His Secret Heroine (32 page)

No, there was a better way.

Chloe was right. The Duke of Marmount might be one of the most powerful men in the Realm, but he was as fragile as an abandoned hatchling. They-he and Chloe-were the ones who were strong. But Reggie must not stop him if he chose to step over the cliff. He had to let the duke make his own choice.

Reggie took a deep breath. He stepped back instead of forward.

A flicker in the corner of the duke's eye told Reggie his movement had been noticed. And interpreted.

"You cannot make me hate you, father," Reggie said softly. "You can destroy my respect, but not my love, no matter how hateful your actions. But for all that I love you, you can lose me. I will walk away from you forever if I must. I will not give Chloe up to your manipulations, and I will not allow you to hurt her or her sisters. It is time you grew up,
Your Grace. It is time to let go of what you have lost and let those you love have their own lives."

"I can see that." Again the duke sighed. "Now that I have come to know her, I can see there is no power on the face of this earth strong enough to keep you from her."

"Why would you want to?" Reggie asked.

"I don't. I just wanted my way, as usual."

Reggie stole a glance at Chloe, whose wide green eyes flicked back and forth apprehensively between him and the duke, almost pleading. What was she thinking? Did she plead for herself, or the duke?

"I don't believe you," Chloe said to the duke. "You're afraid of happiness. Afraid of what happens when you lose it. And you don't want your son to suffer the way you have
. But you cannot stop happiness any more than you can stop pain and suffering."

The duke's nostrils flared in that very minuscule way he had, and Reggie thought he saw the muscle in his cheek bulge
,

The duke turned away and stared up at the dark lines of clouds that floated away from the sunrise.
"There is a creature in the New World known as the snapping turtle which, once it has latched onto something with its powerful jaws, will not let go even if its head is severed. I believe you have an affinity with that creature, Miss Englefield."

Chloe cocked her head. "Thank you,
Your Grace. Although I would appreciate it if you do not choose to lop off my head to prove the resemblance."

Reggie gaped like a country bumpkin.

She reached out and touched the duke's arm. Reggie cringed. Nobody touched the duke.

"Come back with us,
Your Grace. Your family needs you."

Still facing the sea, wind tossing his hair like a wild pennant, the duke grasped Chloe's hand
.

So that was it. It had been there all the time. Reggie had even seen it, himself, but he just hadn't truly understood. He had been so absorbed in his own need for his father's love that he had never understood a father might need the love of his son even more desperately. But Chloe knew. She had found it, buried deeply beneath the duke's hard crust.

Reggie bit his lip. He reached out, his heart pounding. He touched the duke's shoulder.

As the duke stepped back from the brink and turned to face them at last, Reggie saw the tracks of tears that streaked his face. Reggie grasped the hand that Chloe dropped, gently tugging, encouraging the duke back to safety, his eyes pleading.

"Reggie..."

Who knew what it was his father wanted to say but couldn't put to words? Reggie didn't care. The aching deep in his heart needed something words couldn't say. Tears streaking his own cheeks, he threw his arms around his father, and his father's chest heaved with sobs.

The duke took long minutes before the aching sobs finally subsided. Finally with a heaving, ragged breath, he stepped back, holding his son's arms. Reggie looked eye to eye with his father in a way he had not since childhood.

With a silent, accepting nod, the duke turned away, straightening himself and tugging at clothing that had never before been in a state of disarray.

"I do beg your pardon," said the duke. "I cannot think what came over me."

Reggie let a smile creep into the corner of his mouth. Perhaps it was too much to ask that the duke change his stiff ways in one night.

The duke shook his head slowly, as if shaking away some strange sort of dream. "I thought for some time the fates were playing some terrible prank on me. But now, I begin to wonder if instead I have been given another chance."

Grinning, Reggie took Chloe's hand and pulled her to him. He bent to snuggle a kiss beneath the golden curls, wind-tossed and fragrant with the smell of the sea.

The duke cleared his throat. "Miss Englefield, have you not been in the company of this scoundrel throughout the night?"

Chloe lifted her narrow little nose high. "I have indeed,
Your Grace. More than that, I have ridden all night with him, astride, like a common hoyden, on a veritable steeplechase."

Reggie would have laughed, but now he had to struggle to keep back his tears. "And now that I have found her again," Reggie replied, "I mean not to let her out of my sight."

The duke's nostrils thinned. "Then it is obvious, you have been compromised, Miss Englefield, and that will not do. We shall return immediately to Upper Dicker and for the coach and hasten to London immediately for a wedding."

"Now?" Chloe squeaked.

Reggie chuckled. Something might have changed in the last few moments, but not everything.

"I presume you have brought the
Special License, Reginald. It is rather a shame we cannot wait for other family members, but it would seem the circumstances do not permit."

"Today?" Chloe sounded like an echo of herself. "Wouldn't a good night's sleep be more the thing?"

The dour-faced duke picked up the rolled brim beaver hat from where it lay in the dewy grass and jammed it onto his head. "You are no slowtop, Miss Englefield. It shall be today, or Reginald cannot stay with you. If that is what you want, then we can make Featherstone by tomorrow night, perhaps even with your waspish aunt and your sisters in tow, in which case you cannot make use of the Special License. Make up your mind."

Chloe huffed and threw up her hands.
Reggie laughed. For he knew his heroine’s pretense at defeat was really secret triumph.

With a precise pivot, the duke strode in military fashion back down the slope toward the horse he had left to graze. And just at the moment he turned, Reggie caught a glimpse of something he had not seen in a very long time.

The Duke of Marmount was smiling.

Epilogue

"Give him to me," the duke said, reaching out for the crying baby in Chloe's arms.

Reggie smiled as he watched Chloe pass her infant son to the duke, then heave a sigh of relief. She had been doing just fine. But the little rascal was wearing her out, and Reggie knew she would never admit it. As she settled back against the arm he draped about her shoulder, Reggie gave her a reassuring hug.

All around them, the family gathered, and the sitting room hummed with the lyrical female voices of Chloe's sisters and aunt, and Reggie's mother. His brother Robert, at last using a cane after a long struggle with crutches, almost sourly accepted the adoration of Madeline and Allison. Reggie raised an eyebrow as the thought struck him that Robert was far more like their curmudgeon father than he would ever admit.

"They do take a bit of getting used to," the duke told Chloe as he cuddled the little one into the cruck of his arm and rocked gently. His rough-edged voice softened into the soothing sounds of a lullaby, and the baby's squalling turned to whimpers.

"I am simply amazed, Your Grace," Chloe responded.

Reggie wasn't. True, in many ways, his crusty parent was an amazing person. It was just that Reggie had known it all along.

The duchess peered around the duke's shoulder at the infant, who gave a little sniff like a hiccup, and quieted again.

"He has always had a wonderful way with children," the duchess said. "It is a pity more fathers cannot take such an interest in their offspring."

Behind her, Robert leaned on his cane and glared. In a way, Reggie felt sorry for Robert, who had spent so much of his life angry at his father. The duke was trying so very hard, but Robert would give him no quarter. Reggie supposed he should be content that the two of them could be in the same room without descending into verbal mayhem.

Reggie couldn't say he actually understood the nature of their conflict. Certainly, Robert had been an adored child, and had probably loved their father as much as Reggie had. Had it been when Elizabeth died, and the duke had withdrawn so deeply? Or had it been the whispered arguments between the parents that both boys had heard, but neither understood?

But Robert was a man full grown now. He had been away four years, and suffered frighteningly serious injuries. One would think he might be willing to reconsider what he had to lose.

The duke had handed over to him the marquisate and its properties. Whenever Robert attempted to quarrel, the duke simply conceded, and walked away whenever he needed to avoid a clash. Perhaps what Robert really needed was a roaring battle with the duke, to get it all done with. But the duke would not fight, for he had made up his mind to do anything and everything he could to restore his family. He was equally as stubborn about learning to relinquish control over others as he ever had been about gaining and maintaining it.

But that was their affair. Reggie had no intention of trying to solve his family's problems for them.

And he was too busy basking in the pleasure of the moment, with Chloe beside him. Chloe had managed her pregnancy and delivery well, and their son was beautiful, healthy,
and wonderful. Even though the duke had driven Chloe to distraction with his fretting, she had learned to adore the man. Her two sisters had immersed themselves in their new family, nearly driving Reggie crazy with their constant musical banter as they argued over the husbands they would someday have. And Robert was going to recover, with little more than a residual limp.

Aunt Daphne was rather much the same, content with her spinsterhood, content with her family. And the duchess, tranquil as always, still lived on her beloved estate on the Avon and gr
ew roses. She had ventured out to
town for the season this last year, but only for a short while because she could not bear to be separated from her gardens at the very time of year when they burst forth to start a new cycle of beauty.

Reggie's heart tugged as he watched his father bend over and tenderly lay the now-sleeping infant in his cradle. It was truly something wonderful, this touch the duke had with children.

It had been his father's love and devotion that had carried Reggie through his struggle as a misfit child, and that had, whether he had realized it or not, sustained him during that terrible time when his father was lost to him.

He was glad he had never given up. He was glad Chloe had understood that. And he was glad his father had found Chloe, and established that bond that somehow had
provided what the man had needed to find his way back to life.

The duke continued to watch the cradle and the sleeping baby. He drew an assessing breath and crossed his arms. "He shall go to Eton, of course, and Oxford. I believe he will make a good scholar, Reginald. Perhaps he shall be a don. We have never had one in the family. Yes, that will do nicely."

Chloe narrowed her eyes at the duke. "Or perhaps not."

The duke blinked. He took a breath. "Yes. Well, perhaps not. Merely speculation. Hard to tell what the lad might choose."

The duke was rewarded with one of those glittering smiles Chloe seemed to keep reserved just for him. Reggie had no doubt she had become the daughter of his father's heart, the daughter the duke had thought he would never have. She would never be Elizabeth, but she didn't have to be. She was Chloe.

"Well," said the duchess brightly, "now that our little Alexander's fate has been so properly undecided, I believe I shall go for a stroll in Chloe's garden. I rather like the way you have managed the colors, my dear."

"Perhaps I will join you, then," said the duke. "Perhaps it is time I regain the habit of strolling in gardens."

Robert frowned, but he said nothing. Off in a corner, the twins giggled with Aunt Daphne.
After a while, Robert limped with his cane to the window of the sitting room, and stared out over the
parterre
garden Chloe had filled with blooms in riotous colors, the plants shaded from the hot summer day by towering lime trees.

"Bedamned, Reggie," Robert said, frowning. "They're holding hands like a green girl and her benighted bumpkin."

Reggie said nothing. He was aware of a bit more than that going on between their parents. Chloe raised an eyebrow at Reggie, and her lips pursed with curiosity. Reggie answered with a wink. It was a secret
on dit
he would share with her tonight.

"Blast. I think he's going to kiss her. You'd think she'd have more sense. After s
eventeen years of banishment, she ought to have a right to tell him..."