Clara giggled as he lifted his lips from Ela.
Ela’s eyes fixed on him, her large dark irises staring at him so solemnly, still full of doubt.
“Everything will be fine,” he whispered for her ears alone before fully pulling away, knowing she was fretting over everything. Marcus. Enid. Clara. Him. Their baby.
She nodded once, her gaze darting to Clara, clearly not wanting to discuss the matter in front of her daughter.
“I’ll see you this evening,” he murmured.
Clara addressed her mother. “Shall I speak to Cook? Have her prepare a special celebratory dinner? We should have a cake at the very least. Perhaps her tartlets, as well.”
“That sounds delicious,” he said.
“It’s a pity Marcus isn’t here,” Clara added wistfully. “He shall miss the celebration.”
Guilt flashed across Ela’s face at the mention of Marcus. Colin hated that. Hated that she should feel guilt over anything they had done. He didn’t regret one damn thing.
He reached out and brushed a finger down Ela’s cheek. Just a quick caress. It was a touch well within the bounds of propriety for an affianced couple and yet sparks ignited at the contact. As always with her, he wanted more than a mere touch. He always wanted more. How had he suppressed this wanting for so long?
“Yes, a pity,” he agreed, holding Ela’s gaze. “We shall have to celebrate enough to make up for his absence.”
The rest of his day passed quickly. He sent word ahead to his housekeeper at his family seat that he and a small party would be arriving soon. He then made arrangements to procure a special license from the archbishop. Lastly, he met with his man of affairs and his barrister, informing them of his upcoming change in marital status.
When he returned to the Autenberry town house, dinner was the celebration that Clara promised. And there was cake.
Enid, however, did not make an appearance. Ela attempted to put on a cheerful mien, but he knew it wounded her that Enid would rather stay in her chamber than join them. After Marcus, it would feel as though her family were falling apart.
Clara played the pianoforte for them in the drawing room after dinner until Graciela called a halt. “Thank you. That was lovely, but the hour has grown late, Clara.”
The girl nodded and stood from the bench. “Good night, Mama.” She pressed a kiss to Ela’s cheek. Straightening, she smiled down at him. “Good night, Colin.”
“Good night, Clara.” He watched as she left the room, realizing with some astonishment that she would be his stepdaughter. He would have a stake in her future.
Somehow he went from having no family at all to acquiring a wife, a stepdaughter and, in the near future, a child of his own. It was a start—the beginning of the family for which he had always longed.
Suddenly his chest swelled. He’d always felt a little bit hollow inside. A faint ache gnawing at the edges of him. He’d thought it simply a part of his existence. Something he had to live with. He’d never thought it would go away. Until now.
A clock ticked on the mantel, the only sound other than the pop and crackle of the fire in the hearth.
His glance slid Ela’s way. She was still worried, her face still pale. She’d picked at her food at dinner.
She was his now. He had to take care of her. It was his task to put the color back in her cheeks. See that she worried less. Ate more.
He rose to his feet and pulled the servant’s rope.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
A maid appeared before he could answer. She executed a quick curtsy.
“We’d like a tray. Some sandwiches and biscuits.” He sent her a glance. “Milk, too.” For some reason that sounded restorative. His nanny had always given him milk before bed, insisting it would make him grow strong.
The maid disappeared even as Ela protested, “I don’t need—”
“You hardly ate at dinner. You need nourishment. How else will you be able to function?”
She inhaled and nodded with clear reluctance. “Very well.”
Moments passed. “She’ll forgive you,” he said.
“How can you know that?” She clearly understood that he referenced Enid.
He considered his answer. He’d always viewed Enid as the sister he never had. He’d had no idea she perceived him as a romantic interest. She’d always been buried in her books. He hoped to God she had not been holding out all these years for him. “Because the day will come when she becomes so thoroughly enamored with a man that she will realize that whatever she imagined she felt for me was just that—fanciful imaginings.”
Ela chewed her lip, her expression a far leap from relieved.
He knelt in front of her and grasped her hands resting on the arms of her chair. “You will see. She will come to realize her mistake and then all will be mended between the both of you.”
“I hope so.”
The maid returned then, pushing a cart. He rose to his feet as she positioned the food in front of Ela.
“Thank you, Althea,” she murmured. The maid curtsied and departed.
Colin immediately began piling a plate of food for her.
“That’s too much,” she protested.
“Eat. If not for yourself, then feed our child.”
She accepted the plate and dutifully obeyed. He watched, letting her eat one sandwich and a biscuit and drink from her glass of milk. She set her glass down and locked eyes for him. “Satisfied?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“And what of Marcus?” she asked. “Will he, too, come to realize his mistake and all will be mended?” She shook her head. “You can’t convince me that our marriage won’t break this family.”
Colin inhaled, wishing he could tell her that her family would come out intact. “Autenberry is a bit trickier,” he admitted.
A shadow fell over her gaze. “He shall always feel wronged by the both us.”
He thought of the lad he had grown up with . . . the bond they had shared. It went deep. But then, the wound of Colin bedding his stepmother evidently went deep, too. It wouldn’t matter that he married her. It would not alleviate Marcus’s sense of betrayal.
“He may be lost to us.” He could not pretend otherwise. Ela nodded, looking so forlorn that his gut clenched. “It does no good to fret over it. Get some rest. There’s naught to be done. Take heart. You shall have a child. Our child.” A pause fell before he went on to add, “Tomorrow I’ll be leaving to procure our special license.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”
“Travel safely, my lord.”
She fixed a smile to her lovely face, but he couldn’t help feeling that their union was off to a bad start and for the life of him he didn’t know how to make it right.
She slept fitfully that night. It was hardly the rest that Colin had advised she get. He’d also advised for her to take heart. She wished she could. She wished she could enter this marriage with a full heart, knowing that scandal wasn’t about to befall her. Wished that her marriage to Colin wouldn’t hurt anyone . . . that she wasn’t hurting anyone, most notably her family.
Her hand slid to the curve of her stomach. A life grew there. She should be happier than ever. And perhaps she could be if this weren’t a forced marriage. If Colin wanted to marry her instead of having to.
Chapter 23
He rode for Canterbury as if the hounds of hell were at his heels.
He wouldn’t spend three weeks waiting at his estate so that the banns could be read in the parish church. Nor would there be a grand wedding at St. Paul’s. That would require great orchestration and time they didn’t have. They didn’t need the spectacle either. All the ton coming out to see the Dowager Duchess of Autenberry marry, their eyes judging and condemning as they tittered behind their hands. No, thank you. He wouldn’t put her through that. A special license was the only option.
A sense of urgency propelled him as he rode through the night back from Canterb
ury, special license in hand. The archbishop had been amenable to the request. For a fee, of course. He could have stayed the night in Canterbury. An extra day or two wouldn’t have caused any delay that would matter in the scheme of things. And yet something told him to get back to Ela as soon as possible.
He arrived in London a little before dawn. He fell into bed and slept a few hours, knowing he couldn’t very well show up at Ela’s before dawn lit the sky.
He awoke to the aroma of chicory coffee. His valet was there, extending him a cup.
He reached for the proffered cup. “You’re heaven-sent, Donald.” He sighed in pleasure at the first taste, letting it rouse him.
Within the hour Colin was almost dressed for the day. Donald was holding out his jacket for him when the doors to his chamber burst open and his grandmother waltzed into his bedchamber. His butler hovered behind her with his eyes brimming with apology.
“M-my lord,” Donald sputtered, his typically ashen complexion flushed red. Poor man. First Marcus and now Colin’s grandmother. This wasn’t good for his self-esteem.
“It’s fine.” Colin waved the old man back and turned his attention to his grandmother.
He hadn’t seen her in years but she had changed very little. When he was a child, she had scared the hell out of him. She wasn’t a very big woman and yet she had loomed large with her piled-high silver hair and strident voice.
She still possessed the same silver hair, still wore it piled high atop her head in a style better suited for the drawing rooms of forty years ago.
Her silver-topped cane thudded across the floor as she made her way to the sole wingback chair in the room.
“Grandmother,” he greeted, waving his valet off. “How nice to see you.”
“Enough with the niceties.” She waved a hand as she sank down into the chair.
His lips twitched. As they had not exchanged any niceties at all, he was hard-pressed not to laugh.
“Word of your engagement has reached me.”
“Well, seeing as I arranged for the announcement to be in the paper, that isn’t a surprise.”
She knotted her hands over the head of her cane. “This entire match is unacceptable.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“This must be undone. You must see that. This marriage cannot take place.” She stretched her neck forward, reminding him of a crane. “She is several years your senior, Colin. Past her prime. It is most unseemly. Are you aware of the talk since the announcement came out? I cannot even hold my head high among my friends.”
“Perhaps you need new friends.”
“Don’t be impertinent with me, lad.”
He shook his head. “I know this is difficult for you to understand, but I don’t care about the talk.”
Her lips pinched, wrinkling around the edges. “Even without the scandal of it all, there is the fact that the Duchess of Autenberry is sterile. She only gave birth to one child—” she held a single gnarly finger aloft “—and as indelicate as the topic is, everyone knows of her miscarriages. You require sons.”
“She’s with child,” he snapped.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have indulged her with that bit of truth, but he couldn’t help himself. The fact that she would march in here and presume to tell him what he should do—whom he should (or should not) marry—when she had so little involvement with him in the course of his life rubbed him ill.
She digested this with no reaction save a tightening of her fingers on the head of her cane. “Whether she successfully bears you a son is yet to be seen and, in my opinion, still dubious.”
“Then it is a good thing, Grandmother,” he said tersely, “that your opinion is not one I seek.”
She pulled back and squared her shoulders, ever imposing. Her nostrils flared at the insult dealt. “You may very well be the last of our line to be the Earl of Strickland and perhaps that’s just as well.”
She stood slowly, wincing as she straightened her frame and slapping his hands away when he stepped forward to assist her. Even several inches shorter than he was, she appeared to look down her nose at him. “You’ve made me a laughingstock. You are a disgrace to the family name. I always knew it about you.” She squinted at him. “I saw it in you when you were just a boy. Your father . . . he saw it, too. It was in your eyes. A weakness of character.”
He took a breath and held it in, letting it fill him, desperate for that air to fill up all the little spaces and push out the old, aching hollowness.
“You shall end this betrothal.”
“You think you can command me? You’ve scarcely been in my life all these years—”
“Such impudence! I am still your grandmother and the head of this family—”
“You might be overly ambitious describing us as a family.”
Blotches of color broke out on her ashen cheeks. “You should cede to my directives.”
He tilted his head back as though considering that possibility. Looking back at her again, he pronounced, “I’m going to have to follow my gut here, but thank you for your interest.”
“Stupid, insolent cur!” A steely glint entered her eyes.
He tsked his tongue at her. “Don’t excite yourself. It can’t be healthy,” he advised, mildly concerned as a vein began to throb in her forehead.
“I shall have my way in this,” she vowed, her voice quiet for all its hardness.
He snorted at the empty threat. What could she do? He was a grown man. He was not at her mercy.
She whirled around, surprisingly quickly for an individual of her age who required a cane.
Scrubbing a hand along his nape, he stepped back and watched her walk from his room, her cane thunking along the floor, jarring him with every impact.
As much as he did not regret his decision to wed Ela, his grandmother’s words reverberated through him in a bitter mantra. You are a disgrace . . . I always knew it about you. Your father . . . he saw it, too. It was in your eyes. A weakness of character.
He thought of the parents he never knew and wondered if they could see him now. If they would agree with his grandmother’s opinion of him, too.
Graciela sealed the letter she had just finished and rose from her writing desk. Before she moved away completely, her gaze latched on to the newspaper spread out along the side of the desk, her engagement announcement displayed there on page three, bold as you please for the world to see. Her stomach cramped. She supposed Colin was right. They should deliver the news themselves. If they acted secretive and ashamed, malicious tongues would only wag faster.
Letter in hand, she strode from the room to hand it off to one of the doormen so that it might be dispatched. Her fingers pressed down, crinkling the parchment. The words inside had been full of false merriment, conveying the news of her most happy betrothal to Lord Strickland. A choking lump rose in her throat. It was a hard thing to lie to a friend. And as Poppy was married to her late husband’s illegitimate son, she felt connected to them. Even if Marcus did not, she marked them both as friends.
She’d felt sorry for Struan Mackenzie before she even met him. His name had been muttered about by Marcus, and even before that Autenberry had mentioned that there was some light-skirt in Scotland claiming he had sired her child. Immediately, Graciela had sensed the alleged light-skirt might be telling the truth. Mostly because by then she knew the manner of man she had wed . . . a man who crushed the women he encountered, turning their dreams to dust and leaving their souls forever besmirched.
When she finally met Struan Mackenzie, the resemblance was undeniable and she felt shamed for all he had suffered at the hands of his father—or rather from the neglect of his father.
She’d decided to send the letter because she knew word would reach them of her engagement to Colin—if it had not already—and they deserved some communication from her over the matter.
She halted at the sight of the hall table. A stack of envelopes sat atop it, all addressed to her. An inordinate amount
of post for this time of year, when Parliament was not in session and most everyone was at their country homes. The stack continued to grow every day. Ever since word of her engagement to Strickland had become public, the invitations had flooded through her door. Society matrons who had given her the cold shoulder before now sought her presence at their tables. She wasn’t so foolish or naïve to think she had somehow become worthy or of consequence to them. Indeed not. Duchess or no, she had only ever been tolerated. Never embraced into all those fine circles. Never accepted.
“Mama!” Clara skidded into the foyer, the puppy close on her heels. Her daughter waved a note anxiously above her head.
“Clara, what is it?” She placed a hand on Clara’s shoulder, stopping her from bowling Graciela over.
“It’s Enid,” she said, gulping for breath. “I just went into her room. It’s unlike her to sleep so late, and she’s gone.”
Disquiet wiggled through her at this declaration. “What do you mean she’s gone?”
“She left this note.” She thrust the parchment into Graciela’s hands. “None of the servants even saw her. I’ve asked. She must have left in the night.” She pointed at the missive. “She said she’s gone north to join Marcus.”
“What?” She looked down and quickly scanned the perfectly penned message. Clara was correct. She had decided to venture to the Black Isle to be with Marcus. Without a companion. Alone. That wiggle of disquiet erupted into full-scale alarm.
She looked back up. “But we are not even certain that’s where Marcus went.”
“Apparently she is convinced. She will be well, won’t she, Mama?” Clara gnawed on her lip, looking intently at Graciela, waiting for reassurance.
She quickly adopted a more cheerful countenance, determined to put her at ease. “Of course, Enid will be fine. I don’t know a more resourceful young lady. And even if Marcus isn’t there, the house is fully staffed. She will arrive there safely by post and be fine.”