THE EARL'S PREGNANT BRIDE (3 page)

The right choice...

Genny went through her list of reasons in her mind again: the baby, who deserved the right to claim his inheritance. And her fondness for Rafe. Surely they should have a good chance to make a successful marriage together, with friendship as a basis. And being intimate with him wouldn’t be a hardship—oh, who was she kidding? Sex with Rafe was amazing.

And Hartmore.

Yes. She would have Hartmore. And, fair enough, she was a little ashamed that Hartmore mattered so much.

But the plain fact was that it did.

“Genevra?” her father prompted gruffly.

She wove her fingers more tightly with Rafe’s. “Yes,” she said. It came out firm and wonderfully sure sounding. “Marrying Rafe is the right choice for me.”

* * *

After three days jam-packed with shopping and preparations and endless visits with lawyers to hammer out all the legal and financial agreements, they flew to East Midlands Airport on Friday. There was Genny, Rafe, her mother and father and Aurora, whom they all called Rory. The wedding would be very small and private, only family members, just the bride and groom in the wedding party, with Genny’s father to give her away.

Rory would be taking the pictures. She was the baby of the family, a year younger than Genny—and everything Genny wasn’t.

There was nothing ordinary about Rory. Rory loved the great outdoors. She thrived on adventure. She had a bachelor of fine arts in photography from the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago and she’d already had her pictures published in
National Geographic,
Country Digest
and
Birds & Blooms.
Genny found her baby sister a little intimidating.

But then, Genny found all of her siblings intimidating. They seemed larger than life to her, somehow, each of them not only knowing what they wanted, but also going after it with passion and grace. True, Genny had always known what she wanted: to be a DeValery and mistress of Hartmore. But her sisters’ ambitions were so much grander than hers. Compared to them, Genny sometimes felt like a plain gray pigeon raised in a family of swans.

At East Midlands, two cars were waiting to take them to Hartmore. Genny, Rafe and Rory rode together. Genny’s and Rory’s bodyguards sat in front, one of them at the wheel. The ride took about an hour. Rafe was mostly silent and Genny didn’t feel much like talking, either. Rory, always full of energy and plans, tried to keep the conversation going, but eventually gave up. They rode in silence through the English countryside and Genny drifted off to sleep.

She woke suddenly, her head on Rafe’s shoulder, as they pulled to a stop at Hartmore, the North Entrance, so stark and spectacular. Open parkland, designed two hundred years before by Capability Brown, rolled away into the distance dotted with giant old oaks and beeches. A masterpiece of Georgian perfection in its day, the house was composed of a central block joined by single-story links to three-story wings on either side. Six Corinthian columns supported the central pediment.

The façade remained magnificent. But inside, Genny knew, more than a few of the two hundred rooms had been water damaged due to roof leaks. So much needed doing in the months and years to come. But right now, all she could think of was the first time she’d seen the house. Her mother had brought her and her four sisters, Arabella, Rhiannon, Alice and Rory, for a visit when Genny was five.

For Genny, that visit had been a revelation; at the tender age of five, she’d suddenly known what she wanted, known where she fit in. Now, twenty years later, she felt exactly the same. She was coming home—home to stay, at last.

“We’re home,” said Rafe so softly, echoing her thoughts.

She smoothed her sleep-flattened hair and gave him a smile that only trembled a little.

* * *

An hour later, after her mother, her father and Rory had been properly greeted and shown to their rooms, Genny and Rafe met privately in one of the East Wing drawing rooms with Rafe’s grandmother, the dowager countess, Eloise.

Tall, with the proud posture of a much younger woman, Eloise had a long, heavily lined face, pale blue eyes and wiry, almost-white hair that she braided and pinned close to her head. She lived in old trousers and wellies, her tricolor rough collies, Moe and Mable, trailing in her wake.

Genny loved Eloise—absolutely and unconditionally. An amateur botanist, Rafe’s grandmother ruled the grounds and gardens. And she ruled well. Overall, the estate lands were in much better shape than the house—especially the West Wing, where roof leaks had necessitated the removal of many of the furnishings.

“Moe. Mable. Go.” Eloise pointed to a spot by the fireplace and the collies trotted right over there. “Sit.” They sat. She lowered her hand, palm down, toward the floor. “Down.” The dogs stretched out obediently. Then she turned a glowing smile on Genny. “My dearest girl.”

With a low cry, Genny ran to her.

Chuckling, Eloise gathered her up in those long, capable arms. She smelled of lavender and lemons. Genny took comfort from the beloved, familiar scents. “So. We shall have you as our own after all.”

Genny hugged the old woman closer. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Let me have a look at you.” Eloise took Genny by the shoulders and held her away. “A little pale, perhaps.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“That’s the spirit. We’ll soon put pink in those cheeks and fatten you up.” She pressed a rough, heavily veined hand to Genny’s cheek. “I’m deeply gratified that you will be my own granddaughter at last.”

Genny bit her lip and nodded and didn’t really know what to say. “It’s all a little overwhelming....”

There was a noise in the hallway. The dogs perked up their ears and the door flew open. “Genny!” Dressed in his school uniform, complete with blue vest and striped tie, eight-year-old Geoffrey came flying into the room. “You’re here! You’re really here!”

“Slow down, young man,” Eloise commanded, hiding a grin.

Genny held out her arms.

He landed against her and hugged her good and hard. “They let me come from school because of the wedding,” he said. “And Great-Granny says you will be my aunt Genny.”

“Oh, yes, I will.”

Then he scowled. “Mum’s sending me back on Sunday.”

Genny smoothed his tousled sandy hair. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

He beamed her a big smile and she saw that he’d lost two baby teeth in front. “I’m so glad to be home.” Then he turned and flung himself at Rafe. “Uncle Rafe!” Rafe chuckled and lifted him high.

“Put him down, Rafe.” Brooke DeValery Landers, Rafe’s sister and Geoffrey’s mother, stood in the open doorway looking stunning as always in turquoise silk leggings, a big-collared white tunic, ballet flats and a look of disapproval. “He’s way too excited, behaving like a savage. No manners at all.” She raked her long sable hair back from her forehead and turned her angry sapphire eyes on Genny. “Lovely to see you, Genevra.” Her tone said it wasn’t lovely at all. Brooke was divorced from an American, Derrick Landers. Her ex lived in the States. He’d remarried and had two more children.

“Hello, Brooke.” Genny and Brooke had never really gotten along. The best they ever did together was a kind of cool civility. Genny put on a smile and went to her. They air-kissed each other’s cheeks. “You look well.”

Brooke stared past her at Rafe. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

“It’s true,” Rafe answered without missing a beat. “Gen has made me the happiest man on earth.”

“Genny.” Geoffrey tugged on her hand. “Samson had kittens, did you know?” He gave her his jack-o’-lantern grin.

Genny widened her eyes. “But how is that possible?”

“Because Samson turned out to be a
girl!
” He chortled with glee.

“Geoffrey, come along now,” Brooke cut in sharply. She held out her hand, snapping her fingers. “I want you out of that uniform before you get something on it.”

His laughter died. He slumped his small shoulders. “But I want to take Genny out to the stables and show her—”

“Geoffrey. Now.”

Dragging his feet, he went to his mother. Herding him out ahead of her, she pulled the door closed as she went.

Genny stared at the shut door and promised herself that she’d steal a little time with Geoffrey before he had to return to school on Sunday.

* * *

They had dinner at eight in the State Dining Room, with its Chippendale sideboards and urn-topped pedestals and the glorious old table that could seat forty.

Geoffrey didn’t join them. Brooke said he was overtired and already in his room. The conversation was, for the most part, innocuous. Rory whipped out a camera and took several pictures right there at the table before the meal was served. She said she was headed to Colorado on Monday, to the town of Justice Creek and a long visit with Clara, her favorite Bravo cousin. Eloise spoke of her bedding plants and the vegetable border in the walled garden, which she couldn’t wait to show Genny. Genny’s mother and father were charming and agreeable.

And Rafe was his usual silent, watchful self. He ate slowly, with never a clink or a clatter. When he set down his delicate crystal water goblet after taking a sip, the water within hardly stirred. Genny tried not to stare at him, not to get lost in inappropriate fantasies of those four days two months ago.

Or in distant memories of the feral boy he’d been once, roaming the gardens and grounds, unkempt and unsupervised. His mother, Sabrina, had doted on him and refused to rein him in. His father, Edward II, had little to do with him, except to punish him for what the earl considered Rafe’s uncivilized behavior, punishments which were frequent and severe.

Genny had met Rafe during her first glorious visit to Hartmore, when she was five and he was thirteen. He was still running wild then. He’d dropped out of an oak tree practically on her head and she’d run off screaming. The next day, when he’d popped out from behind a topiary hedge into her path, she’d somehow managed to hold her ground. Before the end of that visit, they were unlikely friends: the earl’s big, wild second son and the five-year-old Montedoran princess. Her mother, who had always encouraged her children to get out and explore the world, had allowed her to roam all over the estate as long as Rafe was there to look after her. He’d told her that he hated his father. And she’d admitted that she wished she could stay at Hartmore forever.

That fall, strings were pulled and Rafe went away to St Paul’s in London. He shocked everyone by doing well there. After St Paul’s he attended Emmanuel College at Cambridge, where he’d finished at the top of his class. More than once in recent years, Eloise had confided in Genny that Rafe had a brain to match his giant body and an aptitude for money management. He’d taken a modest inheritance from a great-uncle and made some excellent investments with it. Now he was doing well for himself. Before Edward’s death, Eloise had even once let drop that Hartmore would be better off had Rafe been the heir.

Across the table next to Rafe, Brooke let loose with a brittle laugh. “Genevra, what
are
you staring at?” Of course she knew. She even turned a mean little smile on Rafe to drive home her point.

Genny ordered her cheeks not to blush and spoke up fast, so Rafe wouldn’t feel he had to step in and defend her. “Why, at you, of course, Brooke. Love that dress.”

Brooke made a scoffing sound and lifted her wineglass high. “To marital bliss, everyone. Though God knows in my experience it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Chapter Three

T
he State Rooms at Hartmore were open to the public Thursday through Sunday from noon to four in the afternoon, April through October. One small-budget film of Jane Austen’s
Emma,
as well as a couple of BBC specials, had been shot there.

Hartmore was also available for weddings. There were two wedding parties scheduled for the next day, the first at one in the afternoon and the second at four, both in Saint Ann’s Chapel, with receptions to follow in the State Dining Room and on the grand terrace, respectively.

By five-thirty, the second party had left the chapel. Hartmore staff got right to work switching out the flowers and hanging a fresh set of lace and floral swags from the ends of the gorgeous old mahogany pews.

At a quarter past six, Genny walked down the red-carpeted aisle in the six-hundred-year-old sandstone church on her father’s arm. She wore a sleeveless white-lace creation bought three days before in Montedoro and carried pink roses from Hartmore’s rose garden. Rafe waited for her at the altar dressed beautifully in a charcoal morning coat, buff waistcoat and gray trousers. To her, the whole experience had an air of unreality.

She was on her father’s arm and then, as if by magic, she stood at the altar with Rafe, beneath the stained glass window depicting the crucifixion and ascension of Christ. There were vows and she said them, obediently and a little bit breathlessly.

Rafe kissed her, his soft lips brushing hers for the first time since he’d kissed her goodbye after their brief time together two months before. She shivered a little at the contact and her body ached. For him.

So strange, really. She’d been at his side constantly in the five days since she’d climbed the villa wall to tell him she was having his baby. But they hadn’t really talked, not about anything beyond their plans to marry and what had to be done next.

And they hadn’t made love. He’d been distant and carefully gentle with her. Attentive, but in no way intimate.

Right after the ceremony, as she posed with Rafe and the family and Rory flitted about snapping picture after picture, she wondered if, just possibly, she might have lost her mind. Pregnant. Marrying Rafe, her dearest friend, who was now like a stranger. Mistress of Hartmore.

It didn’t seem real. It was all like some weird, impossible dream.

They had dinner, just the family, in the small dining room in the East Wing, where the family lived. For the occasion, Genny would have liked to have used the State Dining Room again. But it wasn’t to be. The paying wedding parties were still going on in the heart of the house. After the meal, they moved to the East Solarium. There was wedding cake, as well as champagne that she pretended to sip while Rory took more pictures.

At eleven, she found herself in Rafe’s bedroom, the East Bedroom, as it had always been called, though there were many more bedrooms in that wing of the house. The East Bedroom had its own sitting room, a dressing room and bath—and a second bedroom beyond the dressing room. The East Bedroom had been part of the original design of the house, back before the turn of the eighteenth century, and was revolutionary in its day. An en suite bath was rare at the time. Even the very wealthy went down the hall—or even out the back door—to the loo.

The bedroom itself was furnished with Chippendale lacquer furniture and an enormous, ornately draped canopy bed. Wearing the white satin, low-backed bit of silky nothing she’d bought the same day she bought her wedding gown, Genny sat at the lacquer dressing table and stared at her wide-eyed reflection in the slightly streaky antique mirror. She worried that he might not be coming to join her.

She started to chew her lower lip over it, but made herself stop. And then she leaned close to the glass to whisper furiously at her own reflection, “If he doesn’t come, you are not going just sit here and wish that he would. You are getting up and going to find him.”

And when she found him, she would insist that they sleep together as man and wife.

Because they had to start somewhere to build a real marriage. And since the sex had been so good with them, she couldn’t help hoping that lovemaking might be a way to break through the wall of emotional reserve he seemed to have erected around himself.

“No need for that, Gen. I’m right here.”

She gasped and whirled to find him standing there, not six feet away. “Rafe! You scared me to death.” Frantically, she tried to remember just how much of what she’d been thinking she’d actually said out loud.

He stood absolutely still, the crescent scar pulling at the side of his mouth in that perpetual false hint of a smile, his black eyes watchful. “Forgive me.”

She thought of the wild boy he’d been once, tormented by his own father, wary of everyone—except her. And nowadays, he was wary of her, too. She had no idea what he might be thinking.

His thick brows drew together. “Are you all right?”

“Of course. Yes, fine.” Dear Lord, this was awful. They really were like strangers, with the long, awkward silences followed by stammered-out reassurances. She rose and faced him, feeling way too uncovered in the revealing nightgown.

He blinked and announced gruffly, “Good, then. I’ll just be a few minutes.” He went through the door to the dressing room and bath, closing it behind him.

She realized she’d been holding her breath. Releasing it in one hard gust, she let her head droop and stared down at her bare feet on the gorgeous old Aubusson carpet. Would he actually come back? He’d said that he would. But there was that other bedroom in the suite accessible through the dressing area. Great lords and ladies, after all, shouldn’t have to actually share a bed if they didn’t wish to. Should she follow him, make sure that he...?

No. Time enough for that later if he failed to return. She drew her shoulders back, spun on her heel and turned off the lights, all but the one at his side of the bed. Then she climbed in between the heavy bed curtains, got in under the covers and sat up against the pillows to wait for him.

She pressed her hand to her chest. Her poor heart pounded away in there with a sick sort of dread. She feared that he wouldn’t come and she would either have to go after him—or know herself for the coward she was.

But then the door opened and there he was, huge and muscular and marvelous, really, in a pair of dark silk boxers—and nothing else. He strode right for her. Her heart pounded hard, but with excitement now rather than dread.

He turned off that last light before climbing in next to her. She sat there in the dark against the pillows, acutely aware of his presence beside her, of his size, his heat. And his silence.

About then, it became too ridiculous. The unreality of it all was too much for her. A silly, hysterical little laugh bubbled up in her chest. She tried to swallow it down.

But it wouldn’t be swallowed. It burst out of her, a breathless, absurd, trilling sort of sound. She slapped her hand over her mouth, but it wouldn’t stop.

“You think it’s funny, do you?” he asked from the darkness beside her.

She laughed some more. “I... Oh, God, I...”

And then she heard it, a low, rusty rumble. It took her a moment to realize that the sound was coming from him. He was laughing, too.

They laughed together, there in the dark, and she remembered...

How they used to laugh together often, over the simplest things—the antics of Moe and Mable when they were pups, or the way he would pop up out of nowhere, bringing a shriek of surprise from her. In the old days, they could laugh together at anything, really. She’d always felt so proud that he would laugh with her. He never did with anyone else. With her, he didn’t feel the need to be constantly on his guard, to hold himself in check.

In recent years, though, he’d become more distant, more careful with her. And she’d missed the playful times they used to share.

The laughter faded. The room was too quiet. Still, she realized she felt marginally better about everything.

And then he shifted beside her, moving closer and even wrapping his big arm around her. He pulled her against him.

She sighed in sudden, lovely contentment and leaned her head on his rock of a shoulder. “I think I’ve become hysterical.”

“Must be the hormones.” His wonderful huge hand moved on her bare arm, a tender stroking motion.

This was more like it. She snuggled in closer. “That’s the advantage to being pregnant. Anytime I behave badly, I can just blame it on the hormones.”

“You haven’t.”

“What?”

“Behaved badly.” His lips brushed her hair.

She rubbed her cheek against the hot, smooth flesh of his shoulder and wished it might be like this between them always. “Have you forgotten what happened when we told my parents we’d decided to get married? The way I made you promise not to tell them about the baby—and then went right ahead and blurted out the truth when you were trying so hard to keep the secret for me?”

“That wasn’t behaving badly. That’s just how you are.”

“Unable to stick with a plan of action?”

“No. Not wanting to disappoint your parents—and yet never quite able to hide the truth.”

“I’m honest to the core, am I?”

“Yes.” He said it so firmly, without even having to stop and think about it. His belief in her cheered her.

But then she thought about their marriage, which wouldn’t have happened except for the baby. Now, because of the baby, she had achieved her lifelong dream: to be countess of Hartmore. “But I’m not,” she said miserably. “Not honest at all.”

“Shh.”

She dared to lift her head. “Rafe, I—”

“Shh,” he said again. And then his hand was there, at her throat, caressing, brushing upward to lift her chin. “Gen.” His breath warmed her cheek. She drank in the familiar, exciting scent of him.

And then, light and questioning and heartbreakingly tender, his mouth touched hers.

A real kiss. At last.

She sank into it, parting her lips for him, welcoming him in.

He accepted her invitation, dipping his tongue in, making her whimper low in her throat as he pulled her closer, turning his big body toward her. She moaned in pleasure at the glorious feel of her breasts pressing into his broad, hard chest. Clasping his giant shoulder, she melted into him.

They sank down into the bed, still kissing. She pushed at his shoulder then, urging him over. He gave to her will, stretching out on his back so that she could ease her leg across him.

Her nightgown had slithered up. It was a crumpled knot at her waist. She didn’t care. She was lying on top of him, her body pressed along the length of his.

His big hands were on her hips, pulling her closer. She could feel the hard, wonderful ridge of his arousal through the thin silk of his boxers.

He wanted her.

And she wanted him. Surely they could make things good and right between them, now, tonight, on their wedding night.

She reached up to caress his face and felt the curving, puckered shape of the scar. And she moaned deep in her throat, in excitement. In pleasure. And also in sympathy for all he had suffered.

And then, out of nowhere, he froze. She made a soft, soothing sound. She stroked his shoulder, urging him to relax, to stay with her, to keep kissing her, touching her...

But he only shifted stiffly beneath her, tugging on her nightgown, smoothing it down to cover her. He eased her off him and gained the top position once more.

“Rafe, what—?”

He put a finger against her lips. She stared up at him through the darkness, waiting for him to explain himself, to tell her what had gone wrong.

But he didn’t explain a thing. After a moment, he stretched out beside her, pulling her close again, settling her head on his shoulder. “Let it alone for tonight,” he said quietly. “It will be all right.”

She wanted to believe him. But she didn’t, not really. And that had her thinking of Edward, for some reason.

Edward, slim and tall, with blue eyes and golden-brown hair. Edward was always so elegant, as sophisticated and charming as Rafe was stoic and tender. Edward had been the hero of her earliest fantasies. He used to flirt with her shamelessly. And she had thoroughly enjoyed every teasing glance and clever compliment.

Edward...

Maybe what they needed, she and Rafe, was to talk about the hardest things—like Edward’s death, which he seemed to have a real aversion to discussing. Two months ago, at Villa Santorno, when she’d tried repeatedly to bring it up, he’d only refused over and over to go into it.

She went for it. “Is this about Edward somehow?”

“Go to sleep, Gen.”

“I touched the scar on your cheek...and it all went bad.”

“No.”

“Rafe, I think we really need to talk about it.”

“Leave it alone.”

“No. No, I’m not going to do that. I know what happened that night, the facts of the situation. Eloise told me. She said that you were driving home from a party at Fiona’s.” Fiona Bryce-Pemberton was a longtime friend of Brooke’s; they’d met as children, Brooke and Fiona, at St Anselm’s prep school in nearby Bakewell. At the age of nineteen, Fiona had married a wealthy banker. The banker had bought her Tillworth, a country house not far from Hartmore. “I know that it was two in the morning and Edward was driving. Brooke had stayed the night at Fiona’s. There was only you and Edward in the car when he drove off the road and into an oak tree. Eloise said that the investigation absolved you of any wrongdoing, that it was simply an accident, one of those terrible things that can happen now and then.”

Rafe lay very still. At first. And then, with slow, deliberate care, he eased away from her. They still lay side by side, but their bodies were no longer touching. “So, then. You know what happened. There’s nothing to talk about.”

She sat up, switched on the lamp by her side of the bed and turned back to look in his hooded black eyes. “There’s everything to talk about. There’s how you feel about what happened. How you’re...holding up. And there’s the question of why you won’t let a good plastic surgeon have a look at that scar.”

His eyes flashed dark fire. “I feel like bloody hell about what happened, thank you. I’m in one piece, in good health and I’m now the earl of Hartmore, so I would say that I’m holding up just fine. As to my face, it may not be pretty, but I really don’t give a damn. If you don’t want to look at me, then simply look away.”