The Rake (25 page)

He released her, but she felt his gaze on
her back as she climbed the stairs.

“
I was certain I must have
told you we would be removing to Bath,” Lady Wyndham said airily,
drawing his attention as she turned and made her way into the
parlor. She inspected it cursorily to make certain the servants
she’d sent down the night before had cleaned it thoroughly and
finally settled on the settee. “It was growing far too hot to
remain in London and we had made the plans more than a week
ago.”

Garrett’s lips tightened. “I only just
arrived in London,” he said coolly.

Her brows rose. “Well, I must suppose that
is why you hadn’t heard,” she retorted. “I’d expected you to follow
us weeks ago.”

His eyes narrowed, instead of answering her
at once, however, he paced to the window and stood looking out, his
back to the room. “I had business that needed attending at Wyndham
Park that had been neglected in my absence.”

Lady Wyndham released an irritated sigh. She
didn’t doubt that it was true, but she did not believe the business
of the estate could have required so much of his time. “Well, we
are here now.”

“
For how long?”

She shrugged, although she knew he was still
facing the street and couldn’t see her. “Until we are ready to move
on … a few weeks, certainly.”

“
What game is this the two
of you are playing at?” he asked, his voice deceptively
soft.

Lady Wyndham uttered an irritated hiss of
displeasure. “I should ask the same of you.”

He turned to study her for several moments.
“Then I will tell you ‘tis no game I play. I am in deadly earnest,
mother.”

She might have been tempted to dismiss the
remark except there was something in his demeanor that she had not
seen before. She rather thought his opponents on the dueling field
might have, but she had not. Uneasiness touched her, but not
altogether because she saw very clearly that he was, indeed, deadly
serious.

She was almost certain that Demi was with
child. Demi did not seem to be aware of it yet, and she was fairly
certain that Garrett did not suspect, or hadn’t until a few moments
ago when he had studied her so searchingly.

She had undertaken to teach Garrett a
lesson, not only because she felt he was in dire need of it, given
his most ungentlemanly behavior, but also because she loved him.
She did not want to see him hurt by his own hardheaded
determination to refuse to acknowledge his feelings for Demi--or
Demitria either, for that matter. It was all very well to speak of
complacency, but if Garrett could convince himself that it was not
so, then he might also convince himself that he had wed her only
because he was duty bound to do so after he’d dishonored her, and
that way led to disaster.

On the other hand, if it was true that Demi
was with child, she was playing with fire and they might all be
burned.

“
Demi is not playing any
game at all. She simply could not bear to think that she was an
object of misplaced duty. I told her she did not need to settle for
so little. She is a sweet girl. I love her quite as much, I think,
as if she had been my own daughter. She deserves a man who loves
her. Hopefully one whom she holds in high regard, as well. I have
every confidence that she will receive a proposal from Sir Curtis,
and very likely Lord Melville, as well, before the summer is
out.”

“
She is
mine
!” he ground out furiously. “I
will not allow you to interfere, mother!”

Lady Wyndham was more than a little
discomposed by the underlying fury in his voice, but she wasn’t
about to allow him to think he could cow her merely by roaring at
her. She gave him a look. “You are not a savage, Garrett! You are a
lord of the realm! You cannot simply throw her to the dirt and
claim her as if you are some conquering barbarian!

“
I cannot say that she has
behaved just as she ought, but she is a lady, nevertheless, and
neither can I, of all people, sit in judgment.”

Garrett studied her in silence for several
moments. “It is not your place to interfere in my life either,
mother, especially when you know very well that my sense of
obligation is warranted and that that is only a part of it.”

Lady Wyndham looked at him in despair. “I
know nothing beyond the fact that you have behaved abominably
toward that girl! And neither does she, for that matter.”

He flushed, but he didn’t dispute it. Lady
Wyndham studied him for several moments and finally decided that
she had kept her own council long enough. If there was any chance
that speaking would help Garrett to understand, then she owed it to
him to tell him the truth. She sighed, feeling a welling of sick
fear, but whether Garrett hated her once she’d told him or not, she
loved him enough that she felt that it was worth it.

“
I don’t know how much you
remember about your father. I’ve never spoken of him to you … not
really.”

Garrett sent her a frowning glance of
confusion. “I’m afraid I cannot see the relevance of telling me at
this late date,” he said tightly.

“
I’m telling you now
precisely because it
is
relevant,” his mother snapped. “I should have told
you long ago, but I was such a coward. And, truth be told, I
figured sooner or later you would learn of it anyway, for there’s
no getting around the fact that it was a scandal.”

A faint smile curled his lips. “I am well
aware that you are no saint, mother.”

She blushed faintly but shook her head. “I
was mad for your father. Sometimes, looking back, I think I truly
wasn’t entirely sane. I worshipped him almost from the first moment
we met. I would have done anything for him. I was perfectly willing
to do anything he asked of me … eager actually. Which is why it is
so easy for me to understand Demi.

“
What happened next was
almost inevitable. I found that I was with child. It frightened me
so badly I could think of nothing but telling your father and he,
naturally, assured me he would do right by me, which he
did.

“
He was still quite young,
however. We both were, but I think he resented me for forcing him
into responsibility before he was ready for it. I always believed
he did. Eventually, I began to see that my love for him was only
hurting me. He never told me he loved me. He allowed me to believe
that he had only wed me because he knew he was honor bound to do
so. Maybe that was all he ever felt. I never knew, but I did
finally realize that I could not go on wondering,
doubting.

“
I set out to kill my
affection for him. It was the only way that I felt that I could
find peace. I don’t suppose I ever did stop loving him, but in the
end, it didn’t matter.”

Her chin wobbled slightly as she looked up
at him. “It was my fault he was killed … the duel … it was because
of me. I don’t expect you to excuse me, or forgive me. I never
could forgive myself.”

Garrett sat heavily in the chair facing the
settee where she sat, as if his knees had given out. “He believed
you had been unfaithful.”

Lady Wyndham nodded. There were tears
streaming down her cheeks now, but she made no effort to brush them
away. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but I wasn’t. I still
loved him, in spite of everything, but he seemed to want me to go
my own way. He had his own interests, and they rarely, if ever,
included me. I thought that he would be more content if I accepted
the way things were and I suppose I hoped that he would want me if
I wasn’t quite so … desperate to please.

“
It was not at all uncommon
for married women to have young attached males escort them. It
never occurred to me that he would fly into such a rage over it,
that he would assume things happened that had not.” She shook her
head. “You see, I am still trying to make excuses for myself,
trying to understand, trying to live with what happened. And I have
had this awful fear that history was about to repeat
itself.

“
If you do not care for
her, even just a little, Garrett, be kind and let her go. You have
both made one terrible mistake already. Do not pay for it in blood.
I will take care of Demi. The right man will love her in spite of
what has happened and forgive her for being human and less than
perfect.”

Garrett studied her for several moments and
finally scrubbed his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes tiredly.
When he looked up at her again, he swallowed convulsively before he
spoke. “I think….” He paused and smiled crookedly. “I think I am my
mother’s son. I love her, mother. So much it scares the hell out of
me.”

He stood abruptly and began pacing. “I have
made the most damnable mess of things. What am I to do?”

Lady Wyndham didn’t know whether to laugh or
cry. She did a little of both. “Tell her, you fool! You cannot
surely doubt that she adores you every bit as much, if not
more?”

Garrett’s gaze went at once to the ceiling,
as if he could see through it and into Demi’s room. He swallowed
convulsively, turning a slightly sickly color. “Now?” he said
doubtfully.

Lady Wyndham gave him a look. “For God’s
sake, Garrett! The child will be grown before you gather your nerve
at this rate!”

Chapter Eighteen

“
Child?” Garrett echoed
blankly. He transformed before her eyes into a raging barbarian
once more. “Mother!”

“
Don’t use that tone with
me, Garrett! I’m still your mother. As it happens, I’m not entirely
certain of it myself, and I don’t think Demi’s figured it out
either. Nevertheless….”

Garrett slammed the door so hard on his way
out, the windows rattled. Lady Wyndham bit her lip as she heard him
taking the stairs two at the time. Finally, she shrugged. It was
long past time they handled their own affairs. She felt certain
that Garrett would figure it out.

An odd sort of peace settled over her.
Garrett had always been the very image of his father. It had been a
source of both pleasure and pain for her, and now she thought it
had given her a measure of peace, as well. She thought, perhaps,
that Gerard truly had loved her in his own way, in spite of the
circumstances surrounding their marriage. Perhaps, like Garrett, he
had simply found that it was something too difficult to express, a
weakness he was fearful of disclosing?

* * * *

Demi was half asleep when the door burst
open abruptly. It jolted her wide awake, however, and she sat up
and stared at the furious man at her door in consternation. Garrett
surveyed the room, his eyes narrowing on the startled maid by the
window.

“
Out
!”

The woman gaped at him. “My lord?”

“
Out
!”

Sending a frightened glance at Demi, she
bolted for the door. He closed it firmly behind her and locked it.
Demi swallowed uneasily. “Garrett?” she gasped a little
doubtfully.

Her eyes widened as he shrugged out of his
jacket and dropped it to the floor, then tugged his cravat loose
and tossed that aside, as well. “Are you mad! Lady Wyndham--the
servants!”

He shrugged, popping the buttons from his
vest as he tore it open impatiently instead of unbuttoning it.
Leaning down, he tugged first one boot off and then the other,
dropping them to the floor with a clatter. “Yes.”

Demi blinked, dragging her gaze from the
evidence of his arousal with an effort. “What?”

“
I believe there is a very
good chance that I am mad. I have published the banns, but I do not
believe I have the patience to wait until we have said our vows. In
fact, I’m certain of it.”

She held out her hand as if to stop him.
“Garrett, this isn’t--you shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t
necessary.”

“
Unfortunately, it was. It
is required and I could not find a way around it, beyond making a
mad dash for Greta Green--which I have no intention of doing.” The
shirt joined the pile of clothing near the door. Demi covered her
eyes as he shucked his breeches and linens.

“
But-but Garrett, I don’t
want you to feel that you have to marry me!”

She felt the bed shift as he settled on it
beside her. His hands closed over her wrists, pulling her hands
away from her eyes. She looked at him wide-eyed, unnerved by the
glitter in his eyes as much as she was by the tense set of his
expression.

“
You cannot save me from my
folly, Demi. God’s truth, I don’t think I could bear it if you
tried.” Lifting a hand, he stroked her cheek gently. “If you feel
you cannot love me, Demi, I will learn to live with it, but I’m
fairly certain I cannot learn to live without you. I know I don’t
want to.”

Tears filled her eyes and clogged her throat
so that she couldn’t speak for several moments. “How could you
possibly believe that I didn’t love you? You must know that I
do.”

Slipping his hand from her cheek to the back
of her head, he leaned toward her and kissed her, his lips moving
over hers in a gentle caress, fitting, molding and then separating
from hers in tiny kisses that were almost tentative, as if he were
uncertain, still, of his reception. Demi slipped one arm around his
shoulder and the other around his waist, surrendering without
protest. He deepened the kiss, covering her mouth with his own and
plunging his tongue inside to taste and touch and explore the
sensitive inner surfaces possessively. She kissed him back almost
with a sense of desperation as need, long denied, surfaced, began
to overwhelm her.

Disappointment flooded her as he pulled
away. He placed a finger to her lips, traced them, and then traced
a trail downward. With fingers that shook noticeably, he loosened
the tie at the neck of her gown and tugged it off, tossing it
across the room to join his own clothing. He pushed her back among
the pillows then, pushing the covers away and studying her body in
a leisurely way that made heat and tension curl inside of her.