JORDAN Nicole (42 page)

She trailed out of the parlor, still speaking to herself, leaving Drew alone with Roslyn.

When an awkward silence ensued, he broke it by remarking idly, “The august Pointon may be offended at having to welcome his late master’sfille de joie and offspring into his domain. Butlers are notorious for their strict adherence to proper rules.”

Roslyn smiled faintly. “But he will do so with good grace because he holds Winifred in great affection. All of her servants do, in large part because of how she treats them. Winifred came from the working class and understands that fairness and respect go a long way toward earning their loyalty.”

“Unlike my mother,” Drew said dryly, “who thinks servants are not human.”

Another silence fell between them, but this one Roslyn broke after a moment. “I have no doubt the duchess was pleased that we ended our betrothal.”

Feeling his heart constrict at her dispassionate tone, Drew shot her a sharp glance. “I haven’t told her yet.”

“You should do so at once, your grace. There is no reason to delay.”

“Roslyn—”

“Do you intend to send the announcement to the papers, or should I?” she pressed.

He ground his teeth. He had hoped to give Roslyn time to change her mind about ending their betrothal, but it was clear she hadn’t—and perhaps never would, judging from her remote expression. The serene, composed, lovely creature gazing coolly back at him could have been a marble statue for all the emotion she showed. Her blue eyes were distant, almost chill, conveying the unmistakable message that she wanted nothing more to do with him.

“I will see to it,” Drew bit out grimly.

Roslyn inclined her head regally. “Thank you. I would thank you again for being so generous to my friend, but you have told me you don’t desire my gratitude.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then there is nothing more for us to say. Good day, your grace.”

His lungs tight, Drew watched as Roslyn turned and walked gracefully from the room, giving him no chance to say all the things he wanted—needed, yearned—to say to her.

Steeped in his own dark thoughts, Drew remained unusually silent as his coach conveyed Lady Freemantle and himself to London. They had nearly reached the outskirts of the city when she asked him in a small voice, “Was my request for your escort too much of an impertinence, your grace?”

Shaking himself from his distraction, Drew fixed his gaze on her. “I beg your pardon?”

“You are scowling so ferociously, it makes me think I’ve offended you. I’ll wager you disapprove of my decision to invite Constance and her children to live with me.”

He managed a wry smile. “On the contrary, my lady, I am all admiration.”

She peered at him suspiciously. “Are you making game of me?”

“No. Seriously, I admire what you are doing, although I admit to being a little astonished. Most ladies would be happy to let their husband’s other family starve…out of revenge, if nothing else. My own mother certainly would never have reacted as you have.” Indeed, Drew thought, the duchess would have been outraged and humiliated enough by their mere existence to lash out in anger, not generosity.

“But I am not a true lady, your grace.”

“I beg to differ.” Winifred Freemantle might have come from the lower orders, but her conduct was more noble than a real noblewoman’s. “You are every inch a lady,” he said softly.

She flushed with pride and pleasure. “Well…my birth and breeding are far from genteel…but I have Roslyn and her sisters to thank for setting me a good example.”

“You realize that you may suffer unexpected consequences because of your decision?”

Her ladyship sighed. “Yes, I collect so. I’ll no doubt be ridiculed and disdained by my fancy neighbors. But I can bear it, since I loved my husband. When you truly love someone, no sacrifice is too great. I think you would do the same if you were in my shoes, your grace.”

Drew felt his gut clench at her confident pronouncement. If he’d always questioned the existence of true love, seeing the sacrifice Lady Freemantle was willing to make for love of her late husband, for love of his children, should be proof enough that love was real.

Would he make the same sacrifice for Roslyn if it wereher children who needed caring for? He suspected he would, since they would be part of her.

Her ladyship was eyeing him intently, and her voice held calm certainty when she said, “You love Roslyn, or I miss my guess.”

His heart giving a jolt, he averted his gaze from the shameless matchmaker’s prying one, even as he turned the question over in his mind.Do I love her?

He knew there was only one answer he could give. Stunning as it was for him to admit, he was deeply in love with Roslyn.

Indeed, he had loved her for some time, although he’d been furiously resisting his feelings and tenaciously denying the truth to himself. Roslyn had stolen into the guarded regions of his heart and settled there like a quiet fire.

In all truth, he had been missing her all his life; he just hadn’t realized it until this moment. He had searched for fulfillment with his countless mistresses but never found it until her. The passion, the emotion, the pleasure, the simplejoy he felt at being with her filled an undeniable need in him.

He needed her, more than he ever imagined needing any woman. He wanted to have children with her, a family. He wanted her love. The kind of deep, abiding love that Constance had known with Sir Rupert. The kind of love Winifred Freemantle still bore for him four years after his death.

Yet Roslyn didn’t return his love, Drew reminded himself, feeling the knife in his gut twist another painful turn. She’d made it abundantly clear that she wanted to cut him out of her life.

It scared the devil out of him to think that he had lost her. But then, he had never really had her, despite their betrothal.

The knife dug deeper. Roslyn could never come to love him the way he did her, Drew reflected. Not when she was in love with Haviland.

Did he have the right to keep pursuing her when her heart belonged to another man? What abouther wishes,her needs? Her dreams? Her happiness?

What was it Roslyn had said to him?Heart love is when you put someone else’s needs over your own . What did it say about him if he put his own needs, his own happiness, above hers? How could he claim to love her if all he cared about was himself?

If you love her, you fool, you should want her happiness. You should be willing to give her up…shouldn’t you?

The thought of living without Roslyn for the rest of his life shook Drew to his core. But if he truly loved her, did he have any choice?

The question haunted him for the remainder of the day.

Through Lady Freemantle’s awkward yet strangely poignant meeting with Constance, who was pitifully grateful that her children would be provided for in the event of her demise.

Through the interview with his physician, who did indeed determine it advisable to remove the gravely ill patient from the noxious stews of London to healthier surroundings and the clean, fresh air of the country.

Through the painstaking effort to transport the invalid by slow stages to the luxurious mansion at Freemantle Park.

Through the wide-eyed wonder that Constance’s children displayed at their new environs; even Ben, whose defiant belligerence and suspicion faded to cautious hope that his mother and sisters might have found salvation in the person of Lady Freemantle, and that the heavy burden of caring for them had been lifted from his thin shoulders.

Through the return journey to London, during which Drew brooded and savagely debated with himself about his course of action.

The hour was late when he finally reached his home. He went straight to his library, where he locked himself inside with two bottles of his best aged Scotch whiskey. If he was going to cut out his heart for Roslyn, he had to be numb enough to do it.

Drew had advanced to the second bottle, however, before he could force himself to relentlessly face the cold, bitter truth: He had to let her go.

He would feel devastatingly incomplete without her, but Roslyn’s happiness lay with Haviland—and he wanted her to be happy, even if it meant losing her to another man. His hands were unsteady as he brought the bottle to his lips again.

He wanted her happiness more than anything in his life. More than his life.

“Sho why ’re you dallying, you pitiful sod?” he muttered. “No reashon to delay. You ’ave to give her the shance to have her dreams come true.”

With effort, Drew rose and made his way over to the bellpull to ring for his majordomo. With even greater effort he remained standing as he haltingly gave instructions for a footman to be dispatched to Brooks Club, where the Earl of Haviland might possibly be found.

Then sinking onto the sofa again, Drew brought the bottle to his lips for another long, mind-numbing dose of fortitude.

He was stretched out on the sofa, half comatose, when a sharp rap came on the library door. Shaking himself awake, Drew hauled himself up to a sitting position and bid entrance.

When a gentleman strode into the room, Drew narrowed his bleary-eyed gaze. He thought his caller might be Haviland, but his vision was blurred so much that there seemed to be two of him. Drew, however, recognized the curt voice as Haviland’s.

“I trust you will explain the urgency of your summons, your grace. I had a winning hand.”

Drew tried carefully to enunciate, but his speech still sounded slurred when he replied, “I will reimbursh you for any losh you suffered.”

Haviland’s eyebrow shot up as he regarded Drew. “You surprise me, Arden. You’re three sheets to the wind.”

“Four,” Drew responded, holding up five fingers.

“So why did you call me here?” the earl demanded impatiently.

Drew grimaced as he tried to gather his courage. “Bloody truth is, I’m sshtepping aside. You can have ’er.”

“Have whom?”

“Roshlyn! Who else would I bloody well be talking about?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

Drew glared balefully. “Y’ can’t tell me you ’aven’t been purshuing her…I know better.”

“I might have had she not been betrothed to you.”

“Butyou made her love you.”

“You have a touching but misplaced confidence in my powers of seduction.”

“No, I don’t. You sheduced ’er before I ever met ’er.”

Doubt, suspicion, irritation all tinged the earl’s expression. “Just what the devil are you up to, Arden?”

“I’m trying to make ’er happy!” Drew practically shouted and then quickly clamped a hand to his temple.

“You are giving up your claim to her?”

Drew shook his throbbing head. “Thash the trouble…never had any real claim to ’er. Sheesh yours and always hash been.”

Haviland crossed his arms over his powerful chest. “I wasn’t born yesterday, your grace. You’ll change your mind when you are sober, and then you’ll call me out for daring to woo your lady. I’ve no desire to meet you over pistols at dawn. If you’re half as good a shot as I am, we’re likely to end up killing each other.”

“Don’t be an ash, Havilan’,” Drew retorted furiously. “I’m tryin’ to be damned noble, givin’ her to a man she can love.” He took another long swallow of whiskey before saying in a despairing tone, “Roshlyn loves you, you bleedin’ idiot.”

There was a long pause while Haviland tried to assimilate the announcement. “She never gave any indication that she held me in any special affection.”

“Well, shee does. Sheesh been plotting your capture shince I met her…and I ’elped her, bloody fool that I am.” His slurred laughter was bitter with irony. “Roshlyn will make you”—he took another pull from the bottle—“a bloody fine bride.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“You should feel damn forshunate, Havilan’.”

“I don’t doubt that either.”

Drew raised his gaze to glare again. “You damned well better make ’er happy when you marry her, or you’ll answer to me. Do I make myshelf clear?”

Haviland’s mouth curved in an ironic smile. “Perfectly, your grace. And I can promise you that I will give it my best effort.”

Haviland turned and walked out, shutting the door softly behind him.

Drew stood and stared for a long moment, feeling as if he had a gaping, burning hole in his chest where his heart should be.

So why then when he threw the bottle against the library door with all his might, shattering the glass, did it seem as if his heart had shattered into fragments at the same time?

From the doorway of Constance’s sickroom, Roslyn watched with Winifred as the two young Baines girls tiptoed quietly to their mother’s bedside.

After a moment, the invalid’s eyes fluttered open. Upon seeing her daughters, Constance gave a wan but beatific smile and murmured a faint greeting. “Good morning, my darlings.”

“Are you feeling better, Mama?” whispered the older daughter, Sarah.

“Much better, thankfully,” Constance assured them. “The doctor’s medicine seems to have helped a good deal. My chest does not hurt as much, and my cough is less frequent.”

Winifred’s housekeeper had sat with Constance all during the night, applying warm compresses to her chest and helping her sip the doctor’s herbal concoction to calm her hacking.

“Oh, Mama,” the youngest girl, Daisy, exclaimed in relief. “We were ever so worried for you.”

“I know, my love. I was exceedingly worried, too. So tell me…how do you like your new home?”

“Mama, it is quite famous,” Sarah responded with awe in her tone. “Our bedchamber is immense, and we each have our own featherbed, so I don’t have to endure Daisy’s kicking. And you must see the nursery. Aunt Winifred says we are to have our own governess so you won’t have to teach us anymore. And Miss Loring has brought us ever so many books to read. Daisy likes the picture books best, but I like the map books that show all the countries you told us about.”

“And you, Daisy, my love?” Constance asked her youngest daughter. “Are you pleased to be here?”

Daisy nodded with eager enthusiasm and held up the pretty porcelain doll she had clutched to her chest. “Oh,yes, Mama. See how beautiful my new doll is. Auntie Win-fred gave her to me, but I have not chosen a name yet. Auntie Win-fred says I must wait until you are all better and can help me pick one.”