Her Errant Earl (11 page)

“Good Christ, of course not,” he denied. “You’re the only
woman I want in my bed and you know it.”

“No.” She shook her head, tears streaming shamelessly down
her cheeks. “I don’t know anything any longer, for everything I thought I knew
was a farce.”

He released her, seemingly defeated. “I haven’t been a good
husband to you. I’m sorry. Sorrier than you know. I don’t blame you if you hate
me, Victoria. All I ask is that you not leave me. I can’t bear that.”

She stared at him, refusing to make a promise she couldn’t
keep, unlike him. It had become apparent to her that leaving him was exactly
what she must do for her own sake. “Please leave my chamber. I don’t want you
here.”

“Very well.” He offered her an abbreviated bow. “I won’t
linger where I’m not wanted. But listen to what I’ve said. I wouldn’t have hurt
you for the world.”

“I wish I could believe that,” she whispered, as much to
herself as to him, watching as he walked away, leaving her well and truly
alone.

* * * * *

Early the next morning, it came to Pembroke’s attention that
there was a vast assemblage of trunks being loaded onto his carriage. Still
shaken from his confrontation with Victoria the night before, he stalked out
into the grayish dawn light to determine what was in the works.

Footmen tramped in and out of the house bearing wieldy
valises. His wife was overseeing the packing along with Mrs. Morton. Victoria
was dressed to perfection, as usual, wearing a plum-and-black silk dress
buttoned up to the neck, adorned with dyed lace and jet beads. His little
American mouse had blossomed into a true beauty to rival any English lady, and
he didn’t deserve her.

Her gaze caught his. She didn’t bother to offer any
deference. Instead, she excused herself from the housekeeper and crunched to
him across the stone drive. Her dashing hat made her seem unusually tall. He
affixed his stare to the plume of ostrich feathers pointing to the heavens.
Christ. This couldn’t be what he thought it was.

“I’m leaving you, Pembroke.”

Or perhaps it could be after all. Bloody hell.

The wind blew ever so gently. Orris root. Her mere scent
affected him. His jaw clenched, his eyes dropping to hers. Her expression was
tight, her lips drawn into the imperious frown he knew so well. She was leaving
him. Forever. Nausea churned in his stomach, as if he’d just woken from a bout
of all-night whiskey drinking.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m returning to New York.”

New York was an ocean away. He couldn’t speak as the
implications of her announcement became clear to him. She didn’t plan on coming
back to England. She no longer wanted to be his wife. Christ, wasn’t that his
particular sort of luck? Just when he decided he desired a wife, she wanted to
toss him to the proverbial dustbin.

“Then you shall be free to live life without the encumbrance
of a wife,” she said, interrupting his troubled musings. “Your family will, of
course, keep the dowry. I am only taking my trousseau. You may inspect the
trunks if you like.”

He didn’t want to inspect the bloody trunks. He wanted to
have them hauled back into his home, damn it. “What are you on about, Victoria?
You cannot simply run off to New York.”

“Of course I can.” Her voice was quiet, tinged with an
emotion he couldn’t define. “You don’t want me anyway, and you never have.”

“Damn you, that’s not true.” He realized that in his
frustration, he was nearly hollering at her, and lowered his tone. “Not
precisely. Initially, it was different between us. I’ll own I resented you and
treated you worse than a dockside doxy. But I’ve come to admire you. I cannot
change what’s happened in the past, but I can make the future what it ought to
be. I want to be a true husband to you, Victoria.”

Her eyes glittered with what he supposed were unshed tears.
“I’ve realized that you are nothing but a liar, ready to spin whatever tale
gets you what you want in the moment. Even your own father says as much. But
I’m no longer your fool. You wouldn’t even begin to know how to be a true
husband.”

He knew he’d lost the right to her respect. The man he’d
been wouldn’t have noticed the loss. In truth, the man he’d become was rather
disgusted with the man he’d been. He didn’t blame his wife for her poor opinion
of him. He’d earned it.

“I’ve never claimed to be a saint. But I do love you.”

She stilled. He held his breath, hoping his feelings would
mean something to her. “Do not speak of love to me ever again,” she all but
spat, dashing his optimism. “You know nothing of it.”

“You don’t belong in New York.” He clenched his fists at his
sides, feeling utterly impotent as he never had before. “You belong at my side,
as my wife.”

“I don’t want to be your wife any longer, Pembroke.” She
tilted her chin, her expression taking on the stubbornness he’d come to expect
from her. “I want to go back to my true home, and this time I won’t be dissuaded.”

Deuce it, why wouldn’t she listen to reason? They shared a
deep passion together. He loved her. She’d said she loved him too. That had to
mean something to her. Christ, but he’d bollixed this up.

“I know I should have told you the truth,” he admitted.
“When I arrived here, it was absolutely under false pretenses. Just as the duke
told you, I came to get you with child so I could go on with my life. There it
is. I’m a callous bastard. But all that changed the moment I kissed you.”

“Stop. Don’t say another word.” She shook her head as if she
were trying to dispel his words from her mind. “I won’t be your pawn. You may
as well cry defeat.”

He took her hands in his, determined not to allow her to run
away from him. Their gazes clashed. He was as drawn to her as ever. “Tell me
you don’t love me, and I’ll let you go.”

A lengthy silence settled between them.

“I don’t love you,” she said at last, but she looked beyond
him at the façade of Carrington House. “There, now unhand me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She tore away from his grasp as if his touch disgusted her.
“I don’t care if you do or if you don’t. It no longer matters. I wish you a
happy life, Pembroke. Truly, I do.”

She turned and gave him her back, clipping back across the
drive to Mrs. Morton’s side. Panic swept over him. She was stolid, unwilling to
be persuaded. He’d imagined that somehow he could convince her to see reason.
She couldn’t leave him. He was an earl, by God, her lord and husband. He needed
her.

He had to do something to stop her.

* * * * *

He’d simply allowed her to go. Victoria turned back for one
last glimpse of Carrington House before the carriage ambled round the bend in
the drive that would render it impossible to see. The imposing edifice stood
stark against a graying sky, as arrogant as its owner. She’d come to think of
its every tower, leaky roof and smudged window as hers to watch over. Over her
months there, Carrington House had truly begun to feel like home.

Of course, if she were honest with herself, she’d
acknowledge that it hadn’t felt like a home until Pembroke’s return. But his
return had been cloaked in lies, made only for his own gain and not out of any
wish to be her husband. She turned to face forward, knowing there was no use in
dwelling upon Pembroke’s betrayal. If she did, it would only crush her.

Foolishly, she’d been hoping he would do something dramatic,
perhaps chase after her, keep her from leaving. Instead, he’d merely stalked
back into his sprawling country house without a backward look. A fitting end,
she supposed, for a marriage that had begun and ended in deception. He didn’t
care. He never had.

Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away as best she
could. Her lady’s maid Keats sat opposite her, an awkward silence stretching
between them. She knew it wasn’t done to speak openly of private matters with
one’s servants, but Victoria had also come to realize that belowstairs knew far
more of the comings and goings of its masters than the lords and ladies ever
supposed.

“I’m leaving the earl,” she told Keats. What did decorum
matter anyway? She’d had enough of the odd world of the English aristocracy.
She longed for New York, for familiar faces, her younger sisters, her parents.
She didn’t belong here, and she knew that now more than ever.

“Oh dear, my lady.” The kindly Keats appeared genuinely
concerned. “I’d heard whispers that something was amiss between you and his
lordship, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Nor did I.” She swallowed a sob rather than allow it to
escape and further humiliate her. “However, I’m afraid he’s left me with no
choice.”

They were off to London. Staying one more day beneath the
same roof as Pembroke had been insupportable. She’d sent word ahead to her
friend Maggie of her impromptu arrival. After all, she hardly wanted to take up
residence in the Belgravia house where he’d kept his paramour. Even if she only
planned to linger a few days while she planned her passage back to America, she
wanted no reminders of her husband’s indiscretions and intolerable behavior.

“Everyone belowstairs said he’d changed so much because of
you, my lady,” Keats offered. “He even took an interest in the running of the
estate and gave raises to the servants who’d been at Carrington House for five
years or more. My dear mother always said love is like a sock that always needs
darning. Are you very certain that whatever’s happened can’t be repaired?”

Victoria hadn’t known he’d begun making changes of his own.
That he’d cared enough to reward loyal retainers came as a shock to her. When
she’d suggested it, he hadn’t seemed to take the notion under much
consideration. She knew too that he’d been poring over the ledgers and looking
into repairs that were required in the east wing.

But learning a sense of responsibility for his land and
people did not mean that he was a faithful, trustworthy husband. Though it was
hard indeed, she had to keep that first in her mind. She thought of her maid’s
assertion that love was like a sock and summoned up a sad smile. “You know,
Keats, I do believe your mother was right. Love is like a sock, but eventually
it becomes too worn and you simply can’t mend it any longer. Once it reaches
that point, all you can do is to toss it away.”

If only tossing her love for Pembroke away was as easy as
that. More morose than before, she turned her attention to the slowly passing
scenery, a blur of pastoral beauty and lush green. As the carriage swayed on,
the clouds finally opened and unleashed a torrent of thunder and rain.

* * * * *

Two days after Victoria left, Pembroke was devoting himself
to the business of getting completely inebriated. In the end, he’d done nothing
to prevent her from leaving. Short of making a complete idiot of himself and
showing the servants what a pathetic, besotted fool he’d become, there was
nothing he could do. If she didn’t want him any longer, then she simply didn’t.

He couldn’t blame her either. Damn it, he should have told
her the truth when he’d first begun to have feelings for her. Telling her and
making amends would have been so much easier before he’d allowed it to go too
far. Lady Strathmore’s unexpected arrival had not helped matters, but he didn’t
fool himself that it was his own father who had been behind Victoria’s
departure. Damn the old meddling bastard to hell.

As he poured his third glass of brandy and soda water, the
duke abruptly burst into his study. His blue gaze, so like Pembroke’s own, was
cold as always, his face a mask of disdain.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’re getting
inebriated again,” his father drawled, his voice laced with condemnation.

It was a tone he’d become accustomed to from the duke, but
he wasn’t in the mood to be harassed. He was a powder keg. One more spark, and
he’d explode. He stiffened, trying to calm himself before he responded.
Allowing the duke to see how deeply he affected him would not do. It was
precisely why he’d been avoiding his father.

“Your Grace,” he said, inclining his head but refusing to
stand. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your illustrious company?”

“You have disappointed me your entire life, but this goes
beyond the pale.” The duke stalked across the carpet, stopping at Pembroke’s
escritoire to slam his fist upon its polished surface. “You have had one duty
in your miserable existence, and somehow you’ve managed to fail at it.”

“For once we’re in complete agreement,” he acknowledged
tightly. “My wife wants to return to America. You can keep her gold in your
blasted coffers, but you’ll not be getting your heir.”

“Nonsense. There won’t be a divorce. I won’t allow it.” The
duke slammed his fist again. “How was I to have known you’d lied to the chit?
By God, you’ve never done anything properly. I should have simply married that
American lightskirt myself.”

The urge to land a solid punch to his father’s haughty face
had never been stronger. He stood, pinning the duke with a deadly glare. “Never
insult my wife. If you even so much as speak her name ever again, I’ll thrash
you as I should have a long time ago.”

The duke had a large stature as well, but his muscled form
had withered with age. There was no doubt that in a physical match, Pembroke
would be the victor. His father knew it. He stilled, surprise evident in his
expression. It was the first time Pembroke had ever stood up to his father, and
it felt incredibly liberating.

“You dare to threaten me?” The duke raised an imperious
brow.

“I dare much where you’re concerned,” he assured him, a new
sense of confidence soaring within him. “You’ve done enough damage here. I’ll
right the wrongs I’ve done, and if I have anything to say about it, you’ll have
your blessed heir. But that’s only because I want to start a family with
Victoria. I’ll not countenance any more meddling or disrespect, not from you or
anyone else.”