Married to the Viscount (41 page)

All the same, he’d meant what he told her—it was just as well that it ended now. At least this way he didn’t get used to having her in his bed, to waking up with her in his arms, to sharing a laugh over the peccadilloes of society.

To loving her.

You love only the Abby who adores you and sacrifices for you and would do anything to be with you. You don’t love the Abby who expects the same thing of you
.

What rot. Simply because he’d taken a few devious steps to keep her? The very fact that he’d go to such extremes ought to show her that he loved her.

Nathaniel did it for you, because he loves you
.

Evelina’s claim made Spencer scowl into the darkness. His actions and Nat’s weren’t the same. Nat had ignored Spencer’s wishes—

Once more you’re manipulating everything according to your wishes and ignoring mine
.

He groaned. Devil take it. Yes, perhaps Abby was right—he had ignored her wishes. But what did she expect when her wishes were so unreasonable and ill-considered—

Nathaniel didn’t think you should be without a wife simply because of some doctor’s ill-considered opinion
.

This was insane. He was not like his presumptuous and reckless brother, damn it. Every proud bone in his body balked at the thought.

All right, so perhaps he
had
been presumptuous in his measures for keeping Abby with him. But his determination to stick to his decision about the rest of it had been right—she’d proven it herself. Look how eager she’d been to leave him. If that’s how little it took to drive her away, it was better he suffer for it now than later, after he’d fallen more deeply in love with her.

Why should he live a guarded life, worried that one of his heedless actions might send her fleeing any minute? What sort of lasting joy could he find in a marriage where he always had to tread lightly, where he couldn’t simply relax in the knowledge that she would never—

A stillness came over him. That she would never leave him.

Bloody, bloody hell. That’s exactly what she’d been trying to tell him. That if they drifted into marriage without committing to it, they would always be too careful with each
other to be honest, too fearful to be secure…too untrusting to risk all for happiness.

He threw his head back against the squabs. She was right. She’d been right all along. A marriage where neither party could trust its permanence could bring no lasting joy.

So if he wanted to keep her, he’d have to do as she demanded—sacrifice his need to control the outcome and simply trust her. Trust her not to leave and to be satisfied with their childless marriage.

He shook his head. No, he’d have to trust her with more than that. He’d have to trust her with children who were not her own. Because she’d made it clear that she wanted children.

A sudden memory assailed him, of Abby cradling Lydia in her arms. That one brief glimpse had been enough to show him how fondly she regarded the child. How much more fondly would she regard a babe she’d cradled from early on, a babe they brought into their home together, a babe she would teach and nurture herself? That he could teach and nurture, too.

The longing that gripped him swelled so powerfully he could no longer resist it. The chasm was before him. He could leap it with her. Or like a coward, stand there and watch her leap it alone and ride away on the other side.

He refused to be a coward.

As he made his decision, a peace fell over him so sweet, he wondered why he’d ever fought so hard. What a fool he’d been. His wife had offered him more from life than he’d ever expected to have, and he’d very nearly thrown it away.

Thank God for Abby’s stubbornness.

His first impulse was to turn the carriage around and race back to London to tell her before she could harden her heart further against him. Unfortunately, that was unwise. Evelina needed Nat now, and Spencer dared not risk the fool’s getting away.

But once Spencer returned to London and had his wife in his arms again…

That thought alone enabled him to finally sleep.

The rest of the trip passed in a haze. Night turned to morning and then to afternoon as he ate and drank and relieved himself when necessary, but mostly he slept. And dreamed of Abby. Of their future. Of impish boys tugging on her skirts as they demanded ices, and cute chubby-cheeked girls who adored their papa…

When he came awake from his last doze to find that the sun had already set again and Bristol was close at hand, relief coursed through him. He wanted to fetch Nat and be done with this, so he could go home to Abby.

His wife.

With that thought ever-present, he sought out his brother. Thankfully, Sir Horace’s estate was well known in town. More importantly, the innkeeper who gave Spencer its direction confirmed that a gentleman from London had already visited the Peabody estate twice. In fact, the innkeeper said, the man was there that very evening.

Elation gripped Spencer. It was almost over now.

Then a strange thing happened upon his arrival at the Peabody estate. The butler seemed unsurprised to see him, even going so far as to say that “the gentlemen” had been expecting him for dinner, which was sadly now long past. Though curious about how anyone could be expecting him for anything, Spencer held his tongue as he followed the servant to Sir Horace’s study, where the gentlemen were “having their port and cigars.”

But after Spencer was announced and had entered the room, two things rapidly became apparent. One, Nat was definitely the “gentleman from London.” And two, Sir Horace had indeed been expecting the Viscount Ravenswood.

“Capital! You made it after all,” said the genial Sir Horace, whom Spencer had never laid eyes on in his life.

Nat, however, looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “Spence? Why on earth are you—” The man caught himself. “Yes, it’s wonderful that you arrived in time.”

Something odd was going on, and Spencer had a funny feeling he wasn’t going to like it. “In time for what?”

“The signing of the papers, of course,” Sir Horace put in as he poured another glass of port, apparently for Spencer. “We waited until after dinner in hopes that you might arrive, even though your brother had shown me the documents giving him the authority to complete the purchase. He said he feared you wouldn’t make it here yourself to sign everything and receive the bill of sale, but I’m so pleased that you did.”

So, his devious sneak of a brother was at it again, was he? “I assure you, my pleasure far surpasses yours,” Spencer said dryly as his gaze bored into Nat. At least his brother had the good grace to look guilty. “Remind me again of exactly what it is I’m buying.”

When Sir Horace frowned, Nat gave a nervous laugh. “Don’t mind my brother. He enjoys a good jest from time to time.” He shot Spencer a pleading look. “The bottle works, Spence, don’t you remember?”

“Bottle works,” Spencer repeated. Nat had stolen Abby’s dowry for that? What the bloody hell did Nat want with a bottle works? And why buy it in Spencer’s name?

“Yes,” Nat went on hastily, “to produce Bristol blue bottles for the Mead. As a gift to your wife.”

Spencer’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. I forgot.” He flashed Sir Horace a smooth smile. “Unfortunately, I’ve changed my mind about the purchase. If you’d be so good as to return any funds my brother handed over—”

Sir Horace rose, his bulbous nose reddening. “He hasn’t handed anything over yet—we haven’t completed the transaction. But this is highly irregular, my lord. I demand to know why you would send your brother to purchase my bottle works and then withdraw for no apparent reason. Why, I
spent half the day yesterday showing him around the factory. Then you snap your fingers and expect to undo everything?”

“It’s my money, isn’t it?” Spencer drawled. “And until I sign anything, it remains my prerogative to change my mind. Which I have.”

“Sir Horace, if you could just give me and my brother a moment to speak alone—” Nat began.

“No need for that.” Spencer reached over to grab Nat by the arm. “Come on, Nathaniel. You have an appointment in London for which you’re already two months late.”

“What?” Nat asked as Spencer dragged him toward the door.

“I say, old chap,” Sir Horace called out, “are you sure you don’t want to take a look at the property yourself before you change your mind? We could go round in the morning—”

“I’m sure.” Those were Spencer’s last words before he hauled his brother through the door and off down the hall toward the entrance.

“Let go of me, you bloody fool,” Nat hissed. “I can walk unassisted.”

“That’s precisely what worries me,” Spencer said, not even pausing in his march for the door. “I fear you’ll head unassisted in the wrong direction.”

The butler blinked as they swept through the entrance hall, but hastily leaped to open the door. Moments later, Spencer and Nat were in the carriage.

As soon as it set off, Nat exploded. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to set that up? How many bottle works I looked at before I settled on that one? And Peabody was giving it to me for a song, too, only forty-seven hundred pounds.”

“Of Abby’s money,” Spencer snapped.

“Not her money. Yours. The dowry belongs to the husband.”

He snorted. “Funny how the husband hasn’t seen a penny of it.”

Nat stiffened. Reaching inside his pocket, he pulled out a wad of bank notes and tossed it at Spencer. “Here. That’s what I was going to give Sir Horace.”

He counted them, surprised to find that they did indeed come to forty-seven hundred pounds, only three hundred pounds shy of the five thousand pounds in Abby’s dowry. Three hundred was scarcely enough to cover Nat’s expenses and Abby’s passage to England.

Nonetheless…“I thought her dowry was in gold coins.”

“I changed them in America before I left. I’m not idiot enough to travel to England with five thousand pounds worth of gold coins in my pockets. There are pirates who roam the seas, for God’s sake.”

Spencer could only gape at him. “So you really were buying that factory for me? Or rather Abby?”

Nat shrugged. “Actually, when I left America, I’d hoped her father would live a while longer. Then when she came here I’d have the factory bought and the beginnings of the business established here, all neatly tied up in property you or she might be reluctant to sell out of hand. So she’d stay to help me run the thing, and you’d be around her all the time, and there’d be the problem of the marriage…”

“And perhaps Abby and I would think it better just to let things lie.”

“Or you’d do something noble like insist on maintaining the marriage for her sake, and she would agree.” Nat gazed steadily at his brother. “That woman was half in love with you before she even left America. She spent nearly every day after your departure mooning over you. That’s why I knew my plan would work. She wanted you, and you wanted her. I knew you wouldn’t let her leave once she got here.”

Spencer shook his head in sheer amazement at his brother’s audacity. “The only reason I didn’t let her leave initially was because you were missing and I couldn’t risk a scandal. So your original plan would have failed miserably.
If she’d arrived according to
your
plan, and you’d told me you’d spent her dowry on a bottle works, I would have sold the factory at a loss, paid her off, and cut your allowance to compensate.”

“And let her go back to America alone?” Nat snorted. “You would have had to take her back there, if only to dissolve the marriage. And you know how those long ship passages are…” Nat thrust his chin out defiantly. “You both liked each other, and I knew it. You just needed an excuse to be together long enough to realize it for yourselves.”

“An excuse which you provided by marrying me off without informing me.”

“If I’d informed you, you wouldn’t have married her. And you know you wanted to.” Nat scowled. “I certainly wanted you to. I wasn’t about to let you make me heir to all the blasted Ravenswood properties and the blasted Ravenswood title. A position for which I’m ill-suited, as you ought to realize by now.”

Spencer opened his mouth, then closed it. Yesterday he would have exploded into fury at his brother’s characteristic habit of seeing his actions only through his own distorted glass. Today was a different matter. “So you took the bull by the horns, so to speak.”

His calm tone seemed to give Nat pause. The young man eyed him warily. “Somebody had to. You certainly weren’t going to.”

“And you knew exactly what was right for me, what I was capable of handling, and what I ought to do.”

Nat looked downright fearful now. “Well…I wouldn’t put it quite like that—”

“Why not? That’s how I always put it when I made choices for you.” He settled back against the seat, pinning Nat with a dark glance. “I’m proud to see you following so closely in my footsteps, really I am. But since I have more experience in trying to run people’s lives without consulting them, let
me give you a little helpful advice. First of all, never try to run more than one person’s life at a time. It’s too complicated, and you risk their taking actions on their own that might destroy your carefully laid plans.”

Nat sank against the squabs, crossing his arms sullenly over his chest. “If you’re trying to tell me my scheme didn’t work, I won’t believe it. Evelina kept me very well informed about how the two of you are getting on.”

“Ah, Evelina, the first person who didn’t act according to your plan. Let’s talk about your fiancée and her letters. The last one was returned from Wales, since she didn’t have a new address to send it to.”

He flushed. “My letter’s on its way to her. I didn’t have time to post it in Wales. I was in too much of a hurry trying to outstrip some rogues shadowing me—I assume they were yours.” His eyes narrowed. “I thought I’d given them the slip. How did you know where to find me?”

“Oh, my runners found out all about your business contacts. And when Evelina came yesterday evening, desperate to reach you—”

“Desperate?” he asked with a frown. “Why? Has something happened?”

Spencer glowered at his brother. “Ask yourself what you were doing two months ago when you should have been keeping your prick in your trousers, and you’ll have the answer to that question.”