To Marry an Heiress

by Lorraine Heath

  He caught sight of Benjamin, his wife, and his five sons standing at a nearby table, gathering up food. Devon guided his own family toward them.

  “M’lord,” Benjamin said with a toothy grin as they approached. “Good of you to bring your family.”

  Gina squeezed Devon’s arm before giving all her attention to Benjamin. “I’d like to meet your family.”

  Benjamin’s eyes widened before he caught himself. “Certainly, m’lady. Certainly.”

  Devon listened as introductions were made. Tonight class distinctions were blurred, lost in the shadows. He should have been appalled.

  Instead he was grateful Gina had insisted they bring the children. It was good for them to be aware that all the benefits they might enjoy in the future had its roots in these people.

  Once introductions were finished, Devon gave his attention to the man who had worked almost as diligently as he had. “I’d like your eldest, Timothy, to begin working in my stables on a permanent basis.”

  Benjamin’s chest puffed out, the lad’s face brightened immeasurably, and Benjamin’s wife looked as though she was close to weeping. To Devon, it was a small gesture. To them, he knew that they felt their son was moving up in the world—from the fields to the lord’s stables.

  “Very good, m’lord. He’ll be there bright and early in the morning.”

  “Come with him, Benjamin, and we’ll work out arrangements for his future.”

  “Aye, m’lord.” Reaching out, he ruffled his son’s dark hair.

  Devon heard the lilt of flutes and fiddles traveling on the gentle wind.

  As Benjamin and his family wandered away, Devon steered his family with a purpose. His family. He’d never felt such completeness. Not with Margaret.

  She would have been appalled at the thought of coming here tonight. As for the children, she never would have allowed their presence. She understood her place in society.

  Gina defied convention, charming him in the process. She put on no airs. How was he to have ever known he’d find that attribute so enchanting?

  “Why was he frightfully glad about working in the stables, Father?” Noel asked.

  Ah, trust his son not to overlook anything. He was a sharp lad, and Devon felt his own chest expanding.

  “He’s moving up in the world. He’ll live on the premises, learn. Perhaps in time, we’ll take him into the house and allow him to serve as your valet.”

  “Noel is perfectly capable of dressing himself,” Gina said.

  “That’s not the point, countess. As much as you despise our hierarchy, I must admit to there being a method to our madness. We provide positions that allow people to better their lot in life. You will find a hierarchy even among servants. They do not see their assistance in our lives as belittlement but rather as evidence of their worth. I hope that in time, as we place ourselves back on an even keel, I shall be able to do even more for those here.”

  She looked at him as though only just seeing him for the first time. “I hadn’t considered all that.”

  They neared the circle of bonfires. At its center, people danced with seemingly little rhyme or reason. The dances of country folk did not resemble the stateliness of the waltz or the complexities of the quadrille, where even there one’s place in society was reflected.

  The fires shot sparks into the air. Millicent squealed with delight. Devon lifted her for a better viewing, and she wound her arms around his neck, her eyes glowing with joy, her smile revealing her latest missing tooth.

  “Can Millie and I dance, Father?” Noel asked.

  She quickly twisted, placed her palms on either side of his face, and said, “Yes, please, Father?”

  He cast a sly glance Gina’s way. She bobbed her head. He wasn’t quite as sure of the appropriateness of the request.

  As though sensing his hesitation, she asked, “What can it possibly hurt?”

  What indeed? He almost mentioned that it simply wasn’t done—but then neither was a nobleman working in the fields as though he were a commoner. He could not help but feel that the world he knew was on the cusp of change. How long before marrying heiresses would give way to other means of restoring wealth?

  “Do you think you can determine the proper steps?” he asked of Noel.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well, then.” He lowered Millicent to the ground. “Have at it.”

  Joining hands, with the dog in tow, they raced to the edge of the dancing couples and began to do little more than skip around. Devon had a strong urge to pull his wife into his arms and hold her as he’d held her when they’d flown the kite. But that action, that thought, was entirely inappropriate. He was after all still the lord of the manor.

  He could see the toe of her shoe peering out beneath the hem of her skirt, tapping the ground in lively rhythm to the music.

  “I’m so glad we came,” Gina murmured.

  “I wasn’t certain how it would go over with you and the children. I’ve always come alone before.”

  She snapped her head around, locking her gaze with his. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d come.”

  “It’s the celebration of harvest. It’s important to these people, and therefore my presence is expected.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not here because you want to be? You’re here because of your society’s rules?”

  “Quite right.” Although to himself he readily admitted that he enjoyed the celebration, would have attended even if it wasn’t expected.

  She shook her head and looked away as though disappointed in his answer.

  “My wife and children are here, however, because I enjoy their company.”

  She returned her attention to him and gave him a wispy smile. “I’m glad.”

  “As am I. You see at long last I have a partner with whom to dance.” He held out his hand in invitation. “Shall we?”

  Her eyes widened along with her smile. “Do you know the steps?”

  “I rather think we can manage, you and I. We’ve done quite well so far.”

  He wasn’t certain if it was a trick of the bonfires or the night, but it looked as though tears welled in her eyes just before she placed her hand in his and averted her gaze. What a sensitive woman she was, his wife.

  He escorted her toward the madness, surprised to discover how much he was anticipating joining in.

  “Father, do you need me to teach you the steps?” Noel cried out as they walked past.

  He winked at his son. “I think I’ve got it.”

  Then he took his wife into the center of the throng, and they danced with wild abandon, not with the stiffness of the balls in London.

  Her laughter wove through the music, her smile grew larger, and her eyes sparkled with merriment.

  And she was his. Before he realized what he was about, he’d offered up a silent thank-you to Nathaniel Pierce.

  Pride could be a man’s strength or his weakness. Its perception depended on one’s perspective or where a man stood in relation to his place in the world. Pride could keep a man from giving up when surrender was an easier course. Or it could cause him to shore up his defenses and act without consideration for the consequences. Pride was an asset that sometimes turned on a man and became a liability, as it had with Devon.

  In his thirty-four years of life, he’d discovered he had a great well of pride, which defined who he was, who he perceived himself to be.

  At times it dictated his actions more than his conscience or his reasoning did.

  It was more powerful than lust, desire, or love.

  It spoke in moments of anger and trapped him by words that would have been better left unsaid. Because of its brashness, in order to now claim what he wanted, he had to devise an explanation that would allow him to obtain what he so dearly wanted—without causing his pride to suffer. He wanted from Gina what she gave to the children: her unbridled love. And in order to attain it, he would willingly grant her wish.

  Standing before the window in his l
ibrary, he heard the door click open.

  “Winston said you wished to see me,” Gina said.

  He wished to do a great deal more than that. Slowly he turned from the gray clouds hovering on the horizon and smiled warmly. “Indeed I do, countess. Please join me.”

  Bowing slightly, he made a gesture toward the padded leather chair that rested before his desk.

  The light blue gown she wore today was a plain affair, lacking bows or frills. Still, it suited her perfectly. He had discovered of late that it was her very plainness that appealed to him. Her simple manners were open and honest, her smiles genuine, her laughter riveting.

  How was it that upon first meeting her he’d failed to notice the tranquil beauty that enveloped her?

  She sat and primly folded her hands in her lap, giving him her undivided attention, as was her way. While others hurried through life with a passing comment or a brusque nod in acknowledgment, she managed to make a person feel as though no one else existed on the earth, as though at that precise moment, held in her uncompromising gaze, nothing and no one were more important.

  Little wonder the children and servants adored her and that he found himself doing what neither of them had ever expected he would do.

  He was falling in love with her.

  He darted a quick glance at the ledgers strewn over his desk, wondering briefly how to explain himself without butchering his pride. He gave his throat a sound clearing so he wouldn’t squeak like an overanxious schoolboy. He met his wife’s gaze.

  “I have been studying the ledgers, projecting the future. Your assistance in the fields has made a notable contribution. I foresee our profits at this point in time as being rather small, but I do see them growing—to the point that I will consider us financially solvent in a short while.”

  She scooted to the edge of the chair, her smile blossoming. “That’s wonderful, Devon.”

  “Indeed. Your father told me that with you by my side I would know unlimited wealth. It appears he spoke truly.”

  She shook her head. “You managed it all on your own.”

  He held up his hand, noted the trembling, and closed his fingers into a fist. “I believe that we managed it together. As a result, it seems only fair that I honor the bargain I made with your father. I anticipate slowly acquiring wealth. Therefore, Gina, I shall ensure that you acquire a child.”

  He had expected delirious joy on her part, not the withering away of her smile, the deep furrowing of her brow, or her retreating against the back of the chair.

  “I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re saying.”

  “That I shall begin visiting your bed with the express purpose of getting you with child.” To his own ears the words seemed cold.

  To her they must have resembled a block of ice, because she could not have looked more stunned if he’d tossed her into a river in the middle of winter.

  Slowly she rose, her hands clasped tightly enough that the white of her knuckles showed. “I suppose I should have told you sooner that I’ve decided to return to Texas.”

  His heart stuttered. “Pardon?”

  A sad smile flitted across her face. “You made a pact with my father. He failed to live up to his end of the bargain. I wanted to make restitution. But you didn’t need me, Devon. You didn’t need him. You’ve had the power all along to make Huntingdon something grand, an estate worthy of your heir. I can’t compete with the memories of Margaret. She was beautiful beyond description. You know what it is to marry for love. How you could possibly have settled for less this go round is beyond me.

  “I had an emptiness in my heart that I assumed having a child of my own would fill. It was my greatest desire. But the emptiness no longer exists. Although I’m not their true mother, I love your children as though I were. And loving them as I do, the greatest gift that I can give them is to set their father free, so he can once again find a woman to love.

  “Therefore I thank you for the generous offer, my lord, but I assure you in time we’d both resent my accepting it.”

  In stunned silence he watched his wife stroll from the room as though he’d merely invited her to join him on a picnic.

  She was leaving him?

  For all her talk of hitching her wagon to his star, she didn’t want him. In many ways, his current wife’s betrayal was much worse than his first wife’s had been.

  He’d thought that through Gina’s eyes, he stood tall because of who he was and his accomplishments. Not because of what he was. Not because of his title. Not because of an accident of birth. But because of his unwillingness to accept that what his father had left was all he would ever have.

  With her at his side he’d felt wealthy, even though he possessed less than he had when he married her.

  Dear God, he’d even begun to fancy himself in love with her.

  Spinning around, he glared out the window. The dark clouds were rolling in. The storm would be here by nightfall, but it paled when compared to the tempest twisting inside him.

  For all he’d worked so damned hard to acquire, he’d never in his life felt so incredibly destitute.

  Gina galloped over the rolling hills as though the hounds of hell were baying at her heels, threatening to bite her horse’s flanks.

  She could hardly fathom his dispassionate offer.

  His uncompromising glare and harsh words that awful day in London when he’d announced he’d no longer be visiting her bed had cut her to the bone. Today he’d offered to give her what she’d thought she most wanted: a child.

  Although his children had filled the aching void in her heart, she still desperately desired her own child. She wanted to place her hand on her stomach and know life blossomed within her. She wanted to feel the subtle movements. She wouldn’t even mind the pain that accompanied childbirth, because she was certain it would fade to nothing in her memory the instant she held her child in her arms.

  But as much as she wanted a child, she’d come to realize in the passing months she wanted Devon’s love more.

  She brought her horse to a halt and looked out over the fields where she’d lived some of the happiest moments of her life. Tears washed down her cheeks. She was tormented by the knowledge that he would never love her as she did him. The memory of his deceased wife would always stand between them.

  But to leave him would break her heart.

  Yet how could she not leave when she knew that staying would shatter it as well.

  When he’d made love to her before, she’d not fathomed the true extent of his love for his first wife. Now that she’d lived in the woman’s shadow for months, she knew she could never again lie beneath the woman’s husband—and pretend that it was her that he cared for.

  “Milord, the stable boy informs me Midsummer Moon has returned.”

  Sitting at his desk, rubbing his brow, Devon thought it was an odd statement for Winston to make, but he was so absorbed by Gina’s revelation that she planned to return to Texas that he didn’t give any thought to the reason he considered it odd.

  He understood his wife so little. She dusted when he wasn’t looking—he knew she did, because he’d caught her at it, unknown to her—she scrubbed, she’d planted a nice-sized vegetable garden. She’d worked in his fields, threshed his wheat…

  “Milord?”

  He lifted his head and glared at his butler. “I’m striving to concentrate here, Winston.”

  “Yes, milord, I can see that you are. It’s just that…Well, milord, Lady Huntingdon has not returned.”

  Everything within Devon stilled. “What do you mean she hasn’t returned?”

  A crack of thunder echoed, causing the panes of glass to rattle. Winston cast a furtive look at the window. “She took the horse out for a ride, milord, but only the horse has returned to the stables.”

  “You think she was unseated?”

  “I don’t know what to think, milord.”

  “Bloody damned hell.” Devon shoved himself to his feet with such ferocity he sent the c
hair crashing to the floor. He strode across the library. “Fetch my coat.”

  “I have it here, milord.”

  He reached back and grabbed the coat, not waiting for Winston to assist him but simply thrusting his arms into it as he quickened his pace. He was halfway across the foyer before the tiny voice stopped him.

  “Father, there’s a storm,” Millicent said.

  He spun around. Both children stood at the bottom of the stairs, Jake sitting between them, his tongue hanging out.

  “We want Gina, Father,” she added.

  “I know you do, Kitten,” he said, crossing back to them and kneeling before them. “I’m off to look for her now.”

  “Where is she?” Millicent asked.

  “I don’t know. Did she happen to mention where she planned to go riding?”

  “No, Father, but she should have come back before the rain started,” Noel said.

  “Yes, I’m sure she meant to.” He didn’t want to upset them by mentioning the horse had but she hadn’t. “That’s the reason I’m going to look for her.”

  “Jake could help you, Father,” Noel said with utmost seriousness. “He finds us when we play hide and seek.”

  “Indeed.” He glanced at the dog. He thought it highly unlikely that he could sniff out anything in the rain.

  “You just have to give him something of hers to smell so he knows who you want him to search for,” Noel explained.

  “Undoubtedly unnecessary at this point.” He placed his hand on each child’s head, communicating assurance, wishing to lessen their fears, a touch that would not have occurred to him before Gina had arrived to so absolutely unsettle his life.

  The woman who had no place for rules in her life.

  Thunder echoed around them. He turned to Winston with more confidence than he felt. “Have a bath prepared for the countess. She’ll no doubt look like a drowned cat and be quite cold once she returns.”

  The dog released a little whine. Such a large creature to emit such a helpless sound. He stopped himself short of patting the beast’s head and murmuring words of comfort to it. It was an animal—but he knew that reasoning wouldn’t have stopped Gina.