Intimate Deception
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 Laura Landon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612184791
ISBN-10: 1612184790
To all my readers. I can’t thank you enough.
Prologue
May 1853
London, England
V
incent Germaine, eleventh Marquess of Hayworth, ninth Duke of Raeborn, paced the hallway outside his wife’s bedroom. Sweat beaded on his forehead, then ran down his face and into his eyes. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere for him to go. No place where her agonizing moans would not follow him.
He clenched his fists and walked to the end of the hall, his carriage every inch a duke’s, even though inside he hardly felt like one. This was God’s way of teaching mortal man the limits of his control. God’s way of teaching man humility when he became too self-assured and self-reliant. And tonight, God had decided the Duke of Raeborn needed to be shown how powerless he truly was.
He wanted to rail to the heavens, rant against God for His unfairness. Instead, he offered up another prayer.
All through the night he’d bartered, offering God every earthly possession he owned. Even his own life. But his prayers had gone unanswered. For the second time in his life, Vincent Germaine was being brought to his knees.
He was one of the wealthiest, most influential men in all of England, yet tonight he was as helpless as a lowly street beggar.
From the moment he’d found out his wife was going to have a child, he’d prayed that this time the outcome would be different. Prayed that this time his wife would be delivered of the child safely and he would have an heir to carry on the great Raeborn name. He even promised God that if He brought his wife and the babe through this, he would never chance planting his seed in her again.
But his prayers had been for naught. It had been nearly two days and she still hadn’t been delivered of the babe. Two days, and he knew Angeline would not live much longer if she did not soon give over the babe the doctor said was too large for her.
He shoved himself away from the wall, then froze when another gut-wrenching moan rent the air. Guilt and regret threatened to suffocate him. Fear more terrifying than he could withstand. She was weakening. Would that he could ease her pain. Would that the risk was not so great to get an heir. Would that he had never planted his seed in her womb.
Regrets born of desperation.
He swiped his hand over his sweating brow, then turned an anxious glance toward her room when the door opened. His heart thundered in his chest.
A maid rushed out, her arms laden with blood-soaked linen. Tears ran down her ashen face. Her gaze carried a helplessness he’d seen from his staff on a night similar to this five years earlier. The night his first wife had died trying to give birth to their babe.
Another muffled moan echoed from behind the door. Angeline’s cries were weaker now, filled with even more pain and despair.
Vincent strode with determined steps toward the room where his wife lay struggling to give birth to his child. He would not allow her to die. He’d lost one wife trying to give him an heir. He couldn’t live with himself if he was responsible for another woman’s death.
He opened the door and entered.
His gaze moved to where she lay in the bed, and his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. He slowly made his way toward her.
“You should not…have come, Your Grace,” Angeline whispered, her weak voice filled with pain.
He sucked in a deep breath that broadened his already massive shoulders. “I’m your husband. This is exactly where I should be.”
Angeline attempted a smile.
His heart twisted in his chest as a part of him died. He reached for her hand and held it. “I’ve come to tell you I have waited long enough. I demand you cease this procrastination and give birth to our babe.”
She released a trembling shudder. “So like you to make demands of matters you cannot control.”
“That is because I have always found doing so effective,” he answered, brushing a stray wisp of hair from her cheek. Dear God, he didn’t want to lose her. He couldn’t say he loved her, wasn’t sure he knew what love was, but oh, he cared for her. Could not imagine a life without her.
“I’m afraid your demands are quite useless in this…Your Grace.”
He forced himself not to react. Forced himself not to tell her he feared the same.
Another wave of pain speared through her body. She attempted a scream, but the sound was reduced to a weak, pathetic gasp. He cradled her hand, and she held on to him even though she was so weak her clasp was negligible.
“Do you know how much I love you, Vincent?” she said when the spasm was over.
Tears burned his eyes. “Yes, Angeline. I have been the luckiest of men. Nowhere in all the world could I have found anyone more perfect than you. You have made me very happy.”
“But I could not give you an heir. I know how much you wanted one.”
“We both did,” he whispered, his throat constricting.
“Yes, I did. More than anything.”
Another spasm overwhelmed her. She gasped for air and held his hand. “Please, don’t…leave me.”
“No, Angeline. I won’t leave you.”
He sat in the chair beside her bed and held her limp, fragile hand in his. His chest ached with such pain it clenched his body with relentless agony.
“You don’t have to worry about the babe, Your Grace,” Angeline whispered. “I will take good care of him when we reach heaven.”
Vincent swallowed hard. “I know you will.” He leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek.
She tried to smile at him one final time.
He brushed his fingers down her face and held her hand securely. What had he done? Was the desire for an heir worth even one life? Was having a child worth the risk
a man forced a woman to take? Or the risk a woman felt obligated to take?
She was finally delivered of the babe—a son—a perfectly formed babe with plump arms and legs and thick black hair just like Vincent’s. He was a beautiful babe that wore the look of peaceful bliss as he slept for eternity.
Vincent held his wife’s hand long after it had grown cold. Long after life had ebbed from her body. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He let them flow with shameless abandon. She’d sacrificed everything to give him an heir.
With his dead wife’s hand nestled in his, he vowed he would never allow another woman to take such a risk again.
January 1858
London, England
L
ady Grace Warren stood back from the crowd of well-wishers and watched her youngest sister, Anne, and her new husband greet their guests. After their wedding breakfast celebration, the groom would whisk his happy bride away from their father’s London town house and they’d travel to their new home to begin a wonderful life together.
Grace breathed a heavy sigh. The relief nearly took her to her knees.
Anne was safe now.
Grace swallowed past the lump in her throat. The nightmare she’d lived with for more years than she wanted to remember was finally over. The last of her six sisters had husbands now to protect them. They were all safe. Finally out of his reach.