Married: The Virgin Widow (20 page)
Read Married: The Virgin Widow Online
Authors: Deborah Hale
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
“Sound strategy.” Ford cast a glance at the choppy grey waves. “This is not the best time of year for sea bathing. So…what did you discover.”
It would make no difference as far as he and Laura were concerned. Ford quelled any foolish flicker of hope. But the ship was due to make port briefly on the
Kentish coast. If he let Laura have her say, then persuaded her she would be much better off without him, she could go ashore there with no harm done. In the meantime, he would have the precious torment of seeing her one last time.
“To begin with,” said Laura, “your grandfather used his first family very badly.”
As she told him how old Lord Kingsfold had exiled his first wife and son, Ford’s first impulse was to think what a dreadful thing his grandfather had done. Then, with a sharp pang of conscience, he remembered it was not so different from what he’d once planned for Laura.
“Later,” she continued, “your grandfather made no secret of wishing the descendents of his second family would inherit Hawkesbourne, rather than Cyrus.”
Much as he wished it were not true, Ford recalled how often as a child his grandfather had assured him he would one day be Lord Kingsfold. Could that be why he’d felt such an absolute right to his inheritance and considered himself robbed of it by Laura’s marriage to Cyrus? Everything he’d heard made him feel sorry for his cousin, which was the last thing he wanted.
“What does any of this matter now?” he demanded.
“I believe it matters a great deal, if that was what made Cyrus so anxious to prevent you from inheriting. He added a vicious little twist of his own, by stealing the woman you intended to marry.”
“Stealing? You mean he…?”
“I believe he contrived to ruin my father to coerce me into marriage. He may even have arranged that convenient business opportunity for you in Spa.”
“I wondered how he knew I’d gone there.” Ford cursed himself for underestimating his scheming cousin.
“One thing Cyrus did not anticipate,” said Laura, “was my reluctance to deprive you of your inheritance. He was forced to improvise by forging—”
“A sham marriage certificate?” Ford could have sworn the ship suddenly lurched into a deep trough between two massive waves.
Why had he been so ready, even eager, to believe his beloved mother a bigamist and himself a bastard? Could it be that, with every new proof of Laura’s innocence, the guilt over how he’d treated her had built up inside him until he could no longer bear to go unpunished?
“It was a sham,” said Laura. “I travelled down to Devon and examined the parish register with my own eyes. There was no entry that remotely corresponds to the names and dates on the forged certificate. I also spoke to some cousins of your mother. They assured me she was not married when she went off to find fame in London. There is not a shred of doubt, you are the rightful Lord Kingsfold.”
She had done all that to redeem him from scandal and disinheritance after everything he had done to her? He might be legitimate by birth, but Ford knew he was still a selfish bastard at heart…the last in a long line, by the sound of it.
Laura seemed puzzled and cast down by his subdued response to her news. “I was a fool to accept the story Cyrus told me and the
proof
he offered. I should have questioned it, then. How different our lives might have been if I had!”
“No!” Ford’s iron restraint shattered. He seized her
hand and clung to it like a life rope in a storm-tossed sea. “You are not to blame for any of this! I never questioned the lies Cyrus told you, and I had far more reason to suspect his motives. Far more reason to believe in my mother’s honour.
“Besides,” he continued, making no effort to hide the depth and intensity of his feelings for her, “you have already suffered far too much trying to protect your family and me. You put yourself through years of hell and braved my undeserved hatred to keep a secret you knew would destroy me. My only regret is that I have proven myself so unworthy of your sacrifice.”
He forced himself to release her hand. But Laura captured his between both of hers and refused to let go without a battle he did not have the will to fight. “Let me be the judge of that. As for sacrifice, I believe you made up that story about wedding me for revenge to spare me from being tainted by the scandal of your birth.”
Her words snatched Ford’s breath away, like the gust of a North Sea gale. He had only to recant that wounding falsehood and he could reclaim the elusive happiness he’d once found with her. But he could not offer her anything less precious than the truth, even if it cost him the joy of a lifetime.
“Perhaps I did not spend seven years planning revenge, but my true plans were little better. I believed you had stolen my inheritance and I was certain you had stolen my heart. I thought if I married you and possessed you, like some unfeeling object, I would soon tire of you and break the hold you had upon me.”
Ford saw the hope in her eyes die a martyr’s death and his mangled heart took a fresh wound. He longed
to say no more, fearing it might revive her hope only long enough to give it a mortal blow. But he had sworn never again to deceive her and he could not break that vow.
“If it is any consolation, my plans failed miserably. The moment I saw you again, something began to change inside me. I started to doubt all the things I’d spent seven years believing. I found myself caring for the strong, stubborn woman you’d become. I am not proud of the fight I put up to resist every impulse of admiration and forgiveness. And I regret every moment of anger or fear or sorrow I gave you. But when I stood beside you at the altar on our wedding day, I meant the vows I made to you more sincerely than I knew.”
Even after he had confessed the wrongs he’d done her, Laura did not release her grip on him, though it slackened a little. Now Ford could feel her hands trembling. Her eyes were misted with brine that came not from the cold sea, but from the warm springs of her heart.
“You must be freezing.” His voice rasped with emotion. “You should go below to the cook’s galley for a cup of mulled wine to warm you. When we make port at Deal, you can go ashore.”
Slipping his hand from her grasp, Ford drank in one final look at her. In the days to come, that memory would warm and cheer him and assure him he had done the right thing at last. He turned to go below decks.
Behind him Laura’s voice rang out, sweetly defiant. “If you expect to get rid of me that easily, my dear husband, I am afraid you are mistaken. I know you believe you are doing what is best for me. But you are going about it in your old way—charging decisively
ahead without asking my opinion or giving me a choice. In matters of love, that will not do. Power must be shared, compromises made. Do I not deserve some say about our future?”
Her words rocked Ford. Was that what he’d been doing? Making arbitrary decisions about what was best for her? Taking all the power over their relationship out of her hands? Leaving her with no choice but to endure the consequences of his actions?
Seven years ago, neither of them had a choice. They’d been pawns at the mercy of cruel forces from the past. Was he so determined to seize control of his fate, that he would rather accept the certainty of an empty future than risk his heart on Laura’s choice?
He turned to face her once again. “There can be no question of you deserving whatever your heart desires. Tell me then, what is your opinion?”
Though the rest of her features were composed in serene fortitude, the beginnings of a smile kindled in Laura’s eyes. “I believe if you persist in trying to punish yourself, you will punish me, too. I do not think you want that.”
“Never!” The power of his conviction pushed Ford a step toward her.
As if taking part in a halting but vital dance, Laura took a step toward him. “Then rather than punishing ourselves for the mistakes of the past, would it not be better if we atone for them by dedicating ourselves to each other’s future happiness?”
The power of her presence drew Ford another step closer. “You make it sound so simple.”
Standing toe to toe, Laura gazed up at him. “Perhaps
the best and truest things in life are simple. That does not mean they are easy.”
Slowly he raised his hand to her cheek. “I trust that you can do whatever you set your mind and heart to.”
Leaning in to his caress, Laura raised her hand to mirror it. “And I have every confidence in you.”
Ford could not decide whether he was in a blessed dream or more truly engaged in life than he had ever been. “Then I reckon we can reach a mutually satisfactory agreement. What would you say to a second honeymoon in the Canary Islands?”
She gave a sigh of sweet fulfilment like Ford had often heard in the wake of their lovemaking. “I would say it sounds like heaven.”
He bent toward her as she stretched up to meet him. The delicious warmth of her lips was like a long-awaited homecoming.
St Valentine’s Day, Tenerife, the Canary Islands
Laura had one more secret to tell Ford and this time she could hardly wait.
“I feel as if I’ve gone to heaven.” She sighed, fanning her face with a palm frond. “Though I had to go through hell to get here, it was well worth the ordeal.”
She and Ford sat in the shade of the wide balcony that overhung the inner courtyard of their rented
casa
.
“If this is heaven, you belong here.” Ford peeled a banana and offered her a piece, accompanied by a doting smile. “For you are an angel.”
Laura gazed into his dark eyes as she nibbled the soft fruit from his fingers, savouring its mellow sweetness—and his. In some ways Ford seemed an entirely different man from the cold, severe avenger who’d descended upon Hawkesbourne the previous spring. But she recognised many fine qualities she had glimpsed in him since then. Having reconciled the past, he had begun to
balance all the best aspects of his old and new selves. He had amply justified her faith in his basic goodness.
“An angel is a fine consort for a saint.” Her gaze flickered over his striking features with ardent appreciation. “You showed all the patience of a saint, the way you tended me on our voyage from England. I was afraid I would die of seasickness before we reached these blessed islands. If it had not been for you holding my head while I retched, bathing my face afterward and all the time diverting me with stories from the Indies, I do not know what would have become of me.”
“You would have survived.” Ford assured her as he offered her another morsel of banana. “For all your tenderness and compassion, you have a core as stout as oak. But if I was able to ease your suffering in the least, I count it a privilege.”
An anxious look tensed his handsome face and he made no effort to conceal it. “Your appetite has not improved as I hoped it would, once we put ashore here. You are still too thin in spite of all the delicacies I bring from the market to tempt you. Must I send to Hawkesbourne for Cook? She would not rest until she fattened you up.”
“Am I too scrawny to rouse your desire?” Laura gave a husky chuckle that was anything but angelic. Having eaten the last piece fruit from Ford’s hand, she closed her lips over his fingers, caressing them with her tongue.
He reacted with a soft gasp of pleasure. His dark eyes shimmered like molten pools of passion. “If you do not know the answer to that already, I shall be delighted to demonstrate when we retire for our
siesta
.”
“I certainly hope you will,” she whispered. “You cannot complain that my appetite for
you
is less than it should be.”
“No indeed.” Ford slipped from his chair with predatory grace and moved to kneel beside hers. He began to drizzle exquisite kisses up and down her neck, fuelling the sultry heat that seemed so easily stirred of late. “If you dined with the same gusto as you dally in bed, I would not have a moment’s worry.”
The ache of concern beneath his lusty banter touched Laura. Much as she savoured the joy of her precious secret, she must not keep it from him any longer. Reaching back, she closed her hand over his and raised it to her bosom.
After scanning the courtyard and the balconies to make certain none of the servants was about, Ford fondled her breast with such deft skill she almost forget what she meant to tell him.
She tilted her head back to whisper in his ear. “In another few months, these should be plump enough to inspire your lust rather than your worry.”
Reluctant as she was to interrupt his thrilling attentions, she tugged his hand lower, to rest over her taut belly. “It was more than heavy seas that made me sick on our voyage.”
For a moment Ford froze so completely, she feared he had stopped breathing. Then a drop of warm liquid fell upon her neck and trickled down her shoulder.
“My angel!” Ford lowered his head to rest upon her bosom, while his hand stretched over her belly in a protective, adoring caress. “I thought you could not possibly make me happier than on the day we sailed from England.”
Laura knew exactly what he meant. Delighted as she was to be carrying her beloved husband’s child, she was grateful she’d sought this reconciliation
before
she knew
about the baby. She stroked Ford’s hair as her heart overflowed with love and happiness.
The reality of what she had told him seemed to take possession of Ford.
“We cannot go on to Singapore now!” He pulled himself upright and cradled Laura’s face in his strong, deft hands. “We must go back to Hawkesbourne for you to have the baby. Or would you rather stay here until after the child is born?”
“We still have plenty of time to decide.” Laura prepared herself for the most wondrous kiss she had yet received from him. “Wherever we go, as long as we are together, it will be heaven.”
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
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First published in Great Britain 2010
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Deborah M. Hale 2010
ISBN: 978-1-408-91638-4