Twice a Rake (47 page)

“Rotheby can go straight to the devil without a backward glance,” Quin said.

“But the baby. The baby is gone, Quin. I’ve miscarried. Did you not read my journal?”

“I read it and understood perfectly well. That doesn’t matter. If marrying you and learning to live a proper life isn’t enough for him, then he can have the abbey. I’ll take up a profession. I’ll do whatever it takes to support you, Aurora. Because I can’t be without you. And it doesn’t matter to me if we never have children, if we never provide an heir to become Rotheby after me, as long as I have you. After all, once I’m in the ground, I won’t give one whit who holds the title. It could go to Norcutt or Jonas, or anyone else under the moon, for all I care.”

He dragged a hand through his shaggy hair, which looked as though he had done just that countless times already that evening. “Do you understand what I’m saying? There is nothing—absolutely nothing—I won’t do to convince you of my love. To convince you that you mean more to me than anything else in the world. Please, love. Please tell me you love me too. I need to hear the words.”

“Words? Words can repair nothing,” she said. “Words are fleeting, impermanent—gone as soon as they’re uttered. I said them to you earlier this evening. Not that it matters. Love can’t solve everything. It couldn’t restore my parents’ marriage, not once it was filled with such distress and suffering. Why should ours be any different?”

Quin stood and paced through the small room, causing Zeus to leap down from his arms and regain a perch on Aurora’s lap. “How is it that you, who cannot go a day without writing her every thought in a journal, you, whose writings have been the cause of such scandal and turmoil, believe words to be so invaluable? Do you not recognize your own power, Aurora? Do you not see how the world reacts to your words?” He faced her, searching her eyes. “Your father has spent the past fortnight hoping to catch a smile and a word from you. Nia, whom you had never met before she arrived here, has hung upon your every word as though it is the gospel, to the point that she has actually tried to act upon some of your half-witted suggestions. Lady Rebecca, while she might not have valued your opinion about Lord Norcutt as much as her own, still seeks you out for conversation at nearly every point in the day, forsaking the conversation of all others including her betrothed. And they are far from alone, Aurora. I could go on all night. Even the blasted dog on your lap is drawn to the sound of your voice, coming to you when you call, all the while ignoring anyone else. Why, in God’s name, is it so difficult for you to understand that I need to hear some simple words from your lips?”

“Simple?” she replied. “Love is the furthest thing from simple.”

“Precisely!” he said. “Love is complex and twisted, and it is different every time it occurs. Who is to say that our love will wind up in the exact manner your parents’ love did? That is about as unlikely as the idea of me becoming a replica of my father. You happened to tell me once that I am not him, though we may be alike. Do you recall that?”

She nodded. Of course she did. Aurora could recall nearly every conversation they had ever had. She remembered every touch, every kiss, every tremble when he drew near. He consumed her.

Quin dropped to his knees before her, taking her hands into his own. “You are not your mother. You may be like her, but you are not her.” He lowered his chin to their joined hands, eyes closed. “I know that you love me. If it wasn’t clear from the fact that you are here, in my special place, your journal would have made it abundantly obvious. You love me despite all your best intentions and against all odds. I hardly deserve your love, but I intend to spend the rest of my life trying to earn it.”

Zeus spun around on Aurora’s lap to face her husband, now that they were eye-to-eye. The dog nipped his nose, earning Quin’s laugh. “Yours too, pup. But tell me, Aurora. Tell me you love me.”

“I do,” Aurora said through a fresh wave of tears. “I love you so much it terrifies me. I might have loved you since before I met you, when you were just a pirate in my stories and not a real in-the-flesh man, but I love you more now. So much it hurts.” And therein lay their problem. “Love ought not to hurt—not like this. It seems rather contradictory, do you not think?”

He had the effrontery to chuckle at her. She ought to swat him. It was downright churlish to poke fun at her distress.

“I think,” he said once he pulled his mirth back under control, “that unless one has experienced the lowest of lows, one cannot truly appreciate the highest of highs. That one must experience pain and sorrow in order to appreciate joy. If love didn’t hurt like this, how would we know when we finally had it right?”

Which was rather circuitous thinking, if one should ask her. But when had Quin ever been known to ask her for anything? Only just now, when he wanted to hear her say she loved him. The truculent boor. He ought to ask her for things more often.

They would have to work on that.

“So what will happen when we return to the abbey and inform Lord Rotheby about my miscarriage?” Aurora asked. “Do you think he’ll send us away immediately? If so, perhaps we could stay at one of Father’s estates, at least temporarily.”

Quin took her hand and led her from the hermitage. Zeus ran along beside them, nearly tripping them with almost every step as he weaved in and around their feet. “We won’t know until we go tell him, will we? There is no time like the present.”

Oh, dear good Lord. Would it not be better to wait until the morning at least? But she and Quin, they could face anything together. Even Lord Rotheby.

Epilogue

13 June, 1812

If this child does not stop kicking me in the ribs, I swear I will not wait two more months for its birth. It is inconceivable to allow a baby that has not even been born yet to continue to abuse its mother. Quin will have to give this child a serious talking-to. Or else, perhaps, I will have to break out the Mother Voice. Minerva has been giving me lessons on how to use the Mother Voice to great effect. We’ve been practicing on Quin, of course, since he is the one who went and mucked everything up in the first place by impregnating me again, so he clearly deserves to be practiced upon. I daresay it will prove to be invaluable to me in future relations with him, too, not just with our child. For that matter, I might be inclined to use it more with him than with the babe. After all, he is a grown man of three-and-thirty. He ought to know how to behave by now, and to know how to refrain from annoying me. Sadly, it does not seem to be the case. Tomorrow morning and afternoon, we expect the remainder of our guests to arrive. Everyone who joined us for the house party last summer will be back, though there have been a few changes. Namely, of course, Rebecca being the new Lady Norcutt, and Miss Vivian Osbourne is no longer a miss, but is now Lady Tucker Flynn. How very wrong I was last year about the four of them.

~From the journal of the Very Pregnant Lady Quinton

“Quinton,” Lord Rotheby shouted from the card table in the salon at Quinton Abbey. “Your wife is in need of assistance. Move your arse.”

“I can manage perfectly well on my own, Grandfather,” Aurora said. Which was not entirely untrue. She
could
manage to raise herself up from the settee upon which she sat without help, but only with a rather indecent amount of huffing and puffing and straining to raise her added girth from where it preferred to rest on her lap like Zeus always had. These days, there was no room for him. Her belly wasn’t the only thing that had grown by leaps and bounds, after all.

She was not given the chance to prove her mettle, however. Both Nia and Sir Augustus were at her side before she had finished her objection, each taking an arm to help to pull her up.

“I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if I get any larger,” Aurora said to them. “But thank you both very much for your assistance.”

Quin rushed into the room then, looking around with an addled expression. “What’s wrong?” he asked finally, glaring at his grandfather as he did so.

“Your wife needed help rising. You ought to pay closer attention to her,” Rotheby grumbled. “I will be rather cross with you if anything should happen to my great-grandchild. Or great-grandchildren, as the case may be. Are you certain there are not twins in there, Aurora?”

It was touching how he had come to dote upon her in the last year. Indeed, after their first house party the previous summer, he had taken to calling upon them rather often. Not because he didn’t trust that Quin would maintain the new lifestyle he had taken upon himself—Rotheby assured them he was quite satisfied with the turnaround Quin had made in his deportment and so the abbey and its profits were theirs until such time as Quin inherited everything—but because he was an old and lonely man, and it was his prerogative to do as he pleased.

Which, he claimed, it pleased him greatly to be in Aurora’s presence. Any chit who could convince his grandson to leave behind his wayward path had to be an entertaining young lady, to be sure.

After six months had passed with Rotheby making regular visits, Aurora took it upon herself to give the earl an open invitation to come stay with them whenever the mood struck him. After all, the abbey was vast. Quin’s grandfather could have an immense amount of freedom staying there, but he could also have company when he so chose. And she and Quin would be there to care for him, should he become ill or frail. Most days it was hard to imagine the curmudgeon as frail. But time was no longer on his side.

Quin hadn’t been overly pleased with the arrangement, but he eventually gave in to Aurora’s request, particularly because it proved to him she was no longer thinking primarily of herself. It seemed he was beginning to heed his mother’s unremitting refrain: Aurora is always right. Except in those instances when she was egregiously wrong, like in her assessment of Lord Norcutt the previous year.

Now that Aurora was rather well along in her pregnancy, Lord Rotheby had taken it upon himself to be her protector. Of course, Quin also thought himself to be just that. And Zeus, being her diligent companion, also thought it to be his job.

Needless to say, Aurora could hardly sneeze without one of them yelling at another to do something about it.

Which was rather nice, actually. But also rather tedious.

Perhaps, once the abbey was once again filled with other guests, they would have someone else to look after at least some of the time. It would be rather unsporting of them to expect her to do it all.

But then again, Rebecca and Nia had both promised to assist with Aurora’s plans for all of the entertainments, and Minerva had requested permission to take over the responsibility for planning three full days’ events. She would not be alone in her efforts.

Indeed, all of the assistance she would be receiving might be just the thing she needed in order to resume her matchmaking enterprises. Aurora looked over to where Nia sat with her mother by the hearth, working on her embroidery.

Perhaps she ought to direct the girl’s attention to another gentleman this summer—someone other than Sir Jonas. Perhaps
then
the two would realize they were destined for each other and stop fighting against it. The wheels of Aurora’s mind set to turning as she planned how she would go about it, schooling her features into a placidly content look as Quin came over to steal a hurried kiss before returning to his business affairs in the undercroft. No reason to raise anyone’s suspicions. Least of all his.

Aurora made her way over to the escritoire by the window and took a seat. She pulled out some foolscap to set upon the blotter, and then dipped a quill into her inkpot.

It was time to write again. A smile threatened to consume her entire face. This time, she would not write of her own life. Nor would she write of her fantastical, imagined life.

Indeed, she would not write of the lives of anyone she knew, real or otherwise.

This time, she wanted to write a story. A novel, to be precise. It wasn’t quite fashionable for a lady to be a writer, but when had Aurora cared about being fashionable? Scandal was, after all, her middle name, it seemed.