Along Came a Rogue (29 page)

Edward released her.

She rushed forward and threw her arms around Grey's shoulders, burying her face against his neck. He shook from the exertion of beating Harold, who now lay in a moaning, bloody mess on the floor beside him, yet his arms raised heavily up her back to embrace her.

Closing her eyes, she held him tightly. She so fiercely focused on feeling his racing heartbeat and breathing, on reassuring herself that they were both alive and unhurt, that she paid no attention to the way he nodded over her shoulder or how Hedley and another one of Grey's men gathered up Harold and carried him from the room.

“Brat,” he whispered hoarsely, shifting to sit back and pull her across his lap. “Are you all right?”

She nodded against his shoulder.

“If that bastard hurt you—”

“He didn't.” She cupped his face in her hands and leaned up to kiss him, not caring that Thomas and Edward were in the room and watching them. All that mattered was that she was in his embrace and the nightmare was over. “Because of you.”

His arms tightened around her, and she never wanted him to let go.

“How did you find me?” Her fingertips traced over his lips. She couldn't stop touching him and reassuring herself that he was really there with her and that they were both safe.

“My men have been watching you.” He turned his head to kiss her palm. “Hedley saw Yardley bring you out of the house. He followed you and sent for me.”

Her eyes blurred hot at the betrayal. “Yardley drugged me. I couldn't stop her—”

“I know, love.” He smiled reassuringly at her. “But I told you that I would always protect you, now and for the rest of my life. And I meant it.”

She knew he meant more than protecting her from Harold and Yardley. “But your work—” she choked out. “It's important to you.”

“It is,” he agreed solemnly. “But you're even more important to me, Emily. I will find a way to make my career work once we're married, in whatever way I have to in order to keep our family safe.”

Our family.
A soft thrill of joy pulsed through her at the possibility.

“But I won't live without you, brat.” The strength of his determination and love seeped into her. “I simply won't.”

She nodded through her tears, knowing now the depth of his love for her, of his resolve to never leave her. And her heart blossomed. “I love you, Grey,” she whispered and leaned up to kiss him again. “I've loved you since that first kiss—”

A sharp pain pierced through her, and she cried out. The muscles in her belly contracted into a sudden and severe cramp so harsh that it ripped away her breath.

He grabbed for her shoulders to steady her. “Emily!” Concern instantly flashed across his face. “Are you hurt?”

“I think—” The blood drained from her face as she reached for her belly. “I think the baby's coming.”

His eyes widened. “
Now?
”

“Oh God,” she whispered, the terror of a fresh hell sweeping over her. “The baby isn't due for another month. It's too early!”

“It'll be all right,” he reassured her as he climbed to his feet and lifted her into his arms. “I'll get you home, and everything will be just fine.”

But as he carried her from the building and she buried her face against his shoulder, she couldn't find comfort in his assurances. Because something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

I
f you keep pacing like that,” Thomas drawled as his eyes followed Grey on his path across the billiards room, “you'll have to replace the rug.”

Grey glared at him but never slowed his long strides as he once again traced the length of the room.

“Leave him alone,” Edward admonished quietly as he grabbed the crystal decanter of cognac that Thomas had liberated from his father's study two hours ago and refilled everyone's glass.

Stopping in mid-stride, Grey turned toward his former colonel and nodded with appreciation. Thomas had been teasing him mercilessly all night, and it was nice to finally be defended. “Thank you—”

“After all,” Edward continued sardonically, his face deadpan, “he's about to become a father.”

“Go to hell,” he growled at their taunting, shooting both of them a murderous look, and began to pace again.

Tonight, he had no patience for their antics.

Five hours. It had been five hours since they'd rescued Emily and brought her back to Chatham House. Five hours since her mother and Kate Westover rushed her into a guest room that would serve as the birthing room and sent for the midwife, and Thomas and Edward took him into the billiards room to wait. And wait.

And wait.

While Grey spent every moment on his feet pacing, with Thomas and Edward tormenting him relentlessly in their own brotherly way of attempting to distract him, Emily had been confined in the other wing of the house. Only periodic updates from Kate Westover assuring the three men that all was going as well as could be expected eased his nervousness. The wait was maddening.

At some point during the evening—he'd lost track of the time—Dr. Brandon arrived at Edward's personal request. The old physician's distaste at being called out for something as unclean as female matters was apparent, but not even the illustrious Dr. Brandon would refuse a summons by the Duke of Strathmore, so he spent the evening discussing hunting and politics with Emily's father downstairs in his study while the midwife and the duchess tended to Emily. Her mother paced her own vigil in the hall.

Hedley had sent word that Harold Crenshaw had been sewn up by the surgeon and delivered to Newgate to await trial. In the confusion, Yardley had gotten away, but his men found her fleeing north toward Scotland and brought her back to London, putting her into the same prison as Crenshaw.

Emily and her baby were finally safe.

If
all went well with the delivery. Despite the young duchess's optimism, Grey had clearly seen concern in her eyes during the reports she'd given them, the last one nearly two hours ago. The baby was early, and with Emily being so thin, carrying so small…

He paused in his pacing to briefly close his eyes.
Not the baby—please, God, not the baby!
If anything happened to the baby, he didn't know how Emily would ever be able to bear it.

“Cognac.” Edward held out a glass to him. The single word was not a question. Only the colonel was capable of making the offering of a drink into an order.

Mumbling his thanks, he took the glass and watched as Thomas circled to the far end of the billiards table to take his shot. He and Edward had kept up a running game of billiards all night between their barbs at Grey's expense. But apparently, despite all their teasing and outer appearance of bravado, they were just as preoccupied over Emily as he was because Grey could count on one hand the number of balls either of them had successfully sunk all evening.

“Worried?” Edward asked, cutting into his thoughts.

“No.” He frowned into his cognac. “Terrified.”

“You should be.” There was no teasing in his former colonel's voice now, no sarcasm. “You're about to gain a family.”

As he watched Thomas lean across the billiards table to take a second shot, Grey felt his throat tighten with emotion. He'd dreamt about having this since he was a boy but never truly thought he ever would. To be part of a family with a wife, brother, child—although he wasn't the father, in his gut he felt as if the baby were his, already loving it as much as any father could.
Good God
, he shook from the enormity of it all.

“If you're worried about Chatham and the duchess, you should know that they're coming around,” Edward confided in a voice low enough so Thomas couldn't hear that they were talking about his parents.

Grey glanced at him over the rim of his glass. “Is that so?”

Edward nodded. “Her father no longer wants to kill you.”

“Well.” He took another swallow and answered wryly, “That's something, I suppose.”

“Makes for less interesting family dinners, however.” Edward clapped his shoulder. “He won't stand in your way now.”

Nothing
stood in his way now. He would see to that. He would marry Emily and have a family with her.

And yet…

“I know she was lying before, the reason she gave for refusing my proposal, but damnation, Edward, she's not wrong,” he admitted quietly, staring down into his brandy. “My past can only cause problems for her and the baby.”

“That's not true.”

“She's the daughter of a duke—”

“A widow,” Edward reminded him.

“Who might be delivering the next Marquess of Dunwich as we speak,” Grey countered grimly. “And I'm a former army officer and son of no one, with a well-honed reputation for being a rake.”

“You're a major. That counts for a lot.”

He grimaced. “Not enough, not when that's all I am. If I had a family name to go with rank, if I were the second or third son of a peer or a landed gentleman…”

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. There was no point in contemplating what could never be. Viscountess Henley was right—he'd made a fine life for himself, a far better one than he ever should have had, and he had no right wishing for more. But what he found himself wishing for more than anything was to make Emily happy, and he wanted to prove to her that he deserved her. In every way.

But his chest burned with the impossibility of it. A man couldn't change his past. God knew he'd spent his entire life trying to do just that.

“You're more than you think. A major with enough money to keep her in comfort, the hero who saved her life—”

“An orphan,” he admitted grudgingly. “I lied about being a blacksmith's son.”

A dark flicker of surprise registered on Edward's face. Only for a moment, but in that beat, when his friend's eyes narrowed on him, Grey saw betrayal.

“I had no choice.” He glanced away toward Thomas on the far side of the room, avoiding the accusation he knew he'd see on Edward's face. “I had to lie to you, to Thomas—to everyone—because it was the only way to make a life for myself. I never would have gotten into the Dragoons as an orphan.”

“It would have made no difference to me, you know that. Or to our friendship.”

He shook his head. “I would never have made it to Spain in the first place if I'd told the truth.” He'd still be a groom in the Henley stables. No—he'd have been dead on the street before he reached fifteen. “Thomas doesn't know.”

“Does Emily?”

He gave a small nod and couldn't help the smile tugging at his lips. “She knows exactly who I am, but the brat loves me anyway. Can you believe it?” And
that
, more than any other reason, was why he loved her.

“Then that is all you need.” Edward gave him a knowing look and tapped his glass against Grey's.

Thomas sauntered across the room toward them. “What are you two talking about?”

“I was in the middle of calling Grey out for being a damned liar,” Edward informed him matter-of-factly.

“I see.” Resting the cue against his thigh, Thomas leaned back against the arm of one of the red leather chairs lining the wall and waved his hand commandingly. “Then by all means, continue.”

With a growl, Grey rolled his eyes. “If you two don't stop—”

A scream cut through the house. A high-pitched and pain-filled female cry.

Grey's blood turned to ice, and he started toward the door.

Thomas shot out the cue stick, blocking his path and stopping him. “No,” he said simply but forcefully.

Angrily, he knocked the cue away. “Get out of my—”

“No.” Thomas stood, pulling to his full height and reminding Grey of the headstrong, reckless cavalry officer he knew in Spain. Right before he threw himself into a bar fight. “You're staying right here.”

Grey's dark gaze slid between the two men, noticing how Edward had also shifted to place himself between him and the door. So
that
was why they'd insisted he join them in the billiards room five hours ago. It wasn't just to keep him distracted; it was also to keep him from bursting into the birthing room. By physical restraint, if necessary.

“Grey,” Edward said with incredible calmness, exchanging his still-full glass of cognac for Grey's empty one, “why don't you pace some more?”

He flinched as another scream sounded, then nodded faintly as the blood drained from his face. He'd pace—yes, that was exactly what he'd do. But his legs shook with each stride he took, and the damned room wasn't long enough for a proper pace, forcing him to slow in frustration with each turn.

As the agonizing minutes dragged past, he ran a hand through his hair and considered charging the door anyway. But Thomas and Edward had moved to stand near it, like two sentinels flanking either side, and with those two men keeping guard, he wouldn't stand a chance of getting to Emily.

How on earth could women bear going through this? He couldn't remember a single time in battle when he'd been more on edge, more terrified, his heart pounding more fiercely than it was right now.
Never.
He never wanted to go through this again. He didn't think he'd be able to survive it a second time.

Then the town house fell quiet. He stopped, freezing in mid-stride, and the terrible silence and stillness that followed turned even more terrifying than her screams. He held his breath, straining to catch any sound, sense any movement in the house around them—

And then it came, so soft and faint that he almost couldn't comprehend what he was hearing…
A baby.
Its cries grew in volume and intensity until there was no mistaking its new presence in the world.

Thomas patted him on the back and grinned. “Congratulations, Grey,” he said with affection. “You're a father.”

Collapsing into a nearby chair, he took a deep breath and stared down at his hands, only to discover that he was shaking harder now than he had before he heard the cries.
Good God.
A baby. Emily's baby.

He truly
was
a father.

Kate Westover appeared in the doorway, her face tired and drawn. Glancing around the room, she spotted her husband, and the look of love that passed between them made Grey catch his breath. It was the same look Emily gave him in quiet moments when she thought no one was watching. Without a word, Edward went to her side and affectionately squeezed her hand.

Then the exhaustion on the duchess's face melted into a soft smile as she gazed up at her husband. “The baby is small but healthy,” she told them. “He's going to be just fine.”

He…
Emily gave birth to a son after all. But the thought barely registered before Grey's chest tightened with worry. He shot out of the chair and hurried toward her. “How's Emily?” he asked.

“Exhausted.” Facing him, Kate furrowed her brows slightly with worry, and Edward's hand tightened around hers. “There were some complications.”

Oh God.
If anything happened to Emily…“What kind of complications?” Grey demanded.

Not releasing Edward's fingers, she rested her free hand gently on Grey's arm. “Emily is small, and it was her first child,” she said gently in a calming voice. “It was a hard birth for her, but she's going to be fine.”