A Rogue for All Seasons (Weston Family) (40 page)

Linnet scrambled to her feet and hurriedly replaced the pot in the cabinet, but it was too late. He had seen just how much he’d upset her. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. She held out her hand to take it from him, but he ignored her. He wiped her brow, gently cupping her jaw with his free hand. Linnet trembled at his touch. It felt so right, even after all this time. She began to relax into him, and then she remembered and wrenched herself away from him.

His face tightened. “Wait here. I’ll return in a minute.”

“That’s not necessary. As soon as Diana has collected her things, we’ll be on our way.”

“We need to talk,” he insisted. “You must allow me—”

“There is nothing to talk about,” she snapped.

His voice was gentle as he asked, “Why did you come, Linny?”

She closed her eyes, fighting tears at hearing his pet name for her. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she whispered. There was no response, and when she opened her eyes, she saw she was alone in the room. She unlocked the door to the hall, as there was clearly little point in leaving it locked, and then sat on the needlepoint-covered bench beneath the window. She’d worked the piece herself in the first year of her marriage. Everywhere she looked, memories assaulted her. What had possessed her to come back to this place?

Thomas reentered the room, an apple in his hand. Without saying a word, he took a penknife from the escritoire, deftly sliced the fruit, and then walked over to hand her a piece. She thanked him and ate it, glad to remove the bitter taste of being sick. He’d done this for her every morning when she’d been sick in the early months of being pregnant with Diana and Alex. She hadn’t suffered from morning sickness during her last pregnancy. That should have been her first sign that all was not as it should be.

Her heart ached fiercely as it always did when she thought of the child she’d lost. The doctor had warned her that the baby was small, that the heartbeat was too fast. Strain on the mother’s body, he’d claimed, would weaken the child within her. She must keep her appetite up and not let herself get overexcited. She’d tried. She’d tried so hard, but she’d failed, and that failure had cost Linnet both her child and her husband. Her stomach churned, and she shook her head when Thomas offered her another apple slice. Had he done this for Claire’s mother, she wondered?

“How old is she?” The question slipped out of her mouth before she knew she was going to ask it.

He sighed, setting the apple and knife aside. “Claire is fifteen. After what happened at The Hall—” He rose and began to pace around the small room. “I went a little mad, I think. I drank to try to dull the pain. When that didn’t work, I drank more. I wasn’t drunk, Linnet. I was a drunkard. It was so bad that Bar took the key to the wine cellar from Ingham. I don’t know how I managed to ride to Newmarket without breaking my neck. Maybe it would have been better for everyone if I had. I went to the public house. There was a woman who worked there, a widow whose husband had been a trainer. Marjorie Crofter. She always smiled at me whenever I came in for a meal.” He swallowed before continuing in a broken voice. “I have no idea what I said to her. I know I kissed her, and I…” He took a deep breath. “I asked her to come upstairs with me—”

“Stop,” she begged.

“I didn’t want her, Linnet. I wanted to forget you, to stop hurting just for a little while. God help me, I don’t remember what happened next. I was alone when I woke up. I thought—I prayed—I had been unable and nothing had occurred.

“I was disgusted by myself, and even more horrified by what you must think of me if you learned what I had done, what I had become. I left what money I had on me in the room, came home, and vowed not to let another drop of alcohol pass my lips. And I haven’t, Linnet, I swear it to you.”

Linnet sat stiffly as he paced the small room, his expression tortured. She saw, in the lines on his face that had not been there before, how he must have struggled. Although he had hurt her, although he had rejected her, thrown away their marriage, she still ached to think of the pain he must have endured—alone. She had turned to her family, taken solace in Diana and Alex. He’d had no one. He had been slow to trust her, slow to trust his feelings for her, having been alone for so long.

“Marjorie left Newmarket a few months later. I avoided the place she worked, so I didn’t know until much later. I hadn’t heard from her for close to two years when I had a letter asking me to meet her in London. I knew—” He raked a hand through his hair, setting it on end. “Well, you saw her. There was no denying she was mine. I looked into that little face and knew I had a second chance. I offered to raise Claire, but Marjorie only wanted some money to leave London.

“With my help, she set up in Swaffham as my brother’s widow. I visited when I could, but when Claire was seven, Marjorie died of a wasting fever. I brought Claire here until I found a good girls’ school in Bury St. Edmunds where she could board. Everyone there—and most people here—believe she’s my niece.

“Claire knows the truth, and Bar must as well—my brother has been gone more than thirty years now—but they both understand the need for the pretense. She stays with a woman in Bury St. Edmunds and only visits here a few times each year. I never want to cause you hurt again, but I can’t regret her, Linny. She kept me sane, gave me something to live for. After what had happened at The Hall, I knew I had lost you—”

“You left me,” she corrected him in a shaky voice. “You left me, Thomas. I asked for you when I woke up and was told you were gone.”

“How could I stay?” he asked harshly, coming to stand before her. “How could I stay after—” His voice broke.

“I needed you,” she shouted, unable to control her anger. All the hurts of so many years had risen to the surface, and she couldn’t contain them any longer. She got to her feet, her entire body trembling with the emotion struggling to break free. “You were there. You knew what was happening, and you walked away. She was your daughter, too.” The tears spilled down her cheeks but she made no move to wipe them away. “Whatever you choose to believe, I swear by all that is holy, she was your—”

“Yes, she was my daughter,” he roared, a sound of such awful pain that Linnet flinched. “She was my daughter,” he repeated, this time in a choked whisper, “and I killed her. I killed her, and I nearly killed you as well. Oh, God, Linnet!” he cried, sinking to his knees. He pressed his face into her skirts and wrapped his arms around her as great sobs began to shake his big body.

For several moments, she was too stunned to move. She’d always believed so strongly that she was responsible for losing their baby. It had never occurred to her that Thomas might hold himself accountable. She couldn’t deny his anguish, though, or her need to soothe him.

“What happened was not your fault,” she said softly, stroking his hair as her own tears rained down on him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

She wept for the child they had lost. For shoulders that should have been cried on, but had stood apart, burdened with blame. For all the time she had endured without a single word from him. For the years she had needed him but had been too proud, too scared to try.

“Hush, now.” She leaned over to run her hands over his back, trying to calm him. “Don’t blame yourself. She wasn’t—” She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to remember the words she had used for Diana and Alex. “She wasn’t meant to be ours. I know it goes against what we’re taught, but I have to believe that her soul was born into another child, that someone needed her more.”

“If I hadn’t come— If I hadn’t upset you— Your mother was right to tell me to leave…”

She could barely make out the muffled words, but she understood his pain, and he was ripping her heart apart. “She was too small. I… I didn’t…” She faltered, not wanting to speak the words she knew would make him push her away. “I didn’t take care of myself as I should. I was too miserable, too weak, and I failed her.”

He raised his head at her words, his expression stricken. “No, Linnet!”

“I did. I failed her. I failed you. I failed Diana and Alex.”

He rose and enfolded her in his arms where she’d dreamed of being for so many long, lonely years. And now she was finally there, only to have learned that another woman had borne him a child when she had not been able. Had this other woman loved him?

Tall and handsome, Thomas had always attracted notice from women. Linnet had seen the covetous glances sent in his direction when she went with him into town to do a bit of shopping. He’d always laughed at her, claiming he had no interest in any invitations but hers. But he had gone to this woman, and she had taken him into her body. His seed had taken firm root in that woman’s womb, not hers. Had he loved her when she had presented him with his daughter? How could he not?

She held herself rigidly within the circle of his arms, crying from the pain tearing through her, worse by far than any physical pain she had ever endured. When she’d begun to lose her child, when she’d realized what was happening, she had been terrified and heartsick. She had clung to the knowledge of Thomas’s presence. Whatever happened, he had come for her. The doctor had told her he saw no reason she could not have another child. She had tempered her grief with the belief that, just as Thomas had come back to her, so too would the spirit of this babe.

And then she’d awakened to learn that he had left.

“He said he never should have come,” her mother had apologetically related in a tone that conveyed no regret whatsoever, “and he was quite right. Look what that man has done to you. To cause you such distress in your delicate condition—” she broke off, dabbing at her dry eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. “But then, what has he ever brought you other than pain? What has he brought any of us other than pain?”

“He is the father of my children, and there is no greater joy in my life than my children,” Linnet had told her with as much anger as she dared show.

“You must know I did not mean to overlook my dear grandchildren. I have every hope of making a splendid match for Diana, and the continuation of the family line may well fall to young Alexander. You and the children are better off here, with your own people. Now let us not speak on this any further. He has chosen to walk away, and in time you will accept that this is for the best, for you and the children.”

She had never accepted that Thomas’s leaving had been for the best, because it hadn’t been. Not for her children. Not for her. Thomas’s words earlier came back to her. She thought he’d said that her mother had told him to leave. Though it made Linnet ill, she had little difficulty imagining it.

What would her life have been like if her mother hadn’t driven Thomas away that day? She couldn’t place all the blame on her mother. Why hadn’t she found the courage to return to Swallowsdale before today? The past was the past, she told herself. What mattered now was the future. Did they have a future?

“This Marjorie… D-Did you love her?” she whispered, terrified to hear his answer.

He pulled back so he could look into her eyes. His big hands trembled as he cupped her cheeks, brushing her tears away with his thumbs. “I swear to you with all that I am: You are the only woman I have ever loved.”

A strangled, wounded sound escaped her throat. She wanted to speak, to tell him that he was the only man she’d ever loved, that she loved him still and always would, but the muscles in her throat wouldn’t cooperate.

“I have thought of you, missed you, needed you and loved you every day. I know I don’t deserve you, and I know you can never forgive me. I will never forgive myself—”

“Stop,” she choked. She was so tired of accusations and blame, of guilt and grieving, of recriminations and regrets. They had both hurt each other, both made mistakes, but by some miracle, they both still loved each other. The only mistake now would be continuing to stay apart.

She rose up on her toes and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she closed her eyes and let instinct guide her. Now that she was back here in his arms, finally home, she would never leave again.

Thomas stiffened in shock at the first feather-soft brush of Linnet’s mouth on his. He forced himself to stand still, fearful that any movement on his part might break whatever enchantment held his wife in thrall. He had never thought he would hold her again, except in his dreams. To have her pressed against him, kissing him…

She trailed her lips down to his chin, then up the side of his jaw to his cheek. Her light touch was curious and reverent, at once so much more than he had dared hope for and so damned far from what he needed. It had been so long. He groaned when her tongue darted out to taste his skin. She hummed in approval as she dragged her lips back to his.

His heart slammed painfully against his ribs as his body stirred to life. He never had been able to control that portion of his anatomy around her, he reflected ruefully. He tried to step back, but Linnet tightened her arms around him.

“Don’t you want me?” she asked, her voice filled with a combination of need and confusion.

“You know I do,” he gritted out, “but—”

“What?” She drew away from him, a flash of hurt in her beautiful gray eyes.

Everything inside him demanded that he pull her back to him, kiss her the way he needed, claim her so thoroughly that she would never think of leaving him again. His hesitation was due to wanting her too much.

“Are you certain this is what you want, Linny?” His hands clenched into tight fists at his sides as he fought the urge to reach for her. “Are you certain
I
 am what you want?” He swallowed hard. “Because I won’t let you go again. I
can’t
—”

His voice broke, but she was there to heal it, to heal him. She launched herself at him and he caught her, trapping her in his arms as he kissed her with all the heat and hunger he had stored through too many lonely years. He wanted to go slow and savor her, but his patience was stretched thin. It snapped at the first dainty flick of her tongue against his. Her taste exploded through his senses and ignited his blood. The fire coursed through his body, burning along his veins and driving him past reason.