The Brigadier's Runaway Bride (Dukes of War Book 5) (4 page)

Edmund’s smile fell and his mind shuttered closed. He didn’t wish to discuss what had happened to him. He had finally learned that the only way to stop dwelling on the past was to stop thinking about it altogether. To concentrate on the moment. On right now.

And right now, he had a bride to talk back to the altar. “Don’t suppose you’d loan me the use of your valet, brother?”

Chapter 4

When Sarah arrived back home at her parents’ London townhouse, her mother was on her knees peering beneath the dining room buffet table and her father was in his study packing books into boxes.

Not the housekeeper. Not the footmen. Her
parents
. Because they didn’t have servants anymore, save for an underpaid maid-of-all-work who they were unlikely to be able to retain.

The Fairfax pockets weren’t simply to let. They’d passed that milestone ages ago, and spiraled down into unsurmountable debt. Again.

Sarah had never told a soul about her family’s struggles. She was too ashamed.
 

Soon, however, there would be no hiding it. The Fairfaxes’ London days were over. No more modistes, no more soirees, no more nights at the theater. Ever since she was a small child, having a permanent home in London had been her dream. Her life thus far had boasted very little permanence. She never seemed to know from one day to the next what the future might bring.

The Fairfaxes would be returning to their country cottage forthwith, and they’d be fortunate indeed if they got to keep it. The books Sarah’s father packed so lovingly—the books given to him by his father, and his grandfather before him—were not earmarked for their country cottage, but rather a private collector. They were to be sold, along with all the other Fairfax valuables, in order to settle their overdue rent and pay for passage back to Kent for the entire family.

The situation was not entirely Sarah’s fault. Her mother had never displayed the slightest interest in whether there was a limit to their modest finances, and Sarah’s father had never displayed the slightest interest in anything other than indulging his wife.

Love matches like that could only lead to ruin.

This was not the first time that the Fairfax family’s circumstances had been reduced dramatically. The first such incident (that Sarah was old enough to remember) had occurred when she was but ten years old. Her dolls had been sold. Her music instructor sacked. Her faded dresses became increasingly ill-fitting. In short, it was the end of the world as far as ten-year-old Sarah was concerned.

Until she’d met Edmund. Beautiful, wonderful, lovable Edmund.

Her parents’ new cottage was modest at best, but it was also on a parcel of land bordering the Blackpool estate.
 

The Blackpools were not rich—especially when compared to the titled neighbors who also held property nearby—but to Sarah, the handsome Blackpool twins were a welcome escape from the doldrums of impoverished youth.
 

It began with running and fishing and rolling down hills whilst shrieking with laughter. Normal things. Little-girl things. Until her parents overspent their funds
again
and even their cramped little cottage was in danger of being ripped from them.

That was the first time her older brother Anthony came home with tear-stained cheeks and a black eye. He had gambled. And lost more than he’d arrived with. The proprietor of the back-door gaming den was displeased, but Anthony had scarcely been fourteen years old. His failure was preordained. The proprietor had allowed the boy in with every intention of fleecing him.

The gambit succeeded. Once. But Sarah’s brother was not so easily discouraged.

To this day, she did not know where Anthony procured enough coin to gamble with, but within a fortnight he had come home with enough blunt to keep the roof over their heads for another six months. Her parents were relieved. Anthony was thrilled. He had not only provided for his family, he’d found the answer to never being poor again: gambling.

Sarah, on the other hand, had found a different solution to the problem. Marriage to Edmund Blackpool, the boy she adored.

If only he would have her.

Her family was undistinguished. An embarrassment, even. They told her the best she could hope for was someone young and pleasant, who was neither on the hunt for a title or an heiress, because he didn’t need one. Someone who wasn’t rich enough to have pretensions of marrying up, but who had enough financial stability to be reasonably comfortable for the rest of his life.

She didn’t want the “best she could hope for.” She wanted Edmund.

He was handsome and adventurous. Fearless and exciting. Reckless and romantic. He rubbed shoulders with aristocrats and yet still had time to take a maturing young girl for sunset walks along the winding river. He stole her first kiss. And then he stole her heart.

Sarah spread her hands over her belly and sighed.
 

What had started out as a girlish infatuation had turned into something more. Something desperately real. Something hopeless. When Edmund had bought his commission and sailed off to war, she had been convinced her life was over. All was lost without him. Their future was everything.

Of
course
she wrote him love letters with every scrap of parchment she could find. Of
course
she took the first passenger boat to Bruges when Edmund wrote to say he would have a short leave and he’d like to spend it with her.
 

Of
course
a single night’s indiscretion had left her lover gone and left Sarah eight months pregnant.

The front door banged open and her brother Anthony burst inside, all sparkling green eyes and matching dimples beneath a snow-lined hat cocked at a rakish angle.

“Who wants to stay in this hovel at least six more months?” he called out, his self-satisfied grin giving his handsome face an irresistible charm.

Sarah’s mother pushed herself up off the floor and threw her arms about her son’s neck. “Oh, Anthony,” she cried happily. “I knew you could do it!”

Sarah’s father grunted, but did not cease stacking books into boxes. The buyer’s offer had been generous, but only on the condition that the deal was final. Documents had been signed. The Fairfaxes might stay in the townhouse a few months longer, but their cherished library now had a new home.

Anthony let go of their mother and swept Sarah into his arms. “And how is my favorite duchess, eh? Shouldn’t you be… oh, I don’t know. Off duchessing?”

The townhouse became preternaturally silent.

Frowning, Anthony released Sarah. “What happened?”

“She didn’t do it,” her father ground out, as if he took this act as a personal slight. He likely did.

Anthony laughed in disbelief. “Never say you jilted Ravenwood!”

“Not exactly.” Sarah clutched her fingers to her chest. She still couldn’t believe the miracle. “The situation—”

“Edmund Blackpool is back,” her mother interrupted with a scowl. “That’s why she didn’t do it.”

“But that’s wonderful!” Anthony kissed both of Sarah’s cheeks before pulling her into another laughing embrace. “I thought Blackpool was dead. We all thought he was! What happened? When did he get home?
How
did he get home? Is this the happiest day of your life? You got to jilt a duke
and
get the love of your life back. You must be the luckiest woman in the world!”

Sarah’s answering smile trembled. It
was
the happiest day of her life. Not for jilting Ravenwood—the duke had surprised her by being her best and staunchest supporter since the day she’d confessed her secret. He certainly did not deserve ridicule for being the kindest man of her acquaintance, or sacrificing himself to save someone as lowly as her.

He no longer had to. Edmund was back.
 

Improbably, wonderfully, terribly. His return was everything she’d wanted since the moment she discovered she was increasing. But her prayers had been answered a little too late. Her dreams of a life in London with her baby and her husband were as substantial as smoke. The child would be born before the banns could be read, and would be forever labeled a bastard. None of them would ever be accepted in Polite Society again.

She could have circumvented all that by marrying Ravenwood after all… But for her, there had never been anyone but Edmund.

Until now.
 

She curved her hands over her belly and smiled when the baby inside rewarded her with a sharp kick.
 

It no longer mattered what Sarah wanted, what she had dreamed. The only thing that mattered was the baby. Ensuring the infant’s future was the best future Sarah could possibly provide. She was a mother now, and that’s what mothers did.

Correction: what
good
mothers did.

Sarah sighed. Clearly she had inherited more than a small bit of her mother’s flightiness, because from the second Edmund burst into the ceremony, she’d no longer wanted to be a duchess.
 

She just wanted Edmund.

Seeing his face had been like being flooded with magic. He was sunshine and sultry nights. Laughter and sensuous kisses. The other half of her heart.

For months, she’d longed for the dashing, carefree young man who was always happy to chase butterflies or swim in the river or spend lazy afternoons on their backs in the grass to look for pictures in the clouds. The Edmund who’d responded to her love letters with a fervor to match her own. The Edmund who had nicked her garter ribbon as if it were a maiden’s medieval token bestowed upon her knight, and promised to bring her a ring as soon as he returned home from war.

But the man who’d returned was a stranger. No ring. No smiles. No love words, or even a simple kiss. He’d come back… but he hadn’t come back
Edmund
.

“I don’t know where he’s been,” she said dully. “He won’t talk to me. He just demanded that we wed posthaste and then left me. Again.”

Anthony frowned. He dragged her into the furthest corner of the sitting room and lowered his voice. “Do you still have the blunt I gave you?”

Sarah nodded guiltily. It wasn’t enough money to ensure independence, but it would have covered several months rent for her parents’ London townhouse. If she had been a good daughter, she could have offered it to them before they’d had to resort to selling the family library.

If she’d been a good daughter, she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant and turned her life upside down.

Well, now she had new priorities. That money was for emergencies. A few months’ security, should something financially terrible happen. Something like: not being a duchess after all. Something like: the love of her life returns, and their relationship disintegrates because they can’t keep food on the table. She shivered. Money might not solve everything, but poverty was a dark tunnel into Hell.
 

Had she finally got Edmund back only to be dropped into a new nightmare?

“Those funds are yours.” Anthony squeezed her hand, keeping his voice low. “Don’t you dare give that money to our parents.”

She nodded, but her throat tightened with worry. Would it be enough?
 

Her brother had opened an account for her the very day she told him about the baby. Every time he won at the gaming tables, he brought a portion to their father and deposited another sum in her secret account. Her brother loved her. He wanted to save her.

He’d given her enough money to escape into the countryside, have the baby someplace no one knew her name, give the child up to an orphanage, and return home as if nothing had happened.

Sarah could think of nothing more horrid. The child was
hers
. Hers and Edmund’s. Come what may.

“What am I to do?” She laid her forehead on her brother’s shoulder. “Where are Edmund and I to live?
How
are we to live? If you could have seen him, Anthony. He didn’t look like Edmund. He looked like—like a street beggar.” She swallowed hard, hating that poverty terrified her. Hated what it meant for her future, for her marriage, for her baby. “He clearly has nothing. No clothes. No home.” She stared up at her brother in desperation. “Am I to be poor again? To raise my child as we were raised—never knowing if tomorrow’s meal would come from footmen or from animal troughs?”

“
Never
.” Her brother’s green eyes flashed with determination and reckless zeal. “I’ll win you more pin money than a person could ever spend. Just you see. We will never again lie awake hungry, I swear it.”