Douglas: Lord of Heartache (21 page)

“Better?”

To Gwen’s surprise, she was. Not as choked with fear, not as paralyzed. “A bit.”

Douglas sat up, swung his leg over her, helped her sit, and passed her a second handkerchief, this one sporting not even a monogram.

“I am mortified.”

“Terrified,” Douglas countered—accurately. He settled on the bed beside her, and Gwen could feel his mind clicking away, adding facts and supposition on an internal abacus.

“You won’t marry me because you are afraid you might be married?” he hazarded. “And any children you bore me would then be the legal issue of your first husband, Victor Windham, while he remains extant, and my union with you would make you a bigamist.”

How calmly he referred to a felony offense.

Douglas did not take her hand, did not wrap his arm around her, but his insight afforded a curious relief.
Sooner
or
later, we are given an opportunity to trust again.
Douglas was her opportunity, and Gwen did trust him.

“You may add that I have possibly inveigled you into an adulterous liaison—for which I apologize,” Gwen said.

“
If
you have a husband, then surely his apologies to you are the only ones that matter.”

I
love
you.
Gwen reached for Douglas’s hand rather than offer that sentiment now.

“You did not want to return to the shabby little chapel where the ceremony was held for fear word of your inquiry might get back to Victor, who seemed content to leave well enough alone, but you’ve always wondered about your marital status and Rose’s legitimacy. Victor has not married in the past six years?”

“I’ve watched the Society pages. He has not married or announced any engagements.” She hadn’t watched the Society pages, she’d read them religiously. “I took that as evidence Victor was also reluctant to commit bigamy.”

Douglas kissed Gwen’s knuckles in a manner she might have described as fierce. “Why do you believe the ceremony was genuine?”

“I saw the marriage lines, Douglas.” Gwen unclenched her free hand, which had wrinkled his handkerchief beyond hope. “I signed a registry, and I saw our names on something that looked like a special license.”

Douglas took a drink from Gwen’s glass. “Those things can be forged. A special license is merely writing on parchment with a seal attached.”

“They can be forged,” Gwen agreed, “but when Victor joined me in the morning, he told me in no uncertain terms I was going to make a poor wife for the rest of his life, I had about as much passion in me as a dead fish, begetting children on me was going to be more work than any man should have to endure, and so forth.”

Those spiteful words had wrought devastation at the time, though now they struck Gwen as petty and unimaginative.

“I’m sorry. Victor Windham was mean, stupid, and wrong.”

Given the utter conviction in Douglas’s tone, Gwen pitied Victor Windham should his path cross Douglas’s—and pity was one emotion she’d never thought to feel about any duke’s son.

“I know he was wrong—now—but until his brother showed up and rang a peal over his head, Victor behaved convincingly like a disgruntled bridegroom, when he could easily have told me we weren’t really married. He saved that revelation for when Gayle barged in and found me in tears, and Victor railing against the fate he’d consigned himself to.”

“Confusing at best,” Douglas mused. “If you are married to Victor, then it must be dealt with, Guinevere, but how you deal with it is up to you.”

“Douglas, if I’m married to him, I am his chattel, as is the produce of my body.”

“That is the law, but Rose is a girl, not a potential heir to anything, and you have at least four titled relations on your family tree, including present company, who would gladly take on Moreland over this. Then too, there may be issues of consent, validity of the documents, or other legal stratagems to consider. You were not of age.”

She’d not been of age, but she’d given her consent to the so-called minister, and had had no guardian at the time to protest in any case, making even consent a potential legal morass. Gwen wanted to kiss Douglas for his unequivocal support and to throttle him, because legal stratagems were tedious, expensive, and no match for a duke said to be among the most powerful men in the realm.

“I cannot stand to be that man’s wife. If Victor is the only Windham son to marry, then I could represent the sole means for a Moreland grandson to inherit the dukedom. I simply cannot abide the thought—”

Douglas kissed her into silence, but swiftly, distractedly.

And that might well be the last kiss they ever shared. Gwen fell silent and willed herself not to succumb to tears yet again.

***

Guinevere’s voice trailed off into miseries too numerous to count, and the situation was worse even than she knew. Douglas had spent enough time in the Lords to know that His Grace, Percival, the Duke of Moreland, was an old-school aristocrat, and worse yet, Moreland was an old-school aristocrat whose five sons—four extant—had not yet provided him a single grandchild.

As far as Douglas knew, none of Moreland’s progeny had married, and discovery of a grandchild, any grandchild at all, would likely bring out His Grace’s most autocratic, possessive streak.

Douglas gathered Guinevere closer and tried not to think about their proximity to Brighton and ships bound for all manner of exotic places. “We will ponder this development, Guinevere. You might well not be married to Victor Windham, or he might be willing to pursue an annulment if you are.”

“But you aren’t going to let me run from this, are you?” Guinevere’s head came to rest on his shoulder, a weary weight.

Douglas said nothing rather than admit that running right now was appallingly attractive, if dishonorable in the extreme.

“I won’t let myself run,” she muttered. “I’ve been hiding for six years. I cannot run for the next fifteen, too.”

“I thought not.” He could admit to neither relief nor disappointment at her decision. Of course she wouldn’t run, not when Rose might enjoy all the privileges of ducal progeny for the rest of her life.

“Hold me, Douglas. Please, hold me. I was hardly ready to part from you on any terms, and this, this…” She heaved a great, burdened sigh. “This development means I must acknowledge between us that a part of you was lost to me from our first meeting.”

As opposed to carrying that truth as a private burden. He weathered her bald sentiments as best he could, though “lost to me” rang with all the warmth of a death knell.

“Does it help at all,” Douglas said quietly, “to know my regard for you will never abate?” Nor would his desire for her, and for what they’d shared so briefly here at Linden.

“That assurance only makes me angrier.” An encouraging spark of rage shone through in her tone. “To think that Victor has taken the freedom to choose you from me, too.”

“And it angers me,” Douglas said, lacing his fingers through hers, “to have finally found a woman with whom so much that is good is possible for us both, and I might have to yield all this promise to another, and to one undeserving of the privilege.”

“I would never yield to Victor again the gift he has already spurned.” The spark of rage was catching in the tinder of Guinevere’s determination, and while that was a good thing, Douglas could not allow anger to guide her decisions exclusively.

“Death before dishonor, Guinevere?” He kissed her knuckles, as a knight might kiss his lady’s hand. “That would hardly serve Rose, now would it? Besides, we aren’t truly angry, are we? We’re merely hurt, disappointed, and just possibly, afraid.”

He recognized the fear because it was new and mightily unwelcome. Douglas had worried about the family finances, grieved his brothers’ passings, and resented his mother’s whining, but his only
fear
had been that his honor might not prove equal to his responsibilities.

That honor might require him to relinquish Guinevere to her lawful spouse evoked rage, bewilderment, grief and—fear.

“Douglas, I am so sorry. I thought—”

He put a finger to her lips. “Hush. You owe me no apologies, nor would I make any decisions differently had I known they led us to this moment, Guinevere. Were you free to accept me, you would still reject my suit?”

He should not have asked her, should not have sought selfish reassurances from her now of all times, but her answer mattered to him.

“No,” she said with weary conviction. “No, I would not reject you. I’d marry you and be joyous to do so and so grateful to you for the honor you did me. I’d be the best, most loving, most lovable wife to you and mother to our children this earth has ever seen. You deserve no less, Douglas, and I won’t dissemble to the contrary in hopes of sparing your feelings.”

“Well.” Reassurances, indeed. “That is something, isn’t it?”

He kissed her open hand before cradling her palm against his cheek and closing his eyes. She did not have the petal-smooth hands of the debutante; she had the hands of a woman who cared for the land and loved a child.

Even her hands were dear to him.

“So what shall we tell your family, Miss Hollister?” he asked without opening his eyes. “They will need some time to adjust to your news, and to snort and paw and threaten until their wives and sisters can appeal to their reason.”

“They will not understand.” She was certain of her conclusion, and miserable with it. “They will not understand why I would rather bring shame to the family, raise Rose as a bastard, and live the life of a fallen woman. They will not understand why I refuse to acknowledge the possibility of a marriage to the son of a duke. How can they?”

Douglas opened his eyes and stood so he was no longer touching the woman he loved.

“I disagree with you, my dear. When your cousins learn you were indeed ill used, lied to, and abandoned by the man who promised you his love and protection, it is Windham’s behavior they will not understand. Nor will they excuse themselves when they realize you needed their protection and they were too self-absorbed to offer it. Six years ago, both of your cousins were in England and unencumbered by a spouse or children.”

“But I lied to them,” Guinevere retorted, head bowed. “I hid Rose from them and carried on at Enfield as if I owned the property outright. They’ve been kind in the past year, but I have exceeded all bounds now. I am not their responsibility. I am Windham’s, if anyone’s.”

Damn it to bloody hell, the woman was using reason to torture herself. Had she perfected this skill on her own or acquired it from him?

“Windham has failed you, Guinevere, repeatedly, and failed his daughter as well. Is it so hard for you to accept that your cousins love you? They are decent men, and if they’ve kept a distance from you, it’s because you’ve demanded it, not because they disdain your company.”

He did not want to raise his voice so much as he wanted to weep. Guinevere went into his arms and turned her face into his shoulder, the feel of her in his embrace both a consolation and a torment.

“I shall tell my cousins the truth,” she said. “And if they have advice to offer, I will listen to it—ask for it, even. And if they have influence or stratagems to employ, I will thank them for that as well.”

“They don’t want your thanks, Guinevere,” Douglas said, feeling a faint thread of humor at how
determined
she was in her humility. “They want your love and your trust.”

She made no move to leave his arms. “Will you write to them for me?”

“I’ll draft something tonight. You can edit it before we post it tomorrow.”

“Thank you. How much longer can we stay here?”

That she put her question thus gratified, even as the answer rankled. “At least a week, I should think.” Douglas propped his chin on her crown, the better to consider their options. “I want time for this letter to reach your family. I want time to accustom myself to the situation and its ramifications.”

“You want time to grieve.”

Time to grieve with the only person who could share the loss.

When he did not argue with her, Guinevere went on speaking. “Unless all my suspicions are ungrounded—the wedding was a sham, Victor knows nothing of Rose, he seeks nothing of meaning from me or Rose—you and I will have to become those polite strangers to each other, nodding cordially at the occasional family function. And some day, I will see you marry another woman, a woman who can give you legitimate heirs.”

The dispassion in her tone cut him to the bone, and the accuracy of her prediction tore at his heart. She was a strong woman, an indomitable woman who had already borne far too much loneliness and hardship with too little support. If because of him her heart was broken yet again, Douglas was not sure his reason would survive.

“Hush,” he said, kissing her temple. “Just hush, and someday I will tell you all you have given me.”

He tugged on her hand until she was again seated next to him on the bed, then he shifted so his back rested against the headboard, and tucked her against his side. She fell asleep there, her head on his shoulder, while he stared at the afternoon shadows advancing across the ceiling.

And thought.

***

“Good God.” Andrew blew out a breath as he passed Gwen’s letter to Fairly. “When Gwennie decides to disclose, she doesn’t spare one’s sensibilities. Our Rose could be the legitimate granddaughter of a duke.”

Harsh wintry light came through the windows of the Enfield study, falling on a bedraggled bouquet of yellow asters on the sideboard. Andrew’s inclination was to set the whole arrangement on the table in the hall for some obliging footman to deal with, but how did one even move such a thing without creating a worse mess?

“And Rose’s mother,” Heathgate added, scowling over by the hearth, “could be the object of the duke’s ire. Moreland takes the protection of family, particularly his womenfolk, seriously.”

Fairly lounged against the estate desk and scanned the letter. “I should think Moreland might be protective of Gwen, given how Victor comported himself.”

“He might,” Heathgate allowed, swiping a finger along the mantel as if examining the premises for dust. “The best Gwen can hope for is that she’ll be permitted to continue raising her daughter on the Moreland property of the duke’s choice. And Moreland will have no patience for a wife who doesn’t tolerate her husband’s attentions. His other surviving sons are not married, and there is doubt the youngest ever will. Gwen is the only broodmare in the ducal stable at this point.”