Cheryl Holt (27 page)

Quiet tears dripped down her pretty cheeks, and she gulped for air. “Yes, I’ve rejected him.”

A huge weight seemed to drop into the middle of the room. Charles felt as if it was crushing him, as if his heart was breaking all over again, and they could all witness it happening.

“Can you tell us why?” the earl implored of her, but she could only shake her head.

Charles supplied, “She thinks she’s barren.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Michael griped. “I won’t listen to such improper remarks about my sister. Not from the likes of you, and especially not when she’s sitting here with us, so I suggest you guard your tongue before I rip it out of your mouth.”

“Delicate concerns,” Charles shot at him, “require indelicate conversations.”

The earl was flustered, having no idea how to deal with his intractable, fractious, saddened daughter. “Charles . . . ah . . . would you have her, even if she couldn’t bear you a child?”

“Absolutely,” Charles declared, “and I told her so. But I also told her that she’s wrong. She’s not barren. She’s already increasing.”

“And you make this allegation because . . .?” Bristol couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Trust me,” was all Charles would provide, “she’s pregnant. She doesn’t believe me, but she is.” The predicament was sufficiently abominable. He wasn’t about to review the sensitivity of her breasts with her father!

“We’ve heard enough,” Michael reproached. “You’d better go.”

Charles ignored him and pleaded with Lord Bristol. “I would have your word that you will let me have the babe when it’s born.”

Michael stood, so angry that his chair toppled over. “You have the gall to issue demands?”

“What will
you
do with him, milord?” Charles strove to be rational. “Have him adopted? Farm him out to a crofter?
Abandon him on the streets of London like a vagrant mutt?”

“Sweet Jesu!” Bristol moaned, pained and appalled.

“I want what’s mine. I nearly had a son once, but he and my wife died during the delivery, and I never thought I’d be blessed with another. I might have many faults, but I’d be a good da.”

“We’re not maintaining that you wouldn’t be,” the earl countered.

“The babe will be your grandchild. Perhaps the only one you’ll ever have. Could you dump him on strangers, never to be apprised as to what became of him?” Surprisingly, he suffered his own surge of tears. “I’m begging you, Robert”—he impertinently used the earl’s given name—“swear to me that you’ll let me have him.”

For an eternity, Bristol mulled, pondering the hideous options, and finally, he nodded. “Advise Stephen as to your whereabouts.”

“I will.”

“We’ll contact you if it’s necessary.”

“Thank you.”

He looked at Eleanor then, but she seemed to not really be there, as if she’d been too overwhelmed and had mentally fled, with the shell of her body remaining behind. Her shape was fuzzy, indistinct, the lines so distorted that she was more a chimera than flesh and blood.

He turned and left without glancing back.

 15 

“Where will you go when you leave here?”

Stephen held Anne in his arms and pondered her question. The mid-morning sun was high in the sky, but they lazed in bed, unable to break the intimate moment.

Because there were so few choices that appealed, her query had him vexed. His two options were Bristol Manor and the mansion in London, but either place belonged to his father, and while he was fond of the earl and they got on well, he couldn’t reside under the man’s roof. He had to make his own way. But how?

He had no real skills, and even if he’d been adept at some task or other, he wasn’t about to toil at menial labor. He tried to conceive of himself slaving away at a desk as a clerk or gentleman’s secretary, but the concept was ludicrous.

The only thing at which he’d ever been proficient was soldiering, but he would never again pick up a weapon. Perhaps he’d join those odd Quakers, would enjoy a simple, pious life, and he’d travel the country, preaching sanity and peace.

He smiled. “I suppose I’ll be off to London.”

“Do you own a home there?”

“No.” If he could somehow have scrounged together the money to purchase one in an acceptable neighborhood, he couldn’t have afforded the maintenance or the servants.

“Where will you stay?”

“At my father’s town house.” How depressing! After all he’d been through, he’d come full circle.

“Isn’t it strange, living with him when you’re thirty years old?”

Touché.
“Very, but I haven’t any other alternatives.”

“He’s rich. Why doesn’t he settle funds on you?”

“He’s wealthy on paper, but his fortune is tied to his realty, which can’t be sold, and what’s disposable will ultimately be inherited by my eldest brother, James. It’s not my father’s to dole out. Besides, I’m not sure I would welcome a huge stipend. What have I ever done to deserve it?”

“You’ve been one of his sons. That should be enough.” Such an egalitarian! “If I had three boys, I’d treat them equally.”

“You would, would you?”

“Yes.”

He wondered about her having children. Would she? Might she have his? Massaging her stomach, he speculated as to whether he’d planted a babe. If he hadn’t, it wasn’t from lack of trying, and he was surprised that he’d behaved so recklessly. He hadn’t sired a child before, had never fornicated with such abandon, but with Anne, it had been natural to forge ahead. He hadn’t considered denying himself.

Secretly, he was thrilled by the prospect. If she was pregnant, there would be excuses for continuing contact, letters, updates, requests for assistance. The fact that his offspring would be a bastard, raised without a father, bothered him, but he declined to contemplate the dreaded possibility.

A more horrid thought occured to him. It had been fluttering around on the edges of his consicousness: What if she had a babe with someone else? What if, after he departed,
she fell in love and married? He ought to be glad that she might eventually find happiness, but the notion of her achieving it without him was so distressing that he couldn’t reflect upon it.

As he had for weeks, he bumbled about in oblivion, pretending that their affair would last indefinitely, that nothing could interfere.

“How will you keep yourself busy?” she asked.

“I’ll lounge and loaf.”

She punched him in the ribs. “Just as I suspected, you idle scoundrel.”

“Leisure diversions suit me.”

“You won’t catch me arguing.”

“Wench.” He swatted her on the rear.

Snuggled next to her, he yearned to cast off his societal shackles, to shed his position like an animal molting its skin.
She
was what he wanted. Her quiet, contented world grew more attractive every day, and when he was being particularly morbid, he flirted with a dangerous, tempting decision.

What if he remained? What would he lose?

Everything familiar! Everything I cherish!

What would she gain? An inept, slothful, unemployable laggard, who had no income, but extravagant tastes. She’d murder him before the first month was out.

A fellow could make himself crazy, wallowing in such pointless rumination, and he sighed and stopped his woolgathering. “And how about you? What are your plans after you’re shed of me?”

“I’ll work. I’ll tinker with my concoctions. I’ll bathe ailing women in my pool. It’s a fine way to carry on.”

At her blithe response, irritation bubbled. Just once, couldn’t she evince a bit of sorrow? Couldn’t she weep in anticipation of losing him? Or beg him to tarry?

A silly vision flashed, of her down on her knees, clutching
his coat and pleading with him not to go. That’s what he wanted, for what he was hoping, to have her desperate and forlorn over his pending egress.

He loathed her cheery, resigned attitude, and it was so depressing to admit that she didn’t need him. Except for his capacity in providing an occasional tumble—which she could obtain from any man at whom she batted her pretty green eyes—he hadn’t a single benefit to offer, hadn’t a redeeming quality, save that he loved her beyond imagining. Yet as his father had oft been heard to remark,
love
and a few pennies could buy you a cup of weak tea.

“Good.” He attempted to sound merry. “When I remember you, I want to picture you, puttering around at your projects and making people feel better.”

“It’s what I do best.”

“It certainly is.”

Which was another detail he admired but hated about her. Others needed her, needed her skills and abilities and many kindnesses. While she’d closed the pool to frivolous guests like Camilla, she allowed visits from the neighborhood women who were ill or dying.

From his perch in her room, he spied on her as she nursed them. Her energy was unflagging, her compassion bottomless, her optimism infinite. In the beginning, he’d been envious of her patients, irked by their taking her away from him, and his jealousy of those sick souls underscored what a pathetic individual he was, especially after he was recovered thanks to her. He was selfishly inclined to withhold her expertise from others, merely so he could lie around for hours on end, fornicating with her.

When he left, he wanted to whisk her away, too, but with such wretched invalids seeking her help, who was he to abscond with her? Even if she’d consent to run off, her mercy and generosity were coveted by so many, her talent so vital, that he had to believe they were God-given, a divine
bounty she used wisely and well, and with which he shouldn’t interfere.

In the grand scheme of the universe, he was irrelevant, too negligible to keep her to himself.

He feigned levity. “Will you miss me?”

“Yes, you bounder. Every second.” She kissed him on the mouth. “Who will be here to drive me mad? Who will whine and complain and snarl at me?”

“I never snarl.”

“Hah!” she laughed. “You are the worst, most demanding patient I’ve ever had.”

“Really?” Had he been that bad? When he’d initially arrived, he was sure he’d been a terror, but he’d been suffering so dreadfully that he didn’t have clear memories of their early spats.

“Yes,
really
. You’re a nuisance.”

“But a sexy one, wouldn’t you agree?”

“You’re a sexy one, all right. And much too vain for my money.”

She stroked his chest, his stomach, his phallus, as adept at carnal games as she was at everything else. She was a temptress, a beautiful sphinx, and he couldn’t get enough of her. No matter how often or how rigorously they copulated, he wasn’t satisfied.

His fascination with her was a mystery. She was unlike any female he’d ever met, so feminine, yet so autonomous, and the combination had him beguiled. He couldn’t restrain himself, couldn’t bridle his erotic impulses. She had only to glance in his direction, and he was eager to dally.

Would his desire ever wane? The more he had her, the more he wanted her. There was no limit to his craving.

As he moved over her, their naked bodies connected, and tingles of sensation cascaded all the way down. He kissed her cheek, her neck, his whiskers tickling her, goose bumps flaring down her arms.

At her bosom, he rooted to her nipple, soothing himself, suckling her, inhaling her sweet scent. It was an aphrodisiac that inflamed, that spurred him to repeated acts of foolhardiness.

He went to her other breast, nuzzled and played, reveling in her uniqueness, in the oneness he experienced when they were together.

Nudging her thighs, he settled himself and glided inside. She was tight, hot, and an impression of peace and serenity swept over him. This was where he belonged, where he was meant to be.

She locked her feet behind his back, rocking them to the end, and when he came, he felt so fortunate, so special, so . . . so . . . cherished. It was the only word that applied. As she gazed up at him, her devotion and affection were manifest, and his heart ached at noting how much she cared.

“Oh, my,” she breathed as their passion ebbed. “How will I survive without you doing that to me at least once a day?”

She was teasing, wanting to sound light and gay, but her query held a veiled significance. It probed at issues neither of them could bear to address, so he replied in the same breezy tone.