Patrica Rice (25 page)

Her heart went out to him, to the lonely, imaginative boy he must have been. But loneliness was no basis for losing her heart to yet another man who would abandon her, as he must, no matter what fine words he used. She would not be the anchor around his neck.

He took her cold hands and warmed them against his wide chest. “I vowed then, when I was very young, that I would never bring a child into this world unless I was prepared to stand by his side, give him my name, and support him in the best manner available. I have reaffirmed that vow a thousand times as I’ve seen the tragic results of parental neglect. I am not blind to the irresponsibility of men who take their pleasure and never consider the results. For that reason, I swore never to bed a woman until I could marry her.”

Startled, Blanche’s gaze flew to Michael’s face. She must be misunderstanding his meaning. Still, the gold ring burning between her breasts acquired new significance.

Michael smiled. The warmth of his gaze caressed her as clearly as the touch of his hand. She huddled in her blanket while he crouched quite shamelessly naked and seemingly untouched by the cold.

“There are other ways of releasing sexual urges, and I know all of them. But in my eyes, after what we’ve done, we are wedded, Blanche. Whether or not the words are ever said in church or broadcast in public, you are my wife. That ring you hide is my pledge. I will never have another woman besides you. I will raise and cherish any child that comes of our joining. Do not deny me in this, Blanche. I have lived too long with this vow to break it.”

Blanche scanned his face but found only Michael’s open honesty. He meant what he said. The realization thrilled her. And terrified her.

He would never give up her or the child, no matter how she decided. The strength of his will made her shiver, though his position was the weaker one. She had the wealth and power. He had nothing.

Apparently reading her resistance in her silence, Michael stood up. “We will talk of this again, Blanche. For now, you’d best climb back between the covers and get warm. I overtired you last night, and I apologize. Your maid will bring you tea, and you will feel better.”

“She always brings hot chocolate,” Blanche grumbled as she returned to the bed. The roiling in her stomach had lessened, but she felt light-headed and weak.

He wore his shirt and trousers when he tucked her in a moment later and brushed a kiss against her cheek. She should feel relief, but it was regret that tugged at her heartstrings.

“I will see that she brings tea,” Michael assured her.

The tender caress of his fingers across her brow stole her irritation. She felt coddled and loved as she never had before.

“Gavin can always find me,” he reminded her. “You have only to ask.”

He was gone before her sleepy brain fully registered his meaning: the blasted, wicked wretch meant to set off again without saying where he was going or when he would be back. She’d
known
he would do that, and still she could not control her disappointment.

Furious, she flung her water glass at the closed door.

When her maid stepped over the shattered pieces some time later, she carried a tray of tea and wore a bewildered expression.

Michael leaned on the ship’s railing and watched the Emerald Isle approach. The salt-tinged sea breeze blew his hair back from his face and tugged at the loose wool of his coat. He loved traveling, and he particularly loved the rolling green hills of this contradictory isle.

He had wanted to introduce Blanche to the wild blue skies and rippling grasses he wished he could call home. But he couldn’t continue to besmirch her good name and make her an outcast in the society she preferred. He must do this alone.

And alone was how he would do it. Fiona had disappeared the night he’d told her he would be returning her to Ireland.

He would have liked to shake her for her obstinacy, but he recognized the trait he wore so well himself.

At least she’d finally trusted him with her family names. Her story of lands and title reverting to the crown when all direct male descendants were given up for dead was nothing new. Her grandfather’s attempts to pass his lands through his daughter to Seamus had been doomed to failure given the political mood of Parliament toward Irish aristocracy.

But the family name she had given him—MacDermot—worried him more than he’d let on. It was a name from his childhood. As he’d told Blanche when they’d traveled to Scotland, he and Gavin had often used MacDermot as a code word, as their father had before them. He didn’t like coincidences.

Michael worried about Fiona. A young girl should not wander London’s streets unprotected. He’d sent word to Blanche, hoping she would trace the brat’s direction and offer her assistance.

Traveling by his wits and talents as usual, it had taken him nearly a fortnight to get here. It was already the beginning of June. He hoped Fiona had not lied about her family’s direction. Every moment he spent away from Blanche worried him. If Blanche took it into her head to flee London for the continent, he would have to borrow from Gavin’s meager funds and follow before he lost her entirely. Or he could tell Neville of the marriage and use the duke’s resources. He would do that if he must, but Blanche would not appreciate his choice.

But he had to make this journey. It was the only means he saw to end the conspirators’ plots for once and all, if Seamus and William held the key that he suspected they did. In the back of his mind lingered a tiny impossible hope that he would find a clue to his own background.

Once ashore, he traveled half the breadth of Ireland to reach the place Fiona called home. Sleeping with rocks for pillows and the stars as blanket no longer held the appeal it once had. Michael wanted Blanche’s warmth beside him, her laughing voice chiding him for the error of his ways. He didn’t need her silk sheets or elegantly carved ceilings. He needed Blanche. He didn’t like discovering he needed anyone or anything.

But the cool nights and long June days with their scuttling white clouds, scented spring breezes, and dancing flowers awoke Michael’s awareness of the vast emptiness in his soul. He’d ignored the yearning for too long. He’d prided himself on his lack of possessions, on his ability to survive without asking anyone’s help. Now he saw only the bleakness of his future.

When at last he reached the lands Fiona called home, Michael sat upon an overgrown stone wall and contemplated the acres of fallow field beyond. In the distance rose a crumbling stone castle and several thatched cottages. A few cows grazed in a far pasture. He heard dogs barking and the distant cry of children playing. And all around him spread emerald acres dotted with wild rose canes, fallen stone walls, and the bright dots of spring flowers. Possibilities abounded in this rich earth, but the field went unplowed, the seed unsown.

Michael wasn’t blind to the comparison to his own life. He possessed everything Mother Nature could grant him, and he had wasted it on rambling rather than building. Perhaps he couldn’t call it
waste
. There was no harm in admiring the natural beauty of the world. But neither had he taken that wealth and multiplied it or made it grow to aid God’s children. A rolling stone gathered no moss, he reflected wryly. Nor much of anything else.

But that was neither here nor there. He must find Fiona’s family and persuade them to turn from their cause. Then he could return to Blanche and plan the rest of his life. She hadn’t fooled him with her lies. He could barely suppress his panic and excitement at the possibility he might have a son or daughter in a few short months.

He ambled toward an old woman feeding her chickens, who watched his approach. “Top of the mornin’ to ye,” he greeted her cheerfully, taking off his flat cap and presenting her with a slight bow.

She stared at him with suspicion, threw out the last of her grain, and came forward, swinging her bucket. She looked frail enough for a good gust of wind to blow away, but only her skirts whipped around her as she stopped on the other side of the rose-bedecked fence.

“And it’s not Seamus,” she muttered with disappointment, looking him over closely. “I knew ’twas not. These old eyes are not so far gone as that.”

Michael hid his relief. Fiona had not lied, then. Her family lived in these parts.

“Not Seamus,” he agreed, “but I look for him. Is he about, then?”

“And who be ye askin’?”

That took a moment to translate, but Michael understood the question before the words. He trod dangerous ground now. “Michael O’Toole, at your service, ma’am. ’Tis Fiona who’s after inquirin’, though. I’ve word from her.”

The old woman nodded. “She up and disappeared before she heard. Is she well, then?”

“Last I saw of her, a fortnight ago,” Michael promised. “She’s some fear for her brother, and I said I would bring word of him.”

The woman shook her head sorrowfully, but the suspicion remained in her eyes. “Ye have a look of him about ye, Mr. O’Toole. How is it you come to know our Fiona? Be ye family?”

“Not unless there’s an American branch.”

“Gareth, the eldest MacDermot son went to America, as I recall, after the uprising,” the old woman replied. “The British put a warrant on his head, and he fled, along with all the rest of them,” she finished sadly, shaking her head. “All the young men, lost, including my Sean. They’re all gone now, scattered to the winds.”

With more than casual interest Michael inquired, “And Gareth? Does no one hear word of him these days?”

She broke the wilted head off a delphinium. “His da wore mourning from the day he heard of the lad’s death. They’re all buried in foreign soil. They could not come home even in death.” Her voice broke with the sorrow of it.

So much for that lead. Returning to his present mission, Michael prompted, “And Seamus? I take it he has not gone to foreign soil yet.”

She gave him a sharp look at that. “It would be better for all if he had. He and that fool uncle of his are behind the bars of Dublin gaol. They’ll likely hang for their troubles.”

* * *

Blanche wearily listened to her great-aunt recount the evening’s activities as the carriage rolled toward home. Her head pounded, her feet hurt, and her heart had shriveled into a rough pebble. It was the first of June and she hadn’t heard from Michael in weeks. The dreary part was that this was what she’d expected and what she’d wanted, and she must learn to live like this.

She carried a child and the father was the worst possible choice for husband—should she want a husband, which she most certainly did not. Only weariness made her wonder if perhaps her decision was the wrong one. Michael had vowed constancy, but that was like asking constancy from a thunderbolt.

Her aunt’s chatter rattled as the carriage halted and the footman hastened to let the steps down. She had spent these last weeks denying her hopes for this life within her, but she could no longer ignore the facts. Her courses hadn’t run for two months now, and her occasional bouts of morning sickness had confirmed even her maid’s suspicions. It was only a matter of time before the whole household knew. She would have to leave London soon.

She’d already dropped hints to Neville that she wished to visit Paris at the end of the Season. The new steward wasn’t working out so well. The pressure of dealing with daily business decisions as well as keeping up society’s routine was wearing her down. How would she handle the mines and factories from Paris?

She would have to leave them with Neville. She shuddered at the thought. She hated the business of wealth. As Neville rightly pointed out, she was far more concerned with people than profits.

Allowing her aunt to take the footman’s arm up the stairs, Blanche lingered a moment in the street, studying the impressive stone buildings comprising her wealthy neighborhood. Gas lamps lit every corner. Well-matched carriage horses plodded sedately down the street, drawing an elegant barouche containing laughing ladies and gentlemen. A green park with centuries-old trees provided an aura of security and timelessness. Going to Paris would mean leaving all that was safe and familiar behind.

The notion terrified her, but the child growing within her gave her courage. For the child’s sake, she would do anything. Michael had that much right—a child needed love and security to grow up straight and true. She could be strong enough for two.

Turning, she saw a slight motion behind the potted tree adorning the foundation.

Blanche’s heart skipped a beat She recognized the face peering around the tree, holding a finger at her lips for silence.
Fiona
.

Stopping to ostensibly straighten some portion of her apparel, Blanche whispered fiercely, “The mews. I will open the rear door.”

The figure disappeared as quietly as it had appeared.

Neville greeted Blanche as she ascended the inside stairs, and she concealed her impatience.

He had extended more civility than usual these past weeks, escorting her to affairs he normally scorned, aiding her in dealing with the multifarious legal papers littering her desk, expressing solicitude instead of his usual absent-minded impatience. She hoped that did not mean he courted her again. Right now, it just meant he stood between her and Fiona.

“Did you enjoy your evening?” he asked.

Garbed in black frock coat and breeches, he had apparently just returned from some court function, though he’d rumpled his golden-brown hair at some point. Blanche detected no impatience in his concerned gaze as he waited for her answer. Blanche wished she could confide in him, but it was impossible. Even Neville couldn’t marry her now. His first son had to be a Perceval, heir to his title. The child she carried was an Irish O’Toole, heir to nothing.

That rebellious thought brought a smile to Blanche’s lips. “The evening was abominably boring and prodigiously dull, as usual. And yours?”

Neville looked vaguely startled, then grinned in agreement. “Much the same. Do you still wish to visit Paris? Might I come with you?”

It was Blanche’s turn to be startled. Neville? In Paris? She could scarcely persuade him from London long enough to oversee Anglesey. She would never in a million years imagine Neville going to Paris. The idea alarmed her thoroughly.