Emotions tripped through him, ripping him apart, destroying his ability to think with anything that resembled rationality. He was confused, lost. The voices in his head taunted him like hecklers jeering the actors in Drury Lane.
Broughton and the Darnby chit have been keeping secrets from you. Over and over again, he heard his father’s gravelly voice. The phrase was now like a goddamned mantra in his mind.
“So you refuse to tell me?” he asked incredulously. “I am not meant to learn of my child’s fate, is that it? I have no rights?”
“If you would only hear me—”
“Oh, I hear you. I am to have no rights because I betrayed you, because you deem me worthless because of the opium. I am meant to have no heart, to not give a damn that my daughter is somewhere out in the world, and I was never meant to know about her. What do you think I am, Anais? A monster? Did you think I wouldn’t care? Did you think to hide this from me…forever?”
“Garrett said—” She stopped, shook her head.
“Garrett said what?”
She would not answer him, leaving him to reflect on everything he had learned. “What is done is done, Lindsay. There is no return, for either of us.”
Thank you, Garrett. Thank you for everything… Anais’s words to Broughton at the cottage came to him. His head snapped up and he searched Anais’s face, dread dawning in his mind as the clues rushed in like high tide, overwhelming him as wave after wave of realizations came rushing in his mind, sucking him under until he thought he would drown.
Traveling so far and so close to your day, Mrs. Middleton, and in such weather?
She was born early, neither of us expected, that is, er…well, Robert was with me you see…
We have a tie that binds us, Anais. A tie that binds forever….
He thought of Margaret Middleton’s unease that night in the salon when he peered down at her child. Remembered the shared look of uncertainty that flashed between Middleton and his wife. Had Anais looked nervous? Had she even looked at the child?
The thought just wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t shake it, and the longer he thought about it—about the injustice, the impotence of the whole thing, he became angrier and angrier, until he saw only red and roared, “You gave my daughter to Robert Middleton and his wife!”
She did not need to say anything. The shock and mortification on her face told him what he needed to know and he staggered back, far away from her. The heel of his boot hit the edge of the bed and he fell against the mattress, shocked, sickened.
“Let me explain,” she said, rallying her spirits.
He looked up at her through a blurred cloud—tears. He had not openly wept since he’d been a beardless boy. Mist had gathered in his eyes the morning he awoke after his betrayal of Anais—he had snuffed the tears with opium. He had always killed the pain with opium. But he didn’t have the opium now—he didn’t have its safety infusing his veins. He was on his own—alone to suffer through this gut-wrenching agony.
“Lindsay, please hear me,” she pleaded as tears streaked down her cheeks.
“You gave my child—my daughter—away,” he mumbled, his voice filled with disbelief. And suddenly he could not look at her. Could not stand to be near her.
Jumping up from the bed, he stalked to the door, his long legs hungrily eating up the space between the bed and the door.
“Where are you going?” she cried, running for him, preventing him from grasping the doorknob by clinging wildly to his hand. He brushed her puny attempts aside and flung the door wide-open—hard—so hard it reverberated against the wall, sending a picture crashing to the floor. Lindsay bolted into the hall, shaking her grasping hands from his shoulders.
“Don’t do this, you will ruin everything.”
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned slowly on his heel to look up at her. He had left her standing in her chemise and stockings at the top of the stairs. As he looked up at her, nothing but pain coursed in his blood.
“No, Anais,” he said, pointing his finger in the air. “You have ruined everything.”
Within minutes, Lindsay left the house for the stables. Furiously, his fingers maneuvered the bridle and bit into Sultan’s mouth. Seconds later the Arabian was saddled and charging out the stable doors.
It was twilight. Lindsay ran the stallion hard through the snowy paths in the woods, heedless of the low-hanging branches and the patches of ice that littered the twisting paths. The beating of hooves pounding on the packed snow and the rhythmic grunts from deep within the Arabian’s heaving chest filled Lindsay’s ears, driving out the other thoughts that were threatening to turn him into a raving lunatic.
Anger drove him on, and harder he ran his mount, his body now one with the stallion as he guided Sultan with ease through the winding curves until they cleared the trees and Broughton’s estates loomed ahead of them. Pushing Sultan on, Lindsay bent low over the saddle, his greatcoat whipping violently behind him as the stallion’s long legs devoured the remaining distance. The animal’s snorting, heavy breaths rushed out of its flaring nostrils, painting the darkening night air in gray clouds.
“Walk him,” he ordered in a chilling voice as he brought Sultan to a prancing halt and tossed his reins to a servant in Broughton’s stable yard.
Pulling his gloves from his hands, Lindsay stalked with ruthless determination up the stairs of The Lodge and let himself in. Sands, Broughton’s butler, in the midst of reaching for the door latch, shrieked in surprise, but recovered with aplomb, masking his shock and distaste behind an inscrutable mask of propriety.
“Oh, good evening, my lord. It is good to see you again.”
Sands studied him from the top of his windblown hair to his chest, which was covered in only a shirt and an open greatcoat. With an arch of a haughty brow, the servant raised his gaze. “You appear to have forgotten to dress for tonight’s dinner, my lord.”
“Where is Broughton?” he growled, slapping his gloves down atop the hall table. He didn’t wait for Sands to assist him with his coat. Instead, Lindsay tossed it atop his gloves before turning his head and glaring at the servant. “Get him. We have business.”
Sands swallowed hard and blinked back his surprise. “I’m afraid his lordship is busy at the moment. He has asked not to be disturbed.”
“Out of my way. I’ll announce myself.”
With his boots ringing on the marble tiles, Lindsay made his way to Broughton’s study. Trying the knob, he found it locked. “Broughton,” he snarled after pounding his fist against the wood. “Broughton, open up this goddamned door! Now!”
“I am busy at the moment,” came the cool, controlled response.
With a vicious kick, Lindsay rammed the toe of his boot beneath the door and tried to shoulder it open. It didn’t budge. Red mist gathered behind his eyes until all he saw before him was rage. “I said open this goddamned door or every servant in this house will be privy to what I have to say!”
Lindsay’s fist was poised to strike the door again when it suddenly opened. Barging through, he found Broughton standing in the middle of the room, eyeing him with open hauteur.
Everything inside Lindsay went to hell. Charging in like a snarling bull, he went to Broughton, prepared to slam his fist in his face. “You goddamned bastard,” he snarled, breathless with rage. “I’ll kill you for this.”
“Shut the door, Raeburn,” Broughton snapped as he walked around his desk.
“You stole her. You stole my daughter.”
“So you did find out, did you? How did you decipher it all, when your head is usually filled with opium?”
“I’m going to let you live long enough to tell me all I want to know, and then,” Lindsay said with frigid preciseness, “I’m going to gut you and make you suffer for what you have done.”
Broughton’s lips turned into a half smile and he turned away, giving Lindsay his back. “What have I done that is so abhorrent? I saved Anais from certain shame and humiliation. I saved the babe and gav
e her a home in which she will be safe and loved and have a prominent place in society. So tell me,” Broughton roared, whirling on him, “why am I the damned villain when you have done nothing but frig off to the ends of the world while I was cleaning up your mistake?”
“Shut your mouth!” Lindsay ground out through set teeth. “The conception of that child was not a mistake, damn you!”
Broughton stepped forward. “Where were you, Raeburn, when she was throwing up every morning? Where were you when Anais was out in the garden weeping because she was alone and with child and so close to having her secret discovered? Where were you when Anais needed someone to help her plan for her and the child’s future? I’ll tell you where, you were nowhere to be found. You were off with your opium and your pipe. And I was here to pick up the pieces. Here to console a woman you left pregnant. Here to protect the reputation of a friend.”
“I was in France, searching for her.”
“She wasn’t bloody in France, was she?” Broughton shot back. “She was here all along, where you left her, pregnant with your child.”
Broughton was a liar. Anais had told him she had gone to France. He had told her that he had followed her there. Unless of course, going to France was just another one of her lies.
“I told you to have a care for her, but you knew better. You and your damn opium—”
“My bad choices do not give you the right to do what you’ve done. You gave my child to your brother.”
“That’s right. I would have taken the babe for mine,” he taunted, and smiled when Lindsay’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, that’s right. I wanted to marry her, even if that meant claiming your son as the next Earl of Broughton. I was prepared to give your babe more than my surname, I was prepared to bequeath him my title. But she wouldn’t marry me. Even though you had betrayed her with Rebecca and left, leaving her with child. Even though it became more and more apparent that you would not return before the child was born, she still remained faithful, hoping against hope that you would come back and do the right thing.”
“I didn’t know!”
“Why didn’t you write? I went nearly every day to Eden Park to see if you had written your mother. I was hoping that you would have at least notified her of your where abouts. I had every intention of writing to you then, to tell you of Anais’s condition. But you were too damn busy indulging in your addiction to bother putting a quill to paper. Every day, Raeburn, I made the trek to your home to inquire whether or not someone had learned of your whereabouts. Every damn day I had to go back to Anais and tell her that there was still no news from you. And every day, I would try to reason with her. Would try to make her see that marrying me and allowing me to give the child the protection of my name was the right thing to do. But she could not do it. She loved you, despite it all. Despite everything you’d done, she could not bring herself to love me enough to marry me. Instead, she wept and pined for a selfish prick that got what he wanted from her and dithered with her friend the first chance he got.”
Guilt, shame, reality began to override his anger. “You did this to spite me! You did this to revenge yourself upon me. You always wanted her for yourself and now you’ve found a way to bind her to you.”
“She won’t have me!” Broughton fisted his hands at his sides. “I bet you take delight in the fact, don’t you? I wager you love knowing that despite everything I’ve done for her, she still cannot bring herself to marry me. Oh, she clings to the story that it’s uncertain if she will ever bear another child. She tries to make me believe she is thinking of me and my heir, but I know that she uses that excuse as a crutch, a way to keep me at arm’s length.”
“Regardless, you still betrayed me.”
“It was about protecting Anais and the babe. It was never about you.”
“Where is the child?”
“Safe.”
“Where is she?” Lindsay roared.
“If you think you can stride in here and destroy everything I have worked hard to make right, then you are utterly mad. I will not let you simply take the babe from my brother and his wife. I will not let you harm that babe’s reputation, nor Anais’s. You’re too late, Raeburn, to claim your paternal rights. You should have done that months ago. You should have been enough of a man to offer marriage after you took her virginity in a goddamned stable. If you had, then none of this would be happening now.”
Lindsay shoved aside the niggling of guilt that pierced through his considerable anger. He did not need to explain himself to Broughton. He knew he had not intended to leave Anais with child. It had always been his plan to wed her—he’d never have spilled his seed in her if he had only been out to slake his lust. No, he was guilty of many things, but never of defiling Anais and leaving her to suffer alone.
“I will ask only once more, where is the child?”
“I am expecting company this evening. I’m afraid I will have to ask you to leave, Raeburn.”
“The hell you will dismiss me like I’m a bloody servant. You think this is a little matter you can sweep under the carpet? Well, I assure you, I won’t be going away.”
“What the devil is going on?”
Lindsay swung around and saw Robert Middleton standing in the doorway of the study. Middleton looked between Broughton and Lindsay. The ashen color of Middleton’s cheeks made Lindsay realize that Robert knew exactly what was going on between Broughton and him.
“I have come for my daughter,” Lindsay said in an utterly cold and demanding voice. A feminine sob sliced the taut quiet and Lindsay’s gaze narrowed as he saw Margaret Middleton cling to her husband’s arm. “Tell me where she is before I tear this house apart.”
“I’m not sure what you think—”
“I know you have taken my daughter from me,” Lindsay thundered. “I know you have given her your name. I also know that she will not spend another night in this house. Now, get out of my way.”
Shouldering past Middleton and his sobbing wife, Lindsay stalked across the hall and reached for the banister. Taking the stairs two at a time, he climbed the steps in pursuit of the nursery, heedless of the sounds of Broughton’s threats and Robert Middleton’s wife’s cries of despair.
“You cannot come into my home and threaten me, Raeburn,” Broughton called from the hall. “Furthermore, you cannot just search my home on a whim.”
“Watch me,” Lindsay grunted.
“He’s going to take her away, isn’t he?” Margaret Middleton sobbed into her lace handkerchief. “He’s going to take my baby.”
“Hush now, Margaret,” Robert whispered. “Hush now.”
“Get down here this second, Raeburn!”
He heard the pounding of Garrett’s boots on the stairs behind him, and he curled his fingers into fists at his sides. “Sod you.”
“Send the servants below stairs,” Robert ordered Broughton, “the less they hear the better. Margaret, compose yourself. Raeburn, a minute, if you please.”
Lindsay ignored Robert’s demand and instead headed down the hall, counting the doors, knowing the nursery was coming closer with every hurried step. In the end he needn’t have bothered to count, for the nursery door opened and an anxious-looking maid peeked out at him. She tried to close the door in his face, but he reached for the latch at the same time Robert Middleton clasped his wrist, stilling him from entering.
“A moment if you please, Raeburn.”
Unable to look at the man who was fathering his daughter, Lindsay instead made a grunt deep in his throat as he looked at the toe of his boot.
“The child is innocent. I hope you have not come up here in anger.”
“I have not come to hurt the child. Have you come up here to prevent me from seeing her?”
Robert released his hold and stepped back. “No, I have not. You have every right to see the babe. I trust, however, for the babe’s sake that we can keep our voices down and prevent the servants from overhearing us. It is not my pride or yours that concerns me now. It is the child’s future I
am worried about.”
“My anger is under control, Robert. You have my word I will do nothing to undermine the future of the babe. I only want some time alone with her.”
Robert nodded. “I understand. You only have to ring if you need something.”
“What I need is for you to keep Broughton and Anais away from me. I cannot imagine she will be stupid enough to follow me here, but she is desperate and desperation calls for many things. While my anger is under control now, I fear it will erupt if I have to face the two of them before I am ready. I know that I am to blame for much of this, my poor choices in life have got us here. But I am only human, Robert, and right now, right or wrong, I am livid with both of them. This punishment they have sentenced me with is, in my opinion, disproportionate to my crimes.”
“Raeburn, understand—”
“I ask for your understanding, Robert. Put yourself in my place. The woman you have loved your whole life has your child without your knowledge, she gives that child away to another man to raise, and you find out when it is too late to do anything about it. Tell me, how would you feel?”
Robert looked away and glanced down the stairs. “You are right. It is any man’s nightmare. But my wife, she’s distraught. You will have a care for her feelings also, won’t you?”
Lindsay allowed himself to see the woman who stood at the bottom of the stairs, clutching her handkerchief to her bosom. Her eyes were bright with tears, and when she saw him looking down at her, she burst into shrieking cries. He had left Anais looking much like this, crying and weeping.
What did they see, he wondered as the anger slowly left when they looked at him. A monster? A crazed lunatic?
What did he see looming before him?
Margaret Middleton looked up at him through her tears, and he realized what he saw. Finality. Resignation. The anger that had ruled him in Broughton’s study was gone, replaced by a haunting sense that he was looking at the end before it had really started. It was made all the more unbearable when he finally acknowledged that he had played a significant part in this painful tableau.
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