Because of You (18 page)

Wayland also rose to his feet. “Oh, wait, I’ve put your back up, and that wasn’t what I meant to do. I forget how sheltered your life has been.”

“Being sheltered has nothing to do with it! You may be the head of the family, Your Grace, but I don’t believe what happens between Yale and myself is your business.”

He gave her a quizzical smile. “When you talk in such a manner, you sound exactly as high-handed and independent as my stubborn brother.”

Samantha changed the subject. “Isn’t it time we left?” She moved for her cape and bonnet hanging on a peg by the door, but he stepped into her path.

“It is time—but first I have a favor to ask of you, Samantha, and it is so important, the horses can wait a moment longer.”

“What is it?” she asked, fearing his answer.

“Sit down, please,” he begged her, and refused to say another word until she had honored his request.

He knelt down beside her chair. “If anyone has any influence over Yale, it is you.”

She almost laughed out loud. “He wishes to
leave me behind as much as he is determined to leave you, Your Grace.”

“But you can change all that.” He took her hand in his. “You see, I think Yale would like to be
close
with you.”

“Yale would like to be close with anything in skirts,” she countered tartly.

“Don’t deceive yourself, Samantha. He is far more discriminating than that. Always has been.”

“Yes? Well then, why was he disinherited?”

Now it was Wayland’s turn to look ill at ease. “That is another story for another day, my dear.”

Samantha tilted her head, studying him a moment. “I’d always heard there were women involved.”

“Yes, but what do you care if he chased a brigade of them? All that happened years ago. Besides, Father didn’t disinherit Yale for his interest in the fairer sex. He would have disinherited me if that had been the case. No, Father was upset with the money Yale squandered. But my brother has mended his ways. He couldn’t have built his own shipping company if he hadn’t.”

She digested this a moment, having to shift her picture of her brother-in-law. She had trouble seeing Wayland as a ladies’ man.

“I know you and Yale are not a love match, but I don’t share your opinion that he is indifferent to you.”

Now he had Samantha’s complete attention. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I’ve seen him watch you, Samantha. I’m a man. I know what he’s thinking. He wouldn’t be making this trip to London if it weren’t for you.”

“But I can’t influence him to stay. He told me the morning after our wedding that he was going to leave. He has not changed his mind.”

“But he has not left yet,” Wayland said pointedly. He lowered his voice. “I believe that if you tried, Samantha, you could convince him to stay.”

She looked down at her lap. She was pressing pleats into her skirt with her fingers. “I don’t know.”

Wayland’s arm came around her chair. “I admit, it wasn’t a good trick that he played, marrying you under a false name and all that. But he does have a plausible explanation. And you must understand
my
position. I wish to keep my family intact. I’ve already spent years without my brother, and I refuse to spend more. I need him. The estate needs him.”

Still holding her hand, he traced the back of it with his thumb before saying, “I’m going to ask a favor of you, and I fear, knowing what I do of your character, it will be a difficult request. But for the good of the family, I’m going to ask it anyway.”

She held her breath.

“I want you to get my brother to fall in love with you.”

Samantha almost fell out of the chair. “Have you gone mad?” she managed to sputter. “Yale is the last man I could imagine being led around by his nose.”

“Oh, no,” Wayland differed with a superior laugh. “We can all be easily led with the right enticement. And unless I miss my guess, my brother is enamored of you. You seem to have aroused in him a sense of chivalry. It would not take much more than a little warmth on your part to make him listen to reason.”

“Warmth?”

Wayland’s steady gaze met hers. “You know, make the floorboards shake.”

Samantha came to her feet before he could stop her. She marched halfway across the room. “Do you realize what you are asking?”

“Nothing more than what you have already given,” he responded plainly. “In fact, I believe the Church considers it your duty.”

She faced Wayland. “I can’t. It’s about principle and values. From listening to you speak about your wife, I thought you understood those things.”

Wayland came to his feet. “I do, I do…but this is about family. Yale is a far cry from the wayward youth he was at nineteen. He’s a man to be respected. I want him to stay in England. He doesn’t need Rogue Shipping or anything else. Not really. However, the Ayleborough es
tates and all the business, enterprises, and responsibilities that go with them are vast. Yale can help me ensure the family’s future for generations to come. My sons need him.
Your
children need him. I will do anything to keep him from leaving England.”

Samantha placed the flat of her hand against her stomach. Children. She could already be carrying Yale’s child. What would she say to that child when he grew old enough to ask where his father was? Wayland had a valid point. The Carderock name would be part of her child’s birthright.

And yet she had her pride. Her principles.

“What I understand, Your Grace,” she said, her voice shaking slightly with emotion, “is that you want me to compromise myself on the altar of your wishes. Your request makes a mockery of the sacrament of marriage. Yale did not mean the vows he took with me. His intention has always been to leave me. I will not beg him to stay. Or seduce him.”

The duke’s lips pressed into a thin line. He seemed to weigh what she had to say and then walked over to her. “Samantha, your high-strung sense of honor is, however admirable, a bit of an irritant. I am not accustomed to being refused when I make what I consider a reasonable request. I’m opening my home to you. I’ve embraced you as a sister. Your refusal to help my family in return is—” He paused as if to consider the right word. “Distressing.”

Samantha felt as if her heart had stopped beating. “I must be true to myself.”

“Nonsense. Everyone is asked at one time or another to make a sacrifice for the good of the whole.”

“And what if I discover I cannot honor your request?” she asked faintly.

“Why would you want to refuse me?” Wayland countered politely, but Samantha could sense a chasm growing between them.

He said, “My role in this family is to keep it together. That has been the duke of Alyeborough’s role for succeeding generations. My father was a shrewd man. His wise investments built the family coffers to what they are today, but once Yale left, he considered himself a failure. If my brother leaves a second time, I will consider myself a failure, too. Can you understand that, Samantha?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Family is important, Samantha. It is the only reason any of us is here. Without it, life would be a cold, lonely existence.” He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Samantha stood rooted to the floor. Life was lonely without family. After the past year, she knew that all too well.

Of course, Yale had offered to buy her a house of her own. She was not without resources. She did not have to sacrifice her principles.

Then she thought of Yale’s description last night of Penhurst, the duke’s London residence.
She thought about the possibility that she could be with child…and did not want the child ostracized by its uncle, the great duke of Ayleborough.

Or that she would be alone. Again.

His words had been couched as a request, but there had been a ducal command behind it. He was not a man to be crossed.

Slowly she raised her hands and began pulling the pins out of her hair. It tumbled down around her shoulders. Without the aid of a mirror, she plaited it into a single braid…and felt a bit more like herself—plain Samantha Northrup, the vicar’s unwanted daughter.

She pulled her gloves on and then, picking up her cape and worn bonnet, left the room.

Outside the horses were stamping impatiently. Yale waited astride the Beast. His and the animal’s breath came out in small puffs of frigid air. Fenley stepped forward and helped her don her cape.

“Sam, I was beginning to fear you were not coming!” Yale greeted her. The duke was already inside the coach.

She took a moment to tie the ribbon of her bonnet. “Of course I was coming. Where else do I have to go?” If she thought he wouldn’t notice the slight sarcasm in her voice, she was mistaken.

With a kick of his heels, Yale urged Beast close to her. He jumped down. “You and Wayland took your time coming out.” He touched her
cheek with the back of his fingers. “Is anything the matter?”

For a moment, she was tempted to tell him…but what purpose would that serve, except to set Yale against his brother? “I had to change my hair.”

He smiled at her and lightly touched her braid. “I like your hair down. This is how I saw you when I first woke from my illness. If I had my way, you’d wear it thus all the time.”

His thumb stroked her neck before he pulled his hand back. Where he’d touched her, her skin tingled.

“Come along!” Wayland shouted from the coach window. “I want to make London before midnight. You’re wasting time.”

“Don’t mind him. He is a surly brute in the morning,” Yale whispered, in a voice loud enough for Wayland to hear.

The duke grunted and closed the window with a snap. Yale opened the door and helped her inside.

She paused on the step. “You won’t be riding with us?” she asked, aware that Wayland was listening.

Yale studied her a moment. She wished she could read his mind. When he spoke, his voice was light, “No, I’m enjoying the cold wind. It helps me keep my perspective.”

She wanted to ask him what he meant but lacked the courage. Instead, she took her seat. Fenley followed her into the coach and Yale sig
naled the coachmen it was time to leave.

The atmosphere inside the coach was far from the congenial camaraderie of the previous days. She gave her back to Wayland and huddled in her corner, lost in thought. For a moment, she wished she was a man and didn’t have to be dependent upon others for every morsel she ate, every thread of clothing she wore, everything she touched.

Her father had always told her that her one sin was her pride—and it was hurting very much indeed. She was a wife, and under the law she was not even considered a person in her own right, but her husband’s property. And her husband didn’t want her—except for one thing.

For a moment she entertained the notion that Yale might have put his brother up to his request. But she dismissed it. The argument she had overheard earlier had been too bitter to have been staged.

Worse, part of her missed the intimacies she’d shared with Yale. If she closed her eyes, she could almost remember the feel of his strong body joined with hers. The rock and sway of the coach, combined with Wayland’s earlier salacious observation, served to heighten lustful memories that would be better forgotten.

Her doubts and worries circled each other with every turn of the coach wheels. At last she took refuge from her misgivings and fears in sleep.

They made few stops. The closer they rode to
London, the more anxious Wayland was to be reunited with his family.

He did insist, upon spying a hat shop in one of the villages they passed through, that Fenley get out of the coach immediately and buy Yale a decent hat. “We can’t have him riding into London hatless.”

Fenley hurried to obey his command. Yale rolled his eyes heavenward and led Beast to a drink of water.

“You should go with Fenley and try on the hat,” Wayland prodded.

Yale ignored him.

When Fenley returned, he carried a very handsome curled-brim beaver. Yale had already remounted. He reached for the hat, thanked his brother profusely for the gift, and then slapped it on his head so hard it almost came down over his eyebrows. He proceeded to ride out of the village that way.

“He thinks he is a damn clown,” Wayland muttered under his breath. He knocked on the side of the coach and they were off.

It wasn’t until after dark that the coachman announced he could see the lights of London.

Heedless of the cold, damp air, Samantha pulled down the window and craned her neck, hoping for her first glimpse of the metropolis. The coach rolled to a stop on a small rise and there, in the distance, she saw hundreds, thou
sands of tiny lights. The air smelled of chimney smoke.

Yale reined Beast in beside her. He wore the infamous hat the right way now, but with a rakish tilt to it. He looked very handsome.

“There it is, Sam,” he said in a low voice. “London, the center of the civilized world.” The planes of his face were golden in the light of the coach lamps. He looked very serious…and very handsome.

“You have nothing to fear,” he promised her, misreading her silence. “Be your own courageous self and London will be at your feet.”