She fiddled with the ribbon that had tied her bridal flowers, wrapping and unwrapping the satin length from about her finger. He straightened his blue frock coat.
Abruptly, she stood. “I should like to unpack my belongings.”
“I imagine the servants have already done so.”
Maddie shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll agree it’s been a trying morning. I think I shall rest.”
“Don’t avoid me.”
She shot him an incredulous stare. “What can we possibly have to say? You’ve acquired the land you need to finish the railroad. You have Aimee and me under your roof. No doubt, you’re feeling smug in the knowledge you manipulated me until you won you everything you wished for. I would rather not be witness to your glee.”
With that, she made her way out the door and started toward the stairs. Brock watched her go, his anger rising. Manipulating? He had made her a wager. She had agreed to it, by God. She had come to him wanting marriage for the coming baby. Why did she blame him? Because he’d left her to seek fortune. He’d handled that day badly, but he’d assured her that he would return.
Brock rose and stalked after her. “We aren’t finished yet, my dear wife.”
Maddie, standing two stairs above him, turned to him with contempt in her eyes. “We’ve done our duty to one another for the day. We have nothing left to say.”
“It is our wedding day,” he said silkily.
“Yes, and you have already enjoyed all the benefits our marriage bed will afford.”
With a frosty glare, Maddie turned and began climbing the stairs again. He stared at her retreating back, her hips swinging, his fury mounting. Hadn’t she enjoyed the nights they had spent locked in one another’s arms? Did she mean to imply only he had found pleasure?
Brock darted after her, taking the stairs two at a time. He reached her at the top of the landing and grasped her arm.
When he spun her around, her gray eyes sizzled enough to spit fire. She jerked from his grip. “Leave me be. You’ve already ruined the rest of my life.”
“By marrying you?”
“By forcing your way back into my life. You made yourself clear when you left me for London that wealth, not a wife, was your priority. Oh, but when you realized I held that land you needed, suddenly I was important again. And no matter how I refused you, you turned my life—and Aimee’s—upside down. You cornered me until I agreed to your ridiculous wager. Even then you weren’t satisfied until you had reduced my pride and made me your mewling wanton. I have yielded to you time and again, and I am done with it.”
Once more, Maddie turned her back on him. Brock found himself stomping after her.
How could she understand so little? She had always been important, even when he’d fooled himself into believing their wager was about the land. Even then he had known he wanted her again. Nothing had changed. He’d always loved her.
When Maddie opened the door to the room that adjoined his, he barreled his way in behind her and shut the door, locking the world out.
“We have a marriage to consummate.”
“So you want a willing wife because the law commands it? Regardless of my wishes,” she said sharply.
“It is my right.”
She laughed bitterly. “You’re not so unlike Colin after all.”
Brock stared at her, his eyes widening with fury. She had delivered him the ultimate insult, as far as he was concerned. Her contempt could not have been more plain.
“Damn you! I would never raise a hand to you, no matter what. And I adored Aimee even when I believe her to be Sedgewick’s daughter. And the other difference? I know I can make you melt, but I won’t force you to share a marriage bed.”
Hell, after her slur, he wouldn’t even take her if she begged.
Brock glared at Maddie in the wake of her surprise before he turned to the door connecting their rooms and slammed it shut between them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A week passed in silence. Other than Aimee’s happy laughter, the townhouse was quieter than a gravesite after a funeral. The icy civility between he and Maddie disturbed Brock. By comparison, his office seemed relaxing.
Since the wedding, he’d spent each day, as well as half the night, there. Now that the railroad was in production, he had dozens of details to oversee. Additionally, since the announcement of his marriage in the Times Friday last, he had received new calls from titled clients, inquiring about his financial services. Every memory of childhood hunger and cold drove Brock to cultivate them all. He nearly had more appointments than he could keep.
He didn’t spend eighteen hours a day at his office to avoid Maddie.
Brock pushed away the dissatisfaction that pressed in on him and searched for the triumph he had hoped for. So far, he’d had no luck finding it.
“You’ve arrived early,” his father said, strolling into Brock’s office with a cup of tea. “Again.”
“I’m busy.”
“You removed the majority of the papers off my desk and saw to those matters yourself. For some purpose?”
Leave it to Jack to be perceptive when Brock least needed it. “I thought you might require my help.”
Jack snorted. “You thought you might avoid your wife.”
His father took pride in being right. The bloody wretch. What else could he do, Brock wondered. Maddie had refused to tell him of his child for nearly five years. If he had been a titled man, she would have run to him immediately. And now that she thought his character as low as a wife beater’s, why should he stay to hear more of her insults?
Why did her contempt hurt so bloody much?
He’d wanted so much from this marriage, beyond his business aspirations. A caring mother for his children, to start. Maddie would care for children—it was in her nature. But she would not care for him. Never him.
Foolishly, he’d wanted a confidante and lover in a wife as well. Instead, Maddie had become his coldly silent enemy, deigning rarely to speak.
Looking at Jack’s pitying expression, Brock nearly choked on the ashes of what might have been...if Maddie had loved him half as much as he foolishly loved her.
Brock stood and tossed a stack of papers on his desk with a slap. “If I did, she’s my wife to avoid.”
Jack scratched his chin, wearing a thoughtful frown. Brock held in a sigh. Fatherly wisdom would follow, along with advice he did not need.
“You’ve loved this woman for years, and she’s finally yours. Why behave as if you are indifferent?”
“I’m not indifferent. Does that please you?”
His father said nothing, merely sent him an annoyed glance.
“Must we talk about this now?” Brock demanded wearily.
“Apparently. You’re behaving like an ass. Aimee asked after you this morning.”
Regret sliced Brock. He’d seen his daughter every morning but this one. Today, however, he simply hadn’t wanted to deal with Maddie. Guilt came next. Whatever stood between he and Maddie, he never wanted Aimee to worry or suffer.
“I’ll make a point to leave early today to see her.”
“Aimee would like that. She is a rambunctious girl, and I fear she’s worn this old man out.”
Despite the graying at Jack’s temples, Brock knew better. He speared his father with a dubious glance. “If anything, you’ve tired her with all the attention.”
“At my age, grandchildren mean everything,” Jack defended.
“Well, come January you’ll have another to keep you occupied.” Brock picked up a new stack of papers and rifled through them, hoping his father would take the hint and leave.
Naturally, he did no such thing.
“You don’t sound very pleased by the prospect of another child.”
Brock raised his gaze back to his sire, resigned to the fact Jack wasn’t going to leave—or stop talking—until he was good and ready. “At least Maddie told me this time before the child was half grown.”
“Ah, so that’s the reason for
your anger.”
Jack hadn’t been able to guess? As if keeping a child a secret for nearly five years wasn’t reason enough to be furious?
“Bloody right!” Brock shot back. “She deceived me for years.”
“Have you considered this matter from her point of view?”
Brock tossed the papers aside. “What other point of view can there be? Maddie did not tell me of Aimee when the girl was conceived. She apparently had no intent to tell me. Truly, she had plenty of opportunity.”
His father frowned at him as if he’d taken complete leave of his senses. “She had no reason to believe you wanted to know of Aimee. Five years ago, you left her mere minutes after ruining her.”
There was that accusation again, even from his own father. Brock had had good intentions, honorable ones, but had made the mistake of letting his love eradicate his good sense for a few bittersweet minutes. “Damn it, I intended to come back as soon as I could support her. You knew that.”
“Yes,” he conceded. “But did she?”
Brock gaped at his father. Did Jack imagine that, as wildly in love with Maddie as Brock had been, he’d intended to let her go? “I told Maddie repeatedly that night I would return as soon as may be.”
With a shrug, Jack conceded that point—before he jumped in with another. “How long did you work before you felt you had adequate means to take a wife like Maddie?”
It hadn’t taken long, Brock remembered, mulling the past. Shortly after arriving in London five years ago, he’d worked hard for weeks, finding odd jobs at first, before Mr. Jordan at C. Hoare and Company, bank of the elite, had believed in Brock’s instinct and hired him. Mr. Jordan had mentored him endlessly for months. Brock had truly mourned when the old man had died. But before then, he’d made enough money to support he and Maddie. He’d enjoyed phenomenal success by any standard.
“It took me eight months to carve out the first of my for…tune. Oh, God.” Brock froze. Maddie had been pregnant while he’d been away in London. He’d known that, but... In his anger, he hadn’t considered that her family would discover her secret, her belly would soon round, everyone would guess her shame. His thoughts spun, tumbled over one another, careened through his racing mind.
He sighed. “I understand why Maddie could not have waited for me to wed her, but why did she not contact me? I would have returned—” Brock pressed his fingers into his suddenly throbbing forehead. “Hell, I would have raced back with a single word from her. I would have loved her every day, worked to build her a future she could have been proud of.”
“How would she have contacted you? Did you tell her where you would be staying? Write back to let her know?”
“Of course not. I—” He hadn’t wanted to confess to Maddie that he was renting a room in St. Giles above a gin house. His pride hadn’t allowed it. He’d had a well-born lady awaiting him to return and sweep her off her feet with a fortune in his pocket. London was a big city. She would have had no way to know where to begin looking for him, especially here at Ashdown, under her watchful father’s eye.
“So all Maddie knew was you left her unwed and pregnant without word of your whereabouts or when you might return,” Jack pointed out. “Her father told her you had accepted money to leave her forever. What was she to think?”
“I-I...” Had Maddie truly believed he’d simply turned his back on her after taking her innocence? “I loved her. I would never have hurt her.”
But he had. Confined in a straightjacket of his own rage, he’d grossly overlooked what Maddie had endured all those years ago. He’d let his pride come between them, and she’d been forced to marry that blackguard Sedgewick to prevent Aimee from being branded a bastard. The man had beaten Maddie and loathed Aimee. Sedgewick had made her life hell.
Shaking, Brock’s thoughts spun. If he hadn’t taken her father’s money… If he hadn’t left Maddie’s side… If he hadn’t concealed his whereabouts out of shame… “Dear God.”
“I see you’re getting the picture,” his father said.
He had been blind, so determined to be better than his serving-class birth. And he had lost years with Maddie because of it. The thought hurt like a dull, rusty knife slicing through his gut. He had blamed her for their parting when the deed had been his own doing.
Brock exhaled. Paced. His heart thudded, with every beat twisting his stomach. After Maddie had married Sedgewick, Brock had refined his every social skill. He had eventually purchased a townhouse worthy of an earl’s daughter. He had nursed a broken, bitter heart, blaming her—all with the vague idea of someday extracting his pound of flesh.
All that time, Maddie had been shamed and mistreated—while believing herself abandoned by the very man who had taken her innocence and professed to love her. And his first contact with her after five years apart? He had bullied and threatened her, after treating her to his anger and contempt. No wonder she hadn’t said a word to him about their daughter.
What the hell had he done?
He felt low and unworthy, and for once, not because of his birth. Cropthorne was right; character made the man. And Brock feared he hadn’t measured up.
Desolation spread before him, dark and deep, like a chasm. How could he ever begin to apologize? Why would Maddie ever forgive him?
An icy wave of nausea curled Brock’s stomach, and he closed his eyes against the ugly reality. “I am an idiot.”
One with no notion how to right his error.
How could he atone for something so terrible? He couldn’t, he feared. Did he have the means to please her in any way? What did she want?
Brock tore through his memories until he found the answer that chilled him.
The only wish Maddie had ever expressed was to be left in peace. Brock swallowed. Giving Maddie up—again—would be the most difficult thing he had ever done. Everything inside him screamed against the idea. But he had ignored her wishes for too long. If she could find happiness in his sacrifice, well...he owed her nothing less. He would be her husband in name only, give her the funds to renovate her Hampstead country house, and live in peace with no more worries of creditors screaming for payments or cads scheming a seduction. Hopefully, he could persuade her to allow him to visit Aimee and the coming babe. Perhaps she would even speak to him again someday.
But perhaps not.
Jack nodded, quiet for once. But his sudden discretion came too late. He had opened the Pandora’s box of the past, and inside Brock had found little but self-loathing and regret.
Determined, he made for the door. “I think I know a way to make Maddie happy.”
Jack nodded, looking uncharacteristically fatherly. “I hope you can. She deserves it.”
#
Mid-afternoon sun streamed through his townhouse when Brock arrived. It was a hot day, even for summer. But he knew it wasn’t the heat making him sweat; it was the thought of facing Maddie, possibly for the final time.
Brock shoved aside a stab of pain.
In the dark wood and china foyer he’d designed to impress one and all, his butler remained professional and silent. But the curiosity under those dark bushy brows, questioning his master’s presence here at such an early hour, was unmistakable.
“Where is my wife?” Brock asked.
Damned if he couldn’t hear his heart thudding, feel his palms sweating.
“I believe she mentioned a desire for a nap after luncheon, Mr. Taylor.”
Disappointment that he must wait to make Maddie happy and relief that she would remain under his roof a bit longer warred. “And Aimee?”
“Pretending to nap, I am certain.”
At that, Brock had to crack a smile. According to his staff, Aimee’s antics to avoid her afternoon nap had become so creative, they were nearly legendary.
Brock nodded to his butler and began climbing the red-carpeted stairs in search of his daughter. He found her quite easily on the third floor by following her shrieking laughter.
Inside the shadowed nursery, Miss Edmunds
, the nanny he’d hired only last week, stood near the window, gaping outside. The white-faced woman wrung her hands.
“Miss Aimee, come inside this minute!”
“But I almost got it,” she answered from somewhere. Beyond the window?
“What is going on here?” he demanded.
Miss Edmunds started and turned, jumping guiltily. “Mr. Taylor, I-I put the child down for a nap. I believed her to be asleep...but— Help us!”
“Aimee is outside?”
The nanny opened her mouth. She raised her hands as if making to talk, but no words came forth, only sighs and grunts. Obviously, the woman didn’t know what to say.
Brock took her lack of coherent response to mean yes.
The fact Aimee was outside the window scared the hell out of him. He had only a small balcony there, intended more for show than use—with a three story drop to the ground beneath.
Urgency twisting in his gut, Brock charged to the window and peered out. There, his daughter leaned precariously over the railing, doing her best to reach a tree some feet away.
“Almost...” the child grunted, leaning to the nearest branch.
Brock’s heart surged, slamming into his chest. He scarcely saw her throw one leg over the railing before she lost her balance. Aimee screamed as she teetered, but she managed to hang on by one hand and the crook of her knee. Most of her body dangled above the dangerous drop.
Brock lunged out the window and caught her by the waist. With a curse, he wrapped an arm around her and lifted her into his arms. As he ducked back into her nursery, he held Aimee tight. His heart skipped when she squeezed him in return, her little breaths coming fast.
He’d known Aimee was his daughter for a mere week, but already he loved her like he had known her forever.
And she had scared him witless. “What are you doing, young lady?”
“I wanna climb the tree.”
“It’s too dangerous, Aimee. You nearly fell.”
“But I wanna!” she said mutinously.
“No.” And he made a mental note to have the branches trimmed far back and some manner of lock put on the window immediately.
“Please... Daddy.”
Shayla Black Page 28