“You have to marry John,” Iris said gently.
“If I marry John,” Fleur said, louder this time, as if she could forcibly contradict Iris with nothing but the tone of her voice, “Marie-Claire will be the sister of that Kenworthy girl, the one who married a peasant. She will not receive invitations, and she will have no opportunity to meet those eligible young gentlemen. If she marries, it will be to some fat old merchant who wants nothing but her name.”
“I daresay that several of those eligible gentlemen will also be fat and old,” Iris said, “and they will certainly want her for her name.”
Fleur turned sharply around, her eyes flashing. “But she wouldn’t have to marry them. It’s not the same. Don’t you see? If I marry John—no, let’s be honest, if I choose to marry John, Marie-Claire will have no choices at all. My freedom for my sister’s—what kind of person would that make me?”
“But you don’t have a choice,” Iris said. “At least not the one you think. You can either marry Mr. Burnham or let us pretend the baby is ours. If you steal away and pretend to be a widow, you will be found out. Do you really think no one will discover what you’ve done? And when they do, you will ruin Marie-Claire far more thoroughly than if you were Mrs. Burnham.”
Iris crossed her arms and waited for Fleur to consider this. In truth, she had probably been exaggerating. England was a big country, maybe not as big as France or Spain, but it took the better part of a week to travel from one end to the other. If Fleur settled in the south, she might be able to live her whole life as a fake widow without anyone near Maycliffe learning the truth.
But surely that couldn’t be the best solution.
“I wish . . .” Fleur turned with a rueful smile. “I wish that . . .” She sighed. “Maybe if I were from your family, if my cousin were an earl and my other cousin had married one . . .”
It wouldn’t make a difference, Iris thought. Not for a gently born lady wishing to marry a tenant farmer. Still, she said, “I will support you.”
Fleur looked up with a puzzled expression.
“Richard, too,” Iris said, praying that she was right to speak for him in this. “There will be a scandal, and there will be some who will no longer acknowledge you, but Richard and I will stand by you. You and Mr. Burnham will always be welcome in our home, and when we entertain, you will be our most honored guests.”
Fleur smiled at her gratefully. “That is very sweet of you,” she said, but the look on her face was gently condescending.
“You are my sister,” Iris said plainly.
Fleur’s eyes grew bright, and she gave a little nod, the sort one made when one didn’t trust one’s voice. Finally, just when Iris was wondering if their conversation had come to a close, Fleur looked up with renewed clarity, and said, “I’ve never been to London.”
Iris blinked, confused by the sudden change of subject. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve never been to London,” Fleur repeated. “Did you know that?”
Iris shook her head. London was so crowded, so full of humanity. It seemed impossible that someone might never have stepped foot in its boundaries.
“I never really wanted to.” Fleur shrugged, looking over at Iris with a knowing expression. “I know you think I’m a thoughtless, frivolous girl, but I don’t need silks and satins and invitations to the best sorts of parties. All I want is a warm home, and good food, and a husband who can provide all that. But Marie-Claire—”
“Can go to London!” Iris blurted, her head snapping up. “Good heavens, why didn’t I think of it before?”
Fleur stared at her. “I don’t understand.”
“We’ll send Marie-Claire to my mother,” Iris said excitedly. “She can give her a season.”
“She would do that?”
Iris waved this away as the ridiculous question it was. By the time Marie-Claire was of a proper age, Daisy would be married and out of the house. Iris’s mother would be bored beyond tears without a daughter to shepherd through the marriage mart.
Yes, Marie-Claire would do nicely.
“I would have to go down with her for part of the season,” Iris said, “but that’s hardly a difficulty.”
“But surely people would gossip . . . Even in London . . . if I actually married John . . .” Fleur did not seem able to complete a sentence, but for the first time since Iris had met her, there was hope in her eyes.
“They’ll know what we tell them,” Iris said firmly. “By the time my mother is done, your Mr. Burnham will be lauded as a minor but respectable landowner, just the sort of sober and serious young man a girl like you should marry.”
And maybe he would be a landowner by then. Iris rather thought that Mill Farm would make an excellent dowry. John Burnham would go from being a tenant farmer to a yeoman, and with the former Fleur Kenworthy as his bride, he would be well on his way to the status of gentleman.
There would be a scandal, there was no getting around that. But nothing so permanent as Fleur’s giving birth to a bastard, and nothing that Marie-Claire could not weather two hundred miles away in London, with the full weight of Iris’s family behind her.
“Go tell him,” Iris urged.
“Now?”
Iris almost laughed with happiness. “Is there any reason to wait?”
“Well, no, but—” Fleur looked at her with an almost desperate expression. “Are you sure?”
Iris reached out and squeezed her hands. “Go find him. Go tell him he is to be a father.”
“He will be angry,” Fleur whispered. “That I didn’t tell him. He will be furious.”
“He has every right to be. But if he loves you, he will understand.”
“Yes,” Fleur said, sounding as if she were trying to convince herself. “Yes. Yes, I think he will.”
“Go,” Iris said, taking Fleur by the shoulders and pointing her toward the opening in the rose bower. “Go.”
Fleur started to leave, then turned around suddenly and threw her arms around Iris. Iris tried to return the embrace, but before she could so much as move, Fleur was racing away, skirts hitched and hair streaming, ready to embark upon her new life.
Chapter Twenty-five
THERE WAS A certain irony at play, Richard thought. Here he was, ready to declare himself, to transform his life, to throw himself at the mercy of his wife, and he couldn’t bloody find her.
“Iris!” he bellowed. He’d skidded down across the western fields after one of the grooms had said he’d seen her heading in that direction, but the only sign of her was a half-eaten scone near the hedgerow, currently under vicious attack by a small murder of crows.
More irritated than discouraged, he tramped back up the hill to the house, which he tore through in record time, crashing through doors and scaring the dickens out of no fewer than three housemaids. Finally, he came across Marie-Claire, who was sulking in the main hall. He took one look at her pose—arms crossed tight, toe tapping with angry irritation—and he decided he wanted no knowledge of whatever had brought her to that point.
He did, however, need her assistance. “Where is my wife?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
He let out a noise. It might have been a growl.
“I don’t!” Marie-Claire protested. “I was with her earlier, but she ran away.”
Richard felt his heart contract. “She ran away?”
“She tripped me,” Marie-Claire said. With considerable affront.
Wait . . . what? Richard tried to make sense of this. “She tripped you?”
“She did! We were leaving the orangery, and she stuck out her foot and tripped me. I could have been seriously injured.”
“Were you?”
Marie-Claire scowled. And said most grudgingly, “No.”
“Where did she go?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know,” Marie-Claire snipped, “as I was busy making sure I could still walk.”
Richard rubbed his brow. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to fi
nd one slip of a girl. “Why were you at the orangery?” he asked.
“Looking for Fle—” Marie-Claire clamped her mouth shut, although Richard couldn’t imagine why. Normally he’d be suspicious. Right now he simply didn’t have the patience.
“What did she want with Fleur?”
Marie-Claire’s mouth clamped firmly into a line.
Richard let out an impatient exhale. Really, he didn’t have time for this nonsense. “Well, if you see her, tell her I’m looking for her.”
“Fleur?”
“Iris.”
“Oh.” Marie-Claire let out an affronted sniff. “Of course.”
Richard nodded curtly and strode out the front door.
“Wait!” Marie-Claire called out.
He didn’t.
“Where are you going?”
He kept walking. “To the orangery.”
“But she’s not there,” Marie-Claire’s voice was a little breathless. He assumed she had to run to keep up with him.
“She’s not in the hall,” he said with a shrug. “I might as well try the orangery.”
“Can I come with you?”
That was enough to stop him. “What? Why?”
Marie-Claire’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “I just . . . Well, I have nothing to do.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “You are a terrible liar.”
“That’s not true! I’m a very good liar.”
“Is this really a conversation you wish to have with your elder brother and guardian?”
“No, but—” She gasped. “There’s Fleur!”
“What? Where?” Richard followed her gaze to the left, and sure enough, there was Fleur, flat out sprinting across the field. “What the devil has got into her?” he muttered.
Marie-Claire gasped again, this one a longer, more gossipy sound. Rather like a deflating accordion.
Richard shaded his eyes as he squinted down toward Fleur. She looked upset. He probably should go after her.
“Bye!”
Before Richard could blink, Marie-Claire had taken off at a run after Fleur.
Richard turned back toward the orangery, then thought the better of it. Iris was probably wherever Fleur had just been. Revising his course to the south, he headed down the hill and once again bellowed Iris’s name.
HE DIDN’T FIND her. He checked the strawberry patch he knew Fleur liked down near the stream, doubled back to his mother’s rose briar, which did show signs of recent occupancy, and then finally gave up and headed back to the house. His ridiculous route had leached some of the urgency from his search, and by the time he entered his bedroom and shut the door behind him, he was more exasperated than anything else. He reckoned he’d walked three miles at least, half of it along the same path, and now here he was, back in his bedroom with nothing to—
“Richard?”
He swung around. “Iris?”
She was standing in the doorway that connected their bedrooms, her hand resting nervously on the frame. “Mrs. Hopkins said you were looking for me?”
He almost laughed. Looking for her. Somehow that seemed a monstrous understatement.
Her head tilted as she watched with a mix of curiosity and concern. “Is something wrong?”
“No.” He stared at her, wondering if he’d ever regain his ability to speak in multisyllabic words. It was just that when she stood there, the soft rosy hues of her bedroom like a morning cloud behind her, she was so beautiful.
No, not beautiful. Beautiful didn’t come close.
He didn’t know the word. He didn’t know if there was a word to describe what he felt in that moment, how he saw the lines of his own heart when her eyes met his.
He wet his lips, but he could not seem able even to try to speak. Instead he was gripped by the most disconcerting urge to kneel before her like some medieval knight, to take her hand and pledge his devotion.
She took a step into his room, and then another, but there she paused. “Actually,” she said, the word tumbling quickly from her lips, “I needed to speak with you, too. You won’t believe wh—”
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.
She blinked in surprise, and her voice was tiny and bewildered when she said, “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, choking on the words. “I’m sorry. When I came up with the plan, I didn’t think . . . I didn’t know that . . .” He raked his hand through his hair. Why was this so hard? He’d taken the time to think out his words. The whole time he’d been crisscrossing the fields and bellowing her name he’d been practicing them in his head, testing them out, measuring each syllable. But now, faced with the clear blue eyes of his wife, he was lost.
“Richard,” she said, “I must tell—”
“No, please.” He swallowed. “Let me continue. I beg you.”
She went still, and he could see in her eyes that she was startled to see him so humbled.
He said her name, or at least he thought he did. He had no recollection of crossing the room, but somehow he was there before her, taking her hands in his.
“I love you,” he said. It wasn’t what he had meant to say, not yet anyway, but there it was, more important and more precious than anything.
“I love you.” He dropped to his knees. “I love you so much it hurts sometimes, but even if I knew how to make it stop, I wouldn’t because the pain is at least something.”
Her eyes shone bright with tears, and he saw her tender pulse fluttering in her throat.
“I love you,” he said again, because he wasn’t sure how to stop saying it. “I love you, and if you will allow me, I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you.” He stood, never letting go of her hands, and his eyes met hers in a solemn vow. “I will earn your forgiveness.”
She licked her trembling lips. “Richard, you don’t—”
“No, I do. I hurt you.” It pained him to say it out loud, such a stark, bleak acknowledgment. “I lied to you, and I tricked you, and—”
“Stop,” she pleaded. “Please.”
Was that forgiveness he saw in her eyes? Even a shred of it?
“Listen to me,” he said, taking one of her hands tightly in his. “You don’t have to do it. We’ll find some other way. I’ll convince Fleur to marry someone else, or I’ll scrape together the funds, and we’ll find a way for her to pass herself off as a widow. I won’t be able to see her as often as I’d like, but—”
“Stop,” Iris cut in, placing a finger against his lips. She was smiling. Her lips were quivering, but she was most definitely smiling. “I mean it. Stop.”
He shook his head, not understanding.
“Fleur lied,” she said.
He froze. “What?”
“Not about the baby, but about the father. It wasn’t William Parnell.”
Richard blinked, trying to make sense of this. “Then who?”
Iris caught her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes shifting to the side with hesitation.
“For the love of God, Iris, if you do not tell me—”
“John Burnham,” she blurted out.
“What?”
“John Burnham, your tenant.”
“I know who he is,” he said, far more sharply than he’d meant. “I just—” His brow furrowed, and his mouth went slack, and he was sure he looked like some bloody idiot about to be fitted with a dunce cap, but—“John Burnham? Really?”
“Marie-Claire told me.”
“Marie-Claire knew?”
Iris nodded.
“I’m going to throttle her.”
Iris gave a hesitant frown. “To be fair, she wasn’t sure . . .”
He looked at her in disbelief.
“Fleur didn’t tell her,” she explained. “Marie-Claire figured it out on her own.”
“She figured it out,” he said, feeling more like that dunce-capped idiot than ever, “and I didn’t?”
“You’re not her sister,” Iris said, as if that ought to explain everything.
He
rubbed his eyes. “Dear God. John Burnham.” He looked at her, trying to blink the disbelief from his face. “John. Burnham.”
“You will let her marry him, won’t you?”
“I don’t see how I have any choice. The baby needs a father . . . The baby has a father.” He looked up sharply. “He did not force himself on her?”
“No,” Iris said. “He did not.”
“Of course he didn’t.” He shook his head. “He would not do that. I know him that well at least.”
“Then you like him?”
“I do. I’ve said as much. It’s just . . . he has . . .” He sighed. “I suppose this is why she did not say anything. She thought I would not approve.”
“That, and she feared for Marie-Claire.”
“Oh, God,” Richard groaned. He had not even thought of Marie-Claire. It would be impossible for her to make a good match after this.
“No, no, don’t worry,” Iris said, her entire face perking with excitement. “I’ve taken care of that. I figured it all out. We’ll send her to London. My mother will sponsor her.”
“Are you sure?” Richard could not identify this strange, clenching in his chest. He was utterly humbled by her, by her brilliance, her caring heart. She was everything he had not even realized he needed in a woman, and somehow, miraculously, she was his.
“My mother has not been without an unmarried daughter of marrying age since 1818,” Iris said with wry grin. “She’s not going to know what to do with herself once Daisy is gone and out of the house. Trust me, you don’t want to see her when she’s bored. She’s an absolute nightmare.”
Richard laughed.
“I’m not joking.”
“I did not think you were,” he told her. “I’ve met your mother, you recall.”
Iris’s lips curved in a rather sly manner. “She and Marie-Claire will do well together.”
He nodded. Mrs. Smythe-Smith would surely do a better job than he ever had. He looked back over at Iris. “You do realize I’m going to have to kill Fleur before I let her marry him.”