The Improper Wife (17 page)

His breath caught and it took a moment for him to go on. “Your deceit causes the problems between us.” He looked at her pointedly. “And the problems for Summerton. Do not deny it.”

She did not waver. “I do not deny it. I will not repeat my reason for pretending to be your wife. You know it already.”

Her son, she meant.

Gray wished to ignore the thought of that curly-headed, big-eyed child, who so much resembled Maggie. He wished also to ignore her clear blue eyes and the soft dark tendrils caressing her brow and neck. Even as he battled with her, Maggie was a compelling sight.

His senses heightened alarmingly. He felt the blood rushing through his veins and heard the air filling and leaving his lungs. His vision became so acute he could see the tiny lines of stress around her eyes, the soft vulnerability of her mouth. His hands yearned to stroke her flushed cheek. His loins ached for her.

He snapped his eyes closed and held his breath to break this spell. Several seconds passed before he succeeded. He opened his eyes and glared at her. “You have not only deceived. But you have also insinuated yourself into every matter, event, and personal affair in Summerton. In my view it appears you have quite taken over everything, including my father’s business.”

Her eyes seemed to blaze. “Can you not guess why I have done so?”

He gave a huff. “I need not guess. I
know.
If you are indispensable to Summerton, you cannot be dislodged from it, not without it falling to pieces around everyone’s ears.” He gestured toward his ancestor’s portrait. “You are like the queen bee, managing everything.”

She stepped back. “The worker bee, don’t you mean?” She shot him an angry look. “The one who does whatever the others cannot or will not do. And you think I do this so I will not be tossed out?”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Of course I do.”

“You are mistaken, Captain.” She lifted her chin. “I do not deny that I wish to remain at Summerton. I wish to raise my son here and stay among the people I have come to love—” Her voice cracked at that last word, and it took her a moment to recover. “Summerton is more home to me than anywhere else I have ever been, but none of that is of any consequence.”

Was this dramatic recital intended to play on his sympathies? He crossed his arms over his chest. She need not trouble herself.

“Let me tell you why I have been so
industrious
at Summerton—” she continued.

“Please do,” he drawled. “I have been waiting this age.”

Her eyes flashed. “Your family needed help, and I helped them. It is how I have paid for my shelter and my food and my son’s keep. Yes, I have deceived them about who I am. But you were not here to see the people I met two years ago. I have worked diligently to make Summerton a happy place, to bring your sister-in-law out of grief, to give her son some of the attention he so desperately needed, to take care of your father—” She broke off again. “You were not here to see how it was!” she cried, shooting daggers with her eyes.

The daggers found their mark. She nearly drew his blood.

He had not been at Summerton.
He left his family when they needed him.
She
had cared for them in his place.

Gray took a step away from the burst of pain inside him. He walked slowly back to the first Earl of Summerton’s portrait.

“You wish to stay at Summerton?” he asked, gazing at the beehive in the painting’s background.

“I know I cannot.” Her voice became very grim. “But I need a way to care for my son, and you are the only person I can ask to help me. Our lives are in your hands.”

He turned back to her.

She wore an aching smile. “Our lives are in your hands once again. As they were before.”

When she had knocked upon his door. When the baby had been born. What might have happened to them if he had not been there that day? Would she have had her baby in the street? Would either of them have lived?

He shook his head, not wanting to think of this.

She must have mistook the gesture. She walked back to him with defiance in her step. “What is it to be, Gray?”

His head snapped up. She’d called him by name. She’d not done that before.

He put his hands up as a warning not to come closer. He backed away from her and walked the length of the room and back.

There really was only one choice open to him, only one honorable recourse. She knew it as well as he.

“You may remain at Summerton,” he said at last, feeling a great weariness come down upon him. “You may remain my wife. I will arrange an allowance for you and for your son, as a husband might do. No one, save you and I, will know you are not truly my wife.”

For his family there would be no exposure, no scandal, no disruption of lives. For her and her son there would be safety.

He continued. “I will send a notice to the
Morning Post
announcing that we are married. No one will question it. You will be free to do as you wish, as if you were my wife.”

Her face had gone pale.

“I will leave Summerton.” Gray put more force into his voice. “I will leave for London on the morrow and I will
never
return.”

If he had expected her to show triumph, he was disappointed. She gazed at him with sadness, almost as if she recognized the pain this decision caused him. No marriage of his own. No sons and daughters. No family.

He swung away from her, feeling her sympathy upon him like unwanted fingers. He walked the long length of the gallery and crossed over its threshold. He passed through the hallway with increased speed. By the time he exited the house and passed through the garden he was in a full run toward the stables.

But not even a hell-for-leather ride on horseback would change the course he had chosen.

The porcelain clock in Maggie’s bedchamber chimed twice. Two o’clock in the morning, and he had not returned.

He had not returned for dinner. Nor when darkness fell. Nor when all the household retired to bed.

She sat in a chair by the window, looking out.

She feared he would not return at all. She feared he would ride straight on to London.

That would solve all her problems, it was true. But how miserable it was of her to forever deprive him of Summerton, of his family. Or the chance to create one of his own.

She well knew the pain of having no family. What gave her the right to cause such pain?

She had no right. She had only Sean, and he was the sole reason she would allow herself to forever alter a man’s life.

She tucked her feet underneath her and wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, to guard against the chilly air seeping through the windowpane.

What if he had been thrown from that huge horse of his? Perhaps he had been so overwrought that he’d taken careless chances. What if he was lying by the side of the road at this moment, or in a field, or . . . or in a river?

She could not bear this thought.

She scanned the view outside. Nothing stirred but the leaves of the trees rustling when the breeze played with them. In daylight or at night, she loved this view, showing a bit of the garden to her left, the long sloping lawn of the park, the stable and outbuildings in the distance. On a clear day she could even glimpse the thatched roofs of some of the tenants’ cottages.

Tears filled her eyes. She would never have to leave Summerton. And all it cost was the happiness of one honorable man.

She swiped at an escaped tear that rolled down her cheek. Blinking rapidly, she tried to rid herself of the others.

Something caught her eye. She leaned forward. A glow in one of the outbuildings, too bright to be a lantern. She stared at it a long time. The glow spread.

Fire!

Maggie vaulted from her chair and ran into the hall. “Parker! Someone! Come quick! Come quick!”

Decker emerged from Gray’s room, and she grabbed him. “There is fire in one of the buildings. We must sound the alarm.”

Decker sprang into action and rushed down the stairs, shouting for the other servants.

Olivia ran up to her. “What is it, Maggie? What has happened?”

“A fire in one of the buildings!”

Mr. Hendrick and Miss Miles appeared, Rodney behind them. Luckily, Sean had not awoken, and she hoped the earl slept as well.

“What is to be done?” cried Olivia, wringing her hands.

“You see to the earl,” Maggie told her. “Keep him calm if he wakes.” She turned to Miss Miles. “You stay with Sean in case he wakes and is frightened. The rest of us must help.”

“Not Rodney!” Olivia gasped.

“I must, Mother,” Rodney asserted himself. “It is my duty. Summerton will be mine someday.”

“Let him go,” Maggie insisted. “No one will allow him to be put in danger. We must hurry!”

Maggie dressed as quickly as she could, Miss Miles helping her with her laces. She ran down the stairs and out of the house. Lifting her skirts so she could run faster, she crossed the park and hurried toward the burning building—it was one used to store farm equipment. The area was already teeming with people. Tenants, groomsmen, laborers, house servants, all sprang into action. Mr. Murray was shouting instructions to all of them. Several bucket brigades had already formed to save the nearby stables and byre. Men led horses to safer ground. Others drove the livestock away. Flames roared from the windows of the building. Some men ran into the building, pulling out what equipment they could.

Maggie joined one of the lines of women passing empty buckets back to be refilled. In the distance a horse and rider galloped toward them.

Gray! He had returned! But to such a sight.

He dismounted before the horse had even come to a halt, close enough for her to hear him shout for one of the grooms to take the animal. Mr. Murray came up to him, gesturing wildly with his arms, pointing toward the fire.

He and Murray hurried toward the building. Fire raged through the structure, but Gray ran inside.

“No!” Maggie cried, dropping her bucket. He would be engulfed by flames. Overcome by smoke.

She clutched at her chest. The other women did not heed her but filled the gap and kept the buckets moving. A loud crack filled the air and the roof of the building began to collapse. Without thinking Maggie ran toward the fire.

Gray and two other men emerged from the doors of the building pulling out one of the plows. Her legs went weak in relief.

“Get away!” someone yelled. “It’s about to go.”

With a crack and a roar of flame, the entire roof caved in and the walls tumbled into the fire. Gray staggered backward, like the others, unable to keep his eyes from the sight.

He backed into Maggie, turning in time to grab her and keep them both from falling.

“Gray,” she cried, clinging to his coat. “You might have been killed!”

His face captured all the horror of the scene, and it took a moment before she felt he actually saw her. His expression turned fierce. “What are you doing here? Get back to the house. This is no place for you.”

A shower of glowing cinders rained down upon them. He dragged her away and frantically brushed the cinders from her hair.

“Go back to the house.”

“No. I can help.” She pulled away and ran back to the bucket brigade, looking over her shoulder to see him striding back to where Mr. Murray stood directing men to dampen down the nearby stables and coach house. This building was lost, and now all they could do was attempt to save the others.

Gray did not let himself think about Maggie while he worked to save the Summerton buildings. When he had grabbed her, her face had been lit by the raging flames. Cinder had rained on her hair. Where was her hat, for God’s sake?

He climbed up one of the ladders to the roof of the stable where he took the buckets passed up to him to keep the roof damp. He stomped out places where burning embers fell—they were flying everywhere while the fire consumed the collapsed building.

The night became a series of buckets grabbed and dumped and passed back. When the horizon showed a glimmer of light through the thinning smoke, Gray was only dimly aware that the shower of embers had ceased. The air still smelled of charred wood. He stopped and stretched his aching back. From the height of the roof, he could see Maggie, her face smudged with ash and her skirts caked with mud, still passing the empty buckets to the woman behind her. He also saw his nephew. And Hendrick. And Decker. And countless other familiar faces, faces he’d all but forgotten while he had been off fighting Napoleon’s army.

By God, he was proud of all of them.

“Come down,” called an exhausted-looking Murray. “It is over. The job’s done.”

A cheer went up and the men on the roof clapped each other on the shoulders and shook Gray’s hand. The women hugged, but the jubilation was tempered by sheer exhaustion. Like the rivulets of water that came from the buckets, the people began to stagger back to their homes and beds.

Gray slid down the ladder.

Murray waited for him at the bottom. “I believe all is secured, sir. I’ll have a few men remain to make certain.”

Gray glanced around him, surveying the damage from this vantage point. “I can stay.”

Murray shook his head. “Not necessary, sir. You’ve done enough.”

Gray put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’ve done the most, Ted. I thank you.”

Murray looked over to the burning ruin. “I lost the building.”

“Don’t be daft. You saved the coach house and the stables. And no one was hurt.”

Murray gave a skeptical smile, his gaze going back to the now-destroyed building. One of the workers called to him, and with a quick nod to Gray, he was off.

Gray surveyed the damage once more. If he stayed to help the few tired men who remained, he would only be in their way. Now that the emergency was over, they would never allow the earl’s son to do such menial, dirty work.

He started to walk back toward the house. Maggie was ahead of him, holding up her sodden skirts and moving with the exhaustion of a soldier who had marched twenty miles. Halfway to the house, she turned and gazed back at the charred ruins. She saw him following and waited for him.

When he reached her, she looked at him sadly. “It is lost.”