him down. How can I settle for anything less than what you had?”
The viscountess’s perfectly arched brows rose, her eyes growing wide. And when they slowly lowered, a sigh such as she’d never heard from her mother, slid past her lips. “Oh, Millicent.” Her chest rose and fell gently. “Your father and I didn’t have the marriage you imagined.” The gravity of her tone told Missy that it had required effort to utter those words.
Missy furrowed her brows. “What do you mean?”
The viscountess cleared her throat delicately. “Your father and I were not a love match.”
“No, that can’t be true,” Missy replied automatically, shaking her head in denial.
“Indeed, it is true. When I married your father I was in love with another man, the son of a physician, and your father was enamored with a Vauxhall dancer. Neither of us wanted to marry—well, certainly not each other.”
The notion fractured her entire belief system of love. It was an impossibility. She’d grown up blanketed by their love. Not only their love of their children but of each other. How could her mother now tell her it had all been a lie?
“Are you telling me that you and Papa did not love one another?” That was absurd. Even at a young age, their love had permeated the walls of Stoneridge Hall and beyond. Surely that kind of emotion could not be feigned and sustained for years o
n end?
“No, we cared for each other deeply but that took some time. It wasn’t until years before your birth, when Thomas was a young boy, that those feelings grew. We learned not to fight against our circumstances.” Her mother’s eyes took on a faraway look, a smile edging the corners of her mouth. “We were not falling in line with our parents’ plans with regard to marriage, so your grandfathers pushed us together. When I was your age, I didn’t have the backbone to stand up against my mother and buckled quite easily to my father’s wishes. Your grandfather threatened to leave your father without a shilling when he inherited, so your father relented and we were quickly married.”
So it had not been how she envisioned it for her parents. There had been no immediate, passionate, forever love? They had been forced into marriage? Missy drew in a shaky breath.
“Mama, James never once really proposed. He demanded I marry him. He suggested it as if it were the only recourse. He doesn’t love me.” What he had said to her after his father’s funeral didn’t count because he hadn’t meant it. They had been words merely to bend her to his will. Just words.
“I would never tell you to marry James if you didn’t wish to do so. However, I do beg you to think long and hard before you cast aside the man you love.” The viscountess reached over and took her hand in hers, her green eyes intent. “Nothing is perfect but I believe one should always strive for a perfectly happy life, just as your father and I did. Your father and I were blessed with four wonderful children, and we did have the best possible life that we could. But it called for sacrifice and compromise and an acceptance of reality as opposed to a dream.”
Yes, a dream. The life she had envisaged with James had been built on dreams. The reality, however, was quite different.
“Do you ever think about what kind of life you would have had with your first love?”
Her mother shook her head sadly. “I was not the kind of woman Paul deserved at the time. He required someone strong of mind and heart, and that was something I could not give him. If I could, I would have gone against my parents’ wishes and married him no matter the consequences.”
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