The Dangerous Love of a Rogue (45 page)

His smile parted his lips. “Are you mocking me?”

“Perhaps.” Mary smiled too. “Why did you choose me over anyone else? If you married me for money, why did you give it back?”

His eyebrows lifted at the question and his smile fell. “Mary, I have told you. The first time I danced with you I knew you were the most beautiful creature—”

A bitter taste in her mouth, Mary’s hand slid down over his waistcoat to rest on his stomach.

“But I remember you do not like to be appreciated for your looks. Yet you wished for honesty from me, and your beauty played a part. It was more than that though. You danced with me and smiled at me and talked as though I was any other man, because you had no idea I was untouchable, a hell born bastard. You charmed me. Perhaps I was even in love with you then. Perhaps I fell at first sight.” His fingers snapped. “I wanted you. The impulse was immediate and instinctive.”

“Except that during the waltz after that you asked Kate to share a bed with you. No more lies. I asked because I want to know the truth. Even if your answer is ugly, and merely because you liked my looks and my money, I would know the truth. I know it is not what you think now.”

His arm moved from behind his head and his hand gripped hers where it lay on his stomach. “It is the truth, Mary. I asked your sister-in-law out of spite. I told you so. Not that I am proud of it. It is another of my faults, if people expect me to behave badly I have an incontrollable itch to infuriate them. I did not know I’d fallen in love moments before because I have never known love. All I knew was, I was mesmerised by you. When I saw you after that, a strange emptiness always gripped my stomach. I procrastinated, for a whole season. I needed money, you had it, and yet you seemed beyond any hope. But you kept glancing at me and you gave me hope.

“This season I watched you, and those same feelings were there. My bumping into you at that garden party was deliberate, and when we met in that dark glasshouse my stomach was queasy,” he moved her hand, “just here, with anticipation and longing, and here,” he slid their joined hands back up to cover his heart, “there was pain. It is the same when I look at you, when I hear your voice, and… when I make love to you it hits me like a flood of emotion brimming up and over. Am I right, is it love?” His eyes shone light brown, gilded with gold in the sunlight.

“It is. It is how I feel too.” Mary pressed her fingers more firmly against his chest.

“But I should tell you the whole truth, I suppose…”

A frown crushed Mary’s brow.

“Since I danced with you the first night I met you, I’ve not bedded another woman.”

“That was a year ago—”

“I know. I have never really been a rake, Mary, just a little wild and misled, and I shall admit too that your sister-in-law’s refusal only piqued my interest more. I did not only watch you, but I watched your family. They all seemed to have monogamous marriages; love-matches I suppose. A thing my family are incapable of. That is the one thing I longed for in a wife. It seemed to me that if the women of your family were faithful, you would be faithful.”

She slid her fingers out from beneath his and touched his cheek. She’d seen how vulnerable he was after they’d called on his parents, but now she saw how deep it ran.

He may have learned to love her, but he did not love himself because no one had loved or cared for him as a child. He did not think himself loveable.

He would call himself a fool, she would call him wounded – but not aloud, he’d take it as pity. “And I chose to go out alone with your friend…”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I suppose your conclusions were instinctive…”

“That was crass of me.” He caught hold of her fingertips and kissed them. “I knew it then, but I saw his hand on you and… it cut. It was wrong of me. I judged you by others, just as people do to me.”

“In future may we always be honest with one another? I loved you too from that first night. You were the only man there whenever you entered a room. You fascinated me. I wish you had come forward and dealt openly with my father and told him the things you’ve just told me, he would not have kept us apart. He always promised me my husband would be my choice. It is why John added to my dowry so my choice need not be restricted by a lack of money.”

“Your father would not have wanted a bastard for a son-in-law, especially not one with a rake’s reputation.”

“My father will not care if you tell him you love me. He only wishes me happy – and you make me happy.”

His brown eyes held her gaze and he kissed her fingers again, then his breath hot on her fingertips he said, “I’ll tell him, and I promise not to be so sour.”

“You are not sour. You are handsome,” she leant and kissed his cheek, “and kind,” she pressed a kiss on his brow, “and good – when you wish to be.” She smiled. “Yet most importantly you are mine. I care for you, I love you, and I’ll not let you go, nor share you, Andrew.”

“When I took you away, when your father and your brother came to get you, I hated that they had a greater claim on you, that your affection was for them, that you believed them and not me. I was jealous. I want to be all to you.”

“You have been all to me since the day you came into John’s garden when my parents were away from home. I was hurt by what they said, because I love you. I did not want to believe it, because I love you, but you would not say a single word to argue your case.”

“My faults are legion.” His fingers squeezed hers. “I will no longer be an ass and I shall apologise to your father.”

Mary lowered her head and kissed his lips, then holding his gaze whispered over them, “I love you.”

His fingers cupped her scalp and he kissed her back for a long time.

When they drew apart, she rested her head on his shoulder, and rolled to her back, listening to the bees gathering honey from the clover.

But then she remembered, she had not been wholly honest with him yet… “Andrew. There is something I have to tell you.”

“What, Mary?” He turned, rising. Mary’s head slipped on to the grass.

Concern shone in his eyes.

She gripped his hand and pulled it to her stomach. “It is this. You are to be a father. I am carrying.”

He sucked in a hard sharp breath and his hand lifted, as though the contact had burnt him, while his gaze dropped to her stomach.

God in heaven!
A child!
His gaze lifted back to her pale blue eyes; they shone like diamonds. A child?

Hell
, she’d left with his child in her.

“Would you have told me if we were apart?” The words were a little bitter.

But Mary simply smiled. “Yes. Kate is illegitimate too. That is her story to tell, but Kate brought me here so I might adjust to the knowledge, but she made me promise I would tell you. Although I would not have spoken with joy. But now we can be happy, and our child will be happy.”

“Our child…” His palm settled on her stomach. There was no change, but inside her a new life had been created. It was being nurtured, by a woman who would love it.

Emotion overwhelmed him and moisture clouded his gaze.

He turned away, sitting up with his knees bent, looking out at the lake.

A child. A son or a daughter. His. His wife. His family.

It felt as if the ground rocked underneath him.

He’d always been unworthy and unwanted, but his child would be wholly worthy and wholly wanted. Mary would love it, and he would love it.

She sat up too, and her arms came about his midriff as she pressed her cheek to his shoulder.

Something broke inside him, something hard, dark and cold and it became warm and light as he leant his cheek against her hair. It smelt beautiful. Roses. Love played about in his heart, and his soul, dancing.

He wiped his cheeks,
devil take it
he would not have any one see him being so unmanly.
Lord
his friends would laugh themselves stupid if they could see him now.

When she lifted her head, there were tear stains on her cheeks too. He wiped them away with his thumbs, and then his palms pressing against her cheeks, he kissed her fiercely.

A gong rang out announcing dinner.

She pulled away. “Oh goodness, do you think they have been waiting for us.” She stood. “Do I look a state? Have I grass in my hair?”

“You look beautiful.” She looked flushed, happy and bright eyed.

He stood and offered her his hand.

She took it and rose. “You cannot wear your coat…” She turned and bent to pick it up. “It is too creased. You will have to give it to John’s valet to see if he can repair it.”

“I’ll live without it.” He took it from her hand.

“It is only John and Kate who know I am with child. Neither my father nor my mother and nor anyone else within my family know…”

He smiled and hugged her hard. Then when he released her, captured her hand and wove his fingers through hers. They walked back up to the house thus.

Chapter 36

Drew walked down to the breakfast room, feeling like a different man to the hollow one who had stayed at Brooke’s the day before.

That other man was a stranger.

Drew had gone for a walk and a smoke before breakfast, leaving Mary in bed. He’d wandered down to the lake. It was so ridiculously quiet here. Calm. Peaceful.

When he’d returned, Mary had risen, and already gone down to break her fast. He was on his way to join her, but not looking forward to another meal with Pembroke.

Dinner last night had been strained. They had made polite conversation to avoid uncomfortable silence and the Duchess had worked hard to draw him into it, but he had not really known what to say.

As soon as the meal was over he’d grasped the opportunity to escape with Mary.

They had retired to her rooms, which were as large as he’d guessed, and then they’d held one another, and talked again. There had been no lust then.

But he’d woken in the night, at her urging, as she’d kissed his lips. He’d kissed her back, thoroughly, with an urgent desire to be inside her.

They’d made love in utter darkness, the call of night owls reaching them through an open window, the warm breeze brushing across his skin and the smell of clean, fresh grass and clover scented air flooding the room. He had made love to her slowly, adoring every inch of her body, and afterwards he’d tucked her beneath his arm and slept, knowing to the very depths of his marrow she was entirely his, and always would be.

He had not dared to think of the child.

“Framlington? Are you sure, Mary?”

Drew stopped as his foot left the staircase, and Pembroke’s voice echoed about the hall.

People who overheard conversations about themselves never heard anything good. And yet… he could not help it, he wanted to know what she said behind his back. Drew crossed the hall as quietly as he could.

“He does love me, John.” The doors of the breakfast room were a little ajar, Drew could see the Duchess was not there, and nor were there any footmen, even in the hall. So the conversation had grown private.

Her brother looked at her, his gaze assessing.

All Drew could see of Mary was her back.

“We watched you yesterday for a while, Katherine and I, as you lay in the meadow, talking; his behaviour certainly suggested he has feelings for you.”

“If you knew him –”

“He is not a man to be easily known.”

“Only because he closes himself off. It does not make him bad, it just means he is wary, because he is vulnerable, as I said.”

Her brother’s gaze showed something Drew would have not even recognised two months ago – care. He cared immensely for his sister. “You were vulnerable too…”

“That is different, and not why I fell in love with him.”

She was vulnerable?

“You wished to be special to someone. No doubt he made you feel it. It is not always easy growing up in a large family is it? Even if that family is full of love, one becomes another member of a crowd, and loses any individuality.” Pembroke smiled in a way Drew would not have thought him capable. Pembroke was different at home.

“No,” she admitted. “I have longed for a few years to have someone to love and love me in return with their whole heart and not just a piece of it.”

Her brother drank the last of his coffee and rose then walked about the table to rest a hand on her shoulder. “I felt the same. I shut you all out rather than admit the truth. Katherine was my answer. I think perhaps you have found yours too. I did wonder when he turned up at that musical evening and came that afternoon. But he is good at masquerading. He makes it appear he has no interest at all.”

She looked up at her brother. “He will be different now. He’s promised to be different.”

“I hope he is for your sake, but I do believe that he has feelings for you. I hope he loves you. I wish you happy, as does Katherine.”

Pembroke leant and kissed Mary’s cheek.

Drew took a breath and walked into the room. Now was his moment to prove Mary’s words true. “As do I.”

Pembroke straightened, suspicion in his eyes, obviously wondering how much Drew had heard.

Enough.

Mary stood.

Drew walked to her side, and settled his arm about her shoulders. “I love your sister, Pembroke, she will be happy, there is no if.”

Mary turned and embraced his midriff, pressing her cheek to his shoulder, as though they’d been separated for days, not less than an hour.

He kissed the crown of her head, love tugging inside him, and looked at Pembroke, expecting outrage over their show of affection.

Pembroke smiled, with the mellow look Drew had only just discovered Pembroke possessed.

“I shall leave you to your breakfast.” He nodded at Drew, then walked out.

When Pembroke was gone, Mary slipped free, smiling. “He approves. I told you, all they wish for is my happiness. If you make me happy. Papa will approve too.”

Drew’s hand gripped her nape and pulled her back, then he kissed her, hard.

* * *

Mary chose to rest in the afternoon and Drew was at a loose end. He’d explored the grounds with her on horseback before luncheon, but after they’d eaten, she claimed her condition made her tired.