Engaged in Sin (24 page)

Devon breathed like that, too, until Cerise said, “When I press against your back, does it help?”

“Oh, yes,” Caro whispered, and it was obvious how grateful she was.

He stopped taking measured breaths, but his chest seemed to clamp around his heart as Cerise said, “There are times when a first child does come with haste. I have seen that before—where everyone assumed it would take hours and then the baby was born in mere minutes. Once Lady Cavendish’s pains begin to come more quickly, that will mean labor is advancing. Now, Your Ladyship, each time the pain begins, arch against my hands and I will press. Remember to breathe slowly.”

“Can I get her home?”

“Possibly,” Cerise answered, but Caro gasped, “No! I don’t want to move.”

“I think we need a midwife or a physician, Your Grace.”

Where was the local midwife? He turned, unsure where the door was, furious that he had to fumble clumsily for it in the midst of an emergency. But once he got out into the hall, he bellowed until one of the maids hurried forth. “Lady Cavendish is laboring with her child. Fetch a midwife at once.”

Behind him, he heard Caro moan through a contraction, then tell Cerise, “If I don’t survive the birth, I’ve written a letter so my baby will know who I was and how much I loved him or her.”

His stomach turned upside down. Why would she plan for her death? What did she know?

“You are going to be fine,” Cerise said, her voice quiet, firm, and calm. “Soon you are going to have a lovely baby. Then you can read that letter to your child yourself. It’s going to be hard work—I won’t lie to you about that, Your Ladyship. But you are strong and determined, and everything is going to go well.”

It was amazing: She couldn’t know that, but all she had to do was say it and he believed it. Cerise was a remarkable woman. She could push away fear, she could fight nightmares, she could make a battle-hardened man listen to the soft sounds of the rain and a panicked, laboring woman relax enough to giggle.

Vaguely, he wondered how she knew so much about birthing, but then she gave him orders. “Request blankets and water, Your Grace. Some sweet tea for Her Ladyship, if you please.”

“Immediately,” he called back, and he shouted until another maid came to do his bidding.

He had been sent to the taproom, and his sister had been laboring for eight hours.

But even when the midwife had arrived, Caro insisted Cerise stay at her side. Devon understood why. After just a few days, he had grown to rely upon Cerise.

He had bought so many rounds for the room, every man in the place spoke with a slurred voice. He’d been tempted to join them, to drown his worries in multiple tankards of ale, but Cerise’s warnings about drink had welled up and stopped him. So he was as stone-cold sober as a statue, with no idea what was happening. He was a duke yet considered useless in a birthing room.

The truth was, he would be useless. If Cerise had not been there to take charge, he likely would have done more harm than good. On the battlefield, he had held men’s guts in place to try to save lives. In the makeshift hospital tents, he had been an assistant while limbs were cut off. But he was thankful he wasn’t in the parlor, witness to his sister’s pain.

He’d heard muffled cries of agony. He’d overheard the midwife’s bustling and Cerise’s voice soothing his sister. Why did this business take so long? Cerise had said laboring could last days. If he didn’t think he could survive days and nights of this, how would Caro?

“Your Grace.” It was Cerise’s rich voice, and it tumbled on him like sunlight after a long, cold night spent huddled on a battlefield. He’d been too lost in worry to hear her. The entire tap was silent, as though every man waited for the news.

“Lady Cavendish has had her baby. A perfect, very healthy, and remarkably strong little …”

He groaned as she drew out the suspense.

“Boy!” she exclaimed, and her voice glowed with happiness and delight.

Cheers resounded. Male voices shouted congratulations. Devon knew his duty: Though he felt almost wobbly with relief, he stood and raised his untouched tankard. “To the good health of my sister, Lady Cavendish,
and her newborn son.” As the shouts of joy resumed he ordered another round and let Cerise lead him out of the tap. “Is my sister all right? What can I do for her? It took so long.”

“It wasn’t long at all, and both your sister and your nephew are doing fine.”

He felt his brows jerk to the ceiling. Not
long
? But with his throat aching, he murmured, “Thank you, Cerise. If you hadn’t been here to help …”

“The labor went very well. And Lady Cavendish is so delighted with her beautiful son, she has almost forgotten the pain, I promise you.” She laughed, and the lovely sound entranced him. “It seems to be nature’s way. It’s terribly painful, but when the baby gives that first cry, the mother is crying and laughing with happiness.”

She moved to tug him to go, but he pulled her close to him. So close he could hear her quick breaths and notice she smelled sweaty. “To hell with propriety, angel. Come home with Caro and me. Come back and be with me. I need you. It’s where you belong.”

A note by express messenger could mean only one thing: That thug Taylor had finally found Anne. Sebastian leapt up from his chair in his library and snatched the letter from his footman’s hand as the servant stammered, “L-Lady Julia de Mournay is awaiting you in the drawing room.”

“Tell her I will be down shortly,” he snapped. He swiftly unfolded the note and read:

His hands shook. Shook so hard, Sebastian crumpled the note. Anne would rather be a duke’s whore than his wife. The thought filled him with white-hot fury. And a duke … hell and damnation, a duke held power. Was it possible this man could keep Anne from him?

No, Sebastian would get her. Taylor was instructed to haul Anne back to him. With a special license, he would marry her at once and then begin to punish her. Already he had envisioned many ways to teach her obedience. Some of the painful discipline would take place in their bedroom. Soon he would break her rebellious spirit and make her obey.

But he did not want to make love to her. He did not desire that any longer. He’d thought he could endure bedding her for the money. But he was so filled with hate now, he yearned to wrap his hands around her throat and throttle her. However, he could not do that—not when he needed the money Anne would one day inherit from Lady Julia.

He would have to content himself with her punishment.

Sebastian folded the letter and thrust it into a pocket of his coat. He hastened to the drawing room and found Lady Julia pacing in front of the window. She stopped and gazed at him with haggard pain. “Has there been any word?”

He did not want the woman to know that Anne was ruined. What if Lady Julia changed her mind and refused to leave her money to the tart? Sebastian forced his lips to curve in a kindly smile. “Indeed there has. It appears Anne left London and has taken refuge with a
friend in the country. I have a man on the way to retrieve her.”

Lady Julia smiled in relief. “You have been so very good, Norbrook. So very devoted in our search for Anne.”

“I am determined to find her.” Since it was the truth, it came out with complete earnestness. “She will be home soon.”

“Thank you,” Lady Julia whispered. “You are closer to me than either of my sons-in-law. You are a good and noble gentleman. If Anne was gone, I would make you my heir, Norbrook, for you have become like family to me.”

Sebastian clasped both Lady Julia’s hands, then lifted one to his lips and kissed the gloved fingers. “You have become like family to me as well, dearer to me than any lady has ever been.” Excitement shot through him. He must slather on the flattery and convince the old crone to make him her heir. If he could encourage her to do it, he would not even have to marry Anne.

If he were an heir, he could hurt Anne in whatever way he wished and still get the money. He could wrap his hands around Anne’s pretty neck and know the delight of squeezing the life out of her. Or he could think of a different way to kill her—a torturous, painful one. A way that would ensure he could bestow the ultimate punishment upon her, yet not get caught.

T PROVED SIMPLE
to find the nursery—Devon just followed the warbling sound of the baby’s cry. It had been three days since Caro gave birth, and in that time Cerise had transformed his bachelor house. She had employed nursemaids, and had overseen the preparation of the nursery for its tiny inhabitant. It had to be because she was once a governess, but mistresses were usually more interested in gowns and pleasures, not in taking charge of wailing babies.

He could hear her shushing his crying nephew, no doubt because Caro was sleeping downstairs. By all accounts the birth had been astonishingly fast for a first child—a mere eight hours.
Easy
, the midwife had called the process. But eight hours of pushing, laboring, grunting, crying with pain didn’t sound easy.

The loveliest sound reached him, and he stopped and listened. In the same lush, gentle voice Cerise used to read to him, she sang a lullaby for his nephew.

But when he reached the door, she stopped. “Oh! Your Grace! Here, let me bring your nephew to you.”

With his sister here, Cerise called him Your Grace again or used his title. He sighed. “I didn’t mean to
make you stop singing. I hate to deprive the wee thing of the pleasure.” Indeed, the little lad began to squawk again.

“He has an enormous belly at the moment, from his feeding. I don’t think he will settle until he gets rid of the air inside him.”

He knew his sister had eschewed a wet nurse, instead feeding the baby herself. “How do you know so much about this, Cerise? Do you have children?”

“Oh, no. None of my own, but I lived in rooms surrounded by women, and my mother helped on several births. The whole thing was both fascinating and terrifying to me, so I watched and learned. I was always afraid of hurting a newborn, and it amazed me how confident women would be with tiny babies after they’d had several children. They would even keep a baby at the breast while they cooked a meal or tended chores.”

He heard the awe in her voice, and the regret. “Do you imagine children of your own someday?”

“I—I don’t know. Before, I never wanted it to happen and I learned precautions. Ways to avoid getting with child. But I …”

It occurred to him that he hadn’t thought of it either, though in their contract, when he’d instructed her what to write, he’d given the standard provisions for a child, the ones he used in agreements with his previous mistresses. Was she using any of those precautions? Her hesitation made him suspect she hadn’t. “If you were to become pregnant with my child, I would take care of you, Cerise. As I promised.”

“Do you have children?” she asked curiously.

“No. I was always careful.” His grandfather, the libertine duke, had taught him it proved a man’s prowess to get his mistresses pregnant. As long as a gentleman ensured his bastards were cared for, Grandfather had advised him, it didn’t matter how many he begot and it
proved his manhood. His father had believed a man should be responsible and should not father children with any woman other than his wife. After listening to hours of lectures by his father, even though he never would have admitted his father was right, he’d taken care not to get his lovers pregnant.

But he hadn’t taken care with Cerise, had he? The blindness, the nightmares, had made him forget. As she came to him and warned she was about to put the baby in his arms, Devon realized she could be already enceinte.

Her soft hands brushed his palms as she placed the infant’s swaddled bottom in his hand, then she pressed her bundle to his chest and arranged his other hand to cradle the head. The lingering scent of curdled milk hit his nose. But no matter how stinky the little one got, the women didn’t seem to mind.

He’d held his nephew only twice before, and he felt as though he was juggling a priceless vase, but he knew what Cerise meant. Gingerly, he cupped the back of the baby’s head and held the warm body to his shoulder.

“Move him for a moment. Let me drape a cloth over your shirt.”

He lifted the baby and felt Cerise lay something on his shoulder. This time he cradled his nephew so he could rest his cheek against the small, oddly shaped head.

“I wish I could see him.” He winced at the raw yearning in his voice. He bloody well couldn’t, and he had to learn to accept it. But this miracle in his hands felt so strange, and touch and smell weren’t enough. They would never be enough.

“The shape of his head is changing,” she said.

He felt the top of the head, still tender and delicate. “Not quite so much like a cone, is it?”