by Darcie Wilde
“Than his family had.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t let myself think about that. If I thought of anything, it was that I was helping make a future for Genevieve and Jeremy. They could do what they wanted. There’d be money for Jeremy to go to school, or take orders, or gain a commission. Genevieve could marry for love, or not marry at all.
“And Mr. Wakefield was a kind husband. He gave me plenty of money. He was glad to have me as his hostess. I tried very hard to keep his house in the style his station required. There was plenty of society. I even made friends with some other young wives.” She smiled again, but she knew the expression was, at best, wistful. “We called ourselves the Schoolroom Club.”
Harry swallowed. She touched his throat. He was stubbled. She would have to make sure he was more adequately barbered. If she had a right to make sure of anything regarding him after this. “I was even allowed to drive out in my own carriage. Elias was rather proud of my driving, and laughed at the matrons who were so scandalized. And the rest of it . . .”
“He wanted an heir,” said Harry.
“Very much. He came to me almost every night. He . . . mostly couldn’t complete the act. It wasn’t bad.” She whispered this. Shame crawled up her spine. But she couldn’t tell what that shame was for. If she had laid down for her other husband without desire, it was no more than thousands of wives must do without complaint. “He didn’t turn angry like some men. He just got sadder, and sadder. He even—” She bit her lip.
Harry waited. His hands spread against her back. He wasn’t pulling away. He wasn’t shuddering, or flinching in disgust. His gentle, steady touch gave her courage, if not hope. “He more or less gave me permission to have an affair. He said, ‘I know, Leannah, I’m no dream of young woman’s love. You know I wish for children. You should also know I will love, and care for any child that comes into this house.’”
She couldn’t go on. She was doing this all wrong. Harry would now think the worst of poor Elias, even though he had done nothing worse than want children, and feel guilty over having bought a young girl to try to get them. After the will was revealed, and she’d had time to reflect, she’d realized that everything Elias had given her, and her father, had been to try to assuage that guilt.
“He tried to let you know that if you got pregnant by some other man, he’d claim the child,” whispered Harry.
“I think he was hoping I’d do it. There were opportunities, but I just couldn’t. I thought about it. I was so ashamed. I didn’t know which way to turn. It was as if I was being disloyal by not having an affair.” She lifted her eyes to his. I watched them—the men in the ballrooms, the rakes and the Corinthians and the officers. I stared at them and hungered after them. I imagined them with me while Elias tried his best, but when it came to it, I couldn’t bring any of them to my bed.
How is it I can do this with you?
“You weren’t in love,” Harry said. Was he answering her words, or her thoughts?
“Perhaps. I don’t know. Anyway, after five years Elias died. Before that, though, Father had lost all the money. In the end, the only thing left was one piece of land, and some of my widow’s portion.”
“He settled nothing on you when you married?”
“Oh, quite a lot actually.”
“What happened to that?”
“I spent it, very shortly after I was widowed.”
“It was spent?” said Harry. “Not lost?”
“Oh, no. I know exactly where it went.”
She waited for him to ask where. But Harry’s face went still. A whole set of emotions flitted behind his blue eyes and Leannah found she couldn’t read any of them.
He will tell me good-bye, that it’s best we separate now. He will tell me it’s just for a little while, but he will say it all the same.
That, however, was not what he said. His hand squeezed hers, and he spoke slowly. “Leannah, are you with child now?”
So that was what his family and perhaps his friends had been saying. They said she had conceived a bastard more than a year after her husband had died, and now she had to cover it up. She must not be angry about it. It was only natural that they should suspect her.
“If I am with child, Harry, it happened yesterday.”
For a moment, Harry looked shaken. She couldn’t blame him for that, either. Until she said the words, she hadn’t truly considered it. She might very well be with child. They’d taken no precautions against the possibility. Harry laid his palm across her belly, and met her gaze. Leannah let the warmth of his touch spread across her stomach, up her torso, into her breasts, and her heart. What if it was true? What if inside her even now a baby was growing with steely blue eyes and fair hair? Wonder and fear shot through her veins.
“I may be cut off,” he said suddenly. “My father is afraid for me.”
Leannah remained silent for a long moment. This was warning, and it was test. It was bitter that it should have to be said at all, but it had to, just like the question about the child had to be asked. It was also, she knew, only the beginning, just as her confrontation with Mr. Valloy yesterday was only the beginning.
She could end this now. She knew how to do it. She could pull away from him at this moment. She could be the one to suggest they separate, just for a little while. Just until tempers cooled and his family was able to see things in a better light. He would think she was leaving him because he could not give her enough money. It would create the first crack in his feelings for her, and, given time, his family and friends could break that crack wide open.
But if there was a baby . . . No. She would not use the specter of a child to bind him to her, not if he did not wish to stay.
And she would not lie. Not yet.
As much as she could while lying on her side, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“I’ve been poor before, Harry. Probably poorer than you ever have. I know how to manage.”
Harry smiled. It was slow as sunrise and just as bright. It lit his eyes, and an answering warmth inside her.
I love that smile, she thought. I love this man. And she knew it to be true.
Harry’s hand slid beneath her jaw, lifting her face toward his. He kissed her. The desperation that made him rough was gone.
“I won’t let them take you away from me, Leannah,” he breathed. “Not so soon, and not without a fight.”
Should she tell him? Should she say it? No, not yet. It was too new. There was still so much that could go wrong. She would keep this much to herself, just for now, just in case. At the same time, she did not want to leave him doubting.
“We will fight them together, Harry,” she murmured in answer. “I don’t intend to lose you to anything less than the decision of your own heart.”
He kissed her again with the exquisite ease and warmth that gave her so much delight. She melted at once against him and lay warm and soft and still as his hands glided across her—her arms, her breasts, her thighs, and buttocks. He was learning her body, giving every inch of her his absolute attention. It was as if he knew what her words had cost her and now sought to soothe away all her doubt and worry.
Slowly she began to respond. She looped her wrists around his neck so she would not distress either of them about her injured hands. She opened her thighs so he could slip inside her. When he did, he did not move again for a long time. He simply held her against him, letting them be together as close as two people could ever be. Leannah drifted on a steady river of warmth, and when her pleasure did crest again, it was a soft ripple of feeling, enveloping her as gently as the light in her husband’s eyes.
Twenty-Eight
“You are going to insist on keeping them, aren’t you?”
Leannah and Harry lay in the bed, cuddled close in each other’s arms. Leannah ran her bandaged palm along her husband’s jawline, studying the sensation of the crisp, curling hairs of his sideburns against her sensitive skin.
“My whiskers?” Harry pushed himse
lf up a little higher on the bolsters. This attempt at putting on his dignity was rather spoiled by the fact that his broad chest was swaddled in lace coverlets and starched sheets. “I’ll have you know they are highly distinguished and the first stare of fashion.”
Morning had not only arrived, it had almost passed. After the passionate tempest of their reunion, they had both slept and woken easily. The lovemaking that followed was tender, teasing, and prolonged. Leannah convinced Harry to lie back on the bed and let her thoroughly explore his body with eyes and fingers and tongue. Only when she could stand it no longer did she straddle him, and together they settled him inside her so they could move in the dance of intimacy that was quickly becoming as necessary to her as breathing.
A breakfast had been ordered, but sat on the sideboard, almost entirely neglected, because when Harry reached across the table to hand her the marmalade, their fingertips had met. This, naturally, led to a long, exceptionally heated look between them, which in turn led to her rising from her chair to round the table and kiss him. This wifely gesture caused him to pull her down into his lap so he could kiss her back more conveniently, and slip his hands into her loosely tied wrapper to more thoroughly fondle her breasts and derriere. It was then, with Leannah straddling Harry’s lap, they discovered that the chair was not quite big enough or sturdy enough for her to ride him as she chose, so there had been nothing to do but return to the bed.
“Well, it could be worse, I suppose.” Leannah sighed and let her hand drift from Harry’s whiskers to his throat. She couldn’t get over the strength of him, the delight in each line and curve of his body. His form was spare, hard, entirely masculine, but there was a clean beauty to him that fascinated her. “You could be one of those men who goes through fifteen cravats in a morning trying to get the folds right.”
“I do thank you for your enthusiastic support, Mrs. Rayburn.”
“I am given to understand that there are many things a wife must suffer in silence.” To emphasize this point, Leannah rolled over on her back and laid her hand across her eyes.
In this private darkness, she heard her husband chuckle. She felt his now-familiar touch as he ran his hand down her shoulder to the swell of her breast. “Silence is not your primary characteristic, or so I’ve observed.” He took her hand away from her brow to kiss, and ran his thumb across her knuckles, and stopped. “Leannah, where’s the ring?”
Leannah stared at her bare hand, horrified.
After her meeting with Mr. Valloy, she had been too angry and too frightened to even remember the ring. She’d sat in the study for a long time. She’d been so lost in thought, she hadn’t even answered Genny’s soft knock. She had heard the hinges creak as the door opened, but she did not turn around. She just stayed as she was, standing with her arms folded staring out the window at the neighbor’s brick wall.
“Is everything all right, Leannah?” Genny asked.
“No, it is not all right.” She did not turn around then, either. “When has it ever been all right?”
“What did he say to you?”
“Nothing I did not already know.” She was being unreasonable. She should not be angry at her sister. It seemed she should never be angry at anyone. Except possibly Mr. Valloy. Oh, yes, she could be angry at Mr. Valloy. She just couldn’t tell anyone why.
“Please, Genny, leave me be.”
“I won’t,” said her sister stoutly. “You’re too upset.”
That had been the last straw. “I said leave me be! I have enough to contend with. I don’t need you twittering about pretending to be a grown woman!”
Genny had made no reply. Leannah had hung her head and listened to the sound of the hinges creaking once more as the door closed behind her. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. The house and the weight of her family, her past, her whole life pressed down on her. She could do nothing but run. She’d grabbed up cloak and bonnet from the peg in the hall and hurried from the house without a word to anyone. She’d had only one thought. She must reach Harry. She hadn’t once stopped to remember about the ring.
“I took it off before I went to talk with my father. I was hoping to cushion the blow. I must have . . . I left it with Genny.”
I should tell him about Mr. Valloy, she ordered herself. I can’t keep this from him.
But her tongue didn’t move and she couldn’t make it. There had been so many confessions to make in such a short time. Surely, this one could wait one more day, perhaps as much as a week. By then, if all went well, she would know what Mr. Valloy was really up to and she could lay it in front of Harry all at once.
None of this, however, stopped him from brushing his thumb across the bare place where his ring had been. But he smiled, and he lifted her hand and kissed it. “Did it work? Cushioning the blow, that is?”
“It’s difficult to say,” she admitted. “Father tried to take it easily.”
“Would my calling at your house make things better or worse, do you think?”
But I don’t want you to go there. I don’t want you to become part of all that trouble. I want you separate and safe. Of course she could not say that. “I think it will help set his mind at ease. Genny’s, too, of course, and you should meet Jeremy.” She paused. “When should we call on your parents?”
Harry’s expression turned grim, and the pain of it twisted under Leannah’s ribs. “Once they’ve all stopped being . . . stubborn.” Something of her feeling must have showed in her face, because Harry leaned across and kissed her brow. “Don’t worry. They’ll come around.” But she heard something else under those words. She heard him wondering what would happen if they didn’t.
Since she suspected Harry could no more answer that than she could, Leannah decided it was time to change the subject.
“If you’re quite done distracting me, Mr. Rayburn, perhaps we could proceed to breakfast? I have business to conduct yet today.” Mr. Valloy’s call yesterday made that business more vital than ever, but Leannah found she was not ready to talk about that, either.
“Me, distracting you, Mrs. Rayburn?” Harry drew back and favored her with a look of complete shock. “It was you who distracted me, you wanton minx!”
“What on earth did I do?”
“Only kissed me, like this.” He cupped her cheek with his palm as he brushed his lips across hers. “And this.” His tongue ran along the edges of her mouth, tasting and teasing and opening her again.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Like this.”
* * *
By the time they finally dressed and sat down again at the table, the breakfast had gone stone cold. They ignored the hardened eggs and chops under their congealed sauces in favor of muffins, marmalade, and butter. Now that they were both decently attired, they could safely summon Marshall and Lewis for necessities like fresh coffee.
“You said you had business today. What sort?” asked Harry as he poured Leannah a fresh cup of coffee and passed the milk.
“I sent a note to Meredith Langely asking her to call. I think you said you know the Langelys?”
“I know of them. I think I’ve met Miss Langely once or twice.”
“Meredith and I were at school together for a time. I mean to consult her on how we can create a proper—call it a debut—for us, as a married couple.” She tried not to see how he glanced at the place on her little finger where his ring used to be.
“Good. I shall be glad you have a friend with you.” He picked up his last bit of muffin and set it down again. “I should tell you that I’m going to interview my solicitor, and my banker, about a settlement.”
“Oh. Don’t you think it would be better to wait?”
“No, actually, I don’t.” There was steel in his words, but it was not for her. “I want this part of the business behind us.”
“Harry . . .” She hesitated. She did not want to ask this question. She certainly did not want to hear his answer, but she must. There were already enough secrets brimming in the air. “What happened when you
went home?”
“My family is angry,” he said simply, but he spoke more to his muffin than to her. “I also have a pair of, well, I’ll call them friends for lack of any other polite term, who are attempting to convince me you were a charlatan who is intent on swindling me out of my money.”
“They’re the ones who told you about my father, aren’t they?”
“Yes.” He stretched out his hand until their fingertips met, but this time there was no passion in the touch, only reassurance. “I know you would have given me a full account, had you been given the chance.”
Would I? Leannah ran her mind back over the past few days and all the hours she had spent with Harry, driving and dining and simply being together. It would have been the matter of a moment to lay out the bare facts of her father’s identity and her family’s most recent ruin. But she hadn’t.
“I should have done it right away,” she whispered. “I should have made you understand who you were really marrying.”
Now Harry did lift his gaze to meet hers. “I was really marrying the woman who abducted me on the road to Gretna.” He spoke the words calmly, steadily, but there was a warmth behind them. The same warmth glowed in his eyes. “The one who can handle a team like Athena in her chariot and who drives me right out of my mind each time I look at her.”
“That woman is Octavian Morehouse’s daughter.”
“And there’s nothing that can be done to change that. I won’t deceive you, Leannah. This is going to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I . . . my whole family is very worried. They do believe you ultimately intend to make a dupe of me.”
“Settling any of your money on me will do nothing to change that opinion.”
“No.” He took sip from his coffee cup, made a face, and reached for the pot. “But as I said, it will get this over with. People will be watching whenever the settlement happens. The sooner we show them there’s nothing to see, the sooner their attention will move on to other, more entertaining subjects.” He lifted the freshened cup and eyed her over the rim. “I see some doubt in those lovely eyes, Leannah.”