“Don’t ever say that. It’s not true. I am going to marry you.”
His bluntness caught her by surprise. She searched his face. “But how?”
“I will talk to your father—”
“No! Why, Julian would never let you close. He hates you, Devon.”
“He doesn’t know me except by reputation. We’ve never said two words to each other.”
“He doesn’t have to know you. He hates you for no other reason than your last name is Marshall.”
“Are you refusing me?” The words came out stilted. He had never thought of asking a woman to marry him, let alone that she might reject him.
She hesitated.
“Say it,” he demanded. “Just blurt out what you are thinking.”
“I don’t know.”
It was not the answer he wanted.
Leah laid her hand on his arm. “Please, Devon. If I agree to marry you, then it may mean turning my back on my family forever. I don’t know if I can do that. And think about yourself. Do you really believe your grandfather would accept our marriage?”
“I don’t answer to my grandfather.” Anger and disappointment colored his words. He broke the silence between them. “Do you at least return my love?”
She pulled her hand back and clasped both hands in her lap, squeezing her fingers before answering. “I don’t know. I need time to consider it more. There is so much at stake. Can you give me just a bit more time before demanding an answer?”
Bitterness filled him. “I wait…but not forever.”
“That’s fair,” she admitted, but there was sadness in her voice. They didn’t say any more to each other after that. Silence seemed best.
Devon had the hack stop at the baroness’s house, and he borrowed a maid to play the role of a Hamlin servant. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he caught sight of tears on Leah’s face as the hack pulled away.
“Something is amiss, cher,” Charlotte said to him. “You are not your swaggering, cheerful self and Miss Carrollton seems unhappy.”
“I’m in love,” Devon confessed brutally.
“Ah,” she said with understanding, and then, “love is never easy.”
“Now you tell me.” He tipped his hat, not wanting further conversation. He needed to be alone. He would have started on his way, but Charlotte stopped him.
“You did not ask me why love does not come easy, cher.”
“What reason could that be?” he asked sarcastically, smarting from his own discoveries.
She smiled, the expression sober. “Because in order to love, you must be worthy of love.”
Her words haunted him for the rest of the day, especially as he relived over and over his words with Leah. She had to love him. She must.
But in the end, what he wished or she wished didn’t matter.
Unbeknownst to them Sir Godfrey had recognized Leah. She was the Season’s Reigning Beauty and Sir Godfrey was not as oblivious to a pretty woman as Devon had suspected or as cloistered. He had seen her from afar at numerous parties. So Sir Godfrey mentioned her standing on Devon’s shoulders to several members of his club, who repeated the words. Soon the gossip spread.
Scandal always traveled fast in London. McDermott was the one who told Devon of the gossip later that very same day.
Devon hurried to repair any damage that might be done to Leah’s reputation. He made up some cock-and-bull story about not recognizing her and helping a damsel in distress. It all sounded silly, but there were enough gentlemen interested in pursuing her who were willing to forgive anything.
She had that sort of impact on men, he realized. It was a gift. Some women had it; some didn’t.
He wondered if it was love he felt, or was he, too, a victim of her spell? He planned on finding out when next he saw her at Whitney’s.
Of course, that never happened. That evening, when he returned home, he found Julian Carrollton waiting to call him out.
Part Two
Yorkshire, 1815
CHAPTER 4
Devon’s long legs ate up the distance to the cottage. He had to find help. Halfway there Leah’s body trembled, but not from the cold. A spasm gripped her. It took hold of her like a giant hand pulling the strings of a marionette.
The only birth Devon had ever witnessed had been that of a horse. He remembered the animal’s struggle to push a life out into the world. Leah was so petite that he couldn’t imagine her surviving such an effort.
Gallant nickered a greeting as he passed. Devon didn’t pause but shoved the cottage door open with one shoulder. Entering, he spied a bed in a room off to the side. He headed for it.
He had just started to lay her down when she whispered, “No, I can’t.” She started to make as if to rise from the bed, but he gently pushed her down.
“Leah, rest. I have to get help.”
Now panic set in. Her fingers dug into his coat. “Can’t leave. Too late. Don’t leave.”
He covered her hands with his own, trying to calm her. Her hands were no longer lotion soft but callused by work. Hard work. “Where is your husband, Leah? He will want to be here.”
“Oh, Devon.” Her voice sounded sad. She released her hold, turned her head away from him. “I have no husband.”
She said the words so softly that he almost hadn’t heard them. No husband. He nodded, concern mixing with a strange, elated relief.
“I’ll get help.” He started to leave.
Her hand gripped his. “No! Stay.”
“Leah—”
“Please—” Her protest was cut short by the next contraction. It doubled her up. Her knees bent, and she cried out in pain.
He couldn’t panic, he warned himself. Women had been having babies for centuries. It was natural, a force of nature. It was also damn scary.
And in spite of his fear, he couldn’t help but wonder who the father was.
A middle-aged woman with an ample bosom, dressed in black from head to toe, wandered in the front door. “Good heavens, why did she leave the door wide open?” Her apple cheeks flushed with indignation. “Where’s Leah? Has she no sense?”
She was talking to a young man who shared her same fair coloring. “Mother, I wish you’d leave her alone—”
His words were interrupted by his mother’s sharp cry of surprise upon seeing Devon. She raised her prayer book protectively in front of her.
Her son stiffened at the sight of Devon, but then his gaze slid to Leah on the bed. He cried out her name and started to move for her.
His mother stopped him by grabbing his arm. “What are you doing in my bed, missy? And who are you?” she demanded of Devon.
Leah started to rise, but Devon placed his hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.
“You don’t understand—” Leah protested to him, but he shushed her.
Facing the woman and her son, he announced, “I am the Viscount Huxhold.”
The woman’s blue eyes went wide, and she clasped her leather prayer book to her chest. “Huxhold!” She was obviously familiar with the name.
Devon couldn’t resist sending Leah a rueful smile. There were advantages to having a shocking reputation. He rarely had to introduce himself twice.
“Please, Devon,” Leah begged. “I must move from Mrs. Pitney’s bed.”
Devon ignored her. “She’s having the baby,” he informed Mrs. Pitney and son.
“Well, she can’t have it there,” Mrs. Pitney replied briskly. “That’s my bed.”
“Mother!”
“Oh, Adam, can’t you see what is plain as the nose on your face? She’s one of Huxhold’s doxies. They say he has bastards from here to Cornwall. He’s come to claim the child. And he can hie her off to another bed as far as I’m concerned!”
Adam jerked at her words as if they’d physically assaulted him. “Is that true?” he said to Devon. “Did you do this to Leah and abandon her?”
A denial was on the tip of Devon’s tongue, but then he looked into the young pup’s eyes and
hesitated. Adam was in love. He would fight Devon for Leah. He was ready to champion her.
There was only one way to dismiss the lad’s adoration. “Yes,” he answered.
“No,” Leah corrected, but Mrs. Pitney drowned her out.
“See?” she said to her son. “I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen. All you could see was her pretty face.”
Adam was in no mood to hear his mother crow—and Devon almost felt sorry for him. The lad had been planted a facer. Love hurt. Especially loving Leah. Devon knew that firsthand.
Leah might have challenged the claim, but another pain took hold of her body. She cried out.
“She must have help,” Devon said. “Mrs. Pitney, do you know about childbirth?”
“Not a thing!”
“What about a midwife?”
“Wait a minute!” she snapped. “That’s my bed. She can’t have the child in my bed. It’ll muss the sheets.”
Her son rounded on her. “What do you expect, Mother? That she have the baby out in the stable?”
“I don’t care. I wish you’d never brought her here, Adam. Then you’d already be married to the miller’s daughter. As it is, your chances may be ruined!”
Devon reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his money purse. He tossed it at Mrs. Pitney’s feet, where it landed with a heavy thunk. “There. You can purchase a wagonload of beds with it. Now go fetch the midwife.”
“Well, I never—” she started to say even while she bent to retrieve the purse. She caught her son frowning at her. “I’m not wrong for wanting my bed. She’s just the farm girl.”
Adam frowned in silent disapproval. His mother made an impatient sound, clutching Devon’s purse tightly. “I can see you won’t listen to me. Well, then have it your way. I’ll be over at your aunt Lisbeth’s. Come fetch me when the brat is born and she is out of my house. I’ll not have her here a day longer than necessary.” She flounced out the door and was gone in a blink.
Adam stood in the middle of the room, staring at the door. Devon doubted if the lad had ever gainsaid his old goat of a mother.
Leah moaned, bringing Devon’s attention back to her. He stepped back into the bedroom and rested his hand on her brow. Cold sweat covered her skin. Her breathing was shallow.
“Is she all right?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know,” Devon answered candidly. “Is there a midwife available?”
“Yes, Old Edith. Leah has talked to her several times.”
“Is she close by?”
“Only through the woods and around the far hill. Maybe a fifteen-minute walk.”
“Use the horse by the door. Bring her here.”
Devon didn’t have to say it twice. Adam started for the door.
Devon called after him, “Be careful. The animal has thrown a shoe. Don’t push him.”
Adam nodded, but at the door, he paused. “I love her.” He stood waiting as if expecting Devon to challenge him.
When Devon didn’t answer, the lad left.
Devon wasn’t certain Leah had heard Adam’s declaration. Her eyes were closed, her focus on the life inside her. Devon sat on the edge of the bed and, taking her hand in his own, rubbed the tender skin of her wrist with his thumb.
Her eyes opened. “Devon, I’m afraid. I don’t want to lose my baby.”
“It’s going to be all right, Leah. I’ll make it all right.”
His words seemed to reassure her. She relaxed slightly, staring at some distant point in the room, anticipating the next wave of pain.
Even in the throes of labor, and after all that had happened between them, she still attracted him.
Devon wasn’t surprised Adam had fallen under her spell. He, too, had been that foolish once, but that was the past.
He was wiser now.
The midwife, Old Edith, was a Scotswoman and one of the ugliest people Devon had ever met. Her pushed-in face looked as if someone had punched her and left the fist mark. She had more hair on her upper lip than she did on her head, but he could have kissed her when she entered the bedroom, dropped her canvas bag of supplies onto the floor, and, with calm authority, ordered him out.
He gave Leah’s hand one last reassuring squeeze and then hurried into the other room, where Adam waited in white-faced silence.
Each man took an opposing corner of the sitting room. The bedroom didn’t have a door. Only a curtain of off-white homespun separated the two rooms, so Leah’s soft cry as the midwife examined her was all too clearly heard.
When Devon had been in there, he’d managed to calm her a bit. He’d reasoned that she had to ease into the pain. To try and relax. And it had seemed to work. But now she sounded as if once again she was lost in the tempest of pain and fear.
“Is the baby really yours?”
Adam’s young voice intruded on Devon’s thoughts. Almost as an afterthought, the young pup added “my lord?” in a less than respectful voice.
Devon considered his rival. Leah could do far worse. Adam was maybe twenty, stocky of build, with golden brown hair and eyes green with jealousy. Devon had no intention of answering him. One of the few perquisites to being a viscount was the fact that one didn’t have to answer to inferiors. It wasn’t a game Devon played often, but he could when he wished.
Adam’s face flushed a bright red as the silence stretched between them. His fists clenched.
Devon silently dared him to try it. He wouldn’t mind a good mill to take the edge off this moment.
Suddenly, the curtain was flung back from the bedroom door. Old Edith stepped into the room. She instinctively noticed the animosity in the room. Her glance flicked to first one, and then to the other.
She spoke, her Scottish burr thick. “Adam, where is your mother?”
“She left.”
“To your aunt’s?”
Adam nodded.
“Good, you go there too,” the woman ordered. “I will send word when the lass drops the babe.”
“But, I don’t—”
“Adam, I don’t need you here.” Her words were sharper than any admiral’s command. “You are in the way. Begone.”
He shot a frustrated look in Devon’s direction. “What about him?”
In the other room, Leah moaned softly, a moan that ended with her whispering Devon’s name. The sound of it hung in the air a moment. Adam had his answer. He abruptly turned on his heel, threw open the door, and left the cottage.
Devon crossed to the door and firmly shut it behind him, but not before he noticed the sky had grown darker, the clouds more ominous. The air let in through the open door chilled him to the bone.
Old Edith moved to the fire. Kneeling, she began to build it up. “We need boiling water.”
“I’ll fetch it.”
“The bucket’s over there.” She nodded to the wooden pail by the door.
Glad to have something to do, Devon started to cross the room when Old Edith’s voice stopped him.
“The lass’s labor is not normal. Something happened to set it off.” It was not a question but a statement, and yet Devon knew she was asking him what he had done.
He went very still. In his mind he could see the image of Leah falling, hear the sound of her body hitting the frozen earth. “Will she be all right?” His voice was almost that of a stranger.
Old Edith sat back on her haunches. “That’s not for me to decide. It’s in God’s hands now, but it will not be easy for her. She may lose the bairn.”
Coldness gripped his heart. “And her? Could we lose her?”
“Birthing is always dangerous.”
If anything happened to Leah, Devon would never forgive himself. It wouldn’t be possible.
“I’ll get water,” he said stiffly.
“Aye.” She watched him open the door and then said, “Are you the father of her babe, my lord?”
Devon turned to her.
“Aye, I know who you are,” she said. Her squinty eyes seemed to bore right though him. “A fine friend of our
own Lord Ruskin you are. We’ve heard tales. Your name is well known.”
At that moment, Leah called for him.
Old Edith’s lips twisted into a grim smile. “Auch, she needs us. You’d best get that water and then wait out in the other room. It will be a long night.”
Numbly, Devon went to do her bidding.
CHAPTER 5
The first hour did not pass quickly. Or the second.
Devon had tossed his jacket and neckcloth onto the table. He was not a patient man. Waiting did not suit him. He paced the perimeter of the outer room, listening to Leah’s soft moans in the bedroom and worrying. And it did not sound as if Leah was coming closer to having the baby. The pains were not steady and regular.
This was his fault. He shouldn’t have chased her. He didn’t even understand why he’d done so.
When he thought he heard her call his name, he decided he had had enough. Impetuously, he flung back the curtain.
Old Edith sat on the far end of the bed. Leah lay on her side, her legs bent, her eyes shut. She was naked save for the sheet covering her body. Her arms hugged her belly protectively. She appeared oblivious to the world around her, concentrating completely on the child struggling for life.
“There must be something I can do,” he said almost desperately. “We can’t just let her keep on like that hour after hour.”
“Have you ever been in a birthing room, my lord?” Old Edith asked bluntly. “It takes time. The babe comes when it is ready. It knows no clock but its own. Your only choice is to leave us be and wait.”
She might have had her way, except Leah opened her eyes. She reached out with one hand. “Devon.”
He hooked back the curtain and knelt beside the bed to take her hand. “Dear God, Leah, I’m sorry. So very, very sorry.”
Another pain started to build. She cried out, her body tensing reflexively to the pain.
Modesty be damned. Devon slipped his arm beneath her shoulders and began coaching as he had before the midwife had arrived. Leah had seemed to be doing better then. “Try and relax, Leah. Don’t fight it.”
A Scandalous Marriage Page 6