But he could not believe her. Did not dare soften. Marrying her was paramount to his plan. To the revenge he had promised himself he would have, all those nights of darkness. All those days of silence.
“I don’t give a damn.” He tore his hand away from hers at last. “All I want is my son. I’ll not be kept from him.”
“I do not know you,” she said primly. “I require time.”
“Time is a luxury I do not possess. Each day my son grows without knowing me is akin to a dagger in my heart.”
Her lips compressed. “I am his mother. It is my duty to protect him.”
“From his own father?” He gripped the cup in two hands, trying to calm himself.
The demons had returned. They always did. Whenever he had one of his fits, the prison devils came back to haunt him. They were there now, at the edges of every moment, every word. Each breath. His heart was beginning to race once more.
“You are angry.”
Her words were calm. An assessment. A judgment.
“Damned right I am angry. I was deceived, betrayed, hauled away like a common criminal, and forced to spend the last year and a half in prison. What do you think that does to a man,Duchess?”
He rose to his feet, the water in his cup sloshing over his hand, spilling to the carpet. Nettled, he placed it on the table and took up his walking stick. Pacing was not as easy now as it had once been, but it still calmed his mind. Movement had been one of the few freedoms he had been allowed in the dormitory.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His ankle was paining him mightily this evening, likely on account of the rain which had begun to fall earlier that day and had only becoming increasingly torrential in nature. He reached the end of the blue sitting room, spun about, and paced back down its length.
But to his surprise, she was there.
Standing in his path. She had followed him silently, and her face was pale, her countenance undeniably tinged with worry. Emerald eyes wide and vibrant. So very vibrant. Filled with tears.
A fat droplet spilled down. First one cheek, then the other.
“I am sorry for what happened to you,” she said. “Sorrier than words can properly convey.”
He clenched his jaw. His grip on his walking stick turned painful. “Contrition is insufficient.”
She swallowed. He found himself distracted by the creamy elegance of her throat. She was sensitive there, he recalled. How she had shivered beneath him when he had nibbled and sucked on her skin. He fancied he could see the quickness of her pulse in the hollow there.
Memories hit him.
So, too, the longing which had never left. For a heartbeat, it was as if they had never parted.
And then other remembrance returned. The hideousness of all that he had endured over the last eighteen months was like a boot to the gut. And having experienced such violence on more than one occasion at Dunsworth, he would know.
“What have you to say?” he spat. “Your answer, Your Grace. I will have it now.”
“Yes.”
The lone word, spoken so softly—nothing more than the hint of a whisper—trickled over his senses. For a moment, he believed he must have misheard her.
“Louder,” he demanded. “Say it again.”
“Yes.” Her tongue ran over her lips. “Yes, I will marry you.”
Chapter 13
Let us hope the child is a male child.
~letter from the Duke of Longleigh to The Honorable Mr. George Shaw
