The Viscount and the Virgin (24 page)

Stephen grasped the neck of the decanter a little more tightly. ‘It is not as straight for ward as that. I have a destiny to fulfil. My mother's dying words were—'

‘Oh, not that ludicrous Gypsy curse again! Life is hard enough without bringing that kind of thing into it! Stop using it as an excuse, man! You could have reconciled with your sister any time. You
chose
to embrace your solitary bitterness…'

‘No,' Stephen breathed between clenched teeth. His eyes were fixed on Midge's face, not Monty's as he said, ‘I have
tried
to tread a different path. But whenever I do…' He shook his head. ‘I cannot escape my destiny.'

With a last contemptuous snort, Monty turned on his heel, stepped over the un conscious Indian, and carried Midge out of the house.

M
idge had been practically swooning with admiration at the masterful way Monty had marched in and dealt with Stephen.

It was only once he'd settled her on the seat of his carriage and climbed in beside her that all her in securities regarding her place in his life came swarming back.

When he put his arm round her shoulders, she stiffened and turned her head away.

‘What is it, Midge? Some thing still bothering you?'

‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact,' she snapped. ‘It may seem like a small detail to you, but I would—' she clenched her fists and lifted her chin ‘—I would rather stay with Stephen than reside in your house while you trawl the streets for a mistress!'

‘Trawl the streets for a…' He crossed to the seat opposite her, and took her fists in his hands. ‘Midge, I thought you knew I came to London to see if there was anything I could do, as a civilian, to join the struggle against Bonaparte. We talked about it…'

‘Yes! And then you talked to your father about setting up a mistress or two as a reward for getting me pregnant!'

‘Oh, my God. Is that what he told you? I only heard the part about you at tempting to seduce the grooms the minute my back was turned.' He ran his thumbs over her clenched fists soothingly. ‘As if that was not bad enough. No wonder you ran out on me.'

‘Are you at tempting to deny it?'

‘Emphatically,' he declared.

She looked up at him, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

‘You did not even say goodbye,' she accused him. ‘The minute you could go, you just went. Without a backward look!'

‘I came to bid you farewell,' he countered. ‘But you were being terribly sick. And I felt—'

‘Disgusted!' she spat.

He shook his head. ‘Guilty. It is my child you are carrying. I am the one who made you ill. I did not know how to face you. What to say. I am so sorry for leaving you the way I did. For leaving you at all.'

He looked so contrite, she wondered if he might be telling the truth. ‘If what your father told me was not true, where did he get such a horrible idea from?'

He looked more shame faced than ever, which re doubled her wariness.

‘Midge, please understand that all I was doing was trying to avoid a confrontation. If I had told the old man the real reason I was so intent on coming to London, he would most probably have flown into one of his rages. Well, now that you have been on the receiving end of one of them, you will perhaps more readily understand
why I gave up arguing with him years ago. I confess, I just let him assume what he wanted about my reasons for saying I was coming to town. But believe me, I have no intention of setting up a mistress. When,' he continued with a rueful smile, ‘would I have the energy to mount one, whilst I am married to such a handful as you?'

He had made the feeble attempt to tease her into a more cheerful frame of mind because he could not bear to see those tears that were running silently down her cheeks. Especially since Rick had told him she never cried.

So he was appalled when she looked as though he had just mortally wounded her.

‘Don't mock me,' she gasped, as though it hurt her to breath. ‘I know you have never taken me seriously, I know I am a figure of fun to you, and that you only married me because you were completely sure you could never fall in love with me, but—'

‘What! Not fall in love with you? Where on earth did you get such a crazy notion?'

‘Y-your father,' she sobbed. ‘He said…'

He could tell what the old devil must have said, or she would not keep on crying like this. With an oath, he drew her across the coach and onto his lap, where he held her tight.

‘Please, don't cry, love. And please put everything he told you out of your mind. It was all a pack of lies! I am sorry my way of dealing with my father has hurt you. I would never intentionally hurt you. And as for not taking you seriously, that is simply not true. You are the light of my life.'

‘You say that now, but you would not take me to
London with you, would you? Because you feared I would embarrass you!'

‘What? How could you think that?'

‘What other reason could there be, for not taking me with you, if it was not so that you could search freely for a mistress?'

‘Because I cannot keep my hands off you, of course,' he replied.

She frowned up at him in complete bewilderment. With a sigh, he explained, ‘The doctor said we must cease from having marital relations, now that you are with child. Your mother's problems in that department are apparently very well-known. First they thought she was barren, and then she had miscarriages. Dr Cottee said you may be at risk, too. I had not wanted to alarm you by telling you what he said,' he grimaced, shaking his head. ‘God, I seem to have made all the wrong choices where you are concerned.'

When she flinched, he knew she had misinterpreted his last statement.

‘Oh, no. Not that. Not in marrying you. That is the only thing I do seem to have done right, lately.'

There was a lurch and a blast of cold air, and they both looked up in bewilderment to see one of Monty's footmen holding open the carriage door.

Rather than letting go of her, Monty at tempted to clamber out of the carriage with Midge still held tightly in his arms.

‘What are you doing?' she squealed. ‘Put me down!'

‘Not a chance,' he growled, once he had got both feet planted firmly on the pavement. ‘I am not—' he planted a swift kiss on her parted lips —‘going to let go of you until I absolutely have to. Have you no idea
of what it did to me, when I thought I'd lost you?' His arms tightened convulsively round her. ‘I imagined you lying hurt some where, unable to get home…' he grated, as he mounted the steps to the front door.

‘I thought I'd lost you too—' she nodded, clasping him tighter round the neck as she saw exactly why he needed to maintain this physical contact ‘—to a mistress.'

‘It is bad enough,' he panted as he climbed the stairs, ‘that I am going to have to leave you alone once we get to your bedroom.'

‘I don't see why,' Midge objected. ‘It seems perfectly ridiculous to suppose that making love with you might harm the baby. After all, my mother had her affair while she was pregnant. And my father apparently saw nothing amiss with that.'

Monty came to an abrupt halt on the landing. Then he said, slowly, ‘I have never had a very high opinion of Dr Cottee.'

And Midge finally stopped crying. The angry flush faded from her cheeks. The corners of her mouth lifted a little. She shifted her position, experimentally. Monty's breathing grew laboured. His eyes darkened.

And Midge smiled in very feminine satisfaction as she saw the truth.

‘You want me?' She smiled. ‘And only me? Even though…'

He saw another wave of doubts go washing through her.

‘Even though what?' he prompted. ‘Come on, out with it, so I can crush whatever maggot it is you've got in your head now.'

He strode through with her into the bedroom, and
gently laid her down. She pouted up at him as he moved away, but he shook his head, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

‘I cannot see you lying there, and not want to ravish you within an inch of your life. And apart from the fact Dr Cottee has warned me that would be an utterly selfish and possibly disastrous thing to do, I need you to talk to me.'

He seized a ladder-backed chair, reversed it and sat down with his arms crossed along the top, his chin resting on his hands, as though he was using it to shield himself from her irresistible allure. Midge could not help putting her power over him to the test. She wriggled a little and stretched her arms over her head, noting with pure satisfaction the way his eyes darkened and his breathing hitched in his throat.

‘Stop that, you little tease,' he growled. ‘It is not fair.' Then he frowned. ‘Or perhaps it is. Perhaps you need to punish me, just a little, for the hurt you have endured on my account.'

‘No!' she sat bolt upright, immediately contrite. ‘I would never hurt you, not purposely!'

‘No.' He smiled fondly. ‘I knew that. Even when the twins told me you had run off with your fancy man, I knew you could never be so cruel. Even—' and his face fell abruptly ‘—even though you loved him…'

‘Him? You mean Stephen?'

‘No. That other fellow,' he said grimly. ‘The one you were dreaming about, that night on Lady Carteret's terrace. The one your family made you give up, so that you could marry me. And look what a rotten husband I proved to be!' He ran his fingers through his hair.

‘You thought I had run off with another man! Oh,
no!' It was her turn to look guilty now. ‘Oh, Monty, you never had any cause to be jealous. It was always you. There has never been anyone else.'

‘But you were drifting about with that dreamy look in your eyes. And you loathed me…'

‘I loathed Viscount Mildenhall. I had always thought that Monty sounded like exactly the sort of man I ought to marry.'

He went very still for a second, then said, slowly, ‘And you have been tortured at the thought of me taking a mistress. Does this mean,' he whispered, ‘you love me? A little?'

She nodded, shyly, and lay back down among the pillows, rev el ling in the way he was looking at her. As though she meant the world to him.

‘You did not like me much when we first met, either,' she pointed out, too scared to ask outright if he might love her a little, too. ‘And you only married me as a favour to Rick.'

He winced. ‘I should not have let you think that. For it was not the truth.'

‘Not?'

He shook his head as though in annoyance. ‘I was only in London because I had got to the end of my tether, down at Shevington. My father made me feel so useless! The only value I had in his eyes was as a means to produce the next generation. I did not bother arguing with him that time, either. We had already clashed enough, during the months I had been there. But—' and he speared his fingers through his hair in a frustrated gesture ‘—once I got here, the husband hunters came out in force anyway. I thought you were one of them. The scandalous Miss Hebden.' He smiled ruefully. ‘But
even though I believed so many bad things about you, I found myself looking out for you every where I went. Despised myself for wanting to catch a glimpse of you. And not being able to help myself. You were driving me out of my mind! After that scorching kiss, I knew I had to marry you. I made the appointment to see your uncle the very next morning. Before I knew you were Midge.'

‘Oh!'

‘But then, some thing wonderful happened. I met you at the theatre and found you were Rick's sister. Perhaps now would be a good time to tell you that I used to lie awake in my bivouac, after hearing one of those letters you used to write to Rick, dreaming of coming home to someone who would love me like that. Like you loved Rick. No—' he flushed slightly ‘—I don't mean as a brother. I mean unreservedly. Well, when I found out Rick's loyal, loving sister, Midge, was the same girl as the one who had kissed me with such passion on Lady Carteret's terrace, I was even more determined to snap you up before some one else got wind of what a treasure was on the market.'

‘Oh,' said Midge again, going pink with pleasure. ‘Why did you not just tell me all this?'

‘And risk laying my heart at your feet for you to trample on? A man has his pride!' He hung his head, and studied his boots for a couple of seconds, before adding, ‘I bitterly regret the way I held back.'

She sat up again, and reached for his hands. ‘It is all behind us now. And I will never trample on your heart, Monty. Or your pride. I—' She took a deep breath. One of them had to be the first to take the plunge. ‘I love you.'

‘And I love you too,' he said, dazed. And then he flung back his head and laughed. ‘We're in love!'

‘So when are you going to stop talking and just kiss me?' asked Midge plaintively.

He took her hands that were trembling slightly and kissed her salty lips. And kissed her, and kissed her, until she truly felt like the most alluring woman on earth.

‘Midge,' he groaned at last. ‘We have to stop. Before I am unable to stop. We must not do anything that might harm our child!'

She sat back, completely abashed. He was still able to think clearly and consider the con sequences of what they were doing. Whereas she…she laid her hands protectively over her stomach. Over the past couple of days she had hiked several miles across country in un suitable footwear, then sat up all night in an inn nursing a man who wished her no good. She had fled to London in only the clothes she stood up in, and got soaked to the skin, all the while in a state of complete emotional turmoil. And her mother, she suddenly recalled, had lost a baby, simply because she'd suffered a terrible shock.

Her eyes flew to his guiltily as it suddenly hit her that any one of the things she had done over the last couple of days might have brought on a miscarriage.

‘Oh, Monty,' she gasped, feeling slightly sick. ‘I have behaved dread fully, have I not? How can you ever forgive me?'

‘There is nothing to forgive,' he said tenderly. ‘I should have been taking better care of you. I know how impulsive you are. I should have been with you when you heard about your brother. You had nobody. Nobody.' His face hardened. ‘And, God knows, I have always found Shevington a cold, in hospitable place. How could I have
left you there alone, just because I could no longer make love to you? It was selfish of me.'

‘You are the least selfish man I have ever met,' she breathed fervently.

He reached for her over the back of the chair, his expression wry as he rubbed his hands soothingly across her hunched shoulders. Who did she have to compare him with? The step father who had not bothered to make any financial provision for her? The step brother who would not open his door to her when she was in dire need? Or the half brother who had turned up at her wedding with the sole intention of ruining her day?