Obsession (26 page)

Frowning, I gave him a quick nod, and unlocked the door, stepping aside to allow him entrance into the apartment.

“Bloody wicked night, Your Grace.”

“It is.” I shrugged off my cloak, and reached for his, motioning with my head toward the near salon.

He entered the room with hesitant steps, wringing his hands as I poured us each a drink.

“You look damn frozen, Woodruff. How long have you been waiting?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m fine.” He quaffed the drink surprisingly fast. His hands were trembling.

“Sit down, man, before you fall down.” I escorted him to a chair. “What the devil is this about?”

He swiped his face with one hand, his gaze shifting back to the decanter of port. “Would you mind?” He handed me his snifter.

I refilled it, took a chair beside him, and waited.

Woodruff stared into his glass a long moment, then took a deep breath. “First, let me say that my decision to come here wasn’t an easy one, Your Grace. I’ve worked for Jacobson for twenty years. Twenty damnable, miserable years. I don’t like him; have never liked him. But the financial compensation has been worth the verbal abuse he frequently unleashes on me.”

Leaning back against the chair, he met my gaze directly. “But there comes a time in a man’s life when he must stand for a cause. A worthy cause. I haven’t been particularly proud of myself over the years—bowing to Jacobson’s questionable morals and business practices. But ’tis the nature of the beast, the practice of law, is it not?”

“Yes,” I said. “I suppose it is.”

He cleared his throat. “Your Grace, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Jacobson this afternoon. And I couldn’t help but notice your demeanor when you left his office—a man struggling with his pride, somewhat fearful, yet determined to risk his all for a last chance to achieve that which will restore his dignity, and reward him with hope that a brighter future lies in store for him.”

I grinned. “I’m sure you didn’t come here in this miserable weather and wait hours outside this apartment just to pat me on the back for tightening the noose around my own neck.”

“No,” he replied in a gentle, hesitant voice. “I simply wish you to understand that in that moment, when I looked into your eyes, I came to a realization myself. A man is not a man without his dignity. I have been too long without my dignity, Your Grace.”

He reached into his suit pocket and withdrew two papers, which were folded in half. For a long moment he regarded them, the papers trembling in his shaking hand. Then he handed them to me, his gaze holding mine.

I opened them, and regarded the certificates of my and Clayton’s births for a frozen moment before slowly looking into his eyes.

Woodruff swallowed and motioned toward the papers. “They are the only proof of your and Basingstoke’s illegitimate birth, Your Grace. The only reason they still exist is because the dowager duchess used them to manipulate your father. She kept them after his death, of course, in case an issue ever arose regarding yourself or your brother.

“For your information, Your Grace, Isabelle Pinter went to her grave with her secret. The only other persons who know of this unfortunate issue are myself and Jacobson. Should those papers disappear, there would not be a scrap of evidence to attest to the truth of your birthright…or lack thereof.”

I looked at the yellowed paper in my hand, thoughts scrambling through my brain. Without this document I would be a free man once again, liberated from the dowager’s manipulations. Aye, she could declare me a fraud; she could disparage my father’s—and her husband’s—reputations and my own and Clayton’s. But…

Only then did I lift my head to note that Woodruff had moved toward the door, paused, and looked back at me.

“I have tendered my resignation at Jacobson’s. I think it is high time that I venture out on my own, Your Grace. Make my own future instead of waiting for someone to do it for me.” A smile touched his lips. “Good luck to you, Your Grace.”

I remained in the chair, the papers open on my lap. I glanced toward the fire, my fingers lingering upon the documents. Aye, I could destroy them. As they burned into ashes, I could make haste to Huddersfield and try one last time to make Maria love me again, with the dowager’s threats no longer looming over my head.

“Your Grace.”

Woodruff again stood in the doorway, clutching his hat in his white-knuckled fists. How odd were his eyes, shimmering glassily with tears.

“The child,” he said in so soft a whisper I was forced to strain to hear him. “Your daughter…”

My heart seemed to freeze in my chest, and I held my breath.

“Your daughter, Your Grace, is not dead.”

24

I
ARRIVED AT THE DOWAGER’S TOWN HOUSE
just short of eleven that same evening. The windows were dark. The old duchess would have been abed hours ago.

I banged on the door for several minutes before a sleepy servant opened the door a crack and peered out at me. I shoved the door open and strode to the staircase and ascended, the papers that Woodruff has presented me tucked safely within my cloak pocket.

A sense of inebriation thumped at my temples. Not a drunkenness from spirits, but from a dizzying exuberance that, for the second time that day, I was about to make a life-altering decision. I was about to take control of my life.

I would toss the damning documents into the fire, right before the dowager’s eyes, and tell her to piss off.

The bedroom door was open, and I paused at the threshold, looking toward the tester bed. She was not there, and I looked toward the high-backed chair before the dying fire.

She was there, roosting like an old crow before the hearth.

Quietly, slowly, I moved across the room and stood beside her, removing the documents from my pocket.

Her head had fallen forward in sleep.

I had never seen her this way, her silver hair loose and falling in thin wispy threads around her. The shawl wrapped around her shoulders emphasized the frailness of her form, and her white nightdress appeared little more than something to hold her brittle old bones together.

I sank into a chair beside her, staring into her sunken, wrinkled face.

She stirred as if sensing my presence, lifted her head, and looked into my eyes.

“Ah,” she said, and in an uncustomary fashion nervously nudged back the strands of hair from her face, as if she were embarrassed to have been found so disheveled. She clutched the shawl tightly around herself and shrank more deeply into the chair.

“It seems the rules of polite conventions have completely escaped you, Trey. One does not drop in at this hour unannounced or uninvited.” She tipped up her chin and lifted one sparse eyebrow. “I do hope there is a rational excuse for your disturbing me in this fashion.”

“Quite rational,” I replied, fingering the papers in my lap. “Possibly the most rational act in my entire life.”

Her gaze drifted down to the papers and remained there for a long moment. At last, she gave a heavy sigh, and said, “Very well. Get on with it then.”

“These are the documents of my and Clay’s birth by Isabelle Pinter.”

“I see.”

“I want you to see me destroy them. Upon doing so, I intend to walk out that door and never see you again.”

She pursed her lips and rested her head back against the chair. There was an odd glint of amusement in her eyes.

“Very well,” she said. “Proceed. Get it over with and then get the hell out of my house.”

I stood and moved to the hearth, the papers between my fingers. Staring down into the low flames, I said, “I also know where my daughter is, and that she is alive and well. I fully intend to claim her and deliver her to Maria. At that point, I hope with all my heart that I can convince Maria to love me again, to forgive your beastly cruelties, and to marry me.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“At least she’ll have her daughter back.”

She continued to fix me with her faded eyes, her mouth twisted in a taunting smile.

I looked at the papers. At her. The papers again. The fire. Her eyes.

A staggering and sickening realization began to sour my stomach. I suddenly knew
why
she was smiling in so knowing and vicious a manner. She thought me a coward. A man desperate enough to destroy the proof of my lineage. I had been, once. Before Maria.

Holding her gaze, I tossed the papers into her lap.

Her expression froze, and the smugness appeared to melt from her mien.

Going to one knee before her, I looked into her stunned, sunken eyes. “I don’t need the Salterdon lineage to define my manhood. Salterdon and all his worthless titles have nothing whatsoever to do with the man, the husband, the father that I intend to become. You can go to hell.”

I stood and moved toward the door.

“Trey.”

Turning, I looked at her face, and what I saw left me breathless.

For an instant, just an instant, the firelight erased the lines from her face. In a breath of a moment she was a young woman again, her eyes filled with tears that flowed down her cheeks in silver trails.

“All I ever wanted was for him to love me,” she said softly. “To love me with the passion and obsession with which I loved him. I was willing to do anything to keep him. Anything. Ignore his affairs, go along with his lies, accept his children by other women, wishing every moment of my life that they had been a part of me.”

I swallowed and briefly closed my eyes as the anger that had burdened me my entire life fell away. I pitied the innocent young woman who had married for love, and who had remained unloved for all of her life.

“Cherish her,” she whispered, her chin quivering, then she tossed the papers into the flames.

I
DID NOT ARRIVE IN
H
UDDERSFIELD UNTIL NOON
of the next day. The earth sparkled beneath a spring sun as I dismounted my weary horse and strode, nay, ran, to Maria’s door, and beat upon it with my fist.

There was no response. Frantic, breathing hard, I looked up and down the cobbled street, and struck off running again, my lungs aching, sweat rising so I was forced to remove my cloak, dropping it to the ground and running until John Rees’s little cottage came into view.

I fell against the cottage door and struggled for a breath, then banged upon it with my fist.

It opened immediately.

I stared down into a woman’s startled eyes before I sidestepped around her and demanded, “Maria Ashton. Is she here?”

“Who the blazes do ya think ya are—” she began.

“Dammit, is she here or not?” My gaze flashed around the small, tidy parlor. “Where the hell is she? Is she with Rees?”

There came a sound, and I quickly turned.

A child stood upon the threshold of her bedroom, her dark hair framing her cherubic little cheeks, her eyes a reflection of my own.

I moved toward her, slowly.

“Here now, I’ll not have ya…”

Her words faded from my consciousness as I focused on my daughter’s face. I eased down onto my knees, absorbing every nuance of her features: Maria’s sweet mouth. My dark hair. My gray eyes…

“Sarah,” I whispered, shaking.

Then through my blissful haze came the words:

“…Rees and Miss Ashton are bein’ married this very minute…”

My head snapped around and I stared at her. “Married.”

“Aye. If they ain’t already…”

Burying my hands in my hair and closing my eyes, I whispered, “Jesus. Oh God. Please.
Please,
don’t do this to me.”

I stood cautiously, so as not to frighten my daughter. Gently as possible, I scooped her up in my arms, pressed a kiss upon her smooth brow, and murmured into her little ear, “We’re going to go to the church.”

“To see my papa?” she said, her sparkling eyes looking into mine.

My heart turned over in my chest. “Aye.” I forced a smile and nodded. “To see your papa.”

Much to the distress of the child’s keeper, I exited the cottage, each swift step closer to the chapel causing my heart to slam harder while the words kept repeating in my mind: “Please. Please. God, please don’t let me be too late.”

Nearly running, I mounted the steps and threw open the door.

And nearly staggered with gratitude as I heard the somber words that drifted through the quiet chamber: “Should anyone know of any reason these two people should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“I do,” I whispered, the words caught in my throat.
“I do,”
I repeated loudly.

Maria turned, her wide eyes locking with mine. Ah, merciful God, those eyes. Those lips. That sweet face that had haunted me from the first moment I had looked upon it.

“Don’t,” I said. “Maria…I beg you.”

John Rees groaned and covered his face with his hands. Stumbling to a pew, he sank onto it, his countenance twisted in despair. He reached for Maria’s hand, his grip forcing her to fix her stunned gaze upon his.

She loved me still. I knew it. I saw it in her trembling body, the war that raged inside her that she tried desperately to contain.

Frantic, she returned her gaze to mine, then to the child in my arms, realization forming on her face even as John Rees spoke.

“Your father told me you were dead. He asked that Jane and I take the child…I couldn’t tell you. I knew you loved him still. I couldn’t lose you both…”

I saw the tears rise to her blue eyes as the flowers in her hand spilled to the floor. And as I extended my hand to her, she ran down the church aisle toward me…and our daughter.

25

“I
ALWAYS SUSPECTED YOU WERE A LUNATIC,
Trey. Now I’m quite certain of it. You needn’t put yourself through this, you know.”

I glanced at Clay, who sat upon his horse looking splendid in his pristine hacking suit. Around us, the sounds of the working mine felt nearly as intolerable as the dust and sweat felt covering my face.

“Why don’t you make yourself useful, get off that damned horse, and grab a pick. This mine is partly yours, you know—in manner of speaking.”