A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (20 page)

Quin’s upper lip twitched—the only
sign that he’d heard anything she had to say. She’d have to take
that as a positive.

“
As such,” Aurora pressed
on before her husband had a chance to interrupt again, “I wondered
if you might grant me a brief visit with Father—alone.”

Her father’s hand slipped
around her own to squeeze it lightly, yet he remained silent. Thank
heavens at least
he
understood when to keep his mouth shut. The same could not be
said of her husband. Nor, for that matter, could it very often be
said of Aurora.

How had she managed to escape learning
such a trait?

That was neither here nor there.
Aurora watched Quin, waiting for his response. She had to wait a
good long while for it, too. He said nothing for many minutes,
staring at her father, with only the twitch of his lip to tell her
he was still debating his answer. When finally his gaze fell upon
her, his eyes held the look of the naughty boy whose hands had been
slapped for not sharing his toys, only to have those very toys
taken away and given to another child.

He was jealous! Of her
father. Over
her
.
Oh, dear good Lord. But he inclined his head and left the room
without looking back.

Now she’d gone and made a mull of
things. But what could be done for it? Nothing at the moment, so
she might as well enjoy the visit Quin had just granted her with
her father. “Come, sit with me,” she said, pulling on Father’s arm
until he plopped down into the seat beside her.

“
I should not have done
that. I shouldn’t have argued with your husband—accused him of
making you cry.”

“
Well, let’s not worry
about that, shall we? I’m sure there are many far more important
things we can discuss.” And likely far more times her husband would
make her cry in the future. She didn’t think it would be a good
idea to mention that tidbit to Father at the moment,
though.

Father looked on her with austere
eyes. “At the moment, the most important thing that should be on
your mind is finding a way to make your marriage work. I’m sure it
won’t be easy. You haven’t known him long enough for that. But,
Aurora, you must do everything in your power to learn to love Lord
Quinton. It will make all of this much easier.”

Love
. Who was he to speak to her of love within a marriage? She
did her best to keep the admonishment from her tone, for that just
would not do when speaking to her father. “I shall endeavor to not
argue with my husband any more than is absolutely necessary, but I
can make no promises about love.” Particularly not since she had
learned at least some small part of his reasons for marrying
her.
Love
had
never been in the equation, and she’d be damned if she tried to
change that.

“
You must try to love him.
If you don’t, you’re dooming yourself to a miserable marriage. A
bleak life.” Father raked a hand through his thinning hair on a
sigh.

“
I hardly think I’m the one
dooming myself to anything.” Never mind her lost (and subsequently
found) journal and its role in the debacle. “Or have you forgotten
who kissed whom on that ballroom floor?”

“
That is hardly the point,
Aurora, and you know it.”

“
Oh, so the point should be
that I should have a marriage as
euphoric
as yours was with Mother?
Such a delightful thought, spending the remainder of my days in an
entirely separate wing of our estate, seeing each other only at
meal times—and at those times he sees fit to attempt to impregnate
me. Delightful prospect, that.”

Almost as soon as the words left her
mouth, Aurora wished she could shovel them back in and swallow
them, never to be uttered. The pain in Father’s eyes was too
palpable, too intense.

“
Is that what you’ve
thought all this time? That we didn’t love each other?” His voice
cracked over the words.

She shrugged sheepishly. “How was I to
think anything else? You were always so absent, so despondent.
Mother was listless at her best moments—but more often she cried
all the time. I remember her tears more than anything.” Mother’s
tears and her own. But never Father’s. He hadn’t cried, not even
when Mother had died.

“
Yes, your mother cried
often. Far more often than you knew,” Father said. A single tear
formed in his eye and fell down his cheek. Aurora reached up to
wipe it, but he brushed her hand away. “Her father had always
emphasized the importance of providing a male child, providing a
son, and it was all she could think of. I told her time and again
that it didn’t matter to me. We didn’t have to have any children at
all, as long as we had each other. After all, it wouldn’t matter to
me if the title passed to your Uncle George. He’s as deserving as
anyone.”

Father walked to the great picture
window and stared out. The silence hung heavy in the room between
them. “But she insisted we had to keep trying. It was four years of
trying before you were born. Four years of failures—more
miscarriages than I could count, and a babe born dead. A boy. So
when you came along, I was delighted. I thought, perhaps, your
mother would be as delighted as I. That she could be satisfied with
a daughter and stop putting herself through that torture. For a
while, she was. You were our sunshine—like the dawn breaking over
the horizon after a long, dark night. Aurora. Goddess of the
morning. For the first time, I thought she might manage to be
happy. To stay happy.”

He struck the wall beside him and
Aurora jumped. Only then did she realize she’d been crying—when a
tear fell to her lap from the force of her surprise.

“
But she couldn’t keep that
up. You weren’t a son.”

“
Surely you told her the
title could pass to me. Surely she knew she needn’t produce a male
heir.”

“
Of course I did. But her
father had it so ingrained in her mind, that what I wanted and what
I told her no longer mattered. So we kept trying, and always with
the same result. I became so frustrated with her, for putting
herself through that sort of torture—the loss, the grief—that I
couldn’t stand to see her any more. She cried all the time. You
remember that part. She was so ashamed of herself for being unable
to do what she thought was expected of her that she couldn’t face
anyone. Only her lady’s maid was allowed to enter her room most
days. When she sent for me, I would go. I still loved her. I would
have done anything for her if I thought it would make her
happy.”

It was almost too much for
Aurora to take in. Everything she believed, everything she thought
she knew about her parents had been completely, utterly wrong. And
if
that
was wrong,
then everything she had spent her entire life doing in order to
avoid the same fate…“You really loved Mother? You weren’t desolate
because you’d married the wrong woman and could never love
her?”

Father sat in an armchair
and faced her, his eyes unflagging in their sincerity. “I loved her
more than breath. I wish I could go back and find a way to convince
her that love was enough. That you were enough. But I can’t. All I
can do is convince
you
to make the best of the lot you’ve been given. Promise me,
please, that you’ll try to love him. Promise me you’ll do your best
to be happy with him. I can’t live with myself if you don’t at
least try.”

Aurora didn’t know if she could live
with herself, either. Loving Quin was not the reason, however.
Honestly, with the way he’d made her feel last night, she didn’t
think loving him would be very difficult at all.

The problem now was something else
entirely.

It had better be obvious
that your wife is breeding before the year is out.

What if she had the same problems with
childbearing as her mother?

~ * ~

Quin paced in his library. Back and
forth, back and forth, so many times he was sure he’d worn a path
in the parquet flooring.

Why the devil had he allowed his
temper to get the best of him? Simply telling himself that was how
he’d always been wasn’t good enough. He was a married man now. He
needed to behave with a hint more decorum around his wife, and even
more so around her father.

He refused to become any more like his
own father than he already was. Quin would be damned before he’d
become a belligerent, bellicose husband, irrespective of his
intentions (or lack thereof) for becoming a husband in the first
place.

Learning to tide his anger was his new
priority. He placed it right up alongside impregnating his wife.
The latter of which held far more to entice him than the
former.

Quin glanced at the clock. Over an
hour. Aurora had been sitting and talking with her father for well
over an hour, and all he’d done the entire time was pace. And fume.
And slowly, meticulously disrobe himself. Not entirely, of
course—but his greatcoat had been stifling him and his stupid neck
cloth was strangling him, and no one could bloody well tell him
what he should or should not wear in his own damned
home.

However, none of those things were
quite what he’d consider a grand endeavor of productivity in terms
of accomplishing either of his newfound priorities.

The entire day had felt like an effort
in futility. One visit followed by another. And another, and
another. The entire time, all he’d been able to think about was
tossing Aurora over his shoulder (which was still sore from
breaking down the door yesterday, but that hardly signified with
what he intended to do) to carry her back to his chamber where he
could continue where they’d left off early that morning.

And not, mind you, solely because of
Rotheby’s edict. Blast the old goat for his inane requirements and
interference.

By the time he reached the brink of
madness from waiting, a soft knock sounded at the door. It was so
quiet, at first he thought it merely a figment of his imagination.
Still, he called out, “Come,” as a precaution.

She came through the doors looking as
dour as a funeral march, despite the jaunty appearance of her gown.
“We need to talk, my lord.”

My lord? Hadn’t they already handled
that nonsense? She must have reacted to his argument with her
father more strongly than he’d anticipated.

Quin nodded and motioned
for her to sit. Time to bloody well make nice. Wives were a damned
nuisance, with all their emotional reactions and
needing to talk
. He’d
have to inform Jonas of that fact. No reason for them both to end
up leg-shackled if it could be avoided.

He took a breath and prepared to
launch into an apology, only to have his sweet, little wife cut him
off.

“
Why did you marry me?” she
demanded. “I want the real reason.”

Oh. Well, this was not quite the
discussion he had expected. “You already know that, Aurora.” At
least as much as he wanted her to know.

“
On the contrary,” she
replied, almost before he had gotten the words out, “I know very
little of your motives in this matter. We both know why
I
agreed to the match. A
touch of blackmail took care of that matter rather
famously.”

She spoke the truth, but the sound of
it coming from her lips made the act seem all the worse. Quin felt
as low as the soles of his Hessians. “I married you because I
ruined you. I was honor bound to”

“
Save the ‘honor bound’
part for someone who might care to hear it,” Aurora interrupted.
“We both know you have no more honor than a highwayman.”

For such venomous words, her face held
none of the anger. Her eyes, usually so diaphanous, now were
clouded in despondency.

Much as he felt after her rebuke. How
could he argue against the truth?

“
Will you not answer me,
then? You will not tell me the real reason you needed to marry
me?”

How could he? If he’d been upfront
about it, instead of trapping her into this marriage, forcing her
hand, things might be different. But as it stood, she’d likely run
off to her father if she learned why he had targeted her for
marriage. After all, he had treated her so poorly in the bargain,
why on earth would she want to cooperate with him?

And he damned well needed her
cooperation, at least until he knew for certain she was
pregnant.

“
I married you because of
your journal,” he said. “Because as soon as I saw it and its
contents, I knew without a doubt you needed
someone
to bring you to heel. Clearly
your father wasn’t handling that job very well.”

Quin should have stopped before that
last part. Damnation.

Her eyes welled with tears. He hated
tears. They always left him feeling so bloody useless, so
incompetent. It was usually easier just to avoid them. That wasn’t
an option at the moment.

“
You’re still lying to me,”
she said, her voice so soft he had to lean toward her to make the
words out. “I heard Lord Rotheby. I heard what he said about being
sure I’m
breeding
before the end of a year.”