The Wedding Duel (The Dueling Pistols Series) (18 page)

She seemed frightfully naive at times. He would bet she never guessed that he was in truth not a blood relative of hers, since his father had not sired him.

Perhaps he should just ask her if she was breeding. Would she be able to lie directly to his face?

He bit back the agony of desire and concentrated on the warm comfort of touching her. She felt so right, yet he had to remind himself he shouldn't have to wait long. A few months. May or June—an eternity.

When they woke in the midmorning, Keene didn't feel at all rested. He knew he could not again hold her through the night, or half of a night, without succumbing to the need to make her his.

* * *

Later that morning all the baggage was stowed on top of the carriage, and Sophie's horse tied to the back. Keene's and George's were saddled and ready to ride. Victor had been notified of their pending departure.

After he handed Sophie and her maid into the carriage, Keene turned to find his new mother-in-law waiting for him.

"I did wish to warn you to take a care of her." Jane grabbed his arm and leaned close. "I suspect she is in a delicate way. I know it is unseemly of me to speak of it, but as you are her husband now, I felt I must caution you. She is a lively girl and I fear she will not go gently with herself and will take on too much. Do be sure she gets plenty of rest."

Keene felt cold wash from his heart to his stomach. "Yes, of course."

"I know that you had to know it could be possible. I for one am glad that she will not have the difficulty that I had conceiving. Of course, although I shall hate to leave Mr. Farthing, you must summon me when Sophie's time is near."

Keene fought the chill inside him. The hope that her father had mistaken her condition curled up in a corner of his heart and died, leaving a black hole. The idea that she wouldn't be capable of deception had to be cast aside, too. Apparently, she had given her mother the impression that he had fathered the brat she bore.

Jane gave him an odd look. "Oh dear, perhaps I should not have told you as Sophie would want to bring you the news herself; but as a mother I cannot help but be concerned about the journey. I shall miss her dearly."

"I shall encourage her to write often, and of course we shall send for you. Be assured I shall take good care of Sophie and her child."

Jane cast a doubtful look in his direction. Had his anger radiated into his voice? He leaned over and brushed a kiss on his mother-in-law's cheek. She had, at least, made his course clear.

She stepped back and Keene looked up to see Victor, his eyes a compassionate shade of brown. He wanted to punch him for his pity. "Are you quite ready, sir?"

"Quite at the ready, sir."

"Don't even think about it, sir."

"Of course not. I should not wish to have George feel it necessary to defend your honor."

Jane looked back and forth between them. There was no way Keene would explain Victor's sick sense of humor.

Sophie crumpled the paper and threw it on the floor. She knew she was behaving tempestuously, but she couldn't think what to write. The only thing that kept coming to her was to ask,
Why have you left me behind?
She had already scratched those words from the paper twice.

Even if she asked the question, she would only get some watered-down response from Keene. He had said she wasn't ready for London, all the while his eyes searching hers for something more. Then there had been that kiss and hug following a night where she'd slept alone in the four-poster bed that had once been her husband's. He slept in a connecting room, the door shut between them.

She didn't understand.

He had shown her through the house, pointed out the nursery and secured his father's permission that she might redecorate the rooms as she saw fit. All of that was well and good, but she rather suspected more would have to happen between them before there would be any need to modernize quarters for an infant.

What had happened out in the snow hadn't felt complete. She moved to stand in front of the cheval glass. Her hair was already falling from it's arrangement, largely because she had tugged on it while trying to pen an epistle to her new husband. Her gown was frumpy, the waist too low, the skirt too full, too many petticoats.

She raised it up and shed the petticoats underneath. The dress hung limply, the style simply not flattered by the lack of undergarments.

Was she an embarrassment to Keene? Was that what he meant when he said she was not ready for London? Was her ignorance of card games and dancing all too easily confessed? Her lamentable lack of fashion too glaringly obvious? Should she have withheld from him the things she wanted to learn?

Certainly his friend George had frowned at her more than once, but his friend Victor had given her encouragement. But now that she thought about it, he had given her advice as though she were the merest of imbeciles.

She whipped around and headed for the door, her petticoats a froth on the floor. Her new father-in-law sat in his study poring over papers. She trounced into the room, wanting an answer. "What have I done to displease him?"

Lord Whitley raised his silver-laced blonde head and looked her up and down. "Very likely nothing. What have you done with your skirts?"

* * *

 
"Do you mean to leave her long?" Victor stared at the man seated on the opposite side of the carriage.

Keene shrugged.

"An odd business to be sure. I'm certain Victor and I could have made it to London without assassinating each other," said George.

Keene turned and stared out the window where rain streamed down.

"With no ill purpose in mind, I think Sophie is delightful, and she seemed quite disappointed to be left behind."

Disappointed was putting it mildly. She appeared crushed. Her blue eyes had grown bright, and Victor noticed she had donned her traveling cloak as if her husband hadn't warned her that she would be staying with his father rather than accompanying them to London.

"She's not ready for the ton," said Keene.

Victor knew why Keene thought she was not ready for polite society. He didn't want the evidence of her pregnancy springing to life before the ever-watchful and scandal-hungry eyes of the season attendees. Still, if she had confessed her sin, all should be well.

"No, she is not. She is a rather rambunctious young lady, is she not?" commented George.

"Well, we cannot all have the privilege of marrying a perfect gentlewoman and lady, like you, sir," said Victor.

George glared in Victor's direction.

Keene put a hand on George's shoulder as if to stop him from lunging forward. Turning the conversation back to a less objectionable subject, he commented, "My wife is rather impetuous."

"I say. She scrambled over a footstool like a monkey and had her skirts raised to her knees when she ran into me in the hall."

"Ah, raising skirts seem to be a fault of both your wives."

"Shut up!" said Keene at the same time George made an offer to blacken Victor's other eye.

"I cannot think you explained to her why you left her behind," said Victor, instead.

George gave him an angry look and turned in Keene's direction. To Victor's surprise he echoed his sentiments. "I do say that it is rather odd that you have left your bride in your father's keeping."

"I daresay I shall return to her soon enough."

The odd thing of it was that Keene looked as miserable as his wife had appeared when he left her. There had been a passionate embrace as though the choice to leave his wife behind was not his. But of course, it had been his option.

The carriage rattled and pain lanced through Victor's wound. He grimaced. The way of it now, he should stay alive so he might have the wedded bliss promised by the dueling pistols, because clearly Keene was the real loser in their battle. Although a part of him wished that one of his friends would take enough offense to permanently put him out of his misery. Lord knew, he had not the courage to do it himself, and he was damn tired of pain and poverty.

"If you leave her in the country, the gossips will say you have only married her for her money," said George.

"Is she so rich an heiress? You should have introduced me sooner, for you have no need to add to your largesse." Victor tried to settle more comfortably against the squabs.

"Of course he has need of money. His father neglects his pecuniary needs."

"He does not," objected Keene. "I had no interest in Sophie's inheritance."

"Indeed, I am sure he did not," echoed Victor, remembering the refused annuity.

Keene grimaced.

There was more at stake here.

"I had it straight from Richard. It must have been painful to apply to one's younger brother for funds," said George.

Keene's mouth flattened. He looked out the window again. Victor stared at the sour expression on Keene's face. Was it true that Keene's father knotted the purse strings tight with his heir? Victor knew George to be honest. Why should he make up something like that?

"I cannot fathom why your father found your exploits so distasteful when often Richard was along," said George.

"No one found Richard's affairs worth mentioning," Victor observed. As a second son, Richard's deeds were hardly a concern to the gossips. Of course, the real reason Keene's father withheld funds was not Keene's peccadilloes.

"We are a scandalous bunch, are we not? I think I shall divorce my wife and top both of you in providing grist for the mill."

Stunned silence greeted George's statement.

"You cannot," whispered Victor.

"I can. I have thought much about this these last few days."

"You have been drunk these last few days."

"That does not mean one cannot think."

"Clearly, perhaps. Surely, George, you do not wish to drag your situation before Parliament. Do think on this. Amelia loves you dearly. She should be ruined. Even if you do not love her, do not regard her devotion so cheaply," said Keene.

"Good God, man. What would she do? She has not much in the way of family or fortune to defend her." Victor leaned forward. George couldn't divorce his wife.

"What need of family has she, when my best friends will plead her case? Although I should not consider anything
he
says upon the subject." George nodded toward Victor.

"Go slowly. Do not make this into everyone's business. As it is, only the three of us know," said Keene calmly.

"Tell him you would not do such a thing," said Victor. "Tell him." Panic rose in him. What would happen to his daughter? She would be ostracized by polite society. What would happen to Amelia? She would have to set up as some man's mistress, or hope that George settled enough on her to live in genteel poverty abroad.

Keene shook his head. "Tell him to banish his wife to his estate?"

No, that was not what he meant. Keene should tell George about Sophie's condition and end this talk of divorce. "Why not?" demanded Victor.

"Now is not the time. I will not have a loose tongue."

"Tell him."

"Tell me what?" demanded George.

"That Victor has offered to set up your wife in a cottage should you discard her."

"I did not mean it." He couldn't set up a mistress when he was on the verge of seeking a marriage. Yet how could he fail to take care of Amelia when her predicament was his fault?

"I care not." George took refuge in a bottle.

Victor silently pleaded with Keene to tell his own situation. But at the same time he understood that George spilled secrets he should not divulge. At some time in the future he should have to reevaluate what he knew of Keene's financial situation, which was damn little. But right now he was more concerned with what would happen with his daughter and her mother, the woman he couldn't marry.

"Nothing is done yet. There is time," soothed Keene.

"I never would have touched her if I had known it would come to this." Victor squirmed in his seat. "She always loved you best, even when she despaired of you ever making an offer. If you remember, you escorted a Miss Thorton to several events around the same time."

George ignored what had been a terribly hard thing for Victor to admit. Keene's gaze was far too penetrating. Victor covered his face with his hands. How had their lives gotten so tangled? Last year he hardly cared beyond the next moment's pleasure; this year he had seen the crumbling façade of his house and realized it clearly mirrored his life. Should he not look to the future, everything would disintegrate around him. The problem was, the actions of the past cast piles of stones in front of every step.

"I wish the rain would stop," said George plaintively.

"I daresay it has just started," said Keene.

Victor muttered an expletive echo, and he wondered if his ancestral home had sprung any new leaks in his absence.

* * *

"I should like to see how the current fashions look on me," answered Sophie, undaunted by the disapproving look Lord Whitley offered. She'd suffered too many more-terrifying, disapproving looks from her own father to be fazed by one from her new papa-in-law.