Desmond stood up, suddenly quite serious. The subject was his sister and he was, and always had been, very protective of her. Now that Thomas had confessed his feelings for Maitland,which Desmond had suspected all along, it was time for him to make the situation plain.
“I mean exactly what you heard,” he said. “My sister is a good woman who has been treated abominably by both my father and her husband, and now she has a chance at doing something good with her life. I’ll not let you ruin it by running to her for comfort because you’re unhappy with your wife. Is that clear? I know you have feelings for her; I could see it the day you two met. And I further know that she has feelings for you, too, but it ends there. I will never let you do anything clandestine with her. I will not let you hurt her.”
Thomas scowled. “Hurther?” he repeated, aghast. “Where did you get an idea like that? I would never hurt her and your threats are unnecessary.”
Desmond stood his ground. “You and I have known each other for several years,” he said. “I have seen how you are with women. I have seen you flatter them, shower them with affection, bed them, and leave them devastated. I’veseenyou do it, Thomas, so do not deny it, and I happen to know that you have at least one bastard in Berwick. The one you send money to every month. Does your father know about that?”
Thomas’ gaze turned cold and deadly. “Why do you ask? Are you going to tell him if I do not stay away from your sister?”
Desmond shook his head. “It is not my place to tell him,” he said. “Nor have I told my sister. I am simply saying that I have seen how you are with women in the past and I do not want my sister to become another Thomas de Wolfe casualty. You cannot become angry with me for wanting to protect my sister.”
Thomas’ gaze lingered on him. Nothing he had said was untrue; that was the problem. Thomas knew it was all true. But with Mae…
Things were different.
“I cannot help what I feel,” he finally said. “But I swore to my parents that I would do my duty by marrying Adelaide. She is my duty and duty only. But Mae… she is my life that could have been. If you do not think that tears me apart, you would be wrong. And I would never hurt something as priceless and respectable as Mae. You have my word on that.”
With that, he quit the stable, heading out into the cool, breezy day, thinking that somehow, someway, his heart had become a pile of ashes in all of this. Desmond’s fears were all valid. He genuinely could not become angry with the man for trying to protect his sister. But that heart that had become so damaged with Tacey’s death had now collapsed into cinder in the wake of his loss of Maitland. Loss in an emotional sense. The woman was alive and healthy, and would ever be as long as he had any say in it, and he had no intention of making her his concubine as much as he would have liked to. He simply couldn’t do that to a woman that magnificent. For once, he’d grown a conscience and he hated himself for it.
But it was the right thing to do.
Thomas needed a distraction, badly, so he headed towards the keep with the intention of finding Caria. Perhaps he’d take her down to the river or, perhaps, he’d even let her ride the pony he’d purchased for her recently. He hadn’t had the opportunity yet to show it to her and he knew she’d be thrilled. It gave him something to think of other than Maitland. Just as he turned for the keep, however, he heard someone call his name.
“Thomas!”
He knew that voice and it turned his stomach. He almost ignored it but thought better of it. Coming to a halt, he simply stood there, looking off towards the keep.
He knew what was coming.
“I have not seen you all morning, Thomas,” Adelaide said. “I thought you might like to see what I have done in the hall.”
Thomas wouldn’t look at her. “I do not need to see it,” he said. “It does not matter to me what you do.”
He started to walk away but she followed him. “I have arranged it for our wedding,” she said. “I want to return to Kyloe Castle, but I have decided we shall be married here before we return. I vowed not to return to Kyloe unless I was married, so we must marry first. It has been six months since our betrothal, Thomas. With my father gone… this is what he would have wanted. There is no reason to delay.”
Thomas came to a halt and looked at her. “Return to Kyloe?” he said. “We have never discussed that. I have no intention of leaving Wark at this time.”
Adelaide was puzzled. “But as the Earl of Northumbria, Kyloe is your seat,” she said. “Wark is merely an outpost for your father. It is not worthy of the Earl of Northumbria. Ask your father; even he will tell you that. As the earl, your place is at Kyloe.”
Much as he hated to admit it, Adelaide was correct in her assessment of their marriage and what his responsibilities were. Kyloe Castle was an enormous bastion that housed an army of nearly two thousand. It was the earl’s seat, and when Thomas married Adelaide, he would become the earl. That went with marrying the heiress.
But, God… he didn’t want to go.
His heart sank.
“Let me speak to my father about this,” he said after a moment. “If I am to go to Kyloe, then my father will need to find a replacement for me here at Wark.”
“Then you will agree to a wedding by the end of the week?”
He looked at her sharply. “I will agree to a wedding when my father finds a replacement for me,” he said. “We are all trying to come to terms with your father’s passing, Adelaide. You are not the only one it affects.”
“But we must return to Kyloe soon. I must bury my father in the chapel with his ancestors.”
There was the little matter of the body in the vault, which would not stay incorrupt for an over amount of time. Thomas felt a good deal of pressure knowing that his time as a single man was limited. Now, there was a timeframe on it that he could not refute.
“And we shall return him.” Thomas put up a hand to stop her from whining. “As I said, let me speak with my father about this and we will make definitive plans. I simply cannot run off and leave him without a commander at Wark.”
It was clear that Adelaide didn’t like that answer. “I will not wait weeks,” she said, pointing towards the gatehouse where the vault was. “Icannotwait weeks to bury my father. It is not proper.”
