“I feel responsible, because I knew about it and agreed not to pass it on to Fanny,” George admitted thoughtfully.
Rake nodded in agreement. “I feel stupid. Love solves everything… Ha! Bloody hell, I never thought it would come to this. Sorry.”
Rake’s last word was addressed to Caroline, whose look of rage at Rake’s obvious lack of faith in love might have shriveled a turnip. George, who sometimes was as sensitive as a stone, didn’t see his wife’s reaction to Rake’s words. Instead, he agreed heartily, and two seconds later a pillow smacked him in the face.
“What?” He frowned at Fanny, who had thrown the pillow.
“Exactly,” she gritted between her teeth. “What?”
This time it was George who looked befuddled, so his younger brother asked the question, “What what?”
Caroline rolled her eyes. Sometimes she wondered why women found these Darling men attractive at all, even though she should know, as she was married to one of them and had been for more than twenty years. Sometimes they were too ignorant for their own good, and they certainly lived their lives without reading between the lines, ever. Men.
Fanny stood and went to her father, not masking her frustration. “What are you two talking about? What is it you knew about?”
“Oh,” George said forlornly, finally understanding what his daughter wanted to know. “Nothing special, just something I found out about Devlin, something not known to many.”
“Not many know at all,” Rake said reassuringly, rushing to his brother’s defense. “Just I and George know about it. And Saxton too, of course.”
Caroline looked astonished at him. “My father?” she shrilled. “How can he know? I know he knows a lot about many persons, but this kind of information is hardly of any importance to him, if not…”
She turned quiet, and covered her mouth with her hand. “Don’t tell me Devlin’s a dangerous enemy to the country!”
“For goodness’ sake, Caroline,” her husband said, aghast. “Don’t you have more confidence in your own father than to believe he would have let his beloved granddaughter marry someone he knew—or believed to be—an evil person?”
Caroline blushed prettily, feeling rather stupid. “Of course he wouldn’t.”
“Devlin is one of Grand-Papa’s men, or at least he was before he returned to England,” Fanny enlightened her mother. “And as he was one of Basil’s Boys, I guess Grand-Papa needed to know as much as possible about him.”
Caroline walked over to her husband, and slapped his arm. “Don’t you ever make me believe something that vile about my father again.”
George stared in astonishment at his wife, who in his eyes was behaving rather ridiculously, but he had clearly learnt his lesson and didn’t say a word. Instead, he looked at his daughter’s puffy eyes and gave her a loving smile.
“Fanny, my dearest,” he said slowly, “you know Devlin had a pretty bad childhood?”
“Yes I do.”
“When you grow up with someone who is as wickedly evil as Conan Ross was, you can’t help but become somewhat unbelieving in yourself, and in love. Well, Devlin decided a long time ago never to have any children, because he didn’t want his bloodline to continue.”
“But why did he marry me then? It mustn’t be such a big surprise to him, how babies are made.”
Rake couldn’t hold back his laughter, but a single look from Caroline cut it straight off.
“As Devlin grew older, he became wiser, and he decided he wanted an heir. The dukedom of Hereford is old, and as the dukes before Conan had been great men, he felt he couldn’t end their greatness because of one bad seed. So he decided to find a wife who would make a good mother, and who would be well protected by her family. Such a woman could give him an heir and then raise the child, or children, with her family, and thus he would make sure the family bloodline would continue, without Conan’s evilness influencing them.”
Fanny looked at her father. What was he talking about? “How on earth can a dead man influence the living who never met him?”
“Through Devlin,” Caroline filled in softly, as she began to understand what George was trying to tell them.
“But it is such an insane idea,” Fanny objected. “Devlin is not like his father, and he would never behave in such a selfish and destructive way.”
“Devlin don’t think it’s insane,” Rake said. “For him, who lived under the rule of his father, it
is
possible. You must understand Conan wasn’t a man who abused people physically, because he never laid a hand on Devlin. No, he abused him mentally, always telling him he was no good, that he would never be worth anything. Devlin grew up hearing all about how worthless he was, and how no one wanted him. He admitted to me once that the old man hadn’t told him his mother died. Instead, Conan kept telling Devlin his mother left him because she didn’t want him.”
Tears ran down Fanny’s cheeks as she listened. How she wished Devlin were still there, so she could wrap herself around him and tell him how much she loved him, again and again, until he knew she would never leave him.
How could a father do such a thing to his own son?
“So you see, my dear,” George said gently, “Devlin has removed himself from you and the child you are carrying so he won’t have any effect on the child’s upbringing. He wants the child to be happy and strong, and because of his father, he thinks that can only happen if he stays out of the picture.”
“How can he do this to me?” Fanny cried. “How can he leave me alone, and think I will be happier when he’s not around? I can’t believe he is doing this—and what is worse, I can’t believe I thought he loved me.”
“He does.”
Fanny snorted. “No, he doesn’t. If he did, he would be here telling me how happy he is over the baby, and how much he loves me. But instead he sneaked away during the night, because he couldn’t even face me.”
She walked over to the window, turning her back to her family. “You know what he said when I told him about the baby? He only told me it was too soon. As far as I am concerned, this is not what a man tells his wife when he finds out she is carrying his child.”
Rake strode to Fanny and grabbed her arms, forcing her to look at him. “Don’t you get it, Fanny? He loves you.”
She shook her head, unable to speak.
“He said it was too soon, you say. And what do you think he meant?”
When Fanny still didn’t speak, he caressed her face softly and gave her a sweet, uplifting smile.
“Think about it from his side. Here you have a man who has decided never to make a child suffer like he did as a youngster. How can he do that, since he must have a child to carry on the title? He promises himself not to influence his child badly in any way. And the best way to accomplish this, he decides, is by staying away. But then he meets you, and you know as well as I he fell head over heels in love with you. He couldn’t stay away from you, not even for a single day. He must have thought he’d died and gone to heaven, because he found himself in love with the woman who was the perfect essence of what he had wished for in his future wife. You are such a strong person, and you love with all your heart. And besides this, you have a large and caring family. What he never thought about was that by marrying you he did the dumbest thing he ever had done.”
“Now, wait a minute.” Fanny frowned. “How can you say he was dumb to marry me? I thought you just said I was his perfect woman?”
“Because marrying a woman who was perfect in every way, but whom he didn’t love, would have made much more sense, because such a woman would have been very easy for him to leave and stay away from. But instead he met you, fell madly in love with you, and married you. He probably didn’t think about babies at all, being too caught up in his married bliss. And then you threw his whole world around by admitting to him you’re pregnant, and what did he tell you?”
“That it was too soon,” Fanny repeated slowly, finally understanding what Rake was talking about. Lord, she hadn’t thought about it in this way at all. His strange sadness hadn’t been over her being with child. No, he had been sad because she had become pregnant so soon. He wanted to spend more time with her, but because he had made this stupid promise to himself he had to leave her.
Caroline stood and clapped her hands, effectively interrupting her daughter’s thoughts. “So how do we fight this battle?”
“No, no,” George said nervously. “
We
are not going to fight any battle at all. The only thing to happen now is Fanny’s decision on what
she
will do about her missing husband.”
Caroline shut her mouth and gave him a kill-you-later look.
Fanny turned back to the window and looked at her own reflection in the glass. How much could she take? How far would her love for Devlin survive?
She sighed deeply.
Really far, she guessed, because she felt a great need to go and kick her stupid husband in the butt and never let him go again. But it was such an easy solution, and somehow she didn’t want it to be easy.
She wanted him to want her.
She wanted him to come to her and tell her he had been out of his mind believing he could live without her. If she went after him and made him return to her, she would never know if he wanted that or if he stayed only to make her happy.
And nor would he.
She could hear her parents whispering behind her back, and she knew she was lucky to have a family who cared so much for her, who would be there to help her get through this.
She turned back to them and gave them a little smile, and all three of them sighed, relieved.
Her mother came forward and grabbed her hands.
“What do you want to do?”
“Nothing,” Fanny said, and felt a sudden urge to giggle when she saw her mother’s astonishment. This was clearly not what they had expected her to say.
“Nothing?” Rake breathed.
“You have to forgive me, Fanny, but that sounds like a rather stupid plan for getting your husband back to your side,” her father said, a bit patronizing, but she forgave him for it. He wanted to help, and doing nothing wasn’t his way. He was a man of action.
“My first thought was to go after him and drag him home with me and live happily ever after.”
“Sounds perfect in my ears, so what’s the catch?” George said, as he crossed his arms over his chest. It was easy to tell he was trying very hard to be patient with her.
“I want him to want me.”
“But he does want you.” Rake frowned.
“I know now he wants me, but I want him to want to live with me.” She put her hands on her belly. “With us. And I want him to know that it’s by his own will.”
Caroline nodded slowly. “I see. But how will we make this happen?”
“Well, not from here. I must go to London and let him yearn for me a little first.”
“Ah,” Rake said, and nodded with a wicked smile. “This is a very good plan, sweet pea, and one that will work. I don’t think Devlin ever thought about how it would be to meet with you in the social swirl and have to watch you being admired by other men, without being able to interfere. I almost feel sorry for him.”
“Almost,” Fanny echoed.
Chapter 29
“I have never seen the tongues of the
ton
wagging as quickly as they are now.”
Devlin looked up from his lonely glass of brandy and met Bear’s probing gaze.
“Finally speaking to me again, are we? And here I was getting used to this wonderful solitude you put me into during these last couple of weeks.”
Bear shrugged. “I obviously can’t change your mind, so why bother to be mad at you for being a bloody stubborn fool?”
Devlin decided not to answer that. He was too relieved Bear was finally acknowledging him again.
After Fanny told him about the baby, Devlin had immediately ordered his things to be packed. Bear had been outraged to hear they were heading for London without Devlin’s wife, all because of, as he put it, his boss’s partial stupidity. He was so outraged he had spent the whole journey telling Devlin about it.
Devlin had endured his friend’s ranting until they reached Hereford House at Grosvenor Square, where he finally had lost his patience and told Bear to shut up. Bear had stared at him with disbelief at the harsh cut and had since not said a word.
“Please do tell me what the tongues are wagging so excitedly about now,” Devlin urged, even though he was well aware of the answer.
“Your missing duchess, of course. Or did you honestly think they wouldn’t notice how you returned to town by yourself? Your marriage was
the
happening of the Season, and everyone knew it was something as unfashionable as a marriage of love. And here you are alone, only a few weeks later, flirting wildly with every female you meet. Of course they wonder.”
Devlin frowned at his glass, not at all pleased to hear he was the subject of gossip. But what had he expected? Bear was right. His and Fanny’s love story had been the talk of the
ton
when it happened, as neither of them had bothered to hide their feelings.
Everyone had thought it would last forever, and, in the end, forever had turned out to be a mere fortnight.
He sighed, as the now familiar heartache burnt through his body. It had been weeks since he’d seen Fanny, and he was practically drowning in his own loneliness.
He missed her more than he had thought possible, but he would have to live with his misery, as he was just as determined as ever to continue with his mission of changing his father’s legacy.
“The rumors about you and your wife are actually quite amusing,” Bear continued. “Everyone wonders where your wife is, especially as not one of the Darling family has been seen anywhere.”
“Amusing? Really?”
“Oh, put that ironic face away,” Bear sneered. “They are amusing, as they are mostly about what you have done with your wife.”
Devlin arched an eyebrow, interested against his will. “So, what am I supposed to have done to her?”
“Well, one rumor says you killed her.”
“Oh, my God.” Devlin coughed. “Killed her? Are they out of their bloody minds?”