To Marry an Heiress

by Lorraine Heath

  She gave love to everyone and everything. Had he ever known anyone who possessed an unlimited capacity to love?

  He stood and strode through the foyer to the front door.

  “Find her, Father,” Millicent called after him in a voice reflecting her age and her fears.

  “I shall, Kitten,” he called.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  A promise that was proving difficult to keep under the circumstances. No one knew where she might have ridden. No one noticed from which direction the horse had returned.

  Devon searched the gardens, the area around the stables, the land on either side of the path that led to the main road. The rain continued to fall, lightning periodically lit the black sky, thunder shook the air, and his trepidation increased.

  Rivulets of water created shallow pools around him. If she’d landed face down, if she’d lost consciousness, if the water rose around her, would she drown? He’d heard of drunken men drowning in inches of water.

  Where the deuce was she?

  She might not care what he thought, but she wouldn’t stay away on purpose. She wouldn’t want to worry the children. The children, of course. She wouldn’t want to worry them.

  And yet she was contemplating leaving them. Leaving him he could well understand, but to leave the children? He couldn’t fathom why she would even consider it.

  Margaret wouldn’t…. Margaret. By God, how often did he think of her? How often did he speak of her to his current wife? What sort of fool was he?

  And yet none of the thoughts, none of the spoken words reflected happiness. They all revolved around Margaret’s disappointments, his failing to make her happy.

  With his constant references to Margaret he’d managed to make Gina miserable.

  Gina, who possessed a far greater capacity to love than any woman he’d ever known.

  Gina, who did not look to others for her happiness but created it herself.

  Gina who would never leave his children unless she’d truly convinced herself it was in their best interest—unless he’d allowed her to believe they would all be happier without her.

  Her father had spoken of wealth beyond imagining. Devon realized now that he possessed a deplorable lack of imagination, because where Gina was concerned, the wealth was immeasurable.

  Out here, searching frantically, he wouldn’t know if she’d returned to the house, which she’d no doubt already done. He’d been looking for an hour, scouring the nooks and crannies.

  She was such a skilled rider. He could not fathom that she’d be unseated. He tried to convince himself that another logical explanation existed. She’d no doubt dismounted so she could inspect a plant that took her fancy, as she was wont to do. Perhaps a clap of thunder had startled the horse and caused it to bolt. She’d no doubt trudged home while he had been searching.

  But somberness greeted him when he walked into the manor. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt it long before he saw anyone, before anyone knew he’d returned.

  The manor had never felt so empty or forlorn. The grief upon Margaret’s death had not hovered this thickly, this ominously.

  Margaret again. He needed to exorcise her memory. She was his past. Gina, he desperately hoped, would be his future. If he could only convince her to stay.

  Thunder resounded, and a shudder rippled through him.

  He caught sight of Winston striding toward him. “Has she returned?”

  But the answer was clearly written on Winston’s face.

  “No, milord.”

  “All right, then. Gather up some lanterns. It’s black as Hades out there.”

  “Yes, milord.”

  He rushed up the sweeping staircase. He had to appear unworried, had to keep his escalating fears under control. It would not do for the Earl of Huntingdon to show panic.

  Gina would no doubt chastise him once he found her. He could hear her now, ordering him, “Show it, if that’s what you feel.”

  Strange how her voice was ensconced in his mind. He could carry on a conversation with her without her being present. How long would that ability continue if she left him? If she did indeed return to Texas?

  She was no doubt bluffing.

  He entered her room. The open trunk sat near the foot of the bed. Far from empty. How could he not remember that his wife did not bluff?

  Where was she?

  He strode to the bed and snatched up her nightgown. Soft against his fingers, as comforting as she was. He didn’t have to press it against his nose to smell her scent wafting around him.

  She was everywhere in this room. Her subtle fragrance somehow managing to fan out over everything.

  How like Gina, with her quiet ways and her penchant for creeping behind fronds. How like her in the final tally to exhibit such a presence that he could see her, smell her, hear her as though she stood before him now.

  He marched from her bedchamber along the hallway, down the stairs, across the foyer, up the stairs, and into the day nursery. It was long past time for the children to be abed, but here they were sitting before the hearth, Mrs. Tavers closing the book in her lap.

  Gina had even managed to win the old bat over. Before her influence, the governess would have ordered the children to bed regardless of circumstances. Now bed did not happen until their stepmother tucked them in.

  Devon held his son’s earnest gaze. “Do you truly think Jake could find her?”

  Terror was evident in his son’s eyes before he straightened and took on the mantle of the heir apparent, displaying a confidence Devon thought he probably didn’t feel.

  “Oh, yes, Father, I’m sure of it.”

  Devon thrust the soft flannel toward him. “Her nightgown.”

  Noel took it, knelt before the dog, and pressed it against its muzzle. The dog’s tail began thumping the floor with a force that might have been dangerous if anyone happened to get in the way.

  “Find her, Jake,” Noel ordered. “Find her.”

  The dog took off at an ungainly lope. Noel extended the gown toward Devon. “Take it with you, Father, so you can remind him of her scent from time to time.”

  Devon shoved it inside his coat. Her scent wafted up and around him, comforting him.

  He would find her, by God, he would.

  He found the dog at the door in the foyer, throwing his gangly body against it as though he intended to break it down. Devon attached a leash that he’d located, left over from the days when he had hounds, and they were off, the dog straining against the restraint.

  But on this moonless night he couldn’t risk losing the dog as well.

  A short while later he sat astride the gelding, cantering over the fields, carrying a lantern that Winston had brought him. When he’d left the estate, he’d seen a half-dozen lights floating in the darkness as his servants searched for their mistress.

  His first stop had been Benjamin’s cottage. Devon had tried to explain the situation coolly, but fear had continually crept into his voice. Fear, dread, loneliness. He’d never in his entire life felt so alone.

  He thought he’d been alone when Margaret had turned from him. Only now did he realize that with her, he’d always been alone.

  Ah, he’d loved her. Her gentle beauty, her genteel nature. He knew he’d loved her. But she’d never challenged him, frustrated him, worked beside him, give to him far more than he’d ever given to her.

  Theirs was a polite marriage, a proper relationship. So utterly boring he wondered now how it was that he’d never noticed before.

  Sparks, fire, ice, chills. Laughter, smiles, yelling. His marriage to Gina followed no rules. He never knew what to expect. He only knew he found it exciting.

  Once Benjamin understood that Devon was looking for Gina, he’d sent his nine-year-old son to the homes of the other laborers, alerting them to the need to gather and search for Lady Huntingdon.

  Devon had watched the young boy run off into the rain, no umbrella, no jacket, no shoes upon his feet, taki
ng off with nothing more than a quick bob of his head and a “Yes, sir.”

  Ah, yes, these people who were good enough to work his fields…He suddenly realized that they were the very best friends he had. As the search continued and expanded, he could only see the increasing number of lanterns, not those who held them.

  Devon did not delude himself into thinking they’d come quickly in order to ease his burden. They were here, just as he was, desperate to find the woman who had become an indelible part of their lives, a woman with whom they’d talked, laughed, and worked.

  A woman who cared nothing for rank or privilege but simply cared.

  Devon drew his horse to a halt and dismounted. With muddy, wet paws, Jake leaped on him, barking feverishly.

  Devon pulled the now soaked gown from inside his jacket. He’d allowed the dog to sniff it a dozen times now. He doubted it had any scent left except for the fragrance of rain, but he could hope, with everything in him, he could hope.

  “Find her, Jake,” he ordered with urgency, as though the dog understood not only the words but the importance. “Find her.”

  Jake took off, a sharp tug on the leash nearly pulling Devon’s arm from its socket. He left his horse where it stood. So many people were in on the search he had little doubt someone would be by shortly to tend to the gelding.

  The dog stopped, bayed at the darkness, and took off again. Devon held the lantern high, but the light didn’t fan out a great distance. He could barely see the dog’s wagging tail.

  But he heard a change in Jake’s bark. A subtle difference that made him question his sanity, as though he actually thought the animal was communicating with him.

  Then he spotted it. The light from the lantern caught something pale, something not shadows. Something that didn’t disappear when the lantern’s glow fell across it.

  Gina.

  As though sensing all was not well with his mistress, Jake lay beside her, his head across her ankles, his bark giving way to a pitiful whine.

  “Benjamin!” Devon yelled just before he dropped to his knees and held the lantern over her. Her eyes were closed, her face incredibly pale. He touched her cheek. Cold. So very cold. She lay at such an odd, twisted angle. He wanted to straighten her, but he was afraid, so frightened of doing more harm than good.

  “You found her, m’lord,” Benjamin said as he knelt on the other side of Gina.

  “Look at her, Benjamin. She’s all broken. My dear wife is all broken.”

  He heard his father’s resounding voice echoing in his mind, “Chin up!” Only he didn’t want to keep his chin up. He wanted to weep, pull her close, hold her tightly, and beg her to be all right.

  “I’ll fetch a wagon, m’lord.”

  Devon nodded, unable to think clearly. “And fetch a physician. I’m afraid to move her without his consent. I don’t want to cause more harm.”

  “Aye, m’lord, I’ll send someone.”

  “And pad it—the wagon. Mattresses, blankets—get blankets out here.” He set the lantern aside and tore off his coat, gently spreading it over her inert body. Hoping some of the warmth it held from his body would seep into her.

  “Here, m’lord, use this as well.”

  He glanced up to see that Benjamin was offering his coat as well. Worn and patched. Strange how in a moment of crisis the lowliest piece of clothing served as well as the most finely made garment.

  Devon placed it gingerly over his wife as Benjamin headed off at a run.

  Word spread that he’d found her. One by one the men he’d worked beside in the fields came over and handed him their coats before leaving him alone with his wife.

  Eventually she lay beneath a mountain of rags, and Devon had never in his life been so grateful for so little.

  Once the physician had arrived in the field and examined Gina in the pale light of a dozen lanterns, he’d deemed her unbroken—at least her body. He wasn’t aware of her spirit, of the manner in which Devon had unwittingly battered and bruised it with his constant references to Margaret.

  For all his education and learning, the doctor didn’t seem to know that a person could look whole on the outside and be nothing but shards of broken dreams on the inside.

  Devon knew. God, how he knew. He wasn’t certain if he’d ever been whole on the inside. He’d just always given such a good imitation.

  With the utmost care and tenderness, he’d placed Gina on a mattress in the wagon. Dampness surrounded them as he’d lain beside her, wrapping himself around her, trying to buffer her from the lumbering swaying of the wagon as it rolled over the fields. Occasionally the wheels sank into the freshly turned earth until the farmers shoved the wagon on its way, each one saying, as if on cue, “She’ll be all right, m’lord. Not to worry.”

  But he was worried. Standing at the foot of his bed, gripping the bedpost with icy fingers, his clothes drenched, he watched as the doctor examined his dear Gina more closely. He’d noticed a bruise forming on her side along her ribs before the servant slipped a fresh nightgown onto her.

  The doctor had proclaimed nothing broken there. Now he was gingerly running his fingers along her scalp, over her face, beneath her chin. Lifting her eyelids, he squinted his eyes as he stared into hers.

  “She’s got a rather nasty knot on the back of her head,” he murmured. “But her eyes react to light. That’s good.”

  Devon swallowed hard. “But she hasn’t stirred since I found her. Why doesn’t she wake up?”

  The physician straightened, scratched his head, and heaved a melancholy sigh. “I fear all we can do at this point is stand vigil.” He glanced at Devon. “You should get yourself into some dry clothes before you catch your death.”

  How could he explain that without her life mattered not? As much as he’d grieved over Margaret’s passing, not once through her illness or after her death had he felt that he could not go on.

  “What am I to do for her?” he asked.

  “Keep her warm, keep things quiet. Send for me should you notice any change.”

  “How long before she’ll wake up?”

  “That, my lord, I can’t say. A few hours, a few days. I shouldn’t think it would be long.”

  “And if it is?”

  “Let’s walk across that bridge when we get to it, shall we, my lord?”

  It was long past midnight by the time the physician took his leave.

  As he’d known—he wouldn’t have known before Gina had come into his life, but he knew now—the children were still wide-eyed and awake, lying in their beds, afraid to sleep because the storm continued. He gave them the important task of sitting with Gina while he changed out of his damp clothes.

  With Gina in his bed, he’d taken his clothes into his former wife’s bedchamber. He wanted Gina in his own bed, not closeted away at the farthest reaches of the house, not in the bedchamber that had once belonged to Margaret.

  His body was numb from the cold, his spirit numb from worry. She would not have ridden carelessly. Something must have startled the horse, and perhaps Gina had been too distracted to notice until it was too late.

  Quite right. He could well envision that scenario.

  Once he was properly dressed, he stood in the doorway that separated his room from Margaret’s. A stupid tradition that dictated a man and wife should have their own chambers, their separate beds. When a man dared to enter, he was letting it be known in no uncertain terms that he intended to bed his wife.

  Where was the spontaneity of it? The wooing, the uncertainty, the moment when all became clear because two bodies shuddered with need?

  And what of the nights when a man was weary beyond belief and simply wanted to fold himself around the woman he loved.

  He did love Gina, more than life itself. But would she believe him when she seemed to have so little faith in her own worth?

  How did a man show a woman that he loved her, heart, body, and soul? Oh, he well knew the art of courtship. He knew the right things to say, the right manners to project. He
was possessed of courtly grace.

  He could write the book on how to give the appearance of love.

  But what did he know about actually showing it?

  He heard the whispers of his children as they sat on the bed, one on each side of Gina. One touching her face, while the other held her hand. Noel speaking and then Millicent.

  Precious children. Healing. His greatest assets. His most magnificent joy.

  He would sell himself, settle for unhappiness, accept shame, he would humble himself before his peers if need be. For them he would sacrifice anything.

  Just as he would for the woman who now lay between them.

  The knowledge hit him in the center of his chest, caused an ache in his heart, a chasm in his soul. He wasn’t certain when he’d fallen madly in love with her.

  She would fault him for not knowing the exact moment, but the feeling was such a part of him he knew it had taken root long before it had fully blossomed and he’d become aware of it.

  Did she love him? At all?

  Did a woman work in the fields and thresh grain without complaint for a man she didn’t love? Margaret had claimed to love him, but she’d withdrawn from him, had never considered working beside him, lessening his burden.

  Gina lessened his burden simply by standing beside him. She needn’t have worked in the fields. But she had. Because her nature was to give—everything within her.

  She gave to him, the children, the servants, Huntingdon. She asked nothing in return, expected nothing. “She can’t hear you,” he said quietly.

  The children snapped their heads around.

  “But what if she can, Father?” Millicent asked.

  “Her last memory is falling from her horse. It might give her nightmares,” Noel explained. “We wanted to give her something better to dream about.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Come, you two need to go to bed now.”

  As if on cue, thunder rattled the panes.

  “You can sleep together in the bed in the next room,” he offered.