The Reluctant Bride Collection Read online

  “No. Lady Haywood. I invited her to dinner.”

  And if he’d thought that would be enough for his wife, he was sadly mistaken.

  “Why?”

  “Because. . .because my brother is in love with her.”

  She fiddled with the brushes and pots on her dressing table. “It seems time in the country was just what you needed.”

  “You should have seen him, Flora. He wouldn’t go within a few feet of any livestock that wasn’t a horse. But the people. . . I can’t do what he does. Puts people at ease. Listens to them. I don’t know.”

  Flora simply looked at him and Sebastian wished, for the first time ever, that he was his brother. That he could put his wife at ease.

  Ask.

  Beg.

  He said, “And I can’t imagine that he doesn’t see everything Lady Haywood wishes he didn’t. I can’t believe that she could dupe him. And if someone is blind regarding her, it is most likely me.”

  Her expression softened, just enough. She looked back in her mirror and checked her jewelry and hair one more time.

  “An intimate family dinner might be for the best. I can see the two of you stepping on toes– though Lady Haywood’s stepping might very well be on purpose.”

  He didn’t care. Not about Elinor Rusbridge. Not about his brother.

  Did he need to steal his wife away to the country for her forgiveness? Fisticuffs?

  Ask.

  Beg.

  He whispered, “I am a complete and utter fool.”

  She expression hardened again and she stood, sweeping her skirt behind her and heading for the door. “Yes.”

  He grabbed her arm. Not too tight, he didn’t want to hurt her. But he couldn’t let her leave like that.

  He said softly, “Flora.”

  He pulled his wife to him, resting his head against her belly lightly and wrapping his arms around her waist.

  He couldn’t think what to say except, “Please don’t knock.”

  She was stiff in his arms, didn’t wrap her arms around him in return.

  “You can rest assured, Sebastian, that I won’t be interrupting you in your library again. There. . .is no child.”

  He was glad. Oh, so glad. He couldn’t bear to watch her go through another pregnancy, another birth.

  But he kept his mouth shut.

  And didn’t know why all of a sudden he couldn’t breathe. Didn’t know why his throat was tight and there were tears in his eyes.

  He choked, “No one else. I’ll come to your bed every night, make sure you are well pleasured without the risk. But no one else.”

  She tried to pull back but he held on tight.

  She said softly, “There’s never been anyone but you. Never.”

  He nodded and said, his voice high and tight, “I have five beautiful girls, and I wouldn’t trade any of you for a son. I won’t.”

  “Sebastian–”

  He pressed his face into her belly, his shoulders shaking, his hot tears soaking into her dress.

  He cried. For the loss of a son he’d never had. For the wife he’d been so afraid of losing.

  Flora stroked his hair and murmured to him.

  When he looked up, there were tears in her eyes as well and she knelt beside him. She pressed her cheek against his shirt.

  “I wanted to give you a son.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Of course I care. But. . . I love you. And that matters more.”

  Flora whispered, “That is just not done. Not for an earl and his countess.”

  “It will be my secret.”

  She pulled back and smiled. “Our secret. It is just as silly for a woman to love her husband than it is for an earl to love his countess.”

  “It’s only because you are perfect in every way. I couldn’t help myself.”

  She laughed, stroking her fingers along his cheekbones. “You blind, blind man.”

  “Perhaps I am. Even so, George says I’ve always known who you are, and all I need do is ask your forgiveness.”

  Her eyebrows raised. “Ask?”

  “Beg.”

  “Beg!”

  He closed his eyes and said, “For not trusting you when there is no one more trustworthy. For not believing that you could handle my disappointment.”

  “Better for us to handle it together.” When he opened his eyes, she was smiling at him. “The country was good for you, Sebastian.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it. I’m black and blue from my brother’s fists.”

  She made a soothing sound and said, “I’d love to see.”

  “Would you?”

  He pulled her closer and she wondered softly, “Sebastian, how can we be together without risking a child?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  She put a hand to his chest, stopping him. “Wait. Camilla will be waiting for us.”

  He groaned, then wiped the dried tears from her cheeks and kissed her lightly.

  She murmured against his lips, “But after dinner. . .perhaps you’ll meet me in the library?”

  Sebastian rose, offering his hand to help her up. “You won’t knock, will you?”

  She smiled, slipping her hand into his. “Never. Never again.”

  Fourteen

  The morning of the earl’s dinner, Elinor sent George away, telling him she would meet him there and she wanted her dress to be a surprise.

  George had laughed, wondering what she was going to wear to shock his brother.

  “Who says it’s him I’m trying to shock? You would do just as well.”

  He’d only kissed her, scooping Anala up with a backward, “It will certainly be fun for you to try.”

  She didn’t feel too bad that it had been a lie. There would be plenty of time later to feel bad.

  But Elinor knew that today she had something to do. Something that perhaps should have been done a long time ago.

  Because Elinor could feel it coming. Her back was tight, her belly twisting.

  This time she wouldn’t fight it.

  She sent her own apology to the countess, telling her she would be missing dinner.

  She ordered her carriage ready and sent a note to George, letting him know she would be gone for a few days. He could be angry with her when she returned.

  She climbed her stairs slowly, locking the door behind her. Locking everyone and everything out.

  She pulled a little key from her jewelry box and dragged a chest out from under her bed and when she opened it, the smell of camphor wood hit her hard.

  She blamed the smell for the tears in her eyes and when she pulled out the tiny white christening gown her daughter had never worn, Elinor raised her face to the ceiling and willed the tears away.

  She would not cry. Not here.

  She pulled out little dresses and soft blankets, smoothing the wrinkles from them and putting them in a small pile for the maid to get rid of.

  Someone would have need of baby clothing, but not Elinor. And it was time to accept. Time to admit defeat.

  The tears threatened again and she stopped, swallowing how much that hurt.

  She’d added to the chest during her first and second marriage. A dress here, a blanket there.

  And dear Bertie had smiled at her when she’d shown him the crocheted blanket his aunt had one day unexpectedly given them.

  Pure white with pretty pink edging. A gift so full of hope and the future that Elinor hadn’t known how to say thank you.

  After Bertie had been buried, Elinor had sat in her rocking chair, cradling the blanket to her chest and pretending that there was a baby snuggled up tight inside it.

  Trying to believe that there was at least a small chance there could be, one day.

  She pulled that little blanket out last, where it had been tucked safely at the bottom of the chest and cradled it one last time.

  Cradled it as she unlocked the door and went slowly, painfully, back down the stairs to her waiting carriage.<
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  The journey to Hertfordshire was not a long one. An easy day from London, made even easier by an occasional swig of laudanum.

  Just enough. Enough so that the pain wouldn’t overwhelm her, not yet.

  She remembered her first trip to Hertfordshire. A young wife, happy to be so far away from her father. Happy that she wouldn’t ever have to go back to him.

  She hadn’t hated the country back then and she’d thought she would live out her life here in these green, rolling hills.

  Funny how different life ended from where you imagined it.

  She didn’t go to the manor and she didn’t stop in the village. In the end, she’d only been here a little over a year and had no memories to savor.

  One year of her life. It hadn’t been much.

  The church and cemetery, though, she was familiar with, and when the carriage stopped, she sat looking out the window at the changes ten years had made.

  There were more stones, more moss. But she could still see the tall, commanding headstone of her Lord Haywood.

  She could have been buried there one day. Next to her husband and child. But she’d chosen life and the future.

  She thought of the merchant and Marcus and dear Bertie and the whippersnapper.

  She’d lived a thousand lifetimes since the last time she walked away from this village cemetery.

  She hadn’t been wrong to leave. She hadn’t been wrong to try.

  And she thought of George. Happy, smiling George. Who she loved.

  Who she couldn’t marry.

  He needed a son, and she couldn’t give him one.

  She looked down at the blanket still lying lifeless in her arms.

  The tears only prickled lightly this time and she knew the laudanum was taking her to that uncaring place.

  Elinor hadn’t come here to bury the widow but she thought it a good time to say goodbye anyway. Goodbye to the widow. To society and respectability.

  She would not marry again.

  She would love George. She would take what parts of him he could spare from Miss Westin.

  And she would be happy for even that.

  And she thought that if anyone could play the part of the mistress, it would be her.

  The vicar came out of his house to investigate this unknown carriage and a footman intercepted him.

  The Dowager Viscountess has come to pay her respects.

  Of course, of course.

  Elinor waited until the vicar went back inside before stepping down, and then walked knowingly through the gravestones, listening to the birds and skirting the mud.

  She carried the little blanket in her arms and when she came to her husband’s stone, rubbed her thumb across his name lightly.

  She took much more care to wipe down the little stone with her daughter’s name engraved upon it. She cleaned it, wishing she’d brought a brush, but not stopping until her fingers were rubbed raw and the name shone through.

  When she was done, she folded the little blanket up and placed it at the base of the stone lovingly.

  And then she lay down on the cold, hard ground beside the child she’d held in her arms for less than a day and the child she’d held in her heart for ten long years, and she cried.

  She had no recollection of leaving the cemetery, didn’t know how she’d come to be back home in her bed.

  Wasn’t surprised that it was George sitting beside her, reading quietly.

  He kept his eyes on the paper and said softly, “You could have told me.”

  “I needed to do it alone.”

  “Why?”

  Because she’d been alone her whole life. Had kept a small part of herself shut up tight, away from all who could hurt her.

  Because she didn’t know how to let that part out.

  She swallowed, her mouth and throat dry, and George reached for a pot of tea sitting beside him.

  Elinor closed her eyes and smiled. “Has Mrs. Potts been up here with you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  He poured her a cup, helping her sit up to drink it, and Elinor reached for his hand before he could sit back down.

  “I had to mourn. I didn’t want you to see.”

  “Your daughter?”

  She nodded. “All my daughters. The merchant’s, who had green eyes and who loved numbers. Marcus’s, who liked her hair curled and who loved beautiful things. Bertie’s, who was so sweet that I questioned how she could be mine as well. The whippersnapper’s, who was loud and boisterous and never careful. I had to say goodbye to all of them even though they’d only lived in my heart.”

  George fell to his knees beside the bed and squeezed Elinor’s hand.

  She said, “I had to say goodbye to George’s daughter. Who has golden hair and blue eyes and the most mischievous smile.”

  “I haven’t given up on her.”

  “I don’t think you should. But it won’t be my daughter. It won’t be ours.”

  He shook his head and she talked over him. Didn’t want to hear him say that there was still hope when he was the one to make her give up hers.

  “I love you. I’ve never been as happy as I am with you. You brighten every shadow and are worth giving up all my dreams for.”

  “Elinor–”

  “George,” she said, when she meant to say love.

  So she said, “My love. I won’t let you give up on your children. A son, an heir. Steady and responsible, just like your brother and your father and every Ashmore earl who has come before him.”

  “What would I do with a son like that?”

  “And a daughter. More beautiful every moment you know her, so happy and so delightful that the world is a better place for her having been born.”

  George said, his throat tight and filled with tears, “I forgot you play to win.”

  “I play to crush.”

  “Even when it’s yourself you are crushing?”

  She nodded her head, still holding tight to his hand, and said, “Even when it’s me I’m crushing.”

  When she’d clawed her way out of the laudanum stupor, she’d thought about going to the country again. To not think, to not feel. But to breathe. To let the dogs run and hunt.

  And then she remembered her vow to go to Regent’s Park next time she needed to rusticate.

  So she had Mrs. Potts pack her a cold lunch, left George a note for when he got done with learning how to be an earl for the day, stuffed her dogs into her carriage, and prepared to spend the day tramping through country.

  And when they got there her dogs bounded happily around her, chasing and barking, and Elinor watched them. She breathed in the earthy scent of green trees and didn’t bother to walk around the mud.

  She hadn’t come to think. Hadn’t come to plot or plan.

  Two things she excelled at and now. . .had no use for.

  All there was left was accepting.

  She wasn’t good at accepting.

  She was good at wanting. At seeing the future and somehow getting herself there.

  She took a deep breath, bending to pick up a stick to throw for Retribution. She threw it again and again until she was breathing hard enough to almost believe that the moisture on her face was exertion and not tears.

  Dear Lord, she hoped she stopped crying soon. She’d opened the floodgates and couldn’t get them shut again.

  Because what future could she see now?

  A future with half a George.

  A night here, a night there. His wife and children at home.

  His heart divided.

  It was all she could have.

  And it would be enough.

  She just wasn’t sure how to occupy her time, her thoughts, her dreams.

  She wasn’t sure what her purpose was anymore and wasn’t sure she would be able to find another one.

  She looked across the field and recognized the man tramping across it the same time as her dogs.

  Retribution growled low, and then apparently realizing there was nothing between him and
his prey, took off. His barks filled the air, calling his pack mates and alerting them to the danger.

  Her brother kept coming; he didn’t stumble, didn’t slow. Elinor was almost impressed, and then he lifted his hand toward her dog. Elinor saw the gun and shouted, but Retribution never slowed.

  Elinor ran after him, screaming, the other two dogs passing her almost immediately.

  A crack rent the air and Elinor screamed, “Noooo.”

  Alan kept his pepperbox pistol pointed at Retribution and he waited this time. Waited for the dog to get closer, not wasting any more of his six shots.

  Elinor screamed for Retribution, not knowing if she was more worried for the dog or for her brother.

  If Alan missed again. . .

  He fired.

  The gun exploded in his hand, letting off a volley of shots and Elinor dove for the ground.

  Alan’s screams made her jump back to her feet and she could see him clutching his hand.

  Retribution lay on the ground in front of him.

  Alan stumbled, slipping in the mud as Doubt jumped up and knocked him to the ground.

  He screamed shrilly as Fear joined his brother, as bones broke and blood sprayed.

  Alan screamed, “Mine! It’s all mine! It will be mine!”

  Elinor ran, falling to her knees beside Retribution and cradling his bloodied head in her lap.

  She whispered, “Enough.”

  Then louder, “Enough.”

  And then a command to her dogs, again and again, until they could hear her through their blood lust. Until they stopped and backed away from her brother, still growling.

  Alan rolled to his side, clutching his mangled arm and crying, “It will be mine. All mine.”

  Elinor petted her poor dog’s head and cried. More tears, and she knew they would never stop now. She didn’t want them to.

  She finally laid Retribution gently down on the dirt. She crawled to Alan’s gun and picked it up.

  If she was her father’s daughter, she would find Alan’s gear and load the gun. And then she would give it back to Alan. She would use her words and her fists, her dogs, and make him use it on himself.

  That was the kind of man her father had been.

  Getting what he wanted and destroying others along the way.

  Elinor looked at the gun, and wondered what George would do.